Dalat International School: Senior Scribble

Kimberly Horton This Saturday, all fifty-six members of the senior class of 2017 stayed behind after the high school barbeque event, dressed in grubby clothing. As the sun sank behind the hills, seniors began to congregate near the clock tower, many of them carrying mysterious rolls of brown parchment. What could these possibly be for? The purpose of this strange class gathering soon became clearer as cans of spray paint were produced—perhaps a mass act of vandalism led by… Mr. Brewster ? Why would the high school principal lead the senior class in an effort to deface school property? The mystery began to unravel itself as students rolled out their large pieces of parchment, each with a design cut out of it. It appeared that these papers would act as stencils—stencils that formed a creative design including the senior’s name. Soon, the air began to fill with the overpowering smell of aerosol paint; the seniors were beginning to leave their mark by painting designs  on ...

Laura Joy Phillips Once every four years, the American Government and U.S. History classes at Dalat set up a miniature version of the presidential election, which includes debates and the final vote. The whole school is invited to watch the debates, and students from grades 7-12, as well as the staff, will be allowed to vote. This year, due to curriculum changes, the American Government class will manage the project by itself, and preparations have already begun. On Monday, September 26, Mr. Sasse, the American Government teacher and overseer of the event, divided the class into groups and assigned tasks. Two of the groups—representing Clinton and Trump—immediately threw themselves into research for the first presidential debate, which the whole class watched the following morning. They will continue to follow their assigned candidate’s actions and strategies in order to later present them to the school. A third group, comprised of Josiah Brake (12) and Noah Graves (12), h...

Joel Frohlich             Sneak finished, after four days of intense bonding, and students returned to school. Whether or not they were sorely missed, the now sunburnt seniors walk around campus once again. The seniors are still tired from their thrilling vacation. Most have exciting experiences and stories to share with wondering underclassmen. But the questions on many minds still hang in the air: What were the results of this exciting trip? Was it worth the year of work during junior year? Did the travel truly bring the classmates closer together? Smiles are now commonly shared amongst many in the Class of 2017. Some younger students have realized that certain seniors now spend more time in cliques that they had not been a part of before Sneak. In fact, the cliques of the senior class may appear less obvious now. Perhaps it is because the Class of 2017 is mixing remarkably well. If questioned, the majority of stu...

Susan Oh “Class of 2017, you guys are the heroes now. We can’t wait to see how you are going to leave a mark as the school year goes on,” Teddy Zimmer (11), the drill instructor of the night, proudly announced as the night ended. After coming back from an unforgettable week of Sneak, seniors only had one thing to look forward to this quarter: the After Sneak Dinner. The After Sneak dinner is one of the greatest traditions Dalat has continued. The event is solely planned, prepared, and presented by the junior class. To the juniors, it is a great way to see and practice for another big event they have to present at the end of the year: JSB. Thrilled, all the seniors gathered around the outdoor basketball court and waited for six o’clock to hit. They tried to figure out what the theme was by looking at the invitation the juniors had handed out the night the seniors arrived back from Sneak. Was it a murder mystery? Taken ? Narnia ? Could it be Mean Girls ? No one could really ...

Jarrod Chang “Mercy is falling, is falling, is falling. Mercy is falling like a sweet spring rain.” Believe it or not, this was the song that was stuck in the heads of fifty-six seniors and hundreds of Thai students for an entire week. The senior class of 2017 started their Senior Sneak in Koh Samui, Thailand by participating in a service project at the Koh Samui School; and the above song was just one of many highlights.             On the 14th of September, the seniors woke up at 7am and hopped onto the back of five pickup trucks with no idea what the day had in store for them. Crammed with ten seniors in each cargo bed, the pickup trucks rolled into the local school. The seniors were met with curious looks from hundreds of Thai teenagers. As the guide escorted the seniors to a large hall, where the first group of sixty local students were already waiting for the arrival of the strangers from Malaysia, both parties grew anx...

Wei Sing Goh With veins popping and blood rushing through his arms, Ning Kang Chia (12), pushed himself as he finished his last set of bicep curls. Bicep Society is a newly-formed group of student-athletes dedicated to prioritizing their biceps as the most important muscle group to work out. Upon reaching the beaches at Koh Samui, the members of Bicep Society, consisting of Hasung Cho (12), Jerald Lim (12), Wei Sing Goh (12), Ning Kang Chia (12), Woo Young Chung (12), Sam Huang (12), Keito Watanabe (12), and Sheldon Ang (12), decided to put their hard work on display by taking a group photo of all the members flexing. Standing in the warm ocean water, the members flexed like they had never flexed before. Arms were violently shaking in an attempt to make the biceps look as big as physically possible. On the afternoon of the island hopping tour during Sneak, another group picture was taken at the peak of Emerald Lake. Again, the members flexed as hard as they could. With sle...

Hasung Cho                     Desperately swaying my arms back and forth, I tried to grab onto anything I could find. Unfortunately, I kept sliding down and down and down until I realized this really could be end of me, Hasung James Cho… It was on the second day of the presumably wonderful Senior Sneak. All of us seniors were thrilled in excitement at the idea of going to a waterfall to swim and take photos with breath-taking sceneries. The waterfall was not a grand one like Niagara Fall, but it was more of a cliff with a stream of water flowing between huge rocks. In order for us to get to the waterfall, we climbed up a hill and had to abandon the nice dirt trail for a path full of rocks varying in sizes. But little did I know what was going to happen next. I found myself sliding down the waterfall with nothing to grab onto. If the waterfall actually had a body of water at t...

Alan Luchtenburg Often, when students describe what X-block they just came from, they talk about an AP class, a session that provides extra help for a hard class, or band practice. The one X-block that makes people say “what?” is the one that takes place in room 6 on Tuesdays. At 3:15p every Tuesday, students gather together for the Tea Time X-block—they simply drink tea for thirty-five minutes. Every week Mathias Maurin (12) brings a different tea; he makes sure that he never brings the same type of tea too many times. His tea selection goes from the Japanese "Genmaicha" to a decade old "Puerh." The afternoon I first joined the X-block, Maurin taught me how to drink tea “properly.” I first thought that it was crazy that there was a way to properly drink tea, but, after learning, I appreciated it more. The X-block is a great break in the week; it’s a good time to relax, sit with friends, and, most importantly, drink tea! “Tea time is a place to drink gr...

Jonathan Lafferty "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you..." This verse from Acts spurred our discussion on living “Fearless,” the theme of this year’s Spiritual Emphasis Week (SEW). SEW (September 7-9) provided a space to worship God with other believers and to recapture what it means to follow Jesus. It was a time to relax and reflect, as well as a welcome break from homework. James Grout, a former youth leader of the C&MA, came down from Colorado Springs (United States) to share with the Dalat community the first few chapters from Acts, along with several chapters from his own life. The worship team, led by Joshua Allen, came together for long hours to prepare and practice for this week. They led songs related to the theme, such as "No Longer Slaves” and "You Make Me Brave.” Lydia Kim (10), a vocalist on the worship team, said, "It was a very memorable experience to sing on stage and lead worship. Looking at a...

Caitlin Goh On Tuesday, September 6th, a group of twenty high schoolers performed a rather short but extremely unique piece of drama in PenangPac. The title of the drama was “How to Build a Dictator.” So, who’s the dictator? The play started out with Mr. Sasse sitting in the middle of the stage, frozen. Everyone gathered around him with puzzled looks on their faces. “What’s going on? Are we supposed to do something?” said Shoko Tezuka (12).  The drama then continued on with a party where a bunch of surveyors came out to interview people. At this point, many people were startled and felt confused about the questions being thrown at them. The survey started out with a plain, simple question—“What is your name?”—which led to other personal questions. An English teacher, Debbie Chinn, asked, “Why are they being so nosy?” Some of the following questions were also thrown at them: “Do you use Facebook or Instagram? What is your favorite ice cream flavor? How important is ...

Chloe Castro      What? No school on a Wednesday? Yes, that's right, August 31st was a no school day for Dalat. It was the Malaysian holiday, Merdeka Day. This is the day Malaysia declared its independence from the British Empire in 1957. For most, it was a day to catch up on sleep, homework, and social media. While that’s what most of the dorm kids did, it was not the only thing they did. Knowing that a national holiday would probably bring lots of traffic, the dorm parents planned activities or parties for each dorm. The activities included were 3x3 basketball, NBA 2K16, ping-pong, foosball, henna, manicures, and watching movies. Jaffray hosted with the ping-pong, foosball, and NBA 2K16. Zeimer had a Bourne movie marathon. Jackson played chick flicks while all who came enjoyed snacks, henna, and manicures.             As a dorm student myself, I looked forward to this day. I didn’t feel like going out a...

Bena Mauger On Tuesday, the 30 th of August, the junior class skipped the whole day of school for Servathon, an annual fundraiser for JSB and, eventually, Senior Sneak. This year, the juniors cleaned up the parks in the Tangung Bungah region. The junior class split up into many different groups, each going to various parks. Some parks were so big that they needed two groups to help. Within the groups, the juniors partnered up to share the workload.  These students, and their sponsors, had many different jobs during the day. One of the biggest jobs during Servathon was raking leaves. They raked and raked leaves. Yigal Ang (11) was put to the task of raking a large field with many leaves and said, “Leaves never end.” Ang eventually got tired of that job and switched with another junior. He was put to work chipping off the paint of gates and monkey bars and then repainting them. Many of the juniors who had the job of painting came back with the paint that was meant for the...

Kylie Toh The clock struck 4p as the seniors waited excitedly at the Student Center for the juniors. “I remember this like it was yesterday! I can’t believe that it has been a year!” Lilian Li (12) recalled about coming back from Servathon a year ago. The seniors from the Class of 2016 planned a party for the juniors as a token of appreciation for working so hard that day. Therefore, the seniors from the Class of 2017 decided to do the same for the current juniors. Those who had a free X-Block went early to help set up the Student Center for the event. They arranged tables, prepared drinks, and brought out the ice cream. After making the necessary preparations, they lined up on opposite sides of the Student Center, ready to greet the sweaty, exhausted juniors. Huge smiles were plastered on the junior’s paint- stained faces as they came into the room and saw rows of drinks and vanilla ice cream cones prepared for them. “I didn’t even know that you guys had this planned! It’s so...

Inha Kim Alrighty then, let's see… Why hello there, an email from Miss Grad? Reminder for Senior Scribble? Shoot! I forgot about it completely! Better write something real quick… Mm hmm… Uh… What… do I write about? How about I take a look at what other people wrote about? Yeah, let's do that. But how do I get there, though? She (Miss Grad) showed us before, but I completely forgot where. Ah, I'll just google it. S.E.N.I.O.R. S.C.R.I.B.B.L.E… And… There it is! Okay, let's look through… School stuff… School stuff… More school stuff… School sports stuff… Am I allowed to write about anything else? Ah, whatever. I'll just write some made up crap about how the school’s art class changed my spirituality and stuff. Teachers here really seem to like reading about things like that. Cool. Opening up Google Drive…“WHAT!” Oh, we're having dinner soon. “WHAT ARE WE HAVING!?” Beef stuff? What the heck is that supposed to be? Well it's meat, so it can't be that...