Konrad Sm ith 1

T h e Gr een h ou se

Lindsay M cVail

They say the greenhouse whispered at night, grass shifting like tiny voices, the fog cloaking the cracked glass like a veil. The greenhouse had been laid to rest in a nest of thorns and m oss, deep in a forest that had reclaim ed the ground. The walls of the greenhouse bursting with vines, creeping through the cracks and sm othering the swirling colum ns. Leaves and flowers pressed against the cracked and m isty windows, the ivy crawling from inside the door hung askew on its hinges. The thorns encircled the greenhouse, hiding under the grass and swallowing the ceiling. The trees had grown to shelter the greenhouse, and in the passing years their hugging branches had finally braced against the world outside the clearing. The greenhouse was forgotten then, just a sprawling m ess of m etal and glass, stolen back by what it once contained.

Ph oto by Kon r ad Sm i th

Ban d i t Leigh Newm an One m orning I was getting ready to go to school and I wanted to wear m y pink hoodie that has all these cute red hearts on it. W hen I searched for it in m y closet I couldn? t find it so I had to settle for som ething m ore subpar. The next day m y other planned outfit had gone m issing. I walked out of m y room again in what I had not wished to wear and saw m y younger sister standing in the hallway. Out of her bag, I saw a pink sleeve and ripped it out. ?W hat is this??I shouted. ?I borrowed your hoodie, I?m sorry, you can have it back,?she replied. ?You m ean you stole.? ?You never notice when I borrow your stuff I was just putting it back now.? ?I would definitely notice.? ?You wouldn? t. You didn? t. M ost people lose stuff and it pops back up and they don? t question it.? ?Well I noticed.? ?Only cause I did it two days in a row.? I had to prove her wrong. So I set out on a m ission to test her theory and did the sam e to her, taking her stuff every other day. She didn? t notice. Then I m oved on to other people. She was right. People are not determ ined to search for their belongings because of their assum ption that they m isplaced them due to their own incom petence. Now in the depths of the night, I lurk. I am under your bed. I am in your closet. I am in your attic. I am in your laundry baskets. I am in your washing m achine. I am in your dryer. Borrowing your clothes.

Car Part--Photo by Gabriel Riccardi

T r an sf or m ati on T h r ou gh O r d eal Sam Ya W henever I see a plane flying through the sky, leaving faint, white trails behind, I wonder if the plane com es from China. I wonder if there are Chinese students in the plane who are about to em bark on their academ ic careers in the U.S. As a Chinese student who im m igrated to the United States, I often have such m usings. I im m igrated to the U.S. and enrolled in Friends' Central School when I was in sixth grade. As an international student who spent the first twelve years of m y life in Chinese schools and six years at Friends' Central, I am an exam ple of how education can shape personality.

In som e aspects, m y education in China elim inated m y self-confidence. Every school day in China felt exactly the sam e, as if shaped by the sam e m old. Every day, after I woke up, I finished m y m orning routine, got on the squeaking school bus, and went to school. At seven-fifteen, I entered the classroom for study hall, sitting alongside m y forty-four classm ates. The forty-five of us had been in the sam e class since the first day of elem entary school and becam e like brothers and sisters after six years of interactions. For m e, this situation developed a sense of security, unity, and belonging that I m iss and want to re-experience, even after six years. Our learning environm ent was not the best. The teachers were discrim inatory, and at tim es, even violent. Although we supported each other during hard tim es, the teachers?m ethods caused m e and other students to develop personalities lacking confidence. I received no praise when I worked hard to im prove m y academ ic perform ance. M oreover, the teachers did not hesitate to sham e m e in front of the whole class when I m ade m istakes. It seem ed as if I could never satisfy the teachers, no m atter how hard I worked. I started to doubt m yself.

In the m iddle of m y sixth-grade year, a decision was m ade which changed m y life. However, I was not the one m aking it. M y parents decided to m ove to the U.S. in order to pursue freedom of speech and escape the governm ent?s persecution. We purchased a house in H avertown and attended open houses hosted by different schools. Shortly after m y interview, I was adm itted to Friends' Central School. Friends' Central was rough for m e in the beginning. Not only did I have to get acquainted with foreign teachers and classm ates, but I also had to constantly form ulate English sentences by translating Chinese. It was not the struggle that scared m e, it was the fact that no one else seem ed to be struggling as m uch as I. After m y English reached a certain level, I realized that with hard work, high grades were achievable. I becam e a student with self-confidence. However, I felt as if som ething was m issing. As the only Chinese student in the school, I tried to fit into the FCS com m unity, but reality forced m e to give up. W hen you force yourself to achieve an unachievable goal, that goal becom es m eaningless. Despite the lack of connections, I appreciated and enjoyed m y choices and ability to participate in extracurricular activities. As a person who prefers variety, program s such as the swim team painted m y life with color. W hat im pact did Friends' Central School have on m y personality?The school transform ed m e into a student with confidence by respecting m y effort. Although m y desire for a sense of belonging is still unfulfilled, I value m y identity as a Chinese im m igrant who m aintains a profound background with Chinese culture.

The experience that intertwined m y Chinese identity and m y identity as an international student was m y tim e at ?Roy?, an SAT training school in China. In October of 2020, I took the PSAT and received a score of 1370, a score no college wants to see. One of m y parents?friends recom m ended ?Roy?, which was well-known for its rigorous training and rem arkable results, and proclaim ed itself to be the acm e of SAT training institutions in China. Of course, I was intim idated by its reputation but decided to try