Locker Talk: What was your April Fools?
Features
Chasing For a Space
By Annisa Ahmed
Staff Writer
Whether it is a trove of the SLA baseball team clearing tables and chairs from the center of the café for a pre-practice warm-up or Ultimate Frisbee players running through the halls on a rainy day, students who play sports here have always had to do extra to be ready for game day.
There are no gyms within the institution, no fields to our name. Physical Education, a mandatory class for those students who do not compete on a team, is held the fitness room. Time and time again, a cacophony of footsteps and huffing hollers can be heard outside one’s classroom on any given afternoon.
It is not as of SLA wants to do this. Baseball Coach Douglas Herman explained it rather well. “Generally speaking, high school sports have been underfunded and under supported in this city for long time,” which makes sense considering how royally broke the SDP is.
There were once plans to build a gymnasium on the roof, but that pipe dream was quickly tossed away thanks to the restrictions in place, as stated by the School District and the lease that indicates this building is not entirely our own.
Teams have been working around this in their own. Before finally securing a field in Mount Airy, the baseball team practiced on patches of grass wherever until setting up camp at the 44th and Haverford. “I actually hated changing field,” commented Senior Nick Manton. “Baseball is all about consistency and switching up things as often as we do ruins our grove”
Their first game is to be played at Mount Airy. The date for the match is April 2nd and the opponent is Martin Luther King High School, appropriate considering the fact that everyone has been seething since last year’s kerfuffle. Our team will finally get a chance to harness the power of a home field advantage.
Nevertheless, it is still frustrating for everyone, including the Principal of Science Leadership Academy Chris Lehmann. There is no question about the inability for students going to school without a place to play. “On a very basic level, kids deserve a place to play.”
But no matter what it is for, students who want to play competitively here make it happen. “For a school which has no fields, no gyms, no nothing, our sports teams are incredibly resourceful,” said Lehmann.
Kids from the frisbee teams come to a staggering hour and forty-five minutes to clock in the much needed training and Herman and his crew stay after school until five or six at the latest.
Their desire to play is the single biggest testament to how much students at SLA and nothing will stand in their way as they have previously demonstrated to us all. “With that being said,” jokingly suggested Lehmann. “If anyone wants to offer us to buy a gym, I’m all ears.”
Locker Talk: What Are You Doing Over Spring Break?
Ask fm: fun or dangerous?
By Melanie Harrington Staff Writer
Do you like to ask questions online?
We’ve all heard of Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. The new site to joing htis group is a website called ask.fm, was launched and introduced to the public in June 2010. It currently has over 125 million users, and its main design is to have users invite people to ask them questions.
This new website contains some of the same aspects of other social media sites such as, following your favorite people/friends and interacting with others through messaging. However, Ask fm takes it to another level by allowing questions can either be submitted anonymously or not.
Ask Fm is slowly and surely making its way to the students of SLA.
Everyday, users receive a daily question. Some examples of these questions are “What’s your favorite color? What’s under your bed right now? Love or Hate?”
Freshman Isabella Mezzaroba said, “People’s immature sides tend to come out when there isn’t a name connected to their words. I don’t take the stuff on their seriously though.”
Recently, the site has been the subject of several media articles involving cyber-bullying. Apparently the site was being used to send rude, offensive, and hateful anonymous messages to its users. These allegedly resulted in suicides and violent deaths of teens across the country.
While Ask fm is a great way to pass time and have a good laugh from time to time, Mezzaroba admits that other social media sites have more ways to interact and have fun.
Sophomore Traevon Gray is in favor of Ask fm as well. “Its a fun way to see what people are thinking,” he said. However, Gray does not recommend the site to people who are easily bullied.
Ask fm obviously has some pros and cons to it. In some cases it can be very harmful to people regarding the bullying. In other cases it is helpful and provides a good laugh and a distraction.
Student Organizes Support Group
By Leah Kelly
Staff Writer
SLA freshmen Amanda Thieu is starting a support group for students as part of her “You and the World” project for the issue of teen depression.
The “You and the World” project is a project that English Teacher Alexis Dunn is very proud of, and one that all freshmen in her class complete. Each student chooses a topic/issue in the world that they are passionate about and write several blog posts about it full of research, original data and background about their project. The last portion of the project is to get the students into the larger community and make a difference.
When Thieu heard of this project, she immediately thought of doing the topic of teen depression, since it has affected many of her peers.
With her first and second blog post completed, she is now ready to move into the SLA community and make a change, which will be a support group run by herself.
“This group will benefit the SLA community by helping the people who attend to become more open, comfortable, and beneficial in their environment,” said Thieu. “It will also show them that they are not alone in whatever they’re dealing with.”
While Thieu is mainly running this support group, she will also be getting assistance and guidance from Siobhan Leahy, counseling intern under Zoe Siswick.
“I’m excited that two students decided to do this,” Leahy said.
Supporting her friend, freshmen Zoe Schwingel-Sauer is planning to attend this support group as well, saying that it’ll be a great emotional outlet for anyone who has issues that they want to talk about
“When I have something to get off my chest,” Schwingel-Sauer said, “there will be others to listen, comfort me, and offer advice. Even when I’m not the one sharing I can listen and apply the lessons I learn into my everyday life.”
If you are interested in attending, contact Thieu for meeting times, which will be on Fridays at lunch in Room 303.