January 31, 2013 Volume 13, Issue 4

THE BOLT‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’

Tonight, Sage Hill School stages its second perfor-mance of Les Misérables. The spring musical will run each night at 7 p.m. in the Black Box Theater through Feb. 2.

The cast of Les Misérables has gathered what they describe as “priceless memories” preparing for the performances, so I spoke with several cast members including Keivon Akbari, Matt Aghaian, Ryan Fishel, Caitlin Cohn, Kristen Tsubota, Gennyvera Pacheco and Brennon Mendez.What’s different about rehearsing for a musi-cal than rehearsing for a play?Keivon Akbari: It takes a lot more energy, especially because you’re singing and act-ing at the same time. It requires a lot more movement.Matt Aghaian: You need to make sure that you keep your voice in great condition because you’re singing every day. You really have to look out for yourself.What has been the most exciting part about working on this?Keivon Akbari: I would say probably expanding the limits of my vocal range because it turns out I can sing higher and lower than I thought I could. Working on this musical really enhanced my voice.What is your favorite scene to perform and why?

Keivon Akbari: I think the soliloquy in the beginning is my favorite scene because it sets up the entire story and puts everything in place, and from it, we know my character’s purpose and how badly he wants to change.What is your favorite song to perform?Ryan Fishel: I think I speak for the entire cast when I say our favorite song is Master of the House. It’s by far the most fun scene; Les Misérables is very heavy and emotional, but

Master of the House is funny and exciting.Why is Les Misérables the right play to perform at Sage Hill School?Keivon Akbari: Les Misérables involves so many people, and everyone has something to contribute. Everyone is important in his or her own way to the story.Caitlin Cohn: I think that Les Misérables is the perfect musical for Sage Hill School because the biggest themes of the show are

family and cherishing the time that you have with the people you love and care about. Those themes are also very important here at Sage. How is the Sage Hill performance of Les Misérables different from the performances being done at other schools in the area?Gennyera Pacheco: We are the only high school cast in the area doing a fully blocked run of Les Misérables rather than just a vocal concert.Kristen Tsubota: I think that there’s a lot of passion on the set and in the audience. Even walking around campus, there’s a lot of amp over Les Misérables. Everyone om the cast is just really excited for this production at Sage Hill.Why should everyone come to see your perfor-mance?Keivon Akbari: We hope to have a big enough impact on the members of the audi-ence that they learn something and become better people.Matt Aghaian: Les Misérables is a mix of almost every emotion including happiness, sadness, anger and fear. It really touches you when you see it. What aspect of the musical are you most proud of?Brennon Mendez: Whenever we rehearse a scene, we go over the little errors and imper-fections, and the next time we run the scene, I see the improvement. One good aspect is that we’re all very focused on our vocals and our blocking; we really try to improve and to do our best. Has the creation of Les Misérables been a bonding experience for the cast?Keivon Akbari: It’s been a huge bonding experience. We see each other every day and relax and motivate each other.

Photo Courtesy of Christopher AndrasSenior Caitlin Cohn, playing Cosette, falls into the arms of Marius Pontmercy played by freshman Jacob Fsh during the tech rehearsal of Sage Hill’s production of Les Miserables tonight.

sage HIll scHool, 20402 newport coast DrIVe, newport coast, ca 92657

The ‘Godfathers’ ’ Tough Choice

Between now and the last round of the annual “Assassins” game that occurs each spring at Sage Hill, three tragically promi-nent shootings struck the United States—not to mention the numerous other “acts of gun violence” are sadly lost in the “not to men-tion” category.

This spring, the game’s “Godfathers” Chris Andras and Coral Lee, along with Jon Poffenberger, dean of School Life, took the lead in making changes to the school-wide competition to be sensitive to the fact that, particularly within the context of these most recent shootings, the game may not be

considered just a “game” anymore for many people.

The original rules of “Assassins” were as follows: each player must use a water gun to “shoot” his or her given target without any witnesses. Each player who is “shot” with wa-ter is then removed from the game until only one player is left standing.

While “Assassins” took place with hon-est intentions of pure fun, the reward in shooting another person was an unmistak-able implication. In Poffenberger’s words, the game became an “unsanctioned but recog-nized Sage tradition;” more than 25 percent of the student body participates each year.

Recently, Poffenberger approached senior Chris Andras about respecting the victims of the recent shootings as Andras

By Jenna ShapiroEditor-In-Chief

By Kristen saroyan Staff Writer

planned this year’s game.“It was one of the easiest conversations

I’ve ever had with a student about such a serious discussion,” he remembered. “When I brought it up, Chris had already had some ideas [as to how to alter the game].”

In response to the Aurora shooting in a Colorado theater last July, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the Taft High School shooting and the incident at Fashion Island only 10 minutes away from campus, Andras and Lee begun brainstorming ways to take into account the heartbreaking and frankly scary events.

They are currently deciding on a new name to replace “Assassins,” though they have not yet come to an official conclusion. The game will also now call for water bottles,

rather than water guns, as the “tool” to eliminate other players.

“I have no issue changing the game,” Andras said. “I believe the game is much more about the strategy rather than the shape or form of the ‘tool.’ My hope is that this change will be permanent; one that will continue in the future”

Poffenberger applauds Andras and Lee for their maturity when dealing with the situation.

“I felt [the changes] were necessary because, although I understand the nature of the game and that it’s all in good fun, there’s also the glorification of assassinat-ing someone,” he said. “I have to give a lot of credit to Andras. He was prepared and completely on board.”

Our Choices: Best of 2012 inside

2 SCHOOL LIFE

Concert for a Cure

Photo Courtesy of Kellen Ochi

AlexAnder Sun, ‘14, uSing hiS violin SkillS for A worthy cAuSe. He and Michelle Min, ‘16, and UCI student Samuel Chen raised more than $17,200 together to cure Duch-enne.

As the last strains of composer Pablo de Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen echo through the Black Box Theater, junior Alexander Sun lifts his bow, lowers his violin and—with the Sage Hill String Ensemble—bows to the audience.

The performers quickly clear the brightly lit stage amid thunderous ap-plause and cries for an encore. Sun, accompanied by sophomore violinist Stephanie Cho and sophomore pianist Edward Goul, walks out to the center of the stage to perform one last song for the audience of 200 Sage Hill students, fami-lies and friends.

Sun, also joined by sophomores Michelle Min and UCI student Samuel Chen, performed six pieces raising $17,200 in donations for CureDuchenne, a non-profit organization that raises awareness about Duchenne muscular dys-trophy and helps fund research for a cure.

According to CureDuchenne, muscular dystrophies are a group of genetic disorders that cause increasing muscle degeneration. Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most common and most severe form, affects about one out of every 3,500 males.

“That’s why I did this concert,” ex-plains Sun, “because it affects hundreds of thousands of people . . . not only the per-son, the one boy living with Duchenne, but also his family and friends. Everyone he knows is affected.”

Halfway through the concert, Cure-

Duchenne founders Paul and Debra Miller spoke about their foundation and its prog-ress in searching for a cure.

“[We’re] so close to the cure. We can see the gene. We know what’s wrong with it,” said Debra Miller, “We can see where the problem is. We just need to go in there and fix it.” Thanking the audience for their care

and support, she added, “We have hope and we’ve come a long way.”

After the concert, Sun’s mother, Stepha-nie Wang, who organized the concert, also arranged a reception in the studio lobby with appetizers, refreshments and a raffle. Those who donated more than $100 received a complimentary raffle ticket to win a black

Freshman Update

Students at Sage Hill do not hesitate to call their high school a “dream school.” Even some outsiders get excited when they hear about Sage. They look at the hill and instead of seeing the typical high school, they see an unusual institution that fosters not only learning, but growth, passion, and spirit. Sage boasts incredible programs, both academic and extra-curricular. Its students carry a pro-found pride for the haven their school pro-vides, and like students at other high schools, they know that Sage is no ordinary place.

In most high schools, everyone agrees that their freshmen year was the worst. At Sage, it’s nearly impossible to find a person who would say the same. Although the fresh-men have only been attending Sage for a se-mester and are just beginning to know each other, they are united by one shared emo-tion—they all love Sage. While some fresh-men are grateful to have the chance to escape the extremely cut-throat, competitive envi-ronments of public school, others are simply happy to be a part of such a welcoming and accepting community.

“What I really enjoy about Sage is the welcoming I’ve received from all the students, whether it is from the freshmen or the upper-

classmen,” said Amelia Tanner.Once they experience the unique Sage

atmosphere, students never want to leave.The real mystery lies in what attracts them to Sage in the first place. Why do so many students from schools like Pegasus and Harbor Day turn their sights on Sage? What about Sage is so appealing to young middle schoolers, searching for the perfect high school fit, with so little background knowledge on what these schools are really like?

The answer is simple. Although Sage is a safe haven on a hill, it is a strategically placed safe haven. Its close proximity to feeder schools like Harbor Day and Pega-sus is enough to turn heads in its direction. Most students agree that they first looked at Sage for the sake of convenience and fell in love immediately after they shadowed or saw it. However, many current Sagers did not factor convenience into the equation when applying to Sage. Many a student drives over half an hour to attend Sage, and is happy to do so because of the unique at-mosphere Sage provides.

The freshmen at Sage, sure to grow into a close-knit family, all came to Sage for different reasons. After a semester together at the paradise town, they all agree on one thing—no other high school can measure

iPad mini. The total donations Sun describes as “amazing. I wasn’t expecting people to donate that much money, but it shows that people in our community really do care about these issues. It shows that…as a com-munity we can make a really big difference.”

The benefit concert, a rewarding experi-ence for all those involved, may become an annual Sage Hill tradition.

Sun and the other participants in the concert agree that they would love to col-laborate again for future fundraisers. An encore of Sun’s hugely successful concert is a guarantee for next year, to the delight of his peers.

“I definitely plan on doing another con-cert for CureDuchenne next year,” Sun said. “It was an incredible experience to see the community come together and give up so much of their time and money for this cause. And it was just incredible for me to be able to do this with music.”

Sun, who has played the violin for 11 years, is a member of both the Pacific Sym-phony Youth Orchestra and the Sage Hill String Ensemble.

“[The violin] was always an extremely important part of my life. I didn’t like it when I was little; I only started to take it seri-ously after freshman year,” he said.

Sun practices an hour and a half every day, already preparing to minor in violin in college. No matter how much he practies, violin never ceases to be a source of enjoy-ment for him.

“It’s fun—I never get tired of it,” he admitted. “And especially not now that I’ve seen what a difference music can make in the world.”

Alexander Sun Puts Great Music To Good UseBy Michelle MinSTaff Writer

Sojourn to the SouthBy Namita PrakashSTaff Writer

By Joelle nanulaeditor

The Spring at Sage program never disappoints, and this year, one program in particular has students and faculty buzzing with excitement. Sojourn to the Past, offered for the first time at Sage this spring, gives a group of students the chance to learn about the Civil Rights Movement in the most im-pactful and mind-broadening way possible: through experience.

Passengers on this journey will take a guided bus tour through the South, visiting important Civil Rights landmarks and even meeting with speakers who experienced the movement themselves. These witnesses to the Civil Rights Movement won’t be around forever, making Sojourn to the Past literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

At an assembly for juniors and seniors, Jeff Steinberg, the founder and director of the program, told the story of Sojourn to the Past. As a United States History teacher, Steinberg was already educating young people about the Civil Rights Movement. He learned that by exposing people to the hor-rors of the past, he could help them become compassionate and effective agents of change for the present. Thus, in 1999, Sojourn to the Past was founded. Steinberg also surprised

students at the assembly with a deeply mov-ing experience: the opportunity to speak on the phone with Elizabeth Eckford, one of the famous Little Rock Nine.

“I felt truly touched and privileged to speak to her,” says junior Preethi Seshadri, “knowing all the challenges she has faced.”

Steinberg’s program, now in its thir-teenth year of operation, is accredited by organizations across the country. In a cer-emony at the White House on November 2, 2011, First Lady Michelle Obama presented Steinberg with the National Arts and Hu-manities Youth Program Award: the highest honor in the nation for extracurricular youth programs. Sojourn also received the national Jefferson Award, which is the public service equivalent of a Nobel prize.

So what does Steinberg do with his extraordinary success? He uses it to support the same mission he has had from the start: educating and empowering young people to stand up for justice.

“I’ve learned a lot about the civil rights movement in history classes, but I’ve never been able to experience its effects firsthand,” says junior Sonya Mital. “I’m excited to learn more about its important place in our his-tory. This is the kind of opportunity I would never want to pass up.”

EDITORIAL & OPINION 3

ON THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

The beginning of second semes-ter is a more powerful, subliminal milestone in a school year than the beginning of the year itself. Fresh-men think they’ve defined them-selves and tend to cling to peer-driven labels like social-life rafts, personal qualities that only months before they may have viewed as possible anchors but now have learned to leverage with pride.

For sophomores, this is the point that Karl Marx would refer to as the awakening of class-consciousness, where sophomores compare them-selves to fellow classmates. They realize at this point, more than any other point in high school, that ev-eryone is at a different stage in their lives.

They may be shell-shocked from their first AP final. The best friend is still trying to get over a semester long hangover. That guy you just friend-zoned got his license before you.

At this point, the sophomore be-gins to think of life as a very narrow ladder that one has to climb before anyone has the opportunity to knock him or her off.

For seniors, this transition is the most significant and publicized. It’s the difference between drinking a pot full of coffee to finish an essay and cramming in an entire season of Breaking Bad during a weekend.

I struggled to find what this transition meant for me as a junior, or even just me as a person. After a lifetime of ruminations, it essen-tially boils down to this: my goals

BOLTThe Bolt is published monthly as the official Sage Hill student-run newspaper. Since our founding year in 2000, we have served as a public forum for the Sage community. Our goal is to uphold a high standard of quality journalism in a way that is both engaging and informa-tive for the students and faculty. All issues are stored online in the archive at http://issuu.com/shsbolt. Please contact Jenna Shapiro at 13ShapiroJ@sagehillschool.org if you have questions, or a desire to guest write or take photographs for The Bolt.

Editor-in-ChiefJenna Shapiro ‘13

Managing EditorCarlyn Kane ‘13

Assistant EditorsErika Lynn-Green ‘14, Tiana Lowe ‘14

News EditorJoy Chang ‘13

School Life EditorJoelle Nanula ‘14

Opinion EditorJeremy Dorne ‘13

Arts and Lifestyle EditorSavannah Gardner ‘13

Features EditorCarlyn Kane ‘13

Sports EditorKavi Sakraney ‘14

Backpage EditorYoonseo Cha ‘13

StaffChris Andras ‘13Christian Liu ‘13Maddy Abbott ‘15Alexandra Bollman ‘14Celeste Broderick ‘14Maddi Bukaty ‘14John Cha ‘16Angel Chen ‘15Claire Goul ‘15Victoria Griffin ‘13Mallory Gyulay ‘15Nellie Hamadani ‘15Jodie Horowitz ‘15Janis Jin ‘16Kiana Jodeiry ‘14Selin Karaoguz ‘15Jocelyn Marino ‘13Hawkin Miller ‘15Halland McKenna ‘15Nikki Parmar ‘15Namita Praleash ‘16Parker Reposa ‘15Kristin Saroyan ‘16Emily Shimano ‘14Doreen Yedwab ‘14

Pubications AdviserKonnie Krislock

Sage Hill School20402 Newport Coast Dr.Newport Coast, CA 92657(949) 219- 0100

www.sagehillschool.org

SOCIAL HOST ORDINANCE: INEFFECTIVE

On Jan. 8, Laguna Beach’s Social Host Ordinance, a law aimed at curbing youth

drinking went into effect. The So-cial Host Ordinance was a response by the Laguna Beach City Council to Laguna’s long-standing, under-age drinking problem and put adults who provided a venue for under-age at the mercy of the police.

A first time offender will not be fined, under the law, but required to attend alcohol awareness courses. A $1,000 fine will be enforced for each additional offense.

The city’s initiative to stop an underage drinking problem, cre-

ated in the interest of teenage safety, instead targets those who often pro-vide a safe place for partying which high schoolers will undoubtedly do.

Orange County cities like Mis-sion Viejo, Laguna Hills and Irvine have adopted a Social Host Ordi-nance and have seen no statistical drop in teen drinking. It is clear that Laguna Beach’s stop gap solution is ineffective and may create more problems than it solves.

The Laguna Beach night life makes the city a hot-spot for drunk drivers. The Social Host Ordinance takes the safe places to drink and stay away from teenagers and replaces them with parking lots and beaches. Teens will inevitably

consume alcohol and unfortunately drive from these locations when they have no other options.

The Social Host Ordinance pun-ishes those parents or other adults who provide safety for teenagers who drink no matter what the law tells them.

These adults understand that the current drinking laws do nothing but force teenagers to hide their unlaw-ful actions.

The city council needs to address the issue of teen drinking at the source. Laguna’s current problems stem from a failed drug prevention program and a high school party culture, not from adults who provide a safe haven.

By Jeremy DorneOpinions Editor

are radically different than those of even a few months ago. These goals used to be so linear−keep my nose clean, get into a good college, find a fulfilling career and forge rewarding relationships. But it just doesn’t seem so simple anymore.

Culturally, we’re in the middle of a reverse Romantic movement. Cult hits like the television show Girls portray “ordinary” people living “ordinary” lives. “Ordinary” has come to mean lacking wanderlust, curiosity and pas-sion.

But what are we as people meant to achieve? What do we need to thrive, not just survive? What is the pursuit of happiness?

Thomas Jefferson saw it as a somewhat interchangeable with property rights. James Joyce saw it as discovering one’s intrinsic soul. About three pages into Beloved, Toni Morrison sees it as not feeling guilt over committing bestiality and infanticide.

I do believe that at the end of this long, meandering journey of life, there will be a white light, a God in Heaven, a Buddha in Nirvana or a Great Truth that has all the grand solutions to all my petty, human musings. But for right now, Hap-piness, I’m going to stay a child, keep my wanderlust and continue to pursue you.

Staff EditorialBy Tiana Lowe

Illustration by Yoon Cha ‘13

4 FEATURES

Best of 2012People

1. Gabby Douglas2. Jeremy Lin

3. Barack Obama4. Frank Ocean

5. Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson

Fads1. YOLO

2. Memes3.Purposeless Sweaters

4. Ombre5. Instagram

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FEATURES 5

Best of 2012Music1. Gangman Style2. Thriftshop3. That’s What Makes You Beautiful4.We’re Never Ever Getting Back Together

Movies/TV1. Les Miserables2. Skyfall3. Downton Abbey

4. New Girl5. Breaking Bad

Food1. Cake Pops2. Chick-Fil-A3. Twinkies4. Sprinkles/Restaurants5. Doritos Locos Tacos

Student Circle AdvisesPhoto Courtesy of Selin Karaoguz

The STudenT CirCle memeberS, Seth Eaton, Maddi Bukaty, Celine Zack, Nicky Boulos, and Amir Soleimany, hope to enhance the offerings of productions at Sage Hill.

Student Circle is a council of 18 students involved in the Arts Depart-ment to enhance the student body’s experience with the arts.

These students are not neces-sarily taking art classes or in extra-curricular arts, but they offer their outside opinion as representatives of students who are not as involved.

Sophomore Isabel Eckel says she started the group with Mary Robin-son, director of the Studio, because she “wanted to make a way for stu-dents to have more input in the arts department, and to help what goes on in the department at Sage.”

So far, Student Circle has had two meetings during which members discussed the possibility of having an arts showcase night that will raise awareness and excitement about the

Culture Couture Art Show Feb. 8

Culture Couture, a student-run service learning publication on cam-pus, will host an art show to benefit charity:water on Feb. 8.

Not only will local artists’ work be featured on the walls of the Le Bon Family Lobby, there will also be student performances from 5-8 p.m.

Culture Couture will be reciev-ing donations as well as selling artwork and raffling off goodie bags that evening.

Artists willing to participate and place their works in the show should contact Maggie Ann Re.

Photo Courtesy of Savannah Gardner

6 ARTS & LIFESTYLE

By Selin KaraoguzSTaff Writer

arts and the Studio at Sage. They hope to raise money to bring more professional performances to campus in the future.

Over the next year or two, Stu-dent Circle hopes to get more stu-dents to attend events like the A Cappella groups and school plays and musicals, one acts, instrumen-tals, choral and dance shows.

Eckel’s long-term goal with Stu-dent Circle is “to enrich the arts de-partment at Sage and come up with new and innovative ideas to raise more money for the department.”

Robinson will foster a relation-ship between Student Circle and its sister-parent organization, Producers’ Circle, to ensure that these goals are met and properly executed.

For recent performances in the Studio, Producers’ Circle has put on the “Studio Café,” in which the Studio Lobby is decorated according

to the theme of the performance, and food and drinks are sold before and after.

Producers’ and Student Circles have implemented student opening performances before the professional shows. Junior Sydney Endicott and senior Savannah Gardner each per-formed a song from Les Miserables and a duet together before the Bos-ton University Deer Abbey a cap-pella performance in the past month. Several student poets, including Nick Justice, Janve Sobers and Griffin Vrabeck, recently opened for inter-nationally recognized spoken word poets, Phil Kaye and Sarah Kay.

Student Circle hopes that in-volvement and enthusiasm about the arts will escalate in the coming years because of their efforts. They encourage everyone to attend the events in the Studio that they have worked hard to prepare.

By Carlyn KaneManaging Editor

Senior, maggie ann re, is accepting entries for the Culture Couture Art show.

So the world didn’t end...By Nikki Parmar Staff Writer

As we all anticipated that doomed date looming around the corner, many of us were eager to see whether our fate was truly predetermined by the Mayans, or whether it was all a big fluke.

After first watching the movie ‘2012’ in 2010, rumors and panic sparked around the world, particu-larly on the Internet. People were frightened, and scientists imme-diately reassured us that the world was not going to end for another two million years.

That said, it didn’t put a stop to the worries and and concerns. As the date grew closer, the world-ending scenario was taken more lightly. People began joking about it: “It was the media doing what it does best—brainwash,” sophomore Milad Rohani said

Although everybody was aware of the fact that Dec. 21, 2012 was the date we would all cease to exist, not many people were aware of the actual story behind our ill-deter-mined fate. What really is the story behind 2012?

The Mayans, around 2000 B.C. developed one of the most complex calender systems. The first Mayan Calendar, also known as the Calen-dar Round system, and the second, the Long Count calendar system, determined the end of the world.

The Long Count calendar sys-tem identified each day by count-ing forward from a fixed date in the past. It grouped days into sets or cycles. For example, Baktun is 144,000 days and Kin is one day. The Long County Calendar cycled through one interval after another. One interval was equivalent to 13 baktuns, also known as 5,139 solar years. Since the calendar began in Aug. 3114 B.C., the first Grand Cycle would have ended on Dec. 21, 2012.

The Mayans believed that after one Grand Cycle ended, another would simply begin. However, peo-ple began to think that the calendar would not reset itsel, but end.

It was said that on Dec. 21, the winter solstice and the Milky Way’s equator would align; scientists claimed that this would have no effect on the Earth at all, and even so, there would have been no way that the Mayans could have known that an equator in the Milky Way existed.

There are six million Mayans still in Mexico, and they all agree that the ends-of-the-world stories are “gringo inventions.”

7 SPORTS

UPCOMING EVENTSGIRLS’ THURSDAY 1/31 6 p.m. at WhitneySOCCER - SATURDAY 2/2 5:30 p.m. at St. Margaret’s BOYS’ SATURDAY 2/2 7:30 p.m. at St. Margaret’sBASKETBALL-THURSDAY 2/7 7:30 vs Bretheran Christian

BOYS’ SATURDAY 2/2 5:00 p.m. vs St. Margaret’sSOCCER- TUESDAY 2/5 3:15

SCOREBOARDGIRLS’ 1/25 vs Oxford 45-28 WBASKETBALL- BOYS’ 1/18 vs Oxford 1-2 LSOCCER- 1/25 vs Bretheran Christian 3-0 W

GIRLS’ 1/25 vs Bretheran Christian: 7-0 WSOCCER-

Jack WilliamsonProves the Point

clear direction is a quality that Williamson brings to the boys’ basketball team. Coach Jeff Beeler calls Williamson a “coach’s dream.”

Photo Courtesy of Hawken Miller

Among the Boys’ Varsity Basketball team’s talented, dedicated and hard-working players, who would you pass the ball to in the final seconds of a close game?

As a consistent, leading scorer, junior Jack Williamson has led the team in its 2-2 league standing. “It’s all basketball all year around,” says Williamson, who plays point guard or shooting guard.

Williamson contributes significantly to the team’s success; his favorite part about playing basketball is “when all the hard work, the reps, the practice, all just comes together and you feel in rhythm with yourself, the game, and your teammates”.

Named a “Player to Watch” by the Orange County Register, Williamson has clearly shown great capability to competitively challenge other teams. Throughout the course of his 10 years playing basketball, Williamson has found valuable role models. He views Mike Flamson, his club coach, as someone who takes knowledge and “applied it in all of the right ways” to “help his players maximize their potential.” Williamson looks up to Coach Jeff Beeler as well, who “shares [his] dedication to the game” and “desire for success within a basketball setting.”

Beeler, who “can talk all day about Jack,” explains “he is a tireless worker with a passion for the game of basketball . . . a coach’s dream. As a third-year varsity player Jack has really stepped up as a leader and a captain this year. We are looking for big things from Jack as the second round of league play begins.”

Williamson’s motivation comes from the “relief and anticipation” he gets when he’s “done everything possible to prepare for what is ahead,” as well as his “success” as he “only worries about the things he can control.”

As a strong, reliable player, Williamson proves a wise choice to finish off a game.

Freshmen Save Sailing TeamThis December marked an enormous

milestone for the Sage Hill Sailing Team. After dwindling in size and reaching an all-time low last year with only four members, this year has seen renewed school-wide in-terest and a collection of talented freshman coming to the rescue.

Many people fail to realize the mental and physical strain that sailing puts on a person.

Every minute detail becomes impor-tant: checking to see the knots on the boat are tied properly, determining whether that storm up ahead will bring more wind or more danger, predicting the strategies of those around you, and constantly being aware of who has right of way.

It is a combination of this necessary at-tentiveness and years of hard work learning how to maneuver the wind that led fresh-men Jacob Rosenberg, Madison Nadlemen, Sydney Lake, and Conner Chung, as well as Sage Hill, to victory.

The team has been building momentum from regatta to regatta. (For those of you who may not know, a regatta is a collec-tion of many short races over a span of two days.) Then, in our home court of Newport Harbor, the team’s hard work paid off. The

combined efforts of freshman pairs Rosen-berg and Nadleman, as well as and Lake and Chung, got first in their J.V. division with a trophy to prove it.

Over a series of sets of races, both pairs placed consistently towards the front of the fleet of thirty FJ sailboats.

The sunny sky signaled a dearth of wind that pushed the skilled skippers and crews to powerfully and tactfully roll their way to victory after a very tiring weekend.

Long-time sailor Sydney Lake said, “Sage sailing is finally becoming competitive again.”

This momentous win may mark a re-newed era of success for Sage’s sailing team. Freshmen Rosenberg, Nadleman, Lake, Chung, and Bobby Briggs have three more years ahead of them to bring the team to victory. Team captain, junior James Mather, feels that “the team is doing better now than in years.”

What’s next for the sailing team? After Chung and Lake sailed competitively in high-wind conditions in a varsity fleet alongside seniors, they feel ready to take on anything.

On Feb. 16 and 17, the sailing team will participate in The Golden Bear Regatta in San Francisco. The Gaucho Regatta in Santa Barbara follows soon after on Mar. 16 and 17. Keep tabs as the Sage Hill sailing team tacks and jibes their way across the finish line and into victory.

By Claire GoulSTaff Writer

By Jodie HorowitzSTaff Writer

smooth sailing The freshman additions are in it for the long haul. Sage Hill’s Sailing Team is ready to brace the fierce winds and competition alike.

Photo Courtesy of Jodie Horowitz

BACKPAGE 8

MY FAVORITE CONIC SECTION IS AN ELLIPSE.

I’m in love with Jack Williamson. I ONLY GO TO SCHOOL SO I CAN GET TO RE-HEARSAL. David Dewey loves anime like me. David Dewey = String cheese (tall, white, gooey, stringy and delicious) David Lee wrote all the Da-vid Dewey stuff (that is, 12 other “confessions”) Last year, during Senior Prank Day, I was too scared of the crickets in the bathroom to pee. I think Juliette is super hot Math makes me HAWTE! I wear sweatshirts and jack-ets because I want to hide my-self from everyone. It is 3:32 P.M.

BRUTUS IS CUTER THAN CAESAR I ate my twin in the womb. I enjoyed “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” I am a girl and I pick my nose. It feels good. <CK3 CJ = Pretty cool . . . I’m cooler than you though ha! I want to marry Allie Mowrey I really re-ally really really like Razj!! <3 :P

I LIKE JOHN CHA. COR-RECTION; I LIKE JAEWON CHA Food for thought is a starcraft cheat I’m kinda obsessed with harry potter D U M B L E D O R E ISN’T REALLY DEAD I am a Brony. I killed a pig.

CONFESSIONSCO

MIC

A GAME OF SIGNS: Can you guess where these pictures were taken?

(left) This week’s featured comic by Doreen Yedwab (‘14)Want to be featured on the back-page? Submit your own comic to 13chay@sagehillschool.org!

A.

A.

B.

C. D.

E. F.

G. H.

Answers will be posted in the next issue!