Read My Full Bio
Thursday, October 30, 2008
I woke up around eleven o’clock and then went down to breakfast with my roommate. Next I hung out with some friends before going down to the soccer fields for my game. We won our J.V game by four goals. I worked out a little after my game and then went to the Jig for some food and to watch some TV with my friends before the night game under the lights.
Everyone was wearing red and screaming. Most of the student body met outside Centennial Dorm to join together for an impressive run out to the varsity soccer field around 7:30. Everyone was anxious to get out and show the team our spirit, but the seniors were waiting for the right time to start the charge. Other seniors were running through the crowd and spraying kids with red face paint. The seniors started to run and the rest of the school followed. The massive sprint to the varsity field was unforgettable. Everybody was screaming and running as fast as possible. We all got to the game right when it was starting. Taft cheers through-out the game filled the air and echoed across the school grounds. The varsity boys did not let us down, winning 2-0 over Suffield.
After the game every body headed up the hill and into the warm gym where we waited for the break dancers. The bleachers were full of Tafties who were cheering for the show to start. The dancers came out and did all sorts of weird moves which put the crowd into frenzy. The break dancers then picked students from the crowd for a dance off. Alex and DeAndre were placed against Mr. Wilson and Maju for a hilarious competition. Mr. Wilson came out first and just sort of moved his arms about and swung his legs around then finished by pointing at his opponents. Alex came back with some sort of slow motion disco dance which stuck curiosity within the crowd. Maju came out next and did a little dance. There was an also intermission where the break dancers showed the contestants how to dance. We didn’t improve much. Mr Wilson did a little crip walk and then tried to do a little moon walk, and finally DeAndre showed some skill and did a back flip.
The night was a lot of fun and really showed why Taft students do not go home on weekends. The weekends are booked with fun events going on around campus.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Summer is over and everyone is back at Taft. There are a lot of new kids buzzing throughout the campus. I am a monitor in HDT this year, which means I’m living with the freshman and sophomores, so I can share my vast knowledge of Taft to them. We had a five day week, so there is no school tomorrow on Saturday. A five day week consists of an extra class added on every day of the week, except for Monday, in order to have no Saturday classes. Tomorrow the seniors are taking the SATs, and the rest of the school is given a day off.
I’m playing soccer this year and I’m having a lot of fun. I have played football the last two years, but I decided to change it up and try something different. Our team is pretty good (undefeated so far) and consists of mostly juniors and a couple of sophomores.
I’m taking five classes this year: American History, Human Anatomy, Spanish III, English, Pre-Calculus and Collegium. I chose Human Anatomy as an elective for my science this year. After my sophomore year, I had a decision to either take advanced bio/chemistry for a year or take two science electives over the course of this year. I wanted to take Human Anatomy and “Spineless Wonders” because they are subjects that really interest me. If I had taken advanced chemistry and biology this year I would have been able to take AP Biology/Chemistry/Environment or Physics next year. Collegium is the honors chorus class at Taft. I tried out last spring and made the group. The group sings four times a week and goes on concert in Europe every spring break. Right now we sing for Taft events that happen about once every two weeks.
Tomorrow I have a home game at 2:30 then Varsity Soccer plays underneath the lights at 7:30 which is something the whole school looks forward to. After the night game there are break dancers who come and perform in the gym. They were here my freshman year and it is a lot of fun to watch them.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The winter season is here, but it is flying by! Unfortunately there has not been a lot of snow this year at Taft, but the few storms that we have had have led to some great snowball fights, snow men and sledding on the campus. Skaters of all levels can be found on the pond throughout the day, and everybody seems to be in the winter spirit. The hot chocolate machine is back in the cafeteria following a long absence and just at the right time, because it looks like the cold is here to stay for awhile.
The heaters are all on level 5 and there is a nice warm feeling throughout the buildings that welcomes everyone as they come in from the bitter cold. Fortunately for the guys, our dorms are connected to main building, where most of our classes are. Girls’ dorms, on the other hand, are off on the other side of the pond and they have to fight through the early cold to get to class and breakfast. There are some days when I only have one class that requires me to go outside and travel across the pond to the Wu building.
The winter season is my favorite mostly because of the cold weather, snow (I was raised in New England) and because of hockey. I started the season off with some bad luck getting mono right before tryouts, but fortunately I got better in three weeks and was back on the ice. I’m now playing both Varsity and Junior Varsity at school and I am a little depressed that we only have six games left.
These last couple weeks have been awesome because we have had a few free Mondays and Saturdays due to Long Weekend and the Winter Formal. I think there was a span of three weeks when we did not have school on a Monday! When you take away a Monday, it makes the rest of a Taft week a lot more manageable. Last weekend we had our winter long weekend. All students finished classes on Thursday and many went away for four days. We all came back on the following Monday to get ready for school on Tuesday. I went home for the weekend because I needed to get certain shots in order to go to the Dominican Republic with the school later in the spring. It was great to be home and visit with my family.
The Winter Formal is next weekend and everybody is very excited. Until then!
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Hey everyone,
This Saturday nobody at Taft had classes. Instead we all drove to our rival school with the objective to beat them in every sport. Hotchkiss day is when every Taft team plays a Hotchkiss team. The sporting events take place at Hotchkiss and Taft alternating every year.
I awoke to the yelling of some friends in my room who were wearing all red. I quickly got dressed and put on mostly red to support Taft. We then ran downstairs to eat a quick breakfast. After we ate and went outside we were painted red and given a mini cone for the purpose of yelling louder. The buses arrived and the fun day of Taft vs. Hotchkiss sports began.
This year all the games took place at Hotchkiss, so it should seem logical that Hotchkiss would have more fans that are louder and demonstrate more support. WRONG! As usually, we showed more support and screamed louder then the home team. We brought four full buses over and matched, if not surpassed, the number of Hotchkiss fans. Arriving at Hotchkiss a flood of red stormed out of our fan buses and ran to the first game against our rivals. The flood of red fans stayed together the whole day and yelled louder then any blue bearcats on site.
Our biggest win of the day in my opinion was the volleyball game where Taft put on a clinic for Hotchkiss about how to be better at everything. After wandering around outside, then watching some of the sports outside, all the Taft fans stormed into the gym to watch a couple of games of volleyball. We occupied both bleachers with a sea of red loud enough to have me lose my hearing for a day. The Bearcats were ranked first and Taft was fifth in New England to start the day. If Hotchkiss won it would be a big deal for them, if Taft won it would mean everything; therefore all of our fans were there. A wide array of chants lead by seniors gave the upper edge to Taft. Some Hotchkiss fans were at the balcony above us trying to yell, but fell short due to lack of numbers. After blowing out Hotchkiss in the first two games and embarrassing them vocally, Hotchkiss finally won a game making the series 2-1 in favor of Taft. Then the majority of the Bearcat fans showed up to demonstrate that they didn’t want to hide in their rooms anymore. Hotchkiss won the next game, tying up the series despite louder cheers from the Taft fans. All games were over now except for football which meant more fans from both schools arrived. The entire series came down to one final game to 15 points. Now the gym is packed with the entire student body of both schools. With one difference, we are still louder. The game came down to the last point with Taft on top. A missed Hotchkiss serve cemented a Taft victory in front of our rivals. The majority of the Taft student body ran onto the court to congratulate the team on the huge win.
Hotchkiss might have won football and soccer today, but not in one sports game did they out yell us. I genuinely believe that kids at Taft have more passion than most other prep schools in the area, just one thing that sets us apart.
Elliot's Bio
Read My Journal
I’m Elliott, from Mclean, Virginia, a suburb of Washington D.C. I’m a mid (sophomore) here at Taft. After applying to multiple schools, I knew Taft was the school for me because of the friendly and relaxed attitude that I saw on campus. I could not be happier with my decision to attend Taft.
This year and last year I have lived in HDT (Horace Dutton Taft Hall), a dorm for freshmen and sophomore boys. HDT is awesome because it is in the same building as most of the classes. On a rainy or snowy day, getting around is really easy. There are three floors on HDT, each with about 45 boys. In HDT there are also three faculty apartments per floor. All the teachers on my floor are awesome people. I can talk to them about anything happening in my life.
One of my favorite things at Taft is sports. Before coming to Taft I really only played hockey. When I arrive here, I learned that I could play three different sports while still focusing on hockey. I ended up playing J.V football and thirds lacrosse, and I had such a great time. I'm playing both again this year.
Besides playing sports at Taft I enjoy the arts. At Taft, students are required to take three arts; one visual, one performance, and one musical. My first year, I decided to try something new and take ceramics. The course turned out to be a lot of fun. We made mugs and pots and learned how to use the pottery wheel which was an interesting and muddy experience. This year I wanted to try something new again, so I chose Acting. Acting has been one of the funniest classes I have ever taken! Every day we begin by playing a series of improv games. This was hard for me because I’ve never acted before, but most students in the class were in the same boat. Taft encourages students to try things they have never done before, another aspect of the school that I love.
For me, the thing that sets Taft apart from other boarding schools is the special bond between all the kids and teachers in the school. I find myself hanging out with kids who are a lot different than me and some that are really similar, but all kids at Taft are awesome and unique.
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