VIEW FULL SPREAD

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Hello.

It is May. The end of the school year is rapidly approaching, and the majority of the student body has returned to school. With an abundance of students in the hallways and classrooms, LSE is slowly returning to its former disposition – brimming with liveliness and full of chatter. 

Of course, we have all the right to be elevated. We survived a turbulent school year and challenged ourselves to adapt to online learning. However, despite going through similar hardships, it seems as though the pandemic has made us strangers. With new faces in the building as students transition to in-person school, it feels as though we are meeting each other for the first time. Now, it is important to realize that the people we brush past in the hallway have stories as vivid and complex as our own. Our student body consists of dedicated musicians, aspiring entrepreneurs, skillful athletes, and passionate individuals. The staff also have their own lives outside of the classroom, partaking in unique hobbies and engaging with multiple communities outside of LSE. 

Before we end the school year, the Clarion staff and I want to share with you the narratives of those around us. In this issue, you will find feature stories on teachers like Mrs. Rice and Mr. Sanchez, who possess remarkable experiences prior to teaching at LSE, and pieces investigating the normalities of our generation, such as high school cliques and digital disconnection. Through this, it is our goal to emphasize that every individual at LSE is unique in their own way. At the end of the day, the distinct characteristics of our students and staff constitute the spirit of the school that we love. The crowd may be unfamiliar, but the individuals are dynamic and genuine. 

Dear reader, we’re delighted and ever so grateful that you’re reading our stories, but we’re aware that you have your own as well. Don’t hesitate to share them. Your opinion and voice matters, since, after all, you are not just a face in the crowd. 

– Jen Quach, Editor-in-Chief

ABOUT THE COVER ILLUSTRATION

As you enter the crowded hallway after the bell rings, you pass by different people, including students and teachers. Many of the students and staff passing by you seem like ordinary people that you don’t know much about, but they all carry with them entire stories and interesting lived experiences that you may never get to know.

For this issue, we wanted to explore those stories and shed light on those experiences. Rather than seeing people as ordinary and believing that they blend in with everyone else, we explore what makes them unique, replacing the black and white filter we often assign to strangers. After learning their story and acknowledging that they truly shine in a group of people, they are no longer another face in the crowd. 

The Design Team wanted to create a representation of not blending in, but representing one’s own individuality. 

For our cover, we decided on a plain setting of a solid background where people made of a monochrome color scheme walk unbothered. The monochrome purple palette shows how a person’s colors aren’t shown until they stop and express their own individuality. As for the x’s marked on their faces, people are unknown and hidden in the crowd, submerged in the comfortable feeling of remaining anonymous. The person standing in the middle of the cover in between the walking crowd represents how colorful and unique a person truly is once they are discovered in a group. 

Each individual is colorful and filled with stories, they are not just another ordinary person. Next time you walk in a crowded hallway, acknowledge that the people walking by you carry their own individual stories that make them who they are. Appreciate their existence rather than leaving with the thought, “they are just another face in the crowd.”

The Design Team – Fatima A, Erin G, and Zainib A