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The Penguin PressIssue VIII aas.point@gmail.com 07 April, 2012

Sports

Current Events

Arts

IB

Features

Is He Dead? - Alexander & Xenia Rakovshik

Mark Twain’s lesser known dark-comedy, “Is He Dead?”, pro-vides an enlightening performance riddled with sexual innuen-dos, countless laughs and jaw-dropping plot twists that elicit squeals of delight from audi-ence members of all ages.

An aspiring artist, Jean-Francois Millet, (Elliot Roazen), stereotypi-cally poverty-stricken and out of work, des-perately attempts to make a profit off of his work, resorting to fak-ing his own death for purposes of publicity. That isn’t to say that the

character doesn’t reap-pear in the remainder of the production. To the contrary, rather than stay on the sidelines, the artist disguises himself in drag, pretending to be his own grieving sister. As the artist makes busy informing the public of his own grim demise he must attempt to avoid all those who fall to his newfound feminine charm and restrain his own affections for his lover.

As the plot continues thicken, the artist and his friends success-fully cash in on his now priceless pieces of artwork. However, barraged by lovers, ad-

mirers and a plethora of other miscellaneous misanthropes, the artist finds it increasingly dif-ficult to resist revealing himself to his clamor-ing, grieving fans.

Combining elements of burlesque, farce, and social satire, the com-edy relies on such de-vices as cross-dressing, mistaken identifies, and romantic deceptions to tell the story, which races inquiries into the well explored themes of fame, greed, and the value of art.

Despite the chortles, the tears and frisky behav-iour, it should be noted that none of this would

have been possible without the hard work and dedication of Mr. Assimakopoulos – head of the high-school the-atre department. At the end of the 2011-2012 academic year, Mr. A will be bidding farewell to the plush red seats of the Bolshoi Theatre and setting off on new hori-zons. For all its worth we’d like to thank you and wish you the best on your endeavors, in addition to the prospect of excellent coffee.

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Spring Season Activities 2012- Annie May

AAS High School students get ready to bat, set, and smash because the CEESA Spring Season sports are finally here! Sign ups were a couple weeks ago and now tryouts are in full swing. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 3:45 to 5:45 students

demonstrate their skills to the coaches who take notes and try to choose the best of the best players. Not only does a participant of a CEESA sports team have to play well, but they also have to have good sportsmanship and attendance. This year AAS offers volleyball, softball,

tennis, and a new edition: spring season swimming. If sports are not your strong point you can participate in band, choir, or Helsinki MUN. After asking many students about CEESA, they all said that their favorite part of the experience was traveling with the team. This year, teams

are going to a variety of cities including Bucharest, Istanbul, Kiev, and Helsinki. AAS is actually hosting band, choir, and girls volleyball this year, so students that are not participating can come to support their friends. Taking part in CEESA is an enriching experience that has a lot of benefits. Students come back from tournaments with new friends not only in AAS, but from other schools as well. Students can try sports or activities that they had never participated in before, and possibly find something that they would like to pursue in the future. Volleyball has even created a JV team this year, so students trying the sport for the first time will have a chance

as well. A great activity that does not require any physical strength or musical talent is the Model United Nations. Students can learn about global conflicts and take part in a conference much like those that occur in the world today. Anyone can participate in CEESA and it is a great way to spend the last couple of months in the school year, so come out and join in the 2012 CEESA Spring Season!

Senior Art Exhibition - Sasha Parodi

I walked down a cor-ridor of the work, tears, sweat and passion of the IB Art Seniors, now plummeting with their peers through their fi-nal stretch of the insane IB program. Two years’ worth of art is spread down this hallway, in its moment of glory, when all those countless hours

are finally pay off. The styles vary, each little corner, each setup, each work – a unique display of the artist’s character, a hint of the challenges they faced over this time span, a demonstration

various techniques or aspects of their work which had been a new step for them. “I’m quite happy with how my work has turned out. I was able to get in touch with the crazy and imaginative being inside of me.” – says Irina Sordiya.

of their work and abili-ties. It becomes imme-diately clear how much effort has been put into this event, the art burst-ing from the canvas and sculptures onto the walls and floors. As you walk through this hallway, each section is its own world, with its own unique beings of passion, atmosphere, music. It is incredible to see so much talent all together, in one place, grown into something

© Sam and Reuben

© Masha Nelson © Irina Sordiya

more, something beau-tiful. The artist them-selves are here and I manage to speak to some of them. They are all very excited to finally be showing their work to the community of AAS. “I had a lot of fun making it” – com-ments Elektra Sandarusi on one of her pieces. A number of artists com-mented on their strive to challenge themselves over the course of the two years, pointing out

IB Column - What I Wish I Had Done Over Spring Break - Kayla Fayh

Spring break is a cra-zy week. Teachers begin crunching in material to ensure the final topics are covered, homework and tests start piling

brains turn to dust.

Unfortunately, students need to keep their brains together during this break. Last year, as a ju-nior, I didn’t think any-

up, and – worst of all – Spring Fever hits. The sun shines more often, the snow melts away slowly, and the prospects of summer just makes everyone’s

thing of break – I got to relax with my friends in Moscow and breathe…only to come back to school to get slammed by more IAs, more tests, and more new topics to cover before the end of the year.

Although relaxing is definitely a necessity – especially after do-ing almost a year of the IB – it probably would have been better if I had spent less time watch-ing TV shows, talking to friends, and eating, and more time review-ing previous material, preparing for school, and going over future topics to prepare me for the weeks ahead. It might have seemed like a long time until the end of the year last year during break, but looking back, it really wasn’t. Between the end

of break and the end of the school year, there are nine weeks. Nine. It doesn’t seem like much right now, but those weeks will fly by in the blink of an eye, and be-fore you know it, you will be sitting through yet another closing cer-emony, listening to the closing bell.

So take this week to re-lax, prepare for exams, and get ready to sprint to the end of the year. Eat, sleep, see friends, but – most importantly –get a little work done and be productive. You’ll feel better about yourself in the end (and everyone else will wish they were smart like you!).

Good luck in the next ten weeks, and have a fabulous break!

© Lolita Daniyelan

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High School Stockholm Syndrome Robert Doyle - IB Coordinator

- Xenia Rakovshik

Where did you at-tend high school?

It was a Vancouver col-lege, an all boy private catholic school. We wore uniforms which were the basics: shirt, tie, slacks… and in those days you could actually wear sneakers. You could get around the uniform by wearing chains, rings, and jean jackets.

Did you wear a jean jacket?

Oh yeah. I loved it.

What were your favou-rite subjects? Was it be-cause of the teachers or despite the teachers?

Favourite subject would be history, although the teacher was not too ex-citing. Mr. Sponza – an Italian guy who wore white undershirts that you could see through. He also had chains and

was a hairy fellow. Oh, and he had these big transition glasses so as he’d move towards the window and back his glasses would change shades all the time.

One of my other favou-rite classes was English, mostly because we had a female teacher in an all-boy catholic school. She would bring in all kinds of interesting sub-jects for discussion in novel’s like the Hand-maid’s tale, or Romeo and Juliet. Anything to do with girls was pretty exciting.

How would your teach-ers describe you as a student?

They would say I was a poor student, but then I happen to agree. I didn’t become a “good” stu-dent until university.

What did you want to do upon leaving high school?

I was interested into going into education. Solely because after seeing the teachers I had had before I thought to myself, “I can do better than that.”

Have you worked as anything other than a teacher?

I worked as en electri-cian for a couple years. I always like to do hands on things. I took night school classes but I was pretty adept at reading blueprints as well as looking at something and knowing the best way to go about fixing it.

What prompted you to return to education?

The clientele base is very different. In school you are working with staff members who have graduated from univer-sity, whereas as an elec-trician I was managing a lot of ex-cons, people who might not show up because they were ar-rested on the weekend.

Did you make any friends?

Yeah, I did. I don’t keep in touch with them though, they’re in pris-on now.

What do you find most frustrating about orga-nizing the IB curricu-lum.

With the IB it’s always the deadlines. When you’re collecting all the material, you have to get the teachers to mark it, do the paper work to hand it in, and you always want to get

things done before hand in order to prepare for impending errors. That way we minimize the extent to which it im-pact students.

In what ways do stu-dents interfere with this process?

Not handing something in, it slows down the process quite a bit.

Do you enjoy being an English teacher or co-ordinator more? Why?

They’re two different things. The one thing I miss about the class-room is that you get to spend a longer period of time with students, so there’s a lot of jok-ing. Here you do paper work. However I get to talk to students about the goals they have in life. They’re not neces-sarily fun conversations but they’re meaningful.

Do you find that a lot kids focus on the “get-ting out of the house and high school” as opposed to what they actually want to do?

Last year I had a middle school student come up and talk to me about the IB program so that he could plan out what he wanted to study in university. He’s still at this school though I won’t give any names. At least he’s planned something out in ad-vance. He might not stick with it. by grade ten you might go “oh I’m not sure I like this.” We still have graduates who come back to AAS and tell me, “Wow, I really don’t like what

I’m studying now,” and switch universities after a year or so. But that’s only two a year, or four percent.

If you could change one thing about the high school what would it be and why?

Using a mixture of pen and paper and elec-tronic devices. Working with pen and paper and later transcribing it onto the computer. It would make more sense in terms of keeping focus.

If you could choose to be anyone for a day who would it be and why?

I’d want to be Gen-eral Eisenhower on the morning of D-Day. Just because you set out all these plans but you nev-er know what’s going to go wrong.

Courtesy of Robert Doyle, Junior Yearbook Photgraph

In his book The Know-It-All, Esquire and Entertainment Weekly writer, A.J. Jacobs, embarks on an epic quest involv-ing random facts and existential angst, recounted with self-deprecating humor. His mission, in short, is to become the smartest person in the world by reading the Ency-clopaedia Britannica from a-ak to zywiec. However, the book is not solely restricted to Jacobs’ rather eccentric findings, but rather incorporates his newly found knowledge into the context of every aspect of his life- be it family, work, or social endeavors. As Jacobs’ makes his way through the meta-phorical alphabetical jungle, he attempts to find his place in the

world amongst geniuses such as tortured artist Caravaggio, or those who qualify as com-plete oddities such as the Berserkers, savage Norse soldiers who went in to battle com-pletely nude. Join him on his humble quest to become the smartest person in the world.

Book Reviews - The Know-It-All, by A.J. Jacobs- Xenia Rakovshik

April Horoscope - Sophi Løge

Sagittarius: Your good spirits, great energy and awesome attitude mean that you can keep positive till the end of the school year!

Capricorn: People are on your case about ev-ery last thing. Just roll

with it and see if they are willing to accept a rain check or something less than what they think they need.

Aquarius: You need to deal with someone close -- someone who needs you more than they know how to say.

It may be a good time for you to step up and ask if they need your help.

Pisces: You’ve got opinions -- who doesn’t? Keep them to yourself to risk alienat-ing the people who’ve got your back.

Aires: You feel the heat - even in Moscow - and you can feel yourself pushing through to something really great. Now is the time for you to burn the competition and make a real name for yourself!

Taurus: Spell out what it is you are planning to do over the next few

days and make sure everyone knows that you are serious about your ambitions.

Gemini: It’s time to get serious about some-thing you have been putting off for weeks, maybe even for months. All you have to do is act.

Cancer: Never forget that your mind creates your reality.

Leo: There is nothing you cannot handle. There is nothing you cannot do. This time of year makes you even more dynamic and decisive than usual. Be extraordinary.

Virgo: You will be ex-tremely active over the next week as you strive to complete the various tasks you started in re-cent weeks. You know what you want and you know how to get it!

Libra: Stop dreaming about what you would like to do and actually start doing it. The only thing that is holding you back is the idea that you need to be perfect.

Scorpio: You have every right to take your time in decision mak-ing: mistakes happen when people move too fast.

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Word Search - Politics

Instructions, Tips, Answers, Reprints & More Sudoku Puzzles Online!

PrintFreeSudokuPuzzles.com Puzzle Set #C5588 Level: Challenging

5 9 7 8 2 4

2 3 4 8 6 1 3 8 2 5 1 9 7

6 8 4 9 2 7 9

A

3 9 5 6 4 9 7 3

8 4 3 73 2 1 9 6 4 5 7 3 9 8 1 2 1 5

7 8 1 8 2

B

Sudoku Puzzles

Instructions, Tips, Answers, Reprints & More Sudoku Puzzles Online!

PrintFreeSudokuPuzzles.com Puzzle Set #C5588 Level: Challenging

5 9 7 8 2 4

2 3 4 8 6 1 3 8 2 5 1 9 7

6 8 4 9 2 7 9

A

3 9 5 6 4 9 7 3

8 4 3 73 2 1 9 6 4 5 7 3 9 8 1 2 1 5

7 8 1 8 2

B

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