Dalat International School: Senior Scribble

Picture Day happens at the start of every year. These school pictures are used as students’ official pictures and for the yearbook. For us seniors, it is our last one.  It began with our class photo on the Harbor steps. The time allocated for the pictures was right after lunch. People who went out for lunch and ran back just to make it on time were very sweaty, and it certainly did not help that it was extremely hot and humid on that day. We were told to line up from tallest to shortest and take our positions on the Harbor steps. As one of the first in line, we could enjoy the cool and refreshing sea breeze as soon as we were on the landing. However, that enjoyment did not last long as others began to fill the stairs, and the breeze was blocked by a bunch of high school students emitting body heat. I thought that once everyone was in position, they would take the photo, and we could all go, but I was wrong.  Aiden Ko (12) told me that “the photos took longer than I expected an...

Back pains, ankle sprains, bug bites, and late nights. These were the aftermath of our LD retreat that we were all so eager about, but it was all worth it. When we first got together, no one really knew what to expect because we all came from different friend groups. Most of them were just hi-bye friends to me, but we have one thing in common: to lead Dalat closer to Jesus. Everyone on LD is a senior. There are nine of us and we can’t split into even groups, so we made Kathy split the groups. Our group was the biggest: me, Kathy Jones, Naomi O’quin, Noah Dobson, and Nathan Evans. We were called…Dinococo! Inspired by Dinoco from Cars and Coco by the Milo Dinosaur drink, it was a mix of what we liked. The other team was Olive Berends, Naomi Neiger, Mia Yuan and Jay Chong. They were called…Soy Sauce! Inspired by being the salt of the world. The first stop of our bonding was go-karting. We arrived at 1:50, and we each raced two ten-minute rounds. In our groups, we secretly discussed our ga...

Although we have sometimes chosen the pink color, from now on, let’s choose the “right thing.” Sky blue in 2024; purple in 2025; and now, in 2026, PINK. If God were to take away our free will, the PINK Seniors would not be everywhere at Dalat. This is not because it is painful to our eyes– which is true–but because it leads us to complain too much, which is probably sin. We have the freedom to choose many things, which has resulted in not choosing the best color. You can clap your hands when you want, you can take a walk when you want a breeze, and you can help others if you want to make the “right choice.”  Since we have the freedom of choice, let’s use it for the good! Let's reject the “pink” one! “Let’s do the ‘right’ thing,” as Mr. Arnold–the new high school principal and, apparently, an ice-cream lover–emphasized on the first day of school! Let's make our friends smile one more time! Let's welcome our new friends as we were welcomed when we first came to Dalat! There i...

It was Thursday afternoon, and we knew it was finally time to play the juniors in basketball. Knowing the hair on our heads was on the line, we were willing to put everything at risk in order to win and keep ourselves safe. Then the game started. The juniors began with a couple points. Then they scored a couple more. I noticed we weren’t responding like we should. When JD Guffy (12) said, “We’re gonna blow them out,” I thought he was right and instead we were down twelve points already. We needed to respond the right way. At halftime, we were down by 10 and were getting beaten by a more energetic team. We weren’t hitting our shots and playing like we should have. However, everyone knew what needed to be done. We needed to lock in in order to beat this team. We came into the second half with the right mentality. By the end of the third quarter, the game had already swung in our favor. The juniors were running out of energy, and we were hitting threes as well. When the game ended and we...

Dalat holds memories in my heart that I will carry with me through my next journey. The journey from middle school days, when survival during the global pandemic was the focus, to now, the end of senior year, has been long, but looking now it was going to end in a few days.  A tight-knit community is about to disperse to different places, bringing new challenges.  Middle school, a time of immature chaos, was a time to cherish. Within the classroom, Jonathan and Soniya would steal my shoe pencil case and hide it among my favorite erasable pens. The romance in middle school was unique because there was so much drama over who liked who, and I just thought the guys we liked would chase us around physical education class in the name of tag and run. Secret spots, like sitting under the old middle school staircase for lunch and at the Hut every morning before school, are things seniors would remember. There were weird moments in middle school when Ms. Kong would make Zavier Buckley d...

  Swimming and playing basketball used to be an integral part of hanging out with my friends. This usually took place at the cove, since it has a usable basketball court and multiple pool facilities.  Nowadays, everyone is so busy with school, hanging out at other spots and taking the pool facilities for granted, that these hangouts rarely even happen anymore. However, recently, it did.  I met up with Raphael Boyle (9), Zach Ooi (12) and Ben DeVries (12) at the Astaka food court before the hangout, to eat some delicious local food.  After eating, we went over to the cove. However, instead of heading to the basketball court, we went to the tennis court. Zach and I wanted to play some tennis, and so we did. We played for around an hour, and had a great time. I was rather rusty, but was able to still serve rockets.  After playing tennis, we met up with Philip DeVries (12), Abraham Miller (12), Clark Zhang (12), Matthias Seevaratnam (12) and Reuben Beasley (10) to p...