Dalat International School: Senior Scribble

Thizbe Balzer Dalat International School’s many talented high school musicians, artists, actors, and dancers brought this year’s Fine Arts Festival to a satisfying and legendary close. On the evenings of Friday, May 20 th and Saturday, May 21 st , the resonating rumble of eager voices rose as the audience members entered the large auditorium at the Penang Performing Arts Centre (PPAC).  The high school concert band students sat patiently on stage, instruments in hand.  Once given the cue by their instructor, Miss Danneker, to commence the pre-concert warmup regime, a melodious and unified sound penetrated the auditorium and instantaneously put an end to the surrounding chatter.  The two hours that followed were no different.  All of the featured performing ensembles, including the Madrigal Singers, concert band, concert choir, the Five Guys, and jazz band, made for a time filled with many inspiring musical moments.  In addition to the wonderful music w...

Karsten Ladner The high school drama, The Secrets of the Magic Pool , opened Friday, May 20, featuring unforgettable characters and a perplexing story centered around a mysterious pool guarded by an enigmatic woman. The play follows the story of a man, Cane (played by Sam Hofer (11)), who is transformed by the mysterious Magic Pool. After having only a drop of the pool, he is transformed, and his infirmities leave him. Heeding the advice of a witch (played by Hannah Graves (12)), Cane seeks out the pool guarded by a mysterious woman (played by Ysabel Loh (12)) who demands an exorbitant price for a single drop. Many characters intersect the main characters, and the play includes a love story between a prince (played by Noel Teng(12)) and a princess (played by Mary-Claire McIntyre(12)) and between a humbler cobbler’s daughter (played by Sarah Stoltzfus (9)) and the village baker’s son (played by Seth Kelley(9)). Auditions for the play began in January of this year, and many ...

By Katiera Cox Human trafficking exists today. There are 2.7 million people in slavery across the globe where men, women, and children are trapped. Many are victimized to brutal hours of forced labor without pay, some are trapped behind the locked doors without a way to escape, and some are hidden in the dark brothels of sex slavery. That reality became real to me growing up across the borders of India, witnessing firsthand the brutal vulnerability many walked in. Fear gripped society in their castes, and the poverty restricted many from their own voices to freedom. They were trapped behind their own culture. In desperate need many were forced into human trafficking. Deceived, vulnerable, weak, and used there was no way out. The cycle continued to repeat itself as if a norm rather than a horrific fairytale. Village Artisan, a fair trade organization, allowed a way out to prevent those from entering the cycle. For the first time, these women no longer had to ponder t...

Sarah Stevens Near the end of each year, Dalat International School hosts a yard sale on the outdoor basketball court to allow faculty, students, and parents to easily sell items they no longer need. The added bonuses of convenience and more customers is provided by the many other people selling in the same place.  This is exceedingly useful for families and students about to move. Also, everything is relatively cheap and well taken care of. This arrangement, which has been around a long time, is mutually beneficial to both the seller and the bargain hunter. Since the first yard sale several years ago, many amazing things have been found for sale. This year alone there were soccer cards with unknown values, retro toys that hold countless memories, and dining ware perfect for any holiday get-together.             The juniors really appreciated this event. This was a wonderful way for them to get some last minute sales i...

By Karissa Steinkamp             The 3:50 bell rang and eighteen high school girls rushed to the gym. With mitts in their hands, they made their way up to Upper Field, ready for the challenge that laid ahead. The girls began to warm-up by throwing to a partner as they eyed the competition once they made their way to the field. After ten minutes or so of warm up, the captains were called to do the coin toss. With Boyie Chin (12) representing the varsity girls’ team, the girls won the coin toss giving them the opportunity to choose to field first. After a few warm-up pitches done by Felicia Teoh (11), the first batter was up and the varsity girls versus the staff and parents game commenced. An hour ticked by with the two teams battling it out. The score was neck-and-neck for most of the game. With Mrs. Renae Roberts pitching for the staff team, the adult team united together, creating a cohesive, competitive team. The game allo...

Taewoong Won On Tuesday, 10 May, a group of seniors gathered in front of the gym instead of going to their A block class. They were getting ready to go to the Kawan House as part of their service project for their Spiritual Discipline’s class. The Kawan House serves food and provides a place to rest and shower to those in need. Although it is known that the Kawan House is for homeless people, not everyone who visits Kawan is homeless. Some people do have their own house, but their income is minimal that they do not have enough money to afford meals every day. At the Kawan House, seniors cleaned the house and served breakfast to people. Sheng Ting Yang, one of the seniors who went to the Kawan House, said, “It was great. It was fun. I liked it, and people were nice.” He also noted that his motivation for joining the service project was to “experience what the Kawan House was like.” Service is an important part of life. Through service, we not only sacrifice o...

Jane Jung  “Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.”- Og Mandino From May 2 nd to May 12 th , high school students in Dalat were given the chance to show what they have been studying throughout the year. Students who took AP courses this school year took their AP exams during their school hours, either at 8:00 a.m. or at 12:45 p.m. The Advanced Placement courses in Dalat are provided to prepare the students for the Advanced Placement exams which are college-level examinations. The AP exams that Dalat students took were as follows: AP Chemistry, AP Psychology, AP Computer Science A, AP Physics 1: Algebra based, AP English Literature and Composition, AP Calculus A/B, AP Chinese Language and Culture, AP Untied States History, AP Music Theory, AP Biology, AP Physics C: Mechanics, AP English Language and Composition, AP World History, and AP Statistics. “Every night I spent about two hours going through my practice exam booklet, and if I had any questi...

Aaron Kelley Cardboard boxes stacked the shelves where library books once sat as the library staff began reclaiming and packing Dalat's entire collection of library books for a monumental move to the newly completed CASTLE. With construction on the CASTLE finally completed, the library staff has begun the long and arduous process of packing up every book the library owns, except textbooks that the students need for the remainder of the school year, and moving them to the new library on the middle floor of the CASTLE, Dalat's new center for learning. The library staff set the final deadline for returning books to April 29th in order to box up all the books for transfer.             When asked about the reason for the book move, Mrs. Pamela Hoffmeyer, the head librarian, said, "With over 50,000 books in our entire school collection, we had run out of room in both the MS/HS and ES libraries." Mrs. Hoffmeyer also said that the CA...

Kai Fraser On Thursday afternoon, the 28th of April, in the grasslands of Dalat’s vast campus, Daniel Kang (9) was seen, accompanied by Kai Fraser (12), reviving his previously abandoned art—tricking /flipping. He was reportedly learning a new move called the Raiz, which requires one to twist 360 degrees in the air whilst parallel to the ground, legs twisted apart. Much to Fraser’s chagrin, Kang managed to learn it in a matter of minutes. Swinging to and fro on the monkey bars were climbers Keegan Oppenheim (12), Bijay Rana (12), Evan Chinn (12), Simon Jeong (10), John Choi (10), Chia Hoong Ewe (10), and Shion Fraser (10). Oppenheim could be seen hanging upside down from one of the bars, while Ewe (10) was climbing away from Fraser (10), who was playing a vicious game of tag with him. What do these two practices have in common? They both require a form of bodily inversion. Humans have an innate fascination with inversion -- once they get over the fear, of course -- and why is th...

Emma Hofer "Girls, we got this. We have trained an entire year for this moment, and we want this more than anyone else. All that we have done will be poured into the next few minutes of this game. Now we will have to summon the willpower from within to push forward and win,” varsity women’s football captain Sabrina Ly’s (12) words resonated with the squad of sixteen players who stood around her. Over the past three days of the Asian Christian School Conference (ACSC) tournament and the past seven months of the school year, the girls had endured painful sessions of conditioning and disheartening losses against the JV boys’ team that had contributed to their successes in the tournament. "Having a split season, one part from August to October, the other from March to April, really spurred us on and kept us looking forward to the April tournament in Guam,” said Mackenzie Jordan (12). “We were encouraged and motivated to work hard in the offseason and because of that, we st...