Sumus Leones Early-December 2013

Technology expansion at 5200 2nd St.Not exactly cutting edge, but it’s getting close

by AlistAir Andrulis

clAss of ‘14

The moment stu-dents stepped into 5200 2nd St at the beginning of the year, they noticed the major aesthetic changes Washing-ton Latin underwent. How-ever, the change isn’t only aesthetic. The technological infrastructure that pulls ev-erything together also has changed. It’s the unseen work of man and machine that weave technology into the school building, making it possible for the school to go about its business effi-ciently.

Carl Lyon, Astron-omy and French teacher, is

one of the men who aids this operation. Lyon has added a new job to his job descrip-tion this school year -- tech-nology coordinator.

“As part of the con-struction budget to build and renovate the new school, we had a line item for technology, and we were able to spend approximately $200,000 on all sorts of new technology for the school,” said Lyon.

With the money, the technology department has been able to purchase ap-proximately 100 MacBook Pro computers, 40 Apple iPads, cameras, projectors, hardware for school wide servers and software to tie

everything together. The majority of the

new technology isn’t put directly into student hands. The technology that stu-dents have direct access to are the MacBook Pros and iPads. The Pros are avail-able for student use during study halls or breaks.

“It’s really exciting to see how many students stand in the laptop check-out line; [they are] really interested in getting laptops from the library to do school work and things like Mem-rise,” said Sereena Hamm, librarian.

The addition of Lat-in’s new technology infra-structure simplifies the job

by cuneyt dil

clAss of ‘14

St. Francis Hall in northeast has been announced as the location for Wash-ington Latin’s 2014 junior and senior prom. The Prom Committee, comprised of all seniors, finalized the venue late Novem-ber for the May 16, 2014 event.

“We were running out of options. A lot of the venues were already booked for May 16th and May 17th, like the Meridi-an House and the Dumbarton House,” said Vanessa Rodriguez, member of the Prom Committee. “The St. Francis Hall was the only unbooked venue, and after visiting, we fell in love with the garden.”

The Monastery next to the hall pro-vides beautiful scenery for pictures, and the hall features classic Renaissance era architecture with high ceilings. The Hall is located in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington and was built in 1931.

“We are working towards getting a better DJ this year, to hype up prom. At the end of the day we know that a party is nothing without good music, so we really want to get that part right this year,” said Rodriguez.

Next on the Prom Committee’s agenda is finalizing the prom’s theme. A poll was held on November 13, however, not all seniors had an opportunity to vote. Another vote is scheduled for the future. The possible themes are: masquerade, se-cret garden or a night in Paris.

Prom will be held at St. Francis Hall

year iii, issue ii early-december 2013 washington latin

Sumus Leones

INSIDE DECEMBERLanguage expansion at Washington Latinnews, page four

Middle school students working in the library after school, using the school’s new Mac-Book Pros. Classes regularly reserve laptops in the library. (Photo Emily Hall ‘15 / SL)

view photos of st. francis hall on sumusleones.com; keyword: prom

cont. page 4 tech

facebook.com/sumusleonessumusleones.com

Movie review: “Ender’s Game”style & arts, page eight

Holocaust museum trip: A shocking experienceopinion, page five

Enhance the danceopinion, page six

Club showcase 2013special, page two & three

December 2013 Sumus Leones 2

2013 Club Showcaseby KArrin thompson

clAss of ‘14

Students at Washington Latin have all become familiar with their advisors reading off the Daily Bulletin every morn-ing, giving a list of all the clubs meeting that day. With so many different clubs to choose from, it is hard to resist joining a few. But the options this year can be a bit overwhelming.

“There are more stu-dent-run clubs than last year,” said junior Tara Burton, who joined the Environmental Club, Anime, Sumus Leones, and Film and Drama Club.

Eliana Duran, senior and club organizer, says she loves managing and promoting clubs because she “establish-es opportunities for kids who

want to be more involved to join clubs that interest them, or even create a club.”

This year already, seven new clubs have been introduced introduced: GSA, Dance Club, Anime, Poetry Club, Skate Club, LULAC Club and Film and Drama Club. Juniors Emi-ly Hall and Tessa Torgovitsky, creators of Film and Drama Club, say that they have gained a lot of support from students and teachers because they have written and participated in the 24 hour plays.

Although several months have past, many clubs are just getting off the ground and adding new members.

According to Upper School Assistant Principal Lau-rel Seid, “It’s never too late” to join a club or start a new one.

She feels that it is “vital” for a school to have clubs because it allows “students to be able to gather in groups around a com-mon interest.”

Joining a club is one thing, but starting a club is another challenge. Michael Sparks-Graham, a junior who started Poetry Club, says, “I am not used to being in charge, but I am working on showing authority while trying not to sound like a teacher.” Graham says Poetry Club is “about [to start] a project where people can send in their poems so we can put them into a book for publication.”

Sierra Logan, senior and leader of Dance Club, notes that it is hard to do all the things she wants to on days when atten-dance is poor. Gaining respect,

keeping your club popular and managing the time and day to meet is only some of the strug-gles that people face when they lead a club, but in the end, it’s all worth it.

Junior Coumba Gu-eye, a team leader of Model UN, notes that it is important for students to get involved in clubs because “it helps them get exposure to things non-ac-ademic, and it also helps them meet new people and develop relationships with people they don’t interact with on a day-to-day basis.”

Along with all of those advantages, college counselors Crys Latham and Dena Kolb agree that joining clubs looks great on high school resumes for colleges.

Gay-Straight Alliance club: a voice for equalityby eleAnor Wright

clAss of ‘16

For years, Washington Latin’s faculty has discussed having a gay-straight alliance (GSA) at school, but there has not been a well-enough orga-nized clubs and electives program. Until now. To-wards the end of last year, Laurel Seid, the assistant principal, decided it was time to start GSA.

“I wanted to feel that the club system overall was more firmly established [before we began GSA] and I think that last year we made a lot of progress in getting the club system more organized,” said Seid. “I knew that if we were ever going to make it a go, this would be [a good year].”

Seid enlisted the help of Marcus Williams, a sophomore who has wanted GSA since he came to Latin.

“I wanted this school to feel like a safe space because I know a lot of schools aren’t safe, and I don’t want that to happen at our school,” says Wil-

cont. page 3 gsaLaurel Seid speaking to GSA about AIDS/HIV awareness during a club meeting on December 2nd. (Photo by Emily Hall ‘15 / Sumus Leones)


liams. “I couldn’t believe the

number of responses I got from people who were interested in it, because I thought that people might think that the club was sufficiently controversial,” said Seid.

“I joined because I think that equality and happiness [are] important in our school community,” said sophomore Amanda Rycroft, who is the club’s assistant publicist. “This club is important because it’s important to know that this school is a safe environment for people to be who they are and they should know that people aren’t going to harass them.”

“A lot of my friends outside of school have had problems coming out, because of problems that they have at home, or problems they have at school, and I want to make sure Latin’s not a place like that,” said junior Tessa Torgovitsky, publicist and treasurer for GSA.

Sophomore Colin Wolf agrees, saying, “Everyone has the right to be who they are. It doesn’t really matter what their gender, race or anything is.”

The club’s goals are to raise awareness and support by donating money and supplies to organizations such as The Blue House, an organization that provides a home to LGBTQ teens that have been forced to leave their homes by their fam-ilies because of their sexual ori-entation, and SMYAL, a sup-port group for LGBTQ children and teens.

“[The GSA members] are like the X-Men because you all are fighting discrimination,” says sophomore Elijah Bryant.

Gay-Straight Alliance

cont. from page 2

Anime/Manga/Japanese Club at Latin

by sophie collier

clAss of ‘17

At the beginning of the school year, sophomore Nich-olaus Harvey “wanted to find other people who liked anime” and thus created the Anime/Manga/Japanese Club. At first, only a few students signed up; sophomore Jason Carey, freshmen Jaymi McIntosh and Sophie Collier. However, af-ter the Club Expo, the number of members instantly rose, as interest in the art form spread through the school. Anime Club meets every Tuesday at lunch in the Chinese classroom.

Christina Stouder, Chi-nese teacher, has great hopes for the club. “There are lots of creative people who are in-terested in anime and manga in the school, and I want them to have a platform to support them and their enthusiasm, and a place to showcase their art,” said Stouder.

The club invited two different Japanese high schools

visiting the United States and presenting PowerPoints about Japan while learning about America on October 29th. Fu-ture plans include to invite ex-perts on anime, manga and Ja-pan, and to hold a fundraiser to go to an anime convention later in the year.

Anime is the Japanese form of animation. It originat-ed mostly from Japanese film-makers experimenting with new styles. Most anime, similar to modern American movies, originate from books, or man-ga. Manga are Japanese comic books. Many manga story lines are animated into television shows, but when the animators need more time to figure out how to represent a story arc, they usually create “fillers,” or episodes that go off on tan-gents, that eventually lead back to the main plot. The fillers are usually the reason why shows run for so long.

Some of the most pop-ular shows are included in the anime/manga anthology mag-

azine, “Shonen Jump.” Some “Shonen Jump” series are Naruto Shippuden, Bleach, One Piece and Blue Exorcist.

An important term is “otaku.” It originates from Taku, the Japanese word for home. The true meaning of otaku is someone who stays home all the time and has no life, and since they have noth-ing better to do, they pass their days watching anime, playing video games and going on the Internet. Yet, in Western cul-ture, it has become widely mis-interpreted as a positive term meaning “guru.”

Although this club brings happiness to many stu-dents who were searching for their brethren, freshman Sa-mantha Anderson complains that “this club has messed with my life even though I’m not in it. Tuesdays I sit alone at lunch, and the rest of the week I’m surrounded by otakus.”

Jason Carey, sophomore, drawing anime for the club. (Photo by Emily Hall ‘15 / Sumus Leones)


of the college counselors, and seniors who use the laptops to apply to college.

“I think we have more students who are being proactive about the [college] process, such as many more juniors coming in to work on their Junior Portfolios than in any previous class,” said Crys Latham, college counselor. “We’ve been able to do mass reg-istrations of seniors for the SAT, which was a tremendous help.”

Lyon wants to expand the technology infrastructure and make technology more accessible to students. One idea is to start a server system that would provide cloud storage for students and classes. “This is a work in prog-ress and it could still change, but the idea is for certain classes we will have server space. In other words, we will have a place lo-cally on our servers so you would be able to access it over our wifi

network -- for storing things such as the digital photography class … so that you can access those files on any computer in the building. In some ways it’s sort of an old fashion version of cloud computing. The only thing that’s better about it, is that … we can offer more space for each student who needs server space, or each class.”

Lyon also works with Laurel Seid, assistant principal, along with Tendai Mufuka and other grade tech officials to con-stantly streamline how Latin uti-lizes technology.

The new upgrades to technology have already helped students and teachers immensely. “Ms. Kolb and I are more likely able to get work done during the day we need to because we’re no longer sharing our personal laptops with students for them to gain Internet access to submit applications, or print out home-work assignments,” said Latham.

cont. from front page

Tech at Washington Latin

Language expansion at Washington Latinby dev bhojWAni And eric

Wright

clAss of ‘18

Language is on the tip of everyone’s tongue at Washing-ton Latin.

Washington Latin Pub-lic Charter School places a strong focus on learning lan-guages. That mission has con-tinued to grow, as the languag-es department has expanded and diversified. Students from grades 8-12 are given the op-tion to study Arabic, French or Chinese to fulfill their second language requirement. Students are also required at a minimum to study up to Latin III.

Arabic was first intro-duced as an after school club, and now Alexander Porcelli

teaches the language full-time, and has his own classroom.

“Arabic is a bridge,” Porcelli said. This is true for all languages as they connect cul-tures across time and space. But now it is a bridge that far more students can walk across, since it used to be more of an after-school club than an academic department.

“There was no Arabic department before my senior year,” said Latin graduate Tim Hursen ‘13, who took French as his foreign language while studying Arabic after school.

“There were only six people in my French class in my last year, and I was the only one in my class when I took AP French,” said Hursen. Since his time, a variety of languages

have grown, and the number of students in French IV Honors has doubled from six to twelve.

There have still been many other big changes in fa-cility and staff. The Chinese teacher, Christina Stouder, like Porcelli, now has a larger class-room to be used for her subject exclusively. French teacher Mi-chele Spittler has also joined the Latin community this year.

“I want to teach kids to express themselves in French,” said Spittler, who has taught for more than four decades.

Even though so much has been added to Latin’s cur-riculum in the past few years, there are still many ideas on how the curriculum could im-prove. Porcelli suggests the idea of allowing students to

take multiple languages instead of picking one. He wants every-one to have an open opportuni-ty to perhaps take French along with Chinese.

Students seem to be hungry for even more language opportunities. Walter Deleon, head of Student Council, re-veals the council was thinking of having strict language im-mersion tables at lunch. The idea is that students can prac-tice their skills by speaking only the designated foreign lan-guage at the table. Meanwhile, 8th grader Jeremy Stettin, who takes French I, suggested that Latin should include Spanish as another language option.

Latin places third in first ever home debate

by ned yArsKy

clAss of ‘17

Some people may think that debate is when people argue without a real process. But debate is a com-pletely formal and organized way of discussing an idea.

Latin won third place overall in a home debate host-ed in early November, behind BASIS DC and Cesar Chavez. Schools like Anacostia, Thur-good Marshall and Eleanor Roosevelt also competed.

The Model UN/De-bate Club had three teams representing Washington Lat-in. The teams were freshmen Ned Yarsky and Max Miche-li, junior Coumba Gueye and sophomore Elijah Bryant, and freshman Maggie Dalzell and junior Jimmy Blanford.

The debate was about whether unilateral military force is justified by the United States to prevent nuclear pro-liferation. Students debated whether the United States can go into any country to get rid of nuclear weapons.

“I have never lost an argument, and it will not be starting today,” said Bryant before the debate.

Along with his team-mate Gueye, Bryant earned a top five team award, and both of them were named top ten speakers. Freshman Maggie Dalzell also earned a top ten speaker award.

The club will continue to debate on December 14th, when they consider the new-est resolution about immigra-tion reform.


OPINION

Holocaust museum trip: A shocking experience

by eleAnor Wright

clAss of ‘16

Last Tuesday, Wash-ington Latin’s 10th grade went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In our En-glish class, we are writing an informational essay on the Ho-locaust. There is a small group of Jewish students in the school, myself included, whose family did not survive the Holocaust. I knew that a lot of my mother’s family had been in Eastern Eu-rope and were never heard from again after the Holocaust. I also knew that it was important for our class to go there and learn about what my family and oth-ers went through.

As we began the tour, I was shocked at the disre-spect and racism shown by my peers. When our tour guide was talking about identifying Jewish people when the Nazis were discriminating against the Jews, she asked us what a Jew-ish person looked like. I was sickened when my group mem-

bers called out, confidently, “Big nose! Deep-set eyes! Dark hair! Dark skin! Brown eyes!” I was horror-stricken. Look at me, I thought, I have pale skin with freckles, a tiny nose, light blue eyes and reddish-brown hair. Does that mean I’m not Jewish?

I said, stuttering, while trying to keep calm and not yell, “Jewish people don’t look like anything. They look like people.” Our guide agreed with me, and we continued. But the knowledge that my classmates believed in the stereotype of Jewish people, even today, stuck with me the whole trip.

Nathan Day, the teach-er who helped to plan the trip, said, “I would hope that a community as diverse as ours knows that parts of someone’s identity is not a bad thing and should not be used as a bad thing.”

During the trip, we had the rare opportunity to hear a first-hand account of one of the survivors. This woman was a

baby when her family went into hiding in an abandoned storage attic in Amsterdam. She is one of the few survivors still alive today. As she was talking about her story, I was shocked to see some people sleeping in their seats as she talked. I couldn’t believe how my classmates were so insensitive to this woman’s story.

Micailah Guthrie ’16, one of the members in my group, said, “It was difficult to understand why this happened, so we may have seemed insen-sitive to what was going on…”

Later, they said that they wished they had talked to someone who had survived be-ing in a concentration camp. I was stunned at how ungrateful they were that they were some of the last people who would ever be able to hear her story. They had not realized that all the people who had been able to survive the camps probably have died by now.

Most of my classmates were incredibly respectful on

the trip and that made me very proud to be with them.

“For the most part, al-most everyone was engaged in the trip through the museum it-self,” said Day.

John Drury, another teacher group leader, added: “there were moments when some students showed some insensitivity, but all in all I thought it went pretty well.”

I am sorry for my peers who did not understand how offensive they were at the Mu-seum. I understand that I may have felt more offended by ac-tions my classmates took be-cause, as Carl Lyon, my group’s leader, said, “People like you, [who have a close connection to this], have a bias that makes these actions more offensive to them.” Hopefully, next time we go to a place like this, our peers will understand that the peo-ple they are talking about and disrespecting may be standing right next to them.

by dAnishA rogers

clAss of ‘14

The uniform policy at Latin has changed since we’ve moved into a new school build-ing and location. The boys and some girls now have to tuck in their shirts, which is something that not everyone enjoys. The majority of the students don’t like the fact that we have to wear uniforms because they can’t completely express them-selves. There are also people who don’t like wearing uni-

forms because that’s what they have always worn as a student. A vast majority of the school would rather wear regular clothes than uniforms.

Some students feel as though they can’t express themselves while in uniform. “I think uniforms suck and regular clothes show who we are as a person,” said Kira Thompson, senior. “How can we be differ-ent if they expect us to dress the same and not show our person-alities?”

Out of 56 students sur-

veyed, 71% had said that they were well behaved in both uniform and regular clothing, 25% said they were better be-haved in regular clothing be-cause they’re able to express themselves and show their true personalities, and the last 4% of students said they were better behaved in uniform because it made them feel more civilized.

Of the 25%, one of the seniors made it known that not wearing a uniform made them who they are. “I prefer not be-ing in uniform because it gives

me more confidence to be bold, and I don’t like all of my class-es, so wearing regular clothing gives me more confidence of showing my true self,” said Joaquim Young, senior.

We should have the rights to express ourselves, be-cause the fact that we wear uni-forms all the time makes peo-ple want to act out because they aren’t as comfortable. It’s as if they have the thought: ‘I’m not

Do the clothes make the “man?”

cont. page 6 uniform

Sumus Leones 6

OPINIONDecember 2013

in uniform and I’m way more relaxed now, so I’m going to show off.’

A vast majority of the students felt comfortable in both uniform and regular clothing. They felt that they acted the same in both types of clothing. “We feel as though uniform or regular clothing doesn’t matter be-cause either way you’re able to stay focused and get your work done,” said Karrin Thompson, senior. Nadia Up-shur-Richardson and Moriah Jones, seniors, also agreed with Karrin’s opinion. Personally, I am not bothered by wearing either the uniform or regular clothing because I’m always the same person.

Uniformcont. from page 5

Enhance the dance; five tips to improve school dancesby oliviA boyd

clAss of ‘15

This year’s Homecom-ing Dance was not as enjoyable as it could have been. There were various complaints as to why the dance was not as great as it could have been. The complaints could have been addressed when planning the event. Here are some ideas to improve homecoming dances in the future:

1. The Music: Accord-ing to most students, the mu-sic was downright horrible. Erika Perry, senior and mem-ber of the Dance Committee, said, “We tried to get the DJ’s to play songs we wanted, but they didn’t and it was boring.”

The songs played were like a Throwback Thursday album and it made no one really feel like dancing. Next time, let’s make a suggestion list for mu-sic, like last year. The student DJs worked hard, however, they did not play music that everyone enjoyed. Next time, hire a professional, or at least someone who knows what they are doing.

2. The Teachers/Chap-erones: It is true, students sometimes dance too closely, or they do not dress appropri-ately for a school dance. How-ever, can the teachers not watch over us like hawks? It makes the environment really uncom-fortable. Rhonda Carter, junior, said, “I just don’t appreciate

that some teachers glared at me or other people while we were trying to enjoy ourselves and dance. Students cannot enjoy the dance and spend time with their friends if the teachers and chaperones are breathing down their necks.”

3. The Lighting: Why were there so many lights? Lights at the entrance, lights on the sides, lights over our heads, lights on the stage… there were lights everywhere! Too many lights. More decorations, with-out lights! Honestly, it was overkill.

4. The Decorations: Where were they? Why weren’t there any decorations related to “Homecoming” or something school spirit related? Try to

get the students to make some next year; that will give them more incentive to participate. Perhaps they would appreciate seeing their works of art instead of all the lights!

5. Photos: What about pictures? There should be a picture booth for dances in the future, especially for home-coming. Students would love to have memorabilia from “Homecoming” and something to have as a keepsake, espe-cially the seniors. When the se-niors graduate, the pictures and memories of their high school days will be cherished.

editorial board

Cuneyt Dil ‘14 Editor-in-chief, PublisherAlistair Andrulis ‘14 Multimedia DirectorTessa Torgovitsky ‘15 News Amal Riley ‘14 SportsEmily Hall ‘15 PhotoKarrin Thompson ‘14 Style & Arts

Teacher Copy EditorsMs. Rachel BreitmanMr. Ryan BenjaminMr. Howard Alpert

Photo by Emily Hall ‘15

Sumus Leones5200 2nd Street NW, Publication Lab,

Washington, D.C., 20011sumusleones.com

Sumus Leones is an independent, student-run news-paper at Washington Latin Public Charter School. It was founded in 2012 by Cuneyt Dil ‘14 and Alistair

Andrulis ‘14.

Submit a tip or an error to [email protected]

this issue’s contributors

Sophie Collier ‘17 ClubsNed Yarsky ‘17 NewsDev Bhojwani ‘18 NewsEric Wright ‘18 NewsEleanor Wright ‘16 OpinionDanisha Rogers ‘14 OpinionOlivia Boyd ‘15 OpinionSamantha Anderson ‘17 SportsTheo Shoag ‘17 SportsNiara Iman ‘16 StyleTyrik Dedrick ‘14 Style


SPORTSHigh school Cross Country wins first place at PCSAA race

by sAmAnthA Anderson

clAss of ‘17

Latin’s Varsity Cross Country won first place in both the girls’ and boys’ divisions at the first ever Public Charter School Athletic Association’s Championship Cross Country race. The race was against E.L. Haynes, Basis, Idea and H.D. Woodson and was held at Fort Dupont Park.

The Latin girls ran so

well that the team nabbed the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th plac-es as well. Freshman James Walker Bullock set a Wash-ington Latin record of 19:24 in the event, and the new female record was set by freshman Sarah Wu at 21:31.

“It’s shocking,” reflect-ed Wu. “Because it seemed like there were so many other people who were fast.”

“The times have been dropping, and kids are

working hard.” said Danielle Cloutier-Simons, an 8th grade science teacher, who coaches the squad with Melissa Nevola, the upper school music teacher. “Nevola’s hard work is show-ing. Kids’ times are improving because of it.”

None of Latin’s runners placed in the Varsity States PCSAA meet, but Bullock and Bria McHugh Plata were awarded the Top Charter School freshman award.

The squad is comprised of more than 25 runners, and the seven fastest runners from each gender are on the varsity squad.

“This is our most record-breaking year so far at Latin,” said Coach Nevola. “[We’ve gotten] more first places. It’s been a really great experience for most students.”

by theo shoAg clAss of ‘17

Latin Girls Varsity soc-cer brought home the gold, with Latin’s first win in the PCSAA tournament, beating top soccer rival Capital City PCS 6-2.

On October 30, Latin played a heated game against City at Takoma Recreational Center. Although the team had six goals, they never could have won without goalkeeper Heidi Flores, sophomore, who con-tributed with many great saves.

“Last year I thought we couldn’t win against Capital City, because they always used to be the best, but we showed them today that Latin can win,” said Flores.

In a regular season game, Latin tied Cap City 2-2. The championship was a big game for Flores; she had to step out of her comfort zone as a goalkeeper.

“I always used to be scared of diving, and today I dived three times,” said Flores.

Unlike at the boys’ game the day before, there were no cheerleaders, and less of a crowd showed up to cheer the girls on. However, the crowd that did come out became in-creasingly excited as the girls scored one goal after another, making it seem easy.

When Capital City was granted a penalty kick as a re-sult of a handball, the crowd was nervous for Heidi. Every-one hoped she would save it and be able to get a clean sheet.

Junior Kaliyah Johnson, a first year soccer player, scored in the game as well.

Head Coach Cooper Sawyer said, “She scored her first goal in the finals, when we needed it most.”

Latin faced the big challenge that awaited Mon-day November 4th when they were placed last seed in the State tournament, and lost 6-0 against seed number one, Na-tional Cathedral School.

Girls Varsity soccer wins Charter Cup ChampionshipLions beat Capital City 6-2 in final, finish season 6-5-1

Photo by Emily Hall ‘15


STYLE & ARTS24-hour plays held by new Film and Drama club

by niArA imAn

clAss of ‘16

Latin’s Film and Drama Club put on its first round of 24 Hour Plays on November 2nd. The name stands for what this production really is. Students wrote, produced and performed within 24 hours. The produc-tion was made up of seven skits written by Film and Drama members.

“What are the 24 Hour Plays?” written by junior Em-ily Hall, club founder, helped the audience further understand how the show was put on and the time limit that went along with it. This was followed by

“That’s So 21st Century,” a very humorous skit about how 40 years from now the chil-dren of that age in technology laugh at their grandparents for the technology they know and used. It resembled how today’s teens are technologically sav-vy and don’t fully understand the idea of not being able to instantly talk to a friend or lis-ten to music from anywhere, as their grandparents had to do.

Tessa Torgovitsky wrote “Let Me Fix You Up”, about a girl who is on the quiet side and isn’t worried about boys too much. She was set up by an attention-crazed friend. The next skit, written by Ben-Loki

Roodman, replaced everyday objects with toothpaste and showed how that would change the outcome of life.

After the toothpaste skit a little clean-up was in need, and Act Two opened with an improv skit.

Fitting with the school’s classical education, Ethan Sherman wrote his play as a twist on the Greek myth Nar-cissus. Narcissus, instead of being captivated by his reflec-tion in a pond, used Instagram to modernize the myth.

The final skit was a love story called “My Bus Boy,” written by Tara Burton and Courtne Humble. A girl sits

next to a boy she has feelings for and tells him how she feels, but he just sits and listens to his music. She doesn’t know how he truly feels behind his music, until the day he decides to say something. “My Bus Boy” had emotion that made you feel for the characters. Jimmy Blanford and Maddie Galvez played the powerful leads in the skit.

24 Hour Plays could put together a production for any viewer. All the actors gave great performances. To be able to learn lines and perform them just hours later is incredible. Another play is said to happen sometime in January.

Movie review: “Ender’s Game” beautifully captures the bookby tyriK dedricK

clAss of ‘14

When adapting a book into a movie, many things have to be taken into account, such as how closely you want to follow the text. It is even hard-er to make the adaptation when there are millions of fans with their own visions and hype sur-rounding the movie. Luckily for both fans and newcomers, “Ender’s Game” makes this adaption beautifully.

“Ender’s Game” is a sci-fi adventure film based on the 1985 sci-fi novel by Orson Scott Card. The movie follows a young child named Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, who is one of the many children recruited to a military academy to be trained to defend Earth from aliens whom are called For-mics. Ender easily masters the

simulations and is seen as the next great hope for the earth in the impending war.

The movie is directed and written by Gavin Hood (“Breakout Kings,” “X-men Origins: Wolverine”) and starring Asa Butterfield (“Hugo”), Harrison Ford (“Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones”), Ben Kingsley (“Schindler’s List,” “Hugo,”) and Viola Davis (“The Help,” “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”).

Director Gavin Hood

definitely had no easy task working from a book as dense as “Ender’s Game.” While the original story had a slow pace, the movie speeds up and is streamlined.

Another thing to note is the movie’s set and special effects. The movie drew me in from the simulations of the battles and creation of the Battle School. Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley turned in excellent performances, and up and comer Asa Butterfield

held his own on-screen next to very heavy hitters in the acting world.

Overall, the movie is very good, not only for those who have a love of sci-fi and military stories but also for people who really want a char-acter they can connect to. I was on the edge of my seat, taken away by the amazing story that was being told. I hope to see this franchise build upon itself and become a name which everyone knows.

Screenshot from trailer

Sumus Leones Early-December 2013

Documents

Transcript of Sumus Leones Early-December 2013