Jefferson High School - Jeffersonian Yearbook (Alexandria, VA)

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The Wave of the Future. Opening .......2 Student Life: ---- -10 Aciuviues....... .24 Acacemics..... . .38 Bpors.. ..... . Ov 6560 Braddock Road a. 70 | Alexandria, Va. 22132 one 180 Index Ads...... .134 Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and : Technology

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Anticipating . From the shore, it is nearly impossible to anticipate what the splash or strength of the wave will be in the short interval between its rising out of the sea and its journey to the sand or rocks. We cannot tell exactly what it will become. At the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, we cannot tell exactly what the school will become because in its second year its just begin- ning to rise and just beginning to grow in its power. Its course is largely deter- mined not only by the outside forces of the local school districts from which the students come, or by the administration or staff of the school, but also by the students themselves as they help the school to grow and shape its form. It is virtually impossible to predict what individual students will become when they reach the shores of adulthood, but as they grow into their full height and gather the power that comes with knowledge, they become the wave of the future. The best part of the wave is the an- ticipation of waiting to see what it will become of being awed at its strength of its crests and curls and determines its own direction. That too, is the best part of high school. Some very powerful moments become the waves of the future that determine each students direction. Waves renew themselves; and after they reach the shore, they gather their components together and reshape themselves again and again. Dawn comes to the seaside. First the sky lightens to gray, then from the gray a pink streak spreads itself across the sky, then a red burning ball of sun ap- pears. From the flat water below, a .. Becoming wave rises seemingly from nowhere pulled upward by an invisible moon. The wave begins as a ripple traveling haphazardly across the water, growing as it travels. A school, a student, a moment can become the wave. Students traveling in noisy groups through the hallways are a celebration of the lives that they will create for themselves in still undeter- mined directions become the wave of the future. A student who, rising out of childhood, grows while traveling through the waters of high school becomes the wave of the future. A mo- ment seized when something becomes important and the swimmer who runs out to greet the wave of an idea and rides the crest onto a safe shore becomes the wave of the future. When evening comes at the seaside, it is just that. A time of making things even — the sky once bright blue in the sun, becomes chalky gray, the horizon fades, and the offers soft blue — gray waves to the shore. It is a moment of calm where we cannot see the power of the waves that will reveal themselves at dawn. For each of us, too, there is that moment of invisible growth when we seek an eveness in our lives — a space for growing. Then, when the morning comes again, spectators and onlookers touch their toes to the sand, make umbrellas spring up like a garden of multi — col- ored flowers — and a cheering section of children stand, toes and ankles wet with foam to become a part of the wave of the future while others with sure strokes swim out to ride the crest. SaaS TE aR SU TI ST