13 minute read
History teacher Joseph Carcione joins the Proust Questionnaire list, sharing his belief in the health and human connection, as well as love for the job
One with the arts, one with the Earth Uromastyx lizard. Chinese painted quail. Egg-eating snake. Baby leopard gecko. Uromastyx lizard.
Senior conveys love of the natural world through his art, his advocacy and his animals
LUCY MARCO staff reporter
Teenagers these days, so lazy, not a care in the world. Well, senior Sabri ArmaniKhaldi sure isn’t lazy and he cares a great deal about the world. He’s not only a multimedia artist but also an environmentalist, a taxidermist, a reptile lover, a dedicated vegan and a veterinary surgical intern.
His passion for the earth and all of its creatures takes many forms including painting, drawing, sculpture, hiking, petting lizards, advocating for the environment, working against climate change and practicing taxidermy.
“He’s extremely s elf-mo t ivate d and passionate,” chemistry teacher and Naturalist Club sponsor Shelly Pringle said. “It is unique for a person his age to be so passionate about the natural world and also to be enough of a self-starter to put multi-step plans into action.”
Armani-Khaldi was practically born an artist. From a very young age, he drew whenever he had a chance.
“I remember I used to have a sketchbook under my stroller so I could doodle while my parents went shopping or hiking,” Armani-Khaldi said. These days, his art is directed towards portraying scenes of nature, including acrylic painting and a variety of 3D sculptures.
“It’s how I am channeling my fear for the environmental apocalypse we are beginning, as well as my admiration for the natural world,” Armani-Khaldi said.
But among these forms of art, he also has an interest in taxidermy. Taxidermy, the art of preparing and stuffing animals to make them look true-to-life, was popular in the early 19th century. According to the Museum of Idaho, taxidermy was a way for scientists and naturalists to catalog species. His interest in taxidermy started when he was trying to figure out how to create a realistic statue of a mouse. “I have done it a few times, and I’m saving carcasses in the freezer for whenever I get a flesh-eating beetle colony. ... I had a background in herpetology, so I simply used one of my snake’s frozen feeder mice.”
His friend, senior Louisa Najar, says taxidermy is another way for him to explore his interests in biology and animal anatomy.
“He’s got nerves of steel, man. ... It shows that he’s
—senior Sabri Armani-Khaldi
always thinking outside the box, combining his art with other areas of focus,” Najar said.
Armani-Khaldi really wasn’t kidding when he said he had a background in herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians): he’s a surgical intern at the Austin Animal Center working 20 hours a week and the founder of the Reptile Club and the Naturalist Club at McCallum.
“He’s always tickled by how things work, especially info related to animal biology,” Najar said.
With all his knowledge of the animal kingdom, it’s no surprise that he’s good with pets. Though, he’s narrowed his menagerie down to a pair of eggeating snakes, as he is preparing for college.
“I do still own four uromastyx lizards, six Chinese painted quail, three leopard geckos, and a crested gecko as well. I still have a lot of animals to find homes for before I start school,” Armani-Khaldi said.
He’s also a talented leader and good friend.
“There is a sureness in the way he holds himself that I think really draws people to him, and makes him such a
lovely person to be around,” Najar said.
As the founder of two clubs at McCallum, he has a flair for leadership: “He is well organized and thoughtful and has great relationships with the rest of the Naturalist Club,” Pringle said.
Since going vegan, he’s found it difficult to understand and respect anyone who is aware of their lifestyle’s damage to the environment and yet refuses to change anything about it.
“It can be frustrating to see people disregard the importance of flora and fauna,” Armani-Khaldi said. He idolizes Charles Darwin and Sir David Attenborough, he believes that Greta Thunberg’s international emergence as a voice against climate change proves that young people can not only have an opinion but can wield power to effect change.
With his thoughtful and unique approach to the world and its creatures and his ability to express himself in multiple media and art forms, ArmaniKhaldi is poised to do the same now and into his considerably bright future. HEAD OVER HEELS: Louisa Najar and Sabri Armani-Khaldi tend the plants in the Naturalist Club. “He has an eye for aesthetics when it comes to Naturalist Club ventures,” chemistry teacher and Naturalist Club sponsor, Shelly Pringle said. Photo by Lucy Marco. Animal photos above by Sabri Armani-Khaldi.
Junior: Coding is key to everything shield the From programming video games to designing jets, Burghart learns joy, utility of computer science
ELLEN FOX operations manager
When you ask senior Calvin Burghart what he likes to do, you probably would not expect him to say that it’s banging his head on the desk until he solves his most recent computer science problem, but that was his answer. As a prospective computer scientist, he sees the beauty in the frustration that can come with the inner workings of simulations and software. It all started five years ago when Burghart was looking for a new hobby as a young middle schooler.
“When I was in seventh grade, I was in a club in Florida called the Technology Student Association, where we designed a video game, and I had to learn my first language to design it called JavaScript. And I hate Javascript,” Burghart said. “But I really enjoyed the problemsolving aspect of banging my head against the table for two weeks straight trying to figure out how to make this little guy jump or whatever, and I kinda got addicted.”
Once he was introduced to coding, he began to use his skills to create simple computer games.
“I think the most fun thing [I’ve made] is this video game that I made a long time ago,” he recalled. “That one was so good that everyone at my school was like, ‘Can I get this game, can I get this game?’ And then from like seventh to ninth grade I was just trying to refine [some] physics tools for this game. It was super simple visually, but the mechanics of the game were so good. And everything else was blocked, so kids wanted the game because they were ‘testing it.’” Though he seemed to have a knack for it, the making and selling games side didn’t interest Burghart as much as the scientific, real-world possibilities of coding did.
“No, I wouldn’t consider selling [my games], it’s not what I want to do with my life,” he said. “So, for now I don’t really care [if people play my game].”
After he began coding, what began as an interest grew to a full-fledged possible career path. The problem-solving aspect that Burghart finds captivating is a hot commodity in the working world. As global technological dependence increases, the need for computer scientists and software engineers increases with it.
“Computer science has infected every single area of study,” Burghart said. “So pretty much if you look at any scientific paper done in the last five or 10 years, all the charts and stuff has been done by a computer scientist using coding. So all the work in the sciences uses coding, all the work in private business, creating like astrophysics, they use MatLab almost constantly. If you go to school for astrophysics, most of what you learn is coding simulations. All the big companies that are making jets and stuff; they need simulation software that isn’t necessarily on the open market. So they hire software engineers and computer scientists to make that software for them.”
KEEPING BUSY: To take a break from coding his Physics II orbital simulation, Burghart works on a smaller coding project to cure boredom and foster a creative environment. The small project is a hypothetic coin-flip statistic graph. “You just import packages that help you graph stuff, and then you get raw data by picking a random number and then assign zero to heads and one number to tails, and then percent difference is regular percent difference formula.” Burghart explains. Photo by Ellen Fox.
—Calvin Burghart
For students who want to get into coding, Burghart recommends finding a professional program to help them with the essential first step: learning the first language.
“Getting into coding is the hardest part,” he explained. “Once you know how to code it’s super easy to get into it because it’s as easy as a Google search, but, if you Google search ‘how to code’ and you don’t know how, it just looks like gibberish, and it’s pretty awful. Taking classes is really nice, online classes. There are a bunch of online websites where you can buy courses that are really nice and good introductions to coding.” Burghart states that after learning a first coding language opens the world of coding and its infinite possibilities.
“You can code anywhere, you just need a laptop,” Burghart said.
A laptop and maybe a desk with a softer surface for all the head-banging it takes to arrive at the final solution to the next coding challenge.
THE OUTPUT: One of Burghart’s crowning achievements, the famed orbital simulation. This reportedly took hours to complete and has over 150 lines of code. The simulation began as a Physics II assignment simulating real-world astronomical orbits. The blue represents a planet with Earth’s mass, the green and yellow represent a hypothetical binary star system, with both of the stars having the same mass as our sun. “I used a lot of stuff I found online because I’m not good enough to just design my own simulation,” Burghart said. “It’s really easy to read, so I can just find something and read it and understand it and like now I know how it works.”
In honor of a teammate’s Division 1 signing, varsity girls soccer team proudly wears purple in public Parker signs to play for K-State
TOMAS MARRERO staff reporter
“Every single time she’s in a game, she just does the perfect play. You’re like, ‘Oh my God, how are you doing this?’” —Issy Wilson on Lily Parker As the District 25-5A girls soccer season unfolds, girls soccer players at McCallum get ready for long practices and intense games. Everyone, that is, except Lily Parker, who is preparing to play, but not for McCallum.
Parker played for Mac in 2017, scoring 29 goals en route to being named second team All-District even though she was only a freshman at the time. Since then, however, she has been unable to play for Mac because of her involvement in her club team, Development Academy, which forbids her from playing for any other team
“The DA is a program that’s super intense and year-round,” Parker said. “You aren’t allowed to play high school soccer because of how much work is put on you as a player.”
The program was created by U.S. Soccer, the same organization that manages the U.S. women’s and men’s national soccer teams.
Although extremely prestigious, the DA program is demanding and somewhat unforgiving. “You can always quit mid-season and play [high school], but you are never to return to the DA once you leave,” Parker said.
Even so, Parker planned on leaving the DA to play for the school her senior year. “I was always set on playing for my senior year,” Parker said. “But ultimately the decision came down to my head coach at K-State.”
Kansas State approached Parker in the spring of last year They saw her score a winning goal in a club game in Kansas and shortly after flew out to see her play.
On March 13 of last year, Parker committed to Kansas State. “I had offers from other D1 schools waiting for my decision,” Parker said, “But they were in a lower collegiate conference, and I decided that the Big 12 at a Power 5 school is the competition and level that I needed for my potential moving onwards in my career.”
Committed to playing soccer at the collegiate level, she still hoped to play her senior soccer season at Mac, but problems arose when she tried to rejoin the Knights on the field.
Parker’s coaches at Kansas State weren’t as thrilled about her plans and decided she should not play for Mac. She did, however, get to play briefly as a senior Knight.
“I went to the tournament in College Station and played with Mac one last time before calling my coach,” she said. “He told me to stay with my club team and finish out the year to be 100 percent ready to go in the fall.”
Parker is currently finishing out her commitment with the Lonestar SC team, which she says is closer to the competition she’ll face in Division 1 soccer.
Parker’s impact on the McCallum soccer team is sorely missed. Karen Esparza, a senior on the girls team who is not playing due to seasonending knee surgery, played with Lily Parker on the Lonestar SC team and at Mac.
“Her [college] coach didn’t allow her to play
PURPLE KNIGHTS: At her lunchtime Signing Day ceremony in the library on Feb. 5, senior Lily Parker discovered that the entire varsity soccer team had shown up to the ceremony wearing Kansas State T-shirts to show their support for Parker signing to play Division 1 soccer with the Big 12 Conference power. “I want to thank y’all, I want to thank my parents, all my coaches for supporting me,” Parker said to the audience who attended the ceremony. “I [also] wanna thank you guys (my teammates) for always being there for me.” Photo by Tomas Marrero.
STRIKER NO STRIKING: Then freshman Lily Parker leaves a defender on the ground behind her. During her stellar freshman season at Mac in 2016-2017, Parker earned second team AllDistrict honors. She scored four goals during a 5-2 blistering of LBJ at Nelson Field on Feb. 22, 2017, during which she repeatedly got behind Jag defenders to create scoring chances. Since that sensational breakout freshman season, Parker has played club soccer with Lonestar SC and for the United States Development Academy. Photo by Tom McClure.
because of her commitment that she made to Lonestar,” Esparza said. “She did play a few games with us, though, and she did really well. She would’ve been a really good addition to the team.”
While Esparza has played with Parker for a few years, Issy Wilson, another senior on the girl’s soccer team, has more of an observer’s perspective. “Every single time she’s in a game, she just does the perfect play,” Wilson said. “You’re like, ‘Oh my God, how are you doing this?’”
Wilson also praised Parker for the enthusiasm and optimism she brought to the McCallum soccer community and culture.
“She’s really sweet, and she’s really funny too,” Wilson said. “Our sophomore year they had this whole group of people, and they would lift weights together and they were always so funny.”
