4
April 4, 2016
News Table
School? What? Convent and Stuart Hall Head to Six Flags
Nick Everest Reporter he Schools of the Sacred Heart hold many important traditions, however, the student favorite is undoubtedly Congé. Once a year, every school selects a day, unknown to the majority of the students to celebrate and miss class. The activities aren’t always the same which further adds to the surprise. This year, the boys and girls of Stuart Hall High School and Convent of the Sacred Heart High School took a trip up to Six Flags: Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo for their special day. The event took place on March 23, the Wednesday before Spring Break. The Stuart Hall High School boys learned it was Congé after participating in a Lenten Reconciliation Chapel with Mr. Vasquez. Students pinned pieces of flash paper with their sins onto a board that was in the center of the gym floor for everyone to look at. As the service wound to a close, an RSCJ sister lit the pieces of paper on fire. As the papers burned and disintegrated into the air, five letters appeared etched into the board: Congé. Air horns rang out and rolls of toilet paper were thrown around the gym as the realization set in: It was Congé. After loading onto busses headed for the amusement park, the students arrived in Vallejo after a quick drive. From there they were set free around Six Flags to ride rollercoasters, eat food, and have fun. Gordon Smit, from the class of 2018, had this to say: “I had a great time up at Six Flags. Spending time
T
5
the roundtable at roundtable.sacredsf.org
Owen Fahy | the roundtable
with friends and getting a day off was an amazing blessing and a great way to start my Spring Break. As someone who didn’t go to Stuart Hall for Boys, this was only my second Congé and the tradition has definitely lived up to its name. Now i’m just excited to see what we do next year”. Food was provided by the school and they even reserved an entire area in the park just for the students and faculty of the two high schools to eat and relax. Rides like Medusa, Kong, and the Superman roller coaster proved to be favorites among thrill seeking students and teachers alike. Overall, after a hard school year, Congé continues to be a great way to unwind for a day and gives students a surprise to look forward to. While Congé seems like an easy and nice day, credit must go to the faculty and students who helped make it happen. A special shoutout must be given to one of our newest faculty members, Mr. Emerson, who as the new head of the student council played a vital role in making this day happen. On top of that, credit must also be given to our Senior Student Council members who worked side by side with Mr. Emerson to ensure that the day went as smoothly as possible. Days like Congé require planning months in advance to provide the most fun while not affecting things Stuart Hall High School and Convent of the Sacred Heart High Schools extremely competitive sports teams or any of the many service and special events our school hosts.
Becoming a Morning Person introducing the app to wake you up
Zachary Hammer Reporter ave you ever had trouble waking up in the morning? Do you set multiple alarms to wake yourself up, only to sleep through all of them? Well worry no longer, because Sleep Cycle is the app for you! While we sleep, we transition between deep and light sleep, cycling between the two every 90 minutes or so. The app monitors your sleep and wakes you up when you are in your lightest sleep phase, making it easier to get out of bed in the morning. Before going to bed, you activate the app and select a window of time that you would like to be woke, for example between 5:45 a.m. and 6:15 a.m.. Then, while you sleep, it uses the phone’s microphone to listen to your movements to determine how deeply you are sleeping. In the morning, it will wake you up when you are sleeping the lightest within your set, time window, making waking up seem natural and easy. Also, instead of a blaring alarm, it quietly plays music that slowly increases in volume in order to create the softest and most peaceful wakeup possible. Not only does it function as an alarm clock, but it also collects the data from the user’s sleep every night and creates graphs to show trends and averages. They can see everything from their average time in bed, their sleep quality per night, and even how the
H
the roundtable at roundtable.sacredsf.org
Features Table
The Most Interesting Man at The Hall the life and times of Jackson Rhodes
Zach Hammer Reporter e’ve all heard of them: DJ Khaled, Skrillex, deadmau5, David Guetta and more. The DJing world is quickly growing, becoming far more advanced and widespread than the radio broadcasters of old. The term “disc jockey” was first coined in the 1930s, long after radio broadcasts had become commonplace. Close to 90 years later, The DJing scene is still growing today, although spinning vinyl records have been mostly replaced by computers and electronic soundboards. Our very own Jackson Rhodes has been officially DJing for over a year now, and has quickly become one of the most hyped upcoming talents in the Stuart Hall DJing world. When asked what sets him apart from other DJs, Jackson replied that, “no other DJ wears white overalls with no shirt,” and the getup has become his unofficial calling-card. Music runs in Jackson’s family. As he put it, his dad “has always been an audiophile, so growing up there was always something new and interesting playing in the living room.” Jackson himself has always been a huge fan of music, but only began to mix his own beats after downloading a DJ app in freshman year. “The ability to change the music makes it a lot more personal,” Jackson said, “I can mix my favorite songs and create my own version.” After DJing the Halloween dance and the winter formal, it is safe to say that DJ Jackson Rhodes’ mixes are a huge hit. For Jackson, his motivation comes from giving people an experience, and the best part about DJing is when the crowd responds well to one of his mixes. Over the course of the night, he controls the mood and the atmosphere, based on what music he plays. He can create a setlist in which the songs slowly increase in tempo, raising the energy at the climax of the party.
W
weather or air pressure affects their sleep quality. When they wake up, it will give them a summary of their night including a graph of their sleep activity. These graphs show when they fell asleep and how they transitioned between deep and light sleep throughout the night. But if the user wants to know more, they can look to the Statistics or the Trends tab to gloss over information from every recorded night. Most users say that ever since they got this app, their sleep quality has improved, and that they have much more energy throughout the day. Even people who are not typically considered a “morning person” can successfully
Will Kahn | the roundtable
wake up early for school or work instead of hitting the snooze button multiple times. Not only does this improve their morning, but it also improves their mood and energy throughout the day. Also, knowing one’s sleep habits can also help to figure out how to get better sleep. For example, knowing that they usually stay up later on Mondays and Wednesdays can show why they do not feel as great during the days after and will give them incentive to go to bed earlier on those days. This app is a must get for everyone because how someone sleeps affects every aspect of their life.
New Club Prospers
the meditation club enjoys wary success Jackson Rhodes in relaxing breathing exercisReporter es, The Hall offers just that rom making decisions to space through the Meditation Club. recalling memories, our The Meditation Club was brains are constantly started this year by Mr. Roos, functioning. One might think who has plenty of experience that the brain gets a break during sleep, but dreams keep with meditation in addition to his knowledge of eastern the mind busy while our bodphilosophy. When asked ies recuperate. In eastern phihow meditation can losophy, meditation offers help a student’s an opportunity to give success in school, your mind a break from this is what Mr. constantly working. Roos had to say: Perhaps unbeknownst “Meditation trains to us, students at The the mind to focus. Hall practice meditating In training your at least once a week mind to focus, through “Espayou are able cio”. “Espacio” to focus on utilizes the your work same idea better. as meditaMedition, as it tation gives our also brain the opportunity for release from the pressures of daily life. For students who want to spend a little more time to engage Nick Hom | the roundtable
F
April 4, 2016
helps to reduce stress. With stress, you tend to get caught up in the thought pattern that is stressing you out. Meditating trains the mind to relax, and stop focusing on those stressful thoughts. Meditation calms your whole system and when you’re relaxed, you can learn better.” Mr. Roos brought up some very good points about how meditation can foster a more well-rounded and successful student. Many studies have been done documenting the benefits of meditation, and these studies show that meditating creates a more empathetic, compassionate person. I had a chance to talk to Arjun Saxena ‘16 about why he joined the club. He mentioned that he “wanted to do something different. With the stress that comes in senior year, I thought meditating would help me relax, stay calm, and balance my schoolwork.” Kudos to Arjun for trying out something new. The Meditation Club provides an opportunity for students to delve deeper into their minds and focus on letting go of the stress of daily life. For those who are interested in taking “Espacio” to the next level, you can contact Mr. Roos directly to learn more about the Meditation Club.
He also mixes songs based on their keys using something called a camelot wheel. Using his mixing knowledge he can create a set that raises or lowers the vibe of the crowd. Jackson put a lot of preparation into becoming a DJ. When he first started, he had little more than an app on his phone and a love of music to guide him. But as he continued to mix music, Jackson became more and more absorbed into the DJing world, eventually saving up enough money to buy some real hardware and equipment. Preparation is also required before each individual session, as Jackson often spends many hours finding and organizing music for a night. After gathering multiple hours of music, Jackson cuts it down into a usable playlist. However, the playlist often serves as a guideline for what to play throughout the night. Depending on the mood of the crowd, song requests, or other variables, Jackson likes to be flexible, often changing the song lineup as he sees fit. Most of the music that Jackson plays is electronic, with some of his favorite producers being SBTRKT, Sango, Anna Lunoe, and Moby. “We can’t forget Moby,” Jackson affirmed. Jackson listens to lots of other music as well when not DJing, with some of his favorite artists being Cat Power, The Chromatics, Peter Gabriel, and Radiohead. When not DJing, Jackson enjoys skateboarding and biking. He’s been skating for close to a decade, and started his own mountain bike racing team. Along with fellow classmates, Gio Oltranti and Willie Rodriguez, Jackson participates in NICA competitions and competes against teams from schools all across the state. NICA stands for the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, in which Jackson competes as part of the Southern California Conference. Biking is a lot like other high school sports, in the sense that there are frosh, junior
varsity, and varsity teams, however in order to compete in the varsity level, a team has to petition or qualify for the spot. Races last anywhere from two to three hours and can have close to 100 competitors. Last year, Jackson qualified for varsity by placing 5th in the state championships and ranking 6th overall for the season. Jackson plans to pursue DJing as far as it will take him. He hopes to throw parties in college, with music being at the center of the fun. However, there’s more in Jackson’s future than mixing beats and racing bikes, especially as he prepares to hear back from colleges. Jackson’s top choice
Jackson Rhodes | the roundtable
right now is Lewis and Clark in Portland. He it likes for many reasons, namely the fact that it has “endless outdoor opportunities, being close to Mount Hood for snowboarding, and there’s a state park with bike trails right next door.” He wants to be near a metropolitan city for the skate culture while still close to the outdoors. Lewis and Clark can provide that for him. As far as studies go, Jackson plans to major in philosophy. Acceptance letters are due April 1. On his future endeavors—whether it be spinning disks, skating boards, or “bi-ing-cycles”—we wish him best of luck.
Sophomores Tackle Important Issues
second-year students work on projects to fight environmental problems Anson Gordon-Creed Reporter n January, the sophomore Sacred Texts classes were given an assignment that paralleled the Face to Faith Environment work and Costa Rica experiences that they had just completed. Students were divided into groups of three or four and tasked with figuring out a way to help the environment. Each group had a different area to deal with, and each set a goal. Some haven’t gotten very far in the execution phase, but a few have. Zander Angel-Souza, Harry Billings, and Gordon Smit have concerned themselves with beach cleanups. Harry said their goal was that they wanted to get an ocean beach cleanup added to the standard school service program, like One Less Hungry or the Lafayette Park clean up. Already, they are working with Student Council to collect volunteers for the first cleanup. Michael Lui and Mats
I
Keldsen have dedicated themselves “to increasing the amount of people riding bikes, skateboards and scooters to school.” Being the kid who rides his scooter to school everyday, I can tell you it’s certainly a worthy cause. Freddy Kaie, Will Brown and Nicholas Watts have been a little more ambitious. Having been assigned to the political aspect of environmentalism, they’ve decided to outline a new idea for public transportation and to suggest it to City Hall. “What if our buses, or replacements for them, didn’t need drivers, ran on the city’s central power grid, had their own track laid out for them so they’d never get caught in traffic and were far more numerous? Our plan is the Cable Car 2.0, a little free publicity, and every bus line in the city would be replaced with one.” And finally, Adrian Medina and Lucas Miller are looking into recycling projects. Specifically, they want to
improve Stuart Hall’s waste system by making sure it all goes in the correct bin. As of now, they’ve been collecting data on the problem, taking pictures and doing research in order to create a graph to show how the different waste bins are used by students. Some of these projects are more ambitious than others, but all have the same intention: to make the world a better place by improving the environment.
Adrian Medina | the roundtable