By: Storm Bogs [Web Editor]

He is sitting on the bleachers, preparing himself for what is about to happen. He is about to get up and do something that he doesn’t normally like to do, but he is excited. He knows that it won’t be that difficult, so he is ready to get up and do it.

Sophoni Ndayihimbaze, senior, spoke briefly at the awards ceremony yesterday. The awards ceremony is for students that have made certain academic achievements. One award is for the ITEDS and the other is for having a GPA over 3.5. In Africa, where Sophoni is from, they have standardized tests as well. “They are kind of similar [to the tests here,]” he explained. However, they don’t have awards ceremonies like we had yesterday. “When you graduate, that’s when you get your awards,” he stated. Having a special ceremony is a really great opportunity to recognize students that have done well academically. “It was good to see those people getting awards,” he said. People that do well in sports always get recognized, so it is nice to see other students get recognized for something other than sports.

At the end of the ceremony, Sophoni dismissed the school in his language. “I wasn’t nervous, but I don’t really like talking in my language to people that don’t understand it,” he said. It could be frustrating talking to someone in a language that they don’t know.

It’s the end of the ceremony, and he feels proud of himself. He got up in front of everybody and talked in his language. Although he’s not sure that he would want to do it again, he had fun sharing his language with the school.