Series by Gargoyle staff
Posted Thursday, March 1, 2007, The OG, features & in depth

THE WORD “UNIQUE” is often tossed around when discussing Uni High — probably too often. But Agora Days is one of those traditions that truly lives up to the description. The four-day hiatus from Uni's regular round of classes consists of more than 100 mini-courses prepared and taught by students, faculty, alumni, parents, and friends of the school. The latest edition of Agora Days took place from Tuesday, Feb. 20, to Friday, Feb. 23. Instead of documenting the annual event solely through photos, as the Gargoyle usually does, our staff embarked on a more ambitious project this year: a series of mini-narratives taking the reader into a variety of Agora classes. Over the course of this four-part series, we hope readers will come away with a sense of the breadth and diversity — not to mention the sheer fun — of Agora Days 2007.

Attention to detail pays off in scrapbooking class.

(Gargoyle photo) (click to enlarge)

A SCRAPBOOKING STORY

By Lizzy Warner, Gargoyle staff reporter

Course: Scrapbooking, first hour

IT WAS EARLY Thursday morning, and I lugged myself up the flights of stairs to the art room, where my scrapbooking class was to be held.

Over the course of four days, the class was to teach students everything about scrapbooking, from layering techniques to color coordination. For today's schedule we were to learn about mounting 3-D objects.

Although it was better than having to walk to Kenney Gym in the freezing snow, climbing up two flights of stairs was not a great way to kick off the morning. I entered the room. It was warm, and I could hardly see because of the sun shining through the big windows.

Simone Ballard, a subfreshman, was standing at the head of the two tables with her “Pirates of the Caribbean” T-shirt as her students began to wander in.

Three tables were clumped together in the center of the room where various art supplies were laid out. Each table was a different height, making the room seem a bit unbalanced.

Students engaged in small talk, including a story about how two art students sat on the tables a year or so ago and broke them, and ever since the replacement tables have been uneven heights. As soon as sponsor Billy Vaughn arrived, though, the gossip died down. He called attendance and then handed the floor over to Simone to begin her lesson on 3-D objects.

Every student had been asked to bring in something special that they could hot-glue into their scrapbook. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring my object, but other students had pins and beads, and one subbie even had old Disneyland tickets.

When Simone finished her lesson we all grabbed for the neatly organized piles of stickers, construction paper, ribbon, origami paper, etc., which didn't remain organized for long. Within a few minutes everything was scattered across the table, and students were getting back to their conversations.

Although there were representatives from every class, we remained fairly divided. The subbies gathered at one corner discussing the extra credit they were receiving from Pat Morris for taking certain science classes, while the more mature sophomores were at the other corner marveling at the cupcake stickers.

There were only two boys in the class, Tej Chajed and Andrew LaPointe. Although the two freshmen were determined to stick together, neither of them shied away from the girls. The only problem occurred when the two boys started revealing the ending to a movie they had just watched, forcing sophomores Jess Stewart and Hannah Leskosky to cover their ears and hum rather loudly.

Simone walked around the table to help each student individually, encouraging everybody to be creative. Although she was younger than a majority of the people in her class, she wasn't afraid to approach upperclassmen and suggest adding some glitter here or some ribbon there.

“I was pretty confident because I know what I'm teaching, but [at the same time] nervous because there were so many people and it was my first year,” Simone later explained.

When there were only five minutes remaining, Simone instructed her students to start cleaning up. Most students helped put the glue back in its original place and repiled the paper, while some students had more fun painting themselves with the glitter glue. Fortunately we were able to pick up most of the materials before the bell rang.

As soon as most of the students cleared out, clinging tightly to their scrapbook pages, Vaughn came in the room to make sure everything went well.

“So, are we happy with our scrapbooks?” he asked.

“I think so,” replied Simone.

TRYING TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE MIDDLE EAST

By Alex Zhai, Gargoyle assistant editor

Course: Samidoun: A Look at the 2006 Lebanon War, second hour

The tables in Room 109 have all been moved to the back as junior Shara Esbenshade, 15 or 20 feet of empty floor removed from her audience, gives the introduction to her second-hour class. The wonders of Agora Days scheduling have temporarily put Samidoun: A Look at the 2006 Lebanon War in this room.

The class will look at last summer's Israel-Lebanon war from the Lebanese perspective, Esbenshade explains. In the next three days, we will have three guest speakers and watch the documentary “Samidoun,” the namesake of the class. But Esbenshade has nothing planned for today, so she opens the floor for discussion to see what people's impressions of the war are.

“Does anyone want to say anything?” she asks. The room is silent as everyone hesitates to be the first to speak. No one knows where to start, or how to start. Finally, the tension gets to me, and I meekly raise my hand. The words don't come out smoothly as I try to explain that I don't know the details of the war and hope to learn more about them in the class.

A few others speak up, but almost everyone seems to share my semi-ignorance, not confident enough to give any kind of unequivocal opinion. Noticing the discussion lagging, counselor Sam Smith, who is the faculty sponsor, gets up to give some basic history.

He asks if anyone knows how Israel was founded as he draws Palestine on the chalkboard, and this gets the ball rolling. When the subject is history, suddenly our group, though still quiet, is willing to talk. Discussion ranges from the ethnic makeup of Lebanon to a brief history of 20th-century Iran, but we don't say much about the recent war. When the bell rings, I feel as though I've only seen the hazy surface of a deep and contentious issue.

The class isn't supposed to leave people with a clear answer, however. Esbenshade proposed the class because she thought the mainstream media lacked coverage of the death and destruction inflicted upon the Lebanese during the war.

“I felt like the media was very pro-Israeli,” she says.

“My goal was not to present a balanced view,” admits Esbenshade. “No one can teach an issue like this without coming off as biased.”

Instead, she hopes that people come away understanding that every source is biased, but that they can still be valuable when the bias is taken into account.

On Friday, the mood is a little different. We are in Room 206 now, and for most of us the Lebanon war has formed a clearer image in our minds. Two days earlier, Carl Estabrook presented the interpretation of post-war U.S. foreign policy as a strategy of creating a “stranglehold” on Middle Eastern oil, a strategy furthered by Israel as an ally.

Then, for Thursday, we watched the first half of “Samidoun,” and Rabbi Norman Klein gave an Israeli perspective on the conflict. He challenged us to imagine Urbana under sporadic rocket attacks from Champaign and asked us how we would react. I was skeptical about the analogy, but I realized I had no idea how it would feel to live in such a situation.

David Green is the guest speaker today. His views are controversial, and it doesn't take long for me to see why. Reading from his own writing, he condemns Israel's aggressive military policy and talks about the misuse of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism as a distraction from real discussion.

Green stutters over the strong words he speaks, his thin frame trembling slightly, as if his passion in the matter has gotten ahead of his voice. By the time Green finishes, I have started to appreciate just how polarized the debate is.

In the remaining time, Esbenshade plays the second half of “Samidoun.” Samidoun, which means “steadfastness,” is the name of a group organizing reconstruction in Lebanon. However, the documentary draws more from the meaning of the word, depicting Lebanese reactions in the aftermath.

Amidst the constant background of rubble the Lebanese tell their stories — one woman has lost one foot and injured the other, another man has lost most of his extended family. They talk about the unexploded bombs littering the ground that still take lives of unwary passersby.

Nonetheless, they seem to retain a certain pride, and several Lebanese explain that they don't want U.S. aid, which they say comes only under various conditions.

“Let them help the people in New Orleans,” says one of them. “We heard about them. They didn't rebuild their cities.”

The images of devastation from “Samidoun” tell me there is some injustice here, yet Rabbi Klein's words from the day before linger in the back of my mind. I try to figure out which side is right, but I feel guilty about judging the people on either side who have suffered personal loss that I have never experienced. Despite all the speakers, it's Friday and I'm as bewildered and undecided as ever about the whole issue.

“It raises more questions than answers them just because people didn't think about it as much,” Esbenshade says of the class.

Perhaps fittingly, we do not have time to finish the documentary. The bell rings, although I take advantage of the 10-minute Agora Days passing periods to watch a few more minutes.

But before long, the Lebanese man on the screen is speaking to an empty room. The class has ended, but we have only begun to understand what is going on in the Middle East.

Ray draws on a lifetime of dodgeball skills to

stay alive. (Gargoyle photo) (click to enlarge)

DODGE, DUCK, DIP, DIVE … AND DODGE!

By Michael Belmont, Gargoyle senior editor

Course: Dodgeball, third hour

IT'S THIRD PERIOD on Friday, and Uni Gym is filling rapidly, as it has during this hour all week. For the next 50 minutes the tiny old building will be alive with the sights, sounds, and even smells of dodgeball, America's school game of choice, and every second is a treat.

Today, the group is particularly anxious to get started, and two teams are quickly created through the time-tested method of having two “captains” take turns picking individual players from the group lined up before them.

The particular brand of dodgeball favored by this group is prisoner ball, a game where players who are hit or have their throws caught go to a jail against the wall behind the opposing team, and may be freed by catching a lob thrown by a teammate.

The game starts with both teams lined up against their respective walls. A shout from a designated person signals the beginning of the game, and a mad scramble for the balls, which lie in the middle of the court on the boundary line between the two teams' respective zones, ensues. Initial casualties are immediately inflicted as many of the rushers are lost in the opening melee at center court.

From there, the game proceeds until all the players on one team have been eliminated. Though the first four games are evenly split between the two teams, the loss of a particularly effective player to injury causes the decline of that player's team. The next three games all end in the other team's favor.

In the second half of the period, the competitiveness of the games rises to a new level. Everybody wants to end the week on top. An epidemic of cheating slowly takes hold as the rules are ignored to a gradually increasing degree.

“You were way out of the jail when you caught that!” exclaims one student to this prison-breaking journalist. The accused prudently marches on without comment.

Similar allegations of wrongdoing fill the air. Players who have clearly been hit claim otherwise. Jails are regularly intruded by defending players trying desperately to intercept incoming emancipation throws. The honesty that has pervaded the class throughout the week disintegrates.

“Screw you guys. You're doing the same thing,” says one flagrant cheater near the end.

Despite the decrease in integrity in the waning minutes of the final session, the overall success of the class can't be denied.

Though dodgeball may be a traditional fixture in American physical education, it has no place in Uni's program. The lack of opportunity at the school to partake in this traditional quasi-sport may be the reason behind its rise as a perennial Agora Days favorite. For at least a few years now, the Agora dodgeball class has attracted dozens of boys of all shapes, sizes, and athletic backgrounds. This year, according to the teacher, senior Martin Granick, 30 students, all of them male, enrolled.

“You always have to be alert and on the edge,” said senior Rohun Palekar of the game. “It's a pretty easy sport, and it's a good break between other sports.”

Other students had their own favorite aspects of the game.

“I like it because you get to hit people,” stated sophomore Holden Bucher.

Though Athletic Director and PE department head Sally Walker sponsored the class, physics teacher Jim (“Ray”) Carrubba achieved a perfect attendance record for the week as a volunteer player. Carrubba, who sponsored the class himself in 2004, amassed experience in the game during his high school days.

“Dodgeball was almost the centerpiece of our school curriculum,” Carrubba said. “Whether you were taking second-year honors calc or remedial woodshop, you played dodgeball.”

According to Carrubba, the game at Uni has its differences from what he played in his youth.

“We played a version where we had to protect a pin,” he said. “We used dodgeballs that were a lot harder — and came in a lot faster — than the ones at Uni. At Uni sometimes you're not quite sure you've been hit.”

The game, no matter what version you're playing, has qualities that make it a perfect Agora activity.

“The teams don't have to match up evenly, and the skill level isn't very demanding,” summarized Carrubba. “Even when you're losing badly, you can still have a lot of fun.”

Elaine Gu rocks out in Guitar Hero 101.

(Gargoyle photo) (click to enlarge)

UNI STUDENTS ROCK HARD (SORT OF)

By Elaine Gu, Gargoyle staff reporter

Course: Guitar Hero 101, eighth hour

IF YOU HAD walked past Room 211 during eighth period on Agora Days, you would've heard the hum of rock music coming out of the dark classroom. If you had the curiosity to venture in, your eardrums might have been a bit overwhelmed by the blasting heavy metal and exclamations of “Oh!” and “Dang! Can't believe you missed that!”

This was the Guitar Hero 101 class taught by freshmen Anna Gooler and Nile Hamer. “Guitar Hero” is a popular PlayStation 2 game that allows players to rock out like a rock star. Instead of the traditional PS2 console, “Guitar Hero” utilizes a guitar-shaped controller with five colored buttons on the neck (representing different notes), a strum bar (to hit each note), and a whammy bar (which you hit repeatedly during long notes to score more points).

The game features more than 40 well-known rock songs, including “I Love Rock & Roll” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath. Once you select a song, notes scroll toward the bottom of the screen in five columns (one for each of the five keys), and it's the player's goal to hold the note and strum right when it hits the bottom of the screen.

The notes follow the beat of the music, and levels range from Easy, where only three notes are used, to Expert, which involves playing all five notes along with chords.

“[I started this class] because ‘Guitar Hero' is awesome and I'm the sh*t at it,” said Hamer, one of the co-teachers of the class.

During a typical moment, two students would play in front of the television and another would play in front of a projected screen. The other members of the class usually had their eyes glued on one of the screens, observing their fellow classmates' gaming skills.

“[Originally] Nile and I thought that we'd be teaching more,” said co-teacher Gooler.

However, almost no teaching was required. “Guitar Hero” is a fun and simple-to-learn game. Just by observing those who have played before, everyone in the class was able to play songs at Medium by the end of the week, with some even playing at Hard and Expert.

Sophomore Daniel Borup, a newbie at “Guitar Hero,” can already play at Expert.

“I don't have ‘Guitar Hero' [at home], but I like playing it,” said Borup, who had only played the game two or three times before this class. He accredits his quick learning to years of playing the violin.

“I have natural violin fingers,” he stated.

Fellow sophomore Nish Nookala, also a member of the class, plays at Medium or Hard.

“I once played [‘Guitar Hero'] at Best Buy for two hours,” he said.

Nookala certainly got his share of playing during this class. Although there were a limited number of guitars, everyone got to play several songs each period.

Overall, Hamer and Gooler both thought that the class “turned out pretty well.” Students all got a taste of what it feels like to be a “guitar hero” along with a chance to improve their skills at the game.

Even though I'm not a big fan of rock music, I still enjoyed playing the right notes to the beat of the song. It was also amazing to watch the advanced players strum away as notes and chords flashed down the screen at light-speed.

As Nookala put it, Guitar Hero 101 was “guitarific.”

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