Memories of Summit High
By: Dani

I think my favorite memories of Summit High would be how much fun the classes are. I like to come to school and have easy classes because that will help me graduate, but at the same time I like a challenge.

I think another thing that I like is that I have fun with the people that are fun. Not everyone has a good day, but when most people are it is way fun to just chill with friends and talk about crazy and stupid things. I will miss all the people who make me laugh.

Another thing is that I liked the fact we had prom. That was SO much fun, even though I almost didn’t go because I thought it was going to be lame.

I will never forget my time at Summit High because it helped me to catch up on my graduation. I can’t wait till next year I am graduating and it is going to be amazing.

I will also miss all the people that have helped me through all the hard times I have had at this school, even though I didn’t deserve their help. It shows a lot of courage that people are willing to be my friend even though I am a very hard person to get along with. So, thank you all the people that have helped me.

I am very sad to go, but next year I am going to a new school like normal, but this time it is my choice, so I am happy.

I think the quote “Tolerance” relates to Persepolis and Hotel Rwanda in so many ways. I especially like the first sentence “ A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe” because it’s saying to me to not classify ourselves by race, groups, sex, anything like that, we are all a people in this world and we all need to contribute our own verses in it. Being a person who wants to shun people away and kill them off is wrong. They need to live and help out in this world.

I think if we were to not veil women and kill of people just because they are not like us is way more then wrong. I can’t explain how much I hate these things. We need to just all get along and let each other express ourselves without violence like we have for the past billion years. And I’m afraid of our generation being the new leaders of the world because I’m not sure anyone in our generation is ready to stand up for what is right, even though we know what we need to do I think we are scared to stand up for it.

I really want a lot more people not just in the school but every where; need to know what is going on in other world countries and not just what’s in our back yard. People need to just come together and realize we are not the only people that go through hell; people everywhere else are going through a lot worse stuff. People are dying not only in America but every where. We need to stop being selfish and help everyone not just ourselves.

Zach

MEMORIES
Rachel

I’m not going to miss this school. I came back thinking that it was going to be ask great as it was last year, but it didn’t even compare. I’ve met very select few people that I think I’ll stay in contact with. If I had to pick the very best memory, it would be Clear Creek. It was one of the best things that has happened this year. It challenged me with some of my fears, emotionally, physically and mentally.
As the year comes to an end, there’s a part of me that’s sad. I’m going to be a senior next year and my life is just beginning. I know there’s tons of things ahead that I’m going to have to do throughout life that are going to be hard, fun, etc. It’s all how I look at it I guess.
The staff is just amazing. You are truly heroes in my eyes. The way you strive to reach out to kids is outstanding. I don’t know if I could do the job.
I’m not going to be coming back to Summit next year. I think that my senior year should be spent in a mainstream school, so I can experience what I’ve been waiting for since I was a little girl. I wish the best to all of you. I truly hope that your life takes you where you want it to go. You can have the life that all desire and the life that everyone envies, you just have to want it bad enough. Be willing to step out there and help others to the top.

TOLERANCE
Rachel

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space.” –Albert Einstein. We are part of everything. It’s sort of like cause and effect. We choose to do something whether it is good or bad for us or others and it sets off a chain reaction to all these other things. Everyone has a limited time on this earth to find out what they’re meant to do; to find their true purpose. In the graphic novel Persepolis, Marjane-the main character- finds herself in a country she doesn’t know. She is very young and becomes interested in some bad habits. She gets to “experience herself, her thoughts and feelings”, without anyone really telling her that she can’t do this or that. I know that it’s good to have some kind of direction in your life, but it doesn’t always come from the ones that should give it to you.

“This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.” I flash back to all of the goals I’ve wished to accomplish in life, all the people I’ve loved and all the people I thought loved me. It’s hard to be hurt so many times and still have that thought in your mind that there’s still another boy out there. It’s hard to give someone your heart and trust them not to break it, and then after they do, try again. It’s hard to fail time after time and keep pushing on to achieve what you want. If some of us weren’t stuck in this “delusion” as Einstein puts it, think how much better our lives would be! Marjane is sent away from her family to keep her safe from war, she is in and out of homes of people she’s never even met! I think of myself and all the other children I know in Foster Care and how much it hurts to be taken from the ones you love. Even if it ends up that you being taken were truly the best thing for you it doesn’t take away that pain and the longing you have to actually belong somewhere, to someone.

“Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” From the beginning of this book I’ve thought about how strong she must be to live on her own at 17 on the streets. She is forced to become independent until she can return home. I believe that she did free herself from the prison of delusion and she saw the people of our world for who they really are. She started developing feelings for her boyfriend Markus and she thought she loved him. They broke up after a devastating scene Marji walked into. But she got out of the prison. She expanded her compassion for others and found her husband. That relationship didn’t work out either, but it definitely proves the point I think. We can all do as she did, and become tolerant of the world we live in.

Persepolis final

I chose the tolerance quote and this is how it goes.
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. –Albert Einstein

This quote relates to both Persepolis and Hotel Rwanda. In Persepolis, Marjane, the main character, has many problems that lots of teenagers go through: drugs, parties, issues with the law, and many others. I think that at the time she is going through these stages she is just exploring herself. Then she starts to think about how her family would feel if they were seeing her in that position so she cleans up her act and goes into the phase of her personal desires and her families needs. She drifts back and forth exploring and caring for her family. She starts to care about others when she leaves Iran permanently.

In Hotel Rwanda, Paul Rosessabegina is a man with a very important job at a hotel, has good connections, and has a Tutsi wife and he is Hutu. Later in the movie when it becomes a bad thing to be a Tutsi because they are all being brutally murdered, Paul wants to save all of the connections that he has until his family needs help. He says that he can’t help the neighbors or anyone but family. He is in the delusion phase when the only thing that matters is him and his family. When Paul and his family get the chance to leave the war zone, you can see the change on his face when he decides to stay with the many people who are stuck at the hotel. He quickly went from the delusional phase to where he cared about others in the world. He knew that other people needed his help and he gave it. He was a wonderful man.

Aubri

Over coming Adversity and Challenges
By Nick

“We acquire the strength we have overcome”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

This quote applies to Persepolis because Marjane goes through almost everything you can go through as a kid and a teenager, between drugs and war to being cheated on by her boyfriend. After all she goes through in life she pulls her self together and overcomes her challenges and pulls through all her adversities. She turns her life around and becomes something better then some people thought she was going to be, she wrote a graphic novel.

The quote applies to Hotel Rwanda in a way even greater then Persepolis. Paul, the manager of the hotel saves tons of refugees from death by taking them into his hotel and risking his life by making that choice. The challenges he had to overcome were the fact that he is risking his and his family’s life for the refugees. I believe that at the end of the movie he wouldn’t care if he died as long as those women and children lived, and that made him the strongest man in the world.

In Swing Kids the main character overcame adversity by swing dancing even though it was strictly illegal and could get you sent to a work camp, the challenge he overcame was being a Hitler youth and hating it. Even as a Hitler Youth he still did swing dancing and he was arrested for it and sent to a work camp, when he was in the truck on his way to the work camp he stands up and yells “Swing Heil”. Which shows even in a very dark time in his life he still overcomes adversity.

I really like the Persian proverb that says “when it is dark you can see the stars.” To mean it means two things, one meaning is that when we are going through the worse times there is always some hope somewhere, even if it seems dim and far away. The other meaning is that during the worst times in history ordinary men and women can become heroes. We are finally able to see the compassion and the love that everyone including ourselves posses. In conflict and trials we find our most notable heroes.

In the graphic novel Persepolis we find a hero in the protagonist and author Marjane Satrapi as she has to live amid the religious upheaval of Iran in the seventies and the war between Iran and Iraq in the eighties. Even after escaping her homeland, Marjane has to survive in a strange country where she is called an Ausländer, foreigner. In Iran Marjane protests against the dictatorial Shah, or king, of Iran, even though people are stabbed, stoned, and shot at these rallies. After the take over of the country by the fundamentalist Muslims, Marjane keeps her independence by listening to American music and wearing American clothes, a crime that could be punishable by death. When Marjane finally gets out of Iran and into Austria, she survives for months on the street in the winter. Marjane got and education so that she could make something of herself. Finally, Marjane got a divorce from her husband, which in Iranian culture made her a sex object because she was no longer a virgin.

In Hotel Rwanda, a humble hotel manager becomes the savior of more than a thousand refugees, at the risk of his own life. The manager, named Paul Rusesabagina, gets caught in a civil war between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples in the small country of Rwanda. Daily in the civil war people are shot in the street, houses are burned, and buildings are firebombed. Paul has to pull as many favors as he can from the white European tourists he has met to keep the hotel itself from being overrun by the Hutu army. Paul is faced with the task of keeping his Tutsi wife and Hutu and Tutsi neighbors from being killed, so he takes them to the only safe spot he knows, the hotel. Paul nearly loses his life trying to get food and water for his hotel guests by meeting with militant suppliers, the only ones with food and water. Finally Paul uses his wits to get his refugees evacuated to Tanzania, saving their lives.

In both of these periods of time ordinary people accomplished the extraordinary. A girl fought against a revolution and a hotel manager saved his neighbors and friends. When it gets dark, we really can see the stars.

Nick B.