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By Audrey Lutz

Ms. Switzer and her History of Nonviolence class made an outstanding art installation depicting a visual timeline of nonviolent movements in American history. The project is the culmination of many years of preparation, research, and development. 

After involving Ms. Story, an upper school art teacher, they decided to make a timeline following events through history. We were standing in front of the artwork when we spoke and she said,  “If I were to go back 20 years when I first started teaching about non-violence I would not have known half of what is up here.”

Each student made individual tiles that show non-violent activists and researched them to gain a better understanding of who they are and how they affected history. I was able to speak with Leah Cox about her involvement with this project. “I was a student in the class, so I helped with brainstorming and making the background,” she said. “If you look at the board, on the far right, there is a collage of non-violent organizations and above it there are doves. I made both of those.” 

Ms. Switzer said that the installation is a way “of visualizing all of the interconnected complexity of non-violence in American history.” Everything is connected one way or another, and this installment shows all of the historical branches. 

As we started the interview Ms. Switzer implied that “Non-violence isn’t just about creating peace and justice, it’s creating conditions where violence is less likely.” This art is meant to show that peace is possible and that people are willing to risk their lives to stand up and say, they want a better society. 

There are 14 different non-violent movements that are represented on the board, but the art piece starts with the Indigenous people in the United States. “What my students discovered is that from a very early point, Indigenous people in the United States had non-violent peacemaking kinds of cultural technologies, and a lot of the non-violence that evolved came from seeing the way the Indigenous people resolve conflict,” said Ms. Switzer. 

The Indigenous people are the true roots of America and the first people to teach non-violence. “Many people think that the Indigenous people were just bows and arrows, but they had such a complex life,” said Ms. Switzer. 

Next, we move on to the Quakers and Anabaptists. “The historic peace churches (the Quakers and Anabaptists) came to the United States to escape persecution.” The Quakers and Anabaptists lit the fire for the anti-slavery movement. “They believed that there is a god and somehow that god is present in all people, so then anytime you’re unjust or violent to another person, you’re being unjust and violent to god. So that sort of theological premise motivated them to confront slavery first.”

Everything is connected in history and this board is illustrating that. “So we have this early women’s movement that starts, and those same women became the leaders of the suffrage movement.” Ms. Switzer then shows me how the branches connect everything together. 

As we keep moving down the boards we are introduced to the pre-civil rights which of course leads us to the all mighty civil-rights movement. They tried to include as much as they could, but the board can only hold so much. The board includes the majority of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. 

Finally, we come to the final board with the Black Lives Matter movement “as the most recent manifestation,” with its focus on anti-racism. “We have anti-racism, kind of having these moments of surging and then receding and then surging over time, but always there.” 

People have always been fighting against racism in history. “A takeaway that one of my students realized is that since the 1600s, there have been people, white people standing against racism, all the way to the current time. And since 1730-1740 every year someone has been born in America who has fought against racism.”

At the end of the final board, there are many pieces of art. “We have this collage of doves and it sort of represents the future for hope and peace,” Ms. Switzer said. There is a collage of different activists, and then finally  a mirror “because we wanted people to get to the end of the installation and say, well what can I do to make a more peaceful future?” 

Under the mirror, it says “The Future of Nonviolence is You.”

This project was a semester-long idea, yet the idea mainly came to fruition right around thanksgiving. As Ms. Switzer usually has a much bigger class she doesn’t do big projects like this one. This year she only had 9 students in her History of Nonviolence class, so Ms. Switzer asked them if they wanted to do something more creative than they normally couldn’t do with a greater number of students. “We talked to Ms. Story and we started brainstorming options. My students wanted to work together so we developed this idea, which was much more complicated than we were expecting and I didn’t know if we were going to finish.”

They started making it right after fall break and only had until exams to finish. “Towards the end of the last 2 weeks of class, this project was all we did. The students came before school, after school, and during lunch. They spent so much time on this and it’s incredible.” Leah Cox, a student who worked on this project, said that “There were times when we would have to come during our free periods, and we would work together and collaborate throughout the whole process.”

As the artwork started to finish they brought in Ms. Story again to take a look. “Once Ms. Story saw the project coming together she said that we needed to get this in front of other audiences.” Then came talk of where this outstanding project could go. They are considering the  Hartfield Jackson airport, which has a section where they display student work; the Center for Civil and Human Rights; and even the history center of Atlanta. “Right now the chief of the marketing department – Janie Beck- is working on finding out if this could be a traveling exhibition.”

Ms. Switzer is so proud of this piece and it has only made her think of what she could do in the future. “I’ve been trying for years to know how to organize this incredibly complex history and the more I taught the more I realized that it’s not just the history of non-violence but the histories of non-violence, and I’ve always struggled to make sense of it all visually. And the fact that they were able to create a way of visualizing it is amazing, not only to me but to them and future students.”

This project was huge, not only for Lovett but for the future of Ms. Switzer’s class. This artwork alone holds so many important people, dates, and moments in history that are not talked about in the history books. 

The students had to work so incredibly hard to get this project completed and it brought them closer together. “I think that this bonded my class,” she said. “We would see one another so much during the day that our close proximity to each other almost forced us to get closer.”

This artwork will be displayed in the art gallery hall until the end of February. After that, no one is truly sure where it will end up but, hopefully, wherever it goes it will inspire people. “We’re trying to create a better world,” Leah said.

By Alexis Dalton

As I was thinking about how to start this article, I looked up to see one of my classmates making her Hanukkah wish list on Google Slides. On her screen was the Eskimo Mou Boot in “Dust Iron.” (Taylor’s parents, if you’re reading this, she’s a size 38).

As Nancy Sinatra says, “These boots are made for walkin’,” but what boots? If you’re a Lovett Upper School girl, you’re probably walkin’ in either Uggs or Mou boots, and they’re probably a lot more comfortable than the boots Sinatra wears in her 1966 video.

As soon as the temperature drops below 65ºF, many students begin to wear these two types of sheepskin shoes. 

Like a lot of kids, I had the classic Ugg boots that many got you for Christmas. Before coming to Lovett, I had never heard of Mou boots, but now that I have a pair, I wear them almost every day during the colder months.

Students who have both types of boots tend to prefer their Mou boots over their Uggs. “They’re just more comfortable,” junior Maddie Boatright said. “I just feel like I always reach for them now because they’re just way more comfortable, and it’s also what everyone else is wearing.”

People also like the wide variety of styles and colors offered by Mou. They have many different designs, textures, and colors whereas Uggs have a small selection of colors with their most popular color being Chestnut. Junior Susanna Lynch prefers Mou boots because she “like[s] the lighter colors instead of brown.”

However, Uggs have recently become a huge trend. The Classic Ultra Mini and the Tazman boots went viral during the fall. 

Junior Coi Kilcrease thinks that Uggs are “easier to get” than Mou boots because they are less expensive, and their website uses US sizing as opposed to Mou’s European sizes. Also, most shoe stores sell Uggs. Leighton Maynard says that the reason she has Uggs instead of Mou boots is because she was able to try them on in person. “There isn’t a Mou store,” she explained.

Ugg slippers are also very popular. Susan Roper loves her Ugg slippers, but she tends to choose her Mou boots instead “since they are actual shoes.”

I ran into sophomores Ridley Sands and Scarlett Rouland in the hallway, and they sparred a bit about the merits of their boots (Ridley was in Uggs, Scarlett in Mous). Scarlett pointed out the stars on her Mous, suggesting that Mous had more intricate designs. Ridley pointed out the subtle red stitching on the sides of her Uggs. Ridley likes that her Uggs keep her feet warm and aren’t “squishy.” Scarlett doesn’t like the higher platform of the Uggs, and said she tends to fall a lot in them. Ridley dismissed Scarlett’s concerns, bragging a bit about her “more stable ankles.”

Fortunately, their argument didn’t seem too serious, and they were able to walk off together despite wearing two different brands of boots. 

By Gisella Brok

This past summer, four junior girls headed to Australia for Lovett’s exchange program. In November, the Aussies (aka Australians, if you didn’t know) came over to Atlanta! Their month in the northern hemisphere started off strong with junior PDC the same weekend they arrived. Luckily, the jetlag wasn’t too bad!

Speaking of experiences, Willow Maison and Zoe Fritsch had plenty to share. Zoe’s favorite was going to football games: “The atmosphere is insane.” With Amelia Minutelli, Zoe went to a Clemson v. Georgia Tech game and even the SEC Championship! She loved “sports as a whole” here, spending time at a tennis academy.

Willow found it memorable to introduce Americans to the infamous vegemite. “Everyone also goes crazy about vegemite,” Willow explained. “They think we’re disgusting for eating it, which is so not true because it’s so good,” Zoe added. Specifically, at her Friendsgiving, she and Maddie Boatright pranked four people. “We got four chocolate cupcakes and stuffed it with vegemite on the inside to look like fudge. It was so funny but I felt so bad,” she laughed.

She also laughed about all the times she pretended not to know American music stars like Beyonce to scare her friends. Willow explained how their music is very similar to ours. “We copy you a lot,” she joked.

The school life here has also been “like a movie.” “Our school is so much stricter, and the teachers here are so much more connected to their students,” Willow said. The classes are also much more interactive. “You’re always having a conversation with the teacher, while [in Australia]  it’s more just the teacher lecturing,” she explained.

Zoe also thought the school was pretty different compared to Australia. There, the school is “purely academic focused.” There’s a running joke that their school is the “academic military,” even having “army uniforms,” as Amelia would call them. She was also fascinated by the yellow school buses, excitedly telling me, “It’s straight out of a movie.”

School’s not the only different thing, though. The whole environment is different, “even the steering wheel,” Willow said. The language tones are also different, and “you guys call a rubbish bin a trash can.”

The words we use here are pretty different from theirs. Our heavy use of “y’all” reminds Willow of Topher from TikTok. While we call them sweatpants, they call them trackies. For Zoe, it was pretty shocking to be told “you’re good” instead of “no worries.”

If you’re planning on visiting Australia (or maybe doing Lovett’s exchange program), there are a couple of words you’ll need to know. “Arvo” stands for the afternoon, and “brekkie” stands for breakfast. A “biccie” is a biscuit, which is actually a cookie. You should also be ready to hear “crikey” and “oath.”

Some of these words I thought were just stereotypical, but the Aussies are pretty aware of these stereotypes. “There’s always the good old, ‘Do you ride your kangaroo to school?’ or ‘Where’s your pet kangaroo?’” Willow joked. “People think everyone lives in the outback with spiders and snakes,” Zoe explained, which isn’t true. “Well, I might be able to live up to that a little bit, since I have a farm,” she added.

Still, we’re not the only ones to have stereotypes. “The hallways and cafeteria are just so America,” Willow said. “I walked in and was like what? The school is literally straight out of movies with its cafeteria, co-ed classes, and the yellow school buses! There’s also the accent and saying “y’all,” which is definitely true.

At the end of the trip, the Aussies got an American flag signed by all their friends, decorating it with sweet messages like “I’ll miss you!”

Everyone has described their experiences as amazing, so if you’re looking for the opportunity of a lifetime, maybe the Aussie exchange is for you! Even if you don’t, you’ll probably get to meet some Aussies next year.

Just watch out for those tricky cupcakes.

By Megha Lakha

A lot of things come wrapped at this time of the year, but perhaps the most popular one comes from Spotify. Spotify Wrapped officially arrived last  Wednesday and it’s a highly anticipated feature that gives listeners an analysis of their year, musically.

Every year, Spotify Wrapped drops around December (just in time for the Holiday season), and users can click through a rundown of their year almost like it’s an Instagram story. Shelby Morris (10) says, “It’s fun to see a reminder of what I like listening to and how my music taste has developed.” Sophomore Zara Hebb says she likes how “it just totals everything up that I’ve listened to for a whole year and gives me a bunch of detail like there are many layers to it.”

Some of Zara’s top songs were The Way I Are, Flashing Lights, and Don’t Blame Me. Patrick Smyth (10) said his top artists were Laufey, Tyler the Creator, Drake, and D4VD. Senior Eloise Diffley’s top artists were “Taylor Swift, Zach, Bryan, the Lumineers, and Caamp.”  Shelby’s top artists were Taylor Swift, Zach Bryan, Harry Styles, Mac Miller, and Tyler the Creator. One thing most of these have in common (besides Patrick) is Taylor Swift, who is the center of a lot of our articles.

Shelby’s Spotify Wrapped had “a lot more Taylor Swift than [she] expected,” but she wasn’t super surprised. When I talked to Zara, she said that she wasn’t surprised by her top artist, who was also Taylor Swift. The same was true for Eloise “and if anyone knows me at all, they would not be surprised.” 

Zara says, “Literally every single high school girl’s top artist is Taylor.” 

However, sometimes Spotify Wrapped can bring unsatisfactory reactions. Shelby said her number one song was Paper Rings by Taylor Swift, which shocked her. “I don’t even like that song, like AT ALL,” Shelby said. “But somehow, it just shows up in all of the slides.” She only played the song 17 times, which isn’t too crazy. Zara also felt like her top songs weren’t accurate. She said a lot of her top songs were songs that she hadn’t listened to in over 6 months. “I definitely think I’ve listened to other songs and artists than Spotify listed,” she said.

She wasn’t alone in feeling like some of her top songs were funky. One student on the survey we conducted said that their top song was one they hardly listened to. Another student said their top 5 songs were so different in genre. “One song would be on my hype playlist and another one would be a song I would put on a sad playlist,” they said.

In addition to giving Spotify Users a list of their top songs and artists, the app also shows the total minutes spent listening to music and peaks. Shelby’s total time listening to music was 17,719 minutes, which is the equivalent of 12 days straight. Spotify users can also see their peak listening months to get a better idea of what was listened to the most this year. Patrick’s total minutes were dramatically lower than average minutes. He spent a total of 706 minutes listening. He explained that he mostly uses Spotify when he’s driving.

The majority of the students we surveyed said that their total minutes were somewhere between 10,000 and 50,000 (65% said this). Only 5% of the students have 100,000 or more minutes. 

There’s a lot of controversy involving which music service is truly the best. Zara Hebb (10) thinks that Spotify is the best. “I used to use Pandora and then I realized that it was a terrible music app, so I switched to Spotify and I’ve never been happier,” Zara explained. Patrick Smyth (10) agrees. “[Spotify] is a lot easier to use and he likes how the interface looks and feels on the app,” he said.

One the survey, 77% of the respondents said that they used Spotify while 19% said they used Apple Music, and the remaining people said they don’t use a music service or use a different app. Many students reported Taylor Swift, Zach Bryan, Morgan Wallen, Arctic Monkeys, The Weeknd, Chase Atlantic, or Drake as their top artists. So, clearly, Lovett students have a wide variety of music preferences.

Piper Millians is one of the Apple Music users. “I just think it’s better and I don’t have Spotify Premium so I would have to listen to ads and nobody wants to do that,” she said. Other students, like sophomore Aniston Fisher, think Apple Music is more convenient. Aniston says that “it’s easier to use in context because it’s connected to Apple and it uses my iCloud.” Then again, even if she wanted to switch to Spotify, she’s stuck with Apple Music because her family pays for it.

Apple has its own “knockoff” version of Spotify Wrapped called Apple Replay. Spotify came up with the whole “Year in Music” idea first, in 2015, then Apple launched theirs in 2019. Apple Replay and Spotify Wrapped are incredibly similar; the only difference is Spotify Wrapped is more visually appealing with its interactive and vivid features.

As I talked to Piper, she was viewing her Apple Replay and told me that her top artists were Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Kanye West, Lana del Ray, and The Neighborhood. She said that she has spent over 10,000 minutes listening to music according to Apple. 

But perhaps the most exciting thing for music service users is not to find out you enjoy what you’ve always enjoyed but to discover you’ve expanded your horizons. 

One student on the survey expressed their newfound love of K-pop by saying that they “used to hate on people that listened to K-pop but these guys are good.” 

Then again, we love what we love. “Lana and Bey (Beyonce) have reigned supreme for quite some time,” another student wrote, “because I have taste.”

By Taylor Johnson

As winter approaches, many girls at Lovett are losing their natural summer tans. Being a girl at Lovett, I know that “fake” tanning is an essential part of our school’s culture. 

Junior and Sophomore PDC occurred recently. PDC brings out a lot of darker shades roaming the Lovett halls. I personally have never artificially tanned but I was curious about the process, so I voyaged around school to talk to girls about their fake tanning experiences. 

Junior Sutherland Newton proudly told me that she has only gotten a spray time three times in her life, all in preparation for PDC. “Getting a spray tan before PDC has become a yearly tradition with my sisters,” Sutherland told me. 

The first time Sutherland ever got a spray tan it was a “surprise.” She went to the spray tan store Lush and was expecting to watch her sister get a spray tan. Instead, the man at the store insisted that Sutherland get a tan done, too. 

“I was wearing leggings and a tight Lululemon top!” she told me. At first, I didn’t understand why this was a problem, but I soon felt sympathy for her dilemma. There is proper attire for going to receive a spray tan. “Shorts and a loose top is a must.” This is essential because the spray tan needs to dry for a couple of hours after it is done, so leggings and a tight top cause many issues to occur. 

Sutherland broke down the process for me into a couple of steps. 

Step 1: You have to remove your clothes before entering the tanning room. 

Step 2: An employee comes in and sprays the tanning solution all over you.

Step 3: You have to wait and relax for a period of time to let the solution settle in and dry. “This part always feels like ages,” she said. 

Step 4: Make your way back to your car and pray the tanning solution doesn’t rub off on your car seats.

Step 5: The grand reveal. Look in the mirror to see if you have transformed into a pumpkin, or if the tan turned out to be exactly what you hoped and you’re feeling yourself. 

The most recent tan Sutherland got was at Palm Beach Tan. “It is the only tanning salon open after 5pm,” she informed me. ‘Twas the night before Junior PDC and Sutherland was scavenging for an open salon to get her yearly tan. “I was really scared to go to Palm Beach Tan, but it turned out looking really good besides a few splotches around my knuckles,” she happily told me. 

If you didn’t know Palm Beach Tan has a reputation of getting a little bit too excited when tanning customers and turning them orange. Thankfully this did not happen to Sutherland. 

When I was talking to Sutherland about her experiences with spray tans, I saw sophomore Wells Stribling whipping her head around to try to join our convo. 

“Look at my face, it is orange,” Wells said. 

The previous night Wells had an intervention and decided to fake tan for the first time. (Quick backstory: Wells plays tennis and puts a lot of sunblock on her face. “It is so much paler than the rest of my body. I look like I have a chronic illness,” she said.) 

She took a different approach and self-tanned herself with a kit. This is an approach that many girls prefer because they don’t have to make the pilgrimage to a tanning salon, and can tan themselves in the comfort of their own home. 

Since she is a rookie in this process, she made a few mistakes. 

“I might have used 5 drops instead of 2 like the instructions said,” Wells said laughing. She barely got any sleep because she waited 7 hours for the tan to dry. “I still woke up with fake tan lines engraved on my pillow,” she said. 

Wells was sitting with her friend Sloan Basley. Sloan had some tips to give Wells about the self-tanning process. This conversation got very intense. Self-tanning is way more complicated than you think.

Sloan has only self-tanned once in her life. She did it for the first time this year in preparation for PDC. “I was really impressed with how it turned out,” she said smiling. 

Sloan gave Wells and me the steps of her at-home self-tanning process:

Step 1: You must bust out the self-tanning mitten. It is essential.

Step 2: You take a few drops of the self-tanning solution, apply it to the self-tanning mitten, and apply it all over yourself.

Step 3: To tan your face you must mix moisturizer with the self-tanning drops and then rub it on your face. (This is where Wells acknowledged she went wrong).

Step 4: Repeat step 3 when tanning your knees, elbows, and knuckles to avoid splotches. 

Step 5: Go to bed.

Step 6: Wake up in the morning, shower, and you are all set.

Sloan told me she loved self-tanning because it made her a lot more confident and gave her her “summer glow” back.

After getting some inside info from Lovett girls about their self-tanning process, I have decided that I am going to have to give it a try. 

At home. I need to go get a mitten.