Volume 53, Issue 4, February 17, 2023

11

elESTOQUE

FEBRUARY 2023

DECK OF HEARTS

MVHS students and alumni play the love game

21840 McClellan Rd, Cupertino, CA 95014 elestoque.org

mv.el.estoque@gmail.com

elESTOQUE LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Editors-in-Chief:

Krish Dev, Anna Jerolimov

Managing Editors:

Melody Cui, Gauri Manoj, Kripa Mayureshwar, Mira Wagner

Design Editors:

Mikaylah Du, Sophia Ma

Graphics Editor: Sonia Verma

Copy Editors:

Minjae Kang, April Wang, Brandon Xu

Website Editors:

Yash Thapiyal, Vincent Zhao

Visuals Editor: Aditya Shukla

News Editors:

Lauren Chuu, Mihir Vishwarupe, Lillian Wang, Angela Zhang

Feature Editors:

Taryn Lam, Aashna Patel, Irene Tang, Stephanie Zhang

Opinion Editors:

Meggie Chen, Tvisha Gupta, Sarah Liu, Jisha Rajala

Entertainment Editors:

Nameek Chowdhury, Avni Gandhi, Jiya Singh, Aashi Venkat

Sports Editors:

Crystal Cheng, Kathryn Foo, Kalyani

Puthenpurayil, Michelle Zheng

Staff Writers:

Chiran Arumugam, Anika Bhandarkar, Samika

Bhatkar, Ananya Chaudhary, Sagnik Nag

Chowdhury, Jason Chu, Abha Dash, Arjun Dhruv, Lily Jiang, Pranati Kotamraju, Manas Kottakota, Jami Lim, Sameer Maheshwari, Megha Mummaneni, Riya Murthy, Aidan Ruan, Trisha Sannappanavar, Dahlia Schilling, Darpan Singh, Alan Tai, Eshika Tiwari, Alyssa Yang, Alex Zhang, Eric Zhou

Adviser:

Julia Satterthwaite, MJE

Mission Statement:

El Estoque will accurately inform our community through well-researched, unbiased and in-depth accounts of the student body and staff, news and developments and taboo topics prevalent in and near MVHS. Investigating various voices and credible perspectives, we hope to foster active discussion, effect positive change and spread awareness of timely, relevant content. As a trustworthy and reliable source of information, we strive to be accountable, adaptable and ready to correct and address our mistakes. Constantly striving for improvement, we will uphold integrity and ethics to be respectful and empathetic to our sources and our readers. We will exercise our press freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment and California Ed Code 48907 while maintaining a community passionate about our work and journalism as a whole.

It’s easy to stay in our comfort zones — to do the things we enjoy, the things we know. Doing what we are accustomed to feels safe: there is no fear of failure or embarrassment. But embracing uncertainty is necessary for growth. By challenging ourselves to do the things that we are most afraid of, the things we don’t know, we expand our worldview and ourselves.

We embrace uncertainty in our Features package as we examine the intricacies of human relationships. Love is complicated. For many of us, high school offers our first ventures into serious relationships — we are thrust into a new realm of the human experience, learning more about ourselves than ever before and seeing vulnerability rewarded with intimacy.

In our News section, we examined the ethics of ChatGPT. The thought that a tool can write essays by mimicking human speech is scary, but technological change is inevitable. Although we may feel ambiguous about the ethicality of the tool, we can’t completely disregard it: it’s not going away. By actively working to navigate the problems that it may initially cause, we can channel our uncertainty into finding a way to use the bot for good.

And, as student journalists, we are probably more familiar with the feeling of uncertainty than anyone else. Writing the stories that scare us — the controversial interview stories exposing corruption and the intensely vulnerable columns — allow us to make progress. It is when we embrace uncertainty that we are able to invoke the most change: to cover the topics that matter by summoning the courage that makes people listen.

Uncertainty feels different. Uncertainty is uncomfortable. But it is in moments of uncertainty that we have the most room for growth, when we can take the biggest steps towards positive change, both for ourselves and for our community.

Anna Jerolimov Krish Dev

COVER PHOTO | MIKAYLAH DU, SOPHIA MA AND ADITYA SHUKLA

PHOTO BY SOMEONE | USED WITH PERMISSION

PHOTO | KRISH DEV

PHOTO | ANIKA BHANDARKAR PHOTO | AASHI VENKAT

PHOTO BY ALEXANDER CHU | USED WITH PERMISSION

Scramble

> Write an article about OpenAI’s ChatGPT

The community reflects on ChatGPT’s strengths and weaknesses

BY SOPHIA MA AND ERIC ZHOU

ChatGPT — a chatbot created by OpenAI — has taken the world by storm, surpassing 1 million users within the first week of its release on Nov. 30, 2022. As a pretrained chatbot, ChatGPT’s abilities

range from simulating everyday conversations to writing essays and computer programs by utilizing data from textbooks, websites and articles.

Given its vast knowledge and witty remarks, ChatGPT has grown in popularity among students.

According to a survey of 152 MVHS students, 95% have heard of ChatGPT. When senior and president of Artificial Intelligence Club Shikhar Gupta first heard about ChatGPT, he was astonished at both its capabilities to behave like a human and at OpenAI’s ability to maintain a costfree experience for users. Gupta says ChatGPT’s responses felt “humanoid,” recalling himself asking the chatbot to write pitches to investors, to which he received the response of what he says was an extremely professional email asking for investment and equity.

“One pro [of ChatGPT] that I’ve definitely been making use of is just its vastness of knowledge that it has and the ability of it to clearly communicate its thoughts to you,” Gupta said. “The amount of knowledge it has allows you to learn so much more from it. It’s able to make very clear analogies and [have a] very deep understanding of just how things work and how they intertwine.”

Junior Andrew Chen agrees, adding that ChatGPT

can write and debug code, along with responding to whimsical prompts, like the time he asked ChatGPT “how many bottles of soy sauce you’d need to get the amount of salt required to make the Pyramids of Giza out of salt.” Along with feeling amazed at ChatGPT’s capabilities, Chen is alarmed at the accuracy of the chatbot.

“[ChatGPT is] a little frightening for sure because you can ask it the [most random] things, and it just gives you a perfect answer every time,” Chen said. “It’s really just a testament to how much technology has come along, so I was really impressed by it.”

Although ChatGPT serves as a useful tool, it has shortcomings, such as the fact that it can be used to facilitate academic dishonesty. In mid-December,

FUHSD Assistant Principal of Educational Options

Laura Gonzales discussed ChatGPT’s impact on curriculum with English department leads. They delved into how teachers could educate students on using ChatGPT appropriately for educational purposes and opened up the possibility of modifying writing prompts and finals. For example, ChatGPT could force English teachers to give essay prompts that connect books’ themes to students’ lives. Recognizing ChatGPT’s ability to provide detailed responses, Gonzales

‘‘

JUNIOR

IT’S REALLY JUST A TESTAMENT TO HOW MUCH TECHNOLOGY HAS COME ALONG. ANDREW CHEN

and the English department fear that students could use ChatGPT for cheating and plagiarism.

“There are different ways that students find shortcuts in the work that they do,” Gonzales said. “[We discussed] concerns around [students] cutting corners, avoiding doing what we want them to do and … submitting work that they really didn’t do themselves or put any thought into. [ChatGPT] is a pretty sophisticated technology that can provide detailed essays. If students were looking for a tool to use [to cheat], this is one that could help them cut a lot of corners.”

SCAN FOR MORE COVERAGE

Instead, ChatGPT inspired Gupta to develop his own project called ChadGPT — a program that emulates ChatGPT’s AI-generated response but in the tone of chad, which Gupta defines as a “person who is muscular, likes to have fun … and [is] dedicated to studying and making life better for himself” — through training a GPT 3 model to act this way. Gupta says the additional inspiration for this project includes his increased availability as a second-semester senior and his passion for funny memes.

Despite this, Gupta sees positive potential for the future of AI as an expansive tool, saying that ChatGPT continues the momentum of AI development, further innovating the achievements of recent image generation programs such as Stable Diffusion, ImageNet and Dalle-E Mini.

“I see that in the future that there’s going to be a boom in AI,” Gupta said. “In fact, ChatGPT is introducing the normal world to the powers of AI. So, I think it’s a very good step for us to move forward into integrating AI to simplify our lives.”

To further combat plagiarism, Princeton University senior Edward Tian has created GPTZero, an app that detects text written by ChatGPT. GPTZero has grown in popularity since its release on Jan. 2, exceeding 30,000 users within a week. OpenAI also released a tool that detects AIgenerated text on Jan. 31.

MVHS English teachers met on Dec. 14 to discuss ChatGPT’s impact on writing essays by giving ChatGPT current prompts used in MVHS literature courses. After reading the AI-generated essays, however, the English teachers unanimously agreed that the essays would not receive passing grades.

Gupta also says ChatGPT is prone to errors — such as mixing up a book’s plot — making it unreliable to complete more advanced schoolwork. On the contrary, Gupta also adds that ChatGPT’s extensive knowledge is “both a pro and a con” since it will incentivize younger children who are reading common books with simpler plots to cheat more easily, especially after COVID has impacted their education. He personally does not use ChatGPT to help him with schoolwork, saying there’s a very fine line between casually using it and cheating.

Chen shares the same positive perspective as Gupta on ChatGPT, but notes the potential danger of AI for the future. As the chatbot performs well in revising broken code and debugging, Chen believes it has the potential to replace debugging and revising jobs in the coding industry.

“Perhaps it’s too smart for its own good,” Chen said. “I fear it’s gonna replace people. Everyone thinks as AI gets smarter, people’s jobs get replaced. But I feel like this really is a case in which that could [happen] because it’s just incredible how much you can do, to the point where it can be easy to get lost in.”

PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONS | SOPHIA MA

VHS will implement a new course option of one semester each of Health and Ethnic Studies for freshmen starting the 2023-24 school year, and it will be mandated for all in the 2024-25 school year, as required by California state code AB 101. The Health course includes mental health and coping education, addiction awareness, healthy lifestyle practices and first aid, while the Ethnic Studies course allows students to learn about di erent perspectives, underrepresented communities and collaborate with others to develop realworld solutions to racial inequality. While the new courses will reduce the freedom around elective course selection, Drama teacher Hannah Gould believes that there are benefits to introducing the requirements.

“Both courses o er the opportunity to address issues that have been in Advisories, like social emotional, psychological well being, empathy, building understanding and systemic racism,” Gould said. “[So] getting people to treat themselves and each other with respect and in healthy ways makes sense to do that right when people are entering high school.”

History teacher and coordinator for Ethnic Studies Usiel Meraz Cerna agrees with Gould and emphasizes the importance of allowing students to take in di erent viewpoints from cultures around the world.

“Having a special focus on an area that I think has been missing [is important]. It’s been obviously missing because we see it [with] the kinds of conversations we have in public over race, ethnicity and di erent understandings,” Meraz Cerna said.

“I think this helps give us some unified understanding so that we’ll be on somewhat of a similar page on some of these ideas and [history].”

Like Meraz Cerna, Assistant Principal Janice Chen emphasizes the benefits of bringing such courses early into students’ education, highlighting the importance of healthy habits and learning about di erent perspectives.

“[Educating] people about each other’s identities or cultures [or] backgrounds is a huge step towards promoting inclusivity and care for others,” Chen said. “It’s a way [to end] hate, judgment, racism and prejudices.”

However, a potential drawback of the added courses is the impact on elective enrollment. With Health and Ethnic Studies as a 2024-25 requirement for all freshmen, MVHS may struggle to encourage students to sign up for electives such as Drama and Art, which already face declining

enrollment. To counter this obstacle, the district will be allowing freshmen to select their top seven courses instead of the normal six courses, to hopefully reduce the negative e ects.

Gould believes there are many changes the district and administration can add to increase signups for electives and restructure course requirements and selection, such as giving students more autonomy in their decisions or redistributing funding.

“[The school] has funding that isn’t directly based on the students that we have here,” Gould said. “And so while the district is shrinking and there are fewer teachers at [MVHS], we’re still making the same amount of money. They give us raises every year, and instead of [that] they could take some of the extra money and redistribute it to keep the same number of sections open, the same number of teachers employed, but have fewer [students] in [a] section.”

At the end of the day, Meraz Cerna believes courses like Ethnic Studies are ultimately important to introduce into the freshman curriculum for more students to become aware of important discussion topics.

“Our English and History classes [are] where we might more [be able to] directly talk about race and ethnicity in terms of historical experience and expression,” Meraz Cerna said. “And now [having] this opportunity to have those conversations in ways that perhaps people didn’t think about before [are essential].”

LILLIAN WANG

Examining the increase in COVID-19, RSV and the seasonal flu this winter

BY AIDAN RUAN

Two years and two months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA passed authorization for the administration of a fourth COVID booster shot on Jan. 17, 2023. However, according to data from the CDC, only 15.7% of the U.S. population has taken the most recent bivalent booster shot whereas 69.2% of Americans have taken the first COVID-19 shots. As a result, the omicron variant BA.5, the target of the bivalent booster shot, became the dominant strain in the United States.

Not only are coronavirus infections on the rise, respiratory syncytial virus and flu infections are also occurring at higher rates than previous years. Many hospitals, in particular pediatric hospitals, have been completely filled under a new wave of COVID-19, RSV and flu patients.

According to Jessica Ridgway, an infectious diseases physician at

hospitals to find spare beds during the winter season with the trifecta of infection.

“Some pediatric hospitals, including ours at [the] University of Chicago, have been completely full for multiple days this winter. That means that we didn’t have any extra beds to care for other sick children,” Ridgway said. “This was challenging because if a sick child came into the Emergency Room, and our hospital was completely full, we had to try to transfer them to another hospital in our region, many of which were also at 100% capacity.”

viruses now.”

TRIPLE THREAT 48%

Sophomore Saanvi Goyal, who got sick while traveling during the mid-year break, understands that everyone is still at risk of contracting these pathogens. However, she believes this year is nowhere near as chaotic as the 2021-2022 school year.

of MVHS students have gotten COVID-19

*According to a survey of 155 people

“Over the summer there was a little bit of uncertainty, because we were just getting back from lockdown and [how] after prom everyone was getting sick,” Goyal said. “Obviously there’s still the risk, but I think it’s a lot less than last year.”

These viruses are not new to the United States. In fact, the RSV virus, like the flu, is a seasonal virus that generally appears in the fall and peaks during the winter. Despite the yearly appearance of the RSV virus, this year has found hospitals filled with RSV patients at rates never seen before.

Physiology teacher Jaime Vazquez attributes the rise of infection to an inadequate immune response that comes from wearing masks for such a

“You have people who have been using masks responsibly [all this time],” Vazquez said. “Because [these people] were not getting sick two years ago, their bodies are unable and unadapted to deal with the

While facing three different types of infections spreading, there are a multitude of ways to both prevent contracting the virus and limiting the spread to others. In the long run, Vazquez says the key to preventing the spread of the virus is to foster healthy daily habits.

“Everyone needs to eat comfortably and nutritiously because if you have an improper diet your immune system is going to tank,” Vazquez said. “You need to sleep properly because if you don’t have enough sleep then your brain can’t coordinate messages necessary to maintain a functional immune system. My recommendation for everyone is to be happy, healthy and be loving and caring for the neighbors around them.”

SCRAMBLE TO AMBLE

Cupertino’s first Pedestrian Scramble went into e ect at the Bubb McClellan intersection on Jan. 23. During the walk phase of the Pedestrian Scramble, pedestrians are now able to cross up to two legs of the street while all the tra c lights are red for drivers. The Pedestrian Scramble operates from 7:30 to 10 a.m. and 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. on school days.

Cupertino Safe Routes to School coordinator Cherie Walkowiak helped organize the Pedestrian Scramble and distributed promotional materials on how the Scramble works. During school commute hours, the Bubb and McClellan intersection is highly congested by car and foot tra c given its proximity to Lincoln Elementary School, Kennedy Middle School and MVHS.

“We knew it was going to get worse with the influx of new students going into Lincoln who were previously going to Regnart, so we came up with a whole suite of things that we felt would help with the situation and [the Pedestrian Scramble] was one of many,” Walkowiak said.

For sophomore Sehej Singh, who walks to school three to four times a week, the safety problems that she

has observed are mainly rooted in the heavy tra c of the Bubb and McClellan intersection.

“There’s kids that walk from Lincoln when they’re walking home, and they’re usually with their parents,” Singh said. “I get scared sometimes because there’s cars coming in so many di erent directions [and] kids [who] are running around, and it looks really dangerous.”

The Pedestrian Scramble improves pedestrian safety by preventing cars from moving while pedestrians are crossing. To prioritize the safety of elementary age children in particular, pedestrians are not allowed to cross diagonally. Cupertino Transportation Manager David Stillman explained through an email that “[in] the interest of safety we do not want these children to believe that it is typical behavior to be able to cross an intersection diagonally.”

In addition to improving pedestrian safety, Walkowiak says the separation of vehicular and pedestrian movement reduces tra c congestion by allowing cars to freely turn right on green lights.

“Currently, cars can only turn right when there’s a green light,” Walkowiak said. “But there are so many students

crossing the street there that the cars can’t even turn right [during the green light] and hardly anyone can get through the intersection. We’re hoping [the Pedestrian Scramble] will allow a lot more cars to get through.”

However, according to a survey of 117 students, 61.5% believe that the Pedestrian Scramble does not improve tra c flow. Ever since the Pedestrian Scramble went into e ect on Jan. 23, Singh noticed that she has to wait a few minutes longer than before to cross. Despite the increased wait time, crossing guard Steven, who did not want to provide his last name, believes the benefits of the Pedestrian Scramble outweigh the costs.

“Because [of] the Scramble there’ll be fewer [and] less frequent [pedestrian] crossings,” Steven said. “That could be an issue for some of the kids who are waiting but it’s safest for them to cross when all four tra c lights are red. It benefits everybody.”

TAKE OUR JANUARY NEWS QUIZ

Test your knowledge of key events last month

BY KRISH DEV AND LILLIAN WANG

Wrestling 1

Which high school did MV Wrestling defeat during its senior night?

Basketball 2

Which school defeated Varsity Girls Basketball on Jan. 12, ending a 12game winstreak?

Oscars 3

How many Oscar nominations did “Everything Everywhere All at Once” receive?

Ukraine 4

What vehicles did the U.S. and Germany agree to send Ukraine?

5

Who was the leading Republican candidate during the California recall election?

Which school won the IDC Fantastics rally?

What type of storm caused flooding in California throughout January?

Election 7

NFL 8

Which athlete went from “Mr. Irrelevant ‘’ to NFL superstar on the 49er’s?

Weather 6 10

STEM

Which MVHS club held its annual Diversity in STEM Symposium on Friday, Jan. 20?

Who was the leading Republican candidate during the California recall election?

Which country faced mass revolts after its election in October?

Traffic 9

What is the name of the new traffic signal phase at the Bubb and McClellan intersection?

Who was the leading Republican candidate during the California recall election?

PHOTO | KRISH DEV

PHOTO | AASHI VENKAT

PHOTO | DARPAN SINGH PHOTO | KRISH DEV

D ECK OF HEARTS

MVHS students and alumni play the game of love

BY ANIKA BHANDARKAR, MEGHA MUMMANENI, IRENE TANG, STEPHANIE ZHANG AND VINCENT ZHAO

ILLUSTRATIONS | VINCENT ZHAO

IDN’T WORK OUT

Students reflect on their experiences following a failed relationship

BY MEGHA MUMMANENI

As freshman Jillian Ju climbed the A building stairs alone, she could feel the tension between her and her now ex-boyfriend, who was waiting at the top of the steps. The two sat down and discussed the future of their relationship, before eventually agreeing that it just was not meant to be, and then walked apart on their own separate paths.

Ju met her ex-boyfriend in sixth grade, after the pair shared the same classes. He eventually asked her out in eighth grade after they began talking more online. Initially, she wasn’t bothered by this but later found it odd that he had asked her out without the two knowing each other that well.

Ju says the cause of their separation was the lack of stability in the relationship, especially since she was dealing with a lack of selfconfidence at the time.

“During that time, I wasn’t that confident in myself as a [art] creator,

student or friend to other people, and so I would constantly tell him about it,” Ju said.

“I think that really took a toll on him as well because he felt like he needed to support a person who really couldn’t be supported by just one guy at the time. So I think that really strained us a lot, and that’s what ultimately caused [the breakup].”

so now I can reflect upon it [and see that] those were nice times, but I can’t depend on [others] my entire life.”

S OPHOMORE

Ju feels that the separation was hard initially but was a good decision in the long run, especially since her ex ended up moving away.

“[The breakup] allowed me to see a lot more of what I wanted from myself and my relationships, and I think it’s allowed me to reflect on [relationships] as something distinct,” Ju said. “I never really felt like that was my life when I was living it,

Unlike Ju, sophomore John Jensen started dating his ex-girlfriend in sixth grade after the two got to know each other through mutual friends. After learning more about her, Jensen realized that he had feelings for her before she asked him out. However, he finds that the relationship was not as significant to him since the two were young and it had only lasted one year.

Overall, Jensen was satisfied with the decision to end the relationship and believes it was best for both of them. After the two mutually understood the relationship was not working out, his ex finally broke up with him. Though his middle school breakup wasn’t bitter, Jensen understands that sometimes the experience can take a toll on someone.

“I think the starting [point], if you’re going through a breakup, is just not to remember,” Jensen said. “The first step [post-breakup] is just forgetting and trying to think of another goal you need to achieve.”

Sophomore Petros Kougiouris also started dating his ex-girlfriend in eighth grade, after responding to one of her Instagram stories, which led to the two talking more online.

THE FIRST STEP [POST-BREAKUP] IS JUST FORGETTING AND TRYING TO THINK OF ANOTHER GOAL YOU NEED TO ACHIEVE.

J OHN J ENSEN

However, Kougiouris states that from the start, he felt awkward and wanted to get out of the relationship. He adds that he regrets the relationship as he did not feel very prepared for it, especially regarding their inability to comfortably talk to each other. Within their four months together, Kougiouris believes that the lack of communication made the relationship unstable — one of the reasons why the pair broke up.

“It was really hard to communicate with the person,” Kougiouris said. “I got kind of sick of trying so hard to communicate with her that I just wanted to end the relationship.”

While Kougiouris wasn’t able to find the confidence to break up with his ex, he was satisfied that she could understand the effects of the strained relationship and break up first. Despite wanting to take some time for himself for the next few years, Kougiouris believes that he can use the insight he has gained from the relationship to be more prepared and willing to put in the emotional dedication in the future.

“I learned that a relationship can be distracting. It’s hard to go through that kind of experience. And throughout high school, I think it’s better to be more independent,” Kougiouris said. “In a relationship, you have to depend on someone and put all your effort into it. And sometimes you can’t really do that.”

Ju agrees and shares that she also wants to stay single for some time and use what she has learned from the dating experience and breakup for selfgrowth.

“People are supposed to live for themselves,” Ju said. “There are a lot of romantic

clichés, like, ‘Oh my God, you’re the meaning of my life. I love you, if you die, blah, blah, blah...’ But that’s not healthy and you need to learn how to appreciate yourself for who you are and not what you can bring to one specific person’s life.”

Allow yourself time to heal and reflect on the relationship’s effects on your mental and emotional well-being.

2 KEEP YOUR DISTANCE

Stay clear of obsessing over your ex’s social media feeds or maintaining too much contact with them.

Focus on yourself and do things that make you happy — treat yourself once in a while!

*refer to page 15 for ways to practice self love

3 SELF-CARE 4

Spend time with those who care about you (friends, family, etc.) and lean on them for support.

According to INSIDER

P UTTING MYSELF FIRST

Exploring what self-love means to students

BY STEPHANIE ZHANG

To me, self-love is a mix of being very accepting of myself, while also being forgiving,” senior Krupa Shanware said. “I think more than anything, [it’s] about not judging yourself for who you are.”

Shanware believes that earlier in high school, her understanding of what self-love meant to her was misconstrued, as she thought of it as simply looking good in order to seem more confident. However, her understanding of self-love eventually evolved.

Forced to spend more time by herself during quarantine, Shanware says she was able to be more aware of her subconscious thoughts about herself. Once she realized she was being her own worst critic, she started working to reverse that mindset.

“So far, my journey has been [about] finding peace within myself and knowing who I am,” Shanware said. “For me, it’s [about having] 100% acceptance of myself and loving myself in every stage of my life, regardless of if it’s when I’m anxious, sad or when I’m [feeling] on top of the

Social media was previously a root cause of Shanware’s negative selftalk, but she says that with her new mindset, she’s realized that social media often depicts a glamourized version of life and that her social media statistics don’t determine her selfworth.

“With social media, you’re constantly thinking about likes, comments [and] all [of] those numbers,” Shanware said. “It’s really difficult

herself to others.

“I try to remind myself that everyone is different in their own ways and that social media [can be] really fake at times,” Wu said. However, with the recent popularity of short-form content where creators are more raw and authentic with their lives, or through platforms such as BeReal, Wu believes that social media has been starting to encourage more selflove.

“Now, a lot of content creators and influencers show their true selves instead of the edited or photoshopped versions of themselves,” Wu said. “I think [social media’s] improving slowly and a lot of people are coming out of that comfort zone and trying to show their original selves, which has been helping everyone be more confident with themself.”

Alongside viewing more positive content on social media platforms, Wu practices self-love in various ways. She enjoys listening to music, writing things down in a journal or simply talking to her friends, which she says is one of the most effective forms of self-love.

SELF-LOVE IS A MIX OF BEING VERY ACCEPTING OF MYSELF, WHILE ALSO BEING FORGIVING.

S ENIOR

K RUPA S HANWARE

“Talking about your thoughts to a friend is a really important form of self-love, because not only can you express yourself to other people, but you can also listen to their advice, which can really help you regardless of what your situation is,” Wu said.

his life. Ang says that as he started to take soccer more seriously, he could see how that translated into other aspects of his life.

MY PARENTS

P RANAY G ANGARAM

Practicing self-love varies from person to person, and sophomore Joshua Ang believes that his main form of self-love is through playing soccer. Ang believes that playing soccer has provided him with a sense of security, as he knows that no matter what, he can always turn to the sport to distract him from anything else going on in

“As I started to play soccer competitively, I gained more confidence in my skills [and] my confidence outside of the game also increased,” Ang said. “Soccer has shown me that I am capable of excelling at something, and that’s really helped me have more self-love.”

While soccer has always been in Ang’s life, practicing self-love has been newer for junior Pranay Gangaram. Similar to Shanware, he believes that his previous understanding of what self-love meant to him was inaccurate. Instead of viewing it as an appreciation

of oneself, he used it as an excuse to be self-centered.

“When I was younger I cared about myself a lot more, but as I grew up, my parents have taught me the difference between loving myself and being selfish,” Gangaram said.

Now, Gangaram views self-love as a positive way of thinking. As his mindset has changed, he believes his relationships with others, as well as with himself, have significantly improved.

“Self-love is taking care of yourself and making sure that you put yourself in front of others, while also not being selfish,” Gangaram said. “It’s more of self-care, and also not focusing too much on the bad parts of yourself because even if you mess up once, you don’t need to fixate on that.”

SELF-LOVE PRACTICES 6

PRACTICE MINDFULNESS

CELEBRATE THE SMALL WINS

LIMIT TIME ON SOCIAL MEDIA

A G AMBLE F OR L OVE

How students plan to continue or end their relationships after high school

BY ANIKA BHANDARKAR AND IRENE TANG

Over 2,000 miles separate MVHS Alum ’22 Diya Bahl from her boyfriend, Priyansh Modi. Bahl, who attends Cal Poly SLO, has known Modi for over six years, but they started dating one and a half years ago. After going to Winter Formal as friends, Bahl and Modi started to hang out more and found a spark that has been present throughout their relationship. After three months of the first semester of college, Bahl recalls the moment she reunited with Modi, who currently attends the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

“When I saw his face for the first time, I was like, ‘There’s no way you’re standing right in front of me right now,’” Bahl said. “It was just very surreal. I felt so happy in that moment [and] it’s something [that] I’m definitely never gonna forget.”

Bahl explains that despite longdistance being hard because she cannot see her boyfriend for long periods of time, “the hard part isn’t staying together.” Because both schools operate on different systems

have the same breaks. Bahl finds that maintaining their relationship is not as hard as not being able to see him. The pair plan virtual date nights, in which they watch Netflix and frequently FaceTime each other to stay connected.

“We try to do whatever we can to stay engaged with one another without being able to see each other,” Bahl said. “I feel even more appreciative of him and it makes it more exciting when I do get to see him during breaks.”

Seniors Syd Stevens and Nerea Northrop, who have been dating since July 2021, have decided that they do not want to have a long-distance relationship when they get to college. Instead, they plan to break up before leaving.

“It’s gonna be hard because we both love each other,” Northrop said. “And we’re gonna continue to love each other. But we kind of decided that in order to preserve our relationship, the best thing to do would be to break up rather than to stay together.”

Stevens explains that neither of the two wants to transition to a longdistance relationship, because “both

of our love languages are quality time and physical touch.” She explained that long-distance would “hurt a lot” because they would not be “able to see each other or hug each other.” They feel that being in college “will kind of be like being reborn.”

“I had this friend who went to college with his girlfriend,” Stevens said. “And they ended up breaking up, and he had no friends. And I think that’s really scary to be in a place with no friends. So I want to be my own person and go into college an independent person. And that’s kind of exciting.”

On the other hand, Bahl believes that, although she was initially scared of her college life being impacted by her relationship, she has had no trouble making friends and meeting new people.

“I feel like a lot of people think that you shouldn’t go into college with a relationship because then you don’t experience college enough,” Bahl said. “But I’ve gotten to meet so many amazing people. I’ve had so many cool experiences and memories that I’ve made while still being in a relationship.”

WHEN I SAW HIS FACE FOR THE FIRST TIME, I WAS LIKE, ‘THERE’S NO WAY YOU’RE STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME RIGHT NOW,’

MVHS ‘22 ALUM DIYA BAHL

Ultimately, Northrop and Stevens both believe breaking up is the best decision. Stevens believes breaking up is in both of their interests “as girlfriends and as friends,” and while they still want to talk to Northrop as a friend, breaking up would be the best way to preserve their positive relationship. Northrop agrees, also explaining that she hopes to get back together after college.

“If we were doing long-distance, we would feel like we weren’t getting what we needed from it,” Northrop said. “And it sucks so bad because we love each other so much, and it’s going to kill me [to break up]. I’m just hoping that since we love each other, it’ll continue at some point after college. But we really don’t know what’s going to happen, but even if we don’t [get back together] I always want to have a relationship with her and I always want to be best friends.”

LONG-DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS

37%

of long-distance relationships end in college

60%

of long-distance relationships last

75%

of college students have been in a longdistance relationship

*According to thehive and datingatdistance

J UST ME MYSELF AND I

Exploring the bright side of not being in a relationship

BY VINCENT ZHAO

Just after Senior Karena Lai was injured, she entered a relationship, making it difficult for her to prioritize physical therapy, as much of her focus was on her new relationship. Now, because she is no longer in that relationship, she finds herself with much more free time and the ability to structure her schedule to her own needs instead of planning around someone else.

“When you’re in a relationship, you’re always hanging out with the other person,” Lai said. “You’re texting until one in the morning, [and] that’s a lot of time spent. So, I get all that time back now that I’m single.”

Similarly, senior Jyotishko Koley finds that the time necessary to be in a relationship puts constraints on his current situation. Koley says that since he is in the midst of a busy senior year with college applications, extracurriculars and school work, balancing a relationship on top of all that would only make things more difficult. Koley often goes on hikes, reads or runs in his free time, so he feels as though he would have to sacrifice those interests if he were to pursue a relationship. While he sometimes wonders how being in a relationship would be different, in general, he’s happy with being single.

While he does feel comfortable with his relationship status, Koley does

feel a societal stigma surrounding being single. He describes a societal expectation for people to go out and find someone they belong with, but he sees the decision to pursue a relationship as more complicated, with there being both positives and negatives.

“I feel like [being single] is in general viewed negatively, like people just have to go out and find someone,” Koley said. “But I think it has its positives and not everyone has to be in a relationship all the time.”

Junior Sanjay Srivatsan shares Koley’s sentiment, as he sees the pressure to be in a relationship as a remnant of a very traditionalist mindest. Srivatsan believes that this mindset is deeply rooted in how people think about relationships, as many people don’t understand where he’s coming from when he says he doesn’t see himself being in a relationship in the near future.

“I’ve had the question of, ‘Why do you want to be single? Why don’t you

want to be in a relationship?’ asked a lot,” Srivatsan said. “[I’m single] just because I don’t want a relationship and people don’t seem to understand that.”

Unlike Srivatsan, when Lai was first single, it was her initial curiosity about what it would be like to be in a relationship that drove her to being in one. But now, she no longer feels as interested in pursuing a relationship, instead choosing to focus on strengthening friendships and meeting new people. Much like Lai, Koley feels that not being in a relationship has allowed him to deepen his friendships without having to stay “loyal” to one singular person.

“I’m just happy spending time with my friends [or] by myself on things that I have to work towards,” Koley said. “I don’t really think about trying to go out and find someone else to be my significant other.”

Despite societal pressure to be in a relationship, Koley, Lai and Srivatsan find freedom and happiness in their single status. They appreciate the time that not having to prioritize a relationship gives them to focus on themselves.

“Don’t feel pressured to [get in a relationship], because being single has its own benefits,” Lai said. “You can work on yourself and work on developing strong friendships, and you don’t exactly have that when you’re in a relationship.”

DON’T FEEL PRESSURED TO [GET INTO A RELATIONSHIP] BECAUSE BEING SINGLE HAS ITS OWN BENEFITS SENIOR KARENA LAI

OPINION

What is school spirit?

Participation in school events helps build community among students

BY SONIA VERMA

I used to think rallies were silly and overly loud events.

But since then, I’ve come to learn why school spirit is such a big deal.

What’s the point of school spirit anyway?

High school seems so temporary - - a liminal space you fight through in a blur.

I think school spirit means creating a positive environment for each other to learn and grow,

Dances and rallies are a big part of coming together as a community.

and part of that is showing up to school events whenever possible.

We spend four years of our life at school -

- let’s make them worth it.

Examining the issues with prioritizing romantic relationships over platonic ones in high school BOYFRIEND?

OR BOY FRIEND?

The high school experience at MVHS boils down to a few key points: get good grades, join some extracurriculars and maintain a great social life.

And if you’re particularly lucky, get a girlfriend or boyfriend.

The excitement that accompanies the talking stages, coffee dates and Homecoming posters of high school dating culture is unmatched. The first football game, late night texting, hour-long FaceTimes, the blooming, fluttering feeling of ecstasy and attraction: there’s nothing that beats those incredible emotions and events. In many cases, healthy high school relationships greatly benefit those involved, for they help teenagers grow into well-functioning adults with strong social skills and emotional stability. Additionally, through their relationships, teens gain the opportunity to meet people with a variety of perspectives, leading to positive social growth.

While there’s nothing wrong with dating in high school, problems arise when teens begin to prioritize the cultivation of romantic relationships over platonic friendships, when people of one’s preferred sex solely turn into prospects for relationships rather than candidates for strong friendships.

One of the main reasons for

this is because high schoolers often feel pressure to date. In movies and television shows, high school relationships are often presented as rites of passage and something that all students should aspire to attain. Similarly, seeing our own friends in relationships or swiping through social media posts of others with their significant others can spark a desire for something similar. Additionally, being in a relationship is often seen as a matter of social standing. A research study published in the International Journal of Chinese Education states that attracting significant others helps improve social standing within peer groups.

However, only partaking in romantic relationships isn’t all it’s chalked up to be. As students, managing school, social life and relationships can be difficult. Something has got to give, and more often than not, it’s friendships. Those attempting to enter relationships may find themselves letting go of friendships in order to make sure they have enough time to dedicate to their romantic endeavors. While making time to give special attention to romantic partners is understandable, focusing all energy on them can lead to wedges between friends. Additionally, one might become emotionally dependent on their significant other, which may lead to emotional distress for both individuals in the relationship. Since platonic friendships often encourage healthy communication, compromises and boundary-setting, a lack of them might stunt personal growth in these areas. If one’s relationship ends and they’ve let go of all their friends, the coping process becomes far

more difficult.

This isn’t to say that romantic relationships are a bad ideas. However, by solely focusing on dating, we neglect all the other forms in which love manifests. One’s dating partners aren’t the only ones who can show affection and comfort; our best friends have the ability to show us tenderness and care on a different level. Sometimes, our soulmates are our friends. It’s vital that students pair romantic love with sources of platonic affection, for it helps one feel comfort, participate in emotional growth and experience happiness. Within platonic love, we find real connection, experience powerful emotion and understand the meaning of real friendship.

So get a girlfriend or a boyfriend if you want. But while you’re at it, get yourself a girl-friend and a boy-friend too.

ILLUSTRATION | TVISHA GUPTA

A LOOK AT L CKDOWNS

With gun violence on the rise, students and staff reflect on active shooter drills

BY ALAN TAI

An announcement comes over the intercom. The classroom falls into an eerie silence as the teacher locks the doors and lowers the blinds as students build a barrier to huddle behind. As footsteps echo down the hallway, there’s a knock and the sound of a key unlocking the door. One thing is fortunate: it’s just a drill.

pandemic. PAHS junior Olivia Atkinson says that while students often see lockdowns as a “chance to miss class,” she believes that bringing drills back could be beneficial.

27% of MVHS students feel

With over six mass shootings in California since the start of the year, 88% of MVHS students believe that the school should continue to have lockdown drills. Assistant Principal Sydney Fernandez agrees with this sentiment, saying that drills help people know what to do during a real threat.

anxious about lockdown drills

to a survey of 132 people

“I think now I feel more secure in knowing what I need to do [having] created my own safety plan,” Atkinson said. “However, I’m not so certain that other students know exactly what they need to be doing, and that has me a bit concerned that they don’t know the protocols. Having some sort of drill every year is helpful.”

other information like evacuation locations.

“I would love to see the school [come] up with different solutions,” Atkinson said. “Explain to students a simple plan of what they need to do. It’s helpful to have a clear set of rules that are already ingrained in your head that you can rely on.”

As school districts continue to make strides toward safer campuses, Carson believes that the current drills are enough but will not curb the broader issue of gun violence.

“It helps to have that experience already in the back of your mind,” Fernandez said. “Your heightened emotions [wouldn’t] get in the way of keeping everybody safe.”

Senior Clay Carson agrees that lockdown drills help make MVHS safer. However, he says that the lockdowns caused by bomb threats last September were still scary for him, even with drills taking place every year.

“I felt like I was about to cry because I was really scared,” Carson said. “[In] the media, people talk about what it feels like when their school is in a school shooting, and I just thought, ‘Oh my god. It’s happening.’”

Contrary to MVHS, Palo Alto High School has not conducted lockdown drills since before the COVID-19

For MVHS, Fernandez says the “Run, Hide, Defend” strategy is employed during active attacker situations. However, drills at MVHS focus on only the “Hide” portion of the strategy. Fernandez believes there is room for improvement but says that expanding drills to encompass other strategies is unlikely.

“It’s hard, because we’re here in school to learn and that has to be the primary focus of school, but we also have to be safe,” Fernandez said. “I wonder [if] there [is] space to do the run portion of that drill, [but] it’s not the direction that we’ve been going as a campus. We work with our sheriff partners on what to do, and their recommendation is to have these lockdown drills.”

Similarly, Atkinson questions the feasibility of self-defense drills at PAHS. She says that outside of lockdowns, other strategies should be employed that teach students

“On a societal level, I don’t think that having drills like this is the answer to gun violence,” Carson said. “Making sure that gun violence is reduced and prevented is the better solution, but I think if there’s nothing we can do to stop the gun violence from happening, what we have now is decent enough in training staff and students [for] how they [would] react in a real situation.”

*According

Gl ss Child

sick simply means requiring more attention. Friends and family don’t intend to foster isolation — however, intention never implies results. Research shows that well-siblings do tend to keep concerns to themselves in an attempt to prevent further stress to parents, and that some may even feel resentment toward their family or sibling.

In the last few years, MVHS has emphasized understanding mental health and how to support someone who might have mental health challenges. Make no mistake, that is good — we should continue to teach about and normalize subjects such as mental illness and therapy. The curriculum simply needs to encompass more. Mental illness is so much more far reaching than simply the scope of a person themself. Explaining how issues with mental health can affect the entire family, or just acknowledging that having a sibling grappling with mental illness doesn’t prohibit them from having their own struggles, could help combat this perception.

Family is often the first line of defense, the most important support system for those who have mental illness, yet there is often no support for the family. It is crucial for families to learn how to nurture their own mental health and for others to learn the same. Only if one’s family members feel healthy and happy can they turn and offer their support and attention to others.

In the end, mental illness affects

PHOTOS | MEGGIE CHEN

Romance by the numbers

The community’s experiences with relationships

BY GAURI MANOJ

25%

of students have been rejected by their crush

*according to a survey of 122 students

92% of students have WITNessed pda on campus

*according to a survey of 154 students

WHAT is your IDEAL DATE?

going somewhere quiet, where we can just talk

What are your biggest red flags in a relationship?

LOVE—BOMBING BAD COMMUNICATION BEING CONTROlLING

GOING TO PARTIES

LISTENING TO PLAYBOI CARTI

CAN’T DRIVE TALKing S--- about others disrespecting minorities SMOKING/DRUG USE

IS high school a good time to start dating? YES 64%

*according to a survey of 137 students

Would you continue a high school relationship in college? YES

*according to a survey of 128 students

54% of students’ parents would be ok with them dating

*according to a survey of 151 students

60% of students would go behind their parents’ backs to date

*according to a survey of 142 students

32% of students have dealt with a bre

*according to a survey of 136 students

HOW did you cope with your breakup?

“ Honestly, I wasn’t sad . I dumped them. It was actually kinda nice. ” — ANONYMOUS “ cried a lot and then made myself busy with other things because I can’t be hung up on it forever. ” — ANONYMOUS

“ I simply didnt cope. ” — ANONYMOUS

MORNING ROUTINES

Starting the day with a routine can set the tone for the rest of the day and provide a sense of structure, according to senior Aditya Mishra. Mishra’s morning routine centers around preparing for workouts.

“I created this routine to optimize [my time],” Mishra said. “Because school is a lot of time and effort, there’s just not a lot of room [to

exercise], especially if you have other sports to do as well.”

Each day that he exercises, Mishra wakes up at 5 a.m. and heads to the kitchen, where his preparations begin. He drinks a protein shake he makes using protein powder and occasionally takes supplements like creatine and pre-workout.

“Pre-workout is actually what I use in the morning because [you] immediately wake up and you’re able to do those big lifts,” Mishra said. “[I use it] because in my workout routine I have these big lifts first, so I need that caffeine in the beginning.”

Mishra believes that exercising followed by showering in the morning is an effective way to wake the body up, re-energizing the mind and boosting physical attentiveness. While his routine isn’t for everyone, he believes the key to a good routine

EARLY BIRD OR NIGHT OWL? EARLY BIRD OR NIGHT OWL?

Examining students’ morning and evening routines

BY CHIRAN ARUMUGAM

NIGHT ROUTINES

Just as a morning routine helps set the tone for the day, a nighttime routine helps sophomore Ethan Chu wind down and prepare for a good night’s sleep. Before bed, Chu takes a shower and applies moisturizer, then changes into clothes for the next day.

“I created this routine for efficiency,” Chu said. “When I change to go to school, [I] pretty much [stay] in the clothes I went to bed [with] and I put clothes on top of that before I leave.”

Chu thinks that the benefits of a nighttime routine extend beyond his personal preferences: he says a wellestablished routine can help create a sense of order in one’s life.

“If you shower in the morning, at

least [for me], then you’re in a rush to get to school, and it’s very obvious that you shower in the morning,” Chu said.

Furthermore, Chu also has a strong cultural influence that helped to shape his routine.

“I live in an Asian household,” Chu said. “Everything has to be clean when you go inside; outside the house is the ‘outside’ and the inside is seen as clean.”

By taking the time to care for himself in the evening, Chu feels ready and prepared for the day ahead, both physically and mentally. According to Li, a good routine can mean something different to everyone. From waking up and exercising to staying up to do work, Li believes that one

depends on one’s goals. Like Mishra, junior Katherine Li wakes up early, but instead does homework, gets ready and takes time to relax with her more “loose” routine.

“My routine is really dependent on how I feel at the moment,” Li said. “If I shower in the night or the morning, I don’t really care, it’s more like a timing thing.”

Li says creating a good routine should also depend on her mood and having flexible routines, rather than sticking to a certain schedule every day.

“I know there’s a bunch [of] scheduling I see on social media where it’s like by this time I have to do this and by this time I have to do this,” Li said. “However, I find that a looser schedule works for me and gives me less stress because I don’t have to add more deadlines for myself.”

77% of MVHS students shower at night *According

should explore what works best for themselves.

“I think if other people [want a] good routine, they should modify it in ways to fit their mood and their needs,” Li said.

DINO NUGGET GIRL

Examining the consequences of my picky-eating

BY GAURI MANOJ

It was a race.

My mother chased me around the house, a plate of rice and sambar in her hands as she tripped over furniture to catch me. I really didn’t want sambar rice for the third time that week, and I was willing to run forever if that meant I could eat something else. Our race was interrupted, however, when we crashed and the plate of rice collided with my head, the mess of sambar and lentil soup soaking into my unruly hair. My mother, who at this point understood our fight was not worth a broken limb, gave up and accepted her defeat — that night, I was served a plate of dinosaur chicken nuggets instead.

Embarrassingly, many of my childhood nights ended with a plate of dino nuggets, my true comfort food. My parents forfeited the food wars in exchange for a fed child, one who only ate nuggets, un-sauced pasta or microwavable chicken tenders. I feel bad, honestly, that they had to curate meals for a child with the most horrendously bland taste palette I’ve ever witnessed.

embarking on the painful journey of actually eating it. So while it must have been extremely difficult for my parents to cater to my picky-eating habits, it was a pretty big struggle for me too.

It didn’t really help that so much of our cultural food was packed with intense and diverse flavors, both of which didn’t really sit right with me. Though my reluctance to eat my mom’s food was merely a product of my underdeveloped taste buds, my mother instead saw it as a dismissal of her heritage and was (rightfully) saddened whenever I traded her homemade roti for a microwavable Lean Cuisine meal.

My brother, who is 10 years older than me, eventually told me that there was so much missing in my meals that was necessary for a growing child like

new foods that truly scared me. So, we faced that journey together — my brother, a big foodie, and me, the dino nugget girl.

My first fear was tomatoes, hence my original penchant for un-sauced pasta. According to the BBC, our taste buds are always subject to change and can be trained to accept certain flavors through repeated exposure. So every day for a few weeks, we ate dosa, a thin pancake-like dish, accompanied by tomato chutney to see if I really disliked it. I often missed the simplicity of my bland dishes, though I eventually began to appreciate the tangy-sour flavor that the tomatoes brought to my plain dosa. My next few fears included garbanzo beans and cardamom, which were respectively overcome by incessantly eating chana masala and biryani until I grew accustomed to the overpowering spice — a particularly intense few weeks.

SECOND GENERATION

A lot of my food-phobias were debunked in a short period of time, which helped me realize that I truly cannot knock it ‘till I try it. Even now when I stumble upon a new dish at a restaurant, I’ll opt to at least take a bite, which has fortunately led to my love for sushi and carne asada.

I know my mother is excited to see me eating her cooked meals, yet I’m more thankful to have explored a new world of flavors that I was originally so closed off from. And now, she can teach me all these yummy Indian food recipes that eventually my own children will learn to love, even if it takes a few tomatoes to

SPILL YOUR GUTS

Struggling to open up about my mental illnesses

BY APRIL WANG

Honestly, I’m OK with being vulnerable about my mental illness. I know there’s a stigma against people with mental illnesses, but personally, it was never that I was afraid of whether people would judge me. For me, it was the complete inverse: I desperately wanted to share how I felt.

Most people struggle with the lead-up to diagnoses: accepting that mental illness is real, that it could happen to anyone and that it needs to be addressed. But for me, nothing hit me harder than the aftermath: what happens after? No one really talks about what comes next, when you’ve accepted it and addressed it and still can’t figure out how to reconcile it with the rest of your life.

Over the next half year, I watched myself crash and burn, procrastinating, forgetting assignments, ignoring messages and going to bed dreading waking up again. And because no sane person would ever want that for themselves, I did my best to get better. I got a therapist, dropped classes and even got a 504 plan. I thought I would get better, that getting help was going to be the end all be all and yet still I felt anonymous and unknown.

I felt like depression and anxiety were taking over my entire life, yet I couldn’t bring myself to reveal that part of myself, even to the people who care about me. I wanted to tell people, I really did. I wanted my friends to understand me so that I wouldn’t just disappear into the depths of my mental illness. I went about each day feeling like a grotesque, overfilled balloon, ready to burst at any moment and drown people with my exhaustion.

It was a vicious cycle, where I felt like a burden to other people (and I truly thought that I was, making my friends worried, stressing out my teachers and wasting my parents’ resources) and yet I couldn’t tell people about it because I would just feel like an even bigger burden watching them trying to juggle my mental illness into their lives. My mindset was that, if I make my mental problems into everyone’s problems, then it’s not really my problem anymore, is it? It felt as if I was letting other people manage the problems that I caused, especially with the excuse of my mental illness hanging over them, would be a step too far in the glorifying mental illness direction. I was afraid that sharing would suddenly turn my mental illness into an excuse, a way to receive platitudes despite my behavior. Fortunately for me, anxiety does not care about anyone’s feelings and forced my hand when I broke down in a panic attack in front of one of my speech coaches. I was mortified that someone had to witness my crying, reciting “I’m sorry” and trying to explain through my gasping for air. But instead of just assuring me that everything was okay, my coach sat there and quietly listened as I spilled my guts. He offered some gentle advice made me laugh and nothing seemed to have changed at all in how he behaved around me.

about that conversation, but I walked out of our meeting feeling lighter, inexplicably. It took several more awkward, unexpected moments like the one with my speech coach for me to realize that, it’s not my job to manage how people react to my mental illness.

Honestly, I

As I became more comfortable with myself, I started to drop hints here and there around my friends. Recently, I finally, officially told them what had happened this past year. They were quiet, but the next day, we walked to school and joked around as if nothing had happened. And nothing did, really. For the people who matter, who know me sometimes better than I know myself, the huge scar left on my life by depression and anxiety wouldn’t make them feel the need to tiptoe around me. Rather, it was a breath of fresh air for all of us to fully see me, for

I’m not going to go into detail

Examining how arts and entertainment have changed through the years

BY JAMI LIM, KRIPA MAYURESHWAR, DARPAN SINGH, JIYA SINGH, AASHI VENKAT, BRANDON XU AND ALYSSA YANG

GAME ON!

Investigating the increase in popularity of indie games and accessibility to game development

BY BRANDON XU

As new software increases public accessibility to game development, independently created video games, or indie games, have become more widespread. Sophomore Aaron Chan first found an interest in game development while learning JavaScript through Khan Academy in second grade. After seeing people post their own game projects on the website, Chan was inspired to create his own.

“I was like, ‘Wow, I don’t just have to play video games. I can also make them and just make it however I want,’” Chan said. “And then maybe around fifth grade, maybe sixth grade, I discovered a website called Wick Editor, which is what I’m still using now, a website [where] you can make games and animations.”

Chan is currently creating his own version of Tetris, and he is just one of many who have entered the world of game development through public software.

Game developer and Professor at Parsons

School of Design

Colleen

Macklin is supportive of the increased accessibility to software, stating “the more experiences and voices we can experience in games, the better.” However, Macklin also notes that the large increase in the number

of indie games in the market has had some drawbacks.

“The problem that we’re facing now, part of what people mean when they say ‘The indie-pocalypse’ is that the problem is findability,” Macklin said. “How do you find that game that you’re really going to love in a sea of all these games coming out every single day? Every single day, there’s dozens of games coming out on a variety of platforms. I think that is something that needs to be solved.”

BY STEAMWXO LICENSED UNDER CC BY 2.0

INCREASINGLY AMAZING AND AWESOME GAMES ARE COMING OUT OF GAME DESIGN, ACADEMIC PROGRAMS, AND WE JUST DIDN’T HAVE THOSE 20 YEARS AGO.

GAME DEVELOPER COLLEEN MACKLIN

Despite this, indie games have still dramatically risen in popularity over time. According to a study by YouGov, in 2022, 31 percent more PC and console gamers played indie games compared to in 2021. The indie genre is also one of the only game genres to see growth from year to year, with other genres such as first person shooters, strategy and puzzle games and simulation games all dropping in number of players.

Macklin attributes the recent indie game success to increases in education geared towards game

development, with classes in game design offered in college and even high school, resulting in exciting new innovations often published by groups of students.

“Increasingly amazing and awesome games are coming out of game design, academic programs, and we just didn’t have those 20 years ago, they’re relatively new,” Macklin said. “People who are really studying [games are] taking chances and taking risks because they’re in school, so they don’t have to start up right off the bat and make a ton of money off their games. They can explore new ideas, and I think that’s a big part of it that not many people talk about.”

Chan also adds that large video game companies are less likely to interact with their players as much compared to indie game developers. He explains that while triple A games — games made by larger companies — are more focused on making money, indie games focus more on the player experience.

“[Indie developers usually] just

made a game because they wanted to and then it maybe just popped off and then they just want to make the game better,” Chan said. “Payto-win is becoming more frequent [in triple A games] or at least paying for cosmetics is becoming more common, so people might drift over to indie games.”

40%

OF MVHS STUDENTS HAVE PLAYED INDIE GAMES

While junior Moulik Lohmor agrees that indie games are more community focused, he still prefers triple A games due to certain limits that indie games face.

“Game wise, [indie games are] not as expansive, the maps are very limited and set,” Lohmor said. “Like for Hades, the map is very limited, it is only a small square you play in every time, while a 3D game like Legend of Zelda, it’s very open world.”

However, Lohmor expects that indie games can continue to become much better and hopes for improved games in the future.

“[Indie games] should definitely continue [and] definitely expand the market [because] it’s very fun to play,” Lohmor said. “But I feel like they should probably get some new and more inspirational ideas other than the classic games like Celeste and Cuphead and others.”

Macklin finds that indie games are starting to contain new ideas and have evolved to contain much more variety.

“[In the past] you just kind of saw a lot of the same stuff and a lot of patterns, but now people are making so many different types of game based experiences, it’s just wild,” Macklin said. “Everything from full motion

video … and I still love stuff coming out that’s text based only, you know, interactive narrative. And then we’ve got these really wild and wacky [3D experiences] from Super Hot to [a game] which is about airports that are run by dogs. They’re just a lot of exciting and very different forms that indie games take today. I would say [indie games have] diversified both in who makes the games and the kinds of games that we have access to. There are just so many more experiences now.”

MOST POPULAR INDIE GAMES AT MVHS

1. UNDERTALE

2. DELTARUNE

3. HOLLOW KNIGHT

I’M GOING VIRAL!

Understanding TikTok’s effect on music and media’s popularity

BY JIYA SINGH

Bored during the peak of quarantine and looking to TikTok for entertainment, MVHS 21’ alum Sachi Roy posted a funny video imitating different types of high school choir singers, not expecting much out of it. Being an independent singer-songwriter, Roy created videos on TikTok to promote her music. Their TikTok presence was minimal, yet slowly increasing. It wasn’t until her lighthearted choir video skyrocketed to 5 million views that they truly felt the influence of being a viral star.

Roy began writing songs in sixth grade and posting clips by eighth grade, before releasing a six-track EP her senior year. To Roy, “music is a direct way of self expression,” and she admires how the art form can implement melodies and instrumentals to convey feelings when words cannot. After gaining 50,000 new followers from their viral TikTok, Roy says it was a golden opportunity to promote her music. Suddenly, Roy’s TikTok comments and Instagram messages became flooded with positive praises from strangers.

“[These random people] don’t have to send kind messages,” Roy said. “But the fact that they [did] was a new validation, more motivating than [what] I get from my [peers]. I expect [my friends and family] to say, ‘You’re doing a great job.’ But when you hear that from a stranger, it’s a different level of, ‘Oh, this is something that I’m actually good at and should pursue.’”

Roy invested her time into their rapidly growing, international fanbase by finding lyrics in her music that could make for funny TikTok audios or performing original songs on TikTok Lives. However, despite her traction, Roy often feels angered and demotivated by the instant successes of many TikTok influencers like Nessa Barrett who released music after already having gone viral

Snow compiles specific schoolrelated information in TikToks to be released to the school in a digital newsletter and on her Instagram profile. She takes these extra steps to communicate information because she knows that most students will never see her videos with the TikTok app. To Snow, everyone’s content being personalized to a specific algorithm is both exciting and worrisome.

“Social media platforms have evolved into different channels where like-minded folks can find exactly what they like,” Snow said. “It is dangerous because it’s cultivating the echo chamber. While I feel safe on librarian TikTok, it’s this false sense of security. It takes one Fox News reporter to [appear on your feed] to realize, ‘Oh, there’s a whole other world [out

viral TikTok dances.

“I think my [anger] did stem from jealousy,” Roy said. “I know so many talented singer-songwriters that could create what they create in their sleep and are being denied access to the music industry because there [are] limited spots for popular artists. I don’t think it’s fair how these people achieve their fame.”

Roy’s mixed feelings on TikTok’s influence is similar to that of Sequoia High School Media Specialist Betsy Snow. Snow’s purpose is to “shepherd folks to appreciate all forms of literacy and storytelling.”

Like Roy, Snow began engaging with TikTok during the 2020 quarantine period to create short videos which recommend unique, literary material to her school community.

that’s an authentic attempt to make everyone have a space.”

Although still biased, Snow’s TikTok feed has exposed her to different media content that she likely wouldn’t have ever considered engaging with. Discovering her new favorite song, “Carry It Well,” and the viral, Grammywinning Bridgerton musical by TikTok composers Emily Bare and Abigail Barlow remind Snow of TikTok’s positive effect on amplifying creators to gain hard-earned success.

The influence of TikTok on new artists has also been evident in junior Ethan Wang, known as Ethanerino on streaming services. Using both Instagram and TikTok to promote his music, Wang has seen a massive increase in streams by regularly engaging with the platforms. Wang’s style leans towards rap, where he combines his musical influences Eminem and Juice Wrld with his unique Bay Area experiences to create music through others’ beat tracks.

“I’ve formed a community [through TikTok] with local rappers,” Wang said. “[I would recommend] other [new]

artists to do the same, because it helps you grow more by learning from each other and giving feedback.”

The local music community that Wang created by the influence of social media, has allowed him to collaborate with local artists like Fremont High School rapper YNR Sway. Wang also notes A-list singer Taylor Swift’s massive social media presence as an inspiration for doing similar selfpromotion through Instagram stories and TikTok dances. Wang’s increase in followers through social media has allowed him

to connect with fans internationally. Wang’s gratefulness for TikTok’s influence on his music career is parallel to Roy’s, despite her critiques of its heavily biased algorithm. Even with TikTok’s many flaws, she still feels the platform is the best way to advertise her music as it is “a very accessible entryway into the music industry.”

“At the end of the day, I think about what it would be like if I was in the position [of a popular TikTok influencer],” Roy said. “The way my viral TikTok that had nothing to do with my own music, pushed me into some type of spotlight, I [would also] use that [influence] to my advantage to pursue something that I wanted to pursue.”

PHOTO BY WARNER RECORDS

PHOTO BY SKIMMS

PHOTO BY 20TH CENTURY FOX

PHOTO BY RCA RECORDS

PHOTO BY BARLOW & BARE

PHOTO BY FADER LABEL

Search what works of media have people discovered from TikTok?

WHAT’S YOUR INSTA?

Analyzing the evolution of social media as a primary source of news and information

BY AASHI VENKAT

From a casual photo sharing application to a billion-user platform that is currently being utilized by many major corporations and celebrities, Instagram has come a long way since its 2010 establishment. For senior and class of 2023 class president Kelly Tung, Instagram is an effective tool for promoting school events to students.

“A lot of the events that we promote, we do through social media,” Tung said. “While I do still think word of mouth is really important for creating hype for these events and ensuring that friends encourage each other to come, social media is really important for taking that first step. Flyers are also really great too, but social media just makes it so much more accessible.”

Because Instagram is the prime site for distributing event-related information, Tung says students without Instagram are more prone to

missing essential details like event price, date, timing and location. This can in turn deincentivize students who don’t use Instagram from attending or participating in these events. Having downloaded Instagram in the beginning of her sophomore year, sophomore Prisha Balan agrees with Tung , stating how downloading Instagram has made her much more aware of school events than she was before she got on the app.

“My involvement hasn’t really changed — it’s more of my awareness,” Balan said. “[For events] like Winter Formal, I’d see a poster here and there [at] school, but it would go off my mind. But the constant advertising of ‘buy tickets, buy tickets’ just puts it at the back of your mind so you are more aware of the fact that it is happening.”

According to Bay Area News reporter and MVHS alum Cam Inman ‘89, the transition into using social media to spread information has also influenced journalism, increasing connectivity between journalists and readers, and also serving as a platform for

journalistic work to be spread to a larger audience. Instagram is the site Inman predominantly uses to post his content, with his account @49ers. cam amassing over 100,000 followers.

“Social media offers multiple ways for reporters to both spread and gather information,” Inman said. “My Instagram channel has grown in the past decade, and that is twice as many as Twitter, with a different clientele. So I’ll share videos, stories, posts and links to get word out that way.”

Tung agrees with Inman, stating how having an Instagram can also grant organizations a relativelyestablished audience that can grow through their posts.

“When I first downloaded Instagram, I saw it more like a messaging tool or [for] keeping updated with my friends,” Tung said. “But I’ve seen an increase in content creators or nonprofits like mine trying to grow their platform via social media, and I think that’s amazing because it really diversifies the audience and the content that you’re engaging with.”

The growing accessibility to information is made possible by social media, but Inman mentions that this also opens the door to other issues, such as the spread of misinformation.

“It’s fantastic that so much information is out there, in various

PHOTO | AASHI VENKAT

channels such as IG, Twitter, Snapchat [and] YouTube,” Inman said. “It’s also extremely perilous in that misinformation can spread like wildfire and create false stories. If someone had no social media, they could revert to the actual Internet and seek out stories on newspaper websites, such as MercuryNews.com.”

According to Balan, social media can also be detrimental due to its toxic and addictive nature. While Balan says that Instagram’s heavy emphasis on unrealistic beauty standards creates toxicity, she also states how it can serve as a distraction, which is why her parents only recently allowed her to download the app.

“[My parents] felt like it was a very heavy influence on teens especially, and they thought that it would be distracting with schoolwork, so until I got to an age of mental maturity where I was able to handle that kind of a distraction, my parents thought I shouldn’t have it,” Balan said. “Before I got it, I thought of it simply as a method of networking and being able to keep in touch with friends. But now that I got it, I’ve seen how toxic it is and how much it truly can impact one’s mental nature.”

Senior George Gino agrees with Balan, stating how social media’s addictive nature can make it unappealing. For Gino, social media’s primary use is communication, particularly among other members of the MVHS Robotics Team on the MVRT Discord server. However, Gino downloaded Instagram during his senior year of high school, stating how although he does not find himself addicted to the platform, it can be useful for

communication due to its popularity.

“At first, I didn’t really want it, and then more and more people started to get it and that was one [platform] where everyone had,” Gino said. “And so I guess, this is the time for it, right? Like I’m gonna get it eventually, why don’t I get it now?”

With social media growing in its popularity and thus its audience, users are encouraged to adapt along with it, downloading each new trending app to keep up in both professional and personal circles.

“Social media is constantly evolving and it’s imperative journalists adjust to the multitude [of] ways people seek content,” Inman said. “Twitter was my main outlet on social media for many years, but now Instagram has overtaken that, and, perhaps, I’ll convert to YouTube in the coming years. Heck, maybe in a year I may be reduced to just posting a photo and a caption on BeReal to appeal to shortattention span readers/viewers.”

I’VE SEEN HOW TOXIC IT IS AND HOW IT CAN IMPACT ONE’S MENTAL NATURE.

IS IT EVEN ART?

Exploring how community members define art in the modern world

BY KRIPA MAYURESHWAR AND DARPAN SINGH

Art is difficult to define and quantify through empirical means, but we can experience it on the deepest levels across any differences or similarities we might have as human beings,” art teacher Brian Chow said. “Modern art is focused on not having boundaries. It’s [really] about the total body or total sensory experience.”

According to Chow, modern art’s increasingly flexible definition leads to a more immersive experience for viewers regardless of the medium. He believes this lack of boundaries allows more people to partake in the creation of art.

agrees, saying that being forceful with creating work with a message leads to the expression of a high value piece, which is not something that can be obtained as easily with “word vomit.”

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Freshman Courtney Masli says that there has been a shift in the resources needed to create and make a living off of art as a result of social media, which makes it easier for people to show their creations to a large audience. Chow agrees, referencing alum Zach Hsieh, who has 25 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, ZHC, as an example of someone who has been able to make a living off of art as a result of social media.

An artist, senior Stephanie Zhao likes to paint and draw to express herself. Zhao agrees with Chow, as she feels the loose definition of modern art allows for a more diverse expression of creativity while alleviating some of the potential fear people may have surrounding self identifying as artists. However, Zhao also believes the increased accessibility of artistry can lead to a decline in the quality of art, referencing art made by swirling paint buckets over a canvas as an example, because she says “there’s no real creativity involved.”

“When I make my art, I like to think about why I’m doing it,” Zhao said. “Like, what am I trying to express with it? When you’re just pouring paint on a canvas, what exactly can you express?”

Zhao feels that to some degree, modern art is done “more to appeal to the masses and consumerism than for creative expression,” and is often created without intent. Chow

According to Chow, minimalist modern art paintings often draw criticism from onlookers because of how much they cost.

In reference to the painting “Black Fire” by Barnett Newman, which was sold for 84.2 million dollars in an auction, Chow feels that people who simply view the painting and ridicule the price are misguided and are not fully taking into consideration the intention behind the piece and its context.

“You’re not talking about how many billable hours [it took] to make the [art],” Chow said. “You dismiss the 30 years of work this person created. You

dismiss [how] they [pioneered art] in their respective area. [If] you look at this [as] a couple of rectangles with a line through it, you can criticize it, but [you’re] reacting to it rather than actually thinking about it.”

Masli feels the value of art is subjective, and the amount of money an individual is willing to pay for a piece of art should not matter to other people. Though she prefers art that has intricacy, she doesn’t discount the value of simpler pieces, stating that other people may find more value in them.

The price of modern art pieces has struck much global discussion, and Chow agrees with Masli on the complications judging modern art in relation to its price. Chow references street artist Banksy’s “Girl with a Balloon” painting, which selfdestructed after it was sold for 1.4 million dollars at an auction, providing a commentary on what is valued in art by making a farce out of his own work. Chow feels that street artists like Banksy, who often produce illegal street art, represent an essential aspect of modern art — bringing attention to proceedings that others try to cover up.

“[They] point out the underbelly of our society that we don’t want to look at,” Chow said. “[People say] ‘I don’t want to look at that. Let’s just pave over it.’ We’re lucky that way, but it still exists. [And part of] the importance of modern art is bringing [attention] to it.”

“THE BIRTH OF TE WORLD” BY JOAN MIRÓ | THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

NEXT EPISODE?

Examining how the evolution of TV release formats has divided viewers

BY JAMI LIM AND ALYSSA YANG

As streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu have shot to the forefront of mainstream media throughout the past decade, so has binge-watching or “binging.”

English teacher Derek Lu grew up in the millennial generation before online streaming platforms took over television media. Lu’s preference for weeklyreleased television has not changed, as he says that shows which release entire seasons at once tend to focus on immediate entertainment for “bingeability” rather than including engaging elements that entice viewers to return.

of the shows they watch online or on discussion posts, but I don’t think that I do that too often,” Agarwal said. “If I’m watching a show, I just talk about it with my friends. I don’t really enjoy the suspense as much as maybe some other people do … [I] get the most joy and feel more connected to it when [I] have it all at once.”

depression after binge-watching. However, she sees binging as the only way to feel satisfied and emotionally engaged with a show.

73% OF MVHS STUDENTS

“With the term binging, I picture a couch potato — someone spending all afternoon on the couch consuming hours of television back to back,” Lu said. “It’s entertaining, which is why we do it, but it doesn’t lead to active viewing and active interpretations of the story. The shows that are better served by that weekly consumption model are those that have a seasonlong arc, where you can really watch the characters grow, and their storylines become flushed out.”

According to Lu, the time between periodical episode releases also allows for discourse and deeper discussion about the content of the show — a sentiment that senior Sneha Agarwal shares. However, Agarwal doesn’t see this as something everyone has to appreciate.

“Some people like discussing a lot

Despite this, Agarwal admits that her interest in shows she binges on is often short-lived, rarely lasting more than a week after finishing a series. She sees television and media as extremely addictive and is frequently affected by “post-show depression” — the sadness that comes after finishing a series one has become and emotionally attached to.

Freshman Sarah Shelke also admits to occasionally experiencing postshow

“[Binge-watching lets you] build a certain relationship and bond with the characters and the setting, and that’s when you … just want to keep rewatching it,” Shelke said. “I also think that [weekly releases do] keep you somewhat distant, versus just binge-watching the show all at once and seeing how a character or story develops.”

Ultimately, Lu attributes the divided preferences to the generational gap among viewers.

“I think [Gen Z is] so used to immediacy and accessibility,” Lu said. “Everything is literally at your fingertips. All your friends, all your shows, all your contacts, everything is accessible from your phone and social media; it is easier to just be able to queue up an entire season of ‘Squid Game’ or ‘Ginny & Georgia.’ When I was growing up, I didn’t have any of that.”

LIKE, COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE

How vlogging brought me closer to myself

BY JIYA SINGH

ot to sound like a Boomer, but if there’s anything that teenagers from my generation have in common, it’s an addiction to our phones. But rather than the mobile games or iMessages that entranced everyone else (although Temple Run was goated), it was the high-quality, accessible camera that appealed to me. I spent my time in elementary school stealing my sisters’ 2004 Nikon camera to film videos of myself doing anything and everything.

I would shove the camera into my grandpa’s face every five seconds while on vacation to ask him “How do you feel?” or record myself reacting to food at restaurants — anything that felt even slightly important to me would be carefully filmed and kept to rewatch over and over again. Discovering the iMovie application on my mom’s iPhone in fifth grade was a game changer: I now had a way to put the scattered clips together and create short movies. Combining my dramatic flair with my that told a coherent story. longtime love of filmmaking, I would make my cousins and friends dress up in costumes and lip sync songs to later spend hours editing them together. I loved it.

fascinated by the feature of “Instagram stories.” As I began swiping through them every day, the fascination quickly turned to a feeling of isolation. Seeing others constantly record videos of themselves when hanging out with their friends both made me upset that I wasn’t invited, and sad I wasn’t “cool” or “interesting” like them.

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MASK OFF

and with the authentic version of myself. I now felt comfortable again to record myself through vlogging my vacations and daily life.

Then for my 13th birthday, my parents gifted me with my own smartphone. Suddenly, I didn’t have to rely on anyone else with a camera to fuel my filmmaking addiction. I had an energetic personality and 64 GB to record my life.

While having my own phone was exciting, I soon learned that the expectation to create a social media profile came with it. Inspired by just about everyone else in my grade, I made an Instagram account. I was

Soon, Instagram’s toxic culture motivated me to invite my friends to hang out more, not with the intention of actually spending time together, but instead to create moments I could film and post to my Instagram story. As I began to shove my camera into people’s faces, not for fun, like it was with my grandpa, but rather to fulfill external pressures, I felt the joy of making videos slip away gradually.

One day, as I rewatched the seven consecutive Instagram stories I had posted, I heard my own voice and couldn’t recognize it. The girl recording the video had a higher, more animated voice than my own. As I watched, I realized — I didn’t want to be her. I wanted to be myself again.

After that, I decided that I needed to return to doing what made me the most happy — not showing off my life, but instead, putting pieces together to form a story. As I began offering to edit videos for different organizations, I found myself falling back in love with both the simple magic of iMovie

And in the beginning of my junior year, I created a YouTube channel — Jiya’s Giant Vlogs. This was my safe space to be myself, where I compiled videos, music and text in short vlogs to capture anything from AP exam week to my summer New York trip Jiya’s Giant Vlogs was natural — the perfect embodiment of my passions that came in a place without the pressure of an Instagram story yet with the motivation to make me pick up my camera again.. I truly think I am my vlog channel’s biggest fan. And even though my phone storage is constantly full as

LINE

Sports fields are constructed with many lines — lines in which certain rules are enforced. However, sports also create metaphorical lines of respect that can disappear in the heat of the game, leading to fouls and red or yellow cards. From athletes who express their frustration with profanity to parents who get involved from the sidelines, we explore how anger, sadness and loss become words that cannot be taken back and actions that cannot be undone, all tied into one phrase: “That was really out of line.”

BY MIKAYLAH DU, KATHRYN FOO, ANNA JEROLIMOV, RIYA MURTHY, KALYANI PUTHENPURAYIL, DAHLIA SCHILLING AND MIRA WAGNER

PHOTO | KALYANI

Exploring the effects of swearing in sports THE

BY KALYANI PUTHENPURAYIL AND MIRA WAGNER

CROSSING LINE

Junior Marim Abdelrazek’s feet followed the bright white outlines of the field as she sped through the laps that her soccer coach had assigned to her — punishment for using cuss words. For Abdelrazek, swearing is a normal part of conversation. However, her coach isn't tolerant of that, and after running the laps, she apologized to him.

Abdelrazek notices that her coach lets profanity go if she swears in the heat of a game. But, when it becomes a recurring event, she is faced with consequences such as running laps. Her coach also provides an alternative for swearing and tells her to use “damn” as a replacement for other swear words.

“If we’re in a game, profanity shouldn’t be used,” Abdelrazek said. “But if you’re with your friends and you’re joking, profanity wouldn’t hurt — it's what teenagers do.”

While Abdelrazek’s teammate, senior and Varsity Girls Soccer captain Ishita Pesati, doesn’t find profanity extremely disruptive, she

understands the implications it may have on the field, especially since referees don’t tolerate swearing — even mentioning that profanity can lead to yellow cards.

“One thing that the refs say is that the field is an extension of the classroom, so I try to show my intensity through playing instead of language,” Pesati said.

Pesati finds that players usually swear at themselves under their breath if something regarding their play does not go their way. Assistant field hockey coach Serena Yoo agrees that athletes tend to swear if they make a mistake, although she believes that it is unnecessary to use profanity on the field.

“People decided to create some words which express strong emotions [in English], which may not be accepted in a professional setting,” Yoo said. “Profanity is just a way that people express their stress or let out emotions of frustration [in] that moment. It’s usually directed at someone or at an event that happened, like if you miss a ball or a hit.” While the Varsity Boys Basketball team also directs their swear words to themselves, freshman

Sean Foo finds that the team has a different mindset when it comes to using swear words. The team regularly uses profanity, making swearing a part of the game.

However, Foo discerns between the use of profanity to show anger during team talks and as a form of disrespect. On the other hand, Yoo has witnessed other coaches swear at the referee when there are calls that are not in their team’s favor, which often results in the coach getting carded.

Yoo hasn’t seen any field hockey players using obscene words in games to offend anyone, which ties in with the team’s sportsmanship. She finds that sportsmanship is especially important in a team sport like field hockey, and that players exhibit these qualities by conducting themselves through their actions and words.

On the other hand, in club soccer, Abdelrazek has seen her teammates get heated, and one of them swore at a referee due to a call that didn’t favor their team. The teammate’s outburst led her to face a red card — a permanent removal from the field for the rest of the game. Abdelrazek says that the teammate had better options to face the situation, such as discussing the referee’s decision on the side, but ultimately let her emotions overcome her.

JUNIOR

THEY DON'T EVEN REALIZE WHAT THEY ARE SAYING UNTIL IT'S BEEN SAID. THEY DON'T EVEN THINK TWICE BEFORE SAYING IT.

MARIAM ABDELRAZEK

“If you’re calm, then you make sense of the situation,” Abdelrazek said. “But if you’re mad, then you’re just blinded with rage [and] some people, they don’t even realize what they are saying until it’s been said. They don’t even think twice

PHOTO|KALYANI PUTHENPURAYIL

n the packed crowd of MVHS fans and opponents alike, Varsity Girls Basketball players slowly started to bring up the score. The opposing team’s crowd had grown more restless as a loss became more apparent.

MVHS players secured the CCS win, bringing their game to a close.

But, instead of feeling prideful or even relieved, parent and MVHS JV Girls Basketball coach Glenn Kimm felt worried instead. Parents from the opposing teams expressed their frustration over the loss on MVHS players, shouting

sports, she decided to stick with volleyball.

“My parents are very invested in my sports career as I’ve started to improve and actually become really serious about volleyball,” Tong said. “They are definitely very opinionated.”

While Tong says some parents coach from the sidelines of games to voice their opinions, her parents voice their thoughts on the car ride home and pressure her to do better.

“I’d feel like I was never doing enough, but now, I’ve learned how to tune it out and just take the useful advice,” Tong said. “[I] ignore the tone of voice and critique and all the unusable things.”

Tong knows that her parent’s comments come from a place of support as they know how important volleyball is to her and want to see her perform as best she can.

negative remarks. encouraging their own team,” Glenn said. “They would be cheering directly against our team, to the point where we as parents in the stands, were all somewhat

“The parents were vocal, they were aggressive — they would say things to our players on the court versus

“I get that it’s their way of trying to help me, and I’m not going to discourage them from helping me because it’s useful most of the time,” Tong said. “The pressure that they give me makes me play better because I perform better under pressure than I do under calm circumstances.”

Glenn saw how parent involvement negatively impacted athletes when parents they haven’t.

SOPHOMORE SAMANTHA TONG

prioritized cheering against MVHS. But Glenn believes that parents should support their kids in their sports and also encourage them to pick one up if

Sophomore and Varsity Girls

Volleyball player Samantha Tong’s parents were the ones to initially motivate her to play a sport as a child, and after trying out many di erent

Tong believes the role of a coach is to promote team dynamics, make sure everyone is getting along and to focus on more general things such as game strategies. For these reasons, Tong finds that her parents play a bigger role in her personal execution on the court. Although Tong doesn’t like it when parents try to coach the team from the sidelines, she believes that giving feedback to their own children gives them pressure and helps them perform well.

On the other hand, Glenn’s daughter, senior Julianna Kimm who

plays Varsity girls basketball, has a di erent view — she appreciates not having pressure from her parents.

“My parents were super supportive in the way that, as long as I try my hardest, they don’t really care as much,”

Julianna said. “I think that it’s really important because there’s no extra pressure from them, but I think more so I put pressure on myself to do well.”

to wait to give their kids advice until the game’s over.

72% of MVHS athletes have felt pressured to perform better because of their parents

*According to a survey of 78 people

When Julianna was younger, Glenn used to coach some of her teams, and she recalls it being slightly di cult to navigate not only their relationship as father and daughter but also as player and coach. Julianna particularly found it hard to respect her dad as a coach when she disagreed with some of his coaching approaches. Now she finds it easier to listen to his advice as a parent, since he’s stepped back and no longer coaches Julianna’s team.

“I remember I’d be driving down to a game with him, and he’d be telling me about all the stu I need to try to do and execute in the game,” Julianna said. “But now, as he takes a step back from coaching me and he’s just there to watch as a parent, I think it’s a little bit more relaxed.”

Glenn, who has coached multiple basketball teams before, says that as a coach, he would prefer for parents

“If you’re trying to coach during a game, one, it confuses your child, [and] two, you shouldn’t do it — you’re not the coach, you don’t understand the background of what’s going on,” Glenn said. “If there are issues with coaching

athlete can vary based on their own dynamics and involvement.

“As a parent, it’s good to have unconditional love and support for your child when they play,” Julianna said.

Glenn, Julianna and Tong all agree that parents play a crucial role in their child’s sport, usually even being the ones to encourage them to pick it up. But the relationship between parent and

SETTING THE GUIDELINE

Exploring student athlete experiences with referees

BY MIKAYLAH DU AND RIYA MURTHY

Junior Jennifer Long bites back her frustration as the referee blows the whistle once again. She knows the call signals the end of the JV Girls Volleyball team’s shortlived lead. Although there was no doubt in her mind that her team was better, there was one thing holding them back: the referee. Long says she was calling them on every single point, every single line — calling double touch lines, netting, everything, even when Long was certain her teammates had done nothing wrong.

“We shouldn’t have lost,” Long said. “The referee making bad calls just makes the entire team feel unmotivated because we’re like, ‘The referee is so biased towards the other team, there’s no way we can win this’ and we just stopped trying after the second or third [set].”

Senior Kyle Wong recalls a similar experience with a referee who made several unfavorable calls during soccer nationals with his club team. After his teammate swore at the referee after a call and ended up with a yellow card, for the rest of the game, Wong felt the referee was working against them.

“[The referees] try their best, [but] at the end of the day, they’re amateur referees,” Wong said. “So there’s only so much they can do. We can’t expect them to be perfect.”

Head football coach Ceazar Agront says that throughout his many years of coaching, he’s noticed clear bias from a few referees, which is often exacerbated by conflicts with the teams. He admits that in his early career as a coach, he too would often argue with referees.

“When I was younger, I would scream and go crazy,” Agront said.

“Now, what I try to do is to have some composure and approach the referees in a civil manner and have a conversation about it. These guys are getting yelled at all the time. If you’re a referee, [wouldn’t you] feel ticked off [if] a coach was yelling at you too much and embarrassing you, making you feel flustered in front of everyone? I can start to see it on some of these refs’ faces and then all of a sudden you start seeing it — they start [thinking], ‘I’m just calling everything against you.’”

our staff of officials that we have to be rules experts. If you talk to a coach or a player using the language of the rules, then they really can’t disagree with your explanation, they can just disagree with your judgment on a particular play.”

FOOTBALL COACH

High school basketball referee Scott Calvin admits that refereeing can often be frustrating when spectators constantly argue with his calls. He’s seen several people in his field quit due to the stress of the job. Nonetheless, Calvin feels confident in his calls.

“If you were sitting at your desk at work Monday through Friday, nine-tofive and there was somebody in the next room yelling, ‘You have to be consistent,’ ‘You suck, ref’ or ‘That’s a foul ref’ at you from the next office — think about how that wouldn’t make you feel [great],” Calvin said. “[But] my motto is, as sports officials, knowledge of the rules equals confidence on the court. I always like to emphasize to

As an experienced referee, Calvin has gotten used to the fans yelling and is usually able to ignore it. While Calvin acknowledges referees can make mistakes when calling fouls, especially if they don’t have a clear view of the play, he notes that with time, referees learn to anticipate plays and contact. While the referee has to “just live with” the impact of their missed call, they will often admit their errors to the coach.

Agront and has experienced referees being more sympathetic after he explained his side. Once, one of his players received a personal foul for roughing the opposing team’s quarterback. Agront described the player as having behavioral issues and special needs that he was working through. So when the referee threw a flag, the athlete did not understand what was happening, as it was the first game of the season. While the referee gave the player a personal foul, Agront went to talk to the kid about what had transpired and explained the player’s situation to the referee, who

DON’T LET [BAD CALLS] BECOME A FACTOR — DOMINATE AND THE OFFICIATING MISTAKES WON’T HAVE ANY EFFECT.

CEAZER AGRONT

understood the situation and waved the personal foul off. Agront believes that had he gone up and yelled at the referee rather than approaching the situation calmly, the end result would have likely not been in his favor.

Similarly, Long notices that in close calls referees are more likely to support her team if her team treated them with kindness and respect. When playing a game with a referee that Long and her team had treated kindly, the referee was unsure whether Long had stepped on the line while serving or not. The referee ended up choosing not to call it, and Long believes the main reason is due to her team’s treatment of them.

Agront recognizes that referees will sometimes make bad calls, but believes that if a few calls make a major difference in the game, then the team wasn’t doing something right — a few calls are no reason to argue or yell at the referee.

“There could be honest mistakes that the [referee] just doesn’t have experience [with],” Agront said. “Don’t let that become a factor — dominate [the game] and hopefully the officiating mistakes won’t have any real effect on that. A couple bad calls here and there [don’t matter] — they would have to be calling everything for it to change a team

that’s dominating in all facets of the game.”

He believes that although referees may sometimes make mistakes with calls, they are imperative to a team’s ability to play the game and deserve respect.

“Without a [referee] you can’t play the game,” Agront said. “It’s easy to get frustrated when they made a bad call, or they called you for something that you feel like you didn’t do, [but] you need refs for a fair game, so you need to be able to learn how to coexist with them.”

*According to a survey of 78 people

*According to a survey of 78 people

68%of MVHS students believe referees are somewhat to fully fair

32% of MVHS students believe referees are somewhat to fully unfair

SPORTS RECAP

Examining the 2022-23 winter sports season results

BY ANNA JEROLIMOV

is currently 4-5.

Junior Jake Nakamura performs a layup in the Varsity Boys Basketball team’s game against Milpitas High School on Friday, Jan. 20, which MVHS lost 58-51. The team’s league record

PHOTO | ANNA JEROLIMOV

Senior Varshini Peddinti drives past an opponent in the Varsity Girls Basketball game against Palo Alto High School on Thursday, Jan. 12, which the team lost 54-45. The Matadors currently have a season record of 15-6.

PHOTO | ANNA JEROLIMOV

Junior Andrew Zhou dribbles down the field during the Varsity Boys Soccer game against Lynbrook High School on Tuesday, Jan. 10, where the teams tied 0-0. Two players from each team received red cards during the game. The team’s league record is currently 3-4-2.

PHOTO | ANNA

PHOTO | KRISH DEV

PHOTO | ERIC ZHOU

PHOTO | KRISH DEV