Sarah Newsletter - December 2023

��th December ����

2023 Sarah

NEWS

Top News House Glee－Hyoungtak Cha

House Ensemble－Victoria Park Y� Girls Football－Sophia Kim

House Badminton－Hayoon Cho

House Singing－Selina Lee

Netball －Esther Lee

House Quiz－Julia Cho Chess－Siwool Um

House Glee Hyoungtak Cha

Not all events turned out to be as successful as we expected. In Glee, our leader and members all worked together, coming to sudden rehearsals and communicating about our progress. Our leader Yejin worked especially hard.

She even showed us a visual representation of our individual directions.

The year 11s enthusiastically taught us the moves. The moves were not too hard and the formations were incredible. I cannot emphasise the amount of rehearsals and the enthusiasm in them enough.

Through the rehearsals, we overcame the changes in moves or formation. The changes were based on the feedback from our previous-Saraharian IB dance student. The dance was made up of normal dances, couple dances and dance breaks.

Even with these, Sarah couldn’t make it to the top places in Glee.

The result was shocking, because we even prepared a cake for celebration. Regardless of the result, after the house competition, we went to CU and talked about how grateful it was to come together and perform.

The next day, the Glee members had a fried chicken party.

Although we didn’t win in the house competition, we believe we enjoyed the event and so were the winners: because that’s what house competition is about. Being obsessed with victory would only defeat the whole purpose of house competitions. What is left for us is to go over our performance and improve from our mistakes next time.

Sarah

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House Singing Selina Lee

It has been quite some time since Sarah House was First place for House Singing!

‘Man in the Mirror’ by Michael Jackson was a difficult song to reimagine into a house singing piece—but the outcome was absolutely amazing.

Practising in the mornings was difficult for everyone, especially when we had to hit some higher notes. Everybody was tired and some members of the house had to spend their lunch times, but can we all agree that it was worth it? All that time and effort all paid off, and allowed us to place first place. Admittedly, there were hurdles— perhaps morning practices could have gone a little smoother—but the important thing is that we all pulled through and put up a brilliant performance.

A shout out to our year 11, Hannah Kim, who was in charge of arranging our song, and creating demonstrations for each part! It must have been quite the work done to recreate a Michael Jackson song into a choir piece. We thank you for your amazing vision and dedication to Sarah House.

Another shout out to Edward Cho, our conductor, who also put in a great deal of effort to keep all of us in time. We thank you for your patience and leadership to help us stay steady throughout the performance.

Lastly, a big shout out to all of our house captains who stayed patient throughout and helped Sarah House pull through! We look forward to next year, for Sarah House to pull off another great performance in House Singing.

Sarah

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House Ensemble

Victoria Park

Less than a month ago, our exceptional House Ensemble treated us to a captivating performance featuring a medley of Frozen songs. Despite the outcome not swinging in our favour, the performance itself was undoubtedly delightful and most deserving of a review far better than the one I may offer.

First and foremost, let's acknowledge the talents at play. The Fabulous Four Year 11s—Hannah, the creative force behind our House Singing performance; Edward, familiar to us all as the conductor; the versatile musician Marc; and last but not least, Junsea. Contributions from Year 10s and 9s, including Layla as the conductor, Lauren as our brilliant pianist, Antony as a gifted cellist, and Sola and Jason as talented violinists, were invaluable. Lastly, a special thanks is owed to Arjuna Peirson for taking time out to help out with the performance! Thank you all for coming together and creating such an outstanding performance.

The chosen repertoire was a Frozen medley, though it transcended expectations with a depth and emotional resonance not immediately apparent in its title. Although Frozen might naturally be associated with lighthearted childhood music, the Ensemble transformed it into a poignant experience. Their rendition of the Frozen songs was epic and at the same time relatable: it left an indelible impression of grandeur tinged with nostalgic fondness. In a remarkable fusion, the performance oscillated between solemnity, melancholy, and gentle hopefulness, encapsulating a spectrum of emotions—an impressive feat in itself.

However, coming up to year 8, I have started to notice some differences. First of all, obviously, unexpected successes.

Sarah had significantly improved during this academic year, coming first in quite a few competitions. Maybe we are phoenixes after all, rising from the ashes again. Perhaps it is the revival of the phoenix taking into action. Otherwise it might have been that we had more participation and willingness to “try” rather than the will to “sit-and-complain-about-how-life-is-unfair-and-that-house-com-

The performance unfolded with the flute's solo and the strategically timed, commanding drums, setting a quietly portentous tone. Subsequently, as all ensemble members joined in, the collective performance was equally, if not more, impressive and awe-inspiring. Each member contributed with mystery and grace, creating a descriptive and subliminal atmosphere. Not only was the atmosphere so well-crafted, but the rhythmic music patterns and its gradual

petitions-are-useless”.

layering as well as evolution was mesmerising and beautiful-

Jokes aside, let us nominate a few of the successes we have

homophonic to polyphonic, homorhythmic to polyrhythmic,

had. The house chant, public speaking, coding, house

ly done. The texture, a brilliant range and development from was impressive too.

drama, the scrabble scramble, and the ones I have forgotten to mention, which there would be quite a few, I believe.

I would like to show a sign of gratitude towards those who were trying their best and allowed Sarah to win. Thanks to everyone, Sarah was able to rise to 4th place, leaving the dreaded 5th place to Noro.

Sarah

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Netball Esther Lee

Our enthusiastic competitors in Sarah year 9 and year 10 girls participated in the house netball competition. Netball was a total of two weeks of house competition. The participants met during the lunch sometimes to practise passing, blocking, and to learn from each other. Each member was given a role to play in netball, and were divided into team A and team B, who competed in different places but at the same time.

While doing the netball competition, it was physically challenging and tiring. But we could still go running and catch the ball because of the encouragement of the other team members, and the participants supported each other very well. The members complimentary words for each other and didn’t lose hope for winning.

Sarah

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Y� Girls Football Sophia Kim

The beams of sunlight shone radiantly on the grass, the sky a swirl of scarlet, striking red, majestic orange and tints of vibrant yellow, the heat scorching but manageable as the Sarah girls ran towards the football field, ready for strenuous training for the upcoming matches. Although many had never even tried football before, most volunteered eagerly and set to work, improving their accuracy and precision, learning the basics of football, hearts burning with pride. By the time they had finished, the girls ravenously ate their lunch, anticipation pulsing in their veins and adrenaline filled them with anxiety and excitement. Then, as a whole, the red descended upon the field, heart beating like a drum, hands shaking, sweat beading on our foreheads. The moments from the first match all blurred into colours and emotions, fear, joy, confusion, and nervousness, as every one either passionately cheered, voices amplified by the thrill of the match or played on the field, treading on the grass and tensley anticipating the other team’s every move and responding, dribbling, passing, shooting, scoring. This process repeated, until at last, we had one Geomun, Noro and Jeoji and tied with Mulchat. We sat there. Bathing in our glory, overwhelmed by pride and bursting with ecstasy and jubilance. Then, the field erupted into cheers as the red joined together, one mass of fiery passion and victory as the Sarah Phoenix soared in our hearts and we slumped onto the grass, gazing at the sky, exhausted but glad. Sweat glistened on our foreheads and the cool breeze gently caressed our skin and rewarded us with its soothing touch. This experience certainly created a lot of bonds not only between the Sarah girls but among the other houses as well.

We were not mercilessly pushing and shoving for first place. We were not there to crush everyone and commit unsportsmanlike actions. We were there to enjoy ourselves and win fairly with skill.

Although we aimed for first place, we helped each other, comforted, and encouraged the other houses when they faced despair after a bad game or a conflict. From the training to the actual match, the Sarah spirit has shone valiantly and alongside it also shone the NLCS spirit. Not everyone had scored and not everyone had been the best but together, Sarah had achieved the best possible and first place was as clear as day.

Sarah

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Netball Esther Lee

The house quiz was a competition where students from different houses competed against each other by scoring points for the quiz, which included a variety of topics as such as mathematics, science, guess the teacher and much more. It was a test of basic knowledge where students united, gaining points for the answers they could by answering questions they knew. The quiz was a set of multiple choice questions, given around 30 seconds to answer before the next question came up. Everyone had gave their best and had lots of fun doing the quiz evidently from the large amount of amiles, running and laughter ringing out all throughout the room.

The house quiz definitely gave lots of opportunities for tutor groups to grow closer to each other, flourishing and share the knowledge they possessed to help their house win points eventually leading up to being able to place.

Sarah had done quite splendidly with Year 9s placing in 1st, Year 10s placing in 1st and Year 11s placing in 5th. But aside from the placings and points achieved, everyone had a spectacular time and tried their best, showing clear enthusiasm and passion for earning points for their house which is a truly magnificent and proud moment in NLCS.

Sarah

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House Badminton Hyoungtak Cha

Sarah has always been exceptional when dealing with sports, and we are improving more and more each month. One of the most striking and competitive house events of this week was badminton, a sport where teamwork, resilience, and strategic planning is needed; there are more plans for the following weeks. Many people won most of their games through thorough training and hard work, and this is a blast, having won the house singing competition.

Basically most of the people worked hard and collaborated well with their teammates, cheering each other on and all I saw of Sarah teammates were of them winning rallies, triumph noticeable on their happy faces. I liked the sound of the shuttle-cocks hitting against the strings of the rackets, knowing that we will win, with such good players like we currently have.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the event and came back with smiles on their faces, which made all of us raise the Sarah spirit even more and cheer for each other even though someone had lost a game. I would like to say that the main purpose of this event was to enjoy it, let everyone join in and promote positivity and cooperation. It's truly inspiring to witness the dedication and passion that each member of our house put into the badminton competition. Sarah's exceptional skills and the collaborative effort of the entire team are a testament to the values of teamwork, resilience, and strategic planning.

The victory in the house singing competition already showcased our unity and talent, and now the success in badminton reinforces our commitment to excellence in various domains. It's heartening to see everyone working hard, supporting each other, and celebrating victories together.

I thank everyone for their contribution in the house badminton competition last week, and I hope we can keep up the hard work for the next competition!

Sarah

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Chess Siwool Um

We have had a few successes in terms of winning the competitions recently, but I would like to highlight a small victory amongst them, that is, the chess competition. A quick disclaimer: In this article, I will only be covering the year 9 competition, since I do not have sufficient information to write about the details of the other competitions – my apologies. Nevertheless, well done to everyone!

The chess competition, as you may know already, was a mix of games taken place either individually or as a group. For the first portion, everyone played against ‘Martin’ – the easiest bot to beat – on an online chess website. Every time someone had beaten Martin, they were requested to show the screen of their computers to add a point for their house. The later part was the champions, or the people who had beaten Martin the most number of times in the given time period, went to compete against each other.

Although the majority of people were only able to beat Martin a few times, some were constantly running in and out of the room, successfully beating the bot in very few moves. These people, which included a fellow member of my own tutor group, went on to participate in the tournament consequently.

Our candidate had performed exceptionally well – eventually winning the tournament at the end — and I’ve heard of successes from other year groups as well from the lower year groups as well. A big thank you to every other representative who participated in the tournaments!

While there wasn’t much enthusiasm for the first half of the competition, where people sat in front of their computers, clicking at squares to move their pieces and hope for winning, anticipation for the winner built up during the second part and a group of spectators had gathered to watch the ‘elites’ play. As this is the case for most competitions, the announcement of the winner had caused shouts of glory and a lot of confusion, followed by clapping and the excited murmurs of the students which were silenced by none other than Mr. Scargill.

Overall, a pretty normal competition.

However, one thing to note was the surprisingly high and growing enthusiasm and house spirit Sarah had built along its journey since the start of this academic year. I hope these sort of competitions continue to spark our members’ interests and cause more people to hopefully consider taking part in competitions without having to be forced in.

Sarah

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