Middle School Student Enjoys Community Service

This year I have decided to join the Community Service Council for middle school. I have loved influencing the younger kids to help out whenever they can and during the process they realize how much fun it really is. We have the occasional council meeting where we talk about upcoming projects. We become really aware of what’s really going on in the world. But when we aren’t having council meetings, we are in classrooms with the fifth, sixth, and seventh graders wrapping Christmas gifts or putting together food bags, etc. One really memorable moment this year was when Rev. Guchienda came and talked to us during chapel about the lack of clean water in his home town in Kenya. He brought a bottle of water full with the water his town was able to get and everyone was shocked at how dirty it was. That was the week we decided to give up bottle water and donate all the money we would’ve spent to build a well for his community.

~Middle School Student

Sewanee Writing Workshop

I was apprehensive going into Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference. Mr. Randall’s intensive class and three years of journalism had prepped me for my nonfiction workshop, and I’d had a blast at Kenyon Young Writers’ Workshop last summer. But as I walked into my first 9 a.m. class and exchanged awkward smiles with my eleven classmates, I couldn’t shake the fear that I would be the worst writer there.

That dread intensified when our buoyant teacher, a wiry 30-something going on 18 who insisted we call her Marjorie, announced that in our second week we’d write and rewrite and submit to critique a single pièce de résistance—a polished product we could take away with pride.

"Don’t worry about it yet," Marjorie said, perching on her green-Conversed toes for emphasis. She scrawled Describe your birth on the whiteboard and said, "Get writing." Paradise.

I wasn’t the worst writer. Better yet, I learned to emulate the styles of my most talented classmates: a young Mr. Randall lookalike from Kansas, a hip New Yorker, a quiet girl from Nashville whose final project stunned me. By the last day, when all of us gathered to dance the hokey pokey with Marjorie and swear to swap writing via Facebook, I had not only produced a decent piece myself but also made sound friends with a good eye for editing. I headed home with a folder fat with their work, a camera full of lush green Tennessee, and a notebook scribbled with my own prose. "Keep writing," I made the others promise, and we’ve been sharing our latest since.

~Aspiring Writer, class of 2010

microLENDING #4

Around the holidays when we are reminded of how thankful we should be
(regardless of economic stressors), the International Society wants to
recap and provide a few updates on what's going on with the microLENDING
program.

First, the International Society is focusing on lending to women who are going to reinvest in their families and improve their economic and social situations (but check out the profiles for the men to whom we've lent).
One stunning statistic from www.girleffect.org is that women will reinvest 90% of their incomes in their families, while men will reinvest only
30-40%. Pair this data with the fact that for every development dollar
spent, women recieve less than 2 cents.

Second, we're trying to broaden the idea that Africa and India are not the
only places that require aid to include other developing countries. By
lending to individuals in Peru, Tajikistan, the Phillipines, Paraguay, and
Samoa, we will help women and children worldwide.

Third, we've lent again! Please see below for the new profiles of the
people we've helped! Also take a look at the payback rates!

For more information regarding helping young women worldwide and the
effects of microlending, please see a copy of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl
WuDunn's Half the Sky. It presents some horrifying biographies that are
important for all of us to read and consider during this holiday season.

Thank you for supporting this program and check back after Christmas break
for more updates. And here's a fun fact for you: The International Society
is always asked, "what does 'KIVA' mean?" Well, after a bit of
research, one of the Society members discovered that "kiva"
refers to a heart or fireplace. So think about that implication as you
hang stockings with your family this Christmas.

Profiles (the first couple are repeats from previous blogs):

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=139988
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=132873
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=140202
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=142935
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=154107
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=148955

~The International Society

Journalism: An Inside Look at Paste-Up

When I tell non-staffers that being on the newspaper staff is like playing a sport, they roll their eyes at me. They think that I’m crazy. But when I say it under my breath during Friday night paste-up, the person at the computer next to me wholeheartedly agrees.

So before everyone reads and laughs at my apparently blasphemous statement, let me explain:

Paste-up is when the entire staff of the Eagle Edition gathers on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights to layout the newspaper (the juniors and seniors also come in on Saturday all day and sometimes Sunday). This ritual happens once about every six weeks and is steeped with tradition, caffeine, and stress.

Senior editors bustle around trying to make sure that Adobe InDesign isn’t crashing and that sophomores are focusing on their work. Mrs. Meier is grading pages in her office, trying to drown out the teen-aged voices yelling about who has page four open and if someone has read their story. The lucky ones who are finished with their pages, hang outside of the room, cramming their faces with goldfish, hoping that an editor doesn’t notice that they have nothing else to do.
It’s sheer chaos.

But if we don’t act like a team, – helping each other out, encouraging people when their page gets a bad critique – the scene will remain sheer chaos and the paper will be bad. It would be as if the football team went to the championship game without having held one practice.

So if you are reading this – hopefully you’ve changed your mind about the non-sports comment – now wondering who would give up their weekend to do this to themselves, I beg of you to think again; that is not my point in documenting the innermost workings of the staff. Because paste-up is more than stress. It’s a time where we can stop worrying about that Calculus test and focus on picas and junk food and being a journalistic team.

And we all love every minute of it.


Journalism student, class of 2010

Cheerleading

I came to ESD as a freshmen. And let me tell you, it was terrifying. Not only was the huge campus intimidating, so were the people. Everyone was beautiful, smart, poised. Everything I thought I wasn’t. Everyone smiled and laughed, talked and giggled. And they all seemed perfect.

Despite the terror building up in my stomach, I forced myself to go to cheerleading tryouts. It was something I was good at. But despite my confidence in myself, I clenched my fists and ground my teeth as I walked into the auditorium to see thirty perfect girls. But when I walked in, I received no weird looks, no dirty whispers. Everyone smiled welcomingly and three or four girls who looked my age ran up to me.

“You must be Tauri,” one of them said. “We saw your name on the sign-up list and didn’t recognize it. So that must be you! We’re so glad you came.”

I was shocked. But in a good way. A way that relaxed my hands and jaw enough to smile and stick my hand out to shake hers. But she was having none of that. She grabbed my outstretched hand and pulled me into a hug.

“I’m Natalie. And welcome to ESD. Come meet the other freshmen. We are all so nervous.”

Those seven other freshmen girls, now young women, are my family. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cheerleader, class of 2010

microLENDING #3

ESD’s State of the World Day Series brings speakers and activities to ESD to increase cultural appreciation. This year, The Center for Global Citizenship focused on the mechanics of microlending and how this process can alter the lives of people in an increasingly interconnected world. This year’s speaker series succeeded not only in strengthening student’s understanding of microlending, but also in broadening their perceptions of how impoverished nations work with one another.

Our keynote speakers included Mr. Ralph Black, Mr. Peter Mugga, Dr. Celestine Musekura, and Ms. Sierra Visher. Mr. Black is a representative to Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). He spoke with ESD seniors in the morning as part of the Dedman Lecture Series that annually brings speakers to present to the senior class. Mr. Mugga is a Ugandan student in the US on a scholarship from Save the Children. He plans to return to Uganda upon receiving his degree to start a record label company to recognize young, emerging Ugandan artists. Dr. Celestine Musekura is founder of African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries (ALARM-inc). These three speakers discussed tribal reconciliation, the role of women in government and society, and other issues student questions raised. Ms. Sierra Visher, a representative from Kiva.org (the organization through whom ESD lends), explained where money goes once the microloan has been sent.

~The International Society