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Opinion: Why Culture Day Matters

June 5, 2023 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Nora Garg

Guest Writer

SLA just recently started planning for its first-ever Culture Day hosted by the Students Of Color Association, which was founded this school year. To provide context, it was declared much needed by students of color at our school, who were surprised that the only Culture Day we had was a diluted part of Spirit Week. Even though it’s understandable that due to all that’s happened in the past few years, our school wouldn’t have time to organize an event like this, consensus says it’s definitely been long due!

The process started with a proposal crafted for Mr.Lehmann by the students in SOCA (Students Of Color Association). In this proposal, we included why our school must have a Culture Day. It would give opportunities for minorities to interact with each other in a school that lacks immigrant culture, and reserve a day for us to stand with each other. So often, all talk associated with minorities is negative, but we need space to show off our cultures and heritage that run so deep in our roots. We would learn more about the cultures of our student body, as well as help students of color to accept and engage more in their identities as well as connect more to them.

When the email was first crafted, Culture Day only included a food market and students coming to school in cultural clothing, but soon it turned into so much more. After getting Ms.Ustaris involved, we’ve obtained workshops; lessons; and a whole school day dedicated to Culture Day. This is a huge step in offering all the students at our school more insight into different cultures and introducing them to new food and music.

As this process has played out, it’s already helped to build a sense of community and help students find their crowds. More and more students show up at the weekly SOCA meetings, and the date even had to be moved because seniors wanted to take part. Every meeting, I’m seeing more and more students bond over things they usually don’t talk about during their school days, and I’ve seen students who tend to be shy participate more confidently in discussions and really take the lead in planning and organizing.

The SOCA is thrilled that we have a whole day devoted to appreciating different cultures and making space for them in our school, and I feel such a sense of gratitude knowing this would help teachers to be diverse educators and understand their students better. Additionally, all the proceeds would go back into SOCA to fund teach-ins, trips, and more opportunities for students at our school to expand their horizons.

Movie Review: Creed 3

March 28, 2023 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Braylon Dunlap Staff Writer

Creed lll is the third installment to the Creed franchise and the eighth installment in the seemingly never-ending Rocky franchise. Usually when a series reaches its third movie, the franchise starts to value quantity over quality, and critical reception tends to decline. So as I went to go see Creed III, I wondered: would it be as just good as its predecessors?As a boxing movie, the film runs the risk of being very formulaic but luckily, this one does bring something new to the table. After retiring in the second movie, Adonis Creed (played by Micheal B. Jordan, who also directed the film) spends his time running a boxing gym until he comes across an old friend, Damian Anderson (played by Jonathan Majors) who was forced to retire from boxing due to his imprisonment years ago. This created a very uncomfortable dynamic between him and Creed as we know there might be a little bit of jealousy hiding behind Dame’s jokes and smiles. Even though this movie is formatted the exact same way as the previous movies– (Creed gets into drama with his family and rival before finally duking it out in the final battle –e), the appearance of Damian’s character really elevated the tension in the story. Jonathan Majors stole the show in this movie, as he felt genuinely intimidating and was an actual threat to Creed. Whenever Majors got into the ring, I actually felt scared for the other fighters, especially in the third act of the movie. It wasn’t just the acting that made Creed stand out though, the editing and choreography of the fight scenes were also directed to make you feel every hit a character took. The spontaneous cuts, on top of the claustrophobic close ups and slow-mo’s inflicted that sense of adrenaline that the boxers were all feeling in the fights. Because of this, it can be hard to exactly tell what is going on in the fight scenes, but I really respect the stylistic choice. Even though boxing movies are at their core about fighting, what really makes them great are emotions and the tension created by their hour long build-ups. That being said, some of the tension created by the movie though didn’t feel entirely natural. Aside from the villain, the movie also has Creed confront other personal struggles in his life that felt a little forced. You can tell that the plot was trying to have Creed’s problems all pile up and overwhelm him by the final fight, but none of his problems or relationship struggles really appear naturally.Even with the forced conflict, the story still feels very high stakes and will definitely get your heart pumping for the final battle. Despite having a third installment, the Creed series has not overstayed its welcome! The film made the formula of boxing movies refreshing and exciting due to its character arcs and thrilling action. While I’m not sure what the next installment will look like, it would be inspiring to see a deaf female lead for Creed 4!

SLA Survey Shows Negative Connection Between Social Media and Mental Health

January 24, 2023 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Braylon Dunlap

Staff Writer

Graph representing the responses of the question “How often do you find yourself comparing yourself to other people on social media over the past year?

For the past twenty years, social media has seemingly had a bigger impact on teenagers more than any other demographic. Apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat have played major parts in many of our lives.

But just how big a role?

Recently, a series of surveys were sent out to the SLA student body by the current statistics students. One of these surveys focused on social media apps and their impact.

History of Use

From the data, 48% of the participants stated that they started using social media between the years of 2016 to 2019. That makes seniors anywhere from eleven to fourteen years old when they started. The next largest group — 42% of the participants — started using social media anywhere from 2014 to 2015. That means most seniors started using social media when they were eight years old but that age would be even younger if any of the participants are a junior or lower.

After interviewing a handful of students, all of them responded “No” when asked if the age they started using social media was an appropriate age but had varying answers on whether it negatively affected their mental health.

“I got social media to keep in contact with my friends during quarantine and it wrecked my life,” said Sophomores Julian Sankey. “Everyone looked like they were having a good time, especially during quarantine.”

“My parents let me have a phone at the age of twelve and I only got Instagram which was the first social media I got at the age of fourteen,” said 10th Grader Miles Hall “I kind of wish I had waited longer, or probably haven’t gotten it at all, but I have it now and I’d say it hurts my mental health.”

No one said they wished they started earlier.

All of the respondents also said that Instagram was their first or only social media platform. Instagram being an image/video sharing app, is known for creating high expectations and standards in many young adults’ mentalities.

And while many of the students said starting early had a negative effect on their mental health, Junior Elijah Lopez said he had guidance early on.

“My parents always taught me the dangers of social media, and I mostly just used it to talk to friends so it wasn’t draining for me mentally, but I wouldn’t recommend using social media that early.”

Mental Impact

Respondents were also asked how often they compare themselves to others online and how much social media impacts their view of themselves/others on a 1-10 scale. An estimated 40% chose 8, and when asked how often they compare themselves to others on social media, 36% said a few times per week, while another 36% said that they do it a few times a month. On top of that, 10% of participants responded that they compare themselves to others online daily.

Students in the class had personal responses to the survey results.

Statistics Student Senior Mehki Evans-El said “I actually deleted a lot of my social media apps after this because now after acknowledging and seeing it, I realized that I do actually have a problem.”

One thing that can be noted about social media is that often, people don’t realize that they are addicted to social media and that it might start being an issue.

This survey may encourage students to reflect on how much they use social which is important in determining whether they have an addiction or not.

The results of this survey do shed more light onto the fact that social media can definitely be harmful to young adults at times, and it can make kids develop addictions to these apps or alter the way they see themselves and others negatively.

“We know phones are an important part of our lives and we wanted to see how it specifically affects our students. I actually deleted a lot of my social media apps after this because now after acknowledging and seeing it, I realized that I do actually have a problem.” Mehkki said. “It was affecting my work in school and I would constantly go on my phone. After reading the data I became more self-aware.”

“Overall, I think that the biggest takeaway was that conducting proper, scientific surveys is a huge job,” Mr. Estey said of the project.

“It’s very easy to put up a quick poll on your Instagram page, but if you want a survey that accurately represents a large and diverse population – even a population like SLA’s 500 high school students – you need to put in a tremendous amount of thought and planning behind the scenes!”

Movie Review: Bones and All, A Romance Both Bloody and Beautiful

December 20, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Lara Rosenbach

Staff Writer

Courtesy of Yahoo!

Bones and All

I hadn’t heard anything about this film until I went to see it with a friend—my first time at the new-ish AMC Fashion District theater in Center City. This might’ve been because it didn’t sound like any movie I’d seen before.

Bones and All is directed by Luca Guadagnino, who also directed the movies Call Me By Your Name and The Protagonists. Set in the mid-1980s and based on the book by Camille DeAngelis, the movie centers around Maren, a young girl living with her father in a trailer park. She—along with many others—is what’s called an Eater, aka, a cannibal. Eaters are perceived as outcasts, but only because they choose to live that way. To the average person, an Eater is just a normal person.

If you think this movie involves watching people eat one another, you’re right. The whole movie is focused on the reality of the world, and how cutthroat it can be (he took this literally). The film is scattered with scenes of Maren and others eating other humans, and Guadagnino asks the audience to slowly desensitize themselves to the stigma that comes with cannibalism. I thought this was an incredibly interesting approach to a coming-of-age film. As the film went on, I didn’t know who to ally myself with, or if there is anyone I should be invested in at all. Every character’s backstory, especially Maren’s boyfriend, Lee, who we meet much later in the film. His life is rich with trauma. It is hard to find a reason to wish good things for Maren.

The choice to set this film in the midwest was great, because no one really thinks of traveling through endless farmland and corn fields, when there are much more interesting sights you could have characters see. But I feel that the land was a reflection of the feel of the movie; abandoned, left bare, a land that fades into the background, that we don’t want to see on screen, when the Pacific Coast is much more beautiful to look at.

Maren and Lee are much the same, character-wise: Maren is a timid girl who’s on her own, which no one really pays any mind to, while Lee is closed-off and trusts no one. They never really open up to each other, which is the cause of all of their quarrels, and the reason that Maren goes off on her own for a while. Their characters truly leave you wishing for the kind of normality that you would see in any other romantic film. However, this isn’t your average romance.

However, I don’t quite get the purpose of Sully’s character in the movie. He is the first other Eater that Maren encounters. First first introduced as an eccentric but compassionate old man, and acts almost as a mentor figure for Maren. He later takes the form of a myriad of other figures to help advance the plot—such as a desperate stalker yearning for some kind of companionship. Apart from a way to show Maren the dangers of trusting strangers and to make Lee the martyr Guadagnino pictures, I don’t see much point to him as a character.

The movie was truly a disturbing watch. However, I found myself unable to look away from any of it. The way Bones and All delivered the haunting warning of the (literal) dog-eat-dog world was the most disturbing, yet heartwarming way I’d seen yet. I would recommend this movie to anyone who’ll enjoy a dark, twisted story, both a teenage romance and a bloodbath.

Movie Review: The Fablemans, Spielberg’s Story

December 13, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Lara Rosenbach

Staff Writer

Courtesy of Arts Commented

The Fabelmans

I wasn’t sure what to expect when saw The Fabelmans in Washington with my mom and grandmom. All I knew was that it was the semi-autobiographical story of Steven Spielberg’s life, a famed director whom made many movies I’d enjoyed, such as Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Jaws, and E.T.

I’m happy to report that the movie did not disappoint.

The film centers on the life of Sam Fabelman. After seeing the movie The Greatest Show on Earth as a kid, which contains a climactic train crash, he becomes obsessed with recreating the scene, begging his parents for a train set for Hannukah, to use as a prop. His mother, Mitzi, lets Sam use the camera to record the crash in secret.

Speilberg focuses on different ways movies can be used. They can be fantastical, like when Sam roped his Boy Scout friends into acting in a Western and a war movie. Filmmakers can explore the more technical side of moviemaking, like when Sam buries wooden planks so that when actors step on them, it appears as though they are being hit by bullets, or when he pokes holes in the actual film itself with a pin, creating little bursts of light that look like muzzle flashes. Film can also reveal reality; When Sam discovers a secret that could tear apart his family, he makes two films, one showcasing his family’s happiness, and the other the bitter truth. I felt incredibly connected to Sam because of how I could relate to him, being Jewish and having a love for movies and moviemaking myself.

Spielberg’s cinematography is gorgeous. One of the most amazing parts of the movie is two intercut scenes; in one, Sam cuts together the camping footage to show what his mother has been hiding, while at the same time, in another room, Mitzi passionately plays the piano while Sam’s dad Burt watches from afar. The camera spins around, illustrating the emotion that Sam is feeling: the image of what he thought were his parents falling apart and the realization of what he saw in one.

Sam’s character is an unflattering portrayal of Spielberg himself; Sam’s uncle Boris comes home and tells Sam he’s an artist—however much he loves his family, he’ll love making movies more. This same idea repeats later; when Mitzi and Burt are getting a divorce his sister comes to his room, wanting to be comforted, and instead, Sam brushes her off and asks her opinion on his film. And in creating a movie of his senior class’s beach trip, Sam gave every person in the class an opportunity to shine. Even though Sam despises his bully, he still films him in an extremely flattering way. He asks Sam why he filmed him like that when he treated him so horribly, and Sam says he doesn’t know. I believe Sam put the movie above his feelings toward his tormentor, because he is an artist first.

This movie was a beautifully acted piece of cinema, and Spielberg’s harshness towards his own character only added to the realism of the film. I would recommend this movie to anyone who wants to watch a kid figure out he’s an artist and pursue his dreams, above anything else.