Behind the Class of 2018
Colette Shaw: Volunteer at John Muir’s house
Q: How did you become involved with the National Park Service?
A: I took a class at DVC in my freshman year because I was having a rough time at the start of high school, and I met a park ranger from John Muir National Historic site, who insisted that I volunteer. I love the work, leading tours of John Muir’s house I get to meet people from all over the world who want to learn something new. Not one of my coworkers dislikes their job, and I’m always given interesting projects, like ‘get the stray cat off the historical furniture’ or ‘cross out a misprint in thousands of flyers.’ Whatever it is, it’s always an experience to be remembered. I like to think that I help people become more informed about history and the environment. I’ve delivered impromptu lectures in Trader Joe’s and even at stoplights, because people ask about my uniform and want to know about what I do.
Q: What are your future plans?
I plan on continuing a career with the National Park Service, or at least in education. It’s very fulfilling, speaking on a topic I know a great deal about. The National parks have grounded America by reminding the nation of what its greatest treasures are. There’s a reason that National Parks have been called “America’s Best Idea,” they help people realize stewardship, and remind the public of the importance of having something that is culturally sacred, a concept often lost in American media.
Q: What are you proud of?
My greatest joys along with theatre, have been with nature. I spent some time studying over the summer at the Sea Education Association in Massachusetts, and I’m proud of everything I learned there. I’m also honored to have earned my Gold Level Presidential Volunteer Award, for over five hundred volunteer hours with the National Park Service.
Andrew Milne: Singer, Musician, and Songwriter
Q: When did you first get involved with music?
A: When I was about four years old I lived in an apartment with my dad and the people who lived above us had a daughter and they bought her a whole bunch of instruments but she wasn’t really interested in it so first I got her cheap target made guitar right and I started messing around with it.
Q: Do you want to pursue music in the future?
A: If I want to succeed in anything in life, it’s gonna be music there isn’t anything else that i have as much passion for that i have a talent for and music just clicks with me and i feel like being a musician really fits my personality too.
Mark Taylor: Artist
Q: What does art mean to you?
A: For me, art is all about making something that’s totally honest and true to yourself, and that’s something I think everyone should be able to do without being judged for being who they really are and expressing what’s on their mind. I got really into art probably around the beginning of sophomore year, when there was a lot going on in my life and I had to find a way to get things off my mind. Making art let me do that and was fun for me at the same time.
Q: Why is art important?
A: Art is one of the things that is totally unique to everyone, and everyone can find their own meaning and develop their own thoughts and opinions about it. The fact that art can be taken so many ways by so many different people makes it one of the things that brings us together. Everyone can disagree about what a piece of art means, but what they all have in common is that they’re thinking about it and applying it to their own life.
Molly Stuart: Filmmaker
Q: Where did your interest in film-making come from?
A: I’ve always been an incredibly introspective person, constantly in observation of my environment. I feel everything so deeply; I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. Somewhere along the line, I think I realized that my level of sensitivity was not a very common experience amongst people. I was 14 at the time, and I needed to find a way to rightfully project my perception of the world, rather than bottle it up. Movies are always playing at my house. The majority of my current favorite films were introduced to me at a young age by my father. Growing up, I was always embarrassed to admit that my favorite thing to do in my spare time was bundle up and watch a movie because that would make me sound lazy! In the eighth grade I had already began piecing together little short films of my family vacations and what not, but grew increasingly eager to create more and more with inspiration from my favorite filmmakers and bloggers. One day I had the most powerful epiphany: movies are, and always have been my true love- the thing that makes me the happiest version of myself. So that day I decided that I would make movies. And here I am!
Q: What contributions have you made to Las Lomas?
A: At Las Lomas, I was honored to have been able to make the highlight video for the homecoming rally two years in a row. Understandably, high school is a difficult place to return to every day. It’s a burden. However, being able to ease feelings of stress and make my fellow peers feel even the slightest bit delighted to be at school was beyond rewarding. All of these projects I’ve poured my heart into over the years led to my acceptance at my dream school in New York.
Laila Amro, Carina Haghighi, Ava McCandless, and Sienna Terry: Diversity Leaders
Q: What do you partake in? Why?
A: I chose to partake in diversity work after I noticed racist experiences going on at school… and I’m a big believer that if you don’t like something to do everything in your power to change it. So Tanvi Saran, Carina Haghighi, and I decided to meet once a week in room 403 and continue to discuss what we can do to help make school a safer place for everybody. -Laila Amro
Q: Describe the issue you all faced.
A: Before my voice was heard by administrators on the district level, there really was very little initiative by the district to acknowledge the racial experiences of people of color on AUHSD campuses. -Sienna Terry
Q: How have your actions affected LL?
A: Through GSA, I am able to create a safe and supporting space for students who might feel alienated due to their identity. High school is, unfortunately, an environment where students who don’t “fit in” are often reminded of what makes them different - especially in a town like Walnut Creek. Where I am not directly affected, I can be an ally to other marginalized groups. By being an ambassador for CARE week and collaborating with Tanvi, Laila, Carina, Sienna, and the other GSA leaders on the curriculum, we have been able to educate our peers on the discrimination seen everyday on both local and national levels.
Q: What makes your work important?
A: Diversity is not going anywhere, so it is incredibly important to me that we make LL an accepting school with no tolerance for discrimination of any kind.
Hannah Portner: Communiteens Leader
Q: What got you into community service?
A: It was in fourth grade and my mom was talking to me about Prop 8, and my mom was like this doesn’t matter to anyone and the right thing to do is to say no, why can’t we just all accept each other and I thought mom you’re so cool! So I think that’s when I realized social issues and then I’ve always been involved in charity work various projects, so when I was really little, in about second grade I started a business called Scarves, which was supporting cancer awareness research foundations and we knit and sold these scarves for cancer research. And right now as a mirror as to when I was little, I make hats and I’m selling them and donating the money to Planned Parenthood. It’s something that I really love to do. I think it’s my responsibility to give back.
Q: What’s new with Communiteens?
A: We’ve done a lot of really cool things and made people aware of a lot of things. Like right now we are doing a documentary series where we show a different documentary every month, we just finished one about plastic pollution in the ocean and right now we are doing one about clothing and so we had a clothing swap, hopefully just educating people and creating a space to talk about things that wouldn’t regularly be talked about.
Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: I’m going into environmental studies, so hopefully creating policies or changes that help various countries, and to stay really aware of their environmental impact.... There are so many things in my life where I feel like it would not be complete without the social consciousness awareness of the world as a whole.
Sara Marsey: Stagecraft Crew-Head
Q: What do you partake in?
A: I work in stagecraft and crate light designs mostly because of how creative the technical theater world is; it’s like being able to paint anything on a blank canvas. I got involved by taking stagecraft freshman year, I was originally on set crew but I moved to lighting at the end of the year because of how fascinating it was to me. Then, during junior year, I began to stage manage and run plays at Las Lomas.
Q: What do you find important about your work?
A: I like to believe that my lighting work affects the school and my life greatly; I teach newer lighting technicians and train them so if they want, they can pursue the same job I have. For my life, it impacts a lot of my free time. Most people outside of theater don’t realize how many hours go into every show. For A Piece of My Heart, I spent two full days recording 250 light cues, which totaled to around 105 hours of after school work, and the same goes for stage managing too. In the theater world, there are always technicians innovating new technology; electricians making new tools that we can use to better our lighting work.
Eduardo Geurrero & Timmy Grabow: Musicians
Devin Payne: Basketball Player
Q: What do you partake in?
A: I play basketball. I’ve been playing it my whole life; The team this year is special.
Q: How do you think your actions have affected the school?
A: It’s not me that’s affected the school, it’s the team.
Q: What is important to you about playing basketball?
A: What is important to me about basketball is winning and making memories with the team.
Q: What are you most proud of in your high school career?
A: Winning League MVP for the 2016-2017 season.
Nessa Ordukhani: Club President and Athlete
Q: What do you partake in?
A: Julia Tarter and I are the presidents of French club which is just participating in activities like going to French restaurants and watching French movies and doing French stuff which is fun. Julia and I have both been members of the French club since Freshman year and so the departing presidents asked us to take their place. I was also a student diversity ambassador, so I would go to Freshman classes to teach about diversity, and I’m also on the soccer and tennis team. I was a captain on the tennis team, which has helped my leadership skills… I think I was able to help organize practices a little more.
Q: Explain your diversity work.
A: That’s really fun, hopefully that has a good influence on Freshmen because they learn about how to be more accepting. Everybody really just deserves a safe environment, and they should come to school and feel safe. I feel like I have an obligation to teach other kids about it so they know how to act appropriately.
Q: What are your future plans?
A: I might do soccer and tennis intramurally for fun in college, but I’m definitely considering joining environmental groups and like a hiking and traveling group.
Jessie Plascencia: Artists
Q: Do you consider your art a hobby?
A: I have never really thought of as a hobby. It has been more of an addiction. Ever since I was a kid, I would get sudden urges to sketch and create characters. That’s how I would spend my “play time” growing up. It wasn’t until my parents and teachers would tell me that I had a gift that I began to take it seriously.
Q: What do your love about art?
A: I think that creating art is a beautiful way for me to share a piece of myself with the world. People always love to see things that are unique visually or communicate something that cannot be said with words.
Q: Do you plan on doing art in the future?
A: I definitely intend to continue creating art till my hands fall off. I want so desperately to work for an animation studio or maybe even make my own! The future will definitely have some more goldfish-in-space art, I’ll tell you that right now....Now, I can say I’m a bit more comfortable as I’ve realized this: you can’t expect your art to be seen if you do not take risks and put yourself out there. My mom always taught me that and I’ll never forget it.
Serene Hammami: Musician and Actress
Q: Where did your love for music come from?
A: I have always had a passion for music and theatre. I started teaching myself how to play piano on my little keyboard when I was 5, and I’d put on plays in my living room. It was when I saw a Broadway musical for the first time that made me really solidify what I wanted to do with my life: musical theater.
Q: How important are the arts to you?
A: I think a lot of people in the world don’t quite realize how important The Arts are- they’re a huge part of everyone’s lives. As cliché as it sounds, everyone has a story that they either need to tell or need to see being told in some way, and whether it be through music and/or theatre, I want to be a part of that.
Q: Do you have any plans for the future?
A: I want to go to college for musical theatre and pursue a career in musical theatre. Performing at Carnegie Hall or playing Golde in Fiddler on the Roof.
