Loretto Academy - Laurel Yearbook (Kansas City, MO)

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ENGLISH IN 39 EASY LESSONS —watch a weekly television show. Absorbed dialect-diggers are Hermana Temengil, Tomasa Polacios (standing), Connie Alegria, Maria Theresa Garcia. JOHNNY MATTHIS OR ECHOES OF SPAIN ? The girls got a new record player for Christmas; but these decisions between home things and new things only make a girl feel cosmopolitan. Enjoying their dilemma are Maria Lekeok, Elba Villacencio, Elizabeth Rudimch, and Juana Ngiramechelbang. 3 he “junior-year-abroad plan has become very popu- lar in American colleges in the past few years, because it gives students a chance to sample cultures other than their own. But Loretto’s juniors-—and her seniors, sophomores, and freshmen as well-—don't have to travel. As to the Okinawans in Teahouse of the August Moon, other cul- tures come to Loretto-ites. We have fourteen foreign students enrolled at Loretto this year, from Spain, Vene- zuela, Mexico, and four of the Caroline Islands as well as the Marshall Islands. But even this opportunity is one that can be missed, if schedules are so crowded that there is never time for talk. So the luurelette has tried to find out from them for our readers the differences between and similarities of their countries and ours. During a series of luncheon conferences, we talked about education and holidays over peanut-butter and Spanish cookies. But it was at the post- Christmas pre-school discussion that we really traveled. All of the girls were happy to talk about home, whether it was Spain, Venezuela, Mexico, or the Caro- line or Marshall Islands. We talked with many of the students, including Tomasa Polacios, Elizabeth Rudimch, Zurine Anzola, Maria Pilar, Lucia Elias, Juana Ngira- mechelbang, Maria Lekeok, Elba Villabencio, Hermana Temengil, Manuelita Rodriguez, Teresita Nakamura, Maria Kabua, Philomena Keizo. .9i there is any one thing that all students share, for better or for worse, it is education, so we started there. In Venezuela and in Mexico, children start school 20 the laurelette

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lanrelette Vol. 30, No. 2 February, 1963 Contents a We are one in One ...............18 . . . Lynda Harrell Enjoy being a girl? ..............19 . . . Mary Ellen Fischer Getting to know .................20 . . . Mar Ellen Fischer Too Good to Keep ................2 s . . . Pinki Bedlington Perspective Peeks................24 . . . Carol Stipetich, editor Within a locker...................26 . . . Patricia Graham Newwords..........................28 . . . Mary Anne Dewey, editor Sports ..........................29 . . . Maureen Hannan News..............................32 . . . Carolyn Schneider, editor Editor: Mary Ellen Fischer Managing Editor: Anne-Marie Hudson Assistant Editor: Mary Kelly Artist: Poni Miller Business Manager: Rhonda Ray Staff: Lynda Harrell, Charlotte Pinter, Roberta Raynor, Therese Sheffield Circulation Manager: Delores DeSoto Focui Editor: Carol Stipetich literary Editor: Mary Anne Dewey Make-up Editor: Mary Ann Marlow Staff: Margarette Orant, Susan Tackett News Editor: Carolyn Schneider Photography Editor: Stephanie Peake Staff; Sarah Jo Copowycz, Lee Hudson, Peggy Wolski, Pat Sheehy Sports Editor: Maureen Hannan Writers: Pinki Bedlington, Betty Egelhoff, Pat Graham, Barbara Junior, Kirstine Schaeffer Moderator: Sister Judith Mary, S.l. The laurelette is published four times a year by the loretto Press Club. Address all correspondence to the laurelette, Loretto Academy, 1101 West 39th Street, Kansas City 11, Missouri. Subscrip- tions are $1.50 per year. AJhat is the relationship between femininity and womanliness? Does the glamor- ous seventeen-fiend have anything in common with a shirt-tailed volleyball player? To really compare femininity to womanliness, let's begin at the beginning. Little girls are said to be “feminine when they play with dolls instead of six- guns. And as they grow up, they're expected to prefer “feminine things, like fixing flowers, to “masculine things, like racing sports cars. But the charmer who sings, “I enjoy being a girl! is not always a woman. f her well-sprayed bouffant and careful interest in the football team are only a veneer to hide the void, or are there only because no one would notice her if they weren't, then she is not a woman, bier femininity is meaningless because it is shallow. To demonstrate the other extreme, w.e cast a painful glance at the sloppy-go- lucky teen who thinks the most “natural way is the best. Like J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, she shudders at the world's “phonies, the hypocrites. And the only way, it seems, to beat the phonies, is to be their opposite. It is at this point that a girl's—a woman's—perspective must show her how and why being feminine fits with being womanly. She must realize that a real woman watches her looks because she knows other people have to. A woman considers the feelings of those with whom she lives and works. A woman adapts herself to society because she is concerned with people. (Not “humanity, Linus, but people as individuals.) And each person has a special claim on her because she needs to give. Women are for giving, whether the gift is a smile or life itself. his giving is grounded in loving. Father Graham talked to us about loving at the advent Mass. He said then that, “You should love your parents; the best way to do this is thoughtfulness. You should love your teachers. We need your love because we are trying to teach you to love. And most of all, you should love each other. This is perhaps the easiest yet hardest love. To give the “hardest love, the deepest, and the fullest, a woman must be rooted in Him Who is Love. When she is strong in Him, femininity is the natural outgrowth, the child of her womanhood. This issue searches the phases of our growing into womanhood. The foreign students show that things change from country to country, but women share themselves everywhere. And our view of skeletons and spiders behind locker doors seems rather in that awkward, in- between stage. Our cover: We are to he Christ' i e women loving in an ecumenical spirit.” Last issue touched on ecumenism in Loretto's life, this issue glances at wotnanliness. Our cover shows us our model: “She has both a mother's joy and a virgin's honor.” February 1963 19

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when they are five years old, as we do here. They have two years of school before grade school, and then five years of high school, and perhaps the university after that. Students have class six days a week, from 7:00 a m. to 12:00 noon. High school is rather different, too. For the first three years, everyone takes the same subjects; then each student elects to follow either the science or the humanities course. (These correspond roughly to the same area of study as our science and liberal arts courses in college.) The subjects are almost the same as ours, with the exception of a course in baby care. There arc public as well as parochial schools in Venezuela, but Mexico has no free schools. The big extracurricular activity in both places is Catholic Action and mission work Venezuela, as we understood it (across the language barrier), has both student press and drama clubs. In the Carolines, there is not always a high school on the island. And the girls’ problem is worse than the boys. On Truk, for example, there is a good Jesuit (who else?) school for boys. The girls may go to St. Cecilia's to learn sewing, weaving, and music. There is also a co-ed public elementary school, staffed by Americans. But for a good academic education, a girl must leave the islands. There is no compulsory education in Spain. Most of the children who can afford school study in private schools or at home for four years. Then seven years of high school begin at the age of ten. The extracurricular here, as in the Islands, is missions. S chool is the working part of a student's life; but there is always time for fun. Movies are a universal source of entertainment. Mexico and Venezuela have American movies, with Spanish subtitles, as well as Span- ish-language films. In Spain, most of the movies are Italian or French, because Spanish companies are few and inex- perienced. The Islands have a unique situation in this regard, because there are no movies in dialects that vary from island to island. The people watch American movies, without subtitles; and sometimes families will spend the day at the movie, breaking for lunch and returning after- ward, just to look at the pictures. Some of the teenagers understand English, but most people don’t. Television is in evidence everywhere except in the Islands. There are American as well as native programs, and they have as many commercials as we do! The main difference is that television there doesn’t usually run straight through the day. There is some in the morning; then it stops until about 6:00 p.m. and runs until 1:00 a.m. In Spain, most of the programs are European. -•bating in most of these countries is not as liberal as it is in the United States. Spain's system is probably closest to ours, and Mexico has the strictest. Most dating is confined to mixed parties at first; single dates are allowed at nineteen. In Mexico, there is no unchaperoned dating unless the couple are “steadies” or the couple is engaged. But Elizabeth says that “Many of the boys and girls go to school here (in U.S.), and when they come back, they date as you do here.” When the gang gathers in the Islands, it’s usually to sing. Dancing is popular everywhere, and dance crazes hit Spain and Latin America the way they hit us. But the twist loses to the tango in Spain, and Latin American rhythms are more popular in Venezuela and Mexico than American jazz. Popular sports include swimming, (especially in the Islands), tennis, basketball, volleyball, skating, baseball, soccer, golf (very popular in Venezuela), horseback riding (Mexico), hollas criollas (a native Venezuelan game), and j'ai alai (a sort of cross between handball and tennis). Many of these are summer sports; most of them are very active. And they are mobile in another sense, too: most people go down to the beach, up to the moun- tains, or at least to another city. PENCIL IN HAND, Mary Ellen Fischer jots down the facts £ as she jaunts through Mexico and the Islands with Juana Ngiramechelbang, Elba Villacencio, and Elizabeth Rudimch . C- hristmas in these other countries is different from ours, too. The Islanders haven't had Christmas as long as everyone else, so they celebrate it without any particular customs of their own. Their carols are Spanish (from the missionaries); and their Christmas tree looks like a pine, but isn’t, exactly. (And no one could remem- ber the English name.) Elizabeth and Terry say there is more Christmas spirit here, where everybody decorates his home, and it all starts a month in advance. In my place,” Elizabeth says, “maybe a few people decorate the week before Christmas, but the day aftef there’s nothing left. It's all gone.” Terry (also from the Carolines) says that At school, we had a party Christmas Eve, then everybody rested; at 11:30 we sang carols until Mass started. We had breakfast after Mass and went to bed. On the 26th, we sang at the hospital.” A Spanish Christmas is not very different from an American one, except that there is more Creche and less tree. February 1963 21