May 2009

The Chronicle Harvard-Westlake School • North Hollywood, CA • Volume XVIII • Issue 8 • May 27, 2009 • chronicle.hw.com

An inside look at the creatures that inhabit the science department’s rooms.

Lucas Casso ’09 discusses his time as pitcher. alex edel/chronicle

Athletes of the year

Animal love

Q&A

A27

Te’Rhon O’Neal and Maddie Lenard are athletes of the year.

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Candice navi/chronicle

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cathi choi/chronicle

Oreman to present valedictory at graduation

By Ellina Chulpaeff

carly radist/chronicle

COLOR ME PURPLE: Sal Greenberger ’09 gets an impromptu face painting from a student at Broadway Elemen-

tary School in Venice May 16. The Community Council, in its inaugural year at the Upper School, put on the event.

Council ups event count at year’s end

By Hana Al-Henaid Although the deadline for community service completion is 3 p.m. today, the Community Council will sponsor a senior-only beach cleanup event on Saturday because 92 seniors had yet to complete their service requirement as of last Friday, according to the list the Community Council posted outside of their office in Chalmers.

The Community Council was formed and implemented this school year, and despite the seniors who have yet to take advantage of the events they offer, has been successful in engaging the school in service, Community Council member Andrew Berman ’10 said.

“We started this year as a new group and with a new structure — and that took some getting used to,”

Berman said. “It took time to plan events, especially with the issue of liability forms, but in the last two weeks, for example, we had about six or seven events. We want to continue with that success and just get better and better.”

For seniors, the school’s policy for incomplete community service is withholding the delinquent senior’s diploma for graduation on June 5, according to an e-mail sent from Assistant to Head of Upper School Michelle Bracken. The e-mail was sent to all seniors who had not submitted their service requirement as of last Friday. A similar e-mail was sent to the parents of the delinquent seniors but it was sent from Head of Upper School Harry Salamandra.

In an effort to prevent withholding any diplomas, the Community Council decided to allow the partici-

pants of the Saturday service event to receive their diplomas on time, according to Community Council member Marni Barta ’09.

In addition, for seniors who have not completed their service requirement or who miss the final deadline, the Community Council has decided to allow seniors to plan their own hands-on projects in groups of four beyond today’s deadline. The approval and completion of these events will also allow the seniors to graduate and receive their diploma on June 5, with the rest of the graduating class, Barta said.

“In the future, I think more seniors will do their community service by the deadline if the administration decides to set the precedent [to withhold diplomas],” Berman said. “It depends if they will hold them to it.”

News

features

B Section

Surviving

Holding on

Carrying on

Stephen Fishbach ’97 captures second place on the CBS show “Survivor.”

Students maintain relationships with people out of school.

Recapping the odyssey of the class of 2009.

Plus, the matriculation list.

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A16

FAire Davidson/chronicle

The Od ys s e y

by the

as told

class

by the

of 2009

chronic

le

Sing in me, and throu Muse, gh me tell of that the story class in all ways skilled the wand of contending, erers, harr after they ied for on the prouplundered the six years on end, stron d heigh t of Harv ghold ard-West lake.

ILLUSTRA TION

BY MARNI

BARTA

Josh Oreman ’09 will present the Commencement speech as valedictorian at the Commencement ceremony on June 5.

Oreman was announced as valedictorian at the Cum Laude assembly on May 18.

The faculty was given a list of students with the top ranked grade point averages.

From that group, the faculty elected Oreman valedictorian.

“Josh Oreman has distinguished himself in so many ways that he was very easily selected,” Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts said.

Oreman was informed he would be valedictorian several weeks before the assembly, but was unable to attend the Cum Laude assembly due to a National Physics Olympiad training camp in Maryland. In addition to competing in the Olympiad, Oreman also does Mock Trial, Moot Court at Duke University and is a member of the Science Bowl and robotics teams.

“Josh has been so highly recognized.

He’s very good with words so he’ll present a good speech,” Huybrechts said.

Oreman has started working on his speech and approximates it to be five minutes long. He will receive a congratulatory certificate and plaque in addition to his name engraved on a permanent trophy like all past valedictorians.

Junior to film on Korean island

By Cathi Choi This summer, Austin Park ’09 will try to understand the stories of octopus fisherman Kim Sung-do and his wife Kim Shin-yeol, and capture them on film.

Sung-do and Shin-yeol are the only two permanent residents of Dokdo, a series of islets between Korea and Japan.

Park won the Junior Summer Fellowship award with his proposal to tell their story through a film documentary.

Dokdo is defined by two main islets, which are two large rocks. Sung-do and Shin-yeol live on these rocks, caught in a territorial dispute between the two countries. The territory technically belongs to Korea, and Sung-do and Shin-yeol are fervent Korean patriots who believe in Korea’s territorial claim.

In order to gain access to the island, Park had to take many meetings with Korean government officials.

When Park found out that Dokdo only had two residents, Park was immediately intrigued by the island’s story.

“I want to observe this life because it’s fascinating that these two people could live there,” Park said. “They’re completely isolated, miles from any other people and they’ve been living like this for 40 years.

There’s something there I don’t think the world has seen, really.” see FELLOWSHIP, A7

A2

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 The Chronicle

preview

dana Glaser/chronicle

water lillies: Jack Mankiewicz ’09, Jeremy Cairl ’09, Art History teacher Katherine Holmes-Chuba, and Dennis Cho ’09 gaze down into a stream in the Japa-

news A5

A10

One departure yields four shifts in Advancement and Admissions offices.

Ever wonder about the stories behind the team of AP Proctors? Get a closer look.

nese gardens at the Huntington Gardens and Library. The class decided to delve into art and culture with an informal gathering in the gardens.

features

Neha nimmagadda/chronicle

staycation: Olvera Street is one of the local destinations recommended for visiting this summer.

Candice navi/chronicle

techno-bot: Rohun Bansal ’10, Ian Cinnamon ’10, Justin Shafa ’09 and Chase Basich ’11 supervise the Robotics Club’s robot at STEMFEST. A3.

sports

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Eric Swoope ’10 wins John Wooden Award over spring break.

A28

Baseball loses playoff chances after controversial call.

A14 A18 A19

Learn about nine Los Angeles destinations to visit this summer.

Seniors reunite with elementary school classmates.

The identities of the seniors who were followed through the college process in “High Stakes” are revealed, with some added final reflections.

opinion

Adams satirizes on how A21 Sam junior year can be quantified as a series of numbers and statistics.

Tepper discusses the A21 Allegra importance of introspection.

what’s online www.chronicle.hw.com

Sam adams/chronicle

on your mark: Girls’ swim team captain Maddy Sprung-Keyser gets set to launch into her backstroke race at the CIF playoffs.

»

Some students defy the Facebook trend, opting for more traditional or personal forms of communication.

lauren wolfen/reprinted with permission

Tea time: AP Art History students Shayna Freisleben ’09 and Shelby Layne ’09 stroll through the Huntington Gardens with friends from their class.

off-beat

By Julie Barzilay A year of studying artwork helped some members of history teacher Katherine HolmesChuba’s seventh period AP Art History class appreciate the scenery and paintings at The Huntington last Wednesday on an informal outing, student Lauren Wolfen ’09 said. The class decided to meet up “at the same place at the same time” to see the art, Wolfen said.

Students enjoyed the gardens and artwork after sipping tea in the Rose Garden Tea Room.

The class had half-joked about this “tea party” adventure since the beginning of second semester. The class had long harbored the hope that one day they could embark on a trip to look at artwork together. “[Holmes-Chuba] said that two years ago her class met at the Huntington Gardens, had tea and looked at art,” Wolfen said. “We liked the idea, and I’m really glad we got together to make it happen at the end of the year.”

The group strolled through the Japanese and Desert gardens, two of several that make up the Huntington Botanical Gardens. They also looked at the Huntington’s art collection, which includes 19th century furniture alongside such master-works as “Pinkie,” by Thomas Lawrence, “Blue Boy,” by Thomas Gainsborough.

“We all love Ms. Holmes-Chuba, so it was really fun,” Wolfen said. “We definitely bonded as a class.”

May 27, 2009

School to participate in Israeli exchange program

By Michelle Yousefzadeh Three teachers will travel to Israel during winter break next year to visit Harvard-Westlake’s new sister school, Ironi Dallet, a public high school in north Tel Aviv.

A group of Harvard-Westlake eighth graders will host 14 Israeli students from Ironi Dallet in the fall of 2010.

Harvard-Westlake will be the second of two secular schools out of the 19 schools in Los Angeles who have the Israeli exchange program. The other secular school with the program is Beverly Hills High School.

Rabbi Emily Feigenson anticipates that the exchange program will give the participants as well as the whole student body, “a chance to broaden their understanding of the world beyond our immediate borders, and to gain perspective on our own culture, customs and school.”

The Tel Aviv/Los Angeles Twin School Exchange is a step towards more global education at Harvard-Westlake. Feigenson hopes that a similar exchange program will be set up with a school in China to further expand the Middle School’s global education activity.

Ironi Dallet already has an extensive global education program and an exchange program with schools in Mexico, Singapore and Germany.

The faculty selected will be a multiethnic and multi-religion delegation from different departments who will travel to meet with faculty and students from Ironi Dallet, Feigenson said.

Feigenson has been working on the project since September and was able to get the approval of middle school deans and then worked closely with Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts to receive funding from the Jewish Federation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to social service and education both locally and around the world.

The class of 2016 will need to apply to host an Israeli student and to be a part of the delegation in 2011. The application will require recommendations from a dean and a teacher attesting to the student’s level of maturity and social behavior said Feigenson.

“Both hosts and delegates will be representing our school — indeed, our country — and so they need to demonstrate an appropriate understanding of what it means to be a host,” Feigenson said.

Families can also volunteer to be “support hosts” to help the host family with carpooling and hosting an Israeli teen one or two week nights.

When the exchange students arrive, they will explore their program’s theme of personal identity which will include material from the Harvard Westlake curriculum.

The Israeli students will also visit museums and participate in a thematic program designed for them. For example, the Israeli students might read “Cyrano de Bergerac” in Hebrew and then participate in a class discussion or project about it or some Israeli teens can prepare a skit from the text and present it at class meeting.

i, robot

Candice navi/ Chronicle

jacob swanson ’11, conor eliot ’11 and spencer gordon ’10 operate a robot built for the Robotics Club on May 20 during STEM Fest, an expo of SSR inventions and various mathematic and scientific endeavors.

Students able to view absence records from online portal

By Anna Etra Absence records are now available online through HWonline, Head of Attendance Gabriel Preciado announced in a school-wide e-mail. Students can access the student portal from home and from school. If accessing the site from home, students must log in with their school user name and password. Once signed in, the unresolved absence list is available through the “resources for students” tab.

“The old system, the use of the attendance board, was updated whenever [dean coordinator Camille] Da Santos printed it out. Now, the absences are updated the second I enter it in my computer,” Preciado said.

The attendance board in Chalmers, will re-

main intact through the end of this year. Eventually, the system will be only online.

Preciado has been encouraging such a program for a few years, and his efforts finally paid off.

“I hope that students will check this more frequently. I think the option of having the attendance board will reduce the amount of unnecessary detentions. I think it makes it easier for them to not have to look at such a big list,” Preciado said. The new system was designed by senior software engineer Alan Homan, who is also in charge of Didax.

Although students will still need to go see Preciado to resolve absences, the increased accessibility provides another chance to learn about unresolved absences.

End-of-year honors The annual all-school award assembly yesterday honored both students and faculty members.

Lester Medvene Jack Petok English Dana Glaser Rensselaer Medal Claresta Joe-Wong Junior Fellowship Austin Park Foreign Language Sara Fleischman Frederick Douglass Shelby Layne Morris Michael Landres Alice Phillips Daniel Rothberg Community Service Marni Barta and Max Eliot Visual Arts Sal Greenberger Debate Sean Nadel

News A3

The Chronicle

Mathematics Rebecca Jacobs Vox Populi Grace Park Rebecca Weinstein Garret Hardin Terry Barnum Nini Halkett Computer Science Joshua Oreman Economics Eli Stein Margolis Jazz Benj Bellon Science Joshua Oreman Cuscaden Blackwood Cindy Ok Creative Writing Max Ritvo Chronicle Alexia Boyarsky

Athletic Director’s Noah Daneman Lee Carlson Maddie Lenard Chris Chang Schumacher Gavin McCourt Rascoff Faculty Fellowship Luba Bek Ted Walch Performing Arts Jack McFadden-Talbot Women’s Studies Sal Greenberger Trotti Max Ritvo Humanitas Julie Barzilay History Maddy Sprung-Keyser

GRAPHIC BY alexia boyarsky and carly radist

Checking absences online With a new attendance system set up on the HWonline portal, students can now access their absences beyond the wall of the attendance board.

1.

From home go to http://hwonline.harvardwestlake.com; from school go to http://hwonline.internal.hws.org

2.

3.

Log in to HWonline using your HarvardWestlake username and password.

The link for Upper School unresolved absences is under Resources for Students.

SOURCE: GABRIEL PRECIADO GRAPHIC BY CARLY RADIST

Geological Society honors teacher with fellowship

By Lauren Seo

Sciences courses or developing preexisting ones at The Geological Sociother schools. ety of America elected Three years ago, Van geology teacher Wendy Norden used a grant she Van Norden into its felreceived from the National lowship on May 3.

Science Foundation and Van Norden, who heavily collaborated with has been a member of the Earth and Space Scithe organization for 20 ences department at UCLA don hagopian/chronicle years, was one of the 59 to create the school’s HonWendy Van Norden members to be elected. ors Geology course. As a re“It’s simply an honsult, Honors Geology is emor,” said Van Norden. “Every geologist bedded with a quarter course offered who is somebody is a part of that fel- at UCLA, and is one of the very few lowship.”

Earth Science courses that the UC Van Norden was nominated by system recognizes as a lab science. two professors from the Univeristy of “It was very cool to work with these California and one professor from the esteemed geologists,” Van Norden University of California, Davis. All are said. “Not only do they write respectdistinguished professors of geology at ed papers, they get written about.” their respective universities.

The newly elected fellows, along Among geologists, Van Norden is with their primary nominator, will be known for her active support of more announced in the July issue of “GSA rigorous Earth Sciences classes in Today.”

American high schools. Over the last Van Norden will be formally hon15 years, she has given at least 20 ored at the Presidential Address and teacher workshops and professional Awards Ceremony at the GSA Antalks on initiating college level Earth nual Meeting in Portland on Oct. 17.

A4 News

May 27, 2009

The Chronicle

Seniors lunch with parents Students and parents dine on gourmet food and listen to speakers at luncheons.

By Alexia Boyarsky

and

A.J. Calabrese

The mood seemed aquatic at this year’s Senior Father-Son luncheon. The smell of the ocean permeated the outdoor patio of the upper Bel-Air Bay Club as seniors and their dads stood in line for hamburgers.

Simultaneously, but halfway across town, the senior girls and their mothers convened at the Luxe Hotel in Brentwood for the annual Senior MotherDaughter Luncheon May 9.

In contrast to the flowery theme of the girls’ event, model ships adorned each table as centerpieces and at each place setting stood small bottles containing messages, quotes that were passed around and read as everyone settled into their seats. The speakers, President Tom Hudnut and his son Peter, focused the majority of their time at the podium on Peter’s life as a water polo player and his journey to Beijing with the U.S. men’s water polo team and their capturing of the silver medal.

As festivities started and people filed into the club, they were greeted by the Hudnuts at the door.

From there, fathers and sons could get their pictures taken, play air hockey, foosball or ping-pong against each other or opposing teams of fathers and sons, or generally mingle, with complimentary soft drinks in hand.

In their speeches, both younger and elder Hudnuts recalled the hard work it took for Peter to reach the point of making the 2008 Olympic team and the self-assurance he gleaned from his father’s own confidence in him.

At the Luxe, time was spent mingling and speaking or posing for the camera, as girls and mothers chatted with friends and stopped to get their photo taken by the photographer in the corner, all while sipping on bright pink and orange drinks.

Alexia Boyarsky/chronicle

Like mother, like daughter: Haunani Singer and her daughter Phoebe ’09 pose for the professional photographer at the Mother-Daughter Luncheon which took place at the Luxe Hotel in Brentwood.

Inside, a banquet hall decorated in pinks, greens, purples and whites awaited the attendees. After a course of grilled salmon salad, the keynote speaker, Daryn Kagan took the stage.

After speaking about her experiences first as a news anchor at CNN and later starting her own website of “positive news,” Kagan advised the girls about things she’d wished she’d known at their age.

“Know that being mean isn’t a good thing,” she said. “Even though it looks like the mean girls are getting ahead right now, in the end niceness takes you farther.”

Kagan also advised the crowd to transform seemingly negative events into positive opportunities.

Speaking about the time after she lost her job at

Peer Support Update Twenty-six sophomores will join the Peer Support Trainee program for the upcoming 2009-2010 school year. Fifty-two sophomores applied to the program.

Sara Best Errol Bilgin Melanie Borinstein Justin Chernik Gaby Cohen Nick Duckweiler Beanie Feldstein Jessie Goldman Jarred Green Kody Greenbaum Rachel Katz Joyce Kim Alanna Klein

Natalie Kram Ben Krause Michelle Martinez Brooke Pechman Alice Phillips Anna Romanoff Stephen Rosen Daniel Rothberg Alex Scharch Sade Tavangarian Jamie Temko Becky Wolke Rae Wright

The coordinators for 2009-2010: Charlie Mischer Peter Schwartz

Ava Kofman Natalie Margolin graphic By Alice Phillips

CNN, Kagan said that she wouldn’t be where she is now had she continued working for CNN. After Kagan’s speech, and while the guests were finishing up their fruits dipped into the chocolate fountain and freshly prepared crepes, the senior girls from both the Bel Canto choir and the Chamber Singers took the stage to sing three pieces.

They sang “Family” from “Dreamgirls,” “For Good” from the musical “Wicked” and an Irish ballad named “Blessing.”

As keepsakes from the event, each pair of mother and daughter took home a pashmina in either green, pink, purple or white, which was tied behind their chair, and a silver frame with an inspirational quote on it.

Model UN announces new secretariat for 2009-2010

By Nicki Resnikoff

Joe Girton ’10, Claire Kao ’10, Alex Leichenger ’11 and Michelle Yousefzadeh ’10 were elected the secretariat for the Model United Nations club for next year.

Club members cast votes through e-mail May 18.

The process of nomination was different from previous years.

While members used to make nominations during a club meeting, this year interested students were asked to write personal statements including which positions they would like to be.

The personal statements were then sent to Model UN members who voted.

Girton, who has been in the club since 10th grade, was last year’s junior representative. He will be the president for the 2009-2010 school year.

“It’s going to be great,” he said. “I’m really

looking for next year. I think we’ll go far.”

Yousefzadeh was elected vice president.

She has participated in Model UN since ninth grade.

“I look forward to the great and successful delegation we’ll have next year. I’m going to try to make all the conferences run as smoothly as possible,” she said.

Kao, who has done Model UN since she was a freshman, is the new secretary.

“I was happy when I found out because it will be a nice way to end my Model UN career,” Kao said.

This year’s junior representative will be Leichenger.

Girton already has ideas for next year. They will be going to an extra conference, and Girton hopes to add more committees to the conference the school hosts.

“Really I just hope to get more people involved,” Girton said.

Middle School takes part in aerial photo

By Daniel Rothberg Students gathered on the middle school field for an aerial photo of the new campus on May 21. Students and faculty stood in the formation of the letters “H-W.” Besides its archival value, the photo will serve as a memento for the school, Vice President John Amato said.

“When Harvard School and Westlake School first merged an aerial shot was taken of all the middle school students posed as H-W. This was done on the old lower lawn at the bottom of the terrace steps. Now that we have a new campus we want to do this again,” Head of Middle School Ronnie Cazeau said.

The photographer took the aerial photo from a private helicopter during activities period.

Students were not required to participate in

the event, but were “encouraged to be a part of history,” seventh grade dean Kate Benton said.

Students who did not participate in the shot were asked to stay inside so that the camera did not pick them up.

“We really wanted this to be a campus effort even including faculty. What a unifying shot of school this would be if we were all to come together for this picture,” Cazeau said.

The Jacobson Cup house affiliation of each student and faculty member determined where they stood in the “H-W.” Badgers and Polecats made up the black H, Otters and Ferrets made up the red W and Student Council made up the white hyphen.

“It was sort of cool to know this is something that will be remembered on the middle school campus,” Student Council member Sam Wolk ’13 said.

May 27, 2009

News A5

The Chronicle

Anderson, Neumeyer to chair departments

Rock ‘N’ Bowl

By Sammy Roth

jamie kim/Chronicle

MATH TEACHER KEVIN WEIS GETS READY TO BOWL AT THE MATH DEPARTMENT’S last weekly after school bowling party of the year, May 22 at PINZ on Ventura.

Goldsmith’s departure brings about staff changes

By Sammy Roth Assistant Director of Alumni Relations Eli Goldsmith is leaving HarvardWestlake to attend graduate school at Harvard, sparking a host of position swaps in the Admission and Advancement offices, Chief Advancement Officer Ed Hu said. Goldsmith will enroll in the fall at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for a one-year program in Education Policy and Management.

Moving into Goldsmith’s position will be Susan Leher Beeson ’96, who has been the campaign coordinator in the Advancement Office since 2006. As campaign coordinator, she has helped raise money for the new middle school campus, among other projects.

Beeson will be replaced by Casey Kim, who has been Assistant Director of Annual Giving since 2007.

Kim’s role in the Advancement Office will be filled by Admission Administrator Whitney Althouse, who began working in the Admission Office in 2007.

Hu said that Althouse’s transition will be eased by the fact that she already filled in for Casey during her maternity leave.

Finally, middle school receptionist and secretary Bobbie Jo Dobbs, new to H-W this year, will take over for Althouse.

Dobbs said that the Admission Office is familiar territory for her, as she has occasionally helped out there this year. “[Dobbs] has been a wonderful welcoming face and voice of the Middle School this year and we enthusiastically welcome her into her new position,” Hu said.

These changes were brought about by the departure of Goldsmith, who started working at Harvard-Westlake four years ago. He said that he has considered enrolling in a master’s program for the last few years because he has enjoyed working in education.

This program at Harvard, he decided, was the right one for him.

“It’s a one-year master’s program, which is very cool,” he said. “It’s just nice financially. It’s only a one-year tuition versus two.”

Goldsmith said that after he gets his masters he might return to working in independent schools or fundraise for nonprofit organizations. As assistant director of alumni relations, he has organized alumni events, worked on the Senior Gift and coordinated Junior Career Day, among other duties.

“I’m going to miss my colleagues, and I’m going to miss the alumni I’ve met,” he said. “And I’m especially going to miss the students.”

Brenda Anderson will replace Andrew LauGel as head of the middle school Visual Arts Department next year, and Chronicle Adviser Kathleen Neumeyer will lead the new upper school Communications Department, Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts said. don hagopian/chronicle LauGel has taught at Harvard-Westlake for 18 years and was the middle school visual Brenda Anderson arts department head for the last nine. During that time he created the Introduction to Yearbook and Animiation classes.

He decided to step down after finally implementing a new seventh grade art course this year, Foundations in Visual Arts.

“I felt I had finally accomplished what I had set out to do when we added Foundations in Visual Arts to our curriculum this year,” he said. “Our department has achieved don hagopian/chronicle the course structure I had envisioned for it Andrew LauGel a decade ago, and now it’s time for a worthy colleague to take it for a drive.”

LauGel has spent two years planning the Visual Arts Department transfer to the new middle school campus. Anderson will supervise the planned remodeling of the department’s new facilities.

“Mrs. Anderson is a brilliant source of strength, energy, and enthusiasm for our department,” LauGel said. “Her passionate engagement, ability to innovate and caring nature are personal qualities that bode very well for the success and happiness of herself, her colleagues and most importantly, our visual arts students.”

As head of upper school Communications, Neumeyer will continue overseeing student publications and journalism classes.

A middle school Communications Department was established this year.

“This just creates one department on the two campuses,” Neumeyer said.

Staff Swap: Campaign Coordinator Susan Leher Beeson ’96 will replace Goldsmith.

Assistant Director of Annual Giving Casey Kim will replace Leher Beeson.

Assistant Director of Alumni Relations Eli Goldsmith is leaving the school.

Admission Administrator Whitney Althouse will replace Kim.

Middle school receptionist and secretary Bobbie Jo Dobbs will replace Althouse. source: ed Hu all photos by don hagopian infographic by sammy Roth

Teacher, student start Catholic group

By Alex Leichenger

alex leichenger/chronicle

worshipping: Catie Yagher ’10, Gabriella Gonzalez ’12, her younger sister Sophia Gonzalez and Jose Angel Alvarez ’12 (right to left) attended a Catholic mass Sunday.

Three students met at St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catholic Church in Encino Sunday to discuss the formation of a Catholic liturgy group on campus. Catie Yagher ’10 and history teacher Greg Gonzalez came up with the idea of starting the group late this year.

“When Catie and I discovered that we shared the same faith, we thought it would be a good idea to organize a liturgy and perform service,” Gonzalez said.

Signs were posted around

campus last week to notify the students of Sunday’s informal gathering, which directly followed mass. In addition to Yagher, Jose Angel Alvarez ’12, Gonzalaz’s daughter Gabriella Gonzalez ’12 attended.

“With time running out in school, we are shooting for next year to start a formal club, but we wanted to gather at least once before the summer,” Gonzalez said.

The group plans to organize another meeting next fall to bring together more possible members

of the group. They hope to conduct monthly services and discussions at St. Saviour’s Chapel with St. Cyril’s priest throughout the school year. Yagher mentioned having meetings during Monday and Wednesday breaks as another possibility.

Because there are not many Catholics at the school, the club hopes as many as possible will join, she said.

“We are just trying to get all the Catholics at school who can’t practice their faith together,” Yagher said.

A6 News

May 27, 2009

The Chronicle

inbrief

Janitorial staff sanitizes after H1N1 outbreak In reaction to the H1N1 virus, or the Swine Flu, the school has taken preventative measures.

Since May 5, the bathrooms and doorknobs are sprayed with sanitizer that kills flu bacteria every night, Head of Security Jim Crawford said. This process will continue until the end of the school year.

— Anna Etra

Moon bounce plan hits liability roadblock The Prefect Council’s plan to provide a moon bounce for “beach day” at break on April 29 hit a liability roadblock preventing students from partaking of the bouncing fun. Regardless, the Prefects secured Jamba Juice, plastic leis and beach music.

The moon bounce company, jumpforfun.com, previously agreed to sign “extra liability,” which the Prefect Council interpreted as meaning that the company would pay if any students sustained injuries.

However, Chaplain Father J. Young read over the paperwork upon arrival and saw the contract secured extra coverage if the moon bounce was damaged, not the individuals using it. Due to this misunderstanding, the moon bounce had to be turned away.

— Julie Barzilay

14 sophomores, juniors admitted for fall 2009 Fourteen students are joining the upper school student body next fall. Thirteen are incoming sophomores and one is an incoming junior, Associate Director of Admission David Bergquist said.

The admittees represent 14 schools. Ten are from the greater Los Angeles area, including five students living within the city of Los Angeles. Two are coming from the East Coast; one currently resides in Connecticut and the other in New York. One international student from England and one from British Columbia were also accepted.

— Ellina Chulpaeff

Video program receives Directors’ Award The video program received a Director’s Award from the Westport Youth Film Festival in Connecticut.

“Harvard- Westlake has consistently provided our festival with terrific films,” festival coordinator Sandy Lefkowitz said. “It was voted on by our co directors and approved by the team.”

The award sent to the video teachers was a crystal diamond shaped trophy from Tiffany’s.

— Ester Khachatryan

Administration extends touchstone contest The school touchstone will not be decided until this summer or next fall, Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts said Friday.

Three phrases, “Aim High and Be True,” “Excellence with Honor” and “Pursuing Excellence with Honor,” were selected from a total of 112 submissions, although if a new phrase is suggested over the next few months, it could also be in contention, she said.

— Faire Davidson

Alexia Boyarsky and Candice Navi /chronicle

Under the sea: Students paint a mural of an ocean at Broadway Elementary School in Venice on May 16. Alex Glancy ’10 paints an octopus (upper left) and Haley Feldman ’09 helps a Broadway Elementary student clean her hands (right).

35 paint mural at elementary school for community service

By Hana Al-Henaid Approximately 35 students and two faculty chaperones helped students at Broadway Elementary school paint a mural on May 16. The event was organized by Jackie Feiler ’10 and Jaqui Lee ’10 with help from the Community Council.

Although the event was organized by Feiler and Lee, neither of whom are Community Council members, they advertised their event through the Community Council to increase the participation in their event.

Erin Moy ’10 was the Community Council member contact for the event. Moy sent out and collected liability forms for the event and also participated in the mural painting.

Although Feiler and Lee were the student coordinators for the event, they were informed about the service opportunity through P.S. Arts, an organization that helps bring art to public elementary schools.

Sal Greenberger ’09 participated in the mural painting event, although she had already completed her community ser-

Advisers name two directors

By Ester Khachatryan Romina D’Alessandro ’10 and Jake Gutman ’10 were selected by Film Festival faculty advisers to direct the 2010 Harvard-Westlake Film Festival.

D’Alessandro and Gutman were two of six students submit applications for positions as Film Festival directors.

Faculty advisers Cheri Gaulke and Ted Walch choose the two directors after reviewing applications and after conducting interviews with all the prospective candidates.

“It is our policy to select a male and female director if possible,” Gaulke said.

The most important contribution made by the directors will be to expand the Festival, Gaulke said.

The Festival has seen significant changes since its inceptionsix years ago. From originally being held in Rugby Theater, to relocating to the Arclight Theater last year and finally moving to the larger Cinerama Dome this year.

“We would like to explore part-

“I enjoy messing around with paint and thought it would be especially meaningful to work with kids.”

—Sal Greenberger ‘09 Community service participant

vice requirement.

“I’ve always tried to take advantage of community service opportunities,” Greenberger said. “I enjoy messing around with paint and I thought it would especially meaningful to work with kids.”

History teacher and Department Chair Katherine HolmesChuba and history teacher Nini Halkett volunteered to chaperone the event. The mural featured an open book on which Holmes-Chuba wrote important events of 2009, including “President Obama” and “Twilight”.

Theatre to feature sophomores’ plays

By Daniel Rothberg don hagopian/chronicle

don hagopian/chronicle

Romina D’Alessandro ‘10

Jake Gutman ‘10

nerships with possible companies and other festivals or film academies as we would like the festival to be a stepping stone into the greater film community,” Gutman said.

Gutman is planning to institute changes in the judging process, to expand the festival into a yearround event and to encourage more young women filmmakers to participate and submit videos in the festival.

“I’d like to have the filmmakers interact with each other as well as with the speaker and the organizers,” D’Alessandro said.

In conjunction with Gaulke and Walch, D’Alessandro and Gutman will take on the responsibilities of coordinating, developing and producing the annual film festival from its initial planning stages to beyond the event’s completion.

As part of their job description the directors will publicize the festival, preview all submitted film entries, recruit judges and a guest speaker, and take part in the film selection process.

The Blank Playwrights Festival will feature two sophomore-written one act plays at the Stella Adler Theatre in June.

“What all School Children Learn,” by Ben SprungKeyser ‘11 and “From Your Sweetheart,” by Alex Valdez ’11 were chosen by the theatre and were originally written for the Harvard-Westlake Playwrights Festival.

Plays for the Blank Festival are chosen by a selection committee of theatre professionals. After being selected each young playwright participating in the festival is assigned a professional writer who serves as a mentor. The mentors give the students suggestions to help prepare their shows for the professional stage.

Subsequently, directors are assigned by the Blank Festival and each play is cast with professional actors.

Playwrights are encouraged to be involved in the rehearsal process for their play.

“From Your Sweetheart heart” is about a messenger dressed in a bunny suit who brings a singing message to a man about to propose to his girlfriend.

By using an example of bullying in high school, “What All School Children Learn” explores how someone powerless can fight a bigger force.

Sprung-Keyser’s one act will be performed on June 6-8 at 8 p.m. and on June 9 at 2 and 7 p.m. Valdez’s one act will be performed on June 11-13 at 8 p.m. and on June 14 at 2 and 7 p.m.

Sprung-Keyser and Valdez found out about this festival through Harvard-Westlake Playwrights Festival Director Christopher Moore.

In addition, the two playwrights plan on submitting their plays to The California Young Playwrights Festival in San Diego.

The Festival accepts plays written by students 19 or younger from across the nation.

May 27, 2009

The Chronicle

Alum places 2nd on ‘Survivor’

By Cathi Choi

Courtesy of cbs.com

keeping enemies closer: Stephen Fishbach ’97 and first place winner JT Thomas cross “day 39” off of a banner in Brazil. They remain friendly even after the shows end.

While on “Survivor,” valedictorian and Yale graduate Stephen Fishbach ’97 went entire days eating only a spoonful of rice, battling against the elements. Exiled from the rest of the group, Fishbach desperately tried to build a fire for the first time as a storm approached.

When Fishbach returned from Brazil last December, he had won second place, but he also had a new best friend.

Fishbach formed an immediate alliance with “Survivor” winner JT Thomas, a cattle rancher from Alabama. This alliance lasted throughout the season, ultimately leading Thomas to pick Fishbach to move on with him to the last episode.

Thomas had the choice between Fishbach and another cast member, Erinn Lobdell, with whom Fishbach said Thomas could have had “an easy shot at $1 million,” but Thomas chose Fishbach instead.

When Thomas chose him, Fishbach said he felt “completely shocked and humbled.”

Fishbach now keeps in regular contact with Thomas, and has gone to visit him and his family in Alabama. Going into “Survivor,” Fishbach said he hoped to meet a cross-section of America he would have otherwise never been exposed to. There was no other way Fishbach would have met Thomas, Fishbach said, unless it had been for “Survivor.”

“He’s my best friend,” Fishbach said. “I spent a lot of time with his world, which I didn’t know anything about. I got to spend time with him and his family, and I’m just so grateful for that experience.”

Fishbach now works as speechwriter and a creative consultant in New York. Future plans? “Keep on working!” Fishbach said.

School considers offering electronic books

By Andrew Lee The school may offer electronic books as an alternative for paper text books next year. If the idea is approved by faculty and staff, there will be information on how to purchase and use an e-text device in the next book shipments for students.

Director of Studies Deborah Dowling hopes that students will be able to have e-books as an option as an alternative to paper books.

The e-text alternative will not be any cheaper than paper textbooks, Dowling and Technology Integration Specialist Jennifer Lamkins said.

“I don’t see us demanding everyone to own an e-text,” Lamkins said.

“It’s a matter of preference.”

E-books cost anywhere between $250 to $600. A student can search for a specific word or topic, copy and paste text into their coursework, comment within the textbook and enjoy a lighter backpack.

“They’re not just text. They do more than textbooks,” Dowling said.

E-books are more accessible for people with disabilities with enlarged text options.

Lamkins said the e-book academic integration is in the developing stages now but may be available next September.

Lamkins said she doesn’t want

to compromise academic text book quality. The bookstore is working with the distributors and publishers to make e-books available to students.

Lamkins said her goal of the ebook is to allow students to move seamlessly between paper and electronic books.

It’s all about the students’ convenience, she said. She hopes the e-book system will help traveling athletes.

Lamkins said the e-book technology still is not perfect and is quite “clunky.”

The school’s top priority is to find quality academic text, not favoring ones that are electronic, Lamkins said.

“It’s not cheaper than textbooks yet, but we’re on our way there,” Dowling said. Dowling and Lamkins both agree the Amazon Kindle is academically limited and will not fit the school’s needs.

The struggle is finding an electronic platform that all book publishers can work with. Lamkins said students would be able to save a little money if they bought partial chapters of the text.

“We’re going to keep looking at e-books, see what’s good for everyone, and going to do it thoughtfully,” Lamkins said.

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Fellowship recipient to make film about inhabitants of small island from fellowship, page A1 Other than Dokdo, Park will explore other places in Korea during his first visit to the country: Seoul, Pohang and Ulleung-Do, the nearest major island to Dokdo.

He will also be spending a week in Japan, travelling to Osaka, Kyoto and then to the west coast, namely Shimane Prefecture. He might also visit the Oki Islands, the closest Japanese territory to Dokdo.

He said he wants to spend some time in Japan to get the other side of the territorial dispute. He is unsure what kind of documentary he will make, and said there were two main ways he could go with it.

The movie could focus on Sungdo and Shin-yeol and become what Park describes as “a character study, a study of their life,” with the territorial dispute as a lofty backdrop. If, however, he feels this

topi is not strong enough he’ll work more material into their story.

“Maybe I’ll work in more of a street by street kind of thing, interviewing people in Japan and Korea, drawing a bigger picture,” Park said.

Ultimately though, Park wants to refrain from making any major decisions about his documentary’s direction until he gets there.

“It’s hard for me to tell you what my message is or what I’m trying to get at because I struggled with that. I thought I had to have something like that, but in the end, I’m not going to impose a message and then take them and put them into it,” Park said. “I want to go there and figure out what it is, and then from there, impose myself, by finding what they are, what I think they are, how they relate to me, and how they relate to a wider audience.”

News A7

inbrief

Cambre, Van Iderstine to edit next year’s Vox

The editors-in-chief for next year’s Vox Populi staff were announced May 8 by yearbook adviser Jen Bladen.

Julia Cambre ’10 and Olivia Van Iderstine ’10 will succeed Rebecca Weinstein ’09 and Grace Park ’09.

— Alexia Boyarsky

Assembly honors foreign language scholars The Foreign Language Awards assembly was held on Tuesday, May 19 to honor students who have excelled in advanced foreign language courses.

Those in French, Spanish and Japanese pledged to continue learning their language.

Senior awards went to Josh Oreman ’09 for French, Lian Zucker ’09 for Spanish, Jacqueline Wee ’09 for Japanese, Sean Kesluk ’09 for Latin and Billy Wolff ’09 for Chinese.

— Ellina Chulpaeff

Sophomore publishes own fantasy book Melissa Gertler ’11 published her book “The Champion of Valens” using Authorhouse, a selfpublishing company.

“The Champion of Valens” tells about a feud between two kingdoms and the journey of a teenage girl, Nara, who takes her blind brother’s place in the army, ignoring the harsh gender based roles.

“The Champion of Valens” is sold at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, authorhouse.com and melissagertler.com.

— Emily Khaykin

Students to sing for cause at the Roxy Seven students will participate in a concert June 10 at the Roxy benefiting the Painted Turtle Camp, which works to provide resources for kids with illnesses.

The students have been performing under the name of “Theatre Geeks of America,” or TGA. TGA will sing songs from the Broadway shows “Wicked,” “Spring Awakening” and “Rent” in addition to pop music.

The students participating in the show are Beanie Feldstein ’11, Bella Hicks ’12, Halle Levitt ’12, Nick Lieberman ’11, Ben Platt ’11, Kelsey Woo ’11.

Tickets range from $25 to $1,000.

— Daniel Rothberg

KABC recognizes freshman ‘Cool Kid’ KABC named Marissa Lepor ’12 a “Cool Kid” for co-founding “Kids Stand on Tiptoes” and co-organizing The Bash of All Bashes for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “Kids Stand on Tiptoes,” collects dance clothes and donates them to Inner City Arts, a program which helps incorporate art into Los Angeles public schools, and Gabriella Charter Elementary School.

The Bash, which took place May 17 at the Crustacean restaurant in Beverly Hills, raised money to create a teen lounge at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

— Sammy Roth

A8 News

May 27, 2009

The Chronicle

Alum donates footage of 1940 graduation

Tea Time

By Michelle Nosratian

Lauren seo/ Chronicle

Yumi Mishimura (left) and Asako Kudo, who both went to tea school in Japan, japan visited the third period Japanese class on Friday May 22. They taught about a traditional Japanese tea ceremony.

E. Randol Schoenberg ’84 has donated some color film footage of the 1940 Westlake graduation to the school archives.

The film is the oldest color film in the archives, according to school archivist Allan Sasaki.

The short video features the procession of soon-to-be-graduates on the lower lawn of the school.

The girls are wearing identical white dresses and receiving their diplomas from then-principal and school founder Frederica de Laguna. The footage has no audio to accompany it.

Schoenberg is a Los Angeles-based attorney known for recovering five Gustav Klimt paintings that were seized during the Holocaust and returning them to their rightful owner in a Supreme Court case against the government of Austria in 2004.

Schoenberg, the grandson of Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, sent a DVD of the footage to Sasaki. A lowquality version of some of the footage is also available on YouTube.

“I took a tour of the new middle school campus...and ran into Mr. Sasaki, whom I remembered from the olden days, and he showed me his new archive,” Schoenberg said. “I told him about this film I had and sent it to him.”

One of the girls in the video is Tamara Hovey Gold ’40. Gold’s brother Serge studied with Schoenberg’s famous grandfather after the composer fled the Nazis and arrived in Los Angeles in 1934. The composer taught at UCLA and has a concert hall named after him at the university.

“My brother was 18 at the time and he took the film,” Gold said. “He was just doing what brothers do.”

Gold was 16 at the time of the graduation and went on to study at Bryn Mawr College.

“The girls with the flowers were the juniors; I guess it was the tradition of the time,” she said.

Schoenberg found the video as part of a larger roll of film in the Sonya Levien

Collection at the Huntington Library in San Marino that included footage of his grandfather, he said. Sonya Levien was Tamara and Serge’s mother and a famous screenwriter; her major credits include “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939) and “Interrupted Melody” (1955).

“Color film was brand new at that time and Sonya Levien worked for the studios and brought home left-over film that her kids used to take home movies,” Schoenberg said. “This is around the time of the ‘Wizard of Oz,’ the first full length color movie. Color film for home use just did not exist at that time, so these films are extremely rare.”

Tamara and Serge Hovey were just teenagers when they used raw stock film to record famous personalities such as Arnold Schoenberg, novelist Thomas Mann, writer Aldous Huxley, and philosopher Bertrand Russell, all living in Los Angeles.

“I’ve known about the Schoenberg part of the film for a long time because a copy was made for the Schoenberg archives, but I wanted to see if I could get a better copy to make still photos for a book I put together of my grandfather’s correspondence with Thomas Mann,” Schoenberg said. “My parents knew Tamara, so I called her and found out the original film was in the Huntington Library in San Marino. I was then able to arrange for the film to go to a professional lab for digital scanning.”

Schoenberg is working on publishing an English-language version of a book that he has published in Italian, French and German that details the correspondence between his grandfather and Mann, the author of “Doktor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn as Told by a Friend” that the German novelist wrote in the mid 1940s while he was in California. A character in Mann’s book is loosely based on Schoenberg’s grandfather, which irritated the composer and caused a rift between the two men, Schoenberg said.

“The pictures in [Schoenberg’s] book are taken from the films [my brother and I] took when we were young,” Gold said.

Concert raises money for LA homeless families

By Ashley Halkett Nineteen upper school students sang in a concert in Rugby Theater on May 22 for Imagine LA, a non-profit organization that helps homeless children.

The event was hosted

by Mike Lee ’09 and Keith Black ’09.

The concert featured nine songs, mostly duets, and a special guest performance

by Te’Rhon O’Neal ’09 and Corey Vann ’09.

Proceeds from the concert totaled over $2,000.

Before the performances, Imagine LA spokesperson Jill Bauman told the audience about the importance of helping homeless families,

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particularly children, escape the cycle of poverty.

Black introduced the first act by singing the first couple lines of a T-Pain song, dedicated to “a special lady; you know who you are.”

Inspired by the dedication of those involved last year, Lee decided he wanted to work with the association after seeing the first concert, held by Tymon Tai ’08 at St. Michael’s in 2008.

“Imagine LA is one of the few organizations with a clear, distinct vision in helping to stop [homelessness],” Lee said.

“I knew with proper funding, this charity would be able to take even bigger strides with our help,” he said.

Contact: LAmathGuy@yahoo.com Cell: (310) 383-9072

Between getting approval from the administration and recruiting both volunteers and performers, the concert took about three months to set up.

Lee said he was nervous about a low turnout, but that his fears were assuaged and everything went better than expected.

“My favorite part was definitely being able to incorporate a passion of mine, music, with something that really helps out the community,” Lee said.

“I’ve been trying to pursue a showcase for some time now, and finally being able to see a performance like that come true is something I will never forget,” he said.

Courtesy of Jason Mow

Imagine that: Jilli Marine ’10, Megan Fleming ’10, Nora Rothman ’09 and Maddy Sprung-Keyser ’09 (from left) sing to benefit Imagine LA, a charity that helps homeless families, on May 22.

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News A9

The Chronicle

Senior visits Poland, Israel for Holocaust memorial day On March of the Living, Paulina Shahery ’09 has what she calls “the best day of my life.”

By Hana Al-Henaid

CourtesY Of paulina shahery

Flag in the wind: Paulina Shahery ’09 stands in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem with an Israeli flag.

Paulina Shahery ’09 participated in March of the Living, the largest Jewish educational program for teens in the world, from April 19 to May 3.

The program takes Jewish teens from all over the world to Poland for the week surrounding Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day and then to Israel for Israel Independence Day, March of the Living recruiter Dalia Moghavem (Nuriel ’07, Eli ’10) said.

Shahery’s trip consisted of a three-kilometer “March of Death” from Auschwitz to Birkenau in remembrance of those who died while being forced to march from the concentration camp to the death camp.

At Birkenau, the march culminated in a memorial service at one of the death camp’s gas chambers.

“The concentration camps we visited were hard, but it was inspiring to walk alongside five Holocaust survivors that have the energy, the passion and the guts to come back to hell,” Shahery said.

From the camps at Poland, Shahery, along with 8,000 other participants, flew to Israel to celebrate Israeli Independence Day on April 29.

“The March of the Living in Jerusalem was

the best day in my life,” Shahery said. “It was Independence Day, Israel’s 61st Birthday and my 18th Birthday. The whole entire day was dancing, laughing and partying and dancing.”

The day before Independence Day, Shahery observed a moment of silence with the entire state of Israel in honor of Soldier Remembrance Day. “Every action pauses for a whole minute while sirens ring all throughout the country,” Shahery said.

Shahery believes everyone should experience March of the Living “regardless of religion, ethnicity or walk of life.”

Moghavem has been involved with recruiting for March of the Living since October 2008.

Harvard-Westlake was the first secular school in Los Angeles to encourage their Jewish students to take this heritage trip, Moghavem said.

Due to the seriousness of this program, maturity of the student tends to highly weigh in on the decision to go and the second semester of senior year, once the college application process is done, is the best time to take such a trip, Moghavem said.

Next year’s March of the Living will be held from April 8-22 corresponding with the occurence of Israeli independence celebration on the Jewish calendar.

“We are currently planning an informational evening in June for potential participants in the 2010 trip and I would love to hear from any student that is interested in learning more about this trip,” Moghavem said.

Interested students can contact Moghavem at DaliaSM@aol.com for information about March of the Living.

Earth Month speaker urges simplicity

By Hana Al-Henaid Environmental activist Ann Bradley explained the importance of voluntary-simplicity to students during break on April 29 in honor of the culmination of Earth Month.

Bradley introduced herself to the audience with a brief explanation of the way she lives.

Bradley embraced environmental activism after attending “No Purchase Necessary,” a voluntary-simplicity conference produced by Carol Holst at the University of Southern California in September 1998.

“I came in one person, and left a completely different person,” Bradley said.

After the conference, Bradley said she changed three of her major habits by always carrying a few specific items with her: a reusable bag, a reusable cup and a reusable napkin – on a more personal note, she has also adopted the habit of picking up her dog’s excrement with old chip bags.

“I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, advocating an ascetic

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In addition to incorporating those three habits into her life, Bradley has also developed and incorporated a specific six-step personal mantra: refuse, return, reuse, reduce, repurpose and recycle, the last of which she considers “kind of a cop-out” because recycling plants have to use so much energy to make something new from something old.

More important, she said, is refusing to accept disposable items that are unnecessary to life.

Bradley asked each student to think of an item they have “too much of ” and brainstorm a way to reduce their consumption and waste in those areas: paper and clothes were popular responses.

Since 2002, Bradley has been car-free and is currently working on improving the Los Angeles public transportation system. She had previously been car free for almost a decade.

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Julie barzilay/chronicle

One Person’s trash: Ann Bradley demonstrates the importance of reusing by plugging in a vacuum cleaner that she found on the side of the road on the way to Harvard-Westlake.

Freshmen collect phones for soldiers overseas

By Sammy Roth

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“The great regrets of my life are the three cars I possessed over the course of my car owning years,” Bradley said.

On her way to the school, Bradley found a discarded vacuum and recognized an opportunity to reuse. She brought it with her and explained its potential.

Afterward, Bradley’s left with a specific message to the HarvardWestlake community.

“You are the movers and shakers who will be making change in the near future,” she said. “You have to embrace the burden.”

Environmental Club adviser Martha Wheelock invited Bradley to speak to students about environmental awareness and activism.

The the two met in March while attending artist-in-residence Kim Abeles’ environmental art exhibit in Feldman-Horn gallery.

Bradley finished her presentation by emphasizing how once a person tries to make due with what he or she already has, the person realizes how little is actually needed to go to waste throuhgout a person’s life.

Connor Donahue ’12 and Andrew Green ’12 made a record donation to an organization which provides soldiers stationed overseas with free phone calls home.

Donahue and Green collected about 1,500 cell phones at school and around the city, which they donated to an organization called Cell Phones for Soldiers.

The organization turns each cell phone it receives into a calling card worth one hour of free calling time for soldiers, who are normally required to pay for their phone calls home.

The donation was the largest in the history of Cell Phones for Soldiers, which has raised over $2 million and donated over 500,000 such cards to soldiers overseas.

Donahue and Green began collecting the cell phones as their community service project, but soon decided to go far beyond the required 12 hours.

“At first I was looking for a community service project that I felt would really help others, to fulfill my community service requirement,” Green said. “But once I got involved I could not stop, I was inspired to continue.

As Green learned more about the impact of the calling cards, his resolve to help the soldiers became stronger.

“After finding out how much this calling time was important to the soldiers, I decided to try to continue doing something for the troops overseas.”

Donahue felt much the same way about the project.

don hagopian/chronicle

Connor Donahue

don hagopian/chronicle

Andrew Green

“It was a relatively simple or easy thing to do, by that we mean, collecting one phone and then realizing that that would give one soldier one hour of calling time,” he said. “How could we stop?”

The size of the two students’ donation has garnered some attention; a May 12 blog post on the Los Angeles Times website described their project.

“It’s not about the number [of donations] as much as it’s the positive attention we gave to a great cause,” Green said.

The calling cards will be given to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, Donahue said.

A10 News

The Chronicle

Alumni ‘tell stories’ with dance

By Julie Barzilay

Two alums will take the stage as the Mad Hatter and Alice from “Alice in Wonderland” in 11 upcoming performances of an original show by BoomKat Dance Company.

The show is titled “Neverwonderland.”

The company was launched in 2006 by Lili Fuller ’05, who is currently the artistic director, and Matthew Krumpe ’08 has been a company member since September.

Natalie Williams ’08 also danced in BoomKat from September through February 2009, but had to stop due to conflicts.

According to the BoomKat website, the company “is a group of like-minded performing artists dedicated to telling stories through compelling and accessible dance-theatre. Through the intermingling of this communicative dance style and other media, the group strives to create art that both expresses and illuminates.”

The group hopes to evoke, express, question and challenge the traditional limits of the dance world through collaborative and creative choreography driven by strong concepts and messages. Each show is preceded by discussions on themes, involves group brainstorming and choreographing and emphasizes the idea that each member has a voice and a gift to share.

In its first year, BoomKat was a group of actors, dancers, singers and athletes at the University of Southern California seeking an “eclectic” group of people with whom they could create meaningful dance, Krumpe said.

After Fuller got the ball rolling, the company put on their first show, entitled “Revolutions,” which dealt with the throes of love, sex, drugs, music, society, family and other issues of concern to young adults.

Krumpe said the company has grown in many ways since that first show.

By 2008, the company extended beyond USC to include Krumpe (a UCLA student) and had begun performing full-fledged storylines, notably Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book.”

Because its founder and several dancers graduated from Harvard-Westlake, the fingerprint of performing arts teacher and annual Dance Concert direc-

tor Cynthia Winter is tangible, Krumpe said. Winter always emphasizes stories and messages over dance tricks and emotion over technicalities, Krumpe agreed.

“H-W Dance is what allowed us to start BoomKat,” Krumpe said. “Cynthia Winter is a genius. She truly is an inspiration and brings out something in her dancers that is beyond high school. Her emphasis on storytelling through dance is what Boomkat does.”

The type of conceptual dance that goes beyond the superficial in its choreography is what Krumpe says he learned in high school.

BoomKat is a company that choreographs all of its own pieces, and which tries to defy the stigmas of the dance industry.

“As I have thrown myself into the dance world with full force after high school I have realized how brutal an industry it is,” he said. “We get paid the least and beaten up the most out of any performers but dance is like breath. It’s what keeps me living. Its hard work but that’s what makes it fun.”

Some of the company’s members have professional acting and performing careers.

Nathan Parsons, who plays Peter in the upcoming show “Neverwonderland,” is a lead on “General Hospital.”

Donald Webber Jr., who plays Hook and is a teacher, is also a professional singer and actor and was on “American Idol” this season.

BoomKat will audition any Harvard-Westlake senior dancers who plan to remain in Los Angeles after high school.

“Neverwonderland” is an abstract blending of J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan” and Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” set in Industrial Revolution-era England that plays with the intersections between fantasy and reality, exploration and fear.

Krumpe portrays the Mad Hatter and a pirate and Fuller plays Alice.

The show is at the Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica, is playing from May 29 through June 14.

Tickets are $10 for students and $20 for adults.

Shows are every Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday matinees are at 2 p.m.

The company will perform a total of 11 shows, as well as two to four outreach performances for inner-

AP Proctors are College Board’s eyes and ears

By Erin Moy

and

Allegra Tepper

As Jeff Wattenhoffer, a proctor for the AP English Language exam, strolled around the room keeping watch over the nearly 200 students finishing the test in Chalmers Lounge, one student whispered, “We’ve been in here forever; can’t we leave?” Wattenhoffer replied, “We’ve been here just as long as you have,” and walked away.

Wattenhoffer, 25, was referring to himself and the rest of his proctoring colleagues, who spent three weeks on campus overseeing AP tests. While most of the proctors were employed through an employment agency, some, like Gene Heard, French teacher Marilyn Shield’s husband, were referred to the school by faculty members.

Proctors go through a one-day training course, during which the material that they are required to master is dictated by the College Board.

Some proctors, like Harper Girard, 22, see proctoring as a full-time job.

Girard proctors for the APs, the LSAT, the SAT and the ISEE, which requires a “24/7” commitment, she said.

“It’s really a passion for me,” she joked.

Other proctors, like Head Proctor Geoff Robertson, 28, administer tests in addition to other occupations.

Robertson is a professor of Biology and Natural Resource Conservation at Moorpark and Pierce Colleges, and has now been proctoring at HarvardWestlake for the past two years.

“Everyone remembers and talks about him even weeks after the exams,” Carleigh Coyne ’10 said. “He’s a real character.”

The pendant Robertson wears, a gift from his mother, is the Hebrew character “chai,” which means life, he said. Middle school students might

allegra tepper/Chronicle

Watching us: AP exam proctor Geoff Robertson holds a box of tests. look forward to seeing more of Robertson, who has already worked as a substitute teacher at the North Faring campus. Inspired by his time at Harvard-Westlake, Robertson interviewed for a teaching position in Biology.

Dave Farina, 25, has also substituted for upper school math classes along with his duties as a proctor. However, while Farina is an academician by day, he is a drummer in an “alternative psychedelic rock band” called Magnus Fitch by night. In the midst of reviewing logarithms and matrices, Farina has occasionally slipped students a flyer to promote his band.

The Myspace link on his business card features pictures of Farina and his band in bunny and space helmets.

Heard, a writer and retired executive director of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society, added his own flair to the AP English Language test.

“While we bubbled in registration info before the test began, he told us about a novel he recently finished reading, ‘Mother Tongue: The English Language,’” Maddy Abrams ’09 said.

“He said he thought we would really enjoy it. It was unusual that he wasn’t just running off the proctor speech, but actually started up conversation with us.”

May 27, 2009

XXXXXX/chronicle

courtesy of matthew krumpe

let’s dance: Matthew Krumpe ’08 rehearses a solo performance for the BoomKat Dance Company. city students on Monday and Wednesday mornings.

More info can be found and tickets can be bought at boomkatdance.org/tickets.

Krumpe is excited to continue developing as a dancer and helping the company express important ideas in the near and distant future.

“We don’t just turn and leap and call it dance,” he said. “We communicate. I love performing with BoomKat because I feel like there is a purpose to what I am doing. It is fun to dance, but as a tangible art form it can’t survive without meaning, without purpose. We are what’s new in dance. We are innovative.”

May 27, 2009

6 sophomores choose different paths Matthew Chupack Italy

By Austin Block Buongiorno is the only Italian word that Matthew Chupack ’11 knows, but he’s sure to learn more next year as one of three students from the class of 2011 that is attending the School Year Abroad program in Viterbo, Italy.

Chupack will stay with a family in Viterbo and take Ancient History, Ancient Art History, Latin Seminar, beginner Greek, English, and Italian.

“I guess I was just really tired of the grind at H-W,” he said. “Learn

the unit for a week, then take a test, then learn more, then test again... etc. I kind of wanted to do something different for junior year.”

“My first choice would be to live with a family with kids my age and my second would be living with older kids or younger kids,” Chupack said.

He said he isn’t too worried about any potential problems reintegrating into the school community as a senior.

“I guess some people will change a little bit, but I figure all I’ll miss is a really stressful junior year,” he said.

Tori Hill Italy

By Jordan McSpadden Sophomore Tori Hill will be completing her junior year in Viterbo, Italy. Even though Hill does not speak any Italian, she is still excited to attend.

“I found out about the School Year Abroad program through the video they showed in my Spanish class,” Hill said.

Traveling to Italy will be Hill’s first time leaving the country.

The longest she has ever been away for was eight weeks. Several of

her friends will be visiting her while she is away. Nicolai Sisteron ’11 said he would visit her during Christmas break.

Two sophomores, Matthew Chupack and Emma Peterson, will be attending with Hill for their junior year.

Hill has been friends with Peterson since second grade, and has been friends with Chupack since seventh grade.

In Italy, Hill will be taking Latin, Italian, English, Math, Art History, and Ancient History.

Emma Peterson Italy

By Alex Leichenger Emma Peterson ’11 decided a long time ago that she wanted to study abroad; the only question was where.

Now a Latin III Honors student, she decided that Italy was a logical destination.

“This year, I really started to enjoy Latin,” Peterson said. “After watching the SYA video during class at the beginning of the year, I got an application for me and my best friend Tori Hill. We both jumped at the incredible opportunity of getting to study a

year abroad in Italy, living in an Italian family’s home.”

Peterson said she is nervous about the second semester when all courses will be taught in Italian. She expects to be fully reacquainted with Harvard-Westlake when she returns her senior year.

“I will continue to study Italian,” she said, “and although I might feel disconnected socially at first, it won’t last all year. I am not worried about readjusting academically either—former SYA students that I have spoken to usually do well in their studies.”

Conor Eliot Conor Eliot ’11 will make his second trip to China next year. His first time was on the school trip last year with Chinese instructor Xinru Zhou.

However, unlike the first trip, he will live there for an entire year.

Eliot has been taking Chinese at school since ninth grade. He decided to take it because he felt it would be useful later on in life. Eliot’s trip to China last year inspired him to think about taking a year abroad in China.

These students will spend nine months of their junior year in Italy, France, Spain and China with the School Year Abroad program. SYA selectes 60 American students to study abroad.

Q&A Geoff Bird with

Director of Financial Aid Geoff Bird and his wife, upper school dean Mike Bird, taught at the SYA school in France from 1991 to 2000. He now runs the SYA program at Harvard- Westlake.

Q A Q A Q A

Have teachers from Harvard-Westlake ever gone to teach at one of the SYA schools?

Only one to my knowledge, a math teacher who was retiring and went to China during one of the early years of the program there.

Is it only sophomores who are going abroad next year?

Yes. That’s just the way it worked out. Between a quarter and a third of the students are typically seniors. This is the first time we have sent students to four campuses, and I believe that the total number is also a record.

About how many kids go each year from Harvard-Westlake?

We have had as few as two and now as many as six. Given what an amazing experience it is, I don’t think we get as many applicants as we should. Harvard-Westlake kids tend to be involved in a great number of things here. That’s great, but it can result in passing up the chance of a lifetime. If you spend a year in Italy you might not make Chamber Singers or varsity soccer or some AP class, but what will make the biggest difference in your life? Going off for a year is also harder for day school students than for their boarding school peers. And for their families; lot of people doesn’t seem to be able to get by without a couple of phone calls a day. In a way, that’s what is the most valuable about SYA: you learn you can stand on your own two feet and handle challenges as they come without having a parent by your side 24/7.

Jordan McSpadden Spain

By Austin Block Mediterranean Art and Spanish Journalism aren’t offered in the school curriculum but Jordan McSpadden ’11 will be taking Mediterranean Art and Spanish Journalism, while spending her junior year in Spain. She will live with a family in Zaragoza. “[The trip] looked like an incredible way to spend my junior year and a life-changing opportunity,” said McSpadden.

She went on the trip to Cuerne-

By Jordan McSpadden

“What I really like about Chinese is that it is also a history-language where you learn the history of people while learning a language at the same time,” Eliot said.

“Next year I will have the really cool opportunity to live like native Chinese people. I hope to use my Chinese in the future, whether it be for business, science or diplomacy. I really think that there is a lack of understanding between Chinese and Americans, and I want to help bridge the gap,” Eliot said.

vaca, Mexico last year and stayed with a family that spoke very little Engish. She said, “I’m not really worried about the language barrier.”

McSpadden will take Mediterranean Art, AP Spanish, AP Spanish Literature, Precalculus, English, and Spanish Journalism.

All her classes will be taught in Spanish, except English and Precalculus.

“Going to Spain will be a great way to become fluent in Spanish and gain independence,” she said.

Eli Wininger France

China

By Catherine Wang

News A11

The Chronicle

Eli Wininger ’11 will spend his junior year in Rennes, France with the School Year Abroad program. This will be Wininger’s second time to France.

Wininger’s is currently in French III Honors. He will be taking AP French Language, AP French Literature, French History, French Art and Architecture, French Society in culture, Pre Calculus, and English.

All the courses will be taught in French except Precalculus and English.

“I wanted to apply to France

because I thought it would be a good experience and I would mature faster,” Wininger said.

Wininger wants to live with either a family with kids ages 12 – 18, or empty nesters. Empty nesters are parents whose kids have already grown up and moved out of the house.

“Living with empty nesters is one of my first choices because they are more experienced with kids like me. Also, I can meet their kids if they visit,” Wininger said.

This will not be Wininger’s first time staying with a host family.

He has stayed with a family before when he went to live in Israel. all pictures by don hagopian

A12

features

The Chronicle Harvard-Westlake School Volume XVII Issue 8 May 27, 2009

coping with

grief

By Faire Davidson

N

Illustration by Dana glaser/chronicle

ate* has always been partial to impressionism. Hanging in his home are two paintings done in the impressionist style of water and buildings near water and a portrait of him as a child in Seattle. And for a long time, Nate didn’t know that his mother had painted them.

On April 28, 2007, Nate’s mother passed away from lymphoma.

Less than a month ago was the two year anniversary of her death.

Although Nate felt that the first year anniversary was not difficult, the second year anniversary was harder for him. Because of what he calls “a buildup of emotions,” April 28, 2009 was a struggle to get through.

“Everything she did, she did with a passion,” Nate said. “She insisted on driving her children places herself, not leaving the work to a hired hand, because she believed that sometimes the deepest and most intimate conversations happened when we drove from place to place.”

Nate has seen a change in the family dynamic since her loss.

“She kept our family, both nuclear and extended, very close, and it’s been very hard to keep the family as tight as before without her,” Nate said.

Although people grieve in different ways, the process usually lasts from nine months to a year, school psychologist Sheila Siegel said. Some may want to return to school right away and others may need time alone or with their families before they are able to regain their usual daily structure.

“The grief comes in waves all the time,” Nate said. “Sometimes I can go days without thinking about her whatsoever and other times there is nothing else I can consider.”

The adolescent grieving process is different from the grieving process of an adult. All adolescents go through a process that involves pushing their parents away and becoming more independent from their family. However, if a parent dies when his or her child is this age, the process is interrupted, said psychotherapist Beth Becker.

Adolescents are “perhaps fighting more with their parents, it is more difficult if a parent dies and these issues have not had time to resolve themselves,” Siegel said. “There may be more guilt or regret when this happens.”

When Nate’s mother passed away, most of his friends expressed their condolences, others made food but some said nothing, unsure and uncomfortable about how to approach the situation.

“I can understand that feeling of being unsure about what to do,” he said.

Friends can be most helpful, Siegel said, by showing sympathy and telling their friend that they’re sorry and listen to whatever their friend may need to talk about, including stories about their parent.

Cards or notes can be extremely helpful because people often reread them during the grieving process.

Mary*, who lost her father this year, appreciated her friends’ constant assurance that they were there for her no matter what, she said.

“The week after he died, my friends insisted on being near me around the clock,” she said. “They would have listened if I told them I needed to be

The adolescent grieving process is different from the grieving process of an adult.

alone, but I think they all realized that even if I wouldn’t say it, I wanted them there. It brought a little bit of normalcy to such a crazy time to have them hanging around the house laughing.”

Most adolescents don’t want to talk to an adult about the way they feel, but rather to their peers Becker said. Friends should encourage those who have lost someone to share their feelings rather than telling them to be strong.

“I didn’t want to talk to my mom about it because she was already having such a hard time, but I also didn’t want to be a burden to my friends,” Mary said. “When they made it clear that they wanted to hear me talk about it and I finally opened up a little bit, it got easier to sort out what I was feeling.”

The Crisis and Support Team, or CaST, tries to support students or faculty who are grieving.

Most of the time they send a card to the bereaved person.

However their strategy changes depending on the situation. For instance if they know the student doesn’t want a lot of attention over their parents death, CaST does nothing at all.

“Personally, I often try to determine if the family has a connection with a clergy-person, and, if so, I would maybe only send cards, e-mails, etc.,” said Father J. Young. “If not, I may take a more active role or suggest that to Rabbi Feigenson.”

Clark* lost his father in 2002 to a heart attack when he was 12 years old. He started going to Our House, which is a grief support center similar to Peer Support, about five months after his father’s death.

At Our House, children who have lost a parent join discussion groups that focus solely on dealing with their loss. All groups are separated by age.

“It’s about realizing that there are actually many people out there who are going through the exact same thing as you,” Nate said.

More information about Our House can be found at www.ourhouse-grief.org.

Like Nate and Mary, Clark got comfort from friends who came to his house and talked the day after his father died.

After two years going to Our House, Clark decided to volunteer there. He now leads a group of younger children.

Nate was a member of Peer Support as a sophomore and when his mother died, found the group to be extremely helpful.

But because Peer Support groups do not focus exclusively on dealing with loss, Nate went to Our House and found he appreciated the difference.

The group was more effective at helping him focus on healing than Peer Support was, he said.

He has been attending for two years but does not feel he is ready to leave his group. In order to volunteer, you cannot still be a part of a group for your own therapy. Although Nate does not agree with this rule, he has taken an unofficial leadership role in the group he is now in by encouraging discussion.

“To anyone who has recently lost a parent, I would say that whatever you’re feeling is fine.

There is no one way that you should feel,” Clark said. “Also, just know that even though it doesn’t seem that way now, you will feel better as time goes on.” *Name changed upon request

May 27, 2009

Features A13

The Chronicle

under the sea: The sea anemone in the tropical tank underwent asexual reproduction just as the students were covering the subject in class, forming two identical anemones.

All photos by Candice Navi/chronicle

Animal farm: Irwin the bearded dragon eats his veggies. (clockwise from above) Dr. Blaise Eitner feeds the fish in the cold water tank in Munger 106. The corn snake in Munger 104 takes a drink of water.

Sea World: The warm water tank is full of tropical fish and invertebrates such as the sea anemone and the black and yellow clown fish that lives symbiotically with it.

Green iguana Optimus Prime stands guard (above). One of the corn snakes in Munger 104 slithers around (below).

Animal ‘rehab’

By Drew Lash

L

and

Allegra Tepper

urking around the dark corners, hidden in the shadows is Optimus Prime, the master of his domain. Who would ever think that Optimus would be living right in Munger 106?

But students need not fear for their personal safety; science teacher Blaise Eitner guards the beast’s chambers, and Optimus is strictly a vegetarian.

Optimus Prime is a green iguana.

Welcome to what Eitner affectionately refers to as the “Animal Rehabilitation Center,” where the science department houses that have been rescued from students unable to care for their pets. The Munger collection began about nine years ago, Eitner said, when he adopted his neighbor’s bearded dragon. Thus the Rehabilitation Center was founded.

“People don’t think of reptiles as long term commitments, not like dogs or cats,” Eitner said. “They get tired of taking care of them and we are the recipients.”

Along with Optimus Prime, reptiles residing in Munger include a bearded dragon named Irwin, after Crocodile Dundee Steve Irwin, and two nameless corn snakes.

“Snakes don’t have ears; they can’t hear, so they wouldn’t even respond if I called them names,” Department Head Larry Axelrod said.

AP Environmental Science teacher Dietrich Schuhl has a different outlook

A bearded dragon, a green iguana, two corn snakes and various fish populate the Munger Science Center.

when it comes to the namesake of his classroom pets; he says he doesn’t name his rainbow trout for fear of attachment.

With a clear fascination with the Transformers entertainment franchise and perhaps a desire for a classroom hero, Eitner’s Oceanography and Marine Biology and AP Biology courses voted to name the green iguana Optimus Prime after the protagonist of the fictional series. At three feet in length, including his tail, Optimus has grown to live up to his moniker.

Neighboring Optimus’s territory are two 125 gallon marine aquariums of tropical and Californian cold water fish. Eitner collected these intertidal cold water fish on a California beach with a UCLA permit along with an OMB class.

Director of Campus Operations James De Matte custom built the tank stands.

Animals in Munger have very intricate and individualized diets. While the rainbow trout eat typical dry fish food, others eat frozen marine delicacies, such as squid and shrimp.

Optimus sets a good example for students to eat their veggies, but Irwin’s diet also includes some meat, crickets to be exact. As for the corn snakes, Eitner simulates a near-wilderness experience, feeding the snakes live mice for them to hunt.

Occasionally this culinary ritual serves as a demonstration for Biology students.

Eitner said that he doesn’t sympathize with the mice. “There are more mice than snakes, so I don’t really feel too bad for the mice. Snakes gotta eat!”

Eitner works 10 hours per week after school, maintaining the rehabilitation center and the well-being of its inhabitants.

Some of the chance learning experiences that arise from having live creatures in the classroom make it worth it, he said.

Eitner recalls one instance in which he was teaching an OMB class about asexual reproduction in Cnidarians, such as the anemones found in the tropical tank.

When the class returned from spring break, the anemones in their classroom has performed the very process. Where there was one anemone before the break, now there were two identical Cnidarians.

“I couldn’t have planned it any better myself,” Eitner said.

Silently protecting science students from the dangers creeping around Coldwater Canyon, Optimus Prime carries on the tradition of Transformers’ Autobots by keeping watch over those who enter his domain.

e h t , h O places

The Ch

A14 Features

May 27

h s o u uld o y go!

Congratulations! Today is your day. You’ve got the summer before you. You’re off and away! Staying at home? Well, that’s OK. There’s so much to do, right here in L.A.!

2

pacific coast highway watts towers

cATHI cHOI/chronicle

1

Across from a row of modest homes soar Watts Towers, rising from the residential neighborhood as a symbol of hope that contrasts with the working class area of Watts.

The 99.5 foot high towers, consisting of 17 connected statues, were handmade by one man, Simon Rodia. The statues and towers are made of cement and chicken wire covered in shards of colorful broken bottles, pottery, seashells and tiles. Tours, usually given every half hour, allow visitors to walk through the structures; however, because of recent damage caused by a windstorm and two earthquakes, visitors cannot walk in and underneath the towers this summer. Visitors can still walk around the towers, and visit the adjacent art gallery until the repairs are over.

Nicki Resnikoff/chronicle

There is nothing better than taking a drive down Pacific Coast Highway—windows down, Beach Boys blasting, the sounds and smell of the ocean. The scenic drive epitomizes laid back summers in Malibu.

The beaches are far from deserted even on a Wednesday afternoon in May. Almost every existing parking spot is occupied by cars harboring surfboards.

Besides the impossible-to-find free street parking, there are lots next to some beaches and one at the pier, next to the Malibu Inn. There are restrooms at the public beaches and next to some parking lots.

On the sidewalk, surfers carry their boards, and families in bathing suits find a place.

— Faire Davidson

PCH is surrounded by restaurants ranging from diners and fast food drive-thrus to beachside cafes and upscale restaurants.

There are also restaurants and stores, and a very small movie theater at the Country Mart.

Also on PCH is the Getty Villa, with over 28 exhibits devoted to Mediterranean antiquities and four scenic gardens adorned with fountains, benches and bronze sculptures, the Villa strongly resembles the ancient Roman country homes that grace the pages of our art history books.

Visitors can grab lunch at the Café, which serves casual Mediterranean fare and tickets are free, but you must reserve a timed ticket online.

olvera street

science center

3

im

/chronicle

On a Thursday morning, with the temperatures already in the high ’70s, you might notice University of Southern California students sprawled on the lawns in a pre-summer picnic, a Hispanic street vendor selling tacos and burritos from his heat-emitting truck, and a homeless man lying on his back under the shade of a tree. Welcome to Exposition Park.

Situated right next to the USC campus, the park takes up several square blocks.

The California Science Center may be its most popular attraction.

Don’t be fooled by its young attendees: the exhibits are engaging. The museum takes up a whole three-story building. The space is well-lit and modern. Highlights include the Bodyworld exhibit, the Hurricane simulator and, of course, the “High-Wire Bicycle.”

The best part? Admission is free.

Unless there is a major event happening, like the L.A. Marathon last Sunday, chances are, the park is pretty empty. As you trek through, with the summer heat beating on your back, enjoy the stillness and the quiet; relax. This is summer.

The cobblestone is lined with restaurants and stores filled with bright colors and traditional Hispanic goods. Break dancers show off their moves in the Mexican style plaza. The street is buzzing with people eating taquitos and other Hispanic foods.

Olvera Street, also known as “El Pueblo Historic Monument,” is a cultural hub in downtown Los Angeles. It was Los Angeles’ first official street and there are 27 historic buildings, a restored fire station and stables. There are free docent tours available to learn about the street.

People gather at Olvera Street to enjoy the variety of shops and restaurants. Women stop to look at Mexican dresses in vivid reds and yellows. Vendors explain the importance of good luck charms like cows’ feet and the importance of sombreros for the upcoming summer while Spanish music plays.

The pedestrian street is located off North Alameda Street across the street from Union Station. It is open every day from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and is free to the public.

Ja

m

ie

K

­­— Jamie Kim

4

— Candace Ravan and Nicki Resnikoff

— Neha Nimmagadda

Neha Nimmagadda/chronicle

hronicle

A15 Features

7, 2009

griffith observatory

Cathi Choi/chronicle

The heart of the fashion district is a crowded maze, brimming with the hubbub, hustle and bustle of Downtown Los Angeles. They sell $40 prom dresses, $1 jewelry packs, $20 Converse shoes, $12 packs of six bras and $9.99 sandals (shown below). Vendors stand in the doorways, yelling their cheap prices and “Barato!” to get your attention. Some of them literally meow.

In one five by 10 foot store, without any visible name, a man sells Forever 21 clothing for a cheaper deal than retail prices.

He has a friend who manufactures the clothing, he says. There’s no interior light source, and the back half of the store is pitch black. A radio propped onto a cardboard box on the ground plays soft folksy Korean music. Don’t ask too many questions about his friend in manufacturing though. He’ll kick you out.

Beyond wholesale fashion though, you’ll find basically everything in the Fashion District. For $15, you can buy a rabbit or a turtle to take home at the corner of Maple Street and 11th Ave. Bootleg DVDs are everywhere but be careful when you buy them because the prices change by the minute.

One vendor on the corner of Wall Street and 7th was selling “Sex and the City for $2! Very cheap” but a few minutes later changed his sales tactic: “Sex and the City for $3!” And $1 matters a lot here in the fashion district. With it, you could buy five pairs of earrings (three gold hoops of varying sizes and two small studs).The maze of the fashion district is endless, its eccentric range of products, dizzying and its cheap prices, gratifying.

Candice Navi/chronicle

5 o y ok

­— Cathi Choi

6

fashion district

t e l t t li

Little Tokyo is a bustling crossroads of cultures on the outskirts of Downtown Los Angeles. It’s easy to get caught up in the mysterious aromas and vibrant colors that characterize the walk through the four large city blocks worth of authentic Japanese cuisine and culture. After parking at 1st Street and Alameda and paying a flat fee of $6, Little Tokyo is across the street.

The walkways are alive with the sights, sounds and smells of both traditional and modern Japan.

Shops sell ethnic trinkets, like decorative Japanese umbrellas, to pop culture icons, such as Hello Kitty. A mini-mall nestled behind the center has shops such as a Japanese video store and a store that sells Japanese anime action figures.

As the afternoon rolls on, an army of sushi chefs works swiftly to assemble rolls for the large crowd of customers that has amassed inside a traditional sushi restaurant. The line to get a seat at the Shabu-Shabu House, which serves thinly sliced meat and vegetables cooked in boiling water, goes out the restaurant’s door and hugs the side of the building. Families, friends and couples lean against the refrigerated display cases of a Japanese pastry shop, pointing to the mochi ice cream flavor of their choice.

— Candice Navi and Michelle Nosratian

bergamot station

9

Dana glaser/chronicle

Cathi Choi/chronicle

It’s easy to get lost driving to Bergamot Station galleries. Or to never find them. The galleries, a shanty collection of corrugated iron buildings and a parking lot, are tucked in an alley behind Olympic and Cloverfield in Santa Monica. For a quick shot of culture, though, it’s well worth the drive to poke around the eclectic collections of photography, contemporary installations (which can mean anything from video to painting to sculpture or a mish mash of all of the above) and quaint doodles by big names.

Inside the gallery, Blue McRight’s exhibit, entitled, “No one you know,” will be on display through June 27. Surrounding a life-sized replica of an RV (shown at left), the white walls are covered in tiny surreal scenes executed on torn notebook pages.

The back room is devoted to a sculpture compilation

7

The time to explore the Griffith Observatory in Los Feliz is at night. You drive up a twisting Vermont Ave to the Observatory and catch glimpses of the shimmering cityscape of Los Angeles. Before you know it, the magnificently lit Observatory stands before you.

The celestial ceiling of faint starlight continues into the interior of the Observatory where there are thousands of soft lights reflecting off of every marble surface. Toddlers are sliding across the floors, screeching with delight. One runs from the interactive seismograph and points to the rotating earth modelshouts excitedly, “There’s something more bigger than that, Jeremy!”

You don’t even notice that you’ve never left the building as you step outside onto the expansive balcony. All of Los Angeles is a fiery glow. And as you stroll away from the Observatory, into the darkness of the parking lot, the overwhelming sense of wonder lingers.

Admission is free.

cinespia

8

­— Cathi Choi

Last Saturday, a thousand or so cinema lovers clutching picnic baskets, blankets, and folded armchairs trickled into Hollywood Forever Cemetery, an oasis in the heart of an industrial portion of Santa Monica Boulevard. The crowd of 30 and 40-something parents (without their kids), 20-something hipsters and an assortment of teenagers spread out on a grass field a few dozen yards away from the graves of Douglas Fairbanks and Cecil B. Demille (a fair distance, to the relief of the easily spooked).

The eclectic group poured their (mostly alcoholic) beverages into plastic cups, sliced cheese, spread tapenade onto crackers and listened to Motown classics spun by DJ Carlos Niño as they waited for the latest selection of the Cinespia screening series to be projected onto a wall of Rudolph Valentino’s massive marble mausoleum at the far end of the lawn. “To Catch a Thief,” Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 caper starred Cary Grant and Grace Kelly as a reformed jewel thief and his love interest, respectively.

Every Saturday and on the occasional Sunday all summer long, a film, usually a midcentury classic or cult favorite, is screened in the cemetery as the sun goes down. If the entire affair sounds pretentious, it is. But that doesn’t mean it’s not fun (and way cheaper than a seat at the Arclight: parking is $5 inside the cemetery gates and free on Santa Monica, and the “donation” requested at the end of the long, winding line to enter is $10). It’s tough to catch every plot detail and every line of dialogue in an open-air theater despite the expert sound system, but who cares when you’re gazing at the stars (both on the screen and in the sky…and in their graves)? ­— Derek Schlom and Lucy Jackson of hanging birds entwined by black thread.

You can get star struck in front of names like Warhol, Matisse and Hockney drawings and prints for sale in the Santa Monica Auction. The gallery is more like a more sophisticated consignment store, plastered from top to bottom with artwork of every kind – woven rugs, antique brochures, prints, etchings, watercolors and oils that are just cheap enough to pretend you could buy them.

The tiny Bergamot Café, a gallery in its own right, makes a nice finish. The patio, populated by bougainvillea, metal tables and yellow chairs, looks like it was made for a sunny Thursday afternoon like this one, which really can be said about all of Bergamot station.

— Dana Glaser

A16 Features

The Chronicle

May 27, 2009

Love at a distance Dating someone who is at college or at another school has its ups and downs.

faire davidson/chronicle

faire davidson/chronicle

photo courtesy of bryce tobias

Photo Courtesy of Nora Rothman

i’ve got you babe: Genevieve Dash ’09 and Peter Bloomberg, a Crossroads junior, cuddle on a bench in Palisades Park (bottom left), Bryce Tobias ’10 and Cami Winding, a Marymount junior, joke around (middle) and Nora Rothman ’09 and Sam Usher ’08 kiss (bottom right).

By Faire Davidson

W

and

Candice Navi

hen Nora Rothman ’09 joined Chamber Singers as a sophomore, Sam Usher ’08 intended to make their platonic friendship something more.

“We were friendly first, although Sam always had romantic intentions,” Rothman said.

“I was not big on relationships—my record long was five days—so when he asked me out in November, I was tentative.”

Usher now attends Brown University. Being so far apart has allowed each of them to grow as separate people, but at the same time it has altered their relationship to some degree.

“It is hard to watch someone you’re so close to grow and change at a distance. You don’t really get to feel involved in their life,” Rothman said.

The change in their relationship has been a tough lesson for Rothman to accept, but has also allowed her to be an “independent adult who is in a relationship.”

“It is easy to let your life pass you by while you are waiting for him to come home. You have to take a step back and let your relationship change, even though it is scary,” Rothman said.

Rothman and Usher make up for the distance by video chatting regularly, and are physically together “at best once a month,” Rothman said. Since they are so far away from each other, the success of Rothman and Usher’s relationship can be credited to trust and communication.

“We had to trust each other entirely,” Rothman said. “There could be no doubts about faithfulness or honesty. We also had to make sure we were tuned in to each other’s moods and mindsets in order to feel connected over such a distance.” Rothman and Usher have

now been dating for two and a half years.

Like Rothman, Genevieve Dash ’09 wasn’t looking for a long term relationship when she went on a date with Peter Bloomberg, a current junior at the Crossroads School.

Dash had just ended a six month relationship and, at first, thought her relationship with Bloomberg was a rebound. They have now been dating for almost three years.

Both being “incredibly awkward” and not having many mutual friends, at first there wasn’t a lot to talk about, Dash said. They ended up talking about their respective schools on the first few dates.

“While we do love spending time with each other, we both enjoy having our own friends and independent existences,” Dash said.

Dash credits part of her relationships success on the fact that neither she nor Bloomberg drink or do drugs.

“I think that has really kept the trust intact; no inebriated ‘bad choices,’” Dash said.

Next fall, Rothman will be reunited with Usher because they will both be attending Brown University, though his attendance did not influence her decision.

Rothman is thankful that their relationship can return to a more normal state in the upcoming school year.

“Sam and I are both so much stronger than we were in August,” Rothman said. “Once we are together again, our relationship will be stronger, too.”

The hardest part about maintaining their close relationship from a distance was not the loss of her boyfriend, but mostly Rothman’s closest friend.

“Sam is my best friend,” Rothman said.

“When he went away, I wasn’t only losing my boyfriend, I was losing my best friend.”

Bryce Tobias ’10 has been dating Cami Winding, a junior who attends Marymount, for

the past two years. The story of how they met is certainly a complicated one, but one which ended well for both of them.

Tobias met Winding through Caity Croft ’10 and Meg Norton ’10 since they attended St. Matthew’s elementary school together.

Tobias did not ask Winding for her number the first time they met and ended up asking Croft for her number instead.

They met again after a week of texting each other by hanging out with their common friends, Croft, James McNamara ’10 and Norton.

“When they ran across San Vicente to Blockbuster, we just kept walking down the street and I just asked her if she wanted to be my girlfriend,” Tobias said.

The negative and positive parts of going to separate schools are not very different for Tobias, but he appreciates the amount of distance it allows them to have in their relationship.

“The pros of having an out of school girlfriend is that you do not get sick of seeing each other everyday and when we do see each other it is really great and special,” Tobias said. “The con is that you do not get to see each other every day.”

Since they do not see each other at school, they talk on the phone or video chat every night. They also text one another often and are together all weekend, usually spending the whole day together, Tobias said.

Dash and Bloomberg are also unable to see each other during the week because of school work but see each other almost every day of the weekends.

“It took longer for us to be totally, 100 percent comfortable with each other,” Dash said.

“Of course not seeing each other every day inhibited getting to know each other quickly, but it was not detrimental to our relationship in the least.”

May 27, 2009

Features A17

>>

The Chronicle

Every year, Larry Weber and Adam Howard give a poster to each other on their birthdays of an athlete with the same jersey number as their age.

>>

For English teacher Heath Moon’s birthday last Friday, his “Secret Santa,” English teacher Ariana Kelly, brought a chocolate cake.

>>

Jocelyn Medawar, the “best accessorized” of the department, keeps a porcelain figure of Tinkerbell on her desk.

>>

Among the statues on Jocelyn Medawar’s desk are two copies from the 12th century Lewis chess set. alexia boyarsky/chronicle

just like heaven: Heath Moon works at his desk before the English department’s wall sized window, the department’s favorite feature of the office. When Moon was given his desk, he thought he had “died and gone to heaven.’”

Through the looking glass

By Alexia Boyarsky When asked to describe their department in five words, the English teachers have some trouble.

“It’s amusing that of all people, we can’t come up with five words,” English teacher Jocelyn MedawarTurner jokes.

Medawar described the English department as “slightly loopy” and “dysfunctional.”

“But all good families are,” she adds.

After that Medawar hit a case of writers’ block, and “phoned a friend” to help her come up with three more words. Two desks over, fellow teacher Larry Weber, who has been eavesdropping, feigns picking up his phone and answering an imaginary caller.

“I think we’re like a jazz ensemble,” says Weber.

“We plan a tune but each person plays their own instrument and improvises on it.” From across the room, Adam Howard laughs and comes over to join the conversation.

“I guess we’re kindly unpredictable,” Howard says.

“We do a secret Santa thing for people’s birthdays, where at the beginning of the year we raffle names and then one person is in charge of organizing that person’s birthday,” he explains. “It’s stuff like that, we do nice things and we all like cake.”

“Dr. [Heath] Moon is the one that likes cake,” Medawar says.

“Don’t listen to them, they all like cake,” Moon comments from his desk.

“In any case, [Moon] makes sure we cut the it by nine-o-clock, or else he gets upset,” Medawar said.

“Yes, but it’s not just that he gets a bit upset,” Weber comments. “With him, it’s a moral outrage.”

This playful atmosphere penetrates throughout the English department, despite its reputation for being prone to utter silence.

“There are times when this department is more serious than others,” says Medawar. “There is a lot of planning, grading and reading that goes on, but there’s something nice about sharing the silence.”

“We also have occasional outbursts of madness,”

Some of the English teachers’ favorite things include birthday cake, witty gifts, and the scenic view provided by a giant window in their office.

English teacher Lisa Rado adds. “We can go from discussing imagery in a Yates poem to making a dirty joke to having a heated political discussion or talking about sports.”

With many avid sports fans in the room, the discussion often turns to sports.

“Sports is the glue that keeps people together,” newcomer Eric Olson says. “It’s something we can all talk about.”

Weber and Howard have even combined their sports with being “kindly unpredictable.” For each of their birthdays they surprise each other with a photograph of an athlete who wears the jersey number of their age. This year, Weber received a photo of Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals who wears the number 45. Howard, described as “obsessed” by his colleagues, follows baseball, football and hockey.

“We indulge him sometimes,” Medawar says.

“And by indulge, I mean we nod at him and walk away,” Weber clarifies.

With a desk plastered by hockey player’s photographs, Howard displays his passions visibly.

“I’m all about sports, England and theater,” Howard says. “You can tell just by looking at my desk.”

This type of memorabilia surrounds the desks of all of the teachers. Although all of them contain mostly neat stacks of books and graded papers, individual mementos set each desk apart and contain gifts from students, from children, from colleagues, past and present, and individual favorites.

“My desk is just an extension of my home,” Medawar said, pointing to a desk overflowing with small statues, surrounded by Shakespeare magnets and draped with posters.

“She’s the best accessorized of us all,” Moon jokes about Medawar’s desk.

Among her favorites is a stuffed animal bookworm from the school bookstore, a Tinkerbell figurine which Medawar loves because “Tink always wanted to kill Wendy,” and models of figures from the Lewis chess set, a twelfth century chess set from Norway.

Medawar also has a fridge tucked under her desk.

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“Yes, I’m the keeper of the fridge,” she says. “I brought it in for myself, but the whole department can use it. Occasionally, I have to throw old food out, but the system works pretty well.”

Many teachers also have props they use in class, most notably, a witches cauldron kept under Moon’s desk, used to demonstrate the witches chant from Macbeth, and the iron crown kept on Jennifer Raphael’s desk, used to crown Lady Macbeth. Moon’s desk also contains a little “scene” he set up. Models of a Cycladic harpist and a Victorian harpist face a statue of the Maltese Falcon.

“These ladies are wooing him, but the Falcon is completely impervious to them,” Moon explains.

Although all of the teachers often work individually at their desks, one aspect of the office ties them all together. The window.

“I love the window,” Moon said. “When I came here and I was given this desk, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.”

The window spans across the entire office, and can be seen from every desk. Most of the teachers say that they spend a lot of time watching the window.

“Yeah, about once a month a bird will smack into the glass,” Howard says. “I think it’s funny.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, because all literature is about death anyway,” Weber jokes back to Howard.

“It’s very secluded,” Geraldine Harding says about why the window is so fascinating. “Almost no students walk by, and we watch the birds and the butterflies. We’re very easily amused.”

This type of quiet laughter seems to penetrate the department’s office. When there are students in the room, conversation abounds, but sometimes the room lulls into silence.

“It’s very peaceful, working in silence,” Medawar says. “You know you’re surrounded by brilliant people who are all doing the same things you are.”

“We’re very serious about what we do, and we work very hard to do our best,” Medawar says. “But even though learning is a serious thing, we know that learning should be seriously fun.”

A18 Features

May 27, 2009

The Chronicle

Carlthorp School photo Curtis School photo

Carlthorp: Jack Mankiewicz ’09 and Jono Wagmeister ’09

Curtis: Justin Levine ’09, Gavin Ross ’09 and Hunter Spinks ’09

Center for Early Education Photo

Mirman School photo

Mirman: Nisha Shah ’09, Alanna Bram ’09, Sara Fleischman ’09 and Lauren Gold ’09

Long Time no see: Twenty Harvard-Westlake students out of 60 Curtis School graduates attended the elementary school’s reunion.

Center for Early Education Photo

Cee: Alex Rivkin ’09, Trini Rios ’09 and Jenna Berger ’09

Reunited and it feels so good

I

In the final days of high school, students return to their elementary schools for reunions to catch up on old memories and discuss the road that lies ahead. Mirman School, the Center for Early Education, Curtis, Carlthorp and the Lawrence School hosted reunions.

By Marni Barta, Julie Barzilay and Derek Schlom

pull up 30 minutes late into the “carpool circle” where I was picked up for four years as a student at Curtis School, racing over after my final AP exam. As I run into Ahmanson Auditorium, I peer around at the throngs of children running wild across the quad— were we really that small six years ago? Almost instantly parents at the alum table pull me over, requesting my college and contact information so Curtis can stay in touch.

Although I’ve been a Curtis “alum” for six years, it feels like it only becomes official once you graduate from high school. As I turn around, I’m greeted by my fourth grade teacher and her first child. We reminisce about Mad Minutes and field trips.

Within the next 10 minutes I’ve hugged and greeted 25 old classmates. Only a few have changed so much that I can barely detect a resemblance to their sixth grade selves. Over a third of the attendees’s faces are quite familiar because about 20 of the 60 Curtis students in the class of 2003 matriculated to Harvard-Westlake with me. I snap a picture of Harry Curtis School Photo Gallway ’09 and Jamie Shaum Julie Barzilay ’09 ’09. Wait….I say. I could have taken that yesterday….at school.

I move on to the crowd of Marlborough girls mingling with Brentwood Eagles. Just as we’re beginning to chat, the sixth grade video starts to roll. I snap a picture of our grade, six years later, laughing as our 12-year-old selves declare our favorite music, movie and memories onscreen. It’s poignant…and very, very funny. The teachers in the video wished us luck “next year,” – at secondary school. As we file outside for a class picture, those wishes resonate as I think about how, come fall, our grade will no longer be rooted in LA but spread out across the U.S. By the end of the reunion, as we munch on Curtis-crest cupcakes, it seems like many have resumed conversation with the same friends they used to hang out with in elementary school. Some goodbyes are sweet, some awkward. It’s unclear when we’ll see each other again...but at least we can always pop in the sixth grade video and feel humiliated whenever we get nostalgic for our Curtis years.

The Center Reunion I remember hugging my friends in tears after the graduation play at the Center for Early Education six years ago. Ironically, with the exception of one or two of my best friends, each of us would remain together for the next six years at Harvard-Westlake.

In a class of 54 students, 21 of us relocated from North Alfred St. to North Faring Rd. On May 17 I hosted the Center reunion at my

house, and my backyard was flooded with faces from my past.

When the doorbell rang indicating the arrival of the first guest, I was excited to see which of my former classmates it would be.

After anxiously rushing to the door, I discovered that it was Justin Shafa ’09, a current classmate at Harvard - Westlake.

The doorbell rang center for Early Education Photo again.

“Okay,” I thought, “this Marni Barta ’09 time it’s going to be someone I haven’t seen since my Bat Mitzvah.” It was Alex Sones ’09. He was in my prom limo the night before. Sones was followed by Billy Wolf ’09 and Cody Schott ’09. Not only were they both also in my limo the night before, but Schott will be joining me at college next year as well.

I had prepared myself to reunite with people from my past, but for the first half-hour I was surrounded by people that were very much a part of my day-today life.

Around 3:30 p.m., the rest of the Centerpedes began to show, many of whom I had lost contact with after about a year out of the Center. Though everyone had matured over the past six years, for the most part, we all recognized each other’s faces instantly.

It was the parents that had the most difficulty identifying us. Struggling to figure out whether Olivia Washington was an adult or a Center alum, parents sought the help of Olivia Kestin ’09. Parents easily recognized Kestin and were relieved to find someone whose appearance they believed had not really changed.

Though I spent most of the reunion surrounded by my current classmates, it was still a nostalgic and sentimental afternoon. We spent the day reflecting over funny stories from the Center, discussing our current lives at various high schools, and finding out where everybody would be going next year. We were all excited to hear that Myles Bullock, a current senior at Westchester High School, will be playing Division I football next year at Fresno State. Natalie Cohen and Trini Rios ’09 will be going to school together again at USC after a six-year gap and will be able to see Bullock’s team face-off with their alma matter at the first game of his season.

In four years, Alex Rivkin ’09 and I as well as Jenna Berger ’09 and Avery Rosin ’09 will have attended the same schools as each other for 20 years, setting the record for our class of time together.

As the reunion came to an end, we said goodbye to the friends that were influential in shaping us into the people we are today, promising to reunite as

a group in four years.

Mirman School Reunion My Mirman School reunion on May 19 wasn’t really a reunion. Sure, I caught up with some long-lost friends, but I would consider the event more of a congregation of Harvard-Westlake students on Mirman’s picturesque Mulholland Drive campus than a “reunion” of any kind: 20 current H-W seniors attended Mirman, and practically all of them were in attendance at the event, held in McDaniel Library.

From the start, I felt uncomfortable—not because of anything on the part of those who had organized the event, but it was all just so…awkward. Everything felt off. For one, the invitation indicated a start time of 4:30 p.m. and an end time of 6:30. Should my mother plan on me being home for dinner? Would food be served? My nerves got worse once I arrived.

A banner hanging above the main entrance gate read something to the effect of “Welcome Home.”

I found this sentiment a bit presumptuous—I consider my house home, not the elementary school I had barely visited in the prior six years.

Once I got a glimpse of my former classmates, I was practically apoplectic: they were wearing tshirts and flip-flops, while I was overdressed, and overheated, in a cashmere sweater and khaki pants.

Then the half-hugs and small talk started, and the flop sweat came. One of my former teachers asked me where I was going to college, and indicated that she had never heard of the school. Burn.

After the initial contacts, I huddled in a corner for much of the event with Eric Arzoian ’09, Rebecca Mirman school Photo Contreras ’09, Sara FleisDerek Schlom ’09 chman ’09, all of whom attend Harvard-Westlake.

We made jokes about how good it was to see each other again, and asked how each other were…since earlier in the day. And there was nothing, really, to do.

No activities or mixers had been planned, no agenda had been set. We basically stood around and talked in clumps…and I realized that this is what I loved about Mirman.

Social interaction isn’t really my forte, and I developed those non-skills in elementary school, on that very campus.

It’s the awkward moments that I remember and cherish the most. At Mirman we were encouraged to be ourselves- we weren’t forced to blend together.

At the reunion, I stood around and talked to people I see every day, and that was okay. I was neurotic and I freaked out about every detail of this reunion, but that’s who I am and, at Mirman, that’s enough.

May 27, 2009

Features A19

The Chronicle

F I N I S H

High Stakes

ie Kim s by jam

Graphic

Chapter 7: The Chronicle tracked four seniors through the college application process. Finally, they reveal their identities, reflect and offer advice.

By Derek Schlom Raymond*:

KIMO THORPE Trinity U. In hindsight, would you change anything about the college process? What would you have done differently?

I’m happy with my choice of colleges and, as far as the whole process, I’m content. I wish I tried harder junior year, but I wanted to play football so this was the best situation for me. I’m excited to play football at a competitive level.

What was the best piece of advice you received about the college process?

All advice was good advice, but the best was that if you go out of your way to stand out it’s usually helpful.

What advice do you have for future college applicants?

I was accepted to every school I interviewed for and most of them called me and told me how great it was to interview me. I think that put me leaps and bounds higher than anything else would have, so get a chance to interview.

Holly*:

Denise*:

ELLIE BENSINGER Northwestern

MARINA ROMANO USC

In hindsight, would you change anything about the college process? What would you have done differently?

I would have worked on my applications over the summer some more. It would have been nice not to have to cram during school to get those done.

In hindsight, would you change anything about the college process? What would you have done differently? I would have liked to have been more sure of myself. It took me a really long time to go for what I wanted to go for and I should have just gone for it from the beginning. I had to get over the my mentality of not trying rather than failing.

What was the best piece of advice you received about the college process?

The best piece of advice was to visit schools. The feel of a school is so important.

What advice do you have for future college applicants?

If you find somewhere you love early on, apply early. If you get in, life is so much easier for the rest of the year.

Any last words? All in all, are you happy about where you ended up?

I am excited and scared, but ready to take on this new chapter in my life.

MAX ELIOT Harvard In hindsight, would you change anything about the college process? What would you have done differently?

I wouldn’t change anything about the process at HW, per se, because my dean did an amazing job, but I wish I had more information about recruiting and how to go about getting recruited.

What was the best piece of advice you received about the college process?

I was really freaking out one day, and my little sister said, “Reach for the moon and you’ll land on a star.”

It’s really corny, but it just meant that I would be happy wherever I ended up. It really helped.

What was the worst piece of advice you received about the college process?

This pertains more to my sport, but my coaches would tell us not to try out for national Olympic development teams. Being on the national team really helped put me on the map with coaches and put my name out there for recruiting.

What advice do you have for future college applicants?

The stress is ridiculous, but just know that it’s all worth it in the end. I don’t regret the long nights working on apps because it was so worth it.

What advice do you have to future college applicants?

Contact coaches early and often, send a letter to a college so they start a file for you, and visit so that coaches know you are interested.

Unexpected twists cause jazz concert improvisations

Scene Monkeys bring last laughs to Rugby

By Ashley Halkett The Scene Monkeys made audiences laugh for the last time on Friday, May 16, giving their two final shows of the year in Rugby Theater.

“With the last show, I’ve never felt more accomplished,” Lauren Bailey ’09 said. “It was tearful.”

As an improvisational comedy troupe, the Monkeys played games like Storybook, where performers invented scenes based on lines from a fake fairy tale made up on the spot by a reader, and Four Way Dubbing, where different people were voices for each other.

One of the biggest laughs came when the Monkeys played Teen Movie in their second show, in which Nick Merrill ’09, playing a dorky gimp who wanted his first kiss, pursued Serena Berman ’09, the sidekick of popular girl Bailey. The game ended with the quasi-kiss between Merrill and Berman, who both leaned in with open mouths and tongues hanging out.

For the seniors, their final shows were an amazing culmination of all their work at the Upper School, Bailey said.

“Our last show was everything, handled with care,” Nick Lieberman ’11 said.

Brian*:

By Julie Barzilay Jazz Ensemble, Studio Jazz Band and Jazz Band classes filled Rugby Auditorium with rhythm and blues on April 30 in a jazz concert that was the culmination of a full semester of rehearsal and music-making.

“We played all kinds of music: Duke Ellington, local LA composers, Cole Porter,” performing arts teacher Shawn Costantino said. “But the focus of the show was definitely on large ensemble jazz, aka ‘big bands.’”

One highlight for Gaby Leslie ’10 was an instance of showmanship by drummer Charlie Mischer ’10.

Mischer was in the middle of a song when one of his drum sticks broke, and he had to switch over to a new set without dropping the beat.

Another unexpected twist was due to Jack Healy’s ’10 multiple

Allegra Tepper/chronicle

monkeying around: Nick Lieberman ’09 and Jon Haile ’09 did an interpretive dance.

news flash

commitments on the night of the show, and resulted in him performing in a suit jacket tugged on over his sports jersey.

He started the night spiking and setting in a 6 p.m. volleyball game against Crespi, then after two games raced across Chalmers Patio in his jersey to play a set of three jazz songs in the concert.

After his set was over, he pulled off his jacket and ran back to the gym, but by then the Wolverines had lost to Crespi.

The concert concluded with a rendition of “It’s All Right With Me,” a very “up-tempo” song that Leslie said was exciting in that there was the constant “nervousness that something would go wrong and we would train-wreck.”

“But at the concert we ended up nailing it, and that just gives you this great adrenaline rush,” she said.

Selected Jazz combos perform at Vitello’s Saturday night • Choirs and orchestras perform last concert: CHRONICLE.HW.COM

A20 Opinion

May 27, 2009

The Chronicle

The Chronicle

Harvard-Westlake School •Volume X VIII • Issue 8 • May 27, 2009

3700 Coldwater Canyon, North Hollywood, CA 91604 Editors in Chief: Lucy Jackson, Andrew Lee Managing Editors: Alexia Boyarsky, A.J. Calabrese Executive Editors: Julie Barzilay, Derek Schlom Presentations Editors: Cathi Choi, Dana Glaser Business Manager: Carly Mandel Ads Manager: Neha Nimmagadda Assistant: David Burton Chief Copy Editor: Ellina Chulpaeff Online Assistant Editor: Mac Taylor News Managing Editors: Shayna Freisleben, Carly Radist Section Heads: Hana Al-Henaid, Sammy Roth Production Head: Nicki Resnikoff Online Editors: Michelle Nosratian Copy Editor: Spencer Gisser Assistants: Olivia Kwitny, Matthew Lee, Alice Phillips, Daniel Rothberg, Sade Tavanganian, Catherine Wang Features Managing Editors: Marni Barta, Faire Davidson Section Heads: Drew Lash, Lauren Seo Production Editors: Jamie Kim, Candice Navi Assistants: Ingrid Chang, Jordan Freisleben, Jordan McSpadden, Kelly Ohriner, Hannah Rosenberg Opinion Managing Editors: Annie Belfield, Ashley Halkett Section Heads: Anna Etra, Erin Moy Production Editor: Ester Khachatryan Assistant: Emily Khaykin Sports Managing Editors: Ben Goldstein, Cody Schott Section Heads: Sam Adams, Jack Davis Production Editors: Alex Edel, Jonah Rosenbaum Junior Varsity Editor: Cary Volpert Copy Editor: Jack Schwada Online Editors: Seth Goldman, Sean Kyle Assistants: Austin Block, Alec Caso, Alex Leichenger, Tiana Woolridge Supplement Managing Editors: Emily Friedman, Candace Ravan Supplement Section Heads: Allegra Tepper, Michelle Yousefzadeh Assistants: Mary Rose Fissinger, Jean Park, Emily Wallach Adviser: Kathleen Neumeyer The Chronicle is the student newspaper of Harvard-Westlake School. It is published eight times per year. Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the senior members of the Editorial Board. Advertising questions may be directed to Business Manager Carly Mandel at (818) 481-2087. Publication of an advertisement does not imply endorsement of the product or service by the newspaper or the school.

andrew lee/chronicle

“Wait, where is Ted Slavin Field?”

Bridging the Campus Gap

H

arvard-Westlake’s unique division of middle and high school into two vaguely connected three-year chunks is accompanied by many advantages, but sometimes it feels like students on the opposite campus might as well attend an entirely different school.

Steps could easily be taken to bridge the gap between the two campuses so as to retain their individual personalities while building helpful connections. The simplest step that comes to mind is to create an event to allow upper school faculty and students the chance to explore the modernized middle school campus. How many Coldwater students can say they have yet experienced the 800seat Bing Auditorium or set foot in the spacious middle school cafeteria? It’s not as if we feel unwelcome, but such an event would be valuable in uniting the two campuses and boost school spirit in its own way. The House System is another thread that could unite the two campuses. Maybe when all three classes currently on the middle school campus reach the Upper School, they could carry the House System up with them.

Freshmen athletes often find themselves shuttled to the Upper School to practice, and thus develop a hazy awareness of certain key elements of the upper school campus – the field, the cafeteria, the sports locker room. However, performing artists and students with other interests are rarely required or encouraged to visit the Coldwater Campus.

Also, it’s not unreasonable to say that the recent middle school production of “Romeo and Juliet” went completely unnoticed by many upper school students, and vice versa for upper school performances. Simple acts like announcing middle school concerts and plays at upper school assemblies and doing a more efficient job of distributing the

Chronicle and the Spectrum at the opposite campus would weave meaningful connections.

Maybe once a year there could be a “swap day,” where students switch campuses and get to experience the way the other half lives. Students could go to sample classes with past or future teachers and enjoy the full range of resources Harvard-Westlake offers. Or maybe there could be a version of the “Activities Fair” for middle schoolers to sample upper school extracurriculars. It would even be helpful if a student could shadow an older student at some point during the second semester.

The two campuses have distinct personalities and that is a good thing—we are not asking for the two ways of life to blend into one continuous experience.

We like that we can reflect on the middle school and imagine relaxing on the Fire Road or stressing in Tech & Skills but flash back to the upper school with entirely different memories of staying up all night or decorating a friend’s parking space. We would just like it if seventh grade students could feel somewhat connected to their senior counterparts, whom they are, at present, likely to never lay eyes on.

The tour of the Upper School on seventh grade retreat should not be middle school student’s only glimpse of upper school life until they are sophomores. The school can help build a bridge between the two campuses to make sure all students can take full advantage of the talented students and teachers who attend the same school but who basically exist in a different world.

Experiment with the curriculum

I

t is indisputable that Harvard-Westlake has established itself as a highlyregarded high school, and now that we have earned credibility in the academic world, notably among college admissions officers, it is time to broaden our intellectual horizons by taking academic risks.

The school’s reputation is validated by the students’ excellent performance on standardized tests. In 2008, 584 students took 1,731 AP examinations, scoring 5s on 45 percent of the tests and 3s or higher on 93 percent of the tests. As a toptier school, we are free from the constraints faced by schools attempting to improve in rank. The school could potentially drop APs from the curriculum and still expect to maintain prestige. Let’s remind ourselves that our school emblem states, “They can because they think they can.” Our motto encourages us to take greater risks, so let this be reflected by our curriculum.

If we were to replace APs with honors courses, the curriculum would become more flexible and allow for more interactive methods of learning. Even if wekeep the AP system we could institute creative ways of learning for instance increasing the number of field trips. Art History teachers could lead trips to museums and foreign language classes could interact with other cultures.

Without pressure to receive excellent grades, seniors are in the prime condition to explore academically, and the school should capitalize on this.

While we appreciate the stress-free environment that follows APs, do we really want to end with laziness? In seventh grade we came to school each

day excited to learn. Let’s tap into the spirit that many of us once had and end high school on a high note. A senior thesis in which seniors extensively research an area of interest would provide seniors with the opportunity to enrich themselves intellectually in an enjoyable manner. The school could organize internships throughout the city, and through these internships, seniors would gather material for a final thesis. Milken Community High School and Loyola High School have proven that the innovative curriculum changes we seek are feasible.

The Wise Individualized Senior Experience is a nonprofit organization that has a chapter at Milken as well as over eighty other high schools. It provides second semester seniors with the opportunity to explore areas of interest through hands-on research accompanied by an internship. At Loyola, seniors are required to participate in a three-week project in which they perform 85 hours of community service rather than attend classes.

The senior seminars held at our school are a step in the right direction. It is our hope that the school will expand programs like this and that they will eventually be incorporated into the curriculum of each grade. Students should be able to look to Harvard–Westlake to facilitate such academic exploration.

May 27, 2009

Opinion A21

The Chronicle

reader feedback

In this issue, the Chronicle staff editorialized about two school issues.

Here’s what 335 upper school students had to say:

Campus Differences

145 86

How do you feel about the separation between the middle and upper school experiences?

There is a big separation between the two campuses and it is a good thing.

The integration does not really matter that much.

20

84

The two campuses are sufficiently integrated.

There is a gap between campuses and the school should help unite them.

Academic Activities

120 89 26

Which optional interactive learning opportunity would you most likely take advantage of?

I would take advantage of all of these options.

Internships with a research thesis.

Academic options outside of the AP curriculum.

75

not participate 25 Iinwould any of these.

Sean Kesluk ’09

Charlotte Shih ’10

Hilary King ’11

Caitlin Cunningham ‘09

Online comment

Online comment

Online comment

Online comment

Online comment

I don’t think there’s much that needs to be done...the sense of community functions independently at each campus, yet we can still be considered a single community.

“Personally, the biggest issue was the gap between the English Departments on the two campuses. Going into 10th grade English last year, I didn’t feel prepared at all.”

“In the Middle School, you’re babied more, whereas at the Upper School people are much more mature and the teachers prepare you more.”

“I wish the school would follow Exeter’s example by getting rid of the AP system.

Or, the school should at least give students the option to take a class without it being an AP. “

“The school should be looking to integrate our H-W experience with the outside world — what we call ‘school community’ is often just isolation and sheltered living.”

Jacob Gindi ‘10

Class field trips or community service projects.

Robby Goldman ’11 Online comment

145 84 86 26 89 120 Columns Candice Navi

Don’t fight junioritis

T

here is an infectious disease infiltrating the minds and spirits of Harvard-Westlake’s class of 2010.

The symptoms are pretty clear: a nonexistent work ethic, a “whatever” attitude, increasingly creative forms of procrastination and an inability to think properly. Yes, I’ve been infected with Junioritis, or early onset Senioritis, and it is making its way through the rest of the junior class.

I remember when my naïve sophomore self was convinced that I could never catch such a silly ailment. I had the work ethic of a determined and eager student and I was starting to take classes I really liked. Junior year would be a cinch. Turns out my id is a little stronger than I had anticipated.

Every so often I would take a break here, watch one television show there and sneak in a few extra minutes on Facebook and AIM. Before I knew it, I was avoiding my homework at all costs. I would rather run errands for my parents or paint my nails — my personal record is repainting my nails 3 times in one week. A friend of mine realized that, at 11:14 p.m., her backpack was still in her car.

Performing simple math equations that would normally take me a second or two to complete can now take up to about a minute (9-18+9=…0).

Before AP’s, my case of Junioritis had been fairly mild — I’ve always been a procrastinator — but I had also begun losing interest in the very classes I had been so excited to take. I began to wonder if they were really worth all the mounds of homework and tests.

Even though my AP Human Geography class has been over for over a week, all three of

the books for the course are in my backpack.

After realizing this last night, I racked my brain for the hidden reason and finally found it; after five years at Harvard-Westlake, I’ve convinced myself that if my backpack is heavier, I am a more responsible student.

On Thursdays I have to pick between watching the newest episode of “The Office” and doing my homework. Last year I easily would have picked my homework, but now I try to reach a compromise between them by watching the show and staying up as late as necessary to finish my homework. I usually pass out on the couch in the first minutes of the show and wake up at 3 a.m. disoriented and confused as to why I was watching a ShamWow infomercial.

The reason is so obvious and clear: just like the common cold, there is no cure. As juniors before us and the ones to come after did, we must outlive the disease in order to reach the glories of senior year, which comes with its own woes and illnesses, Senioritis in particular.

So to my fellow burnt–out juniors, indulge yourselves. Why bother compromising anymore? Either do your work or leave it for tomorrow.

Personally, trying to do a combination of the two just makes me more distracted and my homework is neglected in the process.

feedback The Chronicle encourages reader feedback.

Letters submitted must be signed and should not exceed 350 words and will appear in the September issue of The Chronicle.

“First, the field trips and the community service would help to build the school community. Also, I think the curriculum would benefit from more honors courses.”

These results are based on responses to an online poll emailed to HarvardWestlake upper school students through surveymonkey.com.

Graphic by Annie Belfield, anna etra, Ashley halkett and erin moy

Michelle Yousefzadeh

Apply yourself

A

t the last junior class meeting of the year, while stuffing our faces with doughnuts brought by my dean, all the kids in my dean group stared up at the projected image of the Common Application — a maroon tinted questionnaire that if filled with the right answers, letters and scores would ultimately grant us acceptance to the colleges of our dreams.

As I read through the different categories that I would have to manage to fill during summer, I couldn’t help but think of which words would have the most impact on a college admission officer, and how I could get those words to describe me. I must not have been the only one thinking this because I’m a part of a student body who’s choosing how to spend our time based on how many of those blank lines the activity would fill.

The form asks for positions held, honors won or letters earned for any activities that the applicant dedicates time to. This especially makes me question what the colleges are searching for — are they looking for students who are passionate or students who are leaders, and if you’re not a natural born leader, where does that leave you?

It leaves you with a bunch of blanks that mock your “noninvolvement”. Instead wouldn’t a space for “what have you contributed to the activity” be a more appropriate column heading?

It seems to me that when given these objectives to live up to, students will spend their time doing activities that they know they can earn leadership positions instead of thinking of what new input they can give to the club or project to make it better than before.

I’m not saying that by holding a leadership position a student can automatically be convicted for having alternative motives than the betterment of the club, just that students should consider that they can be a part of an activity even without being crowned “leader.”

There is more to life than getting a leadership postition.

Students should look beyond superficial titles and instead become involved in clubs that they are truly interested in.

A22 Opinion Sam Adams

May 27, 2009

The Chronicle

Junior year by numbers

I

“After all, everything in high school seems to boil down to a number anyway.”

n the nine months since the start of junior year, I have filled out exactly 4,138 multiple choice bubbles. I counted.

The College Board and all of its affiliated examinations are the primary culprits behind this alphabetical abomination, subjecting yours truly to a seemingly endless deluge of As, Bs, Cs, Ds and Es. But let’s save my thoughts on this cruel, sadistic, superficial organization for another time.

Between the all-important GPAs and SATs, the APs and ACTs, what better way is there to sum up the penultimate high school year than cold, hard statistics? After all, everything in high school seems to boil down to a number anyway.

Let’s start off low: three. That is the number of sleepless nights that I spent writing and generally procrastinating this past year. I’ve retained a few things from these nocturnal jaunts; the actual coursework, for the most part, is not among them.

I discovered the victorious feeling of watching the sun rise over a completed English essay. I have felt the subsequent agony as fatigue sets in fourth period the following day. I have bonded with my brothers-and sisters-in-arms, commiserating with one another as a deadline approaches and the night wanes.

Try this stat on for size: 7,486, the number of milligrams of caffeine that I have ingested since school started. It’s a nasty little habit that I’ve picked up thanks to this year, but I’m kicking it starting now; I promise! I have successfully avoided shaky hands, paranoia and the other hallmarks of the over-caffeinated teen, but my liver and I have reached an accord on the issue.

I could name five of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, 24 of the amendments to the Constitution, the three rules of continuity and the four stages of economic development. I could not, however, tell you the last time I’ve read a book for pleasure during the school year.

Had I taken the 658 hours I spent putting off my work and gotten a minimum-wage job anywhere in the great state of California instead, I would have made $5,264. According to my calculations, my procrastination alone cost me a 2008 Vespa LXV motor scooter, brand new!

But it’s not all bad: if my Facebook page is any indicator – and I submit that it is the true measure of relationships – I have made 132 friends in the past year. I recognize 94 of them by face, would feel comfortable greeting 63 of them on the street, and have fond memories with 46 of them.

Eight of my digital chums, I hope to stay close with for the rest of my life. Junior year was hardly a solitary journey. We have made it to hell and back, our camaraderie only reinforced as a result.

And in the 374 days that we have together as a class, I hope that we continue to get even closer.

At the end of the day, what’s the point of racking up these endless and ultimately insignificant numbers, the 2400s and the 36s and the 5.0s, if our sense of community gets a perfect zero?

Weapon of choice: computer

Erin Moy

Stop the animosity

I

t’s hard to imagine the way a true high school rivalry should be exhibited.

Should we mimic the television show “90210” and release pigs on the other school’s campus before a big lacrosse game or attempt a clever prank similar to the 2004 Harvard-Yale football game when Harvard students were tricked into holding signs that spelled out “we suck”? These methods are far too cliché for Los Angeles high schools. Instead, we have put our tech skills to good use via Facebook and YouTube in the form of rap.

YouTube has provided a new arena of controversy with Loyola, a long-standing rival in athletics. Spurred by a Prom music video made by Harvard-Westlake seniors, a Loyola student replied with a rap video of his own. The Loyola response video has 133 comments and thousands of views. There are now at least three other rap videos in response to the Loyola video on Facebook and YouTube. In a reaction to what many see as a direct attack on Harvard-Westlake, students on both sides have risen out of their apathetic states and taken to their keyboards. Comments have been vicious, personal and have made broad generalizations about each school.

Though last year the Fanatics were criticized for being too aggressive during athletic events, at least they had the overarching purpose of supporting sports teams. The continuing comments that attack individuals or entire student bodies are an entirely different story. No longer are we basing our sense of competition

Allegra Tepper

Introspect for effect

W

illiam Godwin, a 19th century political journalist once said, “The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed is mainly derived from the act of introspection.”

Similar thoughts, albeit not so eloquently phrased, rolled around in my mind as I considered the junior year personal essay assignment.

Dr. Charles Berezin began to tell us a story from his own trials and tribulations at the start of each class for inspiration. I raised my hand and asked Dr. Berezin how he had become so introspective. He seemed caught off guard by my blunt open-ended question. In typical form, I would have broken the silence with a quick quip, bringing levity to the pondering audience. But the truth was that this question had been rolling around in my head for quite some time. Dr. B. told us that, like Tim O’Brien, the Vietnam veteran and author of “The Things They Carried,” had discovered, it takes 20 years to uncover the moral

andrew lee/chronicle

of your war story. But as the world seems to revolve at an infinitely faster pace, it seems unbearable to wait a mere five minutes for a bit of information, let alone 20 years for what could be the missing piece of my puzzle.

As I evaluated the options I had for my personal essay, I ran through the typical go-tos: the loss of a loved one, the winning goal, the birth of my sibling. But I challenged myself to find that sort of spectacular beauty in the ordinary; something profound and ironic buried in the mix of the mundane.

My mind went blank. I realized that in a life that moves a mile a minute never once do we have a moment to lie down in the grass alone and contemplate our navel. And if this rings inaccurate to you, then I encourage you to step outside, leave behind your Blackberries, your iPods, your friends and your foes, and be alone with nothing but your thoughts.

It’s mind-bogglingly foreign.

on talent in sports or academics, but instead we are jumping into a fight over which student has the ability to rap. If that’s not ridiculous enough, the ensuing comments on all the videos have become out of hand on both sides. Profanity aside, the comments have demonstrated nothing more than our willingness to attack each other’s schools based on a vague stereotype.

Although many friendships do exist between the two schools, it is hard to imagine it when reading the posted comments. It has gone from a semientertaining video war to an all-out comment war between Harvard-Westlake and Loyola students.

Our access to the internet seems to only be adding fuel to the fire. Comments have become more profane with the anonymity provided by YouTube, allowing students to express themselves to the fullest extent of their vocabulary only to further aggravate the conflict. Though I highly doubt that the posted comments accurately reflect each author’s personal view of the school and its students, the inflammatory nature only prolongs the controversy. While having school rivals can add to a sense of community within each school, attacking each other over YouTube videos serves no purpose but to aggravate and embarrass both schools. The internet provides us far too many opportunities to engage each other in pointless viral fights that can evolve into something larger.

I’d rather us go old school á la the 2004 Harvard-Yale football game.

“I realized that in a life that moves a mile a minute never once do we have a moment to lie down in the grass...”

So who’s to blame for our inchdeep mindsets? Certainly no one has a problem pointing fingers at technology, and rightfully so. Take the ever-revealing status: you look at Jane Doe’s, who recently updated her status to feature some sappy Elliott Smith lyrics about the road that lies ahead. Jane must have been doing some soul searching today, hmm? And on the off chance that Joe Blow has a remarkable instance of epiphany, I don’t doubt his impulse is to “tweet” a 140 character summation of his weighty discovery for all 800 of his closest “followers.” And on a total aside, I don’t care that you’re out of toothpaste or eating a sandwich. Carly Simon, can I get a soundtrack please?

But let’s think outside the text box, shall we? Could our desire to craft the perfect persona for colleges A to Z be barring us from reaching personal discoveries? Take for instance, the choice between The Self and the Spirit and AP Physics. I don’t think I have to tell you what the typical Harvard-

Westlake student is choosing between them; we are all guilty as charged.

Have we all been brainwashed to believe that there is nothing to be gained from a class so involved with the process of inner exploration? The paradox lies in plain sight when we make our lists of outrageously diverse collegiate aspirations. I would venture to say that the haze of the last four years has compromised the clarity of our goals and ambitions for the next.

So I challenge you all to take a stroll with me when summer arrives.

We’ll go our separate ways; cut the cord with an industrial chainsaw. It’ll seem like we are defying nature, but in the end we may even reach bliss.

On my walk, alone with my thoughts for the first time since what could be infancy, I plan to ponder why I know more about Booker T. Washington and Gifford Pinchot than I know about Allegra Tepper, and maybe try to figure out how to finally dilute the fog that divides me from myself. What will you contemplate?

sports

A23 The Chronicle Harvard-Westlake School Volume XVIII Issue 8 May 27, 2009

Swimming sets school records in CIF playoffs

By Jonah Rosenbaum

The boys’ and girls’ swimming teams finished off the season with a record-breaking showing in the CIF finals meet, following the league finals that took place two weeks before.

James McNamara ’10 broke a school record with a third place finish in the 100-yard butterfly, and Michael Hartwick ’09 placed sixth in the 100-yard freestyle.

The quartet of McNamara, Danny Fujinaka ’10, Max Eliot ’09 and Hartwick finished fourth in the boys 400-yard freestyle relay, and took home new school records in both the 200 and 400-yard relays.

Fujinaka called the meet “the most successful CIF meet that our team has had in years.”

He cited the 400-yard relay as the highlight of the day, because the team beat rival Loyola, set a school record and qualified for All-Amerian consideration.

Hartwick came from behind and went a best time of 46.01, beating Loyola and placing fourth overall.

“Michael had an amazing meet, he made it to the finals in all the individual events he participated in, and was still able to help us in the relays,” Fujinaka said.

On the girls’ side, the team took ninth in the 200yard freestyle relay swam by Katrina Zanberg ’10, Shan Shan Heh ’11, Alex Edel ’10 and Maddy SprungKeyser ’09. In the 200 medley, the same foursome placed eighth. In the 100-yard backstroke, SprungKeyser placed 13th, and Edel finished 14th in the 100 yard breaststroke and the 200-yard individual medley.

Zanberg competed in the 50-yard freestyle finishing 25th overall, with a time of 25.53, Fujinaka competed in both the 500 freestyle and 200 freestyle, placing 26th and 18th respectively.

Eliot competed in the same events, placing 18th in the 200 and 19th in the 500. Edel, Sprung-Keyser, McNamara, and Hartwick all made it back to the finals session and then to Masters in individual events, and four relays also placed high enough to compete at Masters.

courtesy of darlene bible

taking the plunge: Max Eliot ’09 (right) dives in for the 200 yard freestyle at Division I prelims. He placed 18th in the event with a time of 1:44.91. Four Wolverine teams placed in the top 16 in Division I. “They swam out of their minds,” Head Girls Coach Darlene Bible said. “In the 200 medley at the Masters the girls were really unbelievable. They proved how talented they are, and they also qualified for AllAmerican consideration,” Bible said.

The team finished fifth in the 200 medley relay at the Masters, which according to Bible means they are “essentially the fifth best relay team in the state

of California.”

“CIF went amazingly well this year, it really was a great way to end my high school swimming career,” captain Sprung-Keyser said. “Although we were bumped up to division I, the team, particularly our relays, exceeded my expectations. We had some incredibly fast swims and came very close to breaking multiple team records.”

Swoope wins division’s John Wooden award

By Jack Davis Erik Swoope ’10 received this year’s John Wooden award, which is traditionally given to the top men’s and women’s collegiate players in the nation but was recently expanded to the high school level.

On April 1, the organizers of the award telephoned Wolverine Head Coach Greg Hilliard to inform him that they had chosen Swoope as this year’s recipient. However, Hilliard was vacationing with his family, so Assistant Head Coach Michael Bossi received the call, and originally thought it was an April Fools Day joke.

After confirming the validity of the call with Head of Athletics Audrius Barzdukas, Bossi called an ecstatic Swoope.

“It was incredibly humbling,” Swoope said. “At first I was in total shock, because I didn’t even know the Wooden Award was even possible for high schoolers. After that initial shock passed, I was thrilled to receive such an honor.”

Award organizers scout games, review film, and analyze stats in order to select what they deem to be the best

player in each division, Swoope said. Part of the reason Swoope was chosen was that he led a team that won a CIF championship and made it all the way to the state semifinals.

On April 5, Swoope, Bossi, and Swoope’s family attended a ceremony for the award at UCLA. At the ceremony Swoope met the college recipient of the award, Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin, as well as numerous Division I basketball coaches and Hall of Famer Jamal Wilkes.

“I learned so much from Blake, just about the importance of humility,” Swoope said. “Here’s this guy, he knows he is going to be the number one pick in the NBA draft, he could be so cocky, but he is just completely down to earth. He stressed to me how he would be nothing without his teammates.”

While Swoope has received plenty of accolades in his short career, the Wooden Award ranks an easy first.

“Just the sheer prestige and respectability of it is so humbling,” Swoope said. “Being there with the all time greats, seeing the names of past champions really makes you think.”

Hall of Fame to induct 11 alums from 2003

By Ben Goldstein

courtesy of erik swoope

college-level courseload: Erik Swoope ’10 at the John Wooden award ceremony.

He won this year’s high school Division III award.

Eleven student-athletes from the class of 2003 will be inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in a ceremony at next year’s Homecoming on Oct. 3.

Head Basketball Coach Greg Hilliard announced the names of the inductees in an email May 21 and praised them for their “stellar careers at Harvard-Westlake and beyond.”

Among the inductees are baseball players Brennan Boesch, Jason Glushon and Josh Satin, all of whom play professionally in the minor leagues. Boesch is an outfielder for the Detroit Tigers’ Double-A affiliate, the Erie SeaWolves, and Glushon pitches for the Oakland A’s’ Double-A affiliate, the Midland RockHounds.

“It’s a real honor to represent HarvardWestlake in the Hall of Fame, especially representing that team and going in with two of my teammates from that team,” said Satin, who plays second base for the New York Mets’ Single-A affiliate, the Savannah Sand Gnats. “We were all seniors and leaders of that team, so it’s fitting we go in together.”’

The eight other inductees are water polo players Juan Delgadillo and Marty Matthies, soccer players Ali Fisher and Gina FariasEisner, track and field athletes Katie DeWitt, Matt Lachman and Jon Ludden, and girls’ volleyball standout Alex Dunphy.

In keeping with tradition, the school will present the 11 alumni with medals at halftime of the varsity football Homecoming game.

“They were picked because they represent everything that is good and right about being a student-athlete,” Head of Athletics Audrius Barzdukas said.

A24 Sports

The Chronicle

May 27, 2009

Boys’ tennis advances to CIF semifinals

By Sam Adams With a convincing 17-1 victory over Palos Verdes in the CIF quarterfinal round at Studio City Golf and Tennis on May 19, the boys’ tennis team defeated a team to which it suffered a tough loss earlier in the season to advance in the playoffs. The team played University School of Irvine, the top-ranked team in the region, in the semifinal round yesterday.

“We were super confident and well prepared [going into the Palos Verdes match],” varsity Head Coach Chris Simpson said. “We had all our players this time, and they were missing a couple of their players. I rested [Jeffrey] Bu ’12 and [Chris] Kenney ’10, which just shows how deep we are. We just had a strong performance all around.”

In the individual playoffs, the doubles team of Kyle Martin-Patterson ’10 and Sean Kesluk ’09 won the Mission League championship in an upset final match against teammates Spencer Suk ’10 and Matt Wagner ’11, who had the top seed going into the league tournament. Both duos advanced to the CIF preliminary round last Friday at Cate High School, and the pair of Martin-Patterson and Kesluk advanced to the semifinal round at Seal Beach on Friday.

“No one really expected Sean and me to beat Spencer and Matt,” MartinPatterson said. “The first set was rough, but then the two of us really started to gel. Sean was working the net and I was

protecting the baseline, and we were really in sync. And at Cate, we played some great tennis together.”

In the singles tournament, Kenney won the Mission League title, but lost in the third round of the CIF playoffs after cramps brought on by his recovery process.

University High, the Wolverines’ opponents in yesterday’s match, are backto-back CIF champions going for their third consecutive title. However, the team has not despaired.

“We’ve played the toughest schedule,” Simpson said. “We’ve played every top team in the region. University hasn’t played any of the top four teams.

We would like to play our part and try to stop them. That requires us playing at really the top of our game. It’s tough to strategize against a team that is so strong across the board.”

The Wolverines had the top seed going into the CIF tournament. In the first round of the CIF playoffs, the squad defeated Westlake by a score of 14-4 in a home match on May 14. The team continued with an 11-7 victory against Woodbridge the following Saturday.

The team’s success came as a pleasant surprise to many of the members, who had, prior to the start of the season, written it off as a developmental year as the four freshmen on the varsity squad grew as players. The preseason goal of the team was to get to the point where they could win the CIF tournament next season.

Track achieves record times

Late season woes doom softball

By Cary Volpert

By Jack Schwada The postseason is underway for both the boys’ and girls’ track and field teams, as Saturday both Chris Cheng ‘09 and Sydney Haydel ‘10 placed at CIF Finals.

Cheng finished first place in the 800 meters while Haydel finished third in the shot put. The girls’ 4x100 relay team finished in second place.

Both the boys’ and girls’ squads ended the regular seasonwith winning records under the leadership of Head Coach Jonas Koolsbergen.

The girls finished undefeated with five victories and no losses. The boys were able to come out with a winning record as well, boasting four victories of their own, but with two losses under their belt. The boys finished their regular season strongly with two victories against St. Francis and Chaminade.

The CIF Preliminary round, which took place last month at Estancia High School, was a huge victory for both the boys and girls. The track and field team

sam adams/chronicle

backhanded compliment: Adam Schwartz ’12 attempts a backhand in the CIF quarterfinal match against Palos Verdes on May 19. The Wolverines won the match 17-1 and advanced to yesterday’s semifinal match.

Cory warshaw/VOX

Baton: Lauren Hansson ’11 carries the baton during a relay race. set a record with 18 qualifications into the CIF Finals. The girls’ team alone sent 14 of its own to the next stage. Only once in the girls track and field team’s history have more girls been sent to the CIF Finals, when in 1991 the squad sent 15 to the next round.

Despite the strong start early on in the season, the girls’ softball squad ended its season by placing fifth out of six teams in the Mission League with a 3-7 record in league play and an 11-13 record overall. After sporting a 6-3 record in the earlier part of the season, the crew finished with a 5-10 record against both league and non-league challengers.

“The team really stepped up the intensity in the last few weeks and Emma [Katz] really stepped up to the leadership role as captain, not only in the recent weeks but during the whole season,” Chelsea McMahon ’10 said.

She pointed to Katz as an essential part of the softball team.

“She was definitely someone that we could all look up to and our team wouldn’t have been what it was without her.”

Though the season had its ups and downs, starting catcher Emilia Louy ’11 said that “[The] highlight of the season was the 5-3 victory over our long time rival Chaminade, along with

the 11-1 victory over Louisville.”

Katz agreed with Louy.

“Besides the win over Chaminade, holding Flintridge Heart to zero runs through seven innings was definitely a highlight of our season since they were the best team in the Mission League.”

Katz added that despite the several highlights of the season, the team suffered down the stretch because of a lack of aggressiveness at the plate and because of inconsistency on defense.

“We were sometimes timid at the plate and we also had a snowball effect on defense where one person would make an error, which was then followed by a couple more errors,” she said.

Notwithstanding the team’s mistakes this year, Katz said that fans of the softball program have a lot to look forward to next season “This year we had to go through the basics and fundamentals,” Katz said.

“We needed the experience. But now that we have the experience that we needed from playing this year, next year should be a good year for us.”

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May 27, 2009

The Chronicle

Sports A25

Boys’ volleyball team finishes 3rd in league, exits CIF in 1st round

By Alex Edel

Grace park/VOX

service: Matt Bagnard ’09 does a jump serve during a league match at Loyola.

The team lost to Loyola twice this season, finishing off with a league record of 8-4 and an overall record of 15-9-2.

A loss in the first round of CIF to Foothill High School brought the boys’ volleyball team’s season to an end. It finished off the season with a 15-9-2 overall record and 8-4 league record.

“It is hard in our league because we play really easy teams and really hard teams, like Loyola and Crespi, so it was hard to stay consistent,” the squad’s outside hitter Spencer Eichler ’11 said.

The team lost to both Crespi and Loyola twice this season, but beat all of the other teams in the Mission League.

“The season went pretty well overall.

We had some disappointing losses to Crespi and at some tournaments, but when you look back on it, Crespi is a top 50 team in the nation.,” libero Alex Sones ’09 said. “We worked as hard as we could, especially towards the end of the season.”

Their loss to Crespi came out of three close matches. Each match went over 25 points, because the team needed to win by two points. The scores were 28-30, 34-36, and 21-25.

In March when the team played Crespi for the first time, they lost 3-0, but the matches were not as close.

Despite losing Sean Berman ’09 after the April 23 game against Loyola, the team was able to beat Notre Dame 3-2 and Chaminade 3-0 the next week.

“I think we all did a great job by not letting the loss of a great player affect us emotionally or on the court,” middle hitter Jack Healy ’10 said. “Like I said

earlier, the matches at the end of our season were some of our best in the past two seasons, and it shows that we were able to just move on and continue playing our game.”

“The team came together and was able to build team chemistry after the loss of Sean Berman,” Sones said. “We also focused better not only in practice but in games as well because we weren’t distracted by red and yellow cards.”

In their last league game of the season, the boys beat out Chaminade in three close matches, 25-20, 25-14, and 26-24.

The team lost to Foothill high school in the first round of CIF, 1-3, at Foothill. The score of those matches were 26-24, 20-25, 20-25, and 17-25.

“I actually don’t think there was a big downfall for our team,” Healy said.

“We may have lost early in the playoffs, and not ended the season with a perfect record, but I think by the end of the season we were playing some of the best volleyball we have ever played as a team. In our losses to teams like Crespi, Loyola, and Foothill, I think we played together in a great way and really showed our strength by giving them a run for their money.”

Foothill lost in the second round of CIF to Long Beach Wilson, who is set to play Loyola in the semifinals next week.

Like the Wolverines, Crespi lost in the first round to Edison High School.

Mater Dei and Mira Costa will face off in the semifinals, along with Loyola and Long Beach Wilson, for a chance to play in the finals.

A26 Sports

May 27, 2009

The Chronicle

Baseball team struggles, fails to reach playoffs

By Jack Davis

Turning two: Second baseman Jason Garfinkel ’10 stretches to record a force out at second in a 5-2 loss against league rival Loyola.

After a 3-5 start in league play, a threegame losing streak in the final two weeks of the season ended the boys’ varsity baseball team’s hopes of making the playoffs.

The losing streak began in a key match against rival Loyola in which Head Coach Matt LaCour was forcibly restrained and ejected after a controversial call cost the Wolverines the potential tying run.

Heading into a two-game league series with Loyola, the squad was coming off a key 7-5 victory over Crespi that gave them a 3-5 overall record in league.

At the time, Loyola’s league record was 4-4 and it was in fourth place in the six team Mission League, the last spot where a team can qualify for playoffs.

Had the Wolverines swept the series with Loyola, they would have almost assuredly guaranteed themselves a playoff spot, as they would have taken a one-game lead in the standings with Loyola for the final playoff spot and owned the tiebreaker over Loyola.

In the first game of the series at Loyola High School, the Cubs jumped out to an early 2-1 lead with consecutive doubles in the third inning.

However in the fifth, the Wolverines loaded the bases with only one out, and sent up preseason All-American Austin Wilson ’10.

Wilson had been walked in almost every situation with men on base, but since the bases were loaded, Loyola was forced to pitch to him.

Wilson lined the first pitch he saw deep into left field, but was robbed of a potential extra base hit that would have given the Wolverines the lead when Loyola left fielder Kevin Grove made a diving catch.

Despite Grove’s amazing play, second baseman Justin Genter ’10 tagged up from third and scored on the play to tie the

Lacrosse falls in first round of playoffs

Golf wins league, falls short of State

By Jack Davis

By Jack Davis

After failing to qualify for the third round of CIF by just four strokes, the boys’ varsity golf team was eliminated from CIF playoffs and failed to reach its goal of competing for a state championship.

“The whole team was disappointed by not qualifying,” CoCaptain Glen Scher ’09 said. Scher was one three Wolverine golfers who made all league, as well as Co-Captain Bobby Lange ’09 and Charlie Benell ’12.

“Nobody really had great rounds in that second round, if just one of us would have shot a little better we would have qualified. It wasn’t any individual person, it was a real team loss,” Scher said.

The squad finished the regular season with a 12-1 overall record, including a 10-1 record in league play. The team’s one loss in league play came against Loyola, 200196. It split the season series with Loyola, winning its first match against the Cubs 196-200, with the two teams ending the season with identical 10-1 league records.

Since they finished with identical league records and tied their season series, Loyola and HarvardWestlake were crowned co-champions of the Mission League.

The squad placed third in Western Regional at Montebello Golf Course, shooting low enough to advance to the second round CIF team finals at Rancho San Marcos Golf Course in Santa Barbara. Its run would stop there, however, as the team fell short of its original goal to qualify for the

score 2-2.

However, Loyola appealed the call, saying that Genter had left third base early.

The three umpires on the field adjourned and decided Genter had left third base early, and called him out at third.

“It was the most ridiculous call I have ever seen in my life playing baseball,” catcher Andrew Shanfeld ’10 said.

“There was no reason he would have left third base early,” he said. “It was a diving catch and there wasn’t even a play at home plate. It’s not like they were even trying to get him out at home, there was no play at the plate. The umpires didn’t even see the play.”

LaCour sprinted out of the dugout to protest the call, but to no avail. LaCour was ejected and had to be restrained and escorted off the field.

“It was crazy,” Wilson said. “I’m heading back into the dugout excited because we just tied the game, then all of a sudden I look back onto the field and they’re celebrating and walking off the field.”

Instead of being tied 2-2 with runners on first and second and Shanfeld coming up to the plate, the Wolverines ended the fifth down 2-1.

They would never have a scoring opportunity as good as that one, going on to lose the game 5-2.

The loss put the Wolverines into a huge hole in the overall league standings, and any small playoffs hopes they still had were crushed three days later when they lost again to Loyola, 2-1.

The following week, the Wolverines lost their last home game to Chaminade 9-5, before regrouping for a purely emotional 6-5 victory over Chaminade to end the season.

“I’m disappointed that we didn’t make the playoffs, obviously,” Wilson said. “But we have lots of young talent on this team, and we just have to improve next year.”

Rebecca weinstein/VOX

BEVERLY GLEN: Top ranked golfer Glen Scher ’09 tees off at the driving range before a match. The Wolverines finished seventh in CIF. state championship and failed to reach CIF team finals, like the golf team from the year before.

Despite the failure to qualify for the third round of CIF, Head Coach Scott Wood remained positive about the direction of the program, and that the team will be strong again next year, despite the losses of senior captains Scher and Lange.

“We got out of the regional for the fourth time in seven years to the CIF team final, which is good for our program,” Wood said.

“That being said, because of our depth, talent, and experience, of course we were disappointed not to make it to the state qualifier. I am very proud of this team, what they have accomplished and who

they are. They always competed and were a very close knit group.

Losing Glen and Bobby leaves big shoes to fill, but I feel confident that Jeff Wibawa ’10, Charlie Benell, and Mark Mackey ’10 will be a strong group for next year.”

While the season might have ended at San Marcos for the Wolverines as a team, it did not end individually for Benell. Benell finished third in the league and advanced to the second round of CIF individuals, shooting a 72 at the Northern Division Individuals, according to Wood. Benell played yesterday at Hacienda Country Club in the Individual Final Championship, an accomplishment Wood called “huge.” .

and

Seth Goldman

After a late season push put it in the playoffs, the lacrosse team’s season ended with a 9-7 loss to Palos Verdes in the first round. After starting the season 4-1, the Wolverines faltered, dropping four out of five games, including a crucial league loss to rival Loyola.

Needing a strong finish to make the playoffs, the team won three consecutive games to secure the first CIF playoff appearance in school history.

The team’s three-game winning streak began with a 9-3 victory over Crespi at Ted Slavin field, a victory which gave the Wolverines confidence and broke a two-game losing streak.

“That win gave us confidence that we could turn it around,” Riley Mate ’10 said. “You could see an immediate difference in our play after that game.”

The Wolverines then defeated Chaminade on the raod 6-5, before playing Chaminade again in the second to last game of the regular season.

During that game, which was also Senior Night, the Wolverines were tied 7-7 in the last minute of the game. With the game seemingly destined for overtime, Greg Myerson ’09 fired a shot past the Chaminade goalie with 15 seconds left to give the Wolverines an 8-7 lead and send the team to the playoffs.

Defense was a calling card for the Wolverines during their three-game winning streak that put them in the playoffs, as they allowed only 15 goals in three games, averaging out to just five goals allowed per game. When the Wolverines lost four out of five, they allowed 52 goals in five games, averaging out to over ten goals allowed per game.

After the climactic victory over Chaminade, the Wolverines lost a meaningless road game to Crespi, 5-8, to close out the regular season. They finished the season with a final record of 8-6 overall and a 5-3 record in Mission League play.

Myerson was one of three players, along with Conor O’Toole ’10 and Barrett Meister ’10, to be named to the first team all-Mission League.

“I didn’t know it was going to happen,” Myerson said. “I was really proud.”

Cory Wizenberg ’11, Joey Edwards ’10 and Riley Mate ’10 were named to the second team.

“We played well all season, especially at the end and it sucks that the season is over,” Kimo Thorpe ’09 said. “I’m going to miss the guys.”

May 27, 2009

The Chronicle

Sports A27

In his own words...

Lucas Casso ’09 Varsity Pitcher Q A Q A Q A Q A Q A Q A Q A Q A

How long have you been playing baseball?

Pretty much since I was a little kid.

What made you choose baseball as a sport?

Originally it was just one of a lot of sports that I played. When I got to high school I just decided that it was my favorite.

You pitch sidearm. How is that different than the regular style of pitching?

A regular pitcher throws with their hand coming over the top, coming over their shoulder whereas the way I pitch is below my shoulder and off to the side.

When and why did you decide to pitch sidearm?

[I started] right before my junior season. I noticed that when I threw that way, I started to get a lot more movement and obviously getting more movement on your pitch is better. So that is why I decided to do it, because I figured that I would be a better pitcher.

Was it a difficult adjustment to pitch sidearm?

[Junior year] was a pretty rough season. I had to get used to pitching sidearm which is a pretty big change. I basically had to start from scratch again but I battled through it and I guess now in senior season I am a lot more comfortable with it and it works.

Do you play on a club team outside of school?

I didn’t during the school year, or any time before that but I will this season to get ready for next year [at Williams College].

What made you decide to play baseball at Williams?

I think that it is just something that I really enjoyed doing at HarvardWestlake and something that I wanted in my college experience. They are a good team, they are a competitive team and I know that if I work hard I can definitely get some playing time next year.

What is the recruiting process for baseball?

I went to a few showcase camps over the summer and I got to pitch in front of a lot of college coaches so I guess that generated some interest.

And then I called a bunch of coaches, wrote them letters and sent them DVDs of me pitching, and got some e-mails back, got some calls back, and we had some conversations.

Highlight Reel

PHOTO AND INTERVIEW BY ALEX EDEL/CHRONICLE

Lucas Casso ’09 posted a 3.81 ERA while pitching a team high 49.2 innings. He won five games and compiled 19 strikeouts.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF LUCAS CASSO

ON THE SIDE: Casso shows off his sidearm form in a game against Buena High School.

THE WIND-UP: Casso begins his wind-up in one of his 13 appearances. This one came against St. Francis.

ACE: Casso takes aim for the plate in a game against Alemany. The Wolverines won the game 15-7.

photofinish

A28

Te’Rhon O’Neal football&track

“

“His demeanor on the field and off the field demonstrated his leadership capacity. He could be tough when it was time to work and comical when it was time to have fun. He also had the ability to laugh at himself, which is a rare quality.

statline

207

carries

Q

Something that helped you earn that role of emotional leader was your rousing motivational locker room speeches. In what ways did you try and inspire your teammates and how did you see a difference in the team on the field?

A

Before the game I would always be in a football mindset, and get really focused and try and pass that on to all of my teammates.

I just let all my emotions come to me and say whatever was on the top of my head and one thing I would always say to my teammates was we are going to war out there. That we are all soldiers, we are all brothers and we have to look after each other and that’s something I think everyone took on to the field.

yards

1231

Q A Q A

cathi choi/chronicle

5.95 yards

per carry

athletes of the year

—Vic Eumont, Varsity Football Head Coach

touchdowns 136.8 yards 9

May 27, 2009 The Chronicle has chosen Maddie Lenard ’09 and Te’Rhon O’Neal ’09 as the Athletes of the Year for their tremendous effort, key goals, touchdowns and leadership.

her major goal

The first half went by without any goals, but a free kick in the 53rd minute changed the tide of the CIF Sectional Final. Maddie Lenard ’09 stepped up and took a free kick 37 yards away from the goal. After she kicked the ball, she thought it was heading over the goal, but as she watched, and as the whole team watched, the ball curved into the back of the net. Rapturous applause ensued. Lenard’s goal proved to be the winner, and the Wolverines took home the trophy.

— Cody Schott

Q A

You played stubborn defense all year long.

What was your role as a defender?

My role was to play strong individual defense and lead by example as well as to keep the communication up.

Q A

What do you think you contributed most to the team?

I played strong defense and scored some key goals but I think that the main thing was the leadership that Clara, Coco, and I all showed as well as our desire to win. Ending our last season without a ring was not an option for us and we fought very hard for it.

“

“She had a huge impact, she’s very focused and determined.

Maddie gave it all every day, she showed it by being very vocal about it” — Richard Simms, Girls’ Soccer Program Head

per game

At 5’6 you were often, if not always, the smallest guy on the field. Yet you have a power running style and most of your yards come after initial contact. What is your mentality like on the football field and how do you think this mentality is different from other players?

It’s pretty simple: punishing. I have to go out on the field and punish the other team. Some people might say my height is a disadvantage but for me it’s a motivation. To go out there and fight for my team, to go out and fight for every yard, to just go that extra mile.

How did you adjust that mentality and intensity while running track, a sport considerably more laid back than football?

Maddie Lenard soccer

Track was so much different from football. In football you need a type of swagger, like no one else can touch you and you have to compete against the other team. But in track you’re competing against yourself and the clock and that can really throw you off. My confidence level isn’t the same on the track as it is on the football field. cathi choi/chronicle

The Odyssey by the class of 2009

as told by the chronicle

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that class skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderers, harried for six years on end, after they plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Harvard-Westlake.

ILLUSTRATION BY MARNI BARTA

B2 Senior Supplement

The Chronicle

May 27, 2009

candice Navi/chronicle

Ringing in the year: Almost nine months ago we sat in bleachers on Ted Slavin Field and began the year of a lifetime. We had our ups and downs, but in

almost a week we will all return to our beloved field wearing our caps and gowns and receive our well earned diplomas. It’s time to begin the next chapter of our lives.

what’s inside: B3

» A wrap up of the senior seminars

B4-B5

B8-B11

» Senior columns

B12

» College Matriculation » Our prom in photos list

B6-B7

» A literary look at our time

spent at Harvard-Westlake Courtesy of Lucy Jackson

A look at our last few days together Here is a schedule to follow of the few senior events left before we finish our time at HarvardWestlake and commence a new journey.

Wednesday May 27 The official last day of senior year

Monday June 1 Senior Dodger Night 6 p.m. at the loading dock 7 p.m. at Dodger Stadium

Tuesday June 2 to June 4 Senior retreat Big Bear 11:30 a.m. at the loading dock

courtesy of sean kesluk

ciao: Sean Kesluk ’09 will travel abroad on his gap year to Germany and Italy to study the languages and cultures of the local people.

Thursday June 4 Graduation rehearsal 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. at school

Distribution of Reflection books 1:30 p.m. in Weiler 104

Friday June 5 Senior/Faculty Breakfast 8:45 a.m. in Taper Gymnasium

Graduation 10:30 a.m. on Ted Slavin Field

Grad night 7:15p.m. at the loading dock Graphic by Carly radist

Senior wins gap year fellowship

By Annie Belfield Sean Kesluk ’09 will defer his acceptance to Harvard University and instead spend 12 months traveling abroad in Germany and Italy and participating in the AmeriCorps program, after being named this year’s Michael Brownstein ’99 Gap Year Fellow.

A committee comprised of faculty, advancement officers and the founding members of the fledgling program selected Kesluk as the winner.

“As we would like with all Brownstein Fellows, Sean demonstrated through his application that he was pushing himself beyond his comfort zone in his travel and service,” Chief Advancement Officer Ed Hu said.

“The Selection Committee was impressed with how he articulated how he wished to convey the experience to others, thus adding confidence about his potential to be an ambassador for the gap year experience and the Brownstein Fellowship.”

Kesluk will spend the first three months of his gap year in Germany, starting with a three week language immersion class in Freiburg and then working at a local community center in Hamburg supervising and helping out with classes. From there, Kesluk will travel to Florence, Italy where he will spend three months volunteering at a local non-profit specializing in social services and welfare issues.

“For me, the year is about exposure to new ideas, perspectives, people and cultures. It’s about exposure to living,” Kesluk said.

“Plus, I’m thrilled about learning the languages.”

Kesluk intends to spend the

second portion of his gap year as a participant in the AmeriCorps program which is dedicated to helping non-profit organizations around the United States. He will enroll in AmeriCorps’ flagship program, National Civilian Community Corps, where he will be placed onto one of their five campuses around the country to aid the local community in disaster relief, economic and infrastructure development.

“AmeriCorps is about engaging in an America that isn’t like Los Angeles. It’s about experiencing the life that most of the 300 million Americans experience rather than the life that we as Harvard-Westlake students experience,” Kesluk said.

According to Hu, this year’s $5,000 stipend was down significantly from last year due to the recent economic downturn but he hopes that with persistence and the success of the program the stipend will increase in the coming years.

“With further gifts and investment gains, we hope to get back on track. I’m sure the reduced figure had some impact on the applicant pool and thinking about gap years in general, as all families are taking a closer look at college-related expenses in these economic times,” Hu said.

For Kesluk, some financial pressure had been alleviated due to the grant provided by the Brownstein Fellowship and while he acknowledges that the stipend does not cover all of his expenses, he said it has expanded his itinerary for the upcoming year.

“I’m just looking forward to being able to go to college a much more developed and well-rounded person,” Kesluk said.

May 27, 2009

Senior Supplement B3

The Chronicle

Not-so-advanced seminars

Seniors were treated to breakfast, lessons for the college years and beyond and an impromptu pillow fight on May 21.

» Speaking of sex

By Emily Friedman

Chris Mendo za ’09 and M ario Cuevas ’09 la ugh over bage ls at the senior br eakfast.

Scien c (righ e teacher t) ins Walt t how to tak ructs stud Werner e e car e of t nts heir cars.

» Flirting tips

phot os

by

al le gr a te pp Joey Meye er /ch ronicl e r amid a lu ’09 shields himse lf nchtime senior pil fight. low

» Money matters

By Ashley Halkett

In her “Psychology of Flirting and Attraction” seminar, counselor Luba Bek shared her foolproof secret for determining another person’s interest.

“When someone is very attracted to someone else, their pupils dilate,” Bek said. However, some caution with using this technique is necessary: it could also be due to intoxication.

Starting off the seminar with a scenario of a boy and a girl at a singles’ bar, Bek asked seniors to identify the signs of flirting. Actions like playing with her hair, looking up at the boy from under her eyelashes and even smiling were subconscious, Bek said. Boys, on the other hand, had nearly no visual signs of flirting, but expressed interest vocally, mainly through jokes. Boys also tended to make themselves look bigger while girls tried to look smaller.

Bek dispelled a common myth halfway through her seminar: she told seniors it was “similarities” that attract, not opposites. However, Bek agreed that “Unfortunately, dating really is a game.”

To wrap up her seminar, Bek had seniors play their own dating game. Stickers with numbers one through 30 were placed on each student’s forehead.

Seniors were then told to match up with the highest number they could get without being able to see their own number. Rejection was allowed. Those with high numbers who had paired with low numbers had “settled,” and “could have done better.”

By Lucy Jackson

Chief Financial Officer Rob Levin and alumnus Nick Greif ’07, now enrolled at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, tag teamed the “Managing Money in College” seminar, sipping non-alcoholic beer as a symbol of what seniors will really be spending money on in college.

Greif also discussed the cheapest way to buy airfare (STA Travel) and the most economical meal plan.

Levin’s principal rule, that interest multiplies money, fueled his lesson plan that taught seniors to be fearless with their investments and start saving early to make the “big bucks.”

With their entire lives ahead of them to experience the ebb and flow of the stock market, students should take risks and avoid what may seem like the safe option, he said. Greif wrapped up the hour-long seminar by showing a spreadsheet he created of his own expenses to give seniors a better understanding of what their college funds would be paying for.

While the money would not be paying for better teachers – those, he said, would be hard to find after graduating from Harvard-Westlake – Greif assured seniors that they would be getting experience, networking opportunities and a diploma.

The walls are thin. That was the first warning upper school psychologist Dr. Sheila Siegel gave the senior girls in her “Sex in College” seminar last Thursday. While some girls opened up, asking questions about topics ranging from sexual violence to flavored condoms, others still consider sex a private topic. Girls drew questions out of a basket to answer; one question was, “would you rather marry someone really attractive who was bad in bed, or someone plain looking who was great in bed?” The majority agreed they would choose a plain looking partner.

The class also discussed the difference between high school and college sex. Many girls expressed that in college there seems to be more pressure to have sex. Siegel advised that before engaging in sexual activity, girls should be able to talk about sex with their partner and have a strong sense of self.

Siegel also reminded her group that girls shouldn’t focus on their physical appearance to attract guys in college.

“Sexy is an attitude,” she said.

» Eurotripping

By Carly Mandel

“What to do on your next trip to Europe,” a seminar taught by History department head Katherine Holmes-Chuba, focused primarily on Western Europe, as Holmes-Chuba displayed slides of various European sites, such as Rome and Amsterdam. She said that London would be one of the most expensive cities in Europe, but it would also be the easiest city to get around because English is the native language. Holmes-Chuba advised seniors who would be venturing to Europe this summer to walk everywhere rather than use public transportation.

“If you walk everywhere, you will actually lose weight instead of gaining weight from eating so much,” she said. She also stressed knowing where the American Embassy is located in every city and not being tagged as American.

Fewer seniors to take gap years than in class of 2008

By Julie Barzilay At least six seniors will defer college one year in order to do service work in Africa, earn money as a counselor, intern in Washington or take advantage of other opportunities.

However, Dean Vanna Cairns said that the number of students planning to defer has decreased from the 14 who chose to do so last year. None of her students is taking a gap year this year.

“Perhaps the economy has something to do with this,” she said. “The gap year programs are rather pricey.”

Seniors Jason Hirschhorn, Sean Kesluk and Eric Arzoian will defer Harvard University for one year.

Hirschhorn will join the Harvard class of 2014 after a year on the east coast and abroad. He will kick off his year with a Democratic National Committee internship in Washington D.C. The second part of his year will be spent teaching in South Africa.

“I am very interested in both poli-

tics and education, and I am hoping that spending a year experiencing both of these will help me figure out what I am passionate about and what direction I might want to pursue in college,” he said.

He said that he is looking forward to taking a break from typical school life in favor of involving himself deeply in other projects.

“This is a very exciting time to be involved in Washington/politics, and I have some opportunities that may not be present further on down the road,” he said.

Kesluk will split his year between Freiburg, Germany, Florence, Italy, and a stint in AmeriCorps.

Lauren Bailey ’09 also plans to defer Carleton a year unless she gets off of the wait list for Barnard. If she goes to Barnard she will start in the fall, but if not she will spend her gap year in New York and Los Angeles doing internships and pursuing her own filmmaking projects.

Mavis Spencer ’09 will also be deferring Columbia one year.

Ariana Sopher ’09 has a full year ahead before starting her freshman year at Dartmouth in the fall of 2010.

She’ll start working at a summer camp in Yosemite for two and a half months, and starting in early September she will depart for Senegal in West Africa with a program called “Where There Be Dragons.”

She said the program focuses on language acquisition, independent study, cultural immersion and treks through underdeveloped parts of the country.

She will backpack through Kedougou into Guinea and return to Senegal for rural home-stays in small villages.

Because Sopher took French for five years in high school, she hopes to be able to mitigate the language barrier.

She will tentatively spend the next part of her year in Tanzania and Cape Town, South Africa doing volunteer work, hopefully related to HIV/AIDS clinics or helping children who have

lost parents or who have parents unfit to raise them.

“I’m very drawn to the idea of learning outside of the classroom,” she said.

“Throughout high school, I’ve been very busy with on campus events and activities and I chose to dedicate all of my free time to sports or event planning related to my direct high-school community.

Before I get sucked onto some other college campus where I know I’ll want to get involved in too many activities, I’d like to take a year where I can focus my energy and work on something bigger than a campus—a year to give back to villages and towns that are welcoming me into their culture.”

Sopher is most looking forward to expanding her worldview.

“I’m very drawn to the idea of learning outside of the classroom,” she said.

“I think this year would offer me a different kind of knowledge through sights and experiences that I could never obtain in a lecture hall at school.”

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May 27, 2009

Matriculation B5

The Chronicle

Sam Katz Kenyon

Hannah Levitt Indiana

Allison Paller Sarah Lawrence

Derek Schlom Tufts

Nicole Tiger Brandeis

Bobby Kazimiroff UCLA

Michael Lieberman Cornell (Hotel Administration)

Grace Park USC (Marshall)

Cody Schott Northwestern

Sarah Tither-Kaplan USC (Thornton)

Rosaline Paronyan Declined to State

Jack Schwada Boston College

Christopher Trader Stanford

Cherelle Patrick Seton Hall

Rachel Scott Wisconsin

Christopher Turner USC

Yasmine Pichvai USC

Justin Shafa George Washington

Corey Vann Dartmouth

Andrea Pimienta Cornell

Nisha Shah USC (Annenberg)

Cary Volpert U. Penn

Elizabeth Porter USC

Paulina Shahery USC

Jono Wagmeister U. Penn

Tony Pothoulakis SMU

Neha Sharma Declined to State

Tyler Wallace Dartmouth

Carly Radist Michigan

James Shaum Colby

Kimberly Wang Cornell

Christopher Ralphs American

James Shaw Cal State Los Angeles

Steven Wang USC

Kayvon Raphael NYU

Stacy Shirk NYU (Tisch)

Lindsey Ward Columbia

Evan Rappel Wisconsin

Joshua Simhaee Boston University

Cory Warshaw UC Davis

Candace Ravan USC

Phoebe Singer UCLA

Emily Waterhouse Amherst

Andrew Ressler Brown

Nicole Sneider USC

Coco Weaver Michigan

Atira Richards Stanford

Emma Sokoloff Yale

Jacqueline Wee U. Penn

Michael Richardson Wash U., St. Louis

Claire Soley UC Santa Cruz

Rebecca Weinstein Wellesley

Caroline Richman Amherst

Brianna Sommer UC Santa Cruz

Charlie Weintraub Johns Hopkins

Brittany Richmond Barnard

Alexander Sones Wash U., St. Louis

Ketter Weissman U. Penn

Marissa Ring Wisconsin

Ariana Sopher Dartmouth (Deferring)

Steven Weitz Vanderbilt

Trini Rios USC

Mavis Spencer Columbia (Deferring)

Pearl Wengrod Cal Arts

Max Ritvo Yale

Hunter Spinks Stanford

Tessa Wick Michigan

Alex Rivkin Northwestern

Madeline Sprung-Keyser Amherst

Ryan Wilson UC Santa Barbara

Geoffrey Rock Kenyon

Michael Stampler USC (School of Cinematic Arts)

Brandon Wilton USC

Rebecca Kelly University of Virginia Sean Kesluk Harvard (Deferring) Olivia Kestin Kenyon Justin Kim Cornell Jean Kim Davidson Nina Kim Smith Sarah Kim Northwestern Sharon Kim Pepperdine Aaron Kirkbride U. Penn (Wharton) Kyle Kleinbart NYU (Gallatin) Sayumi Kobayashi USC Katelyn Kondra USC Max Korbel Harvey Mudd Rachel Krepack UC Berkeley Sean Kyle NYU Bobby Lange UCLA Arturo Laparra Wesleyan Miriam Lauter Yale Carl Lawson Duke Jonathan Lawson Morehouse Shelby Layne Barnard Jack LaZebnik U.S. Military Academy Andrew Lee USC Bo Hyun Lee NYU Michael Lee USC Stacy Lee UC Berkeley Sun Ho Lee Columbia Maddie Lenard University of San Diego Alison Lerner USC Brandon Levin Yale Justin Levine NYU (Tisch)

Kate Liebman Yale Juan Lizama University of Miami Corinne Loder Wisconsin Charlie Loeb UC Santa Barbara Molly Maddock Colgate Siobhan Mahaffey Michigan Adam Maltz Columbia College Chicago Carly Mandel NYU (Steinhardt) Jack Mankiewicz Kenyon Jessica Marot Princeton Daniel Masterson USC Jackie Matza Michigan Gavin McCourt Stanford Jack McFadden-Talbot USC (Thornton) Christopher Mendoza Colgate Nicholas Merrill Northwestern Jonathan Meyer Michigan Joseph Meyer Amherst Julian Miller Amherst Jason Mow U. Penn Biswaroop Mukherjee UC Berkeley Gregory Myerson Kenyon Sean Nadel U. Penn Danielle Naghi Vassar Angela Navarro UCLA Ryan Navi Cornell Danny Nguyen USC Phoebe Novack Wash U., St. Louis Te’Rhon O’Neal Wesleyan Joshua Oreman MIT Katherine Osher USC (Cinematic Arts)

U. Penn

13

Marina Romano USC

Margaux Stanton Michigan

Avery Rosin U. Penn

Lauren Wolfen Barnard

Rosie Statman Reed

Gavin Ross USC

Billy Wolff Dartmouth

Corey Stein Stanford

Adam Rothman Stanford

Eli Woods UC Davis

Eli Stein Harvard

Nora Rothman Brown

Andrew Yu UC Berkeley

Alexander Steiner Yale

Roni Rubinstein Indiana

Jeff Yu Stanford

Natalie Storey Barnard

Daniel Rudyak USC

Lian Zucker Yale

Yoonkee Sull Wash U., St. Louis

Evan Ryan Rhodes

Sarah Zurek NYU

Mac Taylor Wesleyan

Nicole Sands U. Penn

Jenna Winebaum Dartmouth

Kimo Thorpe-Barofsky Trinity University

Glen Scher UC Santa Barbara

Northwestern

Stanford

13

10 College information provided by students

B4 Matriculation

The Chronicle

Turning the page After years of school together, 291 seniors will move on to their separate sequels at 80 colleges across the country.

Charlotte Abrams NYU

Erin Bilgin NYU (Gallatin)

Maddy Abrams George Washington

Keith Black U. Penn

Anderson Alden Yale

Adam Bloch Boston University

Liam Allman UCLA

Michael Blum University of San Francisco

Emily Altschul Carleton

Michael Boggan UC Berkeley

Eric Arzoian Harvard (Deferring)

Will Borthwick Stanford

Ryan Ashley George Washington

Harry Botwick Boston University

Matt Bagnard USC (Marshall)

Alexia Boyarsky UCLA

Lauren Bailey Carleton (Deferring)

Alanna Bram NYU (Steinhardt)

Tony Baker Columbia

Sarah Brandon Brown

Benjamin Barad Stanford

Maxx Bricklin USC (Marshall)

Daniel Barlava Northwestern

Adam Buch University of Oregon

Marni Barta Northwestern

Jason Byun Université Paris IV Sorbonne

Julie Barzilay Harvard Annie Belfield Wash U., St. Louis Benjamin Bellon Bowdoin Alistair Belton SMU Ellie Bensinger Northwestern (Communication) Jenna Berger U. Penn

Jeremy Cairl Georgetown A.J. Calabrese Kenyon Nicole Cameron Skidmore Lucas Casso Williams Harrison Cha Otis Cameron Chalfant USC

Nicholas Berman USC (Annenberg)

Gina Chang Northwestern

Sean Berman Amherst

Christopher Cheng University of Chicago

Serena Berman NYU (Tisch) Gillian Berry Kenyon

Caroline Chien UCLA (Schoenberg) Dennis Cho Indiana

Cathi Choi Columbia

Haley Feldman NYU (Steinhardt)

Theodore Choi Brandeis

Shawn Feldman USC (Thornton)

Michelle Chung NYU (Gallatin)

Matthew Felker USC

Ariela Cohen U. Penn

Jordan Flatt USC (Marshall)

Jose Contreras Columbia

Sara Fleischman U. Penn (Huntsman)

Rebecca Contreras Swarthmore

Taylor Flohr Wash U., St. Louis

Leland Cox USC (Thornton)

Kenny Fowlkes USC (Marshall)

Mario Cuevas Rodriguez Stanford

Shayna Freisleben Emory (Oxford)

Caitlin Cunningham Colgate

Emily Friedman Tufts

Caroline Cuse Harvard

Spencer Friedman Harvard

Noah Daneman Embry Riddle Aeronautical University

Joseph Friedrich Georgetown

Raeye Daniel Columbia Genevieve Dash Reed Faire Davidson UNC Chapel Hill Cody Davis NYU (Gallatin) Dina De Laurentiis USC (Cinematic Arts) Alexander de Salazar Wash U., St. Louis Gina DeVitis NYU (Gallatin) Michael Diamant Davidson Oliver Doublet UC Berkeley Charlie Doughan Cal Poly Pomona Lisa Elder Michigan Max Eliot Harvard Allie Farfel UC Berkeley Anthony Farias-Eisner University of Chicago Shawn Fateh Boston College

Alexander Fullman Declined to State Harry Gallway Haverford Alyssa Garcia Columbia Daria Gaut Georgetown Kelsey Geiser Stanford Brittany Gill University of Washington Amanda Giuliano USC Dana Glaser Wash U., St. Louis Daniel Glaser Kenyon Lauren Gold American Seth Goldman Northwestern Ben Goldstein Pomona Molly Goodman Princeton Alexandra Green Stanford Sal Greenberger Oberlin Charles Grosslight SMU Gabriela Groth Stanford

TOP FIVE Many seniors will be spending another four years together.

The most popular schools chosen by the Class of 2009 are:

USC 42

May 27, 2009

»» Alma Guevara University of Rochester

Simha Haddad Johns Hopkins (Peabody Institute of Music) Julia Hahn University of Chicago Jonathan Haile Deferring Tennessee Hale NYU (Tisch) Ashley Halkett Princeton Rory Handel USC Michael Hartwick Brown Billy Hawkins USC (Marshall) Alexandra Haynes NYU Katherine Heartney Wellesley Jack Heston USC Krystle Higgins Boston College Jason Hirschhorn Harvard (Deferring) Taylor Hooks NYU (Gallatin) Nicholas Hunter George Washington Jacqueline Iniguez USC (Marshall) Lucy Jackson Northwestern (Medill) Marty Jackson Tulane Rebecca Jacobs University of Chicago Matthew Jameson NYU (Gallatin) Clara Jaques Wash U., St. Louis Esther Ji NYU Allison Kalt Wesleyan Jonathan Karasik Cornell Ben Kattan USC Daniel Katz U.S. Air Force Academy Emma Katz Middlebury

NYU 21

chapters 8 7

The Ch

B6 Senior Centerspread

May 27

As we delved in Shakespeare and of 2009 wrote it long and burstin

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Jack Mankiewicz broke the school record for dumpling consumption.

We finally got a taste of independence when we got our licenses and started driving.

“Merry and tragical! Tedious and brief! That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.” So said Shakespeare of the fantastical journey that is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and so went the mixture of excitement and wonder, anxiety and freedom that encapsulated our first year as Wolverines.

We ran around through shadows cast by lush green trees and wound through the senior garden with anticipation on our young faces. As in the enchanted forest in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” we ran free with reckless abandon – the power to buy a mechanical pencil in the middle of the day, the liberty to make the most of a sunny free period rolling down the hill by the library, and the challenging thrill of performing with a school choir or dance company.

Many young lads like Puck made asses of themselves, and a few love

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triangles sprung up and fell down.

Robert Douglas bought us lunch cards and gave great hugs while Jack Mankiewicz set a school record for dumpling consumption and we kicked back at that seventh-graders-only hoedown festival at the end of retreat.

A tangled web of truth and lies united the characters of our great comedy – gossip websites shocked and appalled while Tech & Skills played with our minds every other day of the six-day cycle. Stellar seventh grade prefect posters ruled the day, like Daria’s “Gaut Daria?” campaign, and how Jason Byun transcribed the names of everyone in our grade in beautiful cursive onto an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper.

We made deans’ offices our homes and started to learn how notes and binders and passing period worked.

And best of all, like Lysander, Jono Wagmeister’s eyes were tainted with a love potion that prompted him to propose to actress Jennifer Garner at Maddy Sprung-Keyser’s Bat Mitzvah celebration. “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

Jane Eyre The Picture of Dorian Gray

As Facebook rose in popularity during our sophomore year, our youth and beauty were eternally immortalized in the tagged photos uploaded by our virtual friends.

Just as Dorian Gray was corrupted by the hedonist influence of Lord Henry Wotton, our innocent 10th grade selves quickly were thrown into a tumultuous world of high school parties, budding romances and luxury vehicles.

Armed only with newly issued California drivers’ licenses, our sophomore class prepared for battle with the likes of a vertical campus and 45 minute class periods.

Sometimes we spent a little too much time admiring our own images in the albums of Facebook.

When it was late Thursday night and that chemistry penny lab was

looming, we were faced with a decision of epic proportions: the hard right versus the easy wrong.

Should we as responsible young scholars log out of our favorite networking site? Or should we continue perusing the pages of our 500 closest “friends”? But as Jane Eyre once said, “Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation.” We had to resist the pull of Facebook and our own Dorian-esque self-absorption.

History teacher Dror Yaron helped to make our academic experience more enjoyable by telling tales of biting the jugular of an attacking pit pull and the time that, oh yeah, he stapled his own head.

And when it came time to faceoff with two-sport varsity athlete Gavin McCourt in a push-up contest can you guess who won? Yes, it was Yaron.

But unlike Dorian’s ending, we did not meet our demise by deactivating our Facebook accounts; instead, we learned to control our online impulses and we graduated from sophomore year a little wiser and a little more mature.

To Kil Mock

Atticus Finch, the impossib defense attorney at the heart o Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird have had a rough time standin us in court this year. Recall incident involving a particu erectile dysfunction medicati just say that Krispy Kreme isn to market a Viagra-filled do any time soon. Or the gr scrawled on trash cans by o lockers in Reynolds Hall, an Dean Kate Benton’s indignant response? We even dropped eggs all over campus – as part of an Integrated Science II project, but still. Let’s not be defined by delinquency, however; triumphs abound as well.

Te’Rhon O’Neal and Corey Vann warbled a karaoke duet on retreat at Pali Mountain Camp and were recruited to join Madrigals as a result.

School was canceled for two days in January due to downpour-induced road closures. Actor Jon Heder came dressed as Napoleon Dynamite to an all-school assembly and was greeted by shrieks of glee (in our defens we really didn’t know any bette Human Development was our awkward toe-dip into the re sexuality (though the condom banana was an image we co

Jason Mow asked Lauren Gaba ’08 to prom on digg.

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hronicle

7, 2009

The Catcher in the Rye

nto the language of d Toni Morrison, the class ts own saga, six chapters ng with hidden meaning.

ll a kingbird

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Senior Centerspread B7

done without). Reflecting back, this was the year when we started to form a cohesive unit, when we realized, in the words of Atticus Finch’s daughter Scout, “I think there’s just one kind of folks.

Folks.”

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” - “The Catcher In The Rye”

We officially entered high school while still enjoying the warm, friendly, comforting embrace of the middle school campus. Sheltered and protected, there were signs that, like Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye”, we were outgrowing our adolescence.

Ellie and Brandon kissed (multiple times) in “Damn Yankees,” to cheers and whistles from the enthusiastic audience. The rap song “Purple Rain” (sample lyric: “Oh s***, cookin’ lunch, where’s the bread, here’s the punch?”) was released on MySpace to quickly become a staple on freshman iPods, and Jeremy Cairl crashed into Theo Choi and Harri-

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son Cha’s canoe on the retreat, tipping the boat and soaking all their belongings. None of these could come close to Holden getting beaten up for not paying full price for a prostitute, but we weren’t done yet. On a bet (or a dare), Sean Kyle famously leapt off the side of the quad and smashed straight into a tree, cutting open his forehead and immortalizing himself in Middle School history. Upper School, here comes the class of 2009.

Theo Choi and Harrison Cha got their belongings soaked when their canoe tipped over.

Gulliver’s Travels Pride and Prejudice Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

y se, er). first, ealm of m-covered ould have

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We all learned to double-check the ingredients in our doughnuts before eating them.

Beloved As I Lay Dying The Great Gatsby

My Mother is a Fish.

Wondering how that relates to the rollercoaster ride that is junior year?

Feel free to write an analytical essay about it, because frankly we’re not sure. The blur that was junior year may seem as confusing as that line from William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying,” but both are also loaded with meaning. Appropriately enough, being deluged with the insights of brilliant authors, swimming in a sea of College Board exams and grasping for our sanity as we pull all nighters are all accurate depictions of our heroic victories during junior year.

There were highs like the girls’ volleyball victory parade and English teacher Jeremy Michaelson’s lifechanging class discussions or grilled

cheese/Pictionary parties. And there were lows like the killer weekends with the SAT, singing competitions, sports games and dance shows all rolled into one term paper deadline extravaganza.

But the little moments that got us through, like Jason Mow asking Lauren Gaba ‘08 to Prom on digg, made it all seem ok. We saw our green lights across the water, like Nick Carroway gazing at the greatness of his neighbor Gatsby, and pushed through the windy, winding road like the Bundren clan pushing Addie across the West.

We were cheered on by a rapidly expanding cheer squad and encouraged by the faculty’s hysterical Dodgeball competition. Though at times it felt like the school was crumbling around us and our grade was a pillar of innocence in a sea of chaos, our minds actually opened and grew as we fathomed the intense perceptions of Darl or the twisted imagery in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.”

Did we lose our minds? Almost.

Would we be the same people without junior year? No. Was it worth it?

“Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.”

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when your time at Harvard-Westlake comes to an end, you finally begin to appreciate it. Senior year began with hope.

A huge display of strength, Max Ritvo got out of his wheelchair and walked along the field to accept his senior ring.

Evan Ryan kept us groovin’ as he strolled around campus, iPod speakers in hand.

Paparazzi climbed the fence, acting like the Yahoos from “Gulliver’s Travels” trying to get a shot of freshman football coach Ashton Kutcher. The seniors tried to play the kazoo, execute pranks and ditch school, but failed as we asserted our “golden grade” goodness once again.

We did manage to pelt a few juniors with water balloons, but for the most part propriety that would have pleased Lady Catherine de Bourgh ruled the day.

As second semester rolled around, we adopted a more Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go-with-the-f low style, but were drawn to rapt attention by Jack McFadden-Talbot’s stellar violin performance and gave him our first ever standing ovation.

As if it were the Netherfield Ball, we actually danced at a

school dance whilst Cherelle Patrick’s date towered over us all.

This year we learned that “Pride and Prejudice” was originally titled “First Impressions.” The impressions we formed of one another have grown and changed with time, but six years later all prejudices have melted away, and all that’s left is pride in the class of 2009.

Jack played and our class listened for the first time.

the end.

Illustrations by Dana Glaser and CAndace Ravan

B8 Senior Columns

May 27, 2009

The Chronicle Andrew Lee

Invest in the future

Shayna Freisleben

Despite missteps, leaving in peace

I

t could be said that my high school career has been marred by regret. I mean, that’s one of the fundamental issues at a place like Harvard-Westlake. With so many opportunities abound, it seems like all of the missed ones are that much more prevalent, serving as constant, stinging slaps in the face for the dirty, rotten animal, no-good, screw-ups like me. Woe to us.

Sure, I could spend this column dwelling on the fact that I have mediocre grades, no work ethic whatsoever, and an unhealthy internet/ television/general multimedia habit. I could simply say that I leave this school worse off for the wear, having more to prove and less to display as the fruits of my hardly-existent labor. How I had wished that my senior column, the summation of my six years here, would be replete with choice wisdom and insight, truths and musings. But instead, sadly — or maybe even appropriately, it is turning into a joke of sorts.

Because frankly, I don’t think many kids are capable of making as much of a buffoonery of Harvard-Westlake as I have. It’s a shame, really.

I’m nearly immune to the word “potential,” probably because I have heard it so many times while preceded by “wasted.” I try to avoid certain academic department offices (here’s looking at you, science faculty) altogether, and when I visit any other department fortunate enough to be graced with my presence, it’s usually for motives unrelated to any scholarly

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pursuit (i.e. my weekly “Real Housewives of New York City” recap with my math teacher).

I am dissatisfied, yes – I don’t want to be eternally known as the kid that “ne’er was” and I do, in fact, want to be proud of my achievements some day. But even with that omnipresent sense of contrition, I’m departing this school happy. I might be confused and misguided — I don’t have the slightest clue as to what I want to study in college, or what I want to be when I grow up — but that’s for later. I can’t frenetically plan for the future, or dwell on the things that may, possibly, perchance soon come. I’ve learned that the hard way, my friends. I have to start living for the moment. I’m content with that.

It might be too late in my time at HarvardWestlake to change. I think my fate was sealed a while back, and I can’t rewrite those piled-high books of my indiscretion.

But I do know this — it’s never too late to relish in the success of my classmates, or to appreciate the fact that, although it might seem otherwise, compassion and competition are not mutually exclusive.

I’m pushing through to this unknown and daunting horizon, and I can’t let the pleasure of each new experience waft away with the May trade winds. I’ve been able to quell that defeatist mentality, that desire to quit, that fear of rejection which can so easily consume us in our time here. I no longer need to worry that I will rue the day; I know it’s just beginning.

A.J. Calabrese

Memories can wait

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bout 30 feet past Carlthorp School in Santa Monica, if you’re driving east on San Vicente, the left lane “ends ahead.” This sign must be a relatively new addition, because when I was still a student at Carlthorp and passed this particular stretch of San Vicente every afternoon the left lane never ended ahead. I’d be in the passenger seat of the car, regaling my mom with tiny details about my day: how many games I won in handball, how many times I was forced to type the letter ‘p’ in computer class, how the music teacher had yelled at my friends for changing the words in Christmas songs to include Batman references and the word ‘fart,’ all while driving in the left lane that didn’t end until we hit Wilshire, where we’d make a left turn and continue on our way home.

Granted, I hadn’t driven on that particular stretch of San Vicente since graduating 6th grade. I didn’t really have any reason to, and passing by Carlthorp since had always made my stomach tighten anyway; it was like driving past an old girlfriend’s house, or seeing a friend who you know you owe money to even though he may not remember.

I knew that it would have been arrogant to assume that nothing had changed at all since I graduated, but seeing that grayish sign whiz by and the white diagonal arrows painted on the road flicker and tell me to merge right made me feel like I’d been stripped of something, like the correctness of my memories. The addition of this rudimentary street sign had completely altered reality from what my memories had indicated.

Eight years ago, my mom never had to worry about merging right while driving me home from school. She never had to break her concentration on my daily stories to read the sign and turn on the turn signal. What if I was still at Carlthorp today? Would my mom still have been able to devote her

full attention to my stories with this extra amount of brainwork thrown in? The idea of her not being able to terrified me.

That’s why I’m going to save reminiscing about my time at Harvard-Westlake. As an elementary school graduate, I’ve found it was the little things that stuck with me, that come rushing back without any effort on my part to remember them. Those kinds of memories are the most important. Seeing the sign on San Vicente seemed to spark an automatic roll of memories, like chains of flashing images, that were so spontaneous I couldn’t have done anything in my power to stop them, and when they were gone it was like I’d snapped out of a deep sleep. But then I got home and processed it all, and realized how glad I was that that sign was there. It made me feel I had been a part of history, a part of something that wasn’t there anymore, at least for that particular part of the street. I felt like I was there: I was there when you didn’t have to merge, when it was just a little bit less complicated on San Vicente Boulevard. I plan to have similar sentiments about Coldwater as a high school graduate, but these things, like all good things, take time.

I guess I haven’t had enough time to reflect on Harvard Westlake to remember any of the tiny details yet. But when I do, I’ll make sure to let you know.

wanted to help awkward teenage boys text message girls they like. So in math class one day, I came up with the idea to make an iPhone application to feature a bank of reliable text message examples written by very experienced girls and guys of all ages. I pulled together some friends at school to put this crazy idea into development.

Max Ritvo ’09 and Lauren Gaba ’08 helped write the content and Charlie Stigler ’11 coded the iPhone application.

The application called How to Text a Girl wouldn’t have been developed if it weren’t for these three intelligent pals.

As Google cofounder Larry Page once said, “You don’t need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea.”

We’re all surrounded by an incredibly talented peer group who are all hardworking and inspiring.

There are many talented students at school taking on their own independent web projects from their homes. Ian Cinnamon ’10 created the iPhone application Car Finder one Sunday afternoon. The application has over 17,500 sales to date. Jack Davis ’10 heads a sports news site that gets an average of 24,000 clicks per day.

Global issues have positively affected the aim of many student research projects. The projects in my Studies in Scientific Research class have gone green – from a zero emissions race car to advanced research of bio-fuels.

Students are taking global issues into mind when deciding what they want to learn about or innovate. There are seven SSR projects that have eco-friendly objectives. The research class is bringing the minds of imaginative young students to practical applications in the areas of engineering and general science.

The class bridges the gap between high school and college scientific research. It is truly “an investment in our future,” as physics teacher Antonio Nassar said.

Seeing these students study and work made me realize how this school really harvests the imagination and knowledge of the “future leaders” of America. We have the chance to do things that might make a big difference in the world, or even a small difference to someone you love — all sorts of wonderful opportunities lie ahead of us. It can happen fast, it can happen today. It may happen a whole lot sooner than we think.

Cody Schott

Lessons to learn

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t was the best of times and it was the worst of times.”

Who cares about London and Paris? Charles Dickens could have been referring to HarvardWestlake.

There were relationships to be forged, knowledge to be gained and a welcoming community. There was also stress, pressure and drama.

There was success and failure.

At points, high school really was the highlight of my life; at other times, I wanted nothing more than for college to begin.

Given the pros and cons, if I could re-do my teenage years, I would still go to HarvardWestlake.

We as students were taught more than just academics, but intangibles that we couldn’t learn elsewhere. We came in as 7th graders with a tabula rasa; we graduate as adults with character and personality. Throughout the journey, I always felt my confidence growing. There may have been many challenges along the way, but the satisfaction from completing those challenges is unparalleled. No other school can offer that self-satisfaction, that confidence.

The most impressive part of my H-W experience is how I’ve learned from the

negative moments. I learned how to cope with stress and pressure, how to accept and improve on failures, and how to survive drama that will most likely persist into college.

I may be alone in saying this, but anxiety seems like a thing of the past. I have learned how to stay focused despite stress. I didn’t learn these lessons by choice, but out of necessity. And I am glad I did learn them, because I know coping with stress is a valuable tool for college and graduate studies, as well as professional work. All that was missing from my high school education was learning how to live in extreme cold; that will be the only lesson that I will have to learn at college on my own.

And come June 5 on Ted Slavin Field, I won’t be celebrating the fact that I am leaving the school, but rather everything the school has given me.

For every bad moment, there was an amazing one to make up for it. For every feeling of pain, there was always a friend that could alleviate it.

It truly was the best of times or it was the worst of times, but just knowing that I made it while actually learning something, makes it worth celebrating.

Plus, who knows, there might be better or worse (hopefully not) times in the future.

May 27, 2009 Faire Davidson

Great expectations

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Senior Columns B9

The Chronicle Julie Barzilay

Web of memories

hough this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

This description of Prince Hamlet’s insanity, funnily enough, made me think of HarvardWestlake.

Hamlet’s rants are terrifying, seem to have no rhyme or reason and confuse those around him.

However upon closer inspection, they make perfect sense, conveying his true dilemma (the possible murder of his father).

Harvard-Westlake is madness.

It is mad to stay up until 4 a.m. studying for AP US History after a Monday night Chronicle layout. It is mad to drink three Red Bulls, because eventually they stop working.

It is mad to not go out all weekend because of one test on Monday, or try to do a lab, study for a test and finish a project all due the next day. Or to tell your friend you can’t hang out because you’re sick, even though you’re really just too tired to leave your house. It is mad to study until your eyes burn, sit at your computer screen until your English essay gets better, or to set your alarm for 4 a.m. even though you know you’ll keep pressing the snooze button until 6:30.

I have, however, done all those things.

And I am a little crazy.

But there is method in it.

Last week I had a conversation with a fellow senior that consisted of him telling me attending HW was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made and me being thoroughly confused.

The basis of his argument was that the school pretends to care about the student’s workload and stress level, but continues to pile on the work, burning out the students and keeping them from reaching their full potential.

I wrote it off as this student being unwilling to reach the level the school desired and considered it a single, isolated incident.

A couple days after this conversation, I saw “F*** Harvard-Westlake” scrawled into a table in the quad. With two such bold condemnations in such a short amount of time, I was completely thrown off by the reputation the school seemed to obtain in my final weeks here.

In my first and last column for the Chronicle, I will defend my school.

As students here, were are fraught with difficulties from the first day of school. Its reputation had us shaking in our flip flops as 13 year-olds. In eighth grade we thought we had the system down.

By ninth, we thought we were overworked, but proud of it, proud that those children couldn’t understand what we were going through (probably because it wasn’t as difficult as we made it out to be).

But when we got to the Upper School, we began to learn what real hard work was and stayed up later, studied harder, and increased our expectations.

Not once did I blame my increasing workload on the school’s inability to understand what its students were going through. The school aims to challenge students and that will never change, but each student’s ability to rise to that challenge does.

It was me who couldn’t understand the material well enough, couldn’t stop procrastinating, couldn’t organize her schedule to accommodate my augmented responsibilities.

This a message to the underclassmen: As difficult as your times here are, no other school could foster the type of environment where students refuse to accept their own failure. Students rise to the expectations of their environment and in college you will accept nothing less than your best. Appreciate that gift.

Ashley Halkett

I

remember my first day of seventh grade – it started out in Kate Benton’s office.

I was supposed to report there for that strange concept of “Attendance,” which any H-W student will tell you is code for a free period, but which to a brand new scrub seemed highly complex. I was incredibly happy to see familiar faces upon entering the Administration Building—Marissa from gymnastics camp, Emily from volleyball, Dana from dance class.

And we had nothing to do – no work whatsoever, no teachers to see, no commitments to uphold. So we played cards on the Fire Road for a good 20 minutes, and experimented with our “lunch cards” in the cafeteria. I waited for second period history to start, not knowing what to expect in the next few minutes let alone the next six years.

By my next free I was already embedded in the chaotic but thrilling journey that is coming to a close as I write this column – I was enmeshed in homework, obligations and plans for the future that linked each class and each year to the next.

Recently, I’ve rediscovered that sensation of having no (read: very few) obligations to worry about while idling away free periods at school – but this time I’ve come out on the other side.

It’s easy to seal off an experience as something in which you came in one way and left another, but what I’d rather do is prop open my time at Harvard-Westlake with some specific memories that happened right smack in the middle: between class meeting and AP English Lit, between Chronicle and dance...

1. The Chinese platespinning, backflipping assembly we have the privilege of watching at the middle school.

It blew our 13-year-old minds.

2. The obsessive pestering question “Do you X?” throughout our entire seventh grade year, like some bizarre, grammatically incorrect alien code. We were pretty excited about the concept of free periods (some things never change.)

3. Josh Budde and Julie Hollrah dress up as Kevin Federline and Brittany Spears for Halloween. We think it’s the greatest thing ever.

4. Ellie Bensinger ’09 launches her career as uber-talented, school-spirited costume designer extraordinaire with stellar umbrella-inspired H-W spirit motif.

5. Zip Disks. OMG! 6. Your first break between a double period. Looking at the person next to you as you walk to the cafeteria, wordlessly expressing thanks for this brief respite in another crazy day.

7. Lisa Elder ’09 sings “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” in assembly.

We fall silent in awe.

8. Staring at the Mastin crew’s Pencey Prep T-shirts during the ninth grade English final. Wishing you had one.

9. Paul Mastin reads Dr. Seussstyle poems in a rocking chair next to a potted plant in the Marshall Center during “Oh, the Dances You’ll Dance!”

Dance Production show. He rocks.

10. Jeremy Michaelson fourth period 07-08...you know you all have that class that needs no words to describe it.

11. Making your first real “upperclassmen” friend. Two years later, being someone’s first upperclassman friend.

12. The faculty dodgeball game in Taper gymnasium last year – “Reign of Terror” versus “Slaughterhouse Five,” anyone?

13. Watching Michael Diamant ’09 run around in face paint and a cape at Homecoming as wild Fanatics chant and beat a drum like a tribal dance.

14. Your last break between a double period. Feeling like you should commemorate every “last” that rolls out as these finals days of class slow to a halt.

15. We Can and We Did. HarvardWestlake Seniors ’09. Thank you Caitlin Cunningham ’09.

I don’t know if you’ve realized it yet, but our grade is pretty much the best.

There is trust and support between us, and we’re going to do some amazing things. I am not sure what it will be like to leave behind all the communities we’ve built here or to move far away from the web of support we’ve woven.

But I do know one thing – you can make a huge difference in someone’s life just by greeting them everyday, by paying attention when they talk or by valuing their ideas. And we can weave webs in our new communities by throwing ourselves into whatever we do with all our hearts, and treating everyone with kindness and respect.

But let’s not reflect on H-W as a story with just a start and a finish, a complete entity without details or quirks. Personally, I feel like my mind opened up in a thousand directions over these six years – through chemistry, volleyball teams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, endless Dance Concert rehearsals, “As I Lay Dying,” class meetings or Chronicle dinners at midnight.

I can’t really phrase all the nuances of those experiences in words, so I’ll try to preserve their essence – “esencia” for those of you in Spanish V – in little memories.

Not only do those memories freeze time and keep your past alive, but they will always be there to remind you of the web that’s here, between North Faring and Coldwater Canyon, ready to support us if we need it.

Feeling the love: school community after all

I

hate it when people say HarvardWestlake has no community. I would say this is the sentimental senior side coming out, but I’ve felt this way for a long time.

Community spirit is the subject of countless Prefect speeches, event proposals and Chronicle editorials. It often provides platform material and column fodder (mea culpa), though it rarely seems to be positive commentary. I could take that road. However, after my experience this spring, I don’t have it in me to say anything negative.

When I was waitlisted in April, I honestly thought it was the worst

thing that could have happened to me, excepting rejection. It was Januarythrough-March all over again, with no guarantee of a notice at the end. But there was a plus side. When I got off that waitlist on May 6 at 1:58 p.m., the sheer number of people shouting their congratulations was incredible. Within seconds of finding out, I had multiple missed calls. When I interrupted my mom’s history class to tell her, several juniors stood up and clapped.

People I’d spoken to maybe three times in six years came up to me in the quad to hug me or tell me how happy they were. I received more laudatory

text messages than I had on my birthday, and all were from Harvard-Westlake students who were honestly, truly happy for someone else and more than ready to express it.

I don’t mean to imply that I’m über popular—I’m not. But that’s what makes that moment so incredible.

If your idea of community is a school where every person supports everyone else, then of course we lack a sense of community. That’s an impossible standard. With any school, let alone one as large and competitive as ours, there are going to be conflicts or people you just can’t stand. That doesn’t mean that

nobody is supportive, nobody cares or nobody truly does love Harvard-Westlake and the people who go here. A lot of people support, a lot of people care and many, many people love our school, and it really shines through in senior year.

It’s true our community spirit could be better; I don’t deny that. But it could be a lot worse too. We share common workloads, common stresses, common enemies, common friends.

That binds us, indelibly, whether we like it or not. We have a lot of community – there’s proof everywhere – and I think it’s time we recognize it.

B10 Senior Columns Carly Radist

I’m moving forward, memories in tow

S

ix years. 72 months. 26,280 days. 630,720 hours. 37,843,200 minutes. 2,270,592,000 seconds. (I thank my TI-84 Plus for those numbers because even after all of these years at Harvard-Westlake, I probably could not do that in my head.) This is how long I’ve been a Harvard-Westlake Wolverine.

Six years of emotion, six years of stress, six years of learning, and six years of memories. As we matriculate, we will encounter more emotion, stress, and learning wherever we go. We will thrive and prosper, furthering our self-discovery. We will even make new memories that in four years we will look back upon and laugh, cry, or just smile about.

But, before we embark on our individual journeys and begin creating new memories, its time to reflect on the old ones. The ones we made as seventh graders, ninth graders, or even this most recent senior year.

Whether happy, sad, funny, stupid, or insignificant, these memories represent our Harvard-Westlake years.

It’s April 14 (I know, long before this column was due, but I couldn’t help putting pen to paper as I thought about senior year ending) I’m sitting in APES class watching a video on the Owens Valley (sorry Dietrich Schuhl that I didn’t watch much of the video, forgive me?) For some reason, I can’t help but think about my past six years. College decisions are being made (and at this point, have been made) and people are beginning (or continuing) to count down the days to our anticipated graduation.

Back in September I thought I would be excited and anxious to put on my cap and gown and shake President Thomas Hudnut’s hand while receiving that most desired diploma. But, as I sit in class and realize how fast this year has flown by, I begin to fear that sunny day in June when I say goodbye to Harvard-Westlake and my high school youth. I will leave behind those vertical stairs that I climbed each day (the hike from Weiler to third floor Seaver was the absolute worst.) And I will say goodbye to those lovely SQUID days when I “cleaned” the Terrace after school. Saying goodbye is always the hardest part of leaving, but I think I will be okay in knowning that I have a box full of memories to open whenever I’m feeling nostalgic.

I love remembering those moments that I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. I even don’t mind thinking about those times I cried because I thought my life was over when in reality it was only a minor moment of embarrassment. Regardless of how I felt at that second, I can safely say I’m proud of every (well, almost every) memory from these past six years. I’ve been able to take something away from most of my experiences, learning from my mistakes and being proud of my accomplishments. I realize that although I’ve had a far from perfect Harvard-Westlake experience, I do cherish the moments.

I know that I’ve grown and I’ve matured over these past years, but to think that it was six years ago that I was a short 12 year old with braces and a somewhat questionable wardrobe, who was scared out of her mind to come here, makes me see how far I’ve come (both emotionally and fashionably). I no longer walk with my head down nor do I avert eye contact with people I don’t know; but to remember those days in seventh grade when the ninth graders harassed us on the bus, telling us to triple up in those sticky plastic seats (they are meant for two), I can’t help but laugh. This is what I’m talking about.

These are the memories that I want to recall. These are the moments to appreciate six years later.

Six years have passed, and I wish I could say I’m satisfied. But, what lies ahead is the unknown and a looming fear. Harvard-Westlake has become my comfort zone and leaving only brings anxiety. However, when I leave, I can take the memories along too; pack them in a bag to take along with me to college to hang in the back of my closet.

That is one thing I can say HarvardWestlake has given me.

Derek Schlom

I

like to write, but I wouldn’t consider myself a particularly good writer. I don’t necessarily feel this way because I’m not actually a good writer (I would never be so presumptuous, or obnoxious, as to assert that I am). I just know that there is always someone better. It’s my warped perspective on the transitive property: if someone else writes “better” than I do, then I must not be good.

Earlier this year, I experimented with a blog in which I spouted off about current events and pop culturejust as a personal outlet, I told myself, not because I’m delusional enough to

May 27, 2009

The Chronicle Alexia Boyarsky

Once in a while, listen to your inner child

W

hen I was 11, I read a book and my life changed forever.

I feel like few people can pin point a turning point in their life as specifically as I can. I know for a fact that when I opened the purple bound cover of my first Harry Potter book, my life took a

turn.

It’s not just that I began to love reading at that moment, it was also a moment when I grew up a bit. That sounds funny doesn’t it? How can you grow up by reading a children’s book? I grew up the moment I developed a passion, and while it was a childish passion, agreed, it also made me into who I am today: slightly crazy, excessively sentimental, competitive, annoying and smart. How can just one book do that?

Well, for starters, it was the lessons I learned.

I learned how through thick and thin, whether you’re stuck in a forest finding Horcruxes or crying about college, your friends help you through everything.

I had, and continue to have, wonderful friends, who for some unknown reason actually like me, and the fact that I’ve had a wonderful high school experience is entirely due to them. Thank you to all of you. Whether we only became close senior year or you’ve known me since my first day in ninth grade, walking around pathetically with my cast, you mean the world to me.

I also learned about the importance an individual makes. That even a 13-yearold can defeat the evilest wizard in the world, and even at the ripe age of 18, I can make a difference. Yes, my education isn’t over yet, but that doesn’t mean I have to wait to do something great. And although no bright ideas have come to me yet, I’m sure the Muse will strike sometime soon, and I’ll be ready for it.

But most importantly, Harry taught me to use my imagination, and with this I present my offering to you.

If you remember nothing else from this senior column stuck in the sea of others, remember never to lose touch with your inner child, because the powers you held back then should never be lost.

As we move on to elite universities, and read Nabakov, Austen or Homer, we’ll become bright, shining adults, at last ready to capitalize on the “potential” my father and Jeanne Huybrechts keep harping about. But what I’m worried about most is becoming one of those mindless drones that go to work and come back with nothing in between.

No matter how much money we end up making, how many businesses we own or how well we are able to circumnavigate paying our taxes, please remember the glorious years when you weren’t burdened with anything.

Take the time to run barefoot through the grass.

Take the time to read children’s books with your future kids.

Take the time to bake cookies, to plant flowers, to walk along the beach or simply to daydream.

But most importantly: just take the time to appreciate the world.

This sounds ridiculous coming from an 18-year-old (and no, Derek, I am not a 20 something year old undercover journalist like in “Never Been Kissed”), but we all know it’s true. Just look at how quickly the past year went. I remember receiving my ring back in September, and suddenly I have to deal with graduation lunch reservations (well, you do, Mom).

It’s crazy; but what’s even more frightening, is that the rest of my life will go by just as quickly.

Now, as much as I have always loved Harry (he pretty much defined my life for at least four years) I will eventually have to leave him behind. And I think I’ve come to terms with that. But the lessons I’ve learned from him will never be lost, no matter how big my vocabulary gets or how convoluted the novels I’m reading become.

I realize at the end of this column (and having been forced into a private room to finish this, because at noon on Monday I’m still not done) that I never really wanted to write about Harry, he was just a smokescreen.

I wanted to write about my friends. Life without them will be impossible, heartbreaking, lonely but necessary.

I also wanted to write about my dreams. I have so many of them (as my family mercilessly teases me about), but if I ever truly “grow up” then I will lose them, and that’s a sacrifice that I, and hopefully you, am not willing to make. So the little child inside of me (the one that still watches Disney movies, and still enjoys Disneyland) lives on, despite my tall, almost six foot frame.

Not first, but not worst think that what I write would actually mean something to someone, or that people would care about what I write. As one of my first posts, I wrote my take on why poor singers feel the need to also become poor actresses and vice versa.

The next day, one of my favorite blogs, written by professional journalists with years of training and experience, featured a post on practically the same topic…but it was better. Way better. The language was crisper, the examples stronger, the points clearer.

I had been one-upped. My take obviously didn’t matter if someone else’s take was more accurate, or funnier.

My nascent blog was aborted. The Tumblr account still exists, but I haven’t updated it in months.

Obviously, I have some issues. To be honest, though I take credit for my own irrational feelings of ineptitude, I think that Harvard-Westlake has conditioned me to compare myself to others rather than to enjoy and appreciate my own work for what it is- not intentionally, of course, but that’s just the way it is. I’ve never had the highest grades, because it’s impossible to have the highest grades at this school. The ultimate achievement is always out of reach, and second (or, I would estimate, 201st place) is never

good enough.

The competitive nature of the student body here is, it has been said before, a blessing and a curse: we push each other to be the best, but only a select few reach the pinnacle. The inferiority complex I have imposed upon myself as a result of this, hopefully, will fade, as I learn to exploit the benefits of what I’ve learned here and avoid the emotional pitfalls of attending a school where I was never close to the top of the class. But, for now, all I can do is attempt to succeed for my own satisfaction, in college and in life.

At the moment, that’s good enough.

The blogging can come later.

May 27, 2008 Lucy Jackson

Senior Columns B11

The Chronicle Dana Glaser

Doing it for Dad ‘The Day Jack Played’

W

e’re running a story this issue titled “Coping with grief ” about the ways in which teenagers deal with the death of a parent. Faire Davidson wrote it, and she did a great job, but what surprised me about the article was that all of the sources in it wanted to be anonymous.

It surprised me that the topic is too taboo and even embarrassing for a lot of teenagers to speak openly about it, but then it hit me that it shouldn’t have been so surprising at all. I was the same way.

I’ve been shying away from writing this column for months. I’ve always known what I’ve wanted to touch on, and yet in the last few weeks I’ve written six other senior columns instead, ranging from the influence one of my best friends had on me this year to how I feel about the bureaucratic inner workings of HarvardWestlake. And then, at 4:40 in the morning going into what would be my last day of layout for this publication, arguably my biggest accomplishment in high school, I realized that I had to thank the person who got me there, even if he would never be able to read it.

My dad died in January of this year, but not before influencing everything I did at Harvard-Westlake. A senior column that’s supposed to somehow encompass six years here can’t be written without acknowledging him – he showed up in a suit to every softball game, and when I dropped that for Chronicle he shifted his focus from batting to article proposals at the dinner table every night. When I was too tired to drive home after Monday night layout junior year he picked me up instead, and the same went for shuttling me to and from the valley as a sophomore during layout.

And now, in the last Chronicle piece that will have my byline across the top, my dad’s influence has shown through one final time, (hopefully) giving this column a greater purpose.

As journalists, we’re taught that anything can be accomplished through writing, and as a member of this paper, columns have always been my outlets for demanding change, though I may not have always been successful. When I told one of my best friends months ago that I wanted to write about my dad, she responded that my choice was a bold one. And at the time, I agreed with her. But she’s wrong, or at least she should be.

The death of parent, while certainly not an everyday occurrence in adolescent life, isn’t as rare as people may think, either.

The psychologists in Faire’s story indicate that it helps to talk about it, more so with friends sometimes than with adults, and in my experience, they’re right. So the students featured in the article — or any student, for that matter — shouldn’t feel like it’s something to hide. It’s a personal choice, not something that the status quo should get to determine, but for a long time, I didn’t feel that way. I didn’t think there was an option.

So, my last column for this paper is for my dad, who meant more than 600 words could ever say. But I think it’s for more than that, too. There’s a social stigma that goes along with death, and for my part, I think that should change.

So I did the only thing I know — and the thing my dad would have told me to do — and I wrote a column.

L

et me introduce you to my little brother, Jake: Jake started 7th grade this year, he’s half my height, wears glasses, plays the guitar and can solve a Rubics cube faster than anyone I know. In the past year I’ve noticed symptoms of living vicariously through my 12-year-old brother: When the class schedules came in August, I opened his first.

When my parents ask Jake if he has done his homework, I, regardless of his response, will invariably sigh and say ever-so-sagely “Jake, you don’t know the meaning of work.

Just wait until junior year…” At which point I advise him not to let “them” pressure him into a burdensome course load. I suggest taking AP Biology in junior year instead of AP Physics B. Or dropping out of school after ninth grade. He ignores me.

When my brother chose his 8th grade classes in February, I encouraged him to take Chronicle.

I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day with these confessions. They are a strange combination of bitter regret and loving nostalgia. I’m not going to sugar-coat my Harvard-Westlake experience: there are ways the school could have been better, ways that I could have been better. Most of what I remember though is, well, perfect: I remember marker wars in the Spectrum room, Jeremy Michaelson’s second period English III Honors class and Katherine Holmes-Chuba’s fifth period History/Art

Cathi Choi

Make it better

M

y junior year English classroom pulsated with energy, fueled by intellectual curiosity and heated discussions that cracked open my adolescent shell. There I explored and understood how words are nothing but thwarted vessels of communication.

“Love,” says Addie in “As I Lay Dying” is “just a shape to fill a lack.”

It turned the keys in an engine, and I was flying around, high off learning.

The course asked me, point blank, “How do I perceive the world and why.” I had heard hackneyed phrases about “formative learning” in anonymous and dry college sessions, but experiencing it first-hand felt like the culmination of my education.

I wanted more. It didn’t really matter what the topic was—who the writer was. I just wanted to dig elbow deep into passages of literature, shining a light on their every corner and turning over every phrase with the guidance of my teacher. I wanted to have discussions. I wanted to write papers. I wanted to analyze literature in the way I thought most engaging.

I knew that just one English class in senior year wouldn’t satisfy me.

I wanted an Independent Study.

There are many reasons why this Independent Study failed. I tried to propose a topic I had little exposure to. I hadn’t done enough research and the scope of it was not specific enough.

Those are issues I understand and accept. What I refuse to accept and still am angry about is the committee’s decision to limit me on the number of classes I was allowed to take.

In my second semester of my senior year, I was not allowed to add on an eighth class. The committee said that I had to drop Cinema Studies second semester if I wanted to go forward with the Independent Study. I fully understand the “no eight classes” rule being applied to incoming sophomores who have their eyes wide, ambitions impossibly high, and three-year plans, heavy-laden with APs. What I don’t understand is limiting seniors from completing a project they plan to create and work on independently in their final semester. I was frustrated with the committee and did not want to drop Cinema Studies, the class I had been waiting to take since freshman year, so I quit their game and left.

I thought I would be able to shrug

history class, Dupars and Monday layouts, Grease in the art studio, winning Mock Trial, Biochem study parties and an awkwardly choreographed dance to “Pop” by N’SYNC. I want Jake to avoid the turns where I crashed (literally and figuratively), but I also want him to know there will be a time, or many times, that he would easily give a few all nighters for.

Which is why I was sitting on my brother’s bed, decked out in pajamas at three in the afternoon on the day we will all remember as “The Day Jack Played.”

“So today, this guy in my grade — Jack McFadden-Talbot,” I began.

“McFadden?” he laughed (I’m sorry about this next part Jack). “Do people call him that? In my grade people would totally make fun of him.”

“No,” I said shortly. “Shut up a minute.”

I told him about that morning. I told him I went to my last class meeting with the only hope that it would end early. I told him I brought my 20 lb Biology textbook and a highlighter to get in a last minute scan before my test the next period. I told him that all around me Blackberries were clicking and friends were chatting. And then Jack played. It wasn’t immediate, but after the first few notes conversations petered off, people squirmed a little and then settled into their seats. I realized I had read over the functions of the cerebrum three times with minimal absorption, and I stopped trying.

Even though classical music, tasteless and barbaric as I am, usually lulls me into a doze, I actually listened. We actually listened.

We were absorbed. Then we were moved.

In the smattering of applause that followed, one person stood up near the front, and then a few more, until we were giving him a standing ovation and through the heads of my classmates I could see Jack smiling and I clapped harder, happy to be part of something that could make him so happy, happy to be in a class with so many brilliant members and happy that even though I didn’t know all of them (and that it was too late to try), we could come together for one arguably perfect moment at the end of a class meeting.

All of this I told my brother.

“Cool,” he said. He turned on his computer.

I was disappointed at first. He didn’t get it. It’s all right though, because I guess he will soon enough.

“we should...be allowed to fill our schedules to the absolute brim.” it off and move on, but my momentum had suddenly been halted and the committee’s decision did and continues to frustrate me.

All my life I was inundated with mottos like “Ad Astra” meaning “To the stars” (the Mirman School’s motto) and “They can because they think they can.” I’m just as skeptical of these maxims as the next person, but beneath the words, there is an underlying agreement: challenge yourself academically; your educational institution will support you.

They were worried about my course load? My stress level? In the second semester of senior year?

Yes, my course load would’ve been heavier. I would’ve been challenged, but I wanted that. That’s how I came into this school and Harvard-Westlake did nothing but nurture this desire, if not spur it on. My senior year would have been better with an independent study of literature. I know that. I regret that it didn’t happen.

There is simply no reason that we should not be allowed to fill our schedule to the absolute brim in our final year, let alone our final semester. We have gone through all the steps, some

of us are even legal adults. We have learned how to manage our time, and they should trust us.

My failure in creating my own independent study has in no way tarnished my junior year experience. Junior year English, however, has not done away with my frustration. I’m still reading, and I’m still analyzing. Senior year English was a valuable experience.

The knowing, however, that I could have had more — that HarvardWestlake still had more to give — that I had reached for it and failed — I regret that.

I hope that as we come away from senior year, trying to find some meaningful thesis for the past six years here, we realize that HarvardWestlake has room to improve. The only way we can make sure of that is if we see through the sentimental haze to the question of “How could this experience have been better?” and do something about it.

I will forever be grateful for junior year English. My total experience, however, could have been better with an independent study. In all honesty, I’m writing for change, and I’m hoping for the best.

photofinish

Senior Supplement B12

May 27, 2009

the limo: Brianna Sommer ’09, Michael Richardson ’09 and Jonny Meyer ’09 take a limousine to the prom in Hollywood.

prom-a-rama courtesy of lauren wolfen

the group photo: Phoebe Novak ’09, Marni Barta ’09, Lauren Wolfen ’09, Carly Mandel ’09, Dana Glaser ’09, Daria Gaut ’09, Annie Belfield ’09 pose for a group photo on Novak’s patio.

the king and queen: Alex Rivkin ’09 and Mike Lee ’09 were named prom king and queen based on votes cast by all attendees on the night of prom.

cathi choi/chronicle

It’s a rite of passage: the limo, the dresses, the dancing (and yes, the cost). A look inside the event that was prom 2009.

courtesy of brianna sommer

the boutonniere and corsage: Jackie Matza ’09 figures out how to pin a boutonniere on Charlie Weintraub ’09.

courtesy of jackie matza

courtesy of jackie matza

the dancing: Cherelle Patrick’s ’09 prom date Renardo Sidney (far left), a six foot 10 inch senior from Fairfax High, gets the party started on the dance floor at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel with Sara Fleischman ’09, Brittany Richmond ’09, Ariana Sopher ’09 and Greg Myerson ’09 (left to right).