wislife

From top left to bottom right: Emilia Kudela, 2024 Chloe Chao, 2023 William Williamson, 2023 Sarah Fertikh, 2023 Madeline Robbins, 2023 Safiya Mugengana, 2023 WIS Spring 2022Leo Sarzi, 2025 Ariana Sabathier, 2023 Bianca Pattison, 2023 Juan Peltier, 2023 Tristan Martin, 2023 Lucas Tafara, 2023 Ella Bown, 2023 Sara Auer, 2022 Harrison Rubin, 2025 Shane Royster, 2025 Sophia Al-Samarrai, 2023 Dexter Illing, 2025 Sofia VerataDadarlat, 2027 Tyra Holst, 2025 Fashion

This photo story features WIS outfits that span decades: from freshman Tyra Holst’s 90s pattern mixing to junior Juan Peltier’s 2000s street style to sophomore Emilia Kudela’s Bella Swan style 2010s layering.

While each outfit is unique, there are a few common threads throughout the spring fashion. Multiple students sport Nike sneakers, notably junior Ella Bown’s Jordan 1 Mid Edge Glows and junior Ariana Sabathier’s red accented Jordan 1s. Additionally, juniors Lucas Tafara and Chloe Chao, along with freshman Harrison Rubin, flaunt chocolate brown garments.

Another common thread is students repping their favorite musicians through their clothing. Peltier dons a hoodie from Kid Cudi’s “Man On The Moon III: The Chosen” album drop and Holst is wearing a t-shirt from Billie Eilish’s 2022 “Happier Than Ever” Tour.

However, students also show off their one of a kind pieces. Freshman Shane Royster displays her homemade crochet top and junior William Williamson dons his recycled and reworked yellow Levi slacks. Lastly, WIS students focus on fun prints: junior Sophia Al-Samarrai wears a cheetah-print jacket and seventh-grader Sofia Verata-Dadarlat sports a black and white plaid skirt. Set: BoohooMan

Shoes: Nike Mighty Swooshers

“I feel like a beast, I feel like a boss.”

LUCAS TAFARA, 2023

Shoes: Nike Air Zoom Division “White Game Royal” Hoodie: Kid Cudi Pants: Thrifted Calvin Klein jeans

JUAN PELTIER, 2023

Top: Self Made Pants: Depop

Shoes: Nike Air Forces “I learned how to crochet when I was pretty young... I basically found a tutorial on the shirt and followed it.” Shoes:

Personalized Nikes Pants: Urban Outfitters

T-shirt: Billie Eilish concert

Gray sweater: Levi’s Jacket: Her mom’s from Taiwan

TYRA HOLST, 2025

APRIL 2022

Letter of college advice to future seniors

By ELISE NAFTULIN, 2022

Dear future WIS seniors,

Maybe you’ve been thinking about college for some time. Maybe you’re a junior, starting to assemble a college list and wondering if 30 schools is too many (it is). A sophomore, choosing your IB courses based on the prerequisites for a certain program. A freshman with a dream school. Someone who hasn’t given a thought to any of it. Whoever you are, if you’re curious about the application process, I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned after having gone through it. The short version: the process is a slog, but it’s going to work out. What’s more important than anything else is not to let college aspirations consume your life.

I’ll be honest. In high school, there were more than a few times where college was an obsession. The pandemic isolated me from my peers and kept me at home, so the concept of living in a new place with friends was exhilarating. In the fall of my junior year, I attended multiple college webinars per week, many of which were packed with other juniors. I read the “Fiske Guide to Colleges” cover to cover. Every time I worried about my grade in a class, whether I’d just taken a bad test or didn’t understand the current unit, I’d check the GPAs of students admitted to my current top schools. By the fall of my senior year, I felt like I was having college-related conversations in every hallway, during every quiet moment in class, in the line to buy lunch from the Student Center. At that point, I’d cemented a mental link between my life’s potential and an acceptance letter from a prestigious institution. Even one disappointing grade seemed to signal inevitable doom: I was deteriorating as a human being.

If what I’m saying sounds at all familiar, I promise you that nothing I’ve just described helps to produce a good college application. None of my obsessiveness

ended up changing my grades or pushing me to work harder. Instead, my attitude ensured that I’d have trouble reconnecting with my priorities once admission deadlines had passed. I’m having to re-train myself to write poetry, to set aside time for my friends, to read books, to run. The biggest piece of advice I can give is to keep in touch with what you truly prioritize in life, what you truly value about yourself, and pursue those things as far as you can. Not only will you be happier and healthier, but you’ll have a clearer idea of what universities would suit your aspirations, and the college essays you write will be compelling because they’ll reflect what you love. It’s especially important to remember that your interests are more permanent than your preference for any university. Colleges you think you’re dying to attend now will probably drop off your list, especially if you’re years away from applying. In tenth grade, I thought “I’d cemented a mental link between my life’s potential and an acceptance letter from a prestigious institution. Even one I’d apply Early Decision to Columbia University, and in eleventh grade, I thought it would be Vassar College; I didn’t end disappointing grade seemed to up applying at all to signal inevitable doom. either school. I know a lifer who daydreamed ELISE NAFTULIN about a Canadian research university and thought they’d never want to attend another relatively small school. In the end, they didn’t even apply to the Canadian school and are now committed to their top choice: a US liberal arts college. Another one of my friends was deferred from four of their first choices and was then offered a once-in-a-lifetime scholarship opportunity to another top school. It’s impossible to know what your college goals will turn out to be, so you can save some stress by focusing on your real priorities, rather than obsessing over what you think is your top choice or worrying about getting into college at all. I promise it will work out in the end. Read this again at the end of senior year: you’ll know what I mean.

All the best, Elise, Class of 2022

The shameless ambition of Youngkin and Miyares

By ZACHARY S. PAN, 2023

What do you get when the governor wants to be president and the attorney general wants to be governor? The Youngkin administration.

Over the past three months, both Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares have undertaken a slew of actions meant to ingratiate themselves to the Republican party base. Both aim to increase their political profiles at the expense of Virginians.

Youngkin eliminated vaccine requirements for government workers and banned mask requirements in schools. He created a tip line so that parents can report teachers for teaching “divisive” concepts. Youngkin even turned Virginia’s diversity office into an anti-abortion outfit.

Miyares, meanwhile, has taken the role of Youngkin’s hatchet man. He fired Virginia’s entire civil rights division. He removed the chief counsel of the University of Virginia for helping the Jan. 6 Committee, the Congressional panel investigating the Capitol insurrection. He withdrew Virginia from efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and urged the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Youngkin’s and Miyares’ radical race to the bottom has been bad for the state but good for their political ambitions. Youngkin has parlayed his newfound rightwing notoriety into multiple Fox News appearances. In February, he even obtained a prized slot on Sean Hannity’s popular conservative show, blasting “cancel culture” for a national audience of 3 million viewers. Miyares, meanwhile, also earned a primetime Fox News slot, a surprising opportunity for an attorney general. Youngkin and Miyares’ actions have earned them national media appearances at a cost to the Commonwealth.

State government should not be a stepping stone for higher office. It must not be a platform for radicalism and partisanship. The Commonwealth will suffer if good governance continues to be subordinate to Youngkin and Miyares’ personal ambitions.

Letter

from the editors

Dear International Dateline readers,

This print edition marks two years since our school’s transition to distance learning because of COVID. Like last year’s editing staff, the transition into and out of a COVID modified community has posed a new challenge for Dateline to bring the community together. Last year, we mailed our print editions directly to your homes, aiming to form connections with people we’d only see on a tiny computer screen. Now, we see glimmers of hope in our final months of our final year through the things that were familiar to us pre-COVID: people’s smiles, full classrooms, Freh’s coffee and WISPA grill. ditions we have held close to our hearts throughout the pandemic were new to almost all the grades in the Upper School. Even the juniors, who began their freshman year normally, have never witnessed a Senior Prank Day. Beyond COVID news, Dateline is finding its new role: surmountnig the gap between COVID and this newfound normalcy.

At WIS, both progress and tradition have returned. In February, seniors passed out Valentine’s Day grams for the first time since 2020. Students can explore their identity in-person in newly established affinity groups. And importantly, we can worry about the quality and sustainability of tampons in the bathrooms again. All of these things are part of this new sense of normalcy that Dateline is aiming to highlight in this print edition.

Beyond connecting members of the WIS community, Dateline has bridged a gap we have observed firsthand between WIS and the larger D.C. community. This year, Dateline created a D.C. News section following the closing of northwest D.C.’s local newspaper, “The Current.” Through this section, we have explored food, identity and quotidian life in the city, hoping to connect the WIS community to the city they live in.

MILA MARTIN/INTERNATIONAL DATELINE

Left to right: Dateline’s Managing Editors Beka Tatham and Rose Boehm.

Dateline and the school are returning cautiously towards normalcy. We hope that Dateline can be a source of knowledge, comfort and guidance during this transition, delivering you news about the school, from musical performances to student chess matches. We hope you enjoy this April print edition.

international dateline

April 2022 Editorial Board

Managing Editors

Rose Boehm Beka Tatham

Publications Editor

Abigail Bown

WIS News

Naomi Breuer

D.C. & Global News

Alek Danielyan Camila Levey

MS Dateline Student Adviser

Maia Nehme

Sports

Philip He Rauf Hurcan

Print Design

Abigail Bown

Opinion

Elise Naftulin Federico Opertti

Marketing Managers

Rani Kumar Natalie Sanchez

Features

Zoe Hällström

Photography

Mila Martin

Illustrator

Ella Bown

Arts

Isabella Duchovny

Food

Julia Dell’Ariccia

Faculty Adviser

Alexandra Wilding

Back Page

Maya Lopez

International Dateline is a publication of the student body and therefore has a responsibility to reflect student, school and community affairs. It will strive to inform, entertain and inspire its readers in a broad, objective and accurate manner.

Dateline also provides an open forum for the opinions of the student body, Dateline staff, the faculty, the school administration and people in the community.

Dateline staff editorials reflect the opinion of Dateline’s editorial board. Over 50% of the editorial board must support the opinion. Editorials do not reflect the opinions of individual writers.

Submit a letter to the editor:

Go to wisdateline.org or scan the QR code on page 1. “Submit a letter to the editor” will appear in the top right corner of the screen. Letters must be under 250 words and can address any issue concerning Dateline or WIS.