If you’ve been at ISL for a while, you’ve probabl y heard the word EVAM being passed around a few

times. This might have left you wonder-ing what exactly the people around you are talking about. Eventually, may-be after a couple of months, you might deduce some basic information about EVAM. But what is it exactly? EVAM stands for “Etablissement Vaudois d’Accueil des Migrants” and what all these fancy, French words mean is that EVAM is basically an organization that supports and aids the reception of asy-lum seekers. The children of these refu-gees that are currently in EVAM come to ISL every Wednesday to do activi-ties and play with some of our student volunteers. However, a mere definition and some background information on EVAM isn’t really enough to under-stand the work that they do and how they’re involved with these refugees.

Recently, I got the chance to interview the chaperone of EVAM. He is a man from Kosovo that comes to the weekly meetings to supervise the children. He is also a refugee that has been through the whole immigration process.

He came to Switzerland from Kosovo 7 years ago without knowing any French, which was surprising to me as the whole interview was conducted in French and he managed to answer my questions

with ease. He told me that he did know a bit of English and German when he first got here, but that it was still quite difficult for him to communicate. When he first got here, he struggled to adjust. He mentioned that he did have a bit of a culture shock when trying to adapt to the different lifestyle. It was also hard for him to adapt, not just to Swiss social life, but to the life of an asylum seeker. However, with EVAM, he was able to learn French and integrate into the lo-cal society and with other refugees. He also mentioned how EVAM was re-ally good at giving him opportunities to work and settle in society. EVAM of-fered him 3-4 month internships which can be very hard to find if you are new to a country and are learning to speak the local language. Through the op-portunities and aid that EVAM provides its refugees, the process of adaptation and adjustment is greatly facilitated.

The portion of EVAM that ISL is involved with is providing recreational activities for the children of the refugees. Each week there is a different activity orga-nized. For most of these kids, this is the highlight of their week. I also spoke to some of the student volunteers in EVAM to ask about why they chose to join and why they think it is a worthwhile activ-ity. Chiara gave me a very detailed re-sponse where she mentioned that “it is very important to contribute and help these children that are going through so much, especially with the current sit-uation.” Shivani also added that “even though we’re in the West, [she] feel[s]

Fernando López Oggier meets our Wednesday guests

Editors in ChiefJocelyn Kwan,

Meghana Mortier

December 11th, 2015Issue 55

Breaking Barrierslike it’s still our responsibility to help the people that have been escaping war and hardships.” The general consensus was that we have responsibility in help-ing these refugees because it’s an issue of high global importance. That’s why EVAM is worthwhile: it’s more than just charity and volunteer work - it’s an is-sue of global significance.

EditorsJohn David Villarino,

Chloe Rodriguez

2

There are some statements that kill conversations. “I’m off to Green-land to kill baby seals” is one that

springs to mind. When I tell people at social gatherings that my 4 chil-dren don’t go to school, the effect is somewhat similar. People stare at me, mumble a polite “Oh, really?” and head for the finger food. So how did my family get into this conversation-killing situation? It all began in 2010. My oldest son, Frank, was in a good private school but began to have prob-lems with his class teacher. She decided he was a no-hoper and his confidence drained away. At about the same time, we discovered that he and his younger sister were dyslexic. The school refused to intervene so and we removed him and began teaching him at home. We found a lot of good teaching curricu-lums and material on the internet, and with me working, my wife did a fantas-tic job of teaching him a broad range of topics. It worked so well that we did the same thing with our two daughters, Clara (9) and Anna (7).

Home schooling has a long history. In fact, from the cavemen to around 1870 or so, nearly EVERYONE was homeschooled. Then the Iron Chancel-lor himself, Bismarck, set up the first public schools for the masses, closely followed by reformers in the UK and elsewhere. However, modern home-schooling grew out of the sixties social revolution. Amidst the general distrust of authority common to that time, many Americans of all political opin-ions began to reclaim their kids from the state’s educators. Left-wing hippies homeschooled to keep their children out of the grips of the consumer capital-ism; right wing Christians to keep their kids away from decadent, secular val-ues. Today, America is the Mecca of homeschooling with over 1m children learning at home. Europe has proved more ambivalent. Germany bans home-schooling completely, out of fear that it will breed extremism – a strange argu-ment in view of the fact the Nazis used the public school system to indoctrinate Germany’s youth in the 1930s. Other countries like Britain and France allow it to varying degrees. France for ex-ample, allows you to school at home as long as you follow the national cur-riculum. And what about Switzerland?

True to its federalist roots, each canton decides for itself. The Swiss German cantons tend to follow the German lead and make homeschooling either impos-sible or very hard. In some cantons you have to have a teaching qualification. The French cantons tend to be more re-laxed. In Vaud, we have a yearly visit by a very friendly and helpful school inspector to make sure the kids aren’t chained in the cellar or working down a coal mine, and have to take the same basic benchmark tests that all Vaudois school children have to endure every two years. Apart from that, we are free to educate our children in any way we want. Homeschoolers vary from expats who don’t see their children in the Swiss system, to Swiss parents whose children struggled in that system. Homeschool teaching ranges from the “Let’s pre-tend our home is just like a real school” folks who follow a school curriculum rigidly, to “unschoolers” who let their children’s interests lead the learning. With the recent lowering of the age of compulsory schooling from 6 to 4, there are an increasing number of Swiss parents who homeschool by de-fault: they don’t want their children to start school so early.

So what are the pluses of homeschool-ing? What stops my kids asking, “Why can’t we go to school like normal kids?” Well, the most obvious is that you, the parent (and your kids), are in control. You can choose your cur-riculum, subjects, activities, and – yes – time off. You can adapt the teaching in a thousand different ways to fit each child’s needs as well as give them more one-to-one time: a walk in the local for-est or by a river can teach a lot about geography, biology and history – and stop the kids murdering each other. Importantly, you can also get in YOUR values. As a Christian family, it allows us to work a bit more Christianity and a bit less climate change into the cur-riculum. Another benefit is that you can get the same results without a lot of the stress and pressure that seems to be an increasing part of so much of modern education. Most of the actual learning we do in a school day can be fitted into a 3 or 4 hours. After that, there’s time for rest and relaxation. Now, the most common objection people have to homeschooling is the dreaded “S” word: socialisation. Won’t your kids, they ask, turn into social misfits with psychopathic tendencies? Well, not so

John Byde

There’s No School like Homefar! Our kids have kept their friends from their old school and have picked up plenty of new ones. Even in Swit-zerland, the internet and social media mean you are never far from another homeschooling family. And I often wonder how much real socialisation goes on in schools where the kids in your class are the same age and of the same background as you. Finally, home schooling WORKS! Stats from the US show that some of the highest achieving children learnt all they know in the comfort of their own homes.

However, before you all rush back home to tell mom and dad the good news that you’ve sacked your teachers and that they’re teaching trigonometry next Tuesday, it’s only fair to men-tion the very real downsides of home schooling. First of all, many families have both parents working; there sim-ply isn’t the time to homeschool. And assuming that one parent is free, home-schooling is a massive leap in the dark. The doubts crowd in: What if I fail and my kids end up poor and lonely? What if my kids hate it? What if my kids hate ME? These are justifiable fears when one considers that you’re trying to of-fer an alternative to a school system that’s been in place a long time and where the average school has a formi-dable armoury of experienced teach-ers, plentiful materials, PTAs, ASAs, free coffee, etc. Finally, there’s also the undeniable fact that school is good for many kids and they enjoy it. We’ve all heard of wayward youngsters who’ve been set on the right path by a good teacher.

So, education at home isn’t for every-one. However, as Frank, now 16, our homeschooling guinea pig, heads off to art school each day, our homeschool-ing odyssey has rubbed our noses up against several weighty questions: not only “What is education?” But “Who are the educators?” Maybe it’s too early for us, his parents, to answer those questions but we already have a sneaking suspicion that the words “education” and “teacher” maybe too big and broad to be confined to the school classroom.

3

Faith Trumps Fear

With the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, anti-Muslim feelings seem to be rising. People

appear to be forgetting the fact that some of the victims were Muslims them-selves. In the rush to do something, anything, some countries are declaring war on Islamic State and are dropping bombs on Syria. The issue is that the media can group Muslims and terror-ists together and make people feel that all terrorists are Muslims or that all Muslims are terrorists. This general-ization is dangerous because it makes non-Muslims suspicious of Muslims and creates an exclusive attitude towards them. Already, politicians like François Hollande and David Cameron are sug-gesting that “we” are being attacked because “they” (the Muslim attackers) don’t like our way of life, yet many Muslims live quite happily and peace-fully in the West.The word “terrorism” seems to be a word only attributed to Muslims and no one else. When a white 21 year old male fatally shot 9 black people in a church in Charleston, USA this summer, it was called a “hate crime”. When an-other white man shot three people in an anti-abortion clinic in Colorado last month he was described as a “violent madman”, even a “gentle loner” by the New York Times. The most recent attack in San Bernardino, USA, with 14 fatal shootings, was thought to be a workplace revenge attack. After the discovery that the two attackers had Muslim-sounding names, and were in fact Muslim, the word “terrorist” is now

being used to describe them. A “terrorist” is someone who commits acts of violence to civilians for racial, religious, or political purposes. The Charleston shooter was a white suprem-acist who attacked black people for their race; the Colorado shooter was a white extreme Christian who claimed to be against abortion. In both cases, they seem to have committed acts of terror-ism, but it is the two Muslims who have been labelled “terrorists” even though all three attacks have provoked terror for their victims. To associate terrorist acts with Islam creates suspicion and mistrust. Donald Trump, one of the craziest Republican presidential candidates ever, is now proposing that all Muslims in the US be kept on a database, but not Chris-tians or people of other faiths. (But then again this is Donald Trump and everything that comes out of his mouth is utter nonsense). Attacks on Muslims are rising and sympathy for Syrian ref-ugees is falling. Something that people and the media seem to be forgetting is that Islam is a RELIGION, like any other that preach-es love and compassion, not a crazy ideology. It forbids the intentional kill-ing of non-combatants in battle. It is also against suicide. It is not religion that is violent, it is the individual. The majority of those who follow Islam are against the actions taken by their fellow Muslims. That is why the role of the me-dia annoys me. When terrorist attacks occur, the media tends to name the reli-gion of the attackers if they are Muslim, as if this is important. Yet if a white man commits a mass killing, the words “ter-rorist”, “Christian” and “white” do not

Adela Sahraoui fights the stereotypes

seem to matter or be mentioned. I watched a CNN video of a 2014 in-terview with Dr Reza Aslan, an Iranian American author and religious histori-an, which highlighted the lack of knowl-edge and understanding the media can have of Muslims. The reporters spoke about the barbaric practice of stoning and beheading people as though that was commonplace in the Muslim world and amongst Muslim people. Dr Aslan replied that, although Saudi Arabia carries out these acts and happens to be a Muslim country, it does not mean that all Muslim countries are the same. About 1.57 billion people follow Islam, which is 23% of the world’s population. Obviously, not all of them are behead-ing and stoning people. The media also seems to be showing double standards by accepting the unacceptable. Saudi Arabia has been beheading more peo-ple monthly than ISIS, yet people turn a blind eye to this fact because it is a close ally of America and Britain. Talk about justice and ending these acts of barbarism!The generalization of Islam by the me-dia seems to be separating Muslims from the rest of the world (so much for unity). ISL normally avoids the sub-ject of religion, which I think is a good thing. People should be treated with the same respect regardless of their re-ligious choices. Religion doesn’t define who we are and how we act, only we do. The over-simplification of good and bad are placing Muslims into the bad side to a point at which Muslims are be-coming more the victims of racism and attacks than non-Muslims.

Surfacing

Beautifully dark and engrossing” A short film, starring two students-from ISL, was released on the

10th of December. “Surfacing” features Amelia Lozinska-Brown (year 12) who plays Sam, a traumatised young girl, who is seeing a therapist, played by Jai Sinh (year 13).

“Surfacing” was written and directed by Nathan Ryan, CEPV student, and edited with help from ISL and ENSR students. Camilla Lozinska-Brown (year

12) operated the camera and helped with the entire project. Thelma Chavon-net, joining us next year, did the make up and Arthur Masure (year 12) con-tributed creative support and set hands. The video has being released on Na-than’s youtube site and website. To sup-port our actors and camera operators, watch the clip online right now.

4

Human Rights are based upon the concept of foundational equal-ity, which is the idea that human

beings are born of equal moral value. Most of us at ISL would claim to sup-port this fairly uncontroversial idea, but perhaps you would like to make the case that human rights are not ‘gender specific’ and, in a sense, you would be right. However, it seems that there is something gender specific about in-equality. There are a number of par-ticular human rights abuses that dispro-portionately affect women in all parts of the world, so it would seem that there is something going on here that needs to be thought about and challenged. This is where feminism comes in because they like to ask the question: can these gender specific inequalities really be dealt with by the overwhelmingly male dominated power structures that exist in almost all parts of the world?

Women are less likely to be born than men. They are also more likely to die a premature death. A feminist scholar, Valerie Hudson, researched and found that in all of the violent conflicts of the 20th century, there were approximate-

ly 152 million human deaths. She com-pared this with the number of ‘missing women’ in Asia; these are women who were never born because of sex selec-tive abortion and son preference. She found this number to be higher, 163 mil-lion. This enormous figure is only part of the story of excess female mortality. Women are also more likely to be de-nied access to vital medical care, and overwhelmingly more likely to be casu-alties of conflict.

This will not be a debate regarding po-litical strategy. Rather, we would like to set out a few of the inequalities that concern all feminists in the hope that you might be persuaded that such injus-tices should concern us all. For accord-ing to the Oxford English dictionary, ‘feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.’ This is a very broad defini-tion, and within it holds a spectrum of feminist views –liberal, radical, social-ist, or multicultural feminist, to name just a few approaches to the issue. How-ever, the one thing that all the different branches of feminism have in common is a strong belief in equality between men and women, which fight against the many manifestations of gender in-equality. However, as is common to all big and complicated goals, each of

Global Politics: FeminismFloris, Paul, Stefan, Paula, Valen-tina, Blair and Maëlle

these types of feminists have very dif-ferent ideas about how to achieve the aim.

Moreover, women suffer from dispro-portionate levels of violence. For exam-ple, during times of war, rape is used as a weapon. This is because women, who have the ability to reproduce their community, are seen as the boundaries of the society. It is not just in war that women suffer from violence. In 2012, out of the total female victims of mur-der, 1 in 2 women were killed by their partner or family member. The cor-responding statistic for men was 1 in 20. Today there are 21 million women who live in slavery as a result of human trafficking; around a quarter of these are women are sexually exploited. In the US, 1 in every 4 female college students can expect to be sexually as-saulted before they graduate. In light of these statistics, it will probably not surprise you that the UN describes vi-olence against women as “one of the most prevalent human rights violations in the world.” How and why do men have more power, and how can this be viewed as just? Take another look at some of the facts shared, and see if you don’t become just a little bit angry about a power structure that allows this to happen.

Look Up!Chetan Khanna

The first question you may very well ask once you hear the word “Drone” is, well, what it is. The truth is that no-body actually knows. This time, you may ask “Why?”. The definition of the word “Drone” is actually heav-ily debated, especially against the word “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle”, known more commonly as “UAV”.

In some ways the media is respon-sible for creating this confusion, but consumer drone manufacturers are equally guilty. DJI, one of the most famous consumer drone manufactur-ers in the world, calls its quadcopters “drones”. At the same time, the United States Air Force calls its unmanned

aerial vehicles it uses for airstrikes “drones”. So, are they simply hobbyist drones for fun or large mass killing ma-chines? Well, they’re apparently both.

Whether a “drone” that is bought by people for a few thousands francs (or less than that for the useless ones), really is a drone is hotly debated by people all over the world. Some people believe that the real name for consumer drones is a “quadcopter” – something that is like a helicopter but has four rotors (propellers in a layper-son’s language). However, most other people believe that these consumer drones really are called “drones”.

Why is this important, though? Af-ter all, who cares? Well, apart from confusion, it also throws the reputa-tion of drones – both, the consumer

and military ones – into the rubbish.

Why is it so bad for them? That’s something I’ll answer in the next edition of this article. After all, I can’t very well answer such a ques-tion without my audience knowing what a drone is in the first place.

5

Chopsticks and Cheese

Hello ISL, this is probably the last time that you will ever be hear-ing from me via our beloved

newspaper. It’s been a very interest-ing 2 years, being part of this news team, and I wanted this article to be a proper send off. I’ll spare you all the cheesy goodbyes, and instead I’ll just get straight to the topic I deemed most appropriate for a final article: racism. That’s right, this is going to be one of those articles, because why in the world would I even consider having my last article be about something mundane?

Now this is an international school, so there is always an expected degree of intercultural understanding. I can hap-pily say that ISL is a great environment for it’s diverse range of students, and in my experience, I’ve never encoun-tered any blatant racism. However, sometimes, it’s just the little things that

count. I’ve come to the realization that there are so many traces of racism so ingrained into our society that I have almost let them go past me unnoticed. If you dig deep, you can find it in the little things. In popular media, East Asians still have not made it past their computer specialist, convenience store owner, kung fu master, sidekick status. White people still think it’s okay to say the n-word. In most of the world , Euro-pean features are still thought to be the epitome of beauty. Yes, racism is alive and well and it doesn’t always have to entail straight up, brazen racist state-ments.

I spent my entire life living in Asia, up until the last three years, which I’ve spent here in Switzerland. Race was never something that I had ever con-sidered an issue or topic of discussion, or something that I had been remotely aware of for that matter. After all, it didn’t really matter in that sort of envi-ronment. After moving here, I suddenly

became hyper aware of my race and my ethnicity. Little things like the blan-ket term of “Asian” have always frus-trated me to no end. Asia is a large continent, with one of the most diverse range of ethnicities, so the least you could do is specify which general area you’re referring to. Things that I never even thought about like the shape of my eyes suddenly became things that peo-ple could comment on. This may sound slightly extreme, but I often wondered whether I was seen as an actual person or simply a living, walking embodiment of East Asian stereotypes. People asso-ciated me with aspects of cultures that were not my own. Being in a situation where my ethnicity seemed to define how I was seen was not something I had experienced before Switzerland. I come back to the Philippines with a slightly bigger world view. The only thing I can hope for now is that nobody from my next school will be expecting me to arrive with any broken English or chopstick hair ornaments.

Chloe Rodriguez is gone, with flying colours

The L Word

Imagine walking to school and see-ing everyone dressed in different intensities of the same color (shades

of gray if you will). There is an unde-niable variety of clothing choice stem-ming from the fact that everyone is different. Yet, the problem of everyone wearing the same color still remains. If this monotony doesn’t bother you because you happen to like this color, then you’re part of the problem.

The color in question is invisible. It’s only noticeable with our behavior, so-cial and political choices. It is mystical liberal bias.

Now what is liberal bias? It is the fact that many students, including myself, laugh at the shenanigans of Fox News whenever bias in media is mentioned during English class. It is the fact I used the word shenanigans to describe the journalism of Fox News. It is the fact the average student at ISL is atheist, be-lieves global warming is human caused,

supports LGBT rights, and is pro-choice with regards to abortion. While it may be a positive sign of the progressive nature of the IB, it’s surely disappointing news to those who pride themselves on ISL’s diversity. What sep-arates ISL from other schools is it’s ex-treme lack of conflict amongst students. For the most part, everyone just sort of agrees with each other. Perhaps politi-cal homogeneity amongst the student populace isn’t a bad thing, beyond causing a boring environment. But the gradual erasure of the line between liberal thought and definitive fact may have graver consequences. Indeed, it is nothing short of mass ignorance de-praving individuals of a broader per-spective on life. Other significant states that have also featured political homo-geneity include Nazi Germany, ISIL, and North Korea under Kim rule.

How did this liberal bias at ISL come about? It is a well observed rule of thumb that secondary school teach-ers, particularly among international schools, hold a strong liberal slant. The

question as to why this is so, remains obscure, though it is commonly argued that the profession is a natural attrac-tion to liberal “idealism.”

Classes such as TOK and Global Affairs are currently the only classes when ISL really gets a hint of some semblance of political diversity. I would like to see more classes that spark debate to help bring out this conflict. High schoolers need to learn how to defend their own personal beliefs against their peers in a safer, more understanding school setting so that, later in life, when their personal beliefs come under question-ing, they don’t panic, freeze, look like a fool, and have a heart attack (in that order). By uniformly conforming to lib-eralism, ISL is preparing its students to fail in having distinct personal opinions about global issues. For an Internation-al Baccalaureate school, that’s rather disappointing.

Jason Li and Ian Chen want you to argue with them

6

A Writer on Writing

During the past week, ISL has been privileged enough to be visited by Nicky Singer, a full-time au-

thor of many novels and other forms of writing. Born in 1956, Singer has had a long career in writing, interested in it ever since the age of 15. She visited each year group in turn to talk about some of her books, such as ‘Knight Crew’ and ‘Island’. She discussed the development of these books during her sessions with the students. Nicky Singer is a great figure for anyone dreaming of entering into the field of literature or writing, although the story of how she came to become an author is even more inspirational.

Her writing career began when she was seven years old, when she won a bar of chocolate for a story she wrote about a giraffe. The same incentive lasted for years to come when she took part in Cadbury’s Chocolates annual essay writing competition, and every year she would win a tin of chocolates.

As she grew older her ideas were fu-eled by encounters that make her angry about something in real life, or when there was a certain coincidence she encountered. A coincidence inspired her book Island. This coincidence con-sisted of an encounter with somebody in Morocco, who told her a story about a real island named Herschel off the coast of Yukon in Canada. It is said that you have to be really careful where

you put your feet when you are there, because the graves are opening. This happens because of global warming; the permafrost where the local people buried their dead for two thousand years is melting away, so the graves are literally opening. So sometimes a person might say something to her and she immediately thinks, “now that’s a story!” Curiosity about some things, like when the World Trade Center came down and the very thought of what could possibly make somebody into a suicide bomber, was something that she just had to find out more about and write about. What would make some-body so angry about their lives that they thought the most sensible thing to do would be to blow up two thousand other people? That inspired her to write The Innocent, a story about a suicide bomber.

But the truly most amazing thing I found out about Mrs. Singer was her inspir-ing story of the event in her life that truly pushed her to become an author. When asked what inspired her to be-come a writer Mrs. Singer replied, “a lot of writers have something nasty that happens to them. Normally it happens at about 15 years of age, and it’s that thing that triggers them to become writ-ers. In my case, it was the death of my father. I was away at school. I was just fourteen. There were five of us in the family, my brother was the oldest at fif-teen and my youngest sister was eight months old, when he died. He died very suddenly, so suddenly that the police thought that the most likely explanation for a thirty-nine year old man to die

Anna Voigt meets the latest au-thor to visit ISL.

was that my mother had poisoned him. So a police car sat outside our house for three days, until the results of the autopsy came back. My mother didn’t actually poison my father, he died of a sort of medical emergency that nobody knew about. In those three days, when the police car sat outside our house, my whole life turned upside down, be-cause everything that I believed true seemed to be untrue and everybody I loved seemed to be lying or being ac-cused of lying. My mother was being accused of murder. When that happens to you your life doesn’t go back into the same box afterwards. So, what you do when you’re a writer is to create a sto-ry, because writing in a way is a form of control. You control your characters and the story, and although you can’t always make a Disney ending, where everyone lives happily ever after, you can make people face up to whatever life throws at them and overcome it.”

This declaration by Mrs. Singer of how she took something truly terrible that happened to her and made it fuel her passion for writing is truly astounding. Words cannot do her story justice of the bravery and powerful endurance that Mrs. Singer has demonstrated. Her pieces of work are truly something personal to her that show how she has turned her story into one of great suc-cess.

7

Living Outside the SpotlightRuby Griffiths is left pondering by a performance.

I didn’t think I was a racist until I saw ISL’s latest production. Judy Hannell’s production of “Living Out”

offered a slice of two lives, two work-ing-women. These women represented the two sides of Los Angeles society –the all American lawyer-mom and the underpaid, illegal immigrant, both bal-ancing the pain of leaving a child be-hind each day. The accents hinted just enough at the culture and language behind each character. The message of the play seemed, simply put, that every-one is a racist. Can we ever be cultur-ally sensitive? This play’s conclusion did not look entirely promising. The circle of fictional characters represented in the play mirrored the two-dimensional stereotypes that stigmatise the inoppor-tune and breed ignorance among the white-collars. Whether it be the privi-leged white moms or the Hispanic nan-nies, we all perceive the world through a set of ethnic stereotypes in order to pin down those around us, and so was evident in the laughter of the audience. What the play revealed to me is our in-herent ability to categorize, to simplify, and reduce something complicated, like identity, to a cookie-cutter charac-

ter that we can make sense of. What “Living Out” illustrated was the univer-sality of prejudice –hypocrisy eventu-ally biting the ‘politically correct’ in the ass. Nevertheless, what I applaud Ani-ta Temperley and Gregory Foster for were their convincing portrayal of Ana and Bobby’s story. For it is what we, many of us in this elite school, don’t ever know or question –the story of those less fortunate. Those close to us whose lives depend on the ‘pin money’ we leave around the house, those ex-pendable to Western society.On the other hand, the story of mother-hood was a familiar one. The plot was relatively predictable, the accusations of cheating and death of the child ex-pected, but the real truth lay in the sto-ry of motherhood. Like the metaphori-cal fig tree of winking opportunity, the question of motherhood presents itself in every woman’s life. In this case, both mothers had reached for the fig of motherhood, and both decided to take a second, continuing a full-time job. Although, whether this action came from a decision or a necessity is arguable. Do mothers get the most out of life from having two full-time jobs? Spreading their time evenly as a care-giver and member of the workforce, which as this play illustrates, leads to

Lauren Nudi went shopping

There’s no better way to cel-ebrate the season than visiting the Montreux Christmas Market.

The market spans most of Montreux’s boardwalk and consists of 150 mini chalets selling food, clothing, and other knick knacks you probably don’t need to buy, but still do anyway. As you stroll along the sidewalk, you’ll be able to see Santa Claus flying overhead in his sleigh (literally) and smell the alluring aroma of all things Christmas. While you snack on a waffle or crêpe you’ll listen to the jingles of Christmas tunes and the excited chatter of the people milling around and you’ll welcome back the cheer that has been hiding since last winter. If that doesn’t suit your fancy there are also plenty of gourmet restaurants throughout the market that are full of festivities. Finally, no matter

heart-breaking compromises. Yet, is it just part of getting the most out of life? What was evident in the play was the intertwined complexity of racial iden-tity and the life we choose to lead. We can’t all be Diane Keaton and success-ful baby-food producers. Although oc-casionally lacking the comfort brought by plentiful stage experience, Jenna Muller’s performance shone in many places. Her character was given a more sympathetic, if not unaware, role. However, what this character revealed was the ignorance that remains even at the tops of academic careers, like law. In terms of production, the soundtrack was outdated and odd, not wacky. Loomer describes the aim of her “plays [as] always having some comedy, [be-ing] about social issues, [being] seri-ous, but ... kind of wacky”. I can con-clude that the play did have, sometimes unexpected, moments of humor. It did provoke questions surrounding the fun-damentals of identity and society, and it certainly convinced me of the ending’s gravity. However, the zaniest aspect of the play was the cheesy introductory clip. Overall, it was worth watching. And as a final note, I would suggest that the casting of the next produc-tion exploit the student body’s diverse range of nationalities.

MontreuX-Maswhat you like you must take a ride on the giant ferris wheel, whose flashing lights can be seen all the way from the motorway.

The history of Christmas markets can go as far back as the Late Middle Ages, where they were first found in the German-speaking part of Europe and in many parts of the former Holy Roman Empire. Soon after, Christmas markets began to spread throughout Germany, Austria, Italy, and parts of France, where they soon became seasonal staples to ring in Advent. Munich’s Christmas market in 1310 happens to be the first recorded, how-ever the Vienna “December market,” a precursor to Christmas markets, dates back to 1294! The Montreux Christmas Market may not be anything new, but it is still a timeless event that can be vis-ited as many times as desired and still

not become boring.

Here are places you should go to:

La Grange - In the covered plazaWhat to get - Pâtes du Chalet (an amazing pasta with grated cheese and bacon)Les Thés Bourgeons - In the covered plazaWhat to get - Christmas teaCrêperie Bretonne - BoardwalkWhat to get - CrêpesChurros - In the market square next to the covered plazaWhat to get - ChurrosBonbons - BoardwalkWhat to get - Any and every candy you’ve ever dreamed ofTêtes de choco - Road next to shopsWhat to get - A marshmallow like cream covered in chocolate- my favorite is the strawberry flavor

8

Girls Having a Ball

As a newly formed team this year, the senior girls basketball team have had an impressive showing

throughout the first semester, lead by our very own coach Liam Printer. They have been destroying multiple teams in their category bracket all semester de-spite missing the finals due to suffering a loss against CDL, another great team in the area. They concluded the autumn split of the 2015-2016 season with a strong 3rd place finish. In addition to the astonishing season they’ve had so far, the first ever tournament they par-ticipated in also displayed the maxi-mum potential of this roster through a 3rd place finish, obliterating multiple teams including Aiglon College, LGB, Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz, and Leysin American School all in a row. They only fell short under Kumon Leysin Academy of Switzerland by a frustrating 2 points and La Chat, who eventually won it all. I took the time to ask some of the team members about the overall atmosphere of the team and challenges faced rou-tinely, as well as questions regarding the impact of their coach. What is the overall atmosphere of the team?

As part of the interview, Aarzoo Bhi-

Genta Hemmi picks and rolls. mani stated that “at the beginning of the year, no one really knew anyone, so there was a little bit of awkwardness present. However, at this point we all know each other, so it’s a very friendly, familiar, and fun atmosphere.” All of the other interviewees added that the team works well together despite the massive age difference between some of the players. Cloé Michaud added, “I really like the atmosphere of the team because everyone motivates one another and we all try hard and work hard,” promising us a hell of a split dur-ing the winter/spring season.

What are the challenges you have faced and or are facing?

All of the challenges faced by the team so far are mostly personal challenges that have to do with keeping up with the game. Amelia Lumme in year 11 stated that “the biggest challenge I have faced so far is keeping up with the game, as it’s such a fast paced game with so much running, so your energy gets drained quite quickly.” Chloe Mi-chaud has faced many problems as well this year as she told us that “I have had many injuries to overcome.” Ac-cording to Clara Juhl, she exposed the challenges faced as a team saying, “I mean obviously the team is still trying to figure out how each other play be-cause it is a new team so that’s hard,

but we are figuring it out fast.”

How has Mr.Printer impacted the team as a coach?

All comments regarding Mr. Printer’s impact as a coach were very positive and I believe that Chloe summarized it very well like so: “I think Mr. Printer is a really good coach. He is motivational and very encouraging. He believes in us and pushes us to be better players.” We can see from this response that Mr. Printer as a coach have obviously been a factor fueling the success this team is bathing in.

This newly founded team has shown promising results so far and we can only expect better results from this team this winter/spring season.

Gala Concert

On Wednesday the 25th, ISL held its very first Gala concert, bringing together our diverse

music community. There were solo sing-ers and choirs as well as instrumental soloists and music groups like the con-cert band and Jam Nation.Our concert band began the show by playing “I feel good” by James Brown and “Phantom of the Opera Medley”. It was a great start to the concert as the pieces were swift and explosive. This was followed by an energetic vo-cal solo of “Valerie” sung by Anais Ca-sella. Musical talent at ISL is incredible,

especially when it comes to singing! The Secondary Choir followed with their own performance soon after with “Ain’t no Mountain High Enough” and “Both Sides Now”. Though participa-tion in the Secondary Choir does not require any auditions, they still sound-ed awesome and very professional. And from Mr Oien’s newborn Jam Na-tion band we received a disco funk-like “Treasure” by Bruno Mars and “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk. What was cool about Jam Nation was that the whole song was improvised and the musicians worked together to make the song sound awesome! Another cool group was the year 10 band. They played Mike Oldfield’s minimalist piece, “Tubular Bells”. They

arranged it themselves on bass, xylo-phone, sax and more. Concert band finished the show with a cool and excit-ing “To Live and Let Die” and “a Party Dance Mix”. It was an excellent end-ing.With such a performance and success-ful ticket sales, the 1000chf proceeds went to the charity group, Bancart, and twas used to build boats for fishermen in the philippines who had been affect-ed by the earthquake there and over 1000chf were raised.It’s safe to say that the Gala concert was an excellent idea and well execut-ed. This was all thanks to Ms. Brown. She organised, taught, conducted and more! So thank you so much Ms. Brown!

Luca Adams

9

Christmas is procrastination. You put on a huge show for weeks or months, and then end up spend-

ing Christmas eve frantically running around the shops trying to find that Ben 10 vintage, life-size watch with all transformations included, plus small models of each. Seriously – people be-gin mass cutting Norway spruce Picea abies trees in June to satisfy the supply and demand needs of people who de-cide to keep the trees out on their bal-conies or gardens in sweltering heat in order to be “prepared” for Christmas in August. Don’t worry, the trees won’t run ou– oh.Every single retail shop puts up huge Christmas decorations MONTHS be-fore Christmas, in fact as soon as Hal-loween is over. Straight from scary monsters to a large man riding around in the sleigh watching children whilst they sleep – not exactly a charmer, is he? Seriously, the “myth” (he’s real, my mom tells me he is) of Santa Claus was probably begun by a group of old men

The turn of the millennium brought a revolution of gadgets from personal computers to wifi hotspots. It can be arguable that people nowadays use their mobile and fixed computers more often. With so many applications being created each year it could be highly probable that there is an app for every-thing nowadays. You can play games, stream movies and music, or even study while sitting down in the bus or walking in the park. This can be argued to be both positive or a negative outcome, al-though there is definitely a bit of both. Since the ascension of global warming in recent events companies and notable industries have been more careful with their carbon footprint and preserving natural resources. The consequences of this can be experienced both in workplaces and schools where many new softwares such as Khan Academy or apps from Apple or even Microsoft Word and Google drive are being used

Nikolay Zhurov is beginning to look a lot like Santa

Matteo Rubeo has three pend-ing assignments

The Season to be Jolly

Enter the Classroom

just trying to get children to believe that they would receive “presents” if they left “milk” and “cookies” for a man go-ing down the chimney in the dead of the night; or it started with some dys-lexic scribe in the Middle Ages who misspelt Satan. Either way, Santa came from just about nowhere – the entire point of Christmas is to celebrate the only important person in this world’s birthday – Jesus! For those of you who still didn’t figure it out, that’s where the name Christ-mas came from; the “mas” came from “mass”, which came from the metric system.A lot of people seem to forget that Christmas is meant as a religious festi-val – at least they forget it until Star-bucks makes a cup pattern that they don’t like and goes “against their re-ligion”. So long as lil’ Timmy is satis-fied with the miniature G.I. Joe figurine (that’s totally still popular, shut up), Jesus can go back to the barn for all I care. Other families take advantage of this to enjoy as much “blood of Christ”, or as it’s less popularly and piously known, “Red Wine”, as they can.For others, Christmas is a time for fam-

instead of writing on paper. The school gives us more software on our comput-ers than books at school. This change from pen and paper to electronic is cer-tainly helping us preserve resources, though is it advanced enough to substi-tute paper completely?

One of the newest softwares joining the electronic paper group is Google Classroom, developed by the American software giant Google. Having been re-leased August 12, 2014, it has not been around for a long time. So is it already good enough to erase the trace of pa-per and pen from space-time? It cer-tainly has it’s merits, saving thousands of trees a year it does not only make the Earth a better place to live it also makes us able to live on it longer. Any-how, like any new software it still has a few issues that need sorting. Some stu-dents interviewed said that Classroom has already been implemented in many of their courses but is sometimes a bit awkward to use. The general response was that the student liked it but had a

ily. Having to put up with sharing a room with Uncle Josh, and listening to the deflating air mattress on the floor, because “he’s been mighty lonely since the divorce”, and subtly trying to tell Auntie Jane that she’s had a bit too much to drink whilst trying to re clothe her, and get her off the dinner table. Ah, we mustn’t forget the scratchy embroidered sweaters – “The friction keeps you warm and those that have too much friction will keep the fire alive for the rest of us” Grandma says, whilst your parents pin you down and tell you to “do it for Grandma”.Actually, to be honest, I don’t really mind Christmas. It helps fill up that one drawer in the house full of weird sou-venirs of model soldiers your second cousin twice removed brought back from some country ending with “–stan”; I also get to see all my close and distant relatives get wasted and talk about how the state of the economy is all because of the millennials’ incompe-tence.Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night’s sleep.

few complaints regarding assignments. One particular student said that be-cause everything comes up as an as-signment it can be scary at times! Espe-cially with the automated email alerts sent by the teachers’ emails. However, it is sure that the positives outweigh the negatives and with every new update more so.

Google’s idea is certainly out of the box, letting the students interact with their teachers from anywhere. It is like a classroom without walls. In the future it certainly could replace paper and pen completely. And maybe someday in the future Google Classroom will not only help school courses but revolutio-nise them.

10

Hit the Road!

Highway to Hell - AC/DC

Whatta Man - Salt-N-Pepper

Money for Nothing - Dire Straits

Son of a Preacher Man -Aretha Franklin

Say It Ain’t So - Weezer

Razor Face - Elton John

Trouble - Ray LaMontagne

Driving in my Car - Madness

The Passenger - Iggy Pop

Song 2 - Blur

Hear My Train A Comin’ - Jimi Hendrix

Tempted - Squeeze

Cruel to Be Kind - Nick Lowe

Bad Reputation - Joan Jett

Ruby Griffiths brings your tunes for your next road trip

Review: Undertale

If you haven’t bought Undertale on Steam for the measly cost of 9.99€, stop reading this article, and go buy

it right now. Keep on reading if you need a reason for playing the game.In short, Undertale is a “Retro Turn-Based RPG”. However, it isn’t the turn-based RPG that you would imagine. As well as leveling up, and killing the enemies in your way, you can also ne-gotiate your way out of battles. For ex-ample, if you’re pitched against a sen-timental ghost, you can console them instead of killing them. This adds a lot of depth into the battle system and also sets up for humorous situations.Furthermore, this dynamic allows for multiple story paths within the game: if you choose to kill everything in your

Conrad Grindheim path, some characters may resent you for killing someone close to them, which changes up how you interact with said character. However, if you chose to not kill anybody, even the baddest of the bosses will acknowledge your heart’s goodness, and let you progress through the story without any harm. This makes Undertale extremely replayable, with 3 types of endings (with more in ev-ery category) possible: the Genocide (killing everything); the Normal (killing some stuff, but not everything); and the Pacifist (not laying a single finger on anything). With over 20 endings al-together and the game taking around 3 - 10 hours with every playthrough, I don’t think you’ll finish this one quickly. I won’t say anything else about the sto-ry since the game is very dependent on it, and it will diminish your experience if anything is revealed.

Undertale has a wide cast of characters that will make your experience unfor-gettable. Ranging from goat moms, to punning skeletons, to a dog that fills your inventory with poop when you try to open a treasure, Undertale’s char-acters never disappoint. My personal favorite is Sans, the brother of Papyrus. Both characters are named after fonts, and that’s not just for a little laugh; be-cause when you read what they say in-game, they’ll also use the font in their text! Little details like this really make Undertale shine.All in all, Undertale has it all (except graphics, the graphics suck… but I like the art style). With good gameplay, an interesting plot, and funny characters, Undertale is definitely a game that I would recommend.

11

This film was the last for the well-loved Daniel Craig and the death defying stunts he displayed contin-

ued in his final instalment of the long running franchise. The film opened with a heart stopping scene from the Day of the Dead in Mexico City where a newly rogue Bond jumps over crum-bling buildings and hangs of an out of control helicopter just meters above the crowd below. This scene was however by far the best in the film and it just went downhill from there.Upon returning to London, Bond en-lists the help of his colleges M (Ralph Fiennes), Ms. Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Q (Ben Whishaw) to help take down an international organi-zation who he deems to be trying to infiltrate every country that is going to implement a new national security system. Along the road to justice, Bond faces great opposition from C (Andrew Scott), the new head of the recently merged MI5 and MI6 headquarters who hopes for the national security sys-

Shivani Patel did not love the spy

License to Failtem to go online and eliminate the need for 007 agents.The film has been hit with backlash from online. The $350 million cost of Spectre, meant the writers and pro-ducers opted for a more extravagant take on the film. This did however leave the film lacking in a story line and a great disappointment after the success of Skyfall. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave Spectre only 64% while Skyfall received a whopping 93%.Personally I agree with majority on Rot-ten Tomatoes. The storyline was lack-ing and just included Bond jetting off across the world in the hope of taking out the rogue organisation. After the insight into Bond’s life in Skyfall along with the shocking ending, Spectre just did not live up to the bar that Skyfall had set.The film was disappointing as the high-ly anticipated Christopher Waltz who played the villain Blofeld did not get nearly enough screen time my liking and his death just seemed rushed and impersonal to Bond. This made the film lack the depth and intrigue that was found in Skyfall and a very disappoint-

ing end to the aim of Bond’s rogue mis-sion.Bond also had more love interests that usual with the woman at start, the widower Lucia Sciarra (Monica Bellucci) and finally the doctor Mad-eleine Swan (Lea Seydoux). By the end of the film Bond even went as far as saying he was in love with the doc-tor who he kidnapped at the beginning of the film and even after all that she had been through decided to stay for. This seemed completely unrealistic but as the writer’s knew this was Craig’s last Bond film, they wanted to provide some sort of closure even if it was not liked by the audience.Overall, the final instalment of the Dan-iel Craig era of Bond, was not the best ending to what was a very well made Bond age with not only Skyfall but Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale as well. It left the audience feeling dis-appointed and frustrated after they ex-pected a great follow up to the highly rated Skyfall.

Hunger Sated

The Hunger Games film series, a film series of four that has contin-ued to redefine the word ‘trilogy’

and has already made over 2.7 billion dollars at the box office worldwide, released its epic final film recently to end the story. The trilogy, starting in 2012 and ending recently has become a household name and also one of the most successful movie franchises of the 21st century, and probably even of all time, reaching the 18th position on the list as of 3rd December 2015, yet with only four films. It is also the third most successful movie franchise based on a young-adult book series.However, the finale has been the sub-ject of a lot of criticism and some dis-appointment from fans online, possibly due to the anti-climax brought on by the hype overtaking the actual qual-ity of the film. In comparison to the

Paul Baroudi watches until the credits roll out

rest of the series, the Rotten Tomatoes critic website gave The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 a score of 71%, ranking it in third place in the series out of four films, with the Rotten Tomatoes best score going to the 2nd film in the series; The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, that reached a score of 89%. The worst movie in the series according to the website was the 3rd installment of the series; The Hunger Games: Mock-ingjay Part 1.Similarly, Metacritic gave the finale and Catching Fire a score of 65 and 76 respectively out of 100, with the rest of the films ranking consistently with that of Rotten Tomatoes. IGN also ranked the films as the following in descending order of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. So why did what was meant to be the most epic, anticipated finale of one of the most talked about movie franchises

of the 2010s score so poorly? While a majority of the critics agreed that the finale was “so much better than last year’s plodding, aimless Part 1”, and that “Mockingjay Part 2 was a worthy conclusion”, others disagreed, and didn’t look highly on the film. Again, relating to the anti-climax, a top critic said that “the final installment of the “Hunger Games” franchise manages to give us everything we’ve been waiting for and still underwhelm”. I personally think that the conclusion is what threw the critics off. The story almost exclud-ed many returning characters, who were replaced with new ones, but the conclusion seemed rushed. The ending was almost entirely based around the death of an important character, which somewhat stopped the action and story dead in its tracks to wrap the film up. I just don’t think it was the ending that the audience was waiting for, exclud-ing some important events relating to the future of the story’s universe.

12

Jocelyn Kwan

Dealing for Others

Ingredients: • 1 egg• 500g fine flour • 150 powdered sugar• 250g honey• 50g butter• 1 heaped teaspoon of cinnamon • 1 heaped teaspoon of ground

clove• 4 heaped teaspoons baking soda

Preparation:

1. Mix the flour, powdered sugar, cinnamon, clove, and baking soda thoroughly with a wooden spoon in a mixing bowl (preferably one with a lid)

2. Warm up the honey in a pot (mak-ing sure it doesn’t boil)

3. Add the butter into the warm hon-ey and stir until it becomes an even mixture (take it off the heat if you

Gingerbread CookiesZsofi Igo can call the ginger “ginger”

think it’s getting too hot)4. Pour the mixture into to bowl with

the flour and spice mix5. Crack an egg into the bowl and

mix well with the wooden spoon6. (HINT: The mixture is better if it’s

soft, so add some lukewarm water if it isn’t!)

7. Cover the mixing bowl and let it sit in room temperature for at least a day

8. (HINT: The longer you wait, the better the final results will be!)

9. Roll out the dough, with an ample amount of flour (the dough is pretty sticky!), to around 3mm thickness

10. Then with your chosen cookie cut-ters (dipped first into the flour so they don’t stick to the dough), cut out the gingerbread cookies

11. Place the cookies into an oven tray, lined with baking paper, about 1-2cm apart

12. Preheat the oven at 150°C for 10 minutes and then place the cookies inside

13. Do not open the oven door for the first 3-4 minutes, otherwise the cookies won’t rise

14. There is no set cooking time, so just wait for the cookies to turn a lovely brown/gold colour

15. Take the cookies out and leave them in the oven tray for 2-3 min-utes

16. Transfer the cookies to another plate to cool

17. To soften the cookies at the end, place them into a plastic box with a small cup in the middle

18. Put some paper napkins soaked in water into the small cup and then close the plastic box, so the cook-ies can absorb the moisture from the air

19. Decorate with icing, smarties, nuts and raisins (but put the nuts and raisins on before you bake the cookies) to make delicious, festive gingerbread cookies!