Living for the Hope of It All

Enjoying the Moments//Posing at the edge of a fountain, Senior Sapir Zituni smiles for her prom photos. Zituni loves participating in school events, such as prom, in order to soak up all of the amazing memories of being a teenager at high school before leaving. (Photo courtesy of Sapir Zituni)

The quote “living for the hope of it all,” written by Taylor Swift, is a well-known and empowering saying. The quote means to live life even in the realization and reality that you may fail, and to fall in love, strive for your dreams, and try new things. Many people live by this saying, but none embrace it as much as one exceptional senior, Sapir Zituni.

Sapir Zituni is a current senior at Coronado High School who loves the idea of trying new things, going through different experiences, and finding yourself through the process. Zituni aims to live life to the fullest and not let obstacles and other people get in the way of personal happiness. Like many, ups and downs have played a significant part in her 18 years of life.

At 8 years old, Zituni moved all the way across the world from Israel with her brother and parents to the U.S. She had lived in Israel with the rest of her family all her life, and came to the United States, not knowing a word of English. Zituni states that it was extremely difficult to learn the language and make friends, noting that one of her greatest accomplishments in life thus far was becoming fluent English. 

Of course, moving is extremely difficult, especially when all of your friends are left behind, and you must make new ones. However, moving to an entirely new country without speaking the language is an even more challenging feat. Zituni studied and practiced for hours in order to be able to speak with people from her new home, and eventually became incredibly fluent. 

Despite assimilating to the English language, Zituni by no means has given up her culture and religion after moving. She dearly holds her Judaism close to her heart, and enjoys holidays and still speaks the Hebrew language after moving all the way across the world, even joining the Jewish Student Union club at Coronado for a time.

When moving to the United States, Zituni wanted to explore and try new hobbies and activities. Her first love became gymnastics, and she did this up until the age of 11, when COVID-19 hit, and everything changed. However, while the pandemic affected many people, it opened Zituni up to a new realization of hers. She first saw an ad for the U.S. figure skating team and thought that skating could be a fun activity to try. Zituni ended up starting with weekly lessons at a skating rink and absolutely fell in love. Now, around 7 years later, she found her passion for ice skating and absolutely adores the feeling of being on the rink and doing what she loves. Eventually, Zituni became a professional teen coach and teaches children of various ages the beauty of skating.

Becoming a children’s ice skating coach cemented a well-known idea and goal for her in life. Ever since she was a young girl, Zituni’s loved working with children. Therefore, one of her biggest goals in life is to become a pediatric oncologist, which is a special type of doctor who treats children, teens, and young adults who have cancer. This is the perfect job for Zituni, as she loves working with young people and has always wanted to help people with cancer. She also really enjoys the idea of becoming a mom as well as having a career.

“My biggest inspirations in life are my parents because they’ve always supported me through everything I’ve done,” Zituni remarked, “I look up to my parents a lot because they have a great relationship with each other, and I would want that for my future self.”

Zituni wants to explore and experience many things with the sport she adores, the career she aims to achieve, and find the love of her life one day, knowing she may fail along the way before she finally reaches peak happiness. However, she has also had other challenges in life.

One of the biggest challenges from freshman to senior year was one that a majority of people face throughout their four years in high school: managing the people in their lives. For Zituni, finding friends who actually cared about her and made her feel happy when she was around them was very challenging, sometimes bringing her to her lowest points in life. However, as a graduating senior, she’s learned quite a lot about what she needs in a friend and how to not let other people get to her.

“You have to be yourself, and you can’t surround yourself with people who don’t make you feel worthy,” Sapir explained. “You’re more than what people say you are.”

This way of thinking changed the way that Zituni went about her daily life, and she eventually found the group of people that made her feel the most loved and comfortable. It’s something that many people have to realize in life, and she has definitely taken that into account now through any choices that she’s made and will make in the future, setting her up for success.

While Zituni has had her challenges, she’s learned and grown from them all. Now, she knows at least to some extent who she wants to be in life, and to live life, because it’s fleeting, and you must find your happiness. Whatever life throws at you, Zituni is the perfect example of someone who doesn’t let what life hits her with make her stop loving it. 

As she leaves this chapter at Coronado and enters the next, Zituni has some tips for high schoolers of all grade levels. One being to not procrastinate and stay on task because school is very important. Her second tip is for people to be themselves and never let other people bring them down because tehy are worthy of so much more. Lastly, her final tip is two words: have fun. One of the biggest and most important things that Zituni has been taught and lives by is that the teenage years go by extremely quickly, so you must enjoy every second of it, and live in the moment. It also acknowledges the idea that, of course, there will be struggles in life, but you can’t let that break you and not let you live your life to the fullest. To describe her high school years as a single object, this was how Zituni responded.

“In order to make a disco ball, a mirror has to be broken a million times in order for it to shine.”