WINGED POST THURSDAY, OCT. 12, 2017 | THE HARKER UPPER SCHOOL STUDENT NEWSPAPER, VOL. 19, NO. 2
Puerto Rico left without power, drinking water after Hurricane Maria
WHAT’S INSIDE?
Understanding DACA 2 How to stay organized 8-9 Blast from the past 16
History teachers hold
SHARON YAN
discussions
rose guan Wingspan senior staff writer and designer
History teachers held the initial set of Shah Salons, discussion sections about specific aspects of historical or current events not highlighted in class curriculums, in their classrooms last Wednesday from 3:30 to 5 p.m. At least two more are planned for this year.
Sophomores, juniors take PSAT exam anika rajamani
Aquila features editor and reporter
Puerto Rico remains in catastrophic conditions with flooded streets, damaged buildings and lack of electricity following Hurricane Maria hitting the island on Sept. 20. Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm, struck Puerto Rico with maximum winds of 155 mph. Thirty-four deaths have been reported, according to the New York Times. Since then, much of the landscape is severely damaged and the majority of individuals living in Puerto Rico has been left without electricity. The hurricane took away power for 3.4 million people on the island, and 95% of wireless cell sites are out of service, according to the Federal Communications Commission. 720 out of 1100 gas stations are now back in order. Regaining electricity proves to be one of the largest hurdles to overcome for Puerto Rico in the aftermath of the hurricane.
In an interview with the New York Times, Jenniffer GonzálezColón, the Puerto Rican representative in the House of Representatives, said that it could potentially take more than a month to get electricity back for the entire island. Following the arrival of the hurricane, the Department of Defense sent assets to Puerto Rico to aid the local and state governments. The department is working with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other service organizations to bring in additional commodities and medical support. President Donald Trump and his staff have received criticism from San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz for a lack of timeliness from the federal government in setting up up relief efforts. President Trump visited the American territory last Tuesday, where he offered congratulatory remarks to federal agencies and the governor for their relief efforts. He tossed rolls of paper towels to residents in the Calva-
reporter
Harker community to attend annual picnic
FIRE IN THE HOLE last Wednesday and was immediately contained by sprinklers. Initial
Small fire in robotics supply room, contained by sprinkler system, temporarily displaces classes
NICOLE CHEN
editor-in-chief, news editor & Aquila features editor
maya kumar The 67th annual Family and alumni picnic will invite students, faculty and friends to Blackford campus Saturday for a day of carnival entertainment.
NICOLE CHEN
anvi banga, anjay saklecha & aditya singhvi
sahana srinivasan, vijay bharadwaj & nicole chen
managing editor
ry Chapel in San Juan. “Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like [Hurricane] Katrina, and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died,
andyou look at what happened here and what is your death count? Sixteen people, versus in the thousands,” Trump said at Muñiz Air Force Base. “You can be very proud.”
Mass shooting at Las Vegas concert kills 58, wounds 527
daniel wang The freshman class attended a LIFE assembly hosted by Academic Dean Evan Barth about course planning from last Wednesday in Nichols Atrium. Barth worked with the freshmen on their four-year high school plans and introduced the various courses and electives offered at the school. want to take with their classes. He then encouraged students to think carefully about their schedules, since they can choose the educational path they want.
AFTER THE STORM (TOP) The Puerto Rican Coast Guard and a family walk through the ruins of Hurricane Maria to search for more survivors. Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm, struck Puerto Rico with maximum winds of 155 mph, and 34 deaths have been reported, according to the New York Times. (BOTTOM) The hurricane took away power for 3.4 million people on the island.
Due to a small fire that broke out in the robotics room supply closet last Wednesday, which was immediately contained by the upper school fire suppression system, computer science department chair Dr. Eric Nelson’s academic classes met in other locations in Nichols. The Harker Robotics’ club meeting originally scheduled for last Thursday afternoon was cancelled. No one was in the robotics
lab, Nichols 314, at the time of the small fire, which occurred sometime between 10 and 10:30 p.m. No one was injured. “We had security on site, trying to figure out what was happening,” assistant head of school Greg Lawson said. “I got a phone call from [maintenance director J.R.] Del Alto and came over. Not that I did anything, but just to get a sense of what was going on. I sent some emails to some of the administration to let them know what was going on and to get an assessment of how we want[ed] to operate.” Preliminary observations indicated the fire was caused by a battery.
copy editors and reporter
A mass shooting left 58 people dead and 527 injured at a Las Vegas country music concert on Oct. 2. Stephen Paddock, a 64-yearold white male, fired shots into a crowd of over 22,000 people from a nd floor suite of the the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, where he had armed himself with 23 weapons. He shot him-
self before law enforcement officials could reach his room. Many Republicans said that a debate over gun control would be inappropriate at the time Others have taken this event as an opportunity to lobby for gun control, saying that it is more important than ever. President Trump expressed his condolences to the victims and their families and praised the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police for their quick responsetweets on Oct. 2 and Oct. 3.
CARLOS LEVYA @levyvx
TIFFANY WONG
LIFE assembly
nicole chen & anika rajamani
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
reporter
Sophomores and juniors took the PSAT/NMSQT, while the freshman went on a community service trip and the seniors received the full day off yesterday. The freshmen earned five community service hours through their class service trip. They travelled to Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve in Morgan Hill, where they did trail maintenance and native plant restoration. The trip is in partnership with Harker’s Green Committee, as they are introducing an environmental education. Freshmen met with an expert from the preserve prior to the trip to learn about the land they will be working with. The seniors were allotted the full school day to work on college applications or relax.
MEMORIAL Across from the site of the festival, people visit a makeshift memorial, one of several that have popped up in the last week in the wake of the shootings. At least 59 people were killed in the mass shooting.
2
NEWS
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
Drawing away the curtains
ALL PHOTOS BY NICOLE CHEN
Upper school performing arts prepares upcoming fall play
nicole chen & kaidi dai Aquila features editor & reporter
While the cast of the fall play will perform “The Comedy of Errors” from Oct. 26 to Oct. 28, the performing arts department began preparations for the fall play as early as a year in advance. Director of the play and theater teacher Jeffrey Draper started brainstorming themes and ideas last year, and the cast put in hours of work and commitment in rehearsals beginning early September. For this year’s “The Comedy
of Errors,” Draper and the cast hope to highlight the entertaining nature of the play, which features twin brothers separated at birth who are determined to reconcile while living in different cities. The rehearsal process began after auditions with rehearsal five days a week, starting with table readings and eventually staging actors in their respective positions. “[Rehearsals have been] creative [and] self driven because [Mr. Draper] doesn’t actually tell us what to do, but he just lets us figure out what we want to do in the play,” Katelyn Chen (10), who plays Second Mer-
chant, said. The cast also has been working on creative elements of the play, including further defining character roles and interactions within specific moments. “After bocking, we work the scenes, and actors put their scripts down and memorize their lines. [We] just make the moments tighter and funnier,” Draper said. “Then, we run the show a bunch for the last two weeks, so everyone’s really comfortable with everything. All the props and costumes start arriving, and we just put all the pieces together.” Rehearsals prove to be crucial since the cast works with
their lines while embodying their characters’ personalities during rehearsals. “I think discovering actions in a scene really make it more interesting because when you just get the script, it’s not a play yet, it’s just a script,” Maxwell Woehrmann (12), who performs the role of Antipholus of Syracuse, said. “In rehearsal, when we’re having it slowly come together as a play, we’re getting really good moments out of scenes.” The Harker community can watch the cast of “Comedy of Errors” perform three shows at the Blackford theater from Oct. 26 to Oct. 28.
COMEDY OF ERRORS (LEFT) Esha Deokar (11), Marina Logue (11) and Jessica Skinner (12) run through a scene from “The Comedy of Errors.” Rehearsals are after school in director Jeffrey Draper’s room. (TOP RIGHT) Director Jeffrey Draper explains the layout of a scene to the cast during rehearshas a running time of about two hours. (BOTTOM RIGHT) Hannah Lak (11) and Maxwell Woehrman (12) rehearse a scene from the fall play. The cast started rehearsing in early September and will be continuing until their performance in late October. “The Comedy of Errors,” this year’s play, will run Oct. 26 to Oct. 28 at the middle school theater. Ideation for the play began as early as last year.
Students attend Eagle Buddies and LIFE sessions jin tuan reporter
Sophomores and seniors met with their Eagle Buddies at the Bucknall and Saratoga campuses respectively while freshmen and juniors attended separate LIFE meetings on Oct. 4. The class of 2020 was the first to participate in the Eagle Buddies program as lower school students. After receiving cards from each other, sophomores headed to the Bucknall campus to meet their third grade partners for the first time and hang out together on the field. “Maybe because [the sophomores have] been on the other side, [they] understand what it’s like to have this big kid and know how important and influential that big kid was for [them],” class of 2020 dean Kelly Horan said. “Wanting to be that to someone else -- [the sophomores] have more of that mindset, which is very sweet.” Seniors reunited with their fifth grade Eagle Buddies on the Saratoga campus, where the buddies had lunch alternatively in the auxiliary gym and Davis field, then played together on the field until 12:55 p.m. Freshmen gathered together for course planning, led by upper school mathematics teacher Evan Barth. Though the freshman can change course choices over the next few years in high school, this LIFE assembly is aimed toward enabling them to better set goals and look into the future. Juniors attended a LIFE meeting where renowned educator Charis Denison, mentioned in the ReCreate Reading book Girls & Sex by Peggy Orenstein, presented on sex education and healthy relationships.
nina gee reporter
The ASB and class councils will hold a series of fundraisers in late October as an effort to support the victims of the recent hurricanes. The fundraisers will be held in addition to upper school theater teacher Jeffrey Draper’s fall play fundraiser.
“A lot of thought, effort and organization is put into these fundraisers, or anything that goes through student council, so we had to go through a lot of logistical barriers.” AVI GULATI SOPHOMORE CLASS PRESIDENT “The plan is that each council was going to take a day to
have a fundraiser, and we’re all going to work together to raise money,” ASB treasurer Megan Huynh (12) said. The councils voted Oct. 2 to go through with the plan, initially proposed by sophomore Radhika Jain who worked with her father to create an online donation pool to support the victims of Hurricane Harvey. “I really wanted to raise awareness for them and raise money and send money over to [the victims],” Radhika said, “just so that as a community, we can kind of come together and do something great for a cause.” Boba and pizookies, along with tickets will be sold on alternating days in the weeks leading up to fall play. It will be facilitated by the ASB and class councils, as well as people participating in fall play and Radhika herself, and sales will be conducted in a similar manner to the joint homecoming ticket sales and junior Dippin Dots fundraiser from earlier this year. “The sophomore class and other classes get to choose what
FUNDRAISING Selin Sayiner (12) purchases a Valentine gram from student council’s February fundraiser. Student council plans to hold another
they want to do to fundraise money,” sophomore council president Avi Gulati said. “We haven’t chosen as a council yet, but it ranges anywhere from boba to monetary donations.” All funds will be going to Habitat for Humanity, a global non-profit organi ation which builds homes for underprivileged communities and disaster areas. “Basically, it has one conjoined donation fund for both Harvey and Irma, and I was like this is perfect, since before my idea was to send [the funds for] Hurricane Harvey to one separate charity and [the funds for] Irma to a different charity, but then once I found this conglomerate fund I thought okay, this is
perfect to kind of send it all to one place and to their respective areas,” Radhika said. Radhika’s donation page for Hurricane Harvey is currently still up, and she is looking for other possible suggestions for the types of fundraisers she can do. “My main goal is to kind of help these families come together and help these families go back to their normal way of living, which I know is probably not going to be completely normal, but as close to normal as possible,” Radhika said. Sophomore council is considering holding an additional dance this year in order to raise funds for the sophomore class.
Annual NHS service fair to be held Friday during long lunch
VIJAY BHARADWAJ
BUDDIES Sophomores eat lunch with their Eagle Buddies. Seniors met their Eagle Buddies in the auxillary gym and
JENNA SADHU
Student council plans fundraiser for hurricane victims across United
SERVICE FAIR
katherine zhang & irina malyugina STEM editor and reporter
The National Honor Society (NHS) will hold its third annual service fair in Nichols Hall tomorrow where students can visit booths representing various community service organizations to learn about community service opportunities on- and off-campus.
The fair will host 22 organizations, including on-campus, service-oriented clubs such as Key Club, Red Cross, Harker CTF and Harker Tutoring Club as well as individual community service organizations. Student members of these groups will represent their respective organizations at the fair. “[The fair] started as an attempt by NHS to promote our pillar of service on campus by creating an opportunity for our
students to get to know a lot of different service organizations in hopes that they’ll find one they really connect with,” NHS faculty adviser and biology teacher Mike Pistacchi said. The organizations will present various opportunities for students, such as participating in clean-up events, tutoring students and donating food to the homeless, among others. Some organizations, such as the Academy of Music and Arts for Special Education (AMASE), are hoping to find volunteers with a specific skill set as well. “We are pretty selective about the volunteers we want to be working with our students, especially since so many of them have different challenges with behavior,” said AMASE volunteer Emily Chen, who will be promoting the organization at Club Fair. “But I do think that service fair is a really great and well-organized way to reach out to students on campus who wouldn’t necessarily be involved in this kind of stuff in the first place. NHS held the first service
fair in April of the 2015-2016 school year, and has since moved the date and expanded to include more organizations and allow students to vouch for their own off-campus organizations. “Service Fair is mainly for freshmen but also for upperclassmen to see what kinds of service opportunities are available outside of school,” vice president of NHS Tanvi Singh (12) said. The event will be held ten days after the NHS induction on Oct. 3, during which the 79 new members of the society were officially welcomed by current members and the NHS leadership. Applicants were admitted based on essays, teacher recommendations, academic performance and extracurricular involvement. Students can involve themselves in community service through NHS, signing up for community service trips organized by Director of Upper School Community Service and Student Activities Coordinator Kerry Enzensperger, or participating in organizations advertised at the service fair.
3
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
What You Missed
Trump administration to end DACA program sahana srinivasan & farah hosseini editor-in-chief & reporter
President Trump announced last month that his administration will bring an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, calling on Congress to enact immigration reform as a substitute to DACA’s protections before they begin expiring in March 2018. Existing DACA beneficiaries will keep their status for now, and those whose protections were set to run out during or before March 2018 were given a one-month window, which ended Oct. 5, to submit a renewal application to extend their deportation protection by two years. All applications still pending at the time of the announcement on Sept. 5 were still considered, but no renewal applications from any DACA members will be accepted after Oct. 5, and all DACA protections will phase out by October 2019. Franco Vidal, a sophomore at California State University Northridge studying film, has been covered under DACA since he was in high school.
SAHANA SRINIVASAN
Capitol Hill:
“I was kind of just in shock. It was a Sunday, and I was in a regular meeting, and I check my phone, and it was the first thing that showed up. It was very impactful,” he said. “I just kind of
“[The repeal] also has a serious impact on how an organization [like SIREN] can prepare and has serious impacts on families and community members.” PRIYA MURTHY POLICY AND ADVOCACY DIRECTOR AT SIREN felt really disoriented at that moment. I really didn’t know where I was or what was going on or what was happening. But at the same time, I had already been through so much and seen so much; [I] was almost kind of [unfazed] at that initial moment. It was very much, ‘you did it.’ What did you expect from our most unpredictable and controversial president?” DACA gives temporary protection from deportation to
around 800,000 undocumented migrants between the ages of 15 and 31 who were brought to the U.S. as children. President Obama began the program as an executive policy action in 2012. President Trump has authority to end the program since it was not part of an act passed by Congress. “In the days before the initial announcement came out, community members were waiting hour by hour to see if the announcement was gonna come out [and] what exactly it was gonna be,” said Priya Murthy, Policy and Advocacy Director at Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network (SIREN) in San Jose. SIREN advocates for immigration policy reform and provides legal services to DACA beneficiaries and other immigrants. In the month between the announcement of the repeal and the deadline for application renewal, SIREN held free legal clinics for DACA consultation almost daily. “[The repeal] also has a serious impact on how an organization [like SIREN] can prepare, has serious impacts on families and community members in terms of what their futures mean, and also has an impact on the mental health of the people wondering what their lives are going to be like over the whim of what Trump felt like on a particular day,” she said. To receive protection under DACA, applicants must meet several requirements: they have to receive a background check for any criminal history, undergo a vetting process to ascertain they are not threats to national security, must be in school or have completed school or military service, have to have lived in the U.S. continuously for five years and have arrived under the age of 16 and must renew their DACA status every two years.
Going the distance
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY DAVID FENG
Upper school speech and debate competes at Jack Howe Memorial Tournament in Long Beach
TOURNAMENT the Jack Howe Memorial Tournament. The tournament took place last weekend. (RIGHT) Sophomore Avi Gulati delivers his speech, titled “ABCD,” in Original Oratory at the tournament..
nerine uyanik & anna vazhaeparambil humans of harker videographer & reporter
Six members of the upper school speech and debate team participated in the Jack Howe Memorial Tournament, which took place on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1. Hosted by the California State University, Long Beach “Beach Forensics” Program, this year’s annual tournament offered four debate, 11 speech
events and congress. Harker students participated in the extemporaneous, original oratory, thematic interpretation and congress events. Junior Jason Huang, sophomores Avi Gulati and David Feng and freshman Andrew Sun competed in Congress. Jason and Avi placed 6th and 7th respectively and placed a bid for the annual Tournament of Champions, which will be held on the last weekend next April at the University of Kentucky. Congress participants wrote
and submitted legislations for debate, and eight are chosen and released two weeks before the tournament. Although sophomore Thomas Rainow is not participating in the tournament, his proposition to implement an extreme gas tax to force a transition to renewable energy infrastructure and public transportation was selected from the five bills that Harker submitted. “The team as a whole did research on [the topics],” Jason said. “Our assistant coaches were able to show us some of
“I don’t even know the rules of how my renewal status will apply in a non-DACA world,” Vidal said. “Come any situation that the police will come find me and ask for my status, and I show them my DACA card and identification-- any sort of miscommunication or misinformation, they could tell me that that’s not applicable when it very much is, or maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. There’s still very much confusion about everything that’s going on.” The City of San Jose joined the District of Columbia and 16 states, including California, in both suing the Trump administration over DACA’s end and supporting DREAMers. “The Attorney General’s announcement of the Trump Administration’s rescission of DACA abandons 800,000 of America’s hardest-working, most patriotic residents,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said in a press release. “Punting the issue to Congress, without any affirmative leadership to enact a legislative solution, amounts to a cowardly copout, placing the futures of these young women and men in serious jeopardy. To San Jose’s tens of thousands of DREAMers, we reiterate: ‘We’ve got your back.’” “This country is where my contribution belongs to, where my efforts and goals go to, just like any other,” Vidal said. “We don’t want DACA status; it’s helped a ton, and it’s been probably the best thing to enter our lives since entering this country and yet, even during the Obama administration, there was fear and a sense of hopelessness and depression and wondering when it will all end? “It is good and everything, but it simply isn’t good enough, at least not in the eyes of others, at least not enough to put their prejudice away or to help me sleep at night thinking that maybe today I’ve done a good job, maybe I’m not a criminal today.”
the better arguments they’ve encountered and then we worked to build speeches around that and also backup points in case our points were taken by other people who spoke early on.” Sophomore Nikki Solanki made it to semifinals in Thematic Interpretation with her piece titled “No Apologies,” about the overuse of the word “sorry” and its effects. Avi and Meghna Phalke (11) participated in Original Oratory. Meghna made it to semifinals and Avi advanced to the finals of the event, placing third. New speech and debate coach Scott Odekirk coached the Harker team for the first time, and he has noted a concept of personal excellence in the Harker community. “The dedication to an improvement that I have seen at this school, just the innate sense that we have a duty and obligation to improve ourselves and to demand excellence of ourselves, is so ingrained here and so natural here that it really makes for powerful competitors on the speech and debate team,” Odekirk said. The speech and debate team will to travel to St. Mark’s school in Texas to compete in the Heart of Texas Invitational from Oct. 13-16.
anya weaver reporter
National Coming Out Day, an observance created to raise awareness for the LGBT+ movement and community, is coming up tomorrow. National Coming Out Day is a day to celebrate those who have already come out and support those who have yet to come out. The Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA) club handed out stickers in front of Manzanita during lunch yesterday to avoid PSATS, and they asked that everyone wears something red to commemorate the occasion. Many people also take the opportunity to post their support for the LGBTQ+ community on
social media. “It’s support for the LGBT+ student community and teacher community,” Emilie Sanche (11), Co-President of the GSA said. “A lot of people choose to come out on National Coming Out Day, because they feel that it’s official and they feel more comfortable coming out.” Every year, Harker has a speaker come and talk about the importance of the day and their own personal story during the school meeting preceding the holiday. The holiday was founded Oct. 11, 1988 on the anniversary of a National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. It was founded by gay
TIFFANY WONG
National Coming Out day to be observed and raise awareness
CLUB FUNDRAISING GSA club members sell boba outside of Manzanita in a fundraiser last year. The club handed out stickers yesterday.
rights activists Jean O’Leary and Richard Eichberg. “I consider myself an ally of members of the LGBTQ+ community, and I have many friends who are in the community, both here at school and also in my personal life, and so, ”Ohad Paran, English teacher, said. “I post on all my social media feeds my support and I pledge
to help in any way that I can, and I facilitate dialogue among members inside and outside of the community to foster better open communication.” After honoring National Coming Out Day, the club plans to make a list of important LGBT+ figures throughout history on the GSA bulletin board in Main.
DACA FAST FACTS 800,000 immigrants who • Underwent a criminal history check • Were in or had already completed a form of military service or school • Arrived in the U.S. before age 16 • Lived in U.S. for 5+ years What’s happening now? • DACA protections to be phased out starting March 2018 through late 2019. • Trump encourages Congress to pass measures to replace DACA • 16 states sue the administration over the program’s end, including California.
JUHI GUPTA
NEWS
GAMES Picnic attendees participate in carnival games at the 2012 picnic. This year, the picnic will feature the theme Hoedown.
Harker to host annual family picanika rajamani reporter
The annual Harker Family & Alumni Picnic, themed Harker Hoedown, will be held at the Blackford campus on Oct. 15. The middle school campus will be set up for a day of activities, games and entertainment for all attendees. The first family picnic took place in 1951 at the Palo Alto Academy before it merged with the Harker Day School to become the Harker Academy. Through the years the Harker picnic has become a tradition. This year, the event organizers have announced a picnic pre-raffle and have sold tickets at welcome breakfasts, Back-toSchool Nights, Homecoming and school orientations. A few of the drawings took place on Homecoming. An online silent auction has also been set up and bidding ends on the day of the picnic at 3 p.m. Performances by the upper school jazz band as well as the middle and lower school jazz bands will take place that morning. Downbeat, as well as Kinetic Krew and the JV dance team, will also be performing. “I’m really excited for the picnic because this year, Downbeat is doing a really tiring song, but its super exciting and it’s always a lot of fun to see all the other performing arts groups on campus,” Kelsey Wu (11) said. Both the JV team and Kinetic Krew will be performing hiphop routines based on outlaws and bandits to match the hoedown theme of the picnic. The Harker Gala, the next major fundraising event, will be held in late spring.
GLOBAL
4
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
Rohingya Muslims flee to Bangladesh, facing ethnic cleansing in Myanmar eric fang
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
global editor
Catalonians vote on independence Residents of the Catalonian region of Spain voted in favor of independence despite low turnout. Spanish police attempted to block voting in many areas. This sparked condemnation of police violence used against voters.
CAPETOWN RALLY A rally was held in Capetown, South Africa last month to call for the protection of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, drawing thousands of people. Myanmar’s military has engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against their Rohingya Muslim population.
anvi banga copy editor
A military warehouse in Ukraine was destroyed in a giant explosion outside the town of Kalynivka on Sep. 27. The Ukranian government blamed outside causes for the blast, citing sabotage by a drone as a probable cause.
Over 412,000 Rohingya uslims have fled from yanmar to Bangladesh since Aug. 25 as a part of an ethnic cleansing. The Rohingya are an ethnic minority consisting mainly of Muslims, most of who live in the Rakhine State in Myanmar. Myanmar’s military performed a campaign of ethnic cleansing as the government believes that all Rohingya Muslims are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The military has committed many human rights violations such as illegal killings, burning of buildings and sexual assault on women and girls. “What we’ve been hearing about and seeing is crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing,” Daniel Sullivan, Senior Advocate for Human Rights
Indian army camp attacked An Indian army camp in the disputed region of Kashmir was attacked by militants, injuring several Indian soldiers. The attackers are not yet identified, but an Islamist militant group named Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility.
U.S. Cuban embassy reducing staff The U.S. State Department is ordering more than half of its embassy employees in Havana, Cuba to return home after they suffered mysterious health problems, including headaches, concussions and permanent loss of hearing. The specific cause of the problems have yet to be identified.
Egyptian LGBT restrictions
INDIGENOUS PROTEST Indigenous tribesmen of Brazil took to the streets of Brazilia, the capital of Brazil, in 2014 to protest against legislation that they feared would reduce indigenous ancestral land reservations. Ten indigenous tribesmen were said to have been murdered last month by gold miners in Brazil.
Alleged genocide of indigenous people committed by miners eric fang global editor
An investigation is underway after illegal gold miners allegedly murdered 10 uncontacted indigenous tribesman in Brazil following the miners being overheard bragging about the massacre over a month ago. The incident is said to have occurred in the Javari Valley located in the remote west, the second largest indigenous territory in Brazil. The valley contains some of the highest populations of uncontacted indigenous people in the world and little information is known about them. Despite indigenous tribes’ protection under the Brazilian Constitution, there have already been numerous murders of tribesmen this year. Funai, the National Indian foundation of Brazil and government body responsible for establishing policy towards indigenous people, recognizes 14 uncontacted tribes living mostly in the Western Amazon regions of the country. Upper school Spanish teacher of Peruvian origin Carmela Tejada, believes that the exploitation of indigenous people has been perpetual since the start of European presence in South America. “From the moment the Spaniards came to South and Central America, [indigenous exploitation] has been a pattern,” Tejada said. “That continues today at a different scale, but you can see the peasants work a lot in the Andean region of Peru, for example, and have to work for the landowners, live in difficult life conditions and get little pay.” These alleged murders come after severe budget cuts to Funai that forced it to close several bases meant to protect indigenous people in the Javari Valley earlier this year. In a statement released by
Amnesty International to the Winged Post on behalf of the Indigenist Missionary Council or CIMI, an organization that works to regain indigenous lands and rights, they expressed their disapproval of the cut funds. “The Javari Valley has one of the greatest concentrations of uncontacted indigenous people in the world,” the statement said. “By cutting funds for FUNAI, Temer’s government has disorganized and limited the resources the outposts have.” Illegal gold mining is extremely common in the Northwest Amazon region of Brazil. Miners often times use highly toxic mercury to separate gold from dirt. Mercury, according to a government-backed survey, spread to villages and rivers, creating unhealthy living conditions. Thousands of hectares of jungle have also been cut down as a result of illegal gold mining. “Recently, the illegal [gold] extraction has intensified in the area around the Indigenous Land Javari Valley as no state action to prevent or stop such activity was taken,” the same CIMI statement said. Carl Soderbergh is the director of policy and communications at Minority Rights International, an organization dedicated to making the voices of indigenous peoples heard. He believes that the tribes should simply be left undisturbed but that it is becoming harder and harder. “I think the most important principle regarding uncontacted tribes is that outsiders should not initiate contact so that the tribes are left in peace and quiet to live as they will,” Soderbergh said. “It has to be according to their own free will, that they take up contact with the outside world and not that the outside world imposes contact upon them.”
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Egypt arrested 22 people in a span of three days after a rainbow flag was seen raised at a concert. Police routinely arrest those who are suspected to be part of the LGBTQ+ community.
at Refugees International, said. “They’re absolutely not handling it right and it’s the Myanmar/ Burma military that is the cause of what’s happening today.” A Myanmar presidential spokesman said that at least 176 Rohingya villages have been completely emptied, and recently issued a statement condemning the human rights violations but not criticizing the military. “I think ways we can help is donating, or just even raising awareness in your community because money isn’t always a way to solve it.” co president of the upper school United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) club Andrew Chang (11) said. “If you don’t do anything, then there’s really no chance that change can occur. But if you do something then there’s always a chance that it can happen.”
A vast number of refugees in Bangladesh, including many of the 240,000 children, are sick as they have no access to clean water or toilets. UNICEF has counted around 1,400 children who have arrived in Bangladesh with neither parent. “I was [in Bangladesh] back in May and could already see that there were so many camps that were sort of makeshift camps that were set up and the humanitarian needs were really stretched,” Sullivan said. “So now, on top of that, you have another 500,000 plus who have arrived in just the course of a month.” The U.S. State Department said that the U.S. will contribute $32 million to aid the refugees. “All those little bits of pressure build up and really can help make a difference,” Sullivan said.
U.N. places additonal sanctions on North Korea after missile tests anjay saklecha & michael eng copy editor & reporter
In a strong voice of solidarity, the United Nations (UN) Security Council unanimously voted on Sept. 11 to impose a new set of sanctions against North Korea — nearly one week after the rogue nation carried out its sixth and largest nuclear test. While not as hard-line as the initial U.S.-drafted resolution, the approved ratification achieved five key ob ectives capping oil imports to North Korea, banning textile exports, suppressing smuggling efforts, forbidding nations from authorizing work permits for North Korean citizens and applying punitive measures to designated North Korean government entities. This is the eighth and strongest set of measures imposed on North Korea by the UN since the country’s first nuclear tests in 2006. Prior UN resolutions have prohibited military supplies, luxury goods, metals and ore exports to North Korea and restricted foreign financial transactions and cargo shipments to and from the country. Professor at the Universi-
ty of Vienna, Austria, Rüdiger Frank, is a German economist and expert on North Korea’s economy and state-business relations in East Asia. “Sanctions do have effects on North Korea, there is no doubt about that,” he said. “But they have neither achieved their stated goals — namely, prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, nor their unstated goals — triggering a domestic revolution that would bring down the regime.” As North Korea’s largest trading partner, China worked closely with the U.S. in negotiating the final language of the resolution. Yet, upper school economics teacher Samuel Lepler believes that U.S. sanctions on North Korea can come in the form of punishing China for its trade with the country. “Sometimes, sanctions are actually a punishment of anybody who does business with that country,” Lepler said. “So for example, China, is North Korea’s largest trading partner, so sanctions on North Korea could come in the form of punishing China for trade.” The sanctions significantly reduce access to vital energy materials and key sources of
foreign currency. U.S. officials believe that with the new sanctions, there will be a 90 percent decrease in North Korean’s exports reported from 2016. However, after hearing news of the sanctions, North Korea has warned that such pressures would only accelerate its nuclear weapons program, calling the sanctions “the most vicious, unethical and inhumane act of hostility.” This latest flurry of political activity reflects the growing escalation of tension created by North Korea’s increasingly successful efforts in the development of its nuclear weapons program. According to the Japanese Defense Ministry, the nuclear test last month had an estimated yield of 160 kilotons – more than 10 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb. “The North Korean regime deserves our disgust over human rights violations and our anger over its Weapons of Mass Destruction program, no doubt about that,” Frank said. “But the people of North and South Korea also deserve a chance to survive. Risking a war is therefore irresponsible, and sanctions - which are warfare by economic means — will lead into that direction.”
Michael Eng
Ukranian military explosion
Athletes and activists across nation kneel to take a stand
49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick takes a knee for the first time.
Numerous collegiate and professional athletes kneel in support of Kaepernick.
ROSE GUAN
Kaepernick is unsigned, helping spark the #boycottNFL movement.
Trump delivers speech condemning NFL players protesting national anthem.
the 2013 season. “People pay attention to what he’s doing. He had a reason behind his actions, so I really support what he was doing,” varsity football team defensive lineman Jalen Clark (12) said. “Everyone’s scared politics-wise because they feel like he’ll be a threat.” Kaepernick’s protests last season garnered both support and backlash, with fans ob ecting to his actions as disagreeable or too political or praising them as brave and correct.
Professional and collegiate-level athletes, coaches and owners begin to kneel.
Art teacher features original work at Getty-sponsored exhibition
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
became the first a or League Baseball player to protest during the anthem, and on Sept. 24, members of the WNBA team the Los Angeles Sparks stayed in their locker room during the national anthem before their game with the Minnesota Lynx. “It’s formed this companionship, almost. Everybody’s kind of ust on a united front trying to make themselves heard, more so than they were before,” varsity girls basketball team co-captain Akhila Ramgiri (11) said. “This transcends ust sports. Kaepernick helped his team reach the National Football Conference championship game in
Sept. 29
we will support whatever stand a player wants to make, but we would like to know beforehand, so we’re aware what’s going on. But we certainly would not dissuade any form of quiet protest.” Meanwhile, other professional athletes followed Kaepernick’s actions even before Trump’s remarks. “He started the trend,” varsity football team captain and quarterback Nate Kelly (12) said. “A bunch of other players are doing it– [Kaepernick] started that.” Similar protests have spread to other sports. On Sept. 23, an Oakland Athletics catcher
GETTY IMAGES
Fall 2016
GETTY IMAGES
Sept. 2016
The varsity football team’s homecoming game against Rio Vista on Sept. 23 highlighted high school football for many upper school football fans. Every football player on both sides stood during the performance of the national anthem before the game, as is customary. In the professional world, however, NFL players have begun to protest during the national anthem. Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began to take a knee rather than stand during performances of the national anthem before games last season in order to protest the mistreatment of people of color in the U.S. Kaepernick’s actions sparked national attention and debate about the place of politics in sport. More recent protests by professional football players during the national anthem this season have now sparked remarks from the president. At a rally for Senate candidate Luther Strange of Alabama on Sept. 22, President Donald
Sept. 24
wingspan designer and sr. staff writer & reporter
Trump said that NFL players protesting during the national anthem should be fired. Trump also tweeted on Sept. 24 advocating for a boycott of the NFL until players stop demonstrating. Following the tweets, several NFL players and team owners condemned Trump’s criticism of the league. Some high school football players around the country, including Taft High School in Woodland Hills near Los Angeles, have begun to take a similar stand to these professional athletes by kneeling during performances of the national anthem at their games. School authorities have reacted in different ways to these players’ demonstrations, from penalizing protests with reduced play time to declaring neutrality. High schoolers Cedric Ingram-Lewis and Larry McCullough were kicked off their team for demonstrating at the private Victory & Praise Christian Academy in Texas No players on the upper school’s teams have demonstrated. “There’s nothing written,” athletic director Dan Molin said of the upper school’s policies towards demonstrating during the national anthem. “However,
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
rose guan & vivian jin
Sept. 22
E
Taking a knee
E
PL
TH OF
O PE
5
VOLUME 19• ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
Aug. 2017
FEATURES
High school athletes protest during Friday night football games.
Students attend Oregon Shakespeare festival
In this repeating segment, the Winged Post profiles an upper school faculty member.
PILAR AGÜERO-ESPARZA ARTIST AND TEACHER
aquila copy editor & reporter
When she was a child, upper school visual arts teacher Pilar Agüero-Esparza would always receive art supplies as holiday gifts and birthday presents, leading to a lasting passion for drawing, painting, and sculpture. “It’s funny but, still growing up, I was the the kid in my family who always got the box of crayons or the spirograph set,” Agüero-Esparza said. “I was drawing a lot when I was growing up, so I would get those kinds of gifts.” Agüero-Esparza’s work is currently displayed at the Craft & Folk Museum as part of an exhibit titled “The US-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility.” The exhibit focuses on contemporary art from various disciplines such as design, architecture, sculpture, painting and photography. The exhibit explores the “issues related to emigration, immigration, labor condition, hybrid identities and transformation” according to Pacific Standard Time LA LA, the organization hosting the exhibition. For the exhibit, Agüero-Esparza decided to go back to her roots and explore shoe-
making. Agüero-Esparza’s family lived in Los Angeles when she was young, and her parents were shoemakers that made Huaraches, which are a type of traditional mexican sandals. During the summer, she would help her parents make and sell the shoes at flea markets. “I grew up in a shoe shop all my life. That’s how they put us through school,” Agüero-Esparza said. “They would have this little shop, and in that shop, besides repairing shoes, what they really were doing was manufacturing mexican sandals. So the production of how to make shoes was something that I had around me, the smell of leather. [I] realized in a lot of ways I needed to go back to that source.” or her pro ect, Ag ero-Esparza did a residency with her parents in order to learn about and take the practices of her parents and add her own touch as an artist. She also wanted to commemorate her parents’ stories. “ I think it opened myself,” Agüero-Esparza said. “I left Los Angeles to come up north to go to school when I was eighteen, so I really hadn’t been living consistently there. I’d spend summers, I’d go back from time to time, but I pretty much have lived here, in Northern California, so It was kind of a bit of a home-
coming, but also something that was a personal evolution in [my] relationship with my parents.” Agüero-Esparza’s most memorable moment during her time working on the pro ect was experiencing an earthquake during one of her interviews after she had dreamt of an earthquake months beforehand. “ I kept dreaming that I was in the shop and that there’d be an earthquake, and I’d be in there with my daughter, and we’d be crushed,” Agüero-Esparza said. “So here we are, in the middle of the interview, and then the building starts to shake. It wasn’t a crazy earthquake, but it was beautiful, in a lot of ways. It was a little boom, and then the room shook a little bit, but it was the fulfillment of my dreams. For Agüero-Esparza, the pro ect also serves as a lasting memory of her with her parents, who have both died since she completed the pro ect. “A year after we did the pro ect, my mother passed away, so it was ust in time, before we wouldn’t be able to have her participate in it,” she said. “And then, ust this past summer, my father passed away, so having the little video that we made documenting the pro ect that is part of that exhibit, it’s a little bit bittersweet.”
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY PILAR AGÜERO-ESPARZA
“I grew up in a shoe shop all my life. [My parents] would have this little shop, and besides repairing shoes, they were manufacturing Mexican sandals– that’s how they put us through school. So the production of how to make shoes was something that was a part of my life. I went to school, studied art–and realized I needed to go back to that source and take on this tradition, the practice that they did when I was growing up. I [also] wanted to record their story in some way,–a historical record of what they did, how they did it. They both immigrated from Mexico–my father as a teenager, my mother as a young adult– and they both met in Los Angeles, and that’s where they established their shoe shop.”
neil bai & essie wang
ARTIST’S TOUCH (Left) Agüero-Esparza uses a sewing machine to fashion traditional Mexican sandals, known as Huaraches. (Right) Agüero-Esparza’s handmade Huaraches are on display.
MASTERING THE MASTER CLASS Juniors Abigail Wisdom and Matthew Mammen and sophomores Jasmine Wiese, Lauren Beede and Ayesha Baweja participate in a storytelling workshop at the festival campus. Students and faculty visited Ashland from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1.
krishna bheda & kathy fang columnist & photo editor
Students attended the annual Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland on Sept. 29th to Oct. 1st. The festival is run by a professional repertory theatre company that was founded in 1935. The festival performs 11 interpretations of classical plays and conducts workshops and other activities for those attending the festival. “We attend backstage tours, so we get to tour all the theatres and have workshops with the actors which is cool,” Ellie LangRee (11) said. Students attending this festival had access to get a behind the curtain experience with professional actors as well as special theater workshops and behindthe-scenes activities. “[I’m] always amazed every year that the people we see are ust so invested it’s their life, Sophia Angus (11) said. Students watched “Shakespeare in Love,” “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” “Henry IV, Part One” and “Henry IV, Part Two.”
6
FEATURES
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
STUDENT
SPOTLIGHT Seniors volunteer at local nonprofit
Fake news is not a new phenomenon. From edited photos of Abraham Lincoln to Simpson, falsified news has always been a problem, but today it is more widespread than ever. “Platforms, principally Facebook, but also Google allow for really anyone to reach a really large audience and not only do they allow it, sometimes actually the algorithm is built in such a way to encourage the spread of sensationalist stories, regardless of whether they come from verified sources or not, Director of the International Fact Checking Network Alexios ant arlis said. Social media has played a vital role in the spread of fake news, allowing stories such as i agate, a thread of false stories alleging that Hillary Clinton was affiliated with a child predation ring housed in a Washington D.C, to circulate. “It’s a way that you can reach millions of people, and anybody can tweet. You don’t have to be working for a news organi ation, aul Levinson, Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University, said. “In one sense, this is a very good development because it gives everyone a chance to be part of the dialogue, but one of the main problems that social media has brought to us is indeed fake news.” According to a study conducted by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG), students often have difficulties in identifying reputable news as opposed to advertisements or
PROVIDED BY NEIL BAI
NEIL BAI
4.
NEIL BAI
MASTER CHEFS (1) David Wen (12) begins preparing for a meal by forming homemade meatballs. (2) David stirs a pot as part of his next step in dinner preparations. (3) David holds a bowl and a strainer ready as Neil Bai (12) prepares to drain a pot
Upper school commemorated Howard Nichols’ birthday
fake news. Upper school librarian Laurie Vaughan replicated the exercise presented to students in this study in both AP Government and ournalism classes, and found similar results. “This is an environment where we can cultivate open conversations and discuss things within a discipline to discover true validity and looking for what’s true and what’s not true,” she said. “We need to be aware as teachers that this fake information and good information, no one’s classroom is safe from this.” Despite studies such as the one conducted by SHEG, there is currently little quantitative information to suggest exactly how fake news impacts people’s thinking. This is largely due to how recently the phenomenon has become pervasive. “Its been only really the center of attention for a couple of years, ant arlis said. The Academic process takes longer than that to really start sitting out results, so it’s hard to say based on research what kind of effect it has.” Some ways to verify that news sources are reliable include checking multiple media outlets to see if the information is the same, researching who owns the domain of a website, reverse Google image searching photos to ensure that they are used in context, and checking that URLs are not slightly changed in order to imitate real news sources. “We have to be engaged consumers of information, and we have to be willing to use the powers that we have to udge things ob ectively, aughan said.
MAYA KUMAR
managing editor & reporter
1.
-
Fake news phenomenon spreads across internet maya kumar & oe sanders
3.
KSHITHIJA MULAM (‘17)
Seniors Neil Bai, Gary Tsai, David Wen and Kevin Xu, four friends with a shared passion for cooking, travel to Santa Clara non-profit organi ation House once a month to prepare dinner for the guests and staff at the facility. Branded as “Kappa ooking whenever at House, the group began volunteering at the center near the end of their freshman year. Kappa Kooking last visited House earlier this year on Sept. 3 and plan to return on Oct. 28 for their next cooking session. “My main inspiration [for cooking] was my sister; when she was in high school, she started baking and I tagged along,” David said. “After that I started watching shows like MasterChef. My favorite part about the experience is trying out new things with my cooking. You get two hours to make a dish, whereas at home cooking for two hours is a bit of a waste of time.” House provides housing for those recovering from recent
2.
HARKER HEADS OF SCHOOL
The aromatic smell of marinated chicken wafts through the air as the thick steam from the sizzling pans blankets the kitchen with warmth and coziness. Chairs scrape across the floor and laughter fills the room as guests settle into their seats to enjoy a home-cooked dinner.
NEIL BAI
Aquila news editor & reporter
medical treatments or visiting loved ones at local hospitals. The center opens from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day for day guests and offers hotel-style rooms for overnight stays. or meal services, House’s “Dinner... is Served” program invites local restaurants, community volunteers and families to visit House and cook for the facility’s guests. Groups interested can sign up for a time slot on a calendar on House’s website. Kappa Kooking prepares a variety of dishes whenever they visit House and en oy experimenting with the meals they cook for the facility’s guests. “We do different things every time; sometimes we’ll cook Spanish food or American or Chinese,” Neil said. “We do have some staples. Usually we do entrees, but last time David made apple crostata.“ Groups who visit House often cook around 25 to 30 meals for the facility’s guests. House Family Services Director April Bignell spoke about “Dinner.. is Served”’s role in bringing members of the Bay Area community and those at House together. For more information about JW house, scan the following code:
EAGLE PHOTO ARCHIVES
tiffany wong & karina chen
THE LEGACY
meena gudapati & srinath somasundaram & anmol velagapudi Aquila editor-in-chief & reporters
“[Howard Nichols] was a man’s man, he was an employee advocate, and he was someone that anybody would aspire to be,” Facility Director Mike Bassoni said. Tuesday Harker celebrated what would have been former Harker president Howard Nichols’s 77th birthday. Nichols died of esophageal cancer on Dec. 31, 2008, at 68-years-old. Nichols was named head of school in 1973, and went on to become president in 1992, when Harker Academy was renamed as The Harker School. At the time he became president, Harker only included kindergarten to eighth grade; Nichols and his wife, the head of school, added the upper school in 1998. In 2005, the Nicholses retired and became a part of the school board. Nichols is remembered not only for his development of the school, but also for his compassion, humbleness and spirit. Spanish teacher Diana Moss, who began working at Harker in 1996, recalls that Nichols knew every employee and their respective spouse by name. “The thing that I remember most about Mr. Nichols was his humanity, in the sense that for him, character was of extreme importance,” she said. “What en oy about teaching here at Harker is [that] there is an em-
phasis on kindness and respect for each other, and ust remember that Mr. Nichols showed that in so many ways.” Bassoni started working at Harker in 1981. “Mr. Nichols was a very caring, giving man,” Bassoni said. “He believed in the betterment of children; he was a huge advocate for their development and
“He was a man’s man, he was an employee advocate, and he was someone that anybody would aspire to be.” MIKE BASSONI FACILITY DIRECTOR [for them] to be taught right from wrong, good moral standards [and to] become good citi ens. Bassoni and Moss recall memories of Nichols picking up trash while walking around as a means of keeping the campus tidy, rather than calling for help. “It didn’t matter what your role was for the school,” Bassoni said. “You could have been a principal of the division; you could have been a anitor or a dishwasher. He treated everybody the same.” Nichols kept a ar of cookies in his office, for anyone who wanted to drop by and chat. To commemorate Nichols, Harker remembers this tradition every
year by serving chocolate chip cookies on his birthday. think he was ust one of the most approachable administrators that I ever knew; you never felt like he put himself on a pedestal,” Moss said. “You felt like you could always walk into his office and ask him any kind of question.” hen Bassoni oined Harker’s staff, school was centered at the Saratoga campus, and around 100 students were a part of the boarding program. Nichols would lead Christmas carols during the holidays as a means of helping student boarders feel comfortable. “He knew some of these children from halfway around the world: it was hard for a 10, 11, 12–year–old student to be away from home,” Bassoni said. “He wanted it to be a nurturing environment, for them to feel safe and that people cared about their well being.” Nichols has also been remembered for his athleticism, from playing football and basketball while attending Palo Alto High School, to dominating in a staff vs. students basketball game. “Very, very late in his career, he en oyed putting on his shorts and his sneakers and going out and playing basketball with the students,” Bassoni said. “Most of us were out of shape, but Mr. Nichols, well into his 50s, could run up and down the court with any of the kids.” Both Nichols hall and the recently added gymnasium have been named in honor of Nichols.
LIFESTYLE
7
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
Kiana Underwood’s favorite flowers are ranunculuses and gardenias. The ranunculus’s organic movements and colors embody her style as a nature-inspired floral designer. Unlike many florists or floral designers, she often uses fruit, such as apples and tomatoes, to accentuate texture. Born and raised in ran, iana Underwood grew up surrounded by flowers and beautiful gardens her mother and grandfather tended luscious gardens. She initially wanted to be a diplomat, and, after college, she left the East Coast to be with her family in the Bay Area. She later found a ob at the Think Tank nstitution at Stanford University yet, it was never her passion. ears later, when their children were old enough to attend school, she and her husband decided to explore floristry. thought it was ridiculous to be a florist who’s going to want me to do flowers for them But, we didn’t have anything to lose, she said. looked into social media, and started ust experimenting with different styles and what different styles and
“I think that’s it’s really important, especially for high school kids, for young people to have perseverance, do your best, do your hardest at what you love.” KIANA UNDERWOOD FLORIST
type of flowers liked. The first year didn’t have much business. went to the flower market every week and explored what flowers were interesting for me. This was in , and, six years later, here we are. Underwood launched a bouti ue floral design studio, Tulipina, in San rancisco in . n addition to holding wedding ban uets, she instructs international workshops with hundreds of students from the United States, Canada, exico, ndonesia, orea, taly, ussia, Ukraine and more. hen ’m not traveling, usually get up early in the morning and go to the flower market . This is before anyone in my household gets up, at around five a.m. The flower mart opens up early, so ’ll get to choose the best flowers, she said. To Underwood, the best part about being a floral designer is piecing her art together and
making flowers. She loves three aspects of her career, in particular having a creative outlet, working in weddings, and traveling all over the world to teach and meet new people. t’s a lot of cleaning up flowers in general. There’s a lot of work. t’s kind of hard, because you’re moving buckets and filling buckets with flowers, and then you’re lifting the buckets. But, love my ob so much that it doesn’t seem as bad to me, she said. edia outlets such as New ork Times, Brides, Elle D cor, Elle Spose, Country Living, arie Claire, lower aga ine, rench Country Style and Luxe nteriors have showcased her floral designs. When Underwood spends time in the Bay Area, one of her favorite nurseries to go to is Annie’s Annuals erennials in ichmond, in the East Bay. She likes the uni ue design and the variety of flowers of the store.
Finding the best local boba buys derek yen aditya roy
the three stores within walking distance of the upper school campus in order to evaluate and compare their drinks, on the basis of popular opinion, value, selection of products and variety of sweet tea drinks.
PHOTOS BY DEREK YEN
opinion editor & reporter
Harker students live within a Renaissance of boba: a modern Taiwanese take on traditional tea. Some students walk to them after school to grab a drink. But which one is the best for the discerning student? We reviewed
TAPIOCA EXPRESS
Tapioca Express is the boba tea shop closest to school, ust across the street. ffering a wide array of drinks over and a few snack foods, such as fried chicken and calamari, Tapioca Express has the most options of any boba tea shop in the area. In addition to providing multiple flavors of milk tea, Tapioca Express also sells snow bubbles, which are made with slush ice instead of li uid, coffees and talian sodas. Due to how close Tapioca Express is to the upper school campus, many students prefer it due to its speed. Tapioca Express is closer, like really closer and we have to get back to volleyball practice, eona hetrapal said, after visiting with teammates. And, it’s less expensive. ith a price to volume ratio of cents per fluid ounce, Tapioca Express stands out as the cheapest of the three stores, making it an attractive option when you’re looking for boba tea that’s easy to obtain and economical.
TEASPOON
Located in Strawberry ark, Teaspoon is the farthest boba tea store, taking customers eight minutes to reach after crossing four heavily trafficked roads. et some students believe Teaspoon’s uality ustifies the extra work. e started out going to Tapioca Express at first because it was closer, so it was more convenient, but errica Liao convinced us to start going to Teaspoon. think it’s worth it, Danya hang said. n addition to custom-made drinks, Teaspoon offers snow ice, a cross between shaved ice and ice cream, and several specialty drinks. hen you go to a different boba place, they don’t really have, say, the Grasshopper,’ which is a cucumber green tea we have, or the irgin o ito’, Tracy Chao, Teaspoon’s Assistant anager, said. think that’s what makes us stand out for our teas. ith organic ingredients and specialty drinks, Teaspoon is a good choice for the boba drinker willing to pay more.
PROVIDD BY TULIPINA
Aquila lifestyle editor & reporter
FLORAL FRENZY (TOP LEFT) A model posing in a summer design by Kiana Underwood, stands in the corner of room of Paisley and Jade, in Virginia. (TOP RIGHT) Kiana Underwood holds fresh peony bouquets. interesting varieties. (BOTTOM) Underwood designs a bouquet using dahlias, fuschias, strawberries and more.
Underwood also visits her favorite vendor in the San rancisco flower markets, S Brannan Street holesale lorist, for their freshly cut flowers. or me, wanted my ob to take me all over the world, so can deal with international people. hat ama es me today is that even though could’ve pursue diplomacy, here am doing something completely different. t’s a creative thing. t’s like a second career for me, Underwood said.
FAST FACTS
Underwood speaks four languages: Farsi, English, Italian and Japanese. er favorite owers are gardenias and ranunculi. She holds international workshops in Canada, Indonesia, Italy, Korea, Mexico, and Ukraine.
Lunchtime seating: counting it up enna sadhu arushi saxena Aquila broadcast editor & reporter
ound green tables, round white tables, inside an anita, the patio there are a multitude of different lunchtime seating locations at the upper school. The inged ost set out to determine if this seating can hold as many students as there are on the upper school campus. or the students on the upper school campus, there are
seats in and around ananita. The green tables outside the orunalism room are counted as seating eight, the tables outside economics teacher Samuel Lepler’s room were calculated as holding , and all other numbers are calucated using number of chairs available. The inged ost’s estimate includes the patio area between the atil ing and ournalism room but does not count any potential seating in the uad are or between Nichols and Dobbins.
MATCHA LOVE
Located within itsuwa Supermarket in Strawberry ark, atcha Love offers an untraditional menu focusing on drinks with matcha, powdered apanese green tea. t’s really hard to find good, uality matcha, Brandon Tenchave , atcha Love Assistant anager said. y first ob was at Starbucks, and their matcha was, want to say, mixed with some kind of milk powder. or us at atcha Love , we use high- uality matcha. Though atcha Love is not as fre uented by students, it offers a uni ue selection of products not found at other drink shops tea-flavored ice creams and traditional hot-brewed teas with flavors that are harder to find in most boba tea shops, such as roasted ho icha tea and black sesame. atcha Love’s price-perounce ratios are relatively high, though their uni ue product selection makes them the definitive choice for the tea drinker interested in en oying a traditional tea in an unorthodox presentation.
MAHIKA HALEPETE & JENNA SADHU
gloria zhang & sara yen
PROVIDED BY JUNGIN LE
PROVIDED BY CORBIN GURKIN
A FLORIST?
8
TIME MANAGEMENT
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
THE GREAT
ORGANIZATIO DEBA
A look at upper school students’ and faculty’s time management habits, tips and new
nerine uyanik, gloria zhang & sahana srinivasan Humans of Harker asst. videographer, Aquila asst. features editor & editor-in-chief
An assortment of colored gel pens and thin-point markers lie to the side. Two pages are illustrated with arrow-shaped bullet points and intricate, careful calligraphy. Detailed illustrations line the outer margins of the pages, filled in with the full range of the rainbow. ‘October’ is inscribed on the top, and below, an entire life is plotted out into 24-hour increments. Time management is a skill equally necessary for children and adults’ physical and mental health. Students can organize their time for their exams, homework, and projects. While as an adult, this skill assists in managing home and work.
“Now time management applied across the board is just a matter of doing it to apply to children, students, adults. When it comes to managing our time, it’s more about self-management than time itself.” Professional trainer and organizer Yvonne Surrey said, “Time management experts tell you we cannot manage time, we can only manage ourselves in the time we’re given, and that applies to students as well as adults.” Freshman dean Jeffrey Draper, sophomore dean Kelly Horan and chemistry teacher Smriti Koodanjeri worked together to create a time management program, which includes the dark green freshman planners that were handed to the class of 2021 at the beginning of the year. Their goal was to emphasize the importance of planning and organizing and to change Harker’s culture of stressing over homework and tests.
“The three of us when we met last year, the goal here was to change the culture from ‘Oh my god, I have so much homework to do!’ and ‘I sleep at three a.m. in the morning!’ to you know what, someone telling the person why don’t you try using your planner. We have planners you can work with, we have teachers who can help.” Dr. Koodanjeri said. The program includes at least six sessions during Office Hours with the help of teachers who volunteered. The first session, led by Dr. oodanjeri, introduced detailed ways of use for the planner. Next session focused on prioritizing and ranking goals on their importance. “[My session] was a more logistical session, where I looked at PCR, and one of the things I found last year, we gave the freshmen planners last year, but we didn’t do much instruction with it.” Horan said, “It’s a principle
of psychology that we always think that we’ll be faster at something that we actually are. So, how do we realistically schedule the time that something is going to take.”
you want. Your goals, your visions. Basically it starts with a vision and you break it down to what we call goals and you break them down to small ones,” Dr. Koodanjeri said.
“It’s more about self-managment than time itself. We can only manage ourselves in the time given, and that applies to students and adults.” PROVIDED BY YVONNE SURREY
Upper school tackles best methods for time management
All the freshmen were given planners during their first session and were encouraged to participate. The students could return them if they prefered to use other methods of time management. Leftover books were given to the counseling office and Dr. oodanjeri, who sent an email to Sophomores and Juniors. The remaining 32 planners were taken in the first few days following her announcement. The first pages of the planner actually guides you of the process of thinking what
YVONNE SURREY TRAINER, COACH AND BUSINESS ORGANIZER Some students prefer using a traditional planner and enjoy the process of physically writing and checking tasks off. Junior Kelly Shen developed her organizational skills in order to manage her academics and numerous extra-curriculars as well as get adequate sleep. “I always plan ahead of time what I want to get done in my planner,” Kelly said. “I set out chunks of time that I would designate to accomplishing certain tasks, and I try to make it as realistic as possi-
Bullet journaling trend gains popularity due to sahana srinivasan & gloria zhang editor-in-chief & Aquila asst. features editor
Bullet journaling is a trend that started in 2015 as method to stay focused and be creative by Ryder Carroll “There is place for everything that pops into your head because our brains aren’t always linear. We tend to think they are, but they’re not.” History teacher and bullet journaler Donna Gilbert said.
Bullet journals consist of empty pages with light bullets points and can be used for organization, time management and habit-tracking. “With my bullet journal, if I’m drawing, if I’m setting up my spreads on my own, I’ll be more likely to fill it out myself,” Mona Lee (12) said. “I’ve tired other task management systems but I’ve felt they were too plain and too cold. With my online software, I felt like I was copying and pasting my PCR in, and there wasn’t much flexibility with the program itself.”
BULLET JOURNALS Senior Mona Lee works on her bullet journal. She began her journaling in spring of her junior year.
SPREAD IT OUT An example monthly bullet journal spread tracks schoolwork, meetings, social eng habits. Bullet journals often contain monthly and weekly spreads and can keep track of whatevery su Bullet journallers often document their spreads on social media sites like Pinterest, which others can
9
TIME MANAGEMENT • VOLUME 19 ISSUE 2 • OCTOBER 12, 2017
Senior Mona Lee’s average weekday schedule
Sleep
Daily Living
Prep indicates
Study
School
Apps
Daily includes getting ready for school and living sleep, chores and meals at home.
Daily Living
Sleep
Junior Kelly Shen’s average weekday schedule
track her tasks, assignments, moods and habits. Mona also publishes extensive class notes for subjects like APUSH at tiny. cc/foner. “Honestly the best thing that came out of [the notes] was that the juniors have it now,” she said. “I feel like people don’t have to spend their time on it [now] so it was a worthwile endeavor. Now, for all my other classes, like for statistics, I’ll just write down all the definitions in a notebook and be done with it, and for physics I’ll just write down all the formulas and be done with it. It’s just how I study; I’m a very tactile person and I like writing things down. Draper, Horan, and Dr. Koodanjeri plans to expand the upper school’s time management program to include parents in the future. “Time is the most important thing for a student, and not money and not fame. Being able to master time is the most efficient way to find happiness in the way you live life day by day and moment by moment, hour by hour, week by week, year by year,” Draper said.
HW/Study Transportation
School
TIME OF OUR LIVES A typical breakdown of a weekday in junior Kelly Shen’life is shown. Circles are to scale in representing her time.
KATHY FANG
gagements, moods and daily uits the particular journaller. n imitate or use for inspiration.
Transportation
“preparation” and includes updating her bullet journal, writing notes for class and doing other work not required by the teacher.
w initiatives
ble. So, if know can’t finish a given assignment in half an hour, ’ll definitely put it for a longer block of time. Aside from that, when I am doing my work, I am focused and not distracted by anything, so that can be the most efficient can be.” Other than using a planner, online apps and trending bullet journals can assist with time management. The most important idea of planning is finding a method to write down tasks.. “People ask questions like ‘what is a great app or program’ or something. If you’re into apps, then great, if you’re into just a notebook that can work too.” Author on time management books Laura Vanderkam said, “I think everybody needs some form of calendar that they can look at frequently. That can be an electronic calendar if you want but it can also just be a paper calendar.” Senior Mona Lee uses bullet journals, which are notebooks consisting not of graph or lined paper but bullet points. She then makes weekly and monthly spreads that
Prep
HW Free time
ON TE
TIME OF OUR LIVES A typical breakdown of a weekday in senior Mona Lee’s life is shown. Circles are to scale in representing the time she spends in each activity.
A guide to choosing the best productivity apps mahika halepete asst. features editor
Asst. Features Editor Mahika Halepete gives testimonals for time management apps.
StayFocusd f you find yourself unnecessarily wasting away time on random sites, turn on Nuclear Mode on StayFocusd and make a list of sites you (like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc.) want to block and you’ll be blocked from viewing those sites. This is one of the most helpful tools I’ve used. Disclaimer: It takes a lot of willpower not to disable the app when you want to visit one of the sites you blocked.
Any.do
Limitless
Each morning, log your tasks for the day into the app. It will launch an interactive grouping process to allow you prioritize things hourly, and by days. I used to use it only on the days when I was really busy, but I eventually got the paid plan because of how useful it is. The most important thing with this app is consistency. You’re going to need to visit the app at least once per day to plan out your day.
Limitless tracks your time on different sites and will give you personalized messages each time you open a new tab based on which sites you tend to spend excess time on. . Check the “Analytics” tab to get a review of your online time spending. The time really adds up, and Limitless will show you exactly how much time you could have devoted towards the task at hand.
BULLET POINTS Bullet journalling has become increasingly popular in recent years. A bullet journal is made from an empty notebook that, in lieu of lined or graph paper, has just bullet points. Bullet journallers on social media document their journal spreads, which in addition to performing the traditional functions of a planner are also often used to track moods, habits and general goals.
Cheer Practice
10
OPINION Editors-in-Chief Kaitlin Hsu Sahana Srinivasan Managing Editor Maya Kumar
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
Taking North Korea seriously Jokes and banter about missile capabilities trivialize the situation
News Editor Vijay Bharadwaj Features Editor Prameela Kottapalli Opinion Editor Derek Yen STEM Editor Katherine Zhang Asst. STEM Editor Neal Sidhu Global Editor Eric Fang Lifestyle Editor Mahika Halepete Copy Editors Anvi Banga Photo Editor Kathy Fang
ROSE GUAN
Anjay Saklecha
ROCKET MAN President Trump’s carefree demeanor and jokes about North Korea on social media make light of the seriousness of war. North
Adviser Ellen Austin, MJE Aquila Editor-in-Chief Meena Gudapati Wingspan Editors-in-Chief Kaitlin Hsu Sahana Srinivasan Wingspan Managing Editor Maya Kumar Wingspan Designer Rose Guan Aquila Staff
Jenna Sadhu Neil Bai Alex Wang Krishna Bheda Tiffany Wong Nicole Chen Helen Yang Adrian Chu Gloria Zhang
Humans of Harker Staff Ashley Jiang Nerine Uyanik Reporters
Karina Chen Zoe Sanders Kaidi Dai Arushi Saxene Michael Eng Kushal Shah Nina Gee Saloni Shah Farah Hosseini Arya Tandon Vivian Jin Jin Tuan Irina Malyugina Anmol Velagapudi Anika Rajamani Daniel Wang Varsha Rammohan Jessie Wang Aditya Roy Aria Wong Aditya Singhvi Anya Weaver Sara Yen Annamma Vazhaeparambil Srinath Somasundaram
EDITORIAL THE OFFICIAL OPINION OF THE WINGED POST It may be hard to grasp the nature of nuclear war. After all, it hasn’t happened—yet—and we didn’t grow up in a generation that spent every waking hour preparing for it. The threat of nuclear war has resurfaced with a rapidly improving North Korean nuclear program and a belligerent American president. Already both sides are grimly preparing: North Korea has claimed the right to shoot down American military planes, arguing that President Trump’s bellicose rhetoric constitutes a declaration of war; and Hawaii, which is just outside of the current reach of North Korea’s missiles, has been quietly preparing its population for a nuclear attack. But in spite of the megatons and the radiation, the threat of nuclear war has not lodged itself as a concern in popular imagination. On social media, in the news and even by our president,
the situation has been treated as anything but grave. During his visit to the United Nations, President Trump referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a “rocket man,” later promoting Kim on Twitter to the sobriquet of “Little Rocket Man.” im ong Un returned fire at Trump, calling him a “dotard.” Baffled by this insurmountable display of lexical erudition, media outlets and social media users quickly make jokes about the insult. What ought to have been seen as a terrifying show of brinksmanship between two world leaders was instead dismissed and made a cause for laughs, as if it were merely some hackneyed name-calling between sitcom characters. No, these circumstances are concerning. But the jokes have never been a new thing. Whether as a witty one-liner about existential suffering or a quip about impending doom, many of us use dark—and sometimes fatalistic—humor as a coping mechanism. Sarcasm, self-deprecation and cynicism is how we deal with what’s going on in the world. We use it to seek relief from the reality of modern times—it’s how many of us grapple with Donald Trump in the White House, and right now,
it’s how many of us are laughing through the thick cloud of anxiety surrounding North Korea.
What ought to have been seen as a terrifying show of brinksmanship between two world leaders was instead dismissed and made a cause for laughs. The drawback, however, is that it trivializes the grave reality of the situation. North Korea is a threat that should be taken seriously—and memes depicting Kim Jong Un as a nerf gun-wielding man-child don’t do anything to raise awareness about nuclear war or the harrowing conditions that North Korean citizens face on an everyday basis. Even before Trump’s ill-natured badinage, North Korea had been popularly depicted in jokes as some effete, backwards nation whose military capabilities were like those of its sprawling Potemkin cities—props for a global play, devoid of teeth. But as North Korea’s successive successes with its ballistic missile program demonstrate,
Bamboo-zled: Breaking apart the chopsticks’ significance
Visit The Winged Post Online at www.harkeraquila.com Follow us on social media with the handle /harkeraquila
The Winged Post is published every four to six weeks except during vacations by the Journalism: Newspaper Concentration and Advanced Journalism: Newspaper Concentration courses at The Harker Upper School, 500 Saratoga Ave., San Jose, CA 95129. The Winged Post staff will publish features, editorials, news, sports and STEM articles in an unbiased and professional manner and serve as a public forum for the students of The Harker School. Editorials represent the official opinions of The Winged Post. Opinions and letters represent the personal viewpoints of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Winged Post. All content decisions are made by student editors, and the content of The Winged Post in no way reflects the official policy of The Harker School. The opinions expressed in this publication reflect those of the student writers and not the Harker board, administration, faculty or adviser. Letters to the Editor may be submitted to Manzanita 70 or emailed to wingedpost2017@ harker.org and must be signed, legible and concise. The staff reserves the right to edit letters to conform to Post style. Baseless accusations, insults, libelous statements, obscenities and letters that call for a disruption of the school day will not be considered for publication. Letters sent to The Winged Post will be published at the discretion of the editorial staff. The Winged Post is the official student newspaper of The Harker School and is distributed free of cost to students. 2016-2017 Pacemaker Finalist 2016-2017 Silver Crown-winning publication 2015-2016 Gold Crown-winning publication 2014-2015 Silver Crown-winning publication 2013-2014 Silver Crown-winning publication 2012-2013 Silver Crown-winning publication 2010-2011 Gold Crown-winning publication 2009-2010 Silver Crown-winning publication
the North Korean military is as real as any other in the world— just as dangerous, just as destructive and just as lethal. The reality was and is that North Korea fields one of the largest militaries in the world. The actions and words taken by President Trump only further antagonize and provoke North Korea, and are discomforting to not only the average American, but to those living in the territory of Guam and citizens of Asian countries near North Korea such as Japan and South Korea. The North Korean missile program has measurably increased its testing after Trump’s words, having launched two missiles over Japan since late August—an unprecedented act of aggression. President Trump’s romantic vision of nuclear war as some clean, simple affair where an expeditious American victory is inevitable and North Korean casualties are unimportant is not only fatuous but also dangerous. Any armed conflict, even one in which America can merely steamroll over North Korea, would result in the deaths of millions of civilians. As citizens ad students, we have a duty to treat the possibility of war with North Korea seriously, and with the commensurate degree of measured fear.
DEREK
kaitlin hsu editor-in-chief
For four illustrious days, the utensil receptacles of Manzanita were graced with chopsticks. hen my eyes first lighted upon the crimson sheaths, I couldn’t believe that an idea the student body had been advocating for since my freshmen year actually materialized in my senior year. After impulsively grabbing a pair, I gravitated toward the classic Chinese characters on the wrapper—“lucky”, “live a long life”, “healthy” and “peaceful”— as well as the two disarming illustrations of pandas. Upon closer inspection, the wrapper was jammed with other information, such as the phone number of the manufacturing company as well as an obligatory chopsticks-related fun fact. “According to Confucius, knives were equated with acts of aggression and should not be used to dine. Chopsticks then became the eating utensils of choice.” The instructions also sparked a heady wave of nostalgia, harking back to the Chinese
restaurants I frequented during lower school. “Chopstick A is used for support and does not move. Put this chopstick between your middle and ring fingers. ut Chopstick B between your middle and index fingers, and hold it with your thumb. Open the tips of the chopsticks and try to pick up food with them.”
The moments I recall most vividly from high school haven’t been the big tests or the big social outings — rather, they have been the moments involving what seem to be trivial events. I used these chopsticks to pick up things that should never be picked up with chopsticks: jalapeño poppers, a grilled cheese sandwich, even yogurt. In fact, the utensils added a new element of whimsy to my otherwise routine lunch habits. So, I was mildly disappointed when couldn’t find chop-
sticks during lunch on Sept. 28. According to student council, the chopsticks poke through the linings of trash bags, so they have been temporarily removed until a better method of disposal is devised. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the reprieve from the general anxiety surrounding first semester of my senior year. I express my gratitude toward the kitchen staff and Ms. Joslyn. I would also like to thank student council, especially senior class secretary David Wen (12) for spearheading the project and ASB treasurer Megan Huynh (12) for purchasing the chopsticks themselves. Finally, I’d like to thank the student body for continually requesting chopsticks. I’m amused we have chosen to rally behind this specific cause, but there really isn’t a better way I’d like to conclude my high school career. I do not regret how I’ve spent the past four years. There isn’t a universally optimal approach to high school, and the balance between academic, social, familial, and other duties is different for everyone. However, some of the moments I recall most vividly from high school haven’t been the big tests or the big social outings—
YEN
rather, they have been the moments involving what seem to be trivial events: romping around campus, laughing hysterically with my friends over our horrible karaoke skills, boba runs and of course, these chopsticks. So, freshmen: the utensils will be the first of many memories you have on this bike ride known as high school—try to keeping viewing the world around you with that wondrous freshness. Sophomores: though you can finally claim to no longer be the newcomers on campus, these chopsticks are just one step along the way of your high school journey. Continue to explore, enjoy and enrich your growth. Juniors: the College Board knows you need a break whenever you can catch one. Let this be it. I promise that taking joy in the mundane will carry you further than one extra hour of cramming. And, to my very own senior class: pretend the chopsticks are talismans that ward off procrastination. But, seriously, I believe we can make it through these next three months together. I encourage all of you to stop and not only smell the roses but also use the chopsticks.
OPINION
11
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
Dialectic: Lunchtime Stratagems
In our recurring Dialectics, two authors with contrasting viewpoints will discuss an issue of prominence in the local or broader community. We hope to use these multiple views to provoke deeper thought among the student body and help readers explore new perspectives. Students eating lunch often ask: where should one go to get lunch? Mex or Manzanita? Copy editor Anvi Banga and Wingspan designer Rose Guan discuss this issue. anvi banga & rose guan
copy editor & Wingspan designer
on the eternal question: when you enter lunch, is it wiser to first go to Fresh Mex or Manzanita? I think it’s worth I would argue it to go to Manzanita that really the wise because at Fresh Mex choice is to neither you either like the go to Fresh Mex nor entree or you don’t, Manzanita, because but with Manzanita there’s a lot it’s often wiser to wait until the more options. line is gone, so that you don’t waste as much time in the line waiting for food.
WP: Now that you’ve heard each other’s opinions, what is your initial response to the other person’s view? I think it’s not really a waste of time that much to be in line, like, of course if the Manzanita line is way longer than the Fresh Mex line, you’d go there, but you often get to like socialize with your friends in the line if you happen to be next to them. So it’s not really, like, the time flied by pretty uickly.
That is true, but there’s a lot of happenstance involved in having your friends next to you, especially if you come from different areas of the campus, and I really think that going to Manzanita initially might seem like the better option, but if you wait for the lines to sort of taper off, that’s not just wiser, but more efficient.
WP: Addressing your points specifically, Rose, what about
the consideration that when you enter both Fresh Mex and Manzanita later, often they run out of certain entrees, or the food gets colder? The concern of running out of certain entrees is not that great, especially if you perhaps aren’t really going to eat that anyway, so I think, I guess what I’m advocating for is a more of a planned approach to the lunch line than just going there. For example, looking at the lunch menu, to see whether there is an entree that you would mind running out.
DEREK YEN
Winged Post: First, tell us a brief summary of your stance
A new
International Station is planned to open in the “auxiliary gym” near Fresh Mex
Fresh Mex typically offers chips and up to 3 entrees Manzanita offers more than three entrees
WP: What is the deciding factor for you, Anvi, between how much faster Fresh Mex’s lines tend to be and the greater diversity you experience with Manzanita’s options? I think nowadays Fresh Mex’s lines have also been really long, and even if you want just chips or something, you have to wait in the entire line. And especially for me, because I’m vegetarian, there tends not to be a very enticing vegetarian option at Fresh Mex, so I would go to Fresh Mex later to get chips or something, but not at the beginning, because I don’t want to wait in such a long line for just chips.
WP: Any closing remarks on other aspects of lunch? As a short person, I hate the mobs in front of all the entree places: I feel like people are just holding their food at my face level, so they’re kinda just shoving their food in my face. If there’s a way to make mobs more into lines, that could obviously be nice, and I think that when they open the international station in the auxiliary gym, the lines should also be reduced.
The line at Manzanita consistently moves more quickly than that of Fresh Mex, and is often more than twice the length
I think there’s a balance between how hungry you are and whether you want to wait to get food in order to avoid the lines, and recognizing that that balance exists is the first step in making the lunch line experience more enjoyable for you and just generally more appealing. Recognizing the different options for the decisions you can make is really important to learning how to spend your lunch time.
eart of Harker: San Antonio to San Jose In this repeating guest column, writers share memorable upper school experiences.
benefit from the opportunity to evolve, and embracing that evolution is and will remain a cherished component of the culture that defines Harker. It has also been humbling and inspiring to learn of the efforts of the staff at Harker, both past and present, from the Harker sisters (Sara and Catherine) to the Nichols family, to the numerous dedicated men and women who provided an environment for learning that has been continuously excellent. As we prepare to celebrate them and their stories in Harker’s upcoming anniversary year, I also
New Lord of the Flies cannot be faithful to original book while faithfully depicting an all-female cast
Characters with underrepresented backgrounds that embrace their differences not only make their films more compelling by adding new, unique possibilities to their narratives and dynamics but also justify more minority representation in both casting and production to more accurately depict their idiosyncrasies. The directors’ faith to the source material and the potential of an all-female cast are mu-
guest writer
There is a poster on Ms. Rees’ door, and it was one of the first things came across on the morning I arrived at Harker. It contains a quote from John Green, and I viewed its existence and my stumbling upon it as an affirmation that had landed in a community whose collective ethos mirrored my own. It is, after all, the spirit of a place that most matters in the lives of those who live in it. Though the start of school
adrian chu aquila columnist
With the controversy of 2016’s Ghostbusters in recent memory, Warner Bros.’s announcement of an all-female Lord of the Flies in August came at a focal point for many controversial issues in hollywood. The remake will be written and directed by long-standing writing-directing pair Scott McGehee and David Siegel. Translated to film in and with male casts, the book depicts a group of British schoolboys deserted on an uninhabited island who descend into a chaos without any power structures. In an interview with Deadline, Siegel expressed intentions to remain faithful to the events of the book and ustified the all-female cast saying that
is a busy time, there have been many moments that have afforded me the opportunity to observe
It has also been humbling and inspiring to learn of the efforts of the staff at Harker. some of the special elements of the Harker community. Among my favorites have been visits to classes, and brief but enlightening conversations with students and teachers. Also at the top of
“taking the opportunity to tell it in a way it hasn’t been told before, with girls rather than boys, is that it shifts things in a way that might help people see the story anew. It breaks away from some of the conventions, the ways we think of boys and aggression.” Though a film that breaks conventions and tells a story from a new angle usually excites me, Siegel and McGehee need to walk an impossibly narrow line to justify an all-female remake. A remake should respect its source material and accomplish something that it could not have done as an original film, but if Siegel stands by his words, changing the genders of characters without changing the characters themselves will add little to previous adaptations of the book aside from introducing the shock value of girls being violent
and savage. hether the film intends to or not, the all-female Lord of the Flies remake sets a precedent for how the movie industry approaches female leads and female representation in general. Though having girls who break traditional female stereotypes seems to break convention, having female leads whose personalities and dynamics were created for boys reinforces the idea that leads and strong characters should be masculine. There is nothing wrong with female characters having traditionally masculine traits, but when female leads consistently fall into this trope, casting female leads might be little more than token representation. The strength of any character should not be defined by similar they are to the standard male action hero.
look forward to continuing to get to know this place and all of the people who are here now, and to our collective journeys in the years to come.
Brian Yager joined The Harker School as head of school in July 2017. He moved from the Keystone School in San Antonio, Texas, where he was head of school for seven years.
tually exclusive. The Lord of the Flies remake must write its female characters as female characters. I cannot say for certain what this entitles, but if Siegel and McGehee, two middle-aged men, can accurately depict the nuanced differences between an all-female and all-male Lord of the Flies and capture the intricacies of the interpersonal relationships of preteen girls, it will truly be a tour de force.
MICHAEL ENG
my list has been the presence of the various instrumentalist groups in the auxiliary gym. hen my office door is open, the music from the rehearsals permeates the space, in the same way that culture permeates and enhances our collective existence. I also know that while I will be happy for the musicians – and for all of the performing arts students and teachers – when they move to the spectacular Rothschild Performing Arts Center, I will miss the sounds and melodies which currently grace the front hallway. However, programs, places, and people
brian yager
OF THE FLIES conch, a pair of glasses, and a sharpened stick. A decision to remake the book with the characters recast as girls has drawn controversy.
STEM
12
GLOBAL
RESET
81°F
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
the average ocean temperature in San
Part sixteen of an ongoing series
Natural disasters strike the U.S. in Florida, Puerto Rico, Texas and California news editor & reporter
KAITLIN HSU
editor-in-chief & reporters
The Siemens Foundation pushed the deadline for competition entries back to Sept. 25, six days after the original date, in consideration of those affected by Hurricane Harvey and other recent weather phenomena across the U.S. “Due to recent extreme weather conditions, the deadline for the 2017 Siemens Competition has been extended,” the Siemens Foundation said in a statement released to students on Sept. 15.
The Siemens Competition is an annual science research competition where high school students submit research papers of up to 18 pages in STE fields. Students who advance to the national level have a chance to win a $100,000 college scholarship. The extended deadline gave teachers a chance to give more thorough feedback to the students. “There are students that ordinarily would not have had the time to work on their drafts after the faculty had proofread them,” Science Department Chair Anita Chetty said. “I myself have received drafts from students in the last
24 hours where they have decided to take the opportunity.” The extra time has enabled students to submit more thought-out and improved entries, also making the process much less stressful. “I feel pretty good about [the deadline extension],” Alycia Cary (11) said. “It’s given me a lot more time to reflect on my paper and go through more drafts and get a lot more feedback. Hopefully, it pays off in the actual process.” After submission, professional scientists judge the papers in a series of four rounds, the first determining semifinalists, the second regional finalists, the third national finalists, and the fourth the winner. Nineteen of last year’s semifinalists and three of the regional finalists were Harker students. Research project topics come from all branches of mathematics, science, and technology, including everything from toxicology to electrical engineering to computer science. “My project is on using deep learning to automatically detect surgical tools in videos, and using that information to assess operative skill,” Amy Jin (12) said. “Improving surgical training and providing feedback to surgeons will help reduce the rate of complications.” For now, students wait in anticipation for the competition’s semifinalists and regional finalists to be announced on Oct. 17 and 18.
72°F
the average ocean temperature in Miami
S
kaitlin hsu & arya maheshwari & aria wong
ness for extreme weather taking it more seriously, and possibly even people taking it more seriously so it may stop being such a contested issue. ” Kolstad believes that areas such as “the Gulf coast, from Florida on to Corpus Christi, as well as up the East coast of Florida, probably up to the Georgia border”, are more likely to be affected by hurricanes. To prevent damage, Kolstad also wants the federal government to improve their current policies to encourage people to build in vulnerable areas by selling them cheap insurance policies. f they fix that, then there wouldn’t be so many structures in the way of the hurricane. If the hurricane just blows over empty land, it’s much more modest consequences.”
the average ocean temperature in Southern California
A ATL
Students submit to Siemens Competition
70°F
RLD
ADVANCED RESEARCH Justin Xie (12) and Michael Kwan (12) work on their research papers during the Advanced Research class. Students submitting papers to the Siemens Competition had until Sept. 25, an extension from the previous deadline.
74°F
the average ocean temperature in Port Mansfield
WO
Several natural disasters, including four major hurricanes and various wildfires, have impacted the United States in the past two months. Atlantic hurricanes often occur in a window from June to November, peaking around late August. Despite that, the coincidence of these hurricanes can be considered unusual according to Sean Sublette, a meteorologist at Climate Central. 2017 has been one of the worst years on record, with two Category 5 storms. “It’s important to note that we are going to have busy hurricane years and we’re gonna have some years that aren’t as busy,” Sublette said. “That’s kind of a natural cycle by itself. If you think back to 2005, that was a very active year. We’ve been very fortunate in the last decade that we haven’t had a lot of intense category 4s and 5s come so close to Category 4s and 5s come so close to land masses here in the Atlantic.” Hurricanes typically form around warm ocean waters, which are found close to the equator. Colder waters, found further from the equator such as in Northern California, are less likely to produce hurricanes. Ocean temperatures have risen 1-3 degrees fahrenheit over the past 100 years, according to Sublette, and the warming of the oceans is likely to increase the temperature difference between warm and cold waters. “The climate change doesn’t cause the storms, but what it does do is make them worse. Quantifying that is a little more
difficult, because you need to do some pretty heavy-duty research, but the very short version is that it makes a very bad situation worse,” he said. The most recent hurricanes to hit the southeast United States include Hurricanes Harvey, Maria, Irma and Jose. Aside from the hurricanes, wildfires have also intensified in southern California. “There’s very good correlation between rising temperatures and the occurrences of wildfires in the western United States,” Sublette said. “Part of the reason for that, indirectly, is drought. California had been through a four year drought, but had very good snow and rainfall this past winter, which is traditionally their wet season. So what that does for the western part of the country is that it allows vegetation to flourish early in the spring. And then these things dry out in the summer. So climate change, by itself, does not cause droughts. It makes them worse.” With all the natural disasters occurring, the discussion around efforts to alleviate the impacts of climate change have ramped up. According to Stanford professor Robert Kolstad, there might be increased political action being taken towards such efforts. “It’s not necessarily a question of denying what should be obvious to most people, it’s a more of a political posturing,” Kolstad said. “I think that you are going to see a lot more action and taking seriously the threat of climate change at the local and state level. Governors taking it more seriously, local authorities that are in charge of prepared-
Cassini spacecraft ends journey ashley jiang & arya tandon Humans of Harker photographer & reporter
After traveling for 13 years on due course through space to Saturn and its moons, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft plunged into Saturn’s atmosphere on Friday, Sept. 15, drawing an end to its long journey. The prime mission began in 2004, and was a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The Huygens probe traveled into space with the Cassini spacecraft, but it landed on the surface of Titan in 2005, becoming the first probe to land in the outer solar system and on a moon other than our own. The seven-year mission extension, beginning in 2010, was intended for Cassini to further explore Saturn, its rings and its moons. The initial launch took place on Oct. 15, 1997, with the spacecraft entering into orbit around Saturn on June 30, 2004. Throughout the course of its entire mission, Cassini’s exploration was extended twice. Cassini-Huygen’s initial four-year tour of the Saturn system was completed in 2008. The following twoyear extension mission, named the Cassini Equinox Mission, was a series of successful orbits around the planet and a number of flybys of the planet’s multiple moons. The second mission extension began in 2010, known as the Cassini Solstice Mission.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
vijay bharadwaj & aditya singhvi
SPACE JAM The Cassini Spacecraft, as pictured by a NASA artist. The spacecraft descended into Saturn’s atmosphere on Sept. 15.
ver the course of last five months, the spacecraft completed a series of 22 dives between the planet and its rings, which began on April 22 and ended on Sept. 15, also known as the “Grand Finale”. Each dive lasted about six and a half days, with Cassini diving at tens of thousands of miles per hour for each one. During Cassini’s final dive before its final approach Saturn, also called the “Goodbye Kiss,” the spacecraft was able to get within 75,00 miles of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, whose gravity slightly changed the projectile’s trajectory and made sure that. As the fourth spacecraft to extensively travel into space solely dedicated to study and send back in-depth information on Saturn and its system of rings and moon and the first one to enter into the planet’s orbit, Cassini made \several of discoveries about the planet as well as its moons, including the global ocean within Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, as well as the liquid methane seas on Titan.
STEM
13
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
FROM CLICKS TO BRICKS:
Amazon expands customer experience by opening bookstores
neal sidhu asst. STEM editor
Before Amazon, inc., was the largest internet retailer in the world, it was an online bookstore. In 1995, CEO Jeff Bezos made the company’s very first sale–a book entitled “Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies”– out of his own garage, and in the following years, Amazon diversified to provide shoppers with records, CDs, school supplies and tech products. Today, its marketplace encompasses everything from lemons to lip balm. The company has never stopped selling books, but over the past decade, it has pushed the innovation envelope by introducing a variety of consumer-oriented services such as Amazon prime. Now, Amazon is branching out further, entering the world of offline retail through its opening of brick-and-mortar bookstores and its purchase of Whole Foods Market. In addition to its merger with Whole Foods, the tech giant has also opened up bookstores across the nation. The merchan-
fered because they don’t have an online presence; a primarily online business moving into brickand-mortar potentially saves those brick-and-mortar places but at the same time also diversifies them into the online space.” In addition to its establishment of Amazon Books, Amazon consolidated its merger with Whole Foods in August. The acquisition came with several immediate changes, including minor reductions in grocery prices as well as special discounts for Amazon Prime members. According to a statement released by Amazon on Aug. 24, Amazon plans to “make healthy and organic food affordable for everyone.” “There have definitely been price drops across a number of things and that has brought in more customers–we’ve definitely been busier ever since the Amazon acquisition, and going off of that, we have been hiring more,” San Jose Whole Foods Market customer service supervisor Tyler Boyer said. “[Amazon] seems to have a lot more resources to be able to offer things that are lower price, so the partnership seems like a win-win for both of
the companies involved.” While Amazon may be spearheading the resurgence of conventional retail in the E-commerce industry, the combination of technology and brick-andmortar is far from unprecedented. Over the past few years, several companies–particularly clothing manufacturers such as Bloomingdales and Uniq-Lo and department stores like Macy’s– have benefitted from in-store innovations–from interactive displays to hardware sensors–that optimize both customer experiences and internal operations. According to AP computer science teacher Anu Datar, Amazon’s corporate reputation may bring other tech companies to follow in suit and diversify beyond a virtual presence in the years to come. “Any time a big giant does something, everyone wants to follow,” computer science teacher Anu Datar said. “It’s very expensive, and the return on investment is far lesser, so I don’t see all software companies jumping onto the wagon–but there will be more players who will want to give their users a walk-in [experience].”
Nobel Foundation announces laureates
neal sidhu asst. STEM editor
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
varsha rammohan & helen yang
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Two smartphones, the Google Pixel 2 and the Google Pixel XL 2, were released on October 4. The Pixel sold $649 and the XL launched for $769.
KAITLIN HSU
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 was released on September 15. The phone features a bigger screen and an improved S Pen.
The iPhone X will be released on November 3 with pre-orders starting on October 27. The retail price has been set at $999 for a 64GB phone.
XBOX ONE X
The Xbox One X will be released on November 7. This console has been advertised as a faster machine with superior graphics. This sidebar has been updated since its original publication on Oct. 12, 2017.
reporter & aquila asst. STEM editor
How does a person react to receiving a Nobel Prize? In an interview with the Winged Post, physics laureate Dr. Barry C. Barish said that when he received the call from the Nobel Committee at 2:45 a.m. in the morning, he wasn’t completely awake. “At the time it was given this year, we knew we were strong candidates with the science we had done. I never did expect it,” Dr. Barish said. “At 2:45 in the morning California time, you’re not totally alert. They said they had good news — that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize. I was thrilled and humbled.” The 2017 Nobel Laureates for physiology, physics, chemistry, peace, literature, and economic sciences were announced throughout the past week. The Nobel Foundation, created by Alfred Nobel in 1901, awards Nobel Prizes annually to recognize the greatest living influential figures around the world for their contributions in several different fields. The Nobel Committee works alongside many other prize-awarding institutions to select the final winners among thousands of nominees. Dr. Rainer Weiss, Dr. Kip Thorne, and Dr. Barish were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on Oct. 3. Weiss, a former professor at MIT, shared half of the award with Thorne and Barrish, both former professors at Caltech. “When you look out at the sky, only four percent of what you see is electromagnetic
waves. So what is the other 96 percent, and what does the universe really look like otherwise?” Dr. Barish said. “You can say [our research] is an analogy to what Galileo did in the 1600s, when we looked through the telescope and immediately saw something that had never been seen before.” The Nobel Foundation credited the scientists for their instrumental roles in designing the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO),
knew we could come close, if not succeed, in seeing whether [gravitational waves] really existed that motivated us to keep working. “We built an initial LIGO detector between 1994 and 1999. We had 6 different attempts of running and trying to detect gravitational waves but seeing none, and then making it better, and still seeing none, and making it better, and seeing none, over and over for about ten years,” he said. “Then we used new technologies to rebuild it, and we succeeded.” Dr. Jeffrey C. Hall, Dr. Michael Rosbash, and Dr. Michael W. Young each received one third of prize share for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Oct. 2 for discovering the molecular mechanisms that control the circadian rhythm. Dr. Jacques Dubochet, Dr. Joachim Frank, and Dr. Richard Henderson won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Oct. 4 for the development of cyro-electron microscopy, which advances the quality of biomolecule imaging DR. BARRY C. BARISH in biochemistry. Electron microscopes use NOBEL LAUREATE electron beams that destroy livIN PHYSICS (2017) ing material, but cyro-electron microscopy visualizes living biomolecules by freezing them which detects gravitational mid-movement. waves generated by black holes Since reaching the proper down to a thousandth of the size atomic resolution in 2013, it has of a proton. Since the first de- been used profusely, from develtection in 2015, LIGO has found oping pharmaceutical antibiotthree other signals. ics, to observing the Zika virus. “We were funded for it by The awards ceremonies will the National Science Foundation take place on December 10, the in 1994, so we’ve been working anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s on it intently for 23 years,” Dr. death, in Oslo, Norway for the Barish said. And what keeps you peace prize and in Stockholm, doing that? For scientists, that’s Sweden for all other categories. one of the most fundamental questions. It’s the fact that we
“I never did expect it. At 2:45 in the morning California time, you’re not totally alert. They said they had good news, that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize. I was thrilled and humbled.”
KATHERINE ZHANG
Synopsys Guidelines The Synopsys science research competition has put new regulations into place. These regulations limit the number of projects that can be sponsored by a single school or mentor. This will prevent Harker students from presenting as many projects as they have in the past.
GLOBAL
SpaceX SpaceX announced Sept. 29 that it is planning to start building spaceships which will embark on the first human voyage to Mars in nine months. Unmanned ships will be sent in 2022 and 100 human passengers will reach Mars in 2024.
Asteroid Passing
An asteroid is predicted to pass 27,000 miles from Earth. TC4, the asteroid, has been measured between 30 and 100 feet and is traveling at about 30,000mph. The asteroid is on course to pass Earth on October 12.
PROVIDED BY AMERICAN PHSYICAL SOCIETY
TECH TALK
KATHERINE ZHANG
features editor & reporter
dise available at Amazon Books is selected based off of consumer satisfaction standards like online reviews and GoodReads ratings. Over the past month, the bookstore has attracted the interest of many Santana Row visitors. “I walk past it once a week and I’m really excited because there are no really good bookstores in Santana Row, and I’m especially curious about the Amazon Bookstore–I didn’t know Amazon had a book thing going for it,” sophomore Ashna Reddy said. “I think Amazon expanding into brick-and-mortar is really cool because Amazon is taking over the world.” Brick-and-mortar refers to companies that operate traditionally rather than electronically and engage in more face-to-face interactions with consumers. Amazon’s physical expansion is a break from the tech company’s history of e-commerce innovations. “When it comes down to it, the bottom line is their ability to earn,” upper school director of learning, innovation, and design Diane Main said. “Some brickand-mortar businesses have suf-
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
prameela kottapalli & saloni shah
The students who have been chosen as semifinalists in the Siemens science research competition will be announced Oct. 17. The regional finalists will be released the next day on Oct. 18
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
READING FRENZY w(LEFT) A student looks at bestselling books at the new Amazon Bookstore in Santana Row. The merchandise availible at the stores is selected based off of reviews and GoodReads ratings. (TOP RIGHT) In addition to opening these stores, Amazon also recently acquired the grocery store Whole Foods. (BOTTOM RIGHT) A student observes a Kindle E-reader in the Amazon Bookstore.
Siemens Semifinalists
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
ALL PHOTOS PRAMEELA KOTTAPALLI
SCHOOL
Earthquake Risks Geologists from the Human-Induced Earthquake Database have collected over 728 examples of earthquakes that may have been set off by oil and gas projects. Durham University hydrogeologist Miles Wilson and his colleagues intend to publish an article on October 4th in Seismological Research Letters detailing the risks of these projects and how to manage them in the future.
14
SPORTS
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
IN THE MOMENT
PACK LEADER Gloria Guo (12) runs during a cross country meet. The cross country team ran
JULIA AMICK
last Thursday. Their next race is on Oct.
Falling into football, volleyball, golf
6-0 IN LEAGUE AS OF OCT. 3 Football
annamma vazhaeparambil, vivan jin, daniel wang, kaidi dai & arushi saxena reporters
ERIC FANG
The varsity football team holds an undefeated season record of 6-0. Nathan Kelly (12), quarterback and captain of the team, has a total passing record of 1083 yards, with a completion percentage of .650. Aaron Smith (11), running back of the team, leads rushing yards with a total of 731 over the past six games. Jared Anderson (11) leads with a total of 351 receiving yards during this season. Their last game was on Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. at the upper school against Tamalpais. SPORTSFEST High 30 - 0, maintaining an undefeated record of 6 - 0. The fourth away game and sixth
7-2 OVERALL RECORD AS OF OCT. 3 Girls’ tennis
weather the match was called ear5 out of the 9 holes.
TIFFANY WONG
6-10
1-0 JULIA AMICK
IN LEAGUE AS OF OCT. 3 Girls’ golf
The girls’ golf team won their first match against Notre Dame High School on Monday, Oct. 2, scoring 205 to their opponents’ 237. They now have a 1-0 record. Their next game will be on Oct. 20, also against Notre Dame. Afterwards, the CCS qualifying tournament is on Oct. 25.
OVERALL RECORD AS OF OCT. 6 Girls’ volleyball
The varsity girls’ volleyball team holds a record of 6-9 overall, and 1-4 in the league. Lauren Napier (12) leads the team with 112 kills, while Nishka Ayyar (11) and Anya Gert (10) both have a serving percentage of 100%. Tiffany Shou (12) and Allison Cartee (11) lead with the highest number of total blocks, respectively. “The team is still really up and positive, and we also know that over the next three weeks we can right the wrongs,” Coach Theresa Smith said. “Everybody seems to be pretty pumped right now.” The girls’ last game was at Harker against Menlo on Oct. 5 at 6:30 p.m.
Girls’ varsity tennis won their recent game on Oct. 3 against Evergreen Valley High School. Their record so far is 7-2. This season they scored second place in Division Three at their tournament in Fresno. The last match was yesterday at the Santa Clara Tennis Center against Scotts Valley.
NO LEAGUE RECORD YET AS OF OCT. 3 Cross Country The cross country team has competed in five meets this school year. In a recent meeton Sept. 23, Aditya Singhvi (9) and Anna Weirich (9)ran. Weirich topped the Frosh-Soph race, fastest of the 375 runners, and Singhvi placed in the top 25 in the Frosh-Soph boys competition. Ryan Adolf (11) and Gloria Guo (12)were the top-ranking varsity boy and girl runner, respectively. They also ran the first CCS meet at Crystal Springs Cross Country Park on Oct. 5. Their next race is on Oct. 19 at Baylands Park.
SPORTS
15
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
Eagles continue undefeated season with 33-13 Homecoming win against Rio Vista ashley jiang & kathy fang
Varsity football continued their winning streak through homecoming on Sept. 23, defeating Rio Vista High School 33-13. The game opened with a coin toss between the captains from each team to determine who kicks and who receives. While Rio Vista won the coin toss, they deferred their choice to the second half of the game, and the Eagles chose to begin the game by receiving. The Rio Vista Rams scored the first touchdown of the night during the first uarter and kicked an extra point, bringing the score to 0-7 by the end of the first uarter. “The highlight of the game was responding back with our first touchdown, uarterback Nate Kelly (12) said. “As soon as we responded back with our first touchdown…our overall whole drive was really good, and it sparked the end result. n the second uarter, ared Anderson (11), Angel Cervantes (12) and Marcus Tymous (11) each scored a touchdown and took a 23-7 by half-time. “[The game] was really fun
them. Throughout the game, music from jazz band accompanied the cheers of Harker students, parents, teachers and alumni in the Flight Zone, and the upper school cheerleaders led chants from the sidelines of the field. “It’s just so much fun coming out here, cheerleader ismet Singh (10) said. “For us, we’re standing out here the whole time, and ’m never bored. Before the game started, freshmen and sophomores also participated in a tug of war competition, with the sophomores taking the victory. Performances from lower school junior cheerleaders, including the Eaglets, followed, and awards were then given to select alumnus. To conclude the pregame festivities, all choirs from the upper, middle and lower schools joined together to sing the school song and the national anthem. “I have to say I liked watching the eaglets and just the elementary school cheerleaders, head of school Brian Yager said. “Seeing the cheerleaders and then the younger girls forming that line when the players came out and then all the middle school kids running with the high school kids, that’s kind of special.
ERIC FANG
KATHY FANG
KATHY FANG
KA TH
Y
FA NG
humans of harker photographer and videographer & photo editor
to watch, especially in the beginning, because we all thought we were going to lose, and then we pulled through really well, ithi ayam said. During halftime, the upper school cheer team and varsity dance team each performed routines before the seniors won a tug of war competition against the juniors. The homecoming court then ceremoniously paraded around the field, and senior class dean Victor Adler pronounced Eleanor Xiao (12) and Peter Connors (12) as Homecoming ueen and king. n the third uarter, Dominic Cea kicked a yard field goal at the end of the Eagles’ fourth down, which helped the Eagles gain another three points. ared scored another touchdown in the fourth uarter, and in the last three seconds of the game, the ams scored a final touchdown, bringing the final score to 33-13. “My biggest takeaway was that my guys keep impressing me, my coaches and my players. Every week they do something better that makes me think of them better, think more highly of them, especially of their character, head coach ike Tirabassi said. “They’re doing everything right, and I’m very proud of
HOMECOMING HUBBUB (TOP LEFT) Quarterback Nate Kelly (12) runs down
The class of 2020 cheers as sophomore Mahi Kolla paints on a canvas blindfolded. Upper school art teachers judges the paintings from each class. They presented the junior class with
Class of 2021: 700 points
Class of 2020: 1300 points
3
Shania Wang (11) dances in the junior class skit during the rally. Each class wrote and performed a skit that pertained to their respective themes.
4
The class of 2018 celebrates their victory after the scream-off. The juniors placed second, the sophomores third, and the freshmen fourth.
4
KATHY FANG
3
KATHY FANG
2
Class of 2019: 1700 points
KATHY FANG
Emma Andrews (9) performs in the freshmen skit. The freshmen’s class theme was “Childhood,” which inspired the freshmen’s Dora-themed skit.
2
ALL PHOTOS KATHY FANG
1
1
of the homecoming game, earning three points for the Eagles. (BOTTOM LEFT) Wide receiver Jared Anderson chases after a Rio Vista Ram. (BOTTOM RIGHT) A Rio Vista Ram, closely followed by wide receivers Mitchell Granados (11) and Jared Anderson (11), runs with the football pinned to his shoulder. The Rams scored two touchdowns during the homecoming game.
KATHY FANG
Spirit Week recap
KATHY FANG
KATHY FANG
side. (TOP RIGHT) Wide receiver Mitchell Granados (11) tackles a Rio Vista football player. (MIDDLE LEFT) Kicker Dominic Cea (12) prepares for the start of the play. Dom-
Class of 2018: 1600 points
16
t s e a h l t B from a s t P
BACK PAGE
9
This year, the upper school is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Let’s take a look back at some of the most memorable moments of the upper school’s early days, from matriculation to graduation.
5 PROVIDED BY HARKER ARCHIVES
TALON
TALON
2013
2001
PROVIDED BY HARKER ARCHIVES
PROVIDED BY HARKER ARCHIVES
3
4
2002
10
2
2002
2002
2013 PROVIDED BY HARKER ARCHIVES
1
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 12, 2017
7
8
teacher Donna Gilbert discusses LOOKING BACK: History her 20 years at the upper school
PROVIDED BY HARKER ARCHIVES
Upper school added to existing Kindergarten through 8th grade
2002
First class of seniors graduates from the upper school PROVIDED BY HARKER ARCHIVES
1998
said. “I am incredibly honored that they gave me the opportunity to participate in this founding of the school. I felt lucky, I felt honored, I felt incredibly proud of what we built.” Gilbert believes that, aided by Harker’s focus on the future, gradually, step by small step, this school will continue to improve in the future. “I feel like we’re always having that conversation here, of how to make Harker better. That’s just part of our ethos. Part of it is the fact that it just started 20 years ago, and we’re still forming,” she said. “For my department, I guess I have some ideas for how we could grow, but that’s just going to come with time.”
1. Students from the class of 2003 participate in homecoming festivities. 2. Students act in the Fall Play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” 3. Students in upper school Engish teacher Beverly Manning’s class reenact scenes from Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare. 4. The class of 2002, the upper school’s first graduating class, graduates. 5. Howard Nichols speaks at Matriculation in 2001. 6. Upper school Division Head Butch Keller speaks at Matriculation in 2007. 7. Students analyze and give feedback for each other’s art. 8. A student from the Girls water polo team prepares to pass the ball to another team member. 9. Seniors from the class of 2013 play video games in “The Sledge,” which was previously an area designated for seniors to relax. 10, Upper school teachers form a human pyramid in celebration of homecoming in 2001. 11. Members of the boys football team in 2007 speak to each other during a game. 12. Juniors from the class of 2014 learn sailing during their junior class trip. Juniors now go rafting for their trip the day before Matriculation.
2008
2005
Nichols Hall opens. More Howard Nichols retires, than 80 percent of steel used to build Nichols Christopher Nikoloff Hall was recycled. becomes Head of School MAYA KUMAR
reporter
Upper school history department chair Donna Gilbert came to Harker 20 years ago to teach the very first class of freshmen at the school. Upon teaching her first class, Gilbert felt a difference between Harker students and the students whom she had taught for the past ten years before coming here. “I loved the fact that students would show up ready to learn, and so activities were fun, projects were fun,” Gilbert said. “I felt like that was the biggest change I noticed when I got to Harker. I thought I’d just died and gone to teacher Heaven.” Gilbert feels that the students’ enthusiasm and the plea-
sure of teaching at Harker has not changed since then. In the beginning, all the teachers were involved in all of the activities provided by Harker, including sports, clubs, dances and other events as well as certain management and planning. Gilbert acknowledges that at times, new ideas added to Harker’s program did not work out on the first try, but after hard work and multiple redrafts, there was always a result to be proud of in the end. “It’s been exciting, but hard work. It’s kind of like a tech startup. You have this vision, you have an idea, you get the people on board to help you implement this vision and then you’re building it from the ground up,” she
PROVIDED BY HARKER ARCHIVES
jin tuan
2012
TALON
2007
TALON
2007
12
11
TALON
TALON
2007
2001
2017
Brian Yager becomes head of school ROSE GUAN
TALON
2008
PROVIDED BY HARKER ARCHIVES
6