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The Complete Winter Trimester....ABRIDGED!

by Julie :: Saturday April 19, 2008

     The second trimester of my sophomore year has recently come to its end, leaving me with many memories. this trimester was an especially challenging academic term, with the increased workload in all classes and the change of few of my courses. It also involved a musical, my first team sport, and the beginning of my first (and hopefully not last!) independent project.

    At Thacher, each student takes different elective history classes during his/her sophomore year, and I ended up choosing Middle Eastern and Japanese history. My class this term mostly focused on the Arab-Israeli Conflict, a fascinating topic and a devastating global issue that I knew little of prior to the class. I also decided to take a history elective- “America of the 1950&60s”. It was a wonderful combination of history, literature and movies. Like most other sophomore students, I also had the usual load of English, Math, Chemistry and Foreign Language (in my case, Chinese). 

    This past winter I also made the decision to apply to SYA (School Year Abroad), a study abroad program Thacher is a member of. Ever since I got the information packet, the image of China was in my dreams. I could see myself living with my host family in China, traveling the rural areas and playing with children who speak Chinese better than I do. Decisions come out next week, and as you can imagine, I am nervous like no other! It's a life-changing opportunity, and my fingers are crossed.

    Mr. Ockerman, the music teacher this year (Mr. Haggard, our music teacher last year, is currently traveling the world on sabbatical) chose Les Miserable as our winter musical. Because he announced that there would not be a pit band, the pit band flute player - I - decided to try out for the musical. I ended up being part of the chorus, a new exciting experience. It felt great to be part of a show that people said was one of the best school musicals they ever saw and being on stage with the bright lights was certainly a different experience from being in the pit. I'll be torn when Mr. Haggard comes back and I have to choose between the two!

    Lastly, but not least, this trimester was my first team sport season. Coming from Korea where team sports are non-existent for your average student (that is, students who aren't planning on becoming professional athletes), being part of the JV Basketball team was a whole new world. Although I can hardly say I grew to be the star player, I can now proudly say that I was part of the best Girl's JV Basketball team Thacher has seen in some time. The end of the basketball season brought the start of my spring independent project in Chemistry (more specifically, Leaf wax extraction). It's certainly something I have never done before, and I look forward to the coming spring.

And that, I'll say, was a pretty good summary of my winter trimester!

 Update 3/27/08- I have not been accepted to SYA, and as disappointed as I am, I look forward to another great year at Thacher! In the meantime, Amanda was one of the four accepted, so big congrats to her!! She'll have the privilege of being the first Toad Blogger abroad :)

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