20 minute read
Caricaturist
features
Julius Huang '22 lives simultaneously on two sides of the world
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Gary Gao ’21
When the clock hits 5:30 a.m., it is finally time to sleep. Every day, when a smudge of yellow appears next to the navy blue in the sky, Fifth Former Julius Huang finishes his day and goes to bed so that he can recharge his mind and prepare for the “next day”—another round of activities on his schedule. Since last March, like several other international students, Huang has been living like this because he faces a major challenge: he lives in Shanghai, China, which is over 7,300 miles away from the Haverford School and has a twelve-hour time difference from the Eastern United States. Normally, Huang sleeps when the sun is about to rise and gets up around 1 p.m. Sleeping during such abnormal times has negative impacts on his well-being. “The first problem is: how do you fall asleep when the sun is rising? The quality of sleep is quite bad… sometimes I need to take some Melatonin [a short-term treatment for insomnia] before sleep,” Huang says. “We cannot disobey the rules of nature. I usually feel more tired after I get up, and it makes me feel like not wanting to do the stuff on my schedule.” When Huang wakes up, it is well after his family members leave for work. Although he gets “what other family members are getting for lunch,” he has to “sit and eat alone,” unable to enjoy the time with family members or friends at school. “[With] the disrupted calendar, the meal just doesn’t taste as good,” Huang says. In the busy afternoon that starts at 2 p.m., Huang mostly dedicates his time to extracurricular activities because he cannot attend the normal meetings and practices. Huang has been playing violin for many years. He loves the instrument, which is why he works hard every day towards becoming a better violinist by practicing three-to-four hours a day. “The major extracurricular activity I’m doing for school is orchestra,” he says, “but of course there is no way for me to play with other people in the orchestra at the same time.” Fortunately, there are some alternative activities. “The conductor sends out the pieces we are playing for the semester, so that we can practice at home according to the calendar, and we turn in some videos at certain times. Playing with others is fun, and I can learn [by doing it],” Huang says. “Not attending normal practices certainly does have negative impacts on me.” Sports is another issue. Huang was a skilled player on the golf team. “Now, I’m not doing any sports for school. I’m doing some sports on my own. I play golf not quite as often, because I need to make compromises on schedule conflicts. Sometimes [I] maybe only play once every two weeks,” Huang says. “It’s pretty bad for me.”
After a long afternoon, at 7:30 p.m., Huang has dinner with his family members. On the dinner table, he and his family talk and savor the meal. “I feel bad about missing other meals with my family; when they are at home I’m mostly in class, so dinner is the only thing I can enjoy with my family,” Huang says. At 8:45 p.m., it is time to “go to school” for Huang. He logs into Google Meets every day, just like other virtual students, which means he faces the most common challenge for attending online classes. “In the junior year, a lot of classes, especially history, tend to be more conversational,” Huang says. “So it is not that easy for me to participate in discussions.” Huang encounters an internet challenge that never bothers U.S. students.
He is not able to access services provided by Google in China without a VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection, which causes “slow internet speed and frequent disconnections” during classes for him. At 12:00 a.m., Huang is able to log off the Meet and eat something, just like his peers in the U.S., but he does not feel excited about having a midnight meal.
“I have my midnight meals alone. I have to have some food and some tea to keep myself focused on studying later,” Huang says, “and they are also bad for my health. They make me put on more weight.” 3:00 a.m. marks the end of his night at school. “It is hard for me to sleep right after school. I just keep doing my homework until in the early morning,” Huang says. Eventually, at 5:30 again, he goes to sleep and prepares himself for another 24 hours of an inverted schedule. Huang, like many other students who go to school internationally, does not choose to have such an abnormal daily life. “The travel ban is still there,” Huang says. The United States government currently forbids the entry of individuals that have been physically present in some countries within fourteen days prior to the arrival. China, Brazil, South Africa, and most countries in Europe are still on that list. Some groups of individuals, such as U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and their immediate family members, are exempted from the rule, but students are not among them. “If I want to return to the U.S., I have to go to another country for fourteen days, and I have to quarantine for another fourteen days after arriving,” Huang says, “It’s difficult to arrange, and I will have to waste a month of time on the trip.” Although the Biden Administration has not yet made any official moves regarding this rule, as the vaccination progress advances globally, Huang and his family see some hope in resuming his education in the U.S. in person. “I wish to go back to school after this pandemic ends,” Huang says, “and I think it is going to be easier to travel the next [school] year.”
JULIUS HUANG ’22
JULIUS HUANG ’22
Julius Huang's simple midnight meal
The caricaturist aims for a portrait
Tyler Zimmer ’21 A s Sixth Formers’ inch closer to the next chapter of their lives, many seek mementos.
Ms. Courtney Sell delivers on this wish, creating colorful caricatures that highlight more than a wide smile—they tell each student’s story. “I get so personal on these,” Ms. Sell said. “It’s fun because I can be so much more in depth.” This is no ordinary caricature. Each student received a form to fill out his interests, hobbies, and styles.
Ms. Sell then followed up with a tenminute Zoom call to discuss the details. “Zoom has been awesome for me. I actually love doing it virtually,” she said. Students expressed the same feeling. The virtual process was smooth, efficient, and provided Ms. Sell with the details she needed to capture each student’s story. “She was really helpful, and I can’t wait to see what she makes,” Sixth Former Jonny Flieder said. This is Courtney’s fourth year drawing our Sixth Formers. She began her career as a professional caricature artist at Dorney Park in Allentown before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Tyler School of Art at Temple University.
Since then, she’s worked for the Philadelphia Zoo and Citizens Bank Park. Despite her extensive experience working for every type of event imaginable, Ms. Sell admitted that the Sixth Form portraits are some of her most challenging. “I spend a lot of time on these, at least an hour each. I feel like I am drawing your lives.”
In order to finish in time, Ms. Sell plans to work over twelve hours each day, working hard for each of the nearly 130 Sixth Formers. To the students awaiting the final product, they should be confident that this memento will beat their expectations. Courtney is Yelp’s Best Caricaturist in Philadelphia. “It’s so rewarding for me to finish a project of this size. When you get your drawing back, I hope you feel that it is a snapshot of your life.”
MS. COURTNEY SELL
Vibrant trees flourish overhead as Mitav Nayak ’22, Ryan Rodack ’22 , and Joey Kauffman ’23 walk to class
JEFFREY YANG ’22
Every season requires different work. For example, in the spring, planting seasonal flowers and cutting grass are the foci; in the summer, watering and cutting grass; in the fall, collecting leaves; and in the winter, preparing for and shoveling snow.
“Each season does have its kind of unique challenges that we’ve come to expect,” Mr. Stevenson said.
Most of the major projects occur over the summer.
Haverford’s Sodexo General Manager Mr. Robert Wisler said, “[Summer is] the best time to do it from a safety perspective, when students and faculty are not here. And so we’re not working around students and faculty and staff.”
One of the major projects, but one that occurs annually, is mulching.
“Mulch is very expensive, but it also only lasts like a week, but it is nice. We need to have the moisture of all the roots,” Mr. Wisler said.
For larger-scale landscaping projects, the Grounds team must get approval from an aesthetics committee, which is composed of a group of managers at Haverford. While Mr. Stevenson does not recall having needed to undergo this process yet, he does try to keep the Haverford spirit in mind when designing.
He said, “I don’t think I’ve done anything large-scale enough that I had to have approval from the committee, but I think one of the rules that I do try to follow is when I do put flowers and I try to make sure that they’re the school colors.”
Mr. Stevenson then buys the plants he has chosen from two different stores, depending on the type he is looking for.
“When I get the flowers that you’ll generally see in the island beds or in the planters around campus, I go to Thaddeo’s Greenhouse, which is actually not far from here [in Havertown], but when I have to go a little larger and I get shrubs or trees, I go to a SiteOne out in Aston,” Mr. Stevenson said.
Another important point that the Grounds team must consider is the chemicals used to upkeep the plants. To avoid students, faculty and staff, and even visitors from having adverse reactions, such as an asthma attack, the team uses organic solutions where they are needed.
“When we spray plants and so forth, we use organic material where it’s necessary, just because we want all of the students to be safe, we want the faculty to be safe, we want any of our visitors to be safe,” Mr. Wisler said.
The team faces various challenges throughout the year. One persistent challenge is the weather, especially in spring when the temperature can change drastically day to day as new plants are bedded out.
“Weather is always a huge challenge. Sometimes you get that random cold snap in April and it’ll kill every flower you just bought, so, along those lines, we do get kind of mystery box challenges. But we’re getting a lot better at handling it,” Mr. Stevenson said.
Another unwavering challenge is the budget, but money is more predictable than the weather.
“It’s a balancing act of making sure the campus looks nice and, at the same time, ensuring that the cost is kept within budget,” Mr. Wisler said. “If I had an endless budget, this [school] would be like being somewhere down on a tropical island, but unfortunately we can’t do that. But the school has no problem in spending money on the grounds where it makes sense, and then my job is to make sure we stay within that budget.”
Still, the concern most unique to Haverford is, in itself, the fact that we are a school.
Mr. Stevenson said, “Working at a school you don’t really know what to expect. There might be kids out playing in the quad and the ball gets away from them, destroying a plant. It happens, it’s part of working at a school.”
For Mr. Stevenson, one more personal challenge comes with managing the grounds: he must keep track of all the plants on campus.
“When I was getting started in the manager’s position, I had to learn all of that stuff really fast [where and what each was] because before it was just like ‘oh that tree over by Virtue Village,’” he said.
While there have not been major changes in school landscaping, in terms of plants and general greenery, within the past five years, the team is looking to start two big projects soon. One plan currently in the works will add stone planters to the steps between the lower school and the business office and the area by the café and the dining hall.
Mr. Wisler said, “That area’s kind of looking a little bit drab, and we want to make sure that we make that pop.”
Another significant project in the near future will be re-turfing fields, and possibly making new turf fields around the campus. "We are looking at new fields: replacing [the Class of] ’75 field this year with new turf, replacing Memorial Field the following year with new turf. And then we’re looking at what it would take to spruce up Eagle Field, because it’s always a challenge to spruce that up. That’s our only natural grass field right now, so we’re kind of deciding whether we want to turf that field,” Mr. Wisler said.
Regardless of how the landscaping looks in the future, one thing will always be certain: spring will signal the rebirth of colorfilled, vivacious grounds. For this reason, spring is Mr. Stevenson’s favorite season in regards to landscaping.
“Winter is such a drag, and then when you kind of get back and everything kind of pops and comes back to life all at once, especially here between the cherry blossom trees that we have out front and the daffodils that come in,” Mr. Stevenson said.
For Mr. Wisler, spring is equally as exciting as autumn, when the community returns to campus.
“I love it right before and right when school starts because the campus is looking fresh, the campus is looking alive, and our projects are done, so we can relax a little. Then, welcoming all the students and staff back is always exciting for us and seeing their reaction being back on campus.”
But both Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Wisler are excited for people to enjoy their hard work, which mainly occurs when the community is not watching.
Mr. Wisler said, “We’re always excited to share with the students because this is what we do for a living, and we love doing it.”
“I sometimes wonder if anyone notices,” Mr. Stevenson said, “so it is nice to see some interest.”
MR. ANDREW STEVENSON “I love it right before and right when school starts because . . . the campus is looking alive, and our projects are done, so we can relax a little. ”
MR. ROBERT WISLER
After a 391-day hiatus, Jeffrey Johnson ‘22 returns to learn in-person
Ryan Rodack ’22
Many students’ first day back to in-person learning was Wednesday, September 9, a 181-day gap since the first day of the coronavirus shutdown. However, Fifth Former Jeffrey Johnson’s break from in-person learning lasted an astonishing 391 days. For various reasons, including state quarantine guidelines, a long commute, and coronavirus precautions, the Delaware native chose to learn virtually for the first three quarters of the
school year.
With many of his friends and classmates back at school, Johnson had a tough time adjusting to learning at home while seeing his classmates collaborate in person.
“At times, it was a challenge not to be able to rely on your classmates in class as much as normal,” Johnson said. “I got used to being isolated towards the end, especially in the third quarter. It was a challenge making sure I was on the same page as everyone else.”
Apart from the troubles he had collaborating with classmates, Johnson experienced technical difficulties, making virtual learning a frustrating experience at times.
“One of the big problems was making sure I could hear everybody and the teacher well,” Johnson said. “Sometimes, even though you’re on the call and it seems like you’re hearing everything fine, there are points where classes became a bit inaudible, and I couldn’t hear everything effectively. Sometimes I could hear the big points of a certain subject but I couldn’t hear all the details…That hurt me in some classes where maybe I didn’t get every detail down or couldn’t understand every detail.”
In terms of his teachers’ efforts at including him in-class activities, Johnson thought they did an admirable job, under the circumstances.
“At first it was a little rocky, but as it went on, the experience started to get better and better,” Johnson said. “It’s very hard for the teachers to balance the time they spend making sure everyone is getting proper attention at home and at school. Sometimes it could’ve been balanced a little better, but overall it wasn’t that bad.”
After spending over a year learning from home, Johnson decided to return to school for the beginning of quarter four.
Johnson said, “I wanted to come back and get into a better routine overall. Sometimes, with online school, I was staying in the house too much, and I wanted to get out more. Some days I did feel like doing online school, but after a while I just kind of felt like I wanted to go to school.”
In comparison to his virtual experience, Johnson’s first couple of weeks of learning in person have improved the quality of his learning.
“I get to interact with teachers better. I have a better understanding of some of the topics, especially in my Spanish class. It was tough online trying to communicate with my teacher in Spanish,” Johnson said. “From
JEFFREY JOHNSON ’22
Jeffrey Johnson ‘22 at work in Virtue Village
RYAN RODACK ’22
Bernie Rodgers ’21
DR. MIKE NANCE
Mr. Keith Czarny coaching in 79-73 win over Malvern Prep on February 3, 2021
“2 4.1 seconds” shone brightly across McBride Court. The Fords led their rivals, the Malvern Prep Friars, 77-71, as Sixth Former Chris Sims stepped up to the free throw line. It was the first game of the season for the Fords––a rather peculiar one due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent restrictions on play. In a game that is typically filled with rambunctious student sections and tons of school spirit, the gym was eerily empty. Only the occasional cheering of the supportive families of Sixth Form parents filled the gym.
Sims knocked down both free throws to seal the game for the Fords. The Fords’ sideline glistened with excitement. They had just taken down the reigning Inter-Ac champions 79-73 in a hard-fought battle.
Perhaps unnoticed amidst the unfamiliar situation, a surprising face led the team to their first victory. Head Coach Bernie Rogers was forced to miss the game due to COVID contact-tracing, resulting in longtime assistant Mr. Keith Czarny stepping in and leading the Fords to the start of their season.
“It was a lot of fun being the head coach for the Malvern game. I’ve been playing for or coaching with Coach Rogers for the past seventeen years, and we talk pretty much every day, especially during basketball season, so I have a pretty good grasp on how he coaches and what plays to run in different scenarios,” Mr. Czarny said.
Mr. Czarny has been learning the game of basketball for a while. He grew up in Northeast Philadelphia and played basketball throughout grade school and high school. In 2007, Mr. Czarny was a key contributor to the Archbishop Ryan basketball team, and was named an honorable mention of the AllPhiladelphia Catholic League team, one of the best high school basketball leagues in the country.
“I was never the star player or anything when I played. I just always worked my hardest, and did the little things that don’t show up on the stat sheet,” Mr. Czarny said.
Mr. Czarny is also a devoted Philadelphia 76ers fan. Whether he is attending the game or watching from home, Mr. Czarny is as vocal about the Sixers as anyone else.
“I’m just not sure why we didn’t give up Ben Simmons for James Harden. Harden and Embiid are the two best players in the NBA,” Mr. Czarny said. “It would have been unstoppable.”
Beyond basketball, there is much more to Mr. Czarny’s life. At home, watching him win his first game as a head coach, was Mr. Czarny’s wife Ellen, and his two-year-old daughter, Penelope, or “Penny.”
“My family means the world to me. It was great being able to have the games livestreamed this year. My wife, who is pregnant, and my two-year-old daughter were able to watch the game on YouTube on our TV at our house,” Mr. Czarny said.
Mr. Czarny is excited to extend his family soon, as he already shares a special bond with Penny.
“I have a video of Penny on my phone from the game. She pointed to the screen and said, ‘That’s my daddy.’ It’s moments like that, that I’ll never forget,” Mr. Czarny said.
Along with a new addition coming with Ellen’s pregnancy, Mr. Czarny also turned a page in his professional life. This past summer, Mr. Czarny started his job at Haverford as the Associate Director of Marketing and Communications and the Social Media and Content Manager.
“I handle the school’s social media accounts. I set up and schedule any of the email blasts that go out to external constituents. And I also gather stories and pictures for the website and the Haverford School Today magazine,” Mr. Czarny said.
Despite being a part of the basketball program for the past six years, this is Mr. Czarny’s first full-time job with the school. Although it’s been a difficult year with the ongoing pandemic, Mr. Czarny has certainly enjoyed his experience so far.
“I think the MarComm department has done a terrific job of making me feel welcome in such a challenging and different school environment this year,” Mr. Czarny said.
One of the most challenging aspects of this year is getting to know the people around campus. Mr. Czarny’s schedule is limited, and it is hard for him to get a true sense of the campus in an unusual year. He remains eager, however, and hopes to continue to grow more comfortable here.
“I am excited for the opportunity when things open back up and go back to normal, and we can have lunch with different people in the dining hall,” Mr. Czarny said
Mr. Czarny has mentored and served as a role model for many basketball players, and he hopes to create even more relationships outside of basketball.
Mr. Czarny approaches each day the same way, with enthusiasm.
“One of my favorite quotes is ‘To attack each day with enthusiasm,’” Mr. Czarny said, “and I try to make sure I incorporate that into my lifestyle.”
MR. KEITH CZARNY
