Humans, like other species, when encountering a new system, strive to find that which is familiar. Thus, people initially hang out with people with similar backgrounds, zip codes, tax bracket, and race. I ask any one who is reading this to name their closest friends, and for the majority of you, they will be from the same geographical area, of the same race, or friends from pre-Deerfield. I’m not asking you to shun people you identify with easily, but the result of this trend is that friend groups formed during this initial phase tend to stay together until graduation. There are people that will say that, of course, people gather with whom they feel most comfortable, but isn’t part of the Deerfield experience about getting to know new people? We are all part of this community now. It is our obligation to each other, to our teachers, to this entire ecosystem, to be open to new people and ideas, or at the very least receptive of those trying to branch out.

Q: What’s you’re favorite division of the arts? A: Well, theater is what I do the most of. I’d like to pursue it as a career, which is scary but it’s what I want to do. Q: How did you first get involved in theater? A: In eighth grade I got sick and watched the Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley and I decided that I wanted to start acting. I took a class that met once a week for a few months and then signed up for an acting class when I got to Deerfield. I did not try out for the play that fall, but I tried out in the winter and got a role in the chorus and when I tried out that spring, I got a lead in Arsenic and Old Lace . I was very lucky. It was a core cast of about eight people, which included all seniors and the director himself. They gave me the foresight to see where I could go if I stayed committed and inspired me to cultivate a strong dedication to the department. I’ve tried out for every production ever since. Q: Is there anything you would like to change about the arts department? A: I wish there were more integration of all the departments. Visual artists helping with the sets, music students with the musical choices… that’s why I love theater so much. It incorporates all art forms, and I think with such a small community, the arts department could make more use of that. Q: Of all of the productions you’ve participated in at Deerfield, what is your favorite? A: Medea . Undoubtedly Medea . Q: Do you have an actor or actress that you look up to for inspiration? A: Honestly, I take the most inspiration from my peers. Not necessarily the people who are good, but the people who are either dedicated or who go for an audition with no experience. I admire that. Q: If acting doesn’t work out, do you have a backup plan? A: I’d like to stay in the arts, whether creatively or from the other side of things, with administration. I love that world, and I never want to leave it. It’s that simple.

The boys’ track and field team went undefeated this year, due in part to the participation of postgraduates Harry Glor ’12 and Thuc Phan ’12. Glor played golf for four years at his previous high school and almost played for the Deerfield team. He explained his decision to run track, a brand new sport for him, as “something that would help [him] be a better athlete and increase speed, which would help for football.” Running the 4 x 100-meter relay, the 200-meter, and jumping both high and long jumps, Glor has scored 23.5 points in total for the boys’ team. His point total is second only to that of Jack Shumway ’12, who has 33.75 points. Shumway, who has set two school records, will graduate this month as the best hurdler in school history. Unlike Glor, Phan has been running track since the seventh grade. At first, Phan was not planning on doing track this spring. “I thought I was just going to focus on football and do special-exercise for my spring sport,” he said. Running the 100 and 200-meter races and the 4 x 100 meter relay as well as long jumping, Phan has scored 13.75 points, despite missing the first meet of three total. “Thuc has been very effective as a sprinter and gives off an air of veteran experience,” said coach Michael Schloat. Despite the great help the postgraduates have been in helping the team win, the rest of the team has been pulling their own weight as well. “[Without Thuc and Harry], we would not have been as successful, but we still would have been successful,” Mr. Schloat explained. “[They] could have spent [their] time lifting in preparation for football, but thankfully [they] have had a huge impact on the team this season.”

We experienced Arabic music, calligraphy, and Henna during “Arabian Nights” in the dining hall, an annual event organized by Arabic teacher Samar Moushabeck and students of Arabic. Ms. Moushabeck, born and raised in Amman, Jordan, integrated authentic Arabic foods and drinks from North Africa, Lebanon, and more into the dining hall’s menu on Friday, May 11 2012. Jamie Haddad ’12, of Arabic heritage and currently in Arabic 1, explains how Arabic students and herself have benefitted from the night: “It changed the experience of an Arabic learner. You can learn food from a textbook but you can’t taste, see or feel it until it’s put in front of you.” Options included Falafel with Tahini dressing, Kibbi (fried meatballs with onions and pine nuts), marinated chicken in lemon and olive oil, and drinks such as Qamariddin, a juice prepared from dried apricots. Though the many exotic and tasty treats seemed to be reason enough to host an “Arabian Night,” the main purpose was so “everyone at the school will have the opportunity to experience at least one aspect of the Arabic speaking world,” said Ms. Moushabeck. A belly-dance workshop was offered to those interested and there was a live belly dancing and music performance by Layaali, a Massachusetts based traditional Arabic music ensemble that Ms. Moushabeck was excited to share with the community. Ms. Moushabeck later reflected, “Pretty much everything presented that evening has been a part of my life at some point in time. I still use Henna in my hair, listen to Arabic music and prepare similar foods at home.” “It was great to see how excited people were, everyone loved the food and had a new take on Arabic customs here.” said Haddad ’12. The night was also an opportunity for the students taking Arabic to “share their knowledge of the Arabic speaking world with their community,” Ms. Moushabeck described. Emphasizing the importance of connecting with other Arabic students, Choate Arabic students were invited “to join us and help build a larger community of Arabic language learners beyond our school,” she explained. It was a night to set aside the differences and rivalry between Deerfield and Choate, and experience a distant culture with fellow peers.

North Carolina is the thirtieth state to amend its constitution to ban same-sex marriage. By altering the state constitution, North Carolina has deprived same-sex couples a legal right to express and validate their love. Our society has an inconsistent and unjust difference in standards between homosexual and heterosexual relationships and marriages. For example, one prominent argument in favor of the ban is that same-sex marriage will tarnish the sanctity of marriage, but some short-lived, drunken heterosexual Las Vegas weddings certainly stain the purity of marriage as well. Though religion may be used to guide one’s own life, this force should not be used to discriminate. Furthermore, the banning of same-sex marriages in thirty states calls into question the truth in America’s alleged separation of church and state. How can we pride ourselves in being a secular nation if a religiously partisan law can oppress people?

What struck Kylie Davis ’14 as being an unusually high number of eating disorders prompted her to start Deerfield’s first Eating Disorder Support Group (EDSP) this past March. “I saw how much eating disorders affect people here,” Davis said. Having overcome an eating disorder herself, Davis wanted people to understand “the consequences of it.” She approached Science & Health Teacher, Peer Counseling & Residential Head Kristin Loftus with her idea in the fall. “My goal is for our community to become aware and have a better understanding regarding eating disorders and disordered eating,” she said. The group meets about once every two weeks in the Health Issues classroom, and Davis tries to come up with topics that highlight different aspects of eating disorders for each meeting. Davis leads a group of fifteen on average at each meeting. “Our first meeting was about getting the elephant out of the room,” she said straightforwardly. In a discussion-based meeting, members considered various pressures at school that account for the rising number of eating disorders. “The second meeting was more factual and information based, so people actually got to know the consequences,” Davis said. For her third meeting, Davis zeroed in on media’s impact on eating disorders and disordered eating. Ultimately, she hopes that raising awareness and promoting discussion will “reduce the number of people affected by [eating disorders] in our community.”

Witty, humorous, imaginative, and most of all, accessible to all, Billy Collins’ Ballistics is one of the funniest and most relatable poetry collections that you will ever come across. Revolving around the ordinary subjects of love, death, introspection, and, ironically, the art of poetry, Ballistics pulls you out of the hustle and bustle of the modern day and allows you to contemplate the simple things in life, such as “Hippos on Holiday:” I love their short legs and big heads,the whole hippo look.Hundreds of them would frolicin the mud of a wide, slow-moving river… As a high school student who has often questioned the idea of “Great American literature,” I found myself laughing uncontrollably at poems such as “The Great American Poem” and “The Effort.” Poking fun at poetry itself and the enigmatic nature of poetry analysis, these poems pinpoint the often-confusing question that drives readers away from poetry: “What is the poet trying to say?” Showing that poetry need not be moralizing or “great,” Collins creates a personal connection with his reader, a link that makes poetry a conversation. And yet, despite the humor in his words, he forces the reader to think about the words themselves, and the possible complexity of simple language. For example, in every other line in his poem “Tension,” we encounter the word “suddenly.” It is noticeable and, in fact, irritating, as Collins attempts to make the point to “never use the word suddenly just to create tension.” Or take his shortest poem in Ballistics , “Divorce.” Consisting of four short lines with no explicit character in mind or direct address of the reader, this piece brings out an imaginative scene of a couple getting a divorce, with their lawyers sitting beside them: Once, two spoons in bed,now tined forks across a granite tableand the knives they have hired. Bringing poetry to life not only by eliciting laughter from the reader, Ballistics , as a whole, creates a sense of completion, beginning, and ending with two poems, “August in Paris” and “Envoy,” that directly address the reader. By doing this, Collins pulls you in, as if he were searching for you by asking: “where are you, reader?” Finally, he sets the book on a journey of its own, allowing this “little book” to become an entity itself, “time to be regarded by other eyes.” Collins, former United States Poet Laureate (2001-2003) and Poet Laureate of New York State, will be visiting campus beginning on October 4. He will be reading to the entire school as well as attending classes and talking with students. Collin’s highly anticipated appearance will continue the series of visiting poets, first inaugurated with W.S. Merwin last fall.

Students of the new spring elective, Classics Seminar, analyze ancient literature to understand the horrors of war, such as the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and other forms of trauma in the lives of soldiers. Samuel Savage, the teacher of the course, described it as “a way of connecting intellectual work that students have done at Deerfield to a real world issue.” The course specifically prepares students for Saturday’s performance of Theater of War by the group Outside the Wire. The group conducts readings from classical war literature. Actors aspire to find the link between the modern and the ancient soldier, a similar goal students of the Classics Seminar hope to achieve. “The idea of this course is to give us a better understanding of what modern day veterans go through. By using ancient materials, we are able to make conjectures and explore concepts we would feel uncomfortable talking about in the real world,” said Thomas Earle ’12, one of the eight seniors in the course. Students of the seminar recently visited a group of veterans at Greenfield Community College to describe their class and Theater of War. “The class is specifically designed so that all students are able to have a culminating experience in the classroom,” Mr. Savage said. “I feel like the discussions I’m having in this class will stay with me for the rest of my life,” said Earle.

We’ve all heard of post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. But what exactly is it? The experience of trauma is, unfortunately, all to common even in these relatively safe and peaceful United States. Automobile accidents, violence, abuse, untimely death of a loved one—all can be traumatic. What distinguishes PTSD from other trauma is the lingering, intrusive nature of it. It seems to take on a life of its own. Flashbacks and nightmares and a triggering sight or sound or smell can plunge the individual back into a terrible and terrifying re-experiencing of the earlier trauma. The traumatized soldier can shut down and withdraw or become hyper-vigilant and over responsive. The stereotype of the traumatized combat veteran includes a person with a hair-trigger temper, easily over-stimulated and highly reactive to his environment. But veterans also come home, even from a broader “theater of war,” with more subtle symptoms that include avoidance and numbing. For these soldiers, that suit of emotional armor was essential in protecting them from the intense emotions stirred up by the threat to life and presence of death. Once home, it becomes a severe and heavy handicap. When you can’t feel pain, you also can’t feel love and pleasure. Today’s soldiers return from overseas duty to a relatively warm welcome. We may object to the war—but embrace the soldier. In my experience, there was no “Welcome Home” coming back from Vietnam. The anti-war movement was raging, and very few of us were advertising our military service. We felt out of synch with our peers, deeply distrustful, and profoundly private about our war experience. Many of us felt ashamed of our participation in a cause we didn’t believe in. As a graduate student in a university setting, nobody wanted to hear—or would believe—that I’d spent a year in Vietnam. It was odd and disorienting. While this kind of shut down and withdrawal doesn’t meet the criteria for a true PTSD, it was, for hundreds of thousands of non-combat veterans, the legacy of Vietnam. In 1995, Jonathan Shay in his ground-breaking book, Achilles in Vietnam , wrote persuasively that for those returning from combat with PTSD, there would be no such thing as a “return to normal.” To be exposed to the horrors of war is to be scarred for life. Some degree of recovery is all we can hope for, Shay said. Fortunately, there are encouraging newer PTSD treatment modalities that have been developing since then. The response time to returning vets has accelerated and follow-up programs and treatment groups have multiplied. Some of today’s vets object to the stigmatizing that comes from coupling the “D” (Disorder) with the PTS. They argue that it’s not a disorder; it’s a predictable and understandable reaction to an extremely unhealthy situation (the violence of war). I can appreciate their concern. The Pentagon, in response to the thousands of traumatized soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, tried to rewrite the PTSD criteria to limit eligibility for benefits. In a show of solidarity, veterans’ organizations and other supporters registered sufficient outrage to force the Pentagon to reconsider. That the government would make every resource available to support returning soldiers—medically, psychologically, and financially—is simply the right thing to do.

The baseball and softball teams have not performed as well as they have in previous years, yet their captains and coaches expect a successful remainder of the season. Though each team has won only a single game each, the players are undeterred. Softball coaches Rebecca Melvoin and Danielle Chagnon foresaw difficulty from the start of the season as the team lacked both size and age. “With small numbers, we knew we would have to get back to the basics and we were prepared for the hard work ahead,” said Ms. Melvoin. One cause of the team’s losing streak is the repetition of basic errors during games. “Some errors we are working on include hitting more consistently, making good decisions in the batter’s box, and rebounding from errors in the game,” Ms. Melvoin explained. Junior Co-Captain Hannah Insuik’s goal for the team is to avoid losing games by the “mercy rule,” which ends the game because one team is ahead by so much. “I want us to play the whole game instead of losing by 15 runs. I hope to make cleaner plays, keep our confidence, and avoid strikeouts,” Insuik said. Nevertheless, the softball team is one of most well-bonded on campus. The team’s creed is to have fun and not take themselves too seriously when making mistakes. “Our team gets along so well, and that’s what helps us gets through our games. We’re able to have fun because it is a game, and we play to love it, not to win every game,” said Insuik. On the Headmaster’s Field, meanwhile, varsity baseball Co-Captain Nolan Doyle ’12 and head coach David Irwin also hope for a stronger end to the season, in spite of their losing record. The team struggled in its first few games against other schools. “We knew we would have a core of strong hitters and pitchers. The suspect area would likely be with our fielding. We had difficulty with the gloves, and struggled to put together seven innings of clean ball,” Doyle said. Mr. Irwin believes that the team’s losses can be attributed to its difficulty in putting together the three major facets of the game: pitching, defense, and offense. “When we get a great pitching outing, we can’t seem to score runs. When we score runs, we make too many errors in the field,” said Mr. Irwin. Mr. Irwin hopes for the team to gain more faith in itself to stay competitive for the remainder of the season. “The challenge for us is to keep believing in the team; to know that we are a team who will keep scratching, clawing, and fighting from the first pitch to the last out. No one can challenge the tenacity, perseverance, and commitment that the team has displayed this year,” he said. Doyle enthusiastically added, “You can rest assured that Deerfield baseball is a team on the rise. We took our first league victory on April 28 against Exeter. We liked the taste of victory, but we’re still hungry.”

When the boys’ varsity lacrosse team lost its starting goalie Luke Aaron ’12 to illness, many people thought all was lost. But, that was before new sophomore David Hamilton stepped onto the field and into the net. Although Hamilton has been thrust into the spotlight, he has taken his new-found responsibility in stride. “It has been great playing on the team so far. It’s definitely a lot of lacrosse, playing six days a week, and I’ve been seeing a lot of shots. It’s a big step up from the lacrosse I was playing before,” Hamilton said. When asked his feelings toward this opportunity, Hamilton said, “I’m excited to get a lot more playing time than I’ve been used to. I’m also excited for all the big games we have coming up.” Another thing he can be excited about? A prospective lacrosse career. “The playing time he is seeing now will pay off for him down the road. I want him to have a great experience and be the difference in some big games,” said Head Coach Charles Davis. “As a goalie, he sees the ball very well and throws excellent outlet passes. He puts his work in everyday.” There is, however, always room to improve. No one can help Hamilton grasp this reality more than Aaron. Hamilton said, “It’s been great playing with Luke [Aaron]. He’s super experienced because he has been on the varsity team since his freshman year. I’ve learned a lot from him in all aspects of the game.” So with a string of tough games ahead against competitive teams such as Avon Old Farms and Salisbury, Hamilton has large shoes to fill—and fast. But “he is tough-minded and steady,” Mr. Davis added.

Students, teachers, local residents and veterans will have the opportunity to attend the first high school performance of Theater of War , by the theatrical group Outside the Wire, which performs selections from Sophocles’ war dramas, Ajax and Philoctetes , to bring awareness of soldiers dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. The performance will showcase four actors, along with students from the Classics Seminar, a new spring elective. A panel of three audience members and one student will share their reactions to the performance. The student panelist will be Jordan Jancze ’13, whose mother is deployed overseas. Jancze explained the significance of being able to see Theater of War. “I obviously cannot read my mother’s mind when she is deployed, so I think it will be interesting to see how the soldier reacts.” A discussion among audience members will follow, led by director and founder of the group Bryan Doerries. Veterans from the surrounding areas have been invited to the performance and discussion to share firsthand experience and insight into the plays. Classics Seminar teacher Samuel Savage explained how seeing these issues portrayed in a form of art could be a coping mechanism for veterans. “People who have seen what they’ve seen have a really hard time reaching out. It is a deeply personal wound and most people cannot relate. Being with others who have experienced similar things can give you something outside of yourself to talk about,” said Mr. Savage. Mr. Savage and Latin teacher John Burke attended a performance of Theater of War earlier in the year. “It was deeply moving, even mind blowing to hear people connect with plays that are not at all far from reality,” Mr. Savage said. Designing the curriculum for the Classics Seminar, Mr. Savage wanted to incorporate ancient drama. He contacted Outside the Wire this past summer. The group helped shape the curriculum of the elective and wanted to perform at Deerfield as a part of it. Dr. Burke explained that, for the students of the Classics Seminar, “this is a great opportunity to see how Classics and Classical literature is being applied to modern issues and problems. I think it is fascinating that ancient literature can have something to say about a very modern problem.” This week’s Valley Advocate said that “in Theater of War , combat-related psychological injury [is] viewed through the lens of Sophocles’ wartime tragedies. The cast for the Deerfield presentation had not been announced at press time, but previous performances have featured high-profile stage and screen actors including David Strathairn, Gloria Reuben, Amy Ryan, and Paul Giamatti.” According to the Advocate, “this New York-based company…employs classic theater works to illuminate and stimulate discussion on such issues as addiction treatment…and prison reform.” The free performance will be held on May 12, at 7:00 p.m. in the Garonzik Auditorium.