Countryside Trees NEWSLETTER OF THE COUNTRYSIDE SCHOOL ALUMNI Spring 2009 Letter from the Head Water Park) and graduation! We invite and Dear Friends, encourage anybody who is able to come to Greetings from all Graduation which will be held on Tuesday, of us at Country- May 26 at 7:00. The following people will be joining your ranks as alumni: side! I hope you Honors and Awards have had a year Nora Buss St. Thomas More ODYSSEY OF THE MIND Cathie Webber full of joy and Madelyn Gunn Central TEAMS TAKE 1ST AND 4TH learning, good Sonya Kumpuckal Danville AT STATE friendships and good fun! Angelita Repetto St. Thomas More MATH COUNTS TAKES 2ND This past year we welcomed a new LWW Sidra Salman St. Thomas More Wei-Wei Su St. Thomas More AT REGIONALS AND 20TH teacher, Mr. Nate Meyer, and a new 2nd AT STATE grade primary contact teacher, Mrs. Mau- Jenny Tian Centennial reen Beyt. Sadly, Mr. Matt Brown, Latin Ryan Uppal Centennial CHESS TEAM BRINGS HOME teacher, is leaving at the end of this year, to Joshua Zharnitsky Centennial TROPHIES AT STATE AND finish his third year of law school. Other- Arielle Zimmerman Centennial REGIONALS wise, faculty and staff remain the same as Congratulations to these students who will be 6TH GRADER RECEIVES last year. All would be eager to be visited matriculating as subfreshmen at University BRONZE IN NATIONAL by our outstanding alumni/ae! These visits Laboratory High School next year: FRENCH CONTEST mean so much to us! Aileen Chu Peter Ivanov Please visit our new website Gloria Ha Chas Newman (www.countrysideschool.org) to get all kinds Valerie Makri Arch Robison of information about the school now and in the past. We are very grateful to Kristin Please look out for any who are attending Inside this issue: Feddersen, our Communications Director, for your school. It always helps to see a familiar her hard work on this project. (and friendly!) face in the halls when you’re starting out. ODYSSEY OF THE MIND 2 Sports flash!!! This coming year Countryside WORLD FINALS 2008 School will be joining an athletic conference, We’d like to put together a photo gallery of our alumni and invite (actually we BEG) you GREETINGS FROM IMSA 2 Little East Central Illinois Conference, LECIC. BEN TAYLOR This is a new conference that has been to send us a picture of you, perhaps in a shirt from your college or university, in front of formed by and for smaller schools very simi- GREAT SCHOOL NEWS 4 lar to ours. We will compete in volleyball, some iconic campus building or location. boys' and girls' basketball, and possibly Email them to me at: ALUMNI VISIT PHOTOS 5 track and field within the conference. Soccer [email protected] is not a conference sport, but we will still We think of you fondly and often – please have it. Athletic Director Josh Clark is very come see us! In the meantime, have a great ALUMNI REUNION PHOTOS 6 excited about the opportunities league mem- summer! bership will bring. Go Comets! Fondly, FORMER FACULTY UPDATES 7 ALUMNI UPDATES May means 8th grade musical (THE BIG BAD Cathie Webber MUSICAL), the 8th grade trip (Chicago for COLLEGE BOUND 8 Medieval Times and the Mayan Adventure Countryside Trees Odyssey of the Mind (2008) Takes 2nd at World Countryside School placed 2nd at the 29th other countries including Singapore, South annual Odyssey of the Mind World Finals on Korea, Poland, Germany, Canada, and Ka- June 3, 2008 at the University of Maryland, zakhstan. THIS YEAR’S College Park. Countryside sent 13 middle “Both teams have been working very hard schoolers on two teams, each team competing ODYSSESY TEAM practicing and perfecting the solutions to their in a different problem. WILL COMPETE problems. These students have spent time af- The team competing in "The Eccentrics" prob- ter school and given up lunch recesses to work AT WORLD ON lem was Julie Strauss and Nealay Kalita of on Odyssey of the Mind,” says Lois Wilken, MAY 27 — SEE Champaign, Alex Mestre of Urbana, Brianna coach for Countryside’s Odyssey of the Mind Lillyman of Mahomet, Sonya Kumpuckal of teams. PAGE 4. Danville, and Hannah Piester of Ivesdale. Odyssey of the Mind is a creative problem- After performing well in their long-term prob- solving program which encourages students to lem and style competitions, this team took 1st use creative thinking, utilize teamwork and place in spontaneous competition, putting stay within a budget to solve problems. The them in 2nd place and winning the silver problems can be performance-based or tech- medal for their problem and division. nical. Teams are scored in 3 categories: Also competing were David Morrow, Will long-term problem, style, and spontaneous Theriac, Natalie Bina, Madelyn Gunn, Juliana competition. Solutions are judged on creativ- Trach and Anna Kanfer of Champaign and ity and risk-taking. Chas Newman of Savoy. These students com- peted in the classics problem, "The Wonderful Muses." Odyssey of the Mind invited Countryside's teams to compete because they finished in 1st and 2nd places in their respective problems at state competition held in Belleville, Illinois on April 12th. This is the 3rd consecutive year that Countryside School has sent teams to the Odyssey World Finals. Countryside’s two teams competed against 70 and 56 other middle school teams respec- tively from around the United States and Greetings from IMSA: Ben Taylor A line in the admissions booklet pretty much pus, including the days with about 3 feet of sums up the kind of people you find at a snow on the ground, and semi-frozen rain place like this: “There are seven residence coming down. People usually participate in halls, addresses 1501, 1502….1507 shorts and a t-shirt, weather independent, as (colloquially known as “01, 02, 03…07”).” per crazy-teenage norm. When same said Creative bunch, aren’t we? crazy teenagers are not busy throwing pieces of ellipsoidal plastic at each other, they can Despite that somewhat bland initial impres- usually be found in one of the various halls sion, IMSA really is quite an amazing place. working on a paper or just hanging out. Af- At any given time, August through December ter all, how many other schools can make the (if not even later in the year) and again after claim to a Blu-ray player and HDTV in every the weather gets nicer, there will be a game residence hall? of Ultimate Frisbee going somewhere on cam- Page 2 Spring 2009 Greetings from IMSA: Ben Taylor (continued) During the school day, things are a little more wonder why you got yourself into this. On calm, but no less entertaining. Classes run far the other hand, on those occasions where you longer than an average high school on a class are really that overloaded, the teachers are per class basis. To balance that out, you only quite understanding. If you have a valid rea- have 4 class days every week. 90 minutes of son to be behind, or if you just need help, chemistry a day, 2 days a week, anyone? most offices here have an open door policy. TO FIND OUT Yes, that’s right, 2 days. You will, in your Stuck on a math problem? Ask an upperclass- sophomore year, take 3 years worth of high man. Still stuck? Walk over to the math of- MORE ABOUT school science, as well as a class detailing how fice, pick a cubicle, and ask for help. The IMSA, VISIT: to write good scientific literature. They don’t teachers are all incredibly friendly. You call it a mathematics and science academy for probably won’t get a straight answer, but if WWW.IMSA.EDU nothing. you use what you’re given, you can do well here. On the note of mathematics, there is much emphasis on that as well. Almost any field of Beyond that, the days where you’re lucky math you can think of is offered, usually with enough not to have too much work are the clearly stated prerequisites so you can easily time of your life. Living on campus also schedule in the classes you want over your means you’re next door to 650 of your new three years here. best friends. Chances are there’s someone else who got off with little work as well, and Many of you are probably still getting over is just dying for someone to go play around the words “residence hall” and “high school” with, be it videogames, Frisbee, or just a in the same paragraph. Yes, IMSA is a game of cards. Oh, and of course, there’s boarding school. If you know that’s not for also always that Blu-ray player I mentioned you, then there are probably other places you before. would like better. But if you don’t mind the thought of living away from home too much, If you’re really, really interested, check out picture this: Your sophomore year, you will be https://www3.imsa.edu/about/visiting. placed in a room with someone you’ve likely There’s a virtual tour. For those who want to never met before. For the duration of the apply, there’s also information about visita- next 9 months, you will be living in an area tion days or how to set up a day to shadow about the size of a breakout room with that someone. --Ben Taylor person. If you’re still thinking this might be ok, IMSA is probably a good place for you.