Issue 14, Volume 106

The Spectator

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume 106 No. 14

April 22, 2016

Only One Overnight College Trip to Be Held This Year

NEWSBEAT

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he Muslim Students Association’s Noor-al-Stuy team won the championship at the New York Regional Muslim Interscholastic Tournament at Columbia University from Friday March 25, to Sunday, March 27.

Danielle Eisenman / The Spectator

dzingha Prescott (’10) has been named to the U.S. Women’s Olympic Fencing Team for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. This will be her second time on the Olympic Team.

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eniors Nicholas Beasley, David Rothblatt, Henry Walker, and Lucas Weiner won first place as a team at the New York State Economics Challenge.

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he Model United Nations (MUN) Club won Best Large Delegation at the George Washington University MUN Conference from Thursday, March 31, to Sunday, April 3. Twenty students won awards or honors, including seven Best Delegate awards.

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enior Nicholas Beasley advanced through the first two rounds of the Physics Olympiad and will compete in the final round to join the national team.

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he Ocean Bowl Team took third place at the 2016 Bay Scallop Bowl competition at Stonybrook University on Saturday, March 5.

Juniors touring the University of Pennsylvania, one of the six colleges or universities visited during the Mid-Atlantic overnight college trip, held from April 1 to April 2.

By Anne George, Julia Ingram, and Blythe Zadrozny Junior Caucus President Namra Zulfiqar and Vice President Enver Ramadani announced on Tuesday, March 22, through the Junior Caucus Facebook page that there will only be one overnight college trip this year.

Typically, juniors have had the opportunity to go on two or three overnight college trips, planned by a staff member, usually a college counselor, and facilitated by frequent correspondence with the Junior Caucus. Last year, two trips were organized by Former College Counselor Jeremy Wang, who left Stuyvesant at the end of the 2015-16 school year to work as a guidance counselor at Townsend Harris High School. This year, newly hired Director of College Counseling Jeffery Makris planned the trip.

When Zulfiqar and Ramadani ran for Junior Caucus, they

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he Envirothon Teams took first and second place at their Regional Competition on Friday, April 15. The first place team, consisting of juniors Nadia Filanovsky and Kaia Waxenberg and seniors Mohammed Shium, Darren Lin, and Henry Walker, will be going to the state competition in May.

Features A&E

5

The administration is not offering waiver forms for Advanced Placement (AP) courses during programming for the Fall 2016 semester. In the past, the forms, which needed to be signed by a parent and a guidance counselor, allowed students to take more AP courses than the number the school had recommended based on their cumulative grade-point average.

The decision to abandon the waivers is part of a long-term effort by the School Leadership Team (SLT), the guidance department, and other administrators to reduce student stress. “While there are students who can, and do, handle taking more APs than their overall average would set them up for according to the Stuyvesant policy, there are more students who really struggle,” Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman said. “Not really hav-

ing a cap on the number of APs [...] creates a situation where everybody feels pressured to take more and more and more.”

The grade cutoffs for taking AP courses are still the same, but will be adhered to more strictly. All students can take one AP course, an 88 or above allows for two, a 93 or above allows for three, and a 95 or above allows for four.

Many students were opposed to the change when it was first announced on Monday, March 29.

“I didn’t have any problem with [the waiver system],” senior Lola Makombo said. “We shouldn’t be limiting the number of AP classes students can have. [The number] honestly depends on the student.”

Having acknowledged this dissent, Principal Jie Zhang is considering creating an appeals process to allow exceptions for students who have legitimate

Minkyu Kim: The Gracious Thief Meet one of Stuyvesant’s newest and most relatable teachers.

Makris spent a combined total of 60 hours planning the trip, between chartering three buses from a Department of Education (DOE) approved vendor, clearing the insurance papers, making hotel reservations for 40 rooms, and finding 10 faculty chaperones. When Zulfiqar and Ramadani tried to contact him to begin planning for the next trip, they were told there was not going to be a second trip, due to the other demands of his job.

“If you round up and you figure a working week is almost 35 hours, that is almost two weeks he was doing nothing but planning the trip,” Pedrick said. “He is a college counselor and he needs to be meeting with families and he needs to be making plans for presentations and things that we do to run the college office successfully, and that ended up equalling there only being one trip this year.”

Makris believes that in the future it is unlikely that he will be able to plan more than one trip while upholding his responsibility as a college counselor. “I know [students] are disappointed but I want to make it clear that I do see these trips as valuable,” Makris said. “But […] I have to be providing direct services to students and their families. In a school of highly driven and motivated students, it is difficult to envision a scenario in which I can do that while planning more than one trip without having someone lighten that load.

It is not realistic,” Makris said.

Though Zulfiqar and Ramadani were aware that there would only be one college trip on Tuesday, February 23, they delayed notifying the student body for a month while they tried to work around the situa-

tion. First, they proposed planning the college trips themselves.

“We said we’d put in all the work that was required, [Coordinator of Student Affairs Matthew] Polazzo would help […] we just need [the administration] to sign off on it,” Ramadani said.

However, there are restrictions placed on student involvement during the planning of college trips. “Students can’t book hotels and we can’t have students reach out to schools. Although the student body can help us with some things, there are some things that need to be [done] by the employed professionals. As high school students there only so much of a role they can play,” Makris said.

The Junior Caucus understood the administration’s reasoning. “It’s not an extremely abnormal thing for a student to contact a college to plan a trip, [but] Stuyvesant brings such a large group of people to the colleges, [and] that’s just a lot to accommodate,” Zulfiqar said.

However, Zulfiqar and Ramadani were willing to invest their time and effort into planning additional college trips. They even contemplated creating a “College Trip Planning” club to plan the college trips as club trips, but realized this would not be an effective solution. “Eventually it would go through to Zhang and she would realize we were trying to plan that trip and not sign off on it,” Zulfiqar said. “[We realized] we’re at a dead end now,” Ramadani said.

At this point, the Junior Caucus decided to petition the administration to allow future Caucuses to plan the trips on their own, to prevent this from happening to future juniors. Should they be continued on page 2

Are You In Favor of the New AP Policy?

By Shaina Peters

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he Chess Team, consisting of sophomores Shaina Peters, Charlie Reeder, and Daniel Regassa, and junior William Yen finished in second place in the Under 1900 competition in Atlanta, Georgia, from Friday, April 1, to Monday, April 4.

had promised that there would be three, and maybe even four, overnight college trips. However, at the beginning of the 2016-17 school year, they were notified that this would not be possible.

“In September we had a meeting with all of the college counselors, and [Assistant Principal of Guidance Casey] Pedrick, and we established that we would have two trips,” Ramadani said. “[College Counselor Jeaurel] Wilson said she was in favor of three trips.

She thought it would be possible.

Makris [who would be planning the trips] said it was unfeasible.”

Zulfiqar and Ramadani attempted to begin preparations for the first college trip, which they anticipated would take place in the fall, in August 2015. However, when they reached out to Makris, they were notified that they would be unable to begin planning until that September, since Makris was not yet an official employee.

From the beginning of the school year until mid-February,

AP Waiver Forms Eliminated

By Shameek Rakshit and Julian Rubinfien

WHAT’S INSIDE?

stuyspec.com

continued on page 2

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No

80.8%

*0.05% of students chose not to answer this question

Yes 18.7%

Turn to page 3 for the full poll on AP culture at Stuyvesant.

Asian Snacks Meets City Life: Asian Street Food in New York Find out about the Asian street food invasion sweeping the New York City food scene.

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 2

News Only One Overnight College Trip to Be Held This Year continued from page 1

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and NASA

WORLDBEAT

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onald Trump and Hillary Clinton won their respective primaries in New York on Tuesday, April 19. Trump swept 60.4 percent of the Republican votes and Clinton took 58 percent of the Democratic votes.

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7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Ecuador’s central coast on Saturday, April 16, killing 233 people and devastating entire regions of the country. In Kumamoto, Japan, on Thursday, April 14, a 6.2 magnitude and a 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook the city, killing a total of 29 people.

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ope Francis has taken 12 Syrian refugees back with him to the Vatican after visiting a camp on the Greek Island of Lesbos. These refugees are all Muslim, a fact that has raised questions in the Catholic community. However, the Pope responded by declaring this action as a gesture of camaraderie to all refugees.

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he U.S. has transferred nine Yemeni detainees from the Guantanamo Bay facility to Saudi Arabia in a continued effort to close the prison. These nine detainees represent just over 10 percent of the population that remains at Guantanamo.

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he Obama Administration issued new rules designed to make offshore drilling safer and reduce the risk of blowout in response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster of six years ago. The oil industry believes that some of these requirements are too costly.

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icrosoft filed a landmark suit against the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday, April 14, on allegations of federal agents searching its customers’ personal information in secret.

reelected, Zulfiqar and Ramadani hope to hold a trip in September.

If the administration still does not want the Junior Caucus to plan the trips, Zulfiqar and Ramadani hope that they will address the problem themselves for the future. “If the administration sees that there is overwhelming opposition to there being only one trip per year, they may look into hiring another person [to plan the trips],” Zulfiqar said.

The Junior Caucus’s announcement of the cancellation of the second trip was met with disappointment among juniors.

“I think the administration should have done something, rather than dismiss it. [The college office] was preoccupied with other things so they couldn’t [allocate] time to arrange the trips. The administration was fully [aware] that [Makris] would be busy for the entire year. College trips are important and beneficial enough that the administration should fund [the organization] of these trips,” junior Kevin Zhu said.

The administration feels

that the lack of overnight college trips was not a result of a failure on the Junior Caucus’s part. “It was not their fault. It was all adults dictating things.

They did beg, beg, beg and try to work things out, but it was out of their hands,” Pedrick said.

The difficulty in planning college trips, however, traces back to the 2013-14 school year. Prior to this, the administration paid Richard Schweidel, a retired college advisor at the Bronx High School of Science, to plan three trips per year. However, following an audit by the DOE, the administration was forced to shift the responsibilities to a working Stuyvesant employee. It paid SPARK Counselor Angel Colon to plan the trips during the 2013-14 school year.

However, Colon was only able to plan the trips for one year. “If you’re getting paid extra, you’re not allowed to do any of that work during work hours, even if it’s on your lunch break.

So it was very difficult to try to put that together while not being able to contact people during work hours,” Pedrick said.

As a result, Wang took over trip planning the next year. Since

Wang was a college counselor, he faced many of the same challenges Makris faced in planning the trips this year, and ended up only being able to plan two out of the three anticipated trips “It was a lot of unpaid overtime for [Wang], […] which is why we tried to plan the third trip under [College Counselor Elizabeth] Hughs,” Pedrick said.

The third trip, which was originally intended to be a trip to schools known as “Hidden Ivies,” was not popular among students, with only eight people signing up to attend. “Students were not interested in attending those schools […] so that fell apart,” Pedrick said.

In the future, the Junior Caucus hopes that the administration will allow them to have a greater involvement in the planning of the college trips. However, they do not think that the number of overnight college trips will affect where students apply to college. “In terms of whether or not people are more or less confident about applying to colleges, I don’t think it will have an effect,” Ramadani said.

Cosmopolitan Editor and Project Runway Judge Aya Kanai Brings Style to Stuyvesant

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Connecticut judge has ruled in favor of pursuing the lawsuit against Remington Arms, the manufacturer and seller of the weapons used in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in 2012.

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AP Waiver Forms Eliminated continued from page 1

reasons for wanting an extra AP class. “It’s very hard, sometimes, to come up with a perfect cure for everybody,” Zhang said. “You have kids who may have had fantastic ninth grade grades, but for whatever reasons, [in] one term in tenth grade [there was] a drop. We should never punish students for a brief breakdown. These situations are complicated and should be individually appealed and reviewed.”

One example of a special case is for students who take the second year of a foreign language in their freshman year. Since the school requires three years of language study, those students will have to take the AP class in their junior year. In this case, that AP course will not be included when counting how many AP courses the student is taking—if a student is allowed to take three, he or she can still choose three other AP classes besides the language class.

The administration hopes that in addition to reducing stress, the policy will lend other benefits as well by decreasing the school’s focus on APs. “Kids who can’t take a fourth or a fifth AP in

a certain subject and end up taking American Lit or British Lit, or whatever the analog is in the other subjects, will bring intelligence and energy and enthusiasm to those classes,” Grossman said.

Assistant Principal of Guidance Casey Pedrick was also quick to note that the change in policy would not affect college admissions. “Every high school has to provide colleges with their ‘high school profile,’” Pedrick said. The profile gives admissions officers a better understanding of the high school and what it offers its students. “When it is a school’s policy to limit the number of AP classes a student can take, the college cannot and will not penalize a student for not taking more.”

Grossman admitted that finding a perfect solution is difficult, if not impossible, but hopes that the school is making progress.

“For a school this big, this diverse, the administration [is always trying] to give as much freedom as possible [to students]. While we must be guided by some set of policies, no policy is going to feel absolutely perfect for every single student. What we have to do is come up with the least unfair policy and I hope this is it,” he said.

Julie Chan / The Spectator

ew York legalized professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fights on Friday, April 15. The state was the last in the country to end its ban on MMA, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a league that hosts MMA fights, have already scheduled a match at Madison Square Garden.

(From left to right) Vivien Lee, Julia Qin, Aya Kanai and Angela Yu. Qin, Lee and Yu are board members of the Sewing Club, which organized the talk.

By Greg Huang and Jessica Wu Aya Kanai, an editor of Cosmopolitan Fashion Magazine and judge on Project Runway: Junior, visited Stuyvesant on Friday, April 8 to speak about her career in the fashion industry.

The Stuyvesant Sewing Club, led by president Julia Qin and vice presidents Vivien Lee and Angela Yu, organized the lecture.

Kanai began the talk by discussing how her background encouraged her to pursue a career in fashion. A New York City native, Kanai attended high school at the Trinity School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where, much like at Stuyvesant, she faced pressure from competition between students.

She went to Oberlin College in Ohio because she wanted to experience life outside of the city.

There, she discovered that the pressure she faced in high school paid off, as she was academically ahead of her peers in college.

Still unsure about what she wanted to pursue in life, she found her first job at a restaurant. Through a friend, Kanai stumbled on a job opening for a fashion magazine, and seized the opportunity. Since then, Kanai has been involved in the fashion industry for about twelve years, working as an editor for fashion magazines like Teen Vogue and

Nylon. Kanai has also worked as a celebrity stylist and has done retail work for online stores.

In addition to judging the television show Project Runway: Junior, Kanai now works as a fashion director for Cosmopolitan and Seventeen magazines.

“What that means is that I create the fashion look and feel for both magazines,” Kanai said.

She stressed how the audience plays a huge role in the different content that gets put into each magazine. She emphasized that for magazines that target students, such as Seventeen, price is a major concern. “You kind of have to pick products that are very specific for that demographic [...] they’re shopping with their parents’ money [...] so they have to be really costconscious and they have to be selecting things that are [...] very student specific,” Kanai said.

For the older women to whom Cosmopolitan caters, Kanai shifts her strategy, allowing herself to pull from expensive designer brands. Kanai sees working to cater to both audiences as a challenging but fulfilling experience.

As a fashion director, Kanai styles cover shoots for both magazines. She either flies to Los Angeles for a photo shoot, or the celebrities come to New York City to get styled. She also organizes all the fashion pages for the magazines. Therefore, she studies

trends, such as the current overalls and lace trends, in order to find unique and different ways to incorporate them into her magazines and photo shoots. “Every season we go to New York, Paris, Milan, and London to see the fashion shows. Then we all meet and decide, ‘What are we going to show our readers this season?’”

Kanai said. “We’ll look at the runways, and then we’ll apply the trends to what we’re working on [...] so it kind of has an interpretation, but it always comes directly from the runway trends we see on the market.”

The talk ended with a question and answer session, which led to a broader discussion of Kanai’s views on the fashion industry. Kanai emphasized that she believes fashion is meant to showcase creativity, and is not at all about the most expensive clothes. Rather, she believes that fashion is a bridge between the fantasy of the most expensive and exotic garments and the reality of the consumer industry. Though Kanai dislikes the fact that fashion often focuses on a single body type, she mentioned that she is working to cater it to all people, regardless of shape or size.

Some students believe that the lecture was an eye-opening experience about the intricacies of the fashion industry. “The talk was successful because [Kanai] seemed really excited to share her knowledge with us. Everyone in the room definitely wanted to gain from the experience [...]

I learned that you don’t have to be incredibly well versed in fashion to start [a career] in the fashion industry. If you have the right attitude, you can slowly work your way up,” sophomore Jacqueline Moshkovich said.

Kanai hopes that her speech was an educational and encouraging experience. “When you are a student in high school, it is difficult to know how your education will apply to your job in the future, so I think it’s interesting to meet people with all different kinds of careers,” Kanai said. “It was definitely worth it to come here today [...] I am always really excited and inspired by New York City students, so it was really great to visit Stuyvesant.”

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

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News StuyFem Hosts First Women’s History Month Dinner

By Raniyan Zaman with additional reporting by Karen Chen The lights were dimmed, and the familiar tables of the school cafeteria tables were covered with platters of cupcakes, pizza, and empanadas. After adjusting the microphone and setting up her PowerPoint Presentation, Public Housing Organizer of the Committee Against AntiAsian Violence Shahana Hanif began. “My feminist trajectory comes from when I was in high school,” Hanif said. “[I] saw movements of empowerment as a way to build leadership.”

With these words, Hanif set the tone for the evening, an evening that would celebrate Women’s History Month with speeches and performances from guests and Stuyvesant students alike.

Organized by the Stuyvesant Feminist Society (StuyFem) and the GirlUp and Girls Learn

clubs, the dinner, held on Tuesday, March 15, attracted about 40 people. Principal Jie Zhang, Assistant Principal (AP) of social studies Jennifer Suri, AP of English Eric Grossman, and social studies teacher Linda Weissman attended, as well as guest speakers such as Hanif and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer.

SPARK Coordinator Angel Colon and juniors Aronno Shafi and Yassmin Elbanna, the coPresident and co-Vice President of StuyFem, respectively, came up with the idea for the dinner, with its goal being to allow feminists to convene and share their experiences. Shafi thought of the idea last year and discussed it with the group; however, the plan only came to fruition this year with the help of various Stuyvesant gender equality and feminism clubs. “It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, but never really got that chance to.

We realized there were so many

dinners for things such as Black History Month, that Women’s History Month deserved one too,” Elbanna said in an e-mail interview.

Each speaker was eager to bring his or her unique perspective to the table; Brewer, for example, spoke about the importance of women’s involvement in government, as well as their presence in male-dominated fields and leadership positions. Likewise, junior Alec Dai talked about what it means to be a feminist as a male, questioning whether his gender should make a difference at all in how he talks about feminism.

Sophomores Sammie Paul and Alice Kakurina both delivered slam poetry performances. Paul recited “Say No” by Megan Falley and Olivia Gatwood, a threeminute piece that tells the story of a rejected marriage proposal and explores the consequences a woman faces when she rebuffs a man’s advances. “Saying no to a proposal seemed particularly ta-

boo to me even now and so this poem really fought that idea,” Paul said in an e-mail interview.

Kakurina’s slam poem, an original composition, was not written with the intention of making a statement about feminism. But its emphasis on the effects of subdued self-expression made it a relevant addition to the discussion. “To me, it shows the idea of minimizing your problems because someone else has it worse, which connects to women silencing themselves,” Paul said of Kakurina’s poetry.

Those who attended considered the dinner a major success.

“I’m just so excited to know that high schools have a feminist movement in the means of student clubs. I didn’t have this when I was in high school,” Hanif said.

“This wasn’t something that took root for me until I got to college.”

StuyFem hopes to turn the celebration of Women’s History Month into a valued tradition.

“Hopefully this becomes an annual event. This was the first of many [upcoming] events for StuyFem in the Stuyvesant community,” Shafi said. “[I hope attendees of the dinner will] see different perspectives, appreciate women in our communities, be able to spend time reflecting on contributions of women, [and celebrate] the success of women.”

Elbanna is similarly excited for the prospect of future Women’s History Month dinners, believing they can help transform Stuyvesant students into passionate activists for the feminist movement. “I had a lot of people come up to me after the dinner and say that they didn’t realize things such as catcalling happened so often to their friends,” Elbanna said. “I think listening to each other’s stories and joining together to celebrate this month and the women in their lives is incredibly valuable.”

A Peek in the Window: AP Culture at Stuyvesant

By SHaina peters

In the midst of animated discussion surrounding the administration’s new no-waivers policy, we have decided to take a closer look at why students take Advanced Placement (AP) courses in the first place. We polled 374 freshmen, sophomores, and juniors via The Spectator Facebook page, in hopes that this information would provide insight into the cause of the widespread opposition to the new policy. For further analysis of the issue, see The Spectator’s Staff Editorial, “AP: Another Problem?” on page 8, and the point-counterpoint piece, “AP Waiver Policy,” on page 10.

33+67A

THE NEW POLICY

Do you want to take more AP courses than you are currently eligible to take?

Broken Down by Grade No

65.5%

53.4% 46.6%

No

Yes

73.4%

Yes

34.5%

32.6%

67.4%

26.6%

Sophomores

Freshmen

Juniors

8+19+3622105A

Just How Many AP Courses Do We Want to Take?

Why Do We Sign Up for AP Courses?

Percent of students who want to sign up for at least one AP to:

4.8% 7.8%

94.7%

9.9%

19.0%

55.1%

22.5%

42.5%

35.8%

Pursue a Genuine Interest in the Subject

Impress Colleges

Have a Certain Teacher

*Only one person responded that they want to take 0 AP classes.

1 2 3 4 5 6+

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 4

Features Meet the Newest Members of the Stuyvesant Community

By Michelle Yang and Raniyan Zaman

As the doors to Stuyvesant’s first floor entrance swing open, you’re met with a flood of light and the thunderous applause from crowds of cheering teenagers wearing blue T-shirts that say “Big Sibs.” All around you, the nervous expressions of your soon-tobe classmates break into relieved smiles, and you feel your shoulders relax, the tension draining away.

Stuyvesant’s modern, spacious interior spirals above you, and, as the crowd surges past the double columns, you can hear an acapella group’s rich vocals and a band’s complex harmonies floating over the flurry of activity and welcoming greetings.

A similar scenario was most likely what awaited you when you first entered Stuyvesant as an eighth grader during orientation, and was the first moment when you began to reconcile all the former impressions you had of Stuyvesant with your new ones. This year, the Spectator chose 4 incoming freshmen, part of the class of 2020, to give an insight on what they believe will be in store for them in September.

Daniel Chung

Stuyvesant has always been incoming freshman Daniel Chung’s dream. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his sister, alumna Suzy Kim (‘12), who described Stuyvesant as “the best four years of her life” and, coming from a family of pharmacists, now strives to be a pharmacist, herself. Chung feels, like his sister did, that Stuyvesant is the right place for him to cultivate his talents and interests for the next four years.

How was Daniel’s middle school experience?

For the majority of his schooling, Chung has attended the Flushing Christian School, a private school in Queens. He started his education there in the second grade and will graduate from the middle school in June.

Flushing Christian School is a comfortable environment for him.

“I was popular in middle school and everyone knew me. I’ve gotten really close with my classmates; they’re like brothers and sisters,” Chung said. Nonetheless, Chung is excited to leave the comforts of his old school and venture out into Stuyvesant’s unchartered waters.

What is Daniel passionate about?

Chung is something of a Renaissance man; he has many interests and talents, from science to music to taekwondo. He also participates in sports, such as basketball, volleyball, tennis, baseball, and swimming. Chung is very modest about his talents, though he expects that, once he enters high school, he might not have as much time to explore all of his interests.

Which extracurriculars is Daniel interested in?

A friend of Chung’s, who is currently a student at Stuyvesant, is a member of Stuy Legacy, and Chung himself is interested in joining as well. Recently, he found himself interested in dancing, and, at the open house, was ecstatic to see Stuy Legacy perform. He was also awed by Robotics team’s display, and is considering taking his talents there, as well.

What does Daniel dream of being?

Chung’s family trade runs in his blood; he too wants to become a pharmacist. He already has prior knowledge thanks to his mother who, when Chung was only nine, taught him the names of some medications. “I’ve been thinking

about my future a lot lately, and I want to enter the medicine field, so I thought [being] a pharmacist would be good,” he said.

How does Daniel believe Stuyvesant will compare to his middle school experiences?

Chung is excited to meet new people and make new friends, but is also aware of the challenges that Stuyvesant might offer. “I think there’ll be a lot more work at Stuyvesant,” he said. “Because, at my school, the work is hard, but there isn’t that much.”

What has Daniel heard about Stuyvesant?

Like many of the other incoming freshmen, Chung has heard that students at Stuyvesant don’t get enough sleep, can’t have much of a social life, and are at risk for depression. He dismisses the rumors, believing that if he manages his time well, he can balance a social life, grades, and sleep at the same time. “Rumors are just rumors,” Chung said.

What are some things that Daniel is and isn’t looking forward to?

For the most part, Chung is ready and willing to tackle the challenges that Stuyvesant might bring, except for one: transportation. Because Chung’s sister went to Stuyvesant, he was familiar with her morning routine. He observed she often had to wake up at six in the morning to take the train, and often wouldn’t get home until eight at night. It’s returning home in particular that makes Chung worried.

His parents would often wait for his sister before carrying about with their own activities. “I don’t want my parents to wait for me, because I want them to be able to do their own thing. I don’t want to be a hindrance,” Chung said.

How does Daniel believe he will change by the time he has graduated high school?

Though Chung is currently considering a career at a pharmacist, he expects that he might reconsider his career choices. Nevertheless, he is certain that while he may change in a variety of ways, he will, essentially, remain the same person as he is today. With a clear but tentative goal, Chung is fully prepared to immerse himself in the Stuyvesant community.

Lena Farley

Though Stuyvesant is a renowned math and science school, there are always students who have a passion for the arts. Next September, incoming freshman Lena Farley will be one of these students.

How was Lena’s middle school experience?

Farley will graduate in June from M.S. 51, the William Alexander Middle School in Brooklyn, which she describes as a “very artsy” school with a creative environment that she thrives in. “There are many talents and it’s very big for a middle school,” Farley said.

Despite her experience with attending a highly populated school, Farley expressed concerns with Stuyvesant’s size, noting that it will be quite a change for her. “I live in Carroll Gardens, as many students from my middle school do, and all the people there already knew each other,” Farley said.

What is Lena passionate about?

One look at Farley’s posture and lithe build can tip off even the casual observer to the fact that she is an athlete, and Farley revealed this to indeed be the case. One of her favorite pastimes is playing soccer, and Farley has already displayed interest in joining the soccer team, in part due to the open and welcoming attitudes of the team players she has met.

Farley is also a dancer, commending Stuy Legacy’s performance at the Open House. However, because Farley does ballet, the difference in dance styles seems to have instilled an uncertainty within her about participating in Stuyvesant’s dance community.

“The dance team seemed really good, but the dance they do isn’t the type I’m used to doing,” Farley said.

In addition to soccer and ballet, Farley is passionate about creative writing and photography, and hopes to either pursue advertising after college or become a college professor.

What are some things that Lena is and isn’t looking forward to?

She is dreading the homework, since she is not used to receiving a hefty amount of homework.

“I don’t get a lot of homework in middle school, and the longest it ever [takes] me [is] two hours, but that’s only when I have a project,” she said.

Farley admits that she is slightly apprehensive about an entirely new social scene and so many new faces in September, explaining that most of her friends will attend Brooklyn Tech or LaGuardia in the fall. “I think it’ll be lonely in the beginning but it’ll get better,” she said.

What has Lena heard about Stuyvesant?

Some of the more extreme rumors about Stuyvesant have reached Farley, although they have not deterred her from deciding to attend Stuyvesant in the fall. “I heard someone got a C and jumped off the roof,” she said. She has also heard rumors about the way colleges perceive Stuyvesant.“I’ve heard that even though it’s really hard at Stuyvesant, you’ll have an easy time getting into college,” Farley said.

Farley does expect the difficulty level at Stuyvesant to be like nothing she has ever faced before. “[It’ll be] definitely hard, because I’m not that into math. But I think it’ll be okay, since [my teachers will] go easy on you the first few months,” she said. However, she expects her teachers’ attitudes to be less forgiving once the freshmen are more comfortable with Stuyvesant. “I don’t expect teachers to pamper me, because I don’t think teachers really do that,” she said.

How does Lena believe she will change by the time she has graduated high school?

Farley does expect her maturity level to increase after her 4 years at Stuyvesant, and envisions herself as acquiring and refining her study skills and work ethic. “In the beginning of the open house, there were seniors who told me they became better at time management, so I hope that I become better at time management. I’ll definitely be more mature in four years,” she said. Farley also hopes to retain who she is and to not lose her identity and sense of self as the years pass by. “Hopefully I won’t change completely. Ideally I’ll have the same personality,” Farley said.

Rida Rana

Coming from a small middle school with about 500 to 600 students, incoming freshman Rida Rana was awed by the size of Stuyvesant. “It’s a lot bigger now and a lot more people,” she said when describing her first impressions of Stuyvesant.

How was Rida’s middle school experience?

Rana lives in Queens and attends the Queens Gateway to Help Francis School, which combined both middle school and high school. Though Rana expects

Stuyvesant to be challenging, she believes that her middle school adequately prepared her for high school, exposing her to a similar environment with many talented students.

What is Rida passionate about?

Rana is particularly talented STEM subjects. Although she is unsure of jobs to pursue, she believes Stuyvesant can enrich her interest in science. “I’ve always been good at science, and I’ve always loved science, and I love learning about new things, so I think Stuy[vesant] will prepare me for that,” Rana said. The wide variety of STEM courses Stuyvesant offers is a major part of the reason Rana chose Stuyvesant.

Rana will likely be able to find classmates with common interests because many of her favorite pastimes are shared by many Stuyvesant students. In addition to having a passion for biology and math, which will make her classes during freshman year enjoyable, Rana likes to read, watch videos, and listen to music.

What has Rida heard about Stuyvesant?

Besides expecting Stuyvesant classes to be very advanced, Rana has other expectations for Stuyvesant as well. “What I have heard a lot is that I’m never going to get any sleep because there’s so much homework. Everyone else told me that if I manage my time properly, it’ll be a good experience and it’ll prepare me for college,” Rana said.

Rana hopes Stuyvesant will aid with college admissions in addition to college preparation.“I’ve heard that because of its good reputation, it can help me get into college because colleges have heard of it,” Rana said.

Additionally, Rana has heard rumors about drugs at Stuyvesant.

“People at Stuy[vesant] take drugs, but I don’t think it’ll affect me too much, because I come from a really strict family and they always taught me not to do drugs or take alcohol or smoke, so I can never imagine myself resorting to that,” she said.

What are some things Rida is and isn’t looking forward to?

When asked how she plans to choose between grades, friends, and sleep, Rana’s main concern is for the amount of sleep she will get, believing that maintaining her grades will be possible through time management. Rana is also not looking forward to her hour-long commute or broken escalators, though she appreciates Stuyvesant’s building. “It has a lot of classrooms and it’s really organized.

I had no idea that the floors have different subjects,” Rana said.

What are some extracurriculars that Rida is interested in?

Rana was slightly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of clubs and pubs Stuyvesant has to offer, explaining how whenever she tried to learn a little more about extracurriculars, hundreds of clubs appeared. She is, however, interested in joining the Speech and Debate team.

Rana has also displayed an eagerness to leave her comfort zone and open herself up to not just new experiences, but new people.

“Socially, I think there’s a really big group of people, and I’d like to meet a lot of different people. The schools that I’ve been to [...] had cliques, and I hope that the students will hang out with everyone and people based on their interests rather than something like race or background,” she explained.

How does Rida believe she will change by the time she has graduated high school?

Rana is also humorous and

light-hearted, promptly describing herself as immature. “I like a lot of cartoons and games and I make really stupid jokes sometimes,” she confessed. “So, in 4 years, I think I’ll be a lot more mature and independent.”

Akash Das

One thing Incoming freshman Akash Das won’t have to worry about when he enters Stuyvesant this September is having to take swim gym. Das already knows how to swim and referred to swimming as one of his many interests—and one of many skills that will serve him well during his time here at Stuyvesant.

What is Akash passionate about and what does he dream of being?

In addition to being competent in the pool, Das also has an aptitude for math, which led to his decision to pick Stuyvesant. “I know a lot of people at Stuy who are on the math team, and I was told that it has a great math program, which is a major reason why I chose Stuy[vesant].” Das’s interest in math has also influenced his career goals. He is considering pursuing finance after high school.

Overall, though, he is largely unsure of what he wants to do.

How was Akash’s middle school experience?

Das attends the Latin Middle School in Manhattan. “I learned and developed collaborating skills.

It was definitely a great experience.

The teachers were all friendly, and I felt that I could approach them. It was not too formal,” Das said. Despite this informality, his middle school was rigorous and challenging.

In fact, Das seems to generally welcome challenges in his life, viewing them as tests of his ability that will help him learn and think creatively. To Das, Stuyvesant is just another challenge, though perhaps his biggest one so far. “I’m willing to work and take as much time needed to understand the material. When I say I understand the challenge, I mean in a positive way; I’m pumped for the challenge,” he said.

Which extracurriculars is Akash interested in?

Outside of the new classes that Das is eager to take, he has also displayed an enthusiasm for the variety of clubs and extracurricular activities that Stuyvesant has to offer, and already wants to join Robotics. Das believes that exposure to so many activities will impact him positively over his 4 years at Stuyvesant. “I’d be definitely exposed to more activities, clubs, topics, which you don’t get a lot of in middle school.”

What are some things Das is and isn’t looking forward to?

Das is looking forward to meeting his peers this September.

He described his middle school as “a little small,” but is not overly concerned with the transition to a larger school. “Actually, I like the fact that there’s a lot of people, which means there’s more people to meet and socialize with. With Stuy[vesant] being a large school, I think it’ll benefit me socially more than it hurts me socially,” he said.

“It’ll be a lot of fun meeting people, making new friends, [and] learning about what they like.”

Das is optimistic about being able to cope with Stuyvesant and undeterred by the old adage about picking between studying, sleeping, and socializing. “I don’t believe in the triangle [and] I don’t think there’s any reason why you can’t have all three,” he said.

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 5

Features Minkyu Kim: The Gracious Thief

Nancy Cao/ The Spectator

Kim also enjoyed playing sports, such as baseball, basketball, and football. He played Little League shortstop until age 10, when an experience with a particular batter in the last game of the season caused him to quit the team. “[The batter] was humongous,” Kim said. “He was at least like, 25 years older than me, [or] at least, that is what it seemed like to me. He comes up to bat. I throw. He hits the ball, and I flinch because I think the ball is going to hit me. My dad remembers that I ducked away and ran for my life. [...] So, [he] hits a homerun. We lose the game. And after that I quit, because I am scared of the ball.”

By Alice Cheng and Kartikay Sharma In between periods on the 6th and 8th floors, students may catch him in the hallways going to his next class. Walking in smooth strides, wearing a simple buttondown and tie with khakis, he makes a memorable impression thanks to his signature gelled up quiff. To some students, English teacher Minkyu Kim may be mistaken for a student teacher due to his youthful appearance. Rarely will anyone at Stuyvesant meet a person so relatable and congenial as Kim, for the life choices he has made and childhood he experienced reflect the limitless adventures teenagers aspire to fulfill in young adulthood before the onset of middle age.

“As I gREW bigger, so did my houses.”

Growing up in the U.S., Kim had a background reminiscent of many Stuyvesant students greatly influenced by the sacrifices their parents had made. Kim’s mother, for instance, was a flight attendant for Korean Airlines. Born the third child out of nine in a poor household, she worked very hard to support her siblings. She was a loyal sister and daughter despite her family’s misogynistic standards, which drove them to continue bearing children because the first eight were daughters.

His father had a lucrative job back in Korea, for he went to the best college there, and made a profit from buying and selling cargo containers while investing in Korean real estate. While his father was on a business trip in the U.S., he unfortunately fell ill, and decided to move his family to the U.S., and start his own company in real estate.

“Looking to the future, I think his grand vision was to move his family to America,” Kim said.

But this vision came at an unfortunate cost. The decision caused his father to give up all of his land investments in Korea.

Without a stable job, Kim’s family dropped to lower class poverty.

Born in Korea, Kim moved to New Jersey at the age of three with vague memories of moving from house to house as his father’s business slowly improved.

“As I grew bigger, so did my houses,” Kim said.

As Kim grew older, his childhood, like the childhoods of many with immigrant parents, was carefully surveyed by strict parental discipline. Kim’s mother, who had obtained a Masters in English as a Second Language and became a Korean teacher for remedial English, played a large role in Kim’s education.

“My mom made me keep a journal in Korean and English so I

had to write a page a day and she would check it every day,” Kim gave an example. “I had to do one page in English and then I had to translate it into Korean. ” From kindergarten until third grade, his mother oversaw his journal entries, in which Kim recalled writing about what he saw, felt, and ate. “I remember writing about the girl who lived next door. I thought she was pretty.” Kim recalled. “I feel like that [the journal entries] had a lot to do with my writing moving forward. When I got to school, I had constantly been writing a lot anyway, so writing in school was an extension of that, so it was easy.

Writing came easily.”

In addition to writing, Kim also enjoyed detective stories, “Encyclopedia Brown” being one his favorites, along with a group of comics called “Calvin and Hobbes.” Though the comics were graphic novels, his mother allowed him to read them because their reading levels were relatively high for their targeted audience, introducing many ideas, such as

“I wanted to work with musicians somehow.”

During middle school and high school, music became an integral part of Kim’s life. Since he was four, he attended piano lessons with the same music teacher every week until college.

And in starting in the fifth grade, because his piano skills could not be featured in a school concert, his mother forced him to take percussionist lessons under the school’s band director. “It made my mom really upset that I wasn’t involved in any of that stuff,” Kim chuckled. But the band lessons paid off, since the band director was a classically trained percussionist. Eventually, Kim became proficient enough to play for the New Jersey Youth Symphony, and became one of the best percussionists in the state at the high school level.

Looking back, Kim doesn’t regret the choices his parents made for his extracurriculars, because of the great impact they had on his interest in music and education. “You learn a lot by sticking to an instrument. That you’re

Then, one day, while inside a record store, Kim heard an interesting song played over the speakers that compelled him to buy the album called Ambulance LTD, and send a resume and mixtape to the company that was listed in album’s liner notes. “And they wrote back,” Kim said. “I couldn’t believe it.” This led to a two-hour interview that led to his hiring. And for the first couple of months, Kim spent every day doing coffee runs and stuffing envelopes for the band before he was finally promoted to a position as their agent.

“I had to regroup.”

For four years, Kim worked as a Public Relations Agent, persuading the press to publicize information about musicians who were his clients in magazines or newspapers such as Blender and Playboy.

But toward the end of those four years, he started to feel burned out and disillusioned with the music industry. “You’re trying to sell people off on something. You’re trying to say this thing will make your life,” Kim explained. “But, as I got older, it started to feel not empty, but just a little bit self-serving—or, I didn’t actually [have] their best interest in mind.”

Meanwhile, Kim’s job as a PR agent was slowly being replaced by the digital market. The Internet made well-known publications such as Rolling Stone and SPIN Magazine less important targets for press release, as more and more smaller ones began popping online. And so, Kim saw a ceiling to his achievement that ultimately caused him to make the decision to quit the music industry and start somewhere else anew.

“I had to regroup,” Kim said.

“You’re trying to sell people off on something. You’re trying to say this thing will make your life. But as I got older, it started to feel not empty but just a little bit self-serving or I didn’t actually [have] their best interest in mind.”

—Minkyu Kim, English teacher

the theme of whether man was intrinsically good or bad, and the dichotomy of rules versus anarchy.

“I didn’t think these things at the time, but I think that dynamic was universal enough that it resonated with me even at a young age,” Kim reflected. “Because those are things that you struggle with as a kid. How much should I be following rules? How much should I be blazing my own trail? [...] But, of course, my mom being my mom, I had to carry around a highlighter, and if there was a word I did not know, I would have to highlight it, and then I would have to look it up.”

Because his parents emphasized the importance of spending time outdoors, it was difficult for Kim to watch television, as his family did not have cable television until he left for college. As a result, Kim spent most of his time exploring his town on his bicycle with his friends, going to baseball card shops, candy shops, and movie theaters.

supposed to struggle in the beginning, no matter what you are doing, and then you kind of get better, and then you find mastery,” Kim explained. “I think that is a very important life lesson.” In high school, he then became involved with music, for he became part of the choir and even sang tenor in an a capella group called the Button Downs.

When he graduated from high school, Kim developed such a strong passion for music that he decided to pursue a job in the industry. “I wanted to work with musicians somehow,” Kim said.

“I wanted to be an audio producer.” After college, Kim went to Emerson College for a Masters degree in Media Arts. There, he took on internships in recording studios and radio stations around Boston. However, Kim ultimately decided to become a Public Relations (PR) agent, since the audio producers’ “late nights” and “odd hours” made him desire a more social occupation, he said.

“I had to figure out what was the thing that I loved the most. What was the thing I was best at? And it turns out to be school. I was really good at school. I loved reading books and talking about ideas and discussing things with people.” Thus, with this conclusion, Kim went back to graduate school at Columbia’s Teachers College to become a teacher.

There, Kim was given the opportunity to work as a student teacher at Stuyvesant under English teacher Mark Henderson.

“To be honest, I was still kind of iffy about whether I wanted to do this for the rest of my life,” Kim said. “But watching people like Mr. Henderson, [...] how much they love what they do, really inspired me.”

“It’s not like I dreamed of being a model.”

To pay off student loans, Kim worked in multiple jobs that tended to place him in situations that he wasn’t prepared for. His

most stable job while attending Teacher’s College was at a Korean Bar and Grill. Through connections with the owner, Kim did odds and ends for the restaurant, such as working as a waiter, bartender, or simply running back and forth in the kitchen for six hours, fetching kegs and dishes for the staff.

Probably most amusing, however, was his job as bartender, for his lack of experience—“lack” meaning “complete absence”— that often forced him to “wing”

“It almost feels like I am stealing.

The fact that I am being paid to do this makes it feel like I am stealing.”

—Minkyu Kim, English teacher

certain drinks when the occasional “cavalier” entered the building, he said. “There was one lady I remember, the drink [I made her] was so bad she made a face. And returned it,” Kim laughed. “And I couldn’t be mad at her because I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Then there was his job as model, which popped up in his life unexpectedly when someone approached him backstage at a concert. His modeling career started off small, with some gigs for advertisements in China and the UK. But as previous photographers contacted agencies for work, pictures of him in these photographers’ portfolios began spreading around, until they eventually arrived on someone’s inspiration board for J Crew.

“They contacted the photographer’s agent, and the photographer’s agent contacted the photographer, the photographer gave them my information, and then they emailed me directly,” Kim said. “The crazy part is that the only thing I got was the email.

I didn’t know that any of that networking or any of those things had happened [...]. To me it was like, ‘Oh! Magic!’”

Every couple of months, while working as a bartender, Kim would get a modeling offer in his inbox and get paid an hourly rate that ranged from a couple hundred dollars to a thousand, depending on the publication and how often the advertisement was published. Jobs like these took him to shoots at empty warehouses, floodlighted galleries, and old movie theaters. Looking back, however, despite the bragging rights his mother had to say about Kim during parties, Kim doesn’t see modeling as a meritable accomplishment: “I didn’t do anything to warrant that position. It’s not liked I dreamed of being a model, and worked really hard, and shaped my body and continued on page 6

Page 6

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Features Minkyu Kim: The Gracious Thief

continued from page 5

put together portfolio. [...] I don’t necessarily appreciate it.”

“Poverty is real.”

After several years of school, Kim graduated from Teachers College and stopped working at his part-time jobs. He became a teacher at a public high school in the Bronx, where he was hired alongside one of the mentors who oversaw him as a student teacher.

At the new school, Kim taught ninth and tenth graders who came from poor upbringings demonstrating a heartbreaking failure of a system. “Poverty is real,” Kim said gravely, as he explained how some students depended on school to be open not just for class, but for food, as well.

“Poverty is real,” Kim echoed, when he recounted how some children had siblings in jail, or parents who had passed away.

For Kim, the amount of effort to it took to motivate students to learn in class was exhausting.

He needed the entire summer to re-energize himself and gather enough resilience to enter the school year. Though this was not due to the occasional rowdy fights and verbal abuse that distracted the class from the curriculum.

“That was bad,” Kim admitted. “[But] worse than that was the apathy, where you have kids who just checked out from school entirely. They would just have their heads down all class, either because they didn’t know what was going on or they didn’t care. [...]

They had real problems.”

The first month of Kim’s teaching career in the Bronx was a disaster. But the lessons gained from the experience would last with Kim for the rest of his life.

Kim worked hard to engage the class in books such as “Romeo and Juliet,” “The Catcher and the Rye,” and plays written by local authors. Using the school’s partnership, Kim would bring his students on trips to see art and theater at Lincoln Center or invite artists to lecture in his class.

For many students, a teacher who has taught in a tough neighborhood usually brings up images of a harsh, unrelenting figure with a loud, authoritative voice. But Kim never raised his voice while working in the Bronx. “[My students] didn’t respect me right away. I had to show them that I had something to offer.”

Kim explained. “A lot of people who have adversarial relationships with authority [have them] because authority has hit them with imperatives. ‘No! Don’t do this. Do that.’ And no explanation as to why.” Understanding that many of his students grew up being controlled by authority, Kim tried to come from a place of love and reason. As a result, Kim never felt as if he was in danger despite the harsh environment of his school.

“I feel like I’m stealing.”

While teaching in the Bronx, Kim attended a concert featuring Jamie. T, an old client Kim had back when he was a PR agent.

It was there that he ran into As-

sistant Principal of English Eric Grossman. “It was unbelievable,” Kim described. It had been about three years since he had last seen him, back when Kim was working as a student teacher.

Kim decided to approach him and thank Grossman for op-

Though Kim no longer works in the music industry, his love for music and memories from when he was a PR agent stay with him to this day. “I still have friends in the industry. They’ll invite me to events every once in a while and I’ll go. Or there will be an artist

“You learn a lot by sticking to an instrument. That you’re supposed to struggle in the beginning, no matter what you are doing, and then you kind of get better, and then you find mastery. I think that is a very important life lesson.”

—Minkyu Kim, English teacher

portunity to teach at Stuyvesant.

“I had just learned so much and carried with me a lot of the lessons I learned here,” Kim said.

Recognizing Kim, Grossman told him to keep in touch in case of an opening position, and the two exchanged e-mails. After this encounter, Kim was later notified of an available job at Stuyvesant, and the rest is history. “I still have the backstage pass from that night on my computer,” Kim looked back fondly.

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[who] I still really love and they’ll play a show and I’ll go see them.

But, other than that, I’m really busy with stuff here [at Stuyvesant].” He no longer plays music regularly, either. “I do have a guitar in my apartment that I strum every once in awhile. At the moment, I’m practicing because my sister asked me to play at her wedding, which is in two weeks.”

Though he does not work for the industry, Kim continues to listen to music, and his love of

music is something that he bonds with Grossman over. “He just recently burned three albums for me by a guy named Ezra Furman,” Kim said. “And [Furman] has now been on repeat when I drive back and forth in my car when I go to school.”

After graduating, Kim never really thought it was possible to work at Stuyvesant.

Now, Kim believes that teaching at Stuyvesant is the best job in the world. He wakes up and feels blessed to have such an opportunity. He loves everything about the job, from the students he teaches, to the teachers he works with, to the books they read, and to the ideas his students share in class. “It almost feels like I am stealing,” he said. “The fact that I am being paid to do this makes it feel like I am stealing.”

But perhaps what Kim interprets as a feeling of stealing is nothing more than the fruitful rewards of his ingrained education.

The time spent reading “Calvin and Hobbes” and writing journal entries, in the long run, turned out to be very rewarding for the flexible applications in almost every job Kim has taken. While pursuing a career in music, teaching English may not have been something Kim even thought about, but learning how to write well enabled him to explore beyond the boundaries of the typical whitecollar job. Ironically, the values his parents instilled into Kim’s childhood with English went full circle, where Kim now stands in our school building, following in the footsteps of his mother.

The Spectator â—? April 22, 2016

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Page 7

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 8

Editorials Staff Editorial

AP: Another Problem?

As the selection process for Advanced Placement (AP) courses for the 2016-17 school year began, the administration announced that it would no longer permit students to submit parent-signed waiver forms allowing them to take more AP courses than their grade-point averages permitted them. Though intended to relieve student stress, the policy was met with a wave of student dissent. In a survey conducted by The Spectator, 80.8 percent of 374 freshmen, sophomores, and juniors stated that they disagree with the new policy.

three of their AP selections were courses they were truly interested in.

However, the motivation to take AP courses undeniably comes from another source, too.

In The Spectator’s survey, 55.1 percent of students claimed that they signed up for at least one of their AP courses for a reason other than genuine interest in the subject—namely to impress colleges.

Though not explicitly necessary, colleges often expect students to take as many AP courses as possible in order to exhibit

If these rules were put in place to benefit students, why have they, especially the newest one, received so much opposition?

This change is the third one this year that concerns AP policy.

The first, introduced in September, mandates that all students, beginning with the class of 2017, sit for one AP exam in order to receive a Stuyvesant diploma at graduation. In November of last year, Principal Jie Zhang announced the second change: that AP exams would be administered to students at no cost, a perk of using AP exam scores instead of Regents scores as a determining factor of the Measure of Student Learning (MOSL) assessment.

Alongside that, students would be required to sit for the AP exam of the class they are enrolled in, a measure taken so that all teachers could receive a MOSL rating.

The policies are well-meaning. The first ensures that students are challenging themselves, while also increasing the school’s prestige. (Publications like U.S. News and World Report focus heavily on how many students sit for AP exams when ranking high schools across the nation.)

The second policy alleviates the heavy financial burden students face when paying for AP exams, and may improve teachers’ MOSL scores. And the newest policy, which places a stricter cap on the number of APs students take, is meant to reduce the pressure on students to pack their schedules with AP courses.

If these rules were put in place to benefit students, why have they, especially the newest one, received so much opposition? In considering possible explanations, we must consider why students sign up for AP courses in the first place.

AP courses are intended to expose us to the rigorous academics that we will face in college. AP courses are also an opportunity for us to be challenged more than we would be in regular classes through research, critical thinking, and practical application.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that 94.7 percent of students reported that they were taking at least one AP course out of authentic interest, with 55.9 percent of students reporting that two or

their proficiency in certain subject areas. Consequently, students pack these courses into their schedules, hoping to bolster their applications.

The apparent quality of the teachers teaching an AP course serves as another pull factor for APs. Because AP courses have fewer sections than regular classes, students know who their teachers might be before

prod students to take the number of AP courses the administration feels is necessary, conflicts with the freedom students desire. AP courses are a very personal part of a student’s education, but the new system is the opposite of personal.

The new policy makes course selections more rigid than they should be, and more rigid than they can be. Choosing courses is an organic process, the kind of process that necessitates flexible policies. If the administration gets rid of waivers, it practically operates under the assumption that every case is the same. However, every case, and every student, is different. A miniscule difference in grade-point averages does not make one student more equipped to face the rigor of more AP courses than another; it might just be that he or she happened to have an easier teacher for a freshman biology class.

The administration acknowledges this issue and has stated that it plans to allow for some flexibility by having students work with their guidance counselors, though the details of this plan are still in the works. Ironically, this appeals process allows for the flexibility the new policy tries to take away, indicating that perhaps this flexibility was, and is, necessary.

The old policy was unpopular because it often involved students harassing their guidance counselors so that they would be able to get into their desired courses. By presenting the new policy as not being up for discussion, the administration is likely attempting to simplify the process and to avoid chaotic exchanges with students. However, by trying improve the situation by limiting students’ freedoms, the administration only breeds more confusion and frustration.

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AP courses are a very personal part of a student’s education, but the new system is the opposite of personal.

signing up. As a result, they can gauge the difficulty of each class, the ease with which students can get high grades, and the teachers’ personal styles—information that pushes students to take certain AP courses and avoid others.

It’s a precise science. In the survey, nearly one half of students said that they wanted to take at least one AP class because of the teacher.

Our methods for choosing AP courses have merit in some cases and are crude in others, but they reflect the nuance of the course selections themselves. We know ourselves, we know what we can handle, and we know what we’re in for when we sign up for a class.

Thus, the heavy-handedness of this year’s AP policies, which

While the administration’s effort to reduce student stress is commendable, the approaches it is taking aren’t having the desired effect. By creating three new AP policies, two placing emphasis on taking AP exams (and subsequently, courses), and the third putting a greater restraint on the number of AP courses students can take, the administration promotes convoluted messages and creates an even more APobsessed culture at Stuyvesant, where the quantity and simple label of “AP” are more important than the courses themselves. Instead of placing a quota on students’ academic interests and aspirations, the administration should be more open-minded to the individual needs of its students.

Write a letter to the editor and e-mail it to opinions@stuyspec.com or drop it in The Spectator box in the second-floor mail room.

VOICES Would you like to share a personal narrative with the school? Whether it’s an essay you’ve written for class, or a piece you’ve been working on by yourself, if it’s in first-person and it is nonfiction it could get published in The Spectator’s issue-ly Voices column!

Send your stories into voices@stuyspec.com, or email us with any questions or concerns you have.

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 9

Opinions

Elena Sapelyuk / The Spectator

Public Forum Debate? More Like Public For-Men Debate

By Eliza Spinna After I judge middle school debate tournaments, during the award ceremonies, I often find myself mentally tallying the number of girls who are receiving awards.

More frequently than not, the 11to 13-year-old girls perform far better than their male counterparts. On the other hand, when watching high school rounds and award ceremonies, I am shocked by how male-dominated high school debate is. Puberty, it seems, correlates with a decrease in many girls’ speech and debate achievement.

As a female who has competed in extracurricular public speech for several years and considers debate to be an integral part of my life, I am appalled by this trend. Year after year, the list of the nation’s top-ranked high school debaters is consistently filled with boys. The root cause of this phenomenon is hotly debated, with contending opinions assembling into groups for what turns out to be an age-old dispute: nature vs. nurture. The

first opinion is that women tend to achieve less in public speech events because of innate biological tendencies. John L. Locke, a modern psychologist and linguist, sums this idea up when he says, “Differences [in speech] are not the ‘gendered’ effects of modern culture but the ‘sexed’ expression of ancient biological dispositions.”

He argues that speech has different purposes for different genders.

Male speech is about conveying information, whereas female speech seeks to establish relationships. However, Locke’s thesis falls flat in certain situations. One such example is the village of Gapun in Papua New Guinea, where men prize indirect and subtle speech, and women practice a more aggressive and argumentative monologue called a Kros.

I doubt the reason that women underperform is because of a biological predisposition.

Rather, I side with the second school of thought: the “nurture” side.

Women are less likely to enter into debate primarily because of a lack of representation.

When school debate teams hold interest meetings, women are deterred from joining, because they don’t see female captains and coaches.

This creates a selfperpetuating cycle: fewer women join, so fewer women are represented, causing fewer women in the next

generation to join. Additionally, archaic double standards discourage girls from entering debate: when men are aggressive they are seen as dominant and passionate, whereas when women are assertive they are called “pushy.” Afraid of being shamed for joining an extracurricular that puts so much emphasis on appearing dominant, many girls are hesitant to try out for debate teams.

Even when women join, there are higher rates of attrition and lower rates of success than men.

Women not only have to work to become better debaters, but they also are faced with hurdles such as overcoming language and feedback that

Yujie Fu / The Spectator

highlights their appearances rather than their argumentation. Michael Norton, a well-known coach in the debate community, finds that female debaters disproportionately receive comments from both judges and competitors on their clothing, mannerisms, and even their appearance during debates. I’ve noticed that judges comment on my voice and its cadence more than they do the voice of my male partner, who tends to receive more substantive feedback. If I am not given the same comprehensive feedback as a boy, improving at the same pace as a boy becomes difficult.

Another factor could potentially be judge bias; however, due to the objective nature of debate rounds, quantifying this is challenging.

Still, some analyses have been made.

In the 1990s, researcher Jane Raider analyzed ballots from several high school speech and d e b a t e events, and found comments such as “I don’t usually vote for girl debaters, because debate is a boy’s activity. I am surprised by your [directed at a female debater] ability to handle these issues.” This shows clear judge bias, but due to the age of this source and the evolution of the debate community since this study, this

discrimination may no longer be as prevalent.

These aforementioned problems are not caused by debate itself. Gender inequality in debate merely mirrors that of the real world. To completely solve inequality in debate would require solving the world’s gender inequality issue. That said, there are ways to make the debate community more inclusive and accepting.

The first is by having more female role models in the community, especially female coaches and captains. When girls see that debate is not just a “boys’ club,” they’ll be more likely to join. Raider found that there is a proven correlation between the number of female coaches and judges and the number of female participants. I personally have two positive female debate role models and can attest that the impact of having women to look up to cannot be understated.

Additionally, we must report when judges and opponents make sexist comments or focus more on a woman’s appearance than her arguments. Passivity is often a perpetuator of the problem. There should be an anonymous way for women to report judges who give inappropriate attention and comment disproportionately on their looks rather than their abilities.

This should go without saying, but any instances of sexual harassment inside or outside of round should be reported and promptly investigated, too.

Women must remember not to blame their losses on their femininity and to be resilient. I believe that progress is possible. The vast majority of Stuyvesant’s LincolnDouglas debate team is female, and of the top 12 Congressional debaters in the nation, six are female. Equality is on its way.

Xin Italie / The Spectator

Retrieving Morality

By Stiven Peter In December 2015, Toronto’s most influential newspaper, The Globe and Mail, published a lengthy article by avowed prochoice advocate Alexandra Kimball that described her miscarriage and its lack of response from her fellow feminists. After she miscarried, she recalls that, “Feminism had nothing to say to me.”

She explains, “How could I grieve a thing that didn’t exist? If a fetus is not meaningfully alive, if it is just a collection of cells—the cornerstone claim of the pro-choice movement—what does it mean to miscarry one?” Taking Kimball’s question a step further, we may ask, is a fetus a human being? And what rights, if any, does it have?

Answering these questions will not only help us solve Kimball’s dilemma, but also decide the morality of abortion.

Medical textbooks like Dr. Ronan O’ Rahilly and Dr. Fabiola Muller’s “Human Embryology and Teratology,” as well as prominent scientists consistently agree that

human life begins at conception.

Rahilly and Muller say, “Fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.”

Famed geneticist Jerome LeJeune reaffirms this truth, maintaining, “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of opinion.”

Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth, a principal research associate at Harvard Medical School, explains that “each member of the human species indeed starts his or her existence as one cell, the zygote: and that this fact applies whether the zygote was formed by the union of egg and sperm in the mother’s body or in a petri dish.” The scientific support behind this claim is why pro-choice advocates like David Boonin, the author of “A Defense of Abortion,” readily acknowledge that at conception, a human being comes into existence, because a “human fetus after all is simply a human being at a very early stage in his or her development.”

The main point of debate is then whether a human person comes into being at conception. A human being is an organism that is a member of the species Homo sapiens, while a human person has dignity and legal rights. A slave in the Antebellum South was a human being, but was not treated as a person. Pro-life advocates contend that all human beings are endowed with personhood. On the other hand, pro-choice advocates argue that attaining personhood requires certain qualities, but they have not reached consensus on what exactly these qualities are. Some, like Peter Singer, believe that self-awareness confers personhood, while others, like

feminist philosopher Susan Sherwin, place the burden of personhood on to what extent the fetus is wanted by its mother.

The problem is that such characteristics like intelligence and awareness vary from person to person. Some beings are more intelligent than others, more sentient, more desired, etc. If a quality confers personhood, then it is only fair that some humans are valued more than others. For example, suppose self-consciousness determines personhood.

Some people are more self-conscious than others, which would mean they are worth more than others. In other words, this view suffers from the problem of under-inclusiveness: some human beings are not deemed persons even though our intuitions say otherwise.

Even if one tries to mitigate this problem by only making a binary distinction between characteristics, the problem of over-inclusiveness is still apparent: some organisms are deemed persons when intuition says otherwise. For example, if self-consciousness determined personhood, dogs and locusts are also persons since they are also self-conscious. Establishing human being-hood and self-consciousness as requirements for personhood implies there is something important about being human that determines personhood. Why does being human make any difference if having certain char-

acteristics determines personhood?

In contrast to the shaky and frightening merit model, the endowment view resolves our moral quandaries by making personhood a characteristic not dependent on merit. The endowment view of personhood not only solves the problems of under/over inclusiveness but also deems all human beings equal. This endowment view also makes sense of our deepest longings for equality.

Equality is the fundamental axiom of not only the United States, but also all of movements for justice and freedom. That humanity does not depend on human choice or social recognition is why Jews in anti-Semitic societies, slaves dominated by slaveholders,

Cien Huang / The Spectator

and women in patriarchal societies are still persons with inherent worth. Do we really have reason to believe that for the first time we are justified in saying that some human beings are worth more than others?

Despite the coherence of the endowment view of personhood, some people would still permit abortion. Kimball points this out in her article, explaining, “Some feminist thinkers have posited a way out of this paradox, by admitting the personhood of the fetus as they champion a woman’s right to abort it.” This alternative view champions the women’s bodily rights over the rights of the fetus, but this would mean that the right to life, the most important and the foundation of all rights, can be infringed. Moreover, I know many people who would agree that the fetus is indeed a person with rights and would for that reason not get an abortion, but would not force that ethic on everyone else. This commonly held view regards the personhood of the fetus as trivial, as it leaves the value of the fetus to the will of the mother. If the fetus truly is a person, the aborting it truly is murder, regardless of the mother’s beliefs about it. If the value of a person is dependent on a person’s subjective view, then the moral foundation of our society rests on shaky grounds.

If we are to make the right decision, then the U.S. should prohibit abortion. As a community, Stuyvesant’s political and social justice clubs need to publicly denounce abortion, and get students to participate in the political process to end abortion. Shall we choose to acknowledge and fight for human rights? Or, shall we idolize human choice and succumb to a world of moral nihilism?

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 10

Opinions

By Rodda John Recently, the administration announced that it will no longer accept Advanced Placement (AP) waiver forms, which previously allowed students to take more AP classes than the school advised based on their grade-point averages. Though the school’s revocation of the waiver policy may frustrate students who are now unable to enroll in every AP course that they want to take, this policy is actually in the best interests of students and teachers alike.

Under the old policy, there were three major instances in which students needed to use waiver forms, but in all of these situations, taking extra AP courses could potentially be harmful to the student’s education.

The first situation was if a student had an overall average that was too low to permit him or her to take the number of AP courses that he or she wanted to take. This student might have excellent grades in physics, but low grades in English. Under the old policy, this student could get a waiver to permit him or her to take an AP Physics course, despite the fact that his or her overall grade-point average was brought down by low English grades.

The problem with this is that it rewards students for neglecting certain subjects in favor of others. The administration’s reliance on students’ overall transcript averages incentivizes students to try to focus on all areas of their studies. As a broadly focused college preparatory school, Stuyvesant has a curriculum that is designed to expose students to a wide range of subjects in order to make them more well-rounded. The time for hyper-specialization is in graduate school, or perhaps the final two years of one’s undergraduate education, but not during high school.

Enrollment in an AP course is a privilege bestowed upon students who have demonstrated that they can succeed in basic level courses, and not a right guaranteed to all.

Likewise, if a student had low grades in all subjects, he or she could petition to take an AP course in any field. This

allowed students to be admitted to AP courses in which they were likely to fall behind. This was precisely the concern that the administration raised when it revoked the waiver; the old policy increased stress by allowing students to take more AP courses than they were prepared for.

The third instance in which a student might have sought a waiver was if he or she had an overall average high enough to support the AP course that he or she wished to take, but his or her departmental average fell below the cut-off. The elimination of this exemption is easy to defend: if a student has not demonstrated that he or she can excel at a lower-level course in a specific subject, why should we assume that he or she could succeed in an AP course in the same field?

Enrollment in an AP course is a privilege bestowed upon students who have demonstrated that they can succeed in basic level courses, and not a right guaranteed to all. Therefore, if a student cannot demonstrate general proficiency, he or she should not be accorded the privilege of taking an AP

Stuyvesant administrators have to balance the remarkable opportunity that AP curriculum can provide with the administration’s obligation to promote its students’ well being. course.

Of course, extraordinary circumstances might lead administrators to grant a few exceptions. These exceptions, however, should only pertain to unusual personal issues. If, for example, a student had family troubles during a particular semester, and his or her grades suffered as a result, he or she should be able to discuss the situation with his or her guidance counselor, who, after examining the specific case, might grant a special exemption.

When prospective students visit Stuyvesant, student tour guides stand by the entrance to the school with informational fact sheets. One of the most impressive of these facts is the plethora of AP courses that Stuyvesant offers.

Indeed, the abundance of high-level courses that Stuyvesant offers is one of the main reasons that it is so academically rigorous. Yet Stuyvesant administrators have to balance the remarkable opportunity that AP curriculum can provide with the administration’s obligation to promote its students’ wellbeing.

One sign of an effective school administration is its ability to ensure that the student body is not overstressed, since anxiety is detrimental to education. Policies like the use of transcript averages to determine admittance to AP courses demonstrate that the school administration, in conjunction with the guidance office, is acting in the students’ best interests.

High school is not where you choose a career; instead, it is where you build the academic foundation off of which higher education will grow. The new waiver policy will help us all become better, more well-rounded students, and that is what high school should be all about.

Jensen Foerster / The Spectator

Nancy Cao / The Spectator

Point-Counterpoint: AP Waiver Policy Waiving Goodbye Waivers Are Our Saviors

By Stephen Nyarko As many of us have heard, the number of AP courses we will be able to take during the Fall 2016 term will be based more stringently on our overall averages, and less on personal evaluations from teachers and guidance counselors. Course selections are one of the most important choices you make for the upcoming year, as signing up for too much coursework can ruin a semester. The administration has recognized this, and has attempted to limit our stress by tightening restrictions on how many AP courses each student can take. But making wholesale decisions for students based solely on their averages is not the solution.

Prior to this change, the cap on the number of AP courses a student could take was based upon the same standards as this year, but every student was also given the option to see his or her guidance counselor to request another AP slot through a waiver form.

As it stands, everyone has a single AP course request, an 88 grants you two, a 93 grants you three, and a 95 grants you four.

First, let me establish that I’m not completely against grade minimums for specific classes and for AP cutoffs.

Without the use of grades in the selection process, the easiest way to assess the aptitude of students in their classes is lost. However, there is a difference between using individual subject grade minimums and overall average minimums.

Overall averages don’t tell our whole story. Many students who don’t quite meet the cutoff can, and should be, considered on merits other than simply their grades, because there are many factors that can cause grades to

fall above or below that cutoff: Algebra is different from Calculus, AP Euro is different from Global History, and Mr. Hanna is different from Dr. Ned. These are all important differences, but in determining how many AP courses we can take, they are disregarded.

Furthermore, improvement in your transcript average should be a boon to your academic profile, not a hindrance.

Freshman year can be a hard time for those who are ill-prepared, and to be barred from AP courses two and a half years later is unfair; certainly the improvement a student has made while at Stuyvesant is a better metric for academic success than freshman year grades.

With waivers, which under the old policy allowed for exceptions to easily be made to the cutoff rules, we are able to show our guidance counselors and our parents that we are ready to take more courses than a computer has decided we can. If the workload really is too much, those two groups of adults can still refuse the student from proceeding. Certainly, by having seen the student and interacted with him or her, they are exponentially more qualified to make those decisions than a computer in the programming office is.

Part of the reason Stuyvesant is such a special place is that we have so much freedom in choosing courses. On tours at Open Houses, we are told to mention the huge number of AP courses you can take, not the smaller number of AP courses you may or may not be able to take based on your overall average, average in the department, previous course requirements, and on top of that, a bureaucratic policy instituted by the administration with the support of neither the Parent’s Association nor the student body at large.

If the administration is set on changing the policy, it should veer away from decisions based on grades, and go in the direction of teacher recommendations.

If each teacher is able to see the course requests of his or her students for that subject, such that sophomore English teachers look at English elective and AP requests for junior year, he or she could make recommendations to the AP of the department, who would have the final say in granting those requests.

Or, perhaps the administration could make an effort to implement “Honors” alternatives to AP courses (e.g. “Honors English”), in order to alleviate the volume of demand for higher-level academics.

Whatever the solution, it must allow us to be individuals in a school very much defined by numbers. Taking away our right to be treated as such only hurts the students the administration is trying to protect.

Yujie Fu / The Spectator

The Spectator â—? April 22, 2016

Page 11

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The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 12

Arts and Entertainment Asian Snacks Meet City Life: Asian Street Food in New York

By Jasmine Tang Scroll through your Instagram feed and you’re bound to see your friends’ pictures of mouth-watering desserts purchased somewhere in the city. These posts range from selfies with geotags to pictures of ice cream rolls and their toppings carefully placed for the sake of aesthetics. Besides being taken during squad hangouts you weren’t invited to, the pictures on Instagram also demonstrate the Asian streetfood takeover making its way into New York City. The trend manifests itself as desserts that integrate flavors from both the East and the West to please all palates.

Shaved Ice

Bubble Tea

Ice Cream Rolls

Egg Waffle Ice Cream

A place to buy it: Juicy Spot Cafe (109 Ludlow Street New York, NYC 10002) Recommended orders: Chocolate Chip Espresso, Watermelon Lychee Price: $6

A place to buy it: Eggloo (60 Mulberry St New York, NY 10013) Recommended orders: pizza waffle, green tea waffle with strawberry ice cream Price range: $4-$8 The classic Hong Kong egg waffles we may have snacked on when we were younger are all grown up, now served as a full-fledged dessert. Egg waffles, called gai daan jai in Cantonese, are made from a leavening egg-based batter cooked between two half-sphered hot plates to give them their trademark bubble shapes. While the waffles are usually served plain, food spots in NYC have dared to embellish them, transforming the common street snack into a new dessert.

Eggloo is one of the places that have given egg waffles a new look. Waffles come in sweet flavors that include original, chocolate, and green tea. Eggloo takes the bold step of adding savory waffles to its menu, with flavors like pizza, Chinese sausage, and chives. Though savory waffles may sound like an oxymoron, the flavors work in a lunch meal, rather than a sweet snack. Unlike the egg waffles of Hong Kong’s street stands, egg waffles at Eggloo can contain fillings such as Fruity Pebbles and diced almonds. The dessert can be served in a cone or as a sundae, where customers choose their own toppings and ice cream to accompany their waffles. At Eggloo, the combinations are endless and there will certainly be a few that will satisfy your tastebuds.

Courtesy of @SnowdaysNYC on Instagram

Another Taiwanese dessert that has trickled its way to popularity from the other side of the globe is Taiwanese shaved ice, or bao bing. The dessert’s roots trace all the way back to the seventh century. The drink was even served to former President Richard M. Nixon and to Chinese leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai at state dinners during Nixon’s first visit to Beijing. Though it’s nothing new, Taiwanese shaved ice seems to be a revolutionary take on ice cream.

Forget what you know about the American snow cone; Taiwanese shaved ice is the delicate combination of soft, airy, cold, and creamy (think snow cream, instead of ice cream). It’s typically served in a plate and topped with syrups or condensed milk and fruits, nuts, or red beans.

Snowdays has been chilling in NYC’s East Village, West Village, and Flushing for a while, but its popularity won’t come to a freeze anytime soon. At the Taiwanese shaved ice parlor, ice cream comes in regular size ($5) and large size ($7), and the notorious yeti size ($10), for large groups or those with especially daring appetites.

Snowdays has a list of snow cream, topping, and drizzle combos for customers to choose from. A combo named “The Made in Taiwan” pays homage to shaved ice’s birthplace, and consists of green tea matcha snow cream, grass jelly, mochi, and condensed milk. The mochi and grass jelly add interesting textures to the combo, while the condensed milk adds just the right amount of sweetness. And to welcome Taiwanese shaved ice’s new home in NYC, there’s the “The New Yorka” combo, containing New York Cheesecake snow cream, Nilla wafers, strawberries, and a dollop of whipped cream. Nobody can possibly go wrong with a strawberry and whipped cream combo. It tastes just like cheesecake, but cold and more airy.

Customers can also customize their orders. There are six snow cream flavors to choose from, including their trademarked “YETITRACKS,” a hybrid of cookies and cream and blueberry. There is also a wide variety of toppings and drizzles such as M&M’s, Pocky, blueberry puree, and condensed milk.

Thai ice cream rolls are another cold treat rolling into the New York food scene. Behind the palatable product is a peculiar procedure that truly acts as the ice cream’s hallmark. The ice cream rolls (called phad xis khrim in Thai, which translates to stir-fried ice cream) are made by pouring an ice cream base containing add-ins like fruits onto an ice grill of temperatures that can reach as low as negative ten degrees Fahrenheit. The fun continues when the concoction is chopped and spread with metal paddles until the ice cream firms up, before being scraped into the chubby rolls that have been bombarding your Instagram feed.

Juicy Spot Cafe in the Lower East Side has it all for $6 per cup when it comes to these ice cream rolls. For fruit fanatics, there are combos like Watermelon Lychee, Razzle Dazzle, and Apple Pie. Chocolate lovers can choose from Ferre-Roll Rocher, Chocolate Chip Espresso, Cookie Butter, and Peppermint Kisses. And for those who want to try something different, Black Sesame is a go-to.

What distinguishes Juicy Spot Cafe from other Thai ice cream roll joints is the creativity of their combos. Watermelon Lychee has a lychee base and is topped with watermelon, granola, mochi, and condensed milk. This combo sounds odd, but it is actually a delightful and light option. Peppermint Kisses is another innovative combo, made with a chocolate and peppermint candy cane base, with whipped cream, dark chocolate, and peppermint pieces as toppings. Eating this one is an interesting experience; it almost feels like celebrating Christmas in the summer. Ultimately, Juicy Spot Cafe is successful in bringing new flavors to Thai ice cream rolls.

As we continue to double-tap those food photos on Instagram, we await the next Asian street snack to line up for. The new takes on classic Asian foods depict how the younger generation of Asian Americans that continue to grow and contribute to NYC culture has tasted the best of both worlds (Asia and North America). The owners of the snack shops dare to have these two different worlds collide to create new foods that will not only satisfy your sweet tooth, but also satisfy your social media feed, a new goal in this day and age.

Courtesy of @JuicySpotCafe on Instagram

We’ve all liked posts of bubble tea (zhen zhu nai cha in Chinese), with their signature wide straws and black tapioca pearls floating at the bottom.

Originating in Taiwan in the 1980s, bubble tea has grown from being solely served in the original milk tea flavor, now incorporating other milk tea flavors and fruit-flavored teas. The additional texture the chewy tapioca pearls offer doesn’t seem to be present in other American drinks like Starbucks Frappucinos, marking bubble tea’s uniqueness.

ViVi Bubble Tea has several locations in NYC. It has a large selection of bubble tea flavors, from familiar choices like taro and lychee, to specialties such as red bean matcha and grapefruit pulp. All the drinks are vegan, using nondairy milk for the milk teas, but still maintain low prices (everything is six dollars and under), unlike hipster joints that charge a lot for their “friendlier food.”

Lately, people have been flocking to ViVi’s shop on Allen St., which serves the exclusive milk tea float. Before drinking the beverage, customers would have already feasted their eyes upon the float’s overwhelming presentation. Bubble milk tea and ice cream is served in a large mason jar that is topped off with a large cloud of cotton candy. Next to the jar is a smaller jar or cup of extra milk tea. All of this is served on a wooden board, as a final touch to the Instagram-worthy treat.

There is a recommended method of drinking the float. First, one should set the cotton candy aside and drink and eat some of the bubble tea and ice cream mixture in the large jar. Afterwards, the cotton candy should be placed back onto the top of the jar. The contents of the small jar are poured over the cotton candy, and the customer gets to witness the whimsical sight of cotton candy disintegrating slowly. The flavors of the drink itself are impressive and aren’t as overpoweringly sweet as the drink suggests. It is also important to note the Pop Rocks sprinkled over the cotton candy; when drinking the milk tea, the Pop Rocks give the drink a new dimension. In addition, the Pop Rocks and cotton candy duo adds an unexpected American flair to the Taiwanese drink.

A place to buy it: Snowdays (167 7th Ave South New York, NY 10014 for West Village) Recommended orders: The Made in Taiwan, The New Yorka Price range: $5-$10

Courtesy of @MyEggloo on Instagram

Courtesy of @ViVi.LES on Instagram

A place to buy it: ViVi Bubble Tea (205 Allen St, New York, NY 10002) Recommended orders: Jasmine Honey Milk Tea Float, Red Bean Matcha Price: $6 and under

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 13

Arts and Entertainment What’s the Victorian Era Without a Zombie Apocalypse?

By Tiffany Chen Everyone has heard of “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen.

Most remember the typical Victorian era romance novel from their sophomore year of high school—the girls fawned over the adorable romance between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy and the guys groaned at the romantic clichés of the book. The novel describes the interaction between the social classes, and Elizabeth defying them, which is why she is the strongest protagonist of the time period. It’s a British classic from the 1800s that still manages to be relatable today.

So what happens when you add zombies? A millennium parody for the ages.

“Pride + Prejudice + Zombies” is a comedy-horror film based on the parody novel of the same name. During the 19th century, a mysterious plague takes England by storm; it is not only deadly, but also causes the dead to come alive in search for human brains.

Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James) and her four sisters are trained in weaponry and martial arts, fighting against the zombie plague alongside Fitzwilliam Darcy (Sam Riley), a brilliant but arrogant fighter. Despite Elizabeths and Darcy’s initial pride and prejudice against each other, caused primarily by Darcy’s arrogance and Elizabeth’s stubbornness, fate brings them together as they fall in love with each other.

Elizabeth, the loved protagonist, is just as strong in the movie as she is in the book. She has the same fiery personality, standing up for herself and for what she believes is right. She’s not afraid to talk back to anyone; when Darcy makes fun of her for studying weaponry and martial arts in China instead of Japan, she asks his opinion on “The Art of War”

FILM

before proudly stating in Mandarin, “You have not read ‘The Art of War’ until you have read it in its original dialect.” She maintains her wit and sharp tongue from the book, and James does a great job portraying the strong, intelligent, and badass personality that encompasses Elizabeth Bennet.

However, James falls flat once Elizabeth’s emotional side comes out. She seems inauthentic as she cries and fake as she pleads, making it hard to sympathize with the protagonist during her hardest times, such as after she duels Darcy following her rejection to his proposal for marriage, when she reads Darcy’s letter expressing his motives for having Mr. Bingley (Douglas Booth) move, and while Elizabeth fights Lady Catherine de Bourgh (Lena Headey) after not agreeing to not marry Darcy.

Fighting takes over the sisters’ lives as Mr. Bennet (Charles Dance) decides that his daughters will learn combat, saying that he’d rather them protect themselves than have to rely on their husbands, much to Mrs. Bennet’s (Sally Phillips) dismay.

The girls’ fighting style is totally badass, combining elegance with ferocity, and the action adds to the entertainment of the film while not taking away from the plot. However, the incorporation of Victorian era social norms is weaved into the movie flawlessly, as the girls must choose between love and fighting. While most would choose a rich, handsome husband any day, Elizabeth doesn’t. Her exchange with her best friend, Charlotte Lucas (Aisling Loftus), explains it all: “I should never relinquish my sword for a ring.”

“For the right man, you would.”

“The right man wouldn’t make me.”

This is why Darcy’s perfect for her. Although she doesn’t see it due to her prejudice against him, he is by far the best choice compared to the rest of her options.

Despite him being arrogant, aggravating, closed-off, righteous, and stubborn, he truly cares about Elizabeth, which is the only thing that matters in the Austen rulebook for romance. He’s the one person who wouldn’t force Elizabeth to give up her weapons for a ring, and, let’s admit it, her other two suitors are insane.

One of them, Mr. Collins (Matt Smith), only adds comic relief. Let’s be real: he proposed to a girl he barely knows, hid behind the Bennet sisters once he sees a zombie, and forced Elizabeth to give up her weaponry because he’s petrified of them. Yes, he is pathetic.

And then there’s George Wickham (Jack Huston), the typical antagonist in a film. He’s hot, charming, and, like Elizabeth, hates Darcy. This is why Elizabeth is drawn to Wickham in the first place—he shares the utter dislike of Darcy while remaining charming and absolutely gorgeous.

However, the potential that Wickham was given in the film was almost unused once he started to lead the zombies into a full-on war. He elopes with Elizabeth’s little promiscuous sister Lydia (Ellie Bamber), only to have her rescued by Darcy in the next five minutes of the movie. He even intelligently points out the possibility that humans and zombies can live together if zombies learn how to feed off of non-human brains. Although he is correct, he is overlooked simply due to the fact that he screwed over Darcy and became the leader of all zombies.

The booming personalities of Elizabeth’s other suitors make Darcy seem impersonal and

bland; the most interesting thing about Darcy before he started to pursue Elizabeth was the flies he released to detect rotting flesh (and, with that, zombies), which Elizabeth manages to outsmart by catching all of them in her hand before returning them when he released them in her sister Jane’s (Bella Heathcote) room.

It’s only at the end of the movie when Darcy blossoms as a character, and Riley does a superb job characterizing Darcy once he gets the spotlight.

One thing that threw me off, however, was the genre the film was assigned. Despite being called a comedy-horror movie, both the comedic aspects and the horror aspects of the film are lackluster. While the premise of the film is quite humorous, there were no jokes laced throughout the plot, except for Mr. Collins’ wimpiness. In truth, if it weren’t for the fact that the book the movie is based on was a parody book, I never would have known that the movie was a mockery and would’ve taken the plot as a serious, legitimate story. In addition, the goriest the movie got was with the bloody zombie makeup, and the scariest the movie got was in the first scene, when Darcy slits an old man’s throat once he finds out he’s a zombie. Rather than a comedy-horror film, “Pride + Prejudice + Zombies” should be dubbed as an action-romance movie, as the movie suits Austen fans much more than people looking for a good, gory scare.

Despite this, the cinematography was strong. Remi Adefarasin, the cinematographer, utilizes special effects well to dramatize the film. When Darcy slits the old man’s throat, the camera topples over and rolls as it slowly takes on a blood red filter. As Elizabeth rides a horse from one side

Emily Lee / The Spectator

FILM

to another, the bridge collapses, and the frontal shot focusing on her, her horse, and the exploding bridge behind her does wonders, escalating the already dramatic scene. The special effects, although small, add a lot to the film by intensifying climatic moments throughout the movie.

“Pride + Prejudice + Zombies,” although advertised incorrectly, is a strong movie, perfectly encompassing the elements of “Pride and Prejudice” while incorporating the theme of a dystopian apocalypse. It can be difficult to follow if the viewer has not read “Pride and Prejudice” before, but for Austen fans, this movie is a catch. They will most definitely appreciate the reference to the first line of the book in the beginning of the movie: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that every zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”

The Dawn of Justice Fails to Rise To the Occasion

By Lily Yan “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice,” directed by Zack Snyder, was one of the most anticipated action films of 2016. Not only would it be the first to introduce the Justice League into the DC Cinematic Universe, but it would also finally answer the age-old question fans have been arguing about for eternity: “Who would win in a fight: Batman or Superman?” Once the movie came out, however, some feeling of disappointment was inevitable.

Despite getting multiple negative reviews, the film has a lot going for it. Snyder is famous for his action-packed movies filled with thrilling and suspenseful combat scenes. Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) has the most phenomenal fight scenes Batman has ever had in cinematic history. Previous Batman movies have been criticized mainly for the lack of Batman action. In “Batman V Superman,” Batman gets plenty of moments to shine, using his full arsenal of kicks and punches to obliterate the enemy. Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) gets glorious shots of being a saving grace for humanity as Superman.

All the actors were spectacular in performing their roles.

Cavill flawlessly represents Superman’s struggle of facing the question, “Does the world need Superman?” His anguish when he realizes he is doing more harm than good is clearly evident to the viewers. It adds significant emotional depth to the movie.

Amy Adams makes Lois Lane not simply a damsel in distress, but a heroine in her own right, such as when she saves Superman from his demise in the hands of Batman. Her strongwilled, tough persona allowed the audience to root for her not as the vulnerable female lead, but as a character whose actions actually impacted the plot of the film.

Although many had doubts about the casting of Affleck as Batman, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, the actors stellar in their roles. Affleck perfectly captures the character of Bruce Wayne, more cynical and clever than Batman has ever been portrayed. Eisenberg brings a fresh take on the character of Lex Luthor. He puts more emphasis on Luthor as a mad scientist and evil genius than as a villain capable of going head to head with Superman. He makes up for his physical weakness, however, with his intelligence. His plots make him just as dangerous as any of the heroes in the film, shown as he single-

handedly masterminds the plan behind getting Batman and Superman to viciously battle, and nearly succeeds in taking them both out. Gadot brings the

Catherine Joh / The Spectator

audience the first appearance of Wonder Woman on the silver screen. Many questioned her ability to be able to accurately play Wonder Woman due to her slim figure, but quickly realized they had no reason to feel uneasy about it. Gadot may not be a very

muscular woman, but she makes up for it with her spectacular acting, portraying an air of mystery about her throughout the film.

But even with all these positive factors, the movie isn’t perfect. To begin with, the slow motion use is overused. It starts out decently, with the iconic scene of Wayne’s parents getting killed. Fans worldwide are almost sick of seeing this so many times, but Snyder manages to take a new spin on it. His artistic use of slow motion creates a deeper level of anguish. But as the movie continues, the use of slow motion gets so excessive that it becomes less dramatic and more comical.

After the aforementioned scene, we see Wayne run away during the funeral and fall down into a ditch housing hundreds of bats. The use of CGI for the bats lifting Wayne into the air is more confusing than impressive. Instead of leaving the viewer entranced, it leaves the viewer questioning whether or not the scene is intended to be real.

The biggest issue that caused the film to get such negative reviews is definitely the plot. The

movie is crammed with various subplots to the point that the viewer has to struggle to keep up. Coming in, the viewer expects a good “versus” bad movie, with Batman and Superman duking it out before joining forces to defeat a larger villain and starting the Justice League. What the viewer actually gets is a rushed fight scene between the two before they immediately join forces with seemingly no qualms about their recent fight, and approximately two minutes about the Justice League uniting.

On top of it all, the big fight between Batman and Superman, which is even featured in the very title of the movie, is disappointing and rushed. Snyder couldn’t find an alternative to defeating Superman without using kryptonite, which is already overused and cliché. In the end, the fight is underwhelming, with an anticlimactic ending.

Before the official release date of “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice,” critics did not sugarcoat their opinions, being brutally honest in their reviews. It’s normal for average viewers to take them with a grain of salt, seeing how most of the time they’re unnecessarily harsh. But in this case, the critics were right.

Despite the film’s roster of talented actors, the lazily written plot and poor graphics meant that the throngs of excited moviegoers left not knowing who won the eponymous fight, but knowing that excitement had definitely lost.

Page 14

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Arts and Entertainment THINKPIECE

How Do Songs Get So Popular? and tend to sell quite well. An example is “The A Team,” Ed Sheeran’s debut single. It discusses a prostitute addicted to crack cocaine, and uses an upbeat, light chorus to mask the heavy subject matter. Many have praised the song for its composition, message, and Sheeran’s vocal talent, and this song proves that maybe having songs about sex on the radio isn’t as bad as most of us make it out to be.

Christine Jegarl / The Spectator

4. It has a beautiful message.

By Tiffany Chen How is this song popular?

You’ve probably asked this question at least once in your life, usually in response to a song that you have grown to dislike. I certainly have. I’ve thought this after hearing a song on three different radios at the same time; I’ve thought this after hearing people fawn over that new Sam Smith song; I’ve thought this after a song has become completely overplayed (looking at you, “Happy”). However, after that song has faded from the spotlight, this question is not thought of again until another despised song hits the charts.

This is why I am here today. With my own experience of binge-listening to pop music ever since I was eight, I will try to formulate a few reasons why a certain song becomes popular.

1. It’s catchy and simple.

“Hey, I just met you / And this is crazy / But here’s my number / So call me maybe?”

Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” was one of the most cliché, yet undeniably adorable jams in early 2012. Though it was only her first released single, it gained international success—it has received highly positive reviews from critics and stole many hearts around the world.

But, let’s be real: the song is incredibly basic. The verses, chorus, and bridge, for the most part, have one simple melody, and the song doesn’t showcase Jepsen’s vocals well. The message is a simple one: the girl has had a “love at first sight” moment and gives the guy she just met her number in hopes that he will “call her, maybe.” It’s the epitome of a cliché pop song.

So, why has the song garnered so much popularity? Its simplicity allows it to be easily memorable, and the simple melodies that the song possesses allow it to be very catchy. While we may not love the song, it gets stuck in our heads, and we can’t help but hum the tune or mutter the lyrics.

Many pop songs have this certain quality, such as “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor and “Gangnam Style” by Psy, which was hugely successful in the U.S. despite it being sung in Korean. Having a catchy song is a surefire way to get people to start singing and enjoying the song, no matter how much we hate it on the first listen.

2. It’s fun to dance to.

Haven’t you ever wanted to just jump up and start dancing to a song once it starts playing?

I certainly have. I do every time “C’mon” by Ke$ha and “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls play. It’s hard to not want to dance to the

upbeat tempo and the happy vibe that the songs have.

Any song that gets you on your feet makes you automatically feel better. So, if you get up to dance at least once while a song is playing, it’ll make you feel better any time you hear it.

This, in turn, helps a song gain popularity.

This is why so many pop songs tend to have a faster beat.

Unless the song has a more melancholy meaning, it typically has a quicker beat. Many songs

by Pitbull, Flo Rida, Ke$ha, and Icona Pop typically have a nice, upbeat tempo, which has probably contributed to their success as artists.

In addition, a lot of songs have become popular because of an associated dance to it. “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” by Silentó, “Gangnam Style” by Psy, and “Wobble” by V.I.C. are more modern examples. “Cupid Shuffle” by Cupid and “Cha Cha Slide” by DJ Casper have become ubiquitous in a typical school dance setting, and the classic dance songs tend to help ease the awkward mood.

Dancing helps propagate music and happiness. It’s a winwin.

3. It has a more promiscuous

message.

Now let’s talk about sex, baby.

Sex is still one of the most common themes in music. Many artists are known for their tendencies to convey sexual messages in their music, such as Nicki Minaj, Jason Derulo, and Drake.

With songs like “Wiggle” by Jason

However, take out the songs about drugs/sex/alcohol/butts, and what do you have? Love songs. Love songs are present in every genre; timeless, adorable, and absolutely lovable. Many artists, such as Train, Colbie Caillat, and Jason Mraz, have a love song as their most successful track.

It’s almost impossible to hate a beautiful, well-written love song.

Songs that have an inspirational message also tend to top the charts. “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera (which has been praised for its positive portrayal of the LGBTQ+ community), “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” by Kelly Clarkson, and “Brave” by Sara Bareilles are a few examples. These songs, with their motivating lyrics and tones, help people feel better about themselves on a gloomy day. They help inspire their listeners to be comfortable in their own skin and to stay strong and courageous during rough times.

These positive themes bring a lighter message to the radios that in turn have an effect on our moods throughout the day.

5. It was featured in a movie.

Some songs do not gain any fame until it is featured in other media, whether it be in a movie, a T.V. show, or a documentary.

One example is “Straight Outta Compton” by rap group N.W.A. Despite the song being out for over thirty years, it did not reach the Top 100 until the release of the movie “Straight Outta Compton,” which highlighted N.W.A.’s rise and fall as a hip-hop group.

Songs that were originally recorded for a movie can also receive worldwide fame. An example is “The Hanging Tree” by Paul Newton featuring Jennifer Lawrence, which stemmed from the ever-so-popular “The Hunger Games” trilogy. One especially notable is “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth.

The song was featured on the “Fast and Furious 7” soundtrack as a dedication to deceased Paul

then, it has become the anthem for the summer, with many singing to the loving but remixed tune.

Another example is “I Took a Pill in Ibiza” by Mike Posner. The song tells the story of the singer getting high and drunk after meeting Swedish DJ Avicii, before divulging into Posner’s complicated feelings about his mild fame and success. Originally, the song was recorded acoustically.

However, once Norwegian duo SeeB remixed the track, it became Posner’s bestselling song around the world, including Sweden and

Walker, and it has become Khalifa’s and Puth’s most successful track to date, being the first hiphop music video to reach one billion views and holding the record for the most-streamed song in a single day on Spotify.

6. It was remixed.

On a bit more of a depressing note, some songs aren’t truly popular until they are remixed.

One example is “Cheerleader”

by OMI. The original song was released on September 12, 2012.

However, the song didn’t gain worldwide recognition and fame until German DJ Felix Gaehn remixed the song in 2014. Since

8. It’s talked about and played so much that you can’t help but like it.

Most people think that when a song is played a lot, it’s considered popular. However, it may be the other way around: a song is popular because it is played a lot.

Playing a song often on the radio increases the chances of it being heard by the public, giving it more chances to be liked. In addition, the more a song is played, the more likely a person is going to have good memories during

Creating music that will eventually become a hit is an art.

Denmark.

A popular rendition of remixing pop music is an end-of-year remix on YouTube. This typically encompasses many popular songs of the year. In fact, these remixes are looked forward to among the YouTube community, and many DJs are known for these remixes, such as Daniel Kim and DJ Earworm. These remixes spread music, helping them gain fame and popularity, such as the inclusion of “Kanye” by the Chainsmokers featuring SirenXX in Kim’s 2014 remix.

7. The artist is just so famous.

An artist generally becomes famous through showcasing his or her talent in one amazing song. Whether it’s Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” or Tori Kelly’s “Nobody Love,” we can’t help but admit that their singing voices are absolutely stunning.

However, only some singers are able to escape the “one-hit wonder” fears that many artists have, by continuing to show their talent through different songs, tones, and ranges. And once they have a certain amount of No. 1 hits behind them, just a song with their name seems to get their music to the charts. Selena Gomez, Ed Sheeran, Maroon 5, and One Direction are a few examples, with Zayn Malik’s new song “Pillow Talk” quickly rising

While we may not love the song, the song often gets stuck in our head, and we can’t help but hum the tune or mutter the lyrics.

Derulo featuring Snoop Dogg and “Booty” by Jennifer Lopez featuring Iggy Azalea, it’s hard to miss the fact that sex sells.

Why do these songs end up topping the charts? It may have something to do with the increasing depictions of overt sexuality in society these past few years; we are in the 21st century, after all. It may also be that society doesn’t condemn talking about sex like it used to, allowing artists to truly sing to their hearts’ content about it.

Few artists choose to tell stories about sex and drugs, but these songs are often powerful

one album.

in popularity due to Malik’s affiliation with One Direction.

I can’t end this section without mentioning Taylor Swift, the name almost ubiquitous with break-up songs. She has had seven singles released off of her fifth studio album, “1989.” The first six have at least reached the Top 20, with five of them reaching Top 10 and three reaching No. 1.

The last one, “New Romantics,” was recently released, but is definitely approaching the Top 20.

Can I say I’m shocked? Of course not, because Swift has the fame and power to be able to release seven successful singles from

the period it is playing, so whenever the song is played again, the memory of the happy moment gives the person happiness.

Radios have a large impact in our favorite music and artists, from before the invention of Internet and streaming radios and continuing to today. Streaming radios such as Pandora and Spotify even customize their radios to the user’s liking, which exposes people to more popular songs that fit their tastes, and this cycle continues over and over again.

We’ve all had that one song that we’ve never really liked until we’ve heard a bunch of friends sing it. “Jumpman” by Drake was that song for me. I didn’t like the style of the song until I watched my friends dance and jump to the song at a party, so now whenever I hear the song, I feel elated because of that one memory.

So, if hearing the song over and over allows a song to become more popular, why don’t companies pay radios to play their new song? This used to happen often in the ‘60s to the ‘80s, and people have coined the term “payola” (a combination of “pay” and “Victrola”) to describe this phenomenon. It wasn’t until later that it became illegal. However, companies still pay radio companies to play their songs enough so that this effect can come into play.

The strategy is still used; it’s just less obvious.

The entertainment industry has been corrupt ever since it was born, but what can we do about it? The most we can do about it is spread awareness concerning the truly unjust moments in entertainment, like the #FreeKesha campaign after the official ruling that she is unable to leave her contract with Dr. Luke after accusing him of sexual and emotional abuse.

Creating music that will eventually become a hit is an art.

When an artist has a hit, they finally have some of the spotlight, and their journey to the top is usually a long one. Their first hit is always a time of euphoria, as the public is able to recognize their talent as a singer and performer.

However, at the end of the day, the only reason popularity really matters for a song is for the sales and reaching that coveted number one on the charts. But does it mean anything to you?

No! So don’t be afraid to rock out to whatever suits your fancy, whether it be Demi Lovato, the Lumineers, or an obscure indie artist in the making.

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 15

Arts and Entertainment

By Ben Shapiro Deadpool’s transformation from a cult comic book character to a blockbuster action film star seems immediate to mainstream moviegoers, but the whole thing actually began in the 1990s.

He was first introduced in the early ‘90s as a supporting character in the Marvel comic book universe akin to a beloved court jester with a delightfully wicked foul mouth and a lot of weapons. His wisecracking predilection for breaking the fourth wall by talking directly to the reader or asking his writers why they wrote him such dumb lines took hold with a fan base smaller than, say, Spiderman’s, but an intensely loyal one.

So, why the long delay for the “mercenary with a mouth,” as Deadpool loves to call himself, to become a superstar superhero?

Perhaps he was, for a long time, too complex a protagonist in

Deadpool Comes When Current Events Call

a world reeling from acts of terror and drained by economic worry.

We crave feel-good action heroes to save the day.

It seems that content creators deemed Deadpool “not ready for prime time” with his sexist scenarios (like his girlfriend who is depicted as a stripper for much of the movie) and hilarious jokes about private parts. They refused to unleash the decidedly politically incorrect character full force into an intensely politically correct world.

Maybe that’s why his 2009 supporting role movie debut in “XMen Origins: Wolverine” featured Deadpool with his mouth literally fused shut by other characters who couldn’t deal with his endlessly annoying banter. But the fan base was offended by his lack of offense, claiming that a mute Deadpool was not worth the price of admission, since Deadpool’s banter and wisecracking are what set him apart from all the others.

Four years later, High Moon Studios released a “Deadpool” video game. It was a hoot in terms of character and writing, but ironically a total bore in the actual game play, with Deadpool being overwhelmingly overpowered and levels with a lot of walking, so it failed to attract many fans outside the usual suspects.

You may get a sense of why the time finally has come for unvarnished Deadpool to take center stage and star in his own movie if you’ve been following the craziness that is the presidential election campaigns. We are clearly tired of the “establishment” leaders who never really came through for us, as we are a bit sick of Batman, Superman, and Spidey heroes who haven’t made much of a dent in the struggle between good and evil.

Now we are open to something new, fresh and outside the pale.

What’s more, Deadpool went through an experimental pro-

cedure that left him insane, and self-aware that he is a comic book character, making him a parody of

an anti-hero. Doesn’t that sound a little like some of the candidates running for president?

Carrie Ou / The Spectator

FILM

Amber Yang / The Spectator

THINKPIECE Kesha’s Case: A Textbook Example of Rape Culture

By Eliana Kavouriadis The music industry, and more specifically, Sony Music, have been at the center of a large controversy for the past few weeks. In 2014, pop star Kesha Sebert (formerly known under the stage name Ke$ha), best known for hit singles like “Tik Tok,” “Blow,” and “Timber,” filed a lawsuit to free herself from a binding contract with Sony Music. The contract currently prevents her from producing music outside of the control of music producer Lukasz Gottwald (professionally known as Dr. Luke), with whom Sony is affiliated.

Sebert has accused Gottwald of verbal, sexual, and emotional abuse, saying that his words helped trigger her anorexia and also that he drugged and raped her. Meanwhile, Gottwald denied such accusations, and Sony refused to let her leave the contract until she made six more albums with them, insisting she could make music without being in direct contact with Gottwald.

The case was continuously postponed for two years, which explains Sebert’s absence from the music world. The ongoing legal battle finally went to court on February 19, 2016. Sebert lost the case.

Since this outcome, there has been tremendous uproar from the

public. The hashtags #FreeKesha and #SonySupportsRape trended for a while, and those same messages were also written in bold letters on signs outside the Sony headquarters, where a rally took place. Many celebrities, including Kelly Clarkson, Ariana Grande, and Lady Gaga, wrote tweets in support of Sebert immediately after the incident. Taylor Swift even said that she would donate $250,000 to help Sebert with any financial needs she may have.

Unlike many other celebrity court cases, the attention that this one gained in the public eye is not solely because of Sebert’s fame and high-profile status. Many people have connected this case to a toxic, ongoing pattern between rapists and their victims: If Sebert truly is a victim of rape, her outspokenness is harmful to her career, since her accusations were shut down by those in positions of power.

Meanwhile, the alleged rapist in question did not face any legal consequences for actions which he may or may not have carried out. In the American criminal justice system, defendants are innocent until proven guilty, and it is often impossible to find evidence to support a rape case. It is thus very difficult to convict someone for rape, mainly because it is tricky to know whether or not the alleged rape happened.

Because of the complicated and uncertain nature of these cases, many rapists go free without conviction. That said, the fact that rapists can go free without conviction can also be attributed to “rape culture.”

Rape culture is an accumulation of the aspects of society that promote or support male sexual aggression and violence against women, according to author Emilie Buchwald. Rape culture can be subtle or blatant, and is seen throughout society, from strict school dress code policies to street harassment.

Rina Lubit / The Spectator

THINKPIECE

By Samantha Han The old saying might go that the

only two things certain in life are death and taxes, but it seems like, looking at New York theatre, “an overwhelming number of Broadway adaptations” can be added to that list. Indeed, it seems that nearly every single show on the Great White Way is either an adaptation or a revival. From long-running classics such as “The Phantom of the Opera” and “The Lion King” to new shows like “American Psycho” and “School of Rock,” it appears like the only entertainment on Broadway is derivative.

From a financial viewpoint, adaptations and revivals make sense. If someone learned that one of their favorite movies was being turned into a Broadway show, they’d likely want to see it. “Matilda” was a beloved ‘90s movie that caused many to feel nostalgic upon seeing it turned into a play,

Unfortunately, rape culture is very much intertwined with pop culture, and the music industry’s reaction to Sebert’s allegations is nothing out of the ordinary. While no one can be sure Gottwald did indeed rape Sebert, Sony’s reluctance to seriously take Sebert’s allegations into account shows that the company more readily distrusts Sebert, the alleged victim, than Gottwald, the alleged attacker. By doing this, Sony is, at least, indirectly trivializing Sebert’s very serious allegations.

To record labels, pop artists are viewed as a commodity, and there is little effort made to ensure that these artists are safe and welltreated. Moreover, these labels even profit off of rape culture. For example, many songs, like “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke, promote the idea that men are entitled to sex, regardless of whether the other party or parties involved want it or not.

It is thus not surprising that Sony, who has a history of having sexual abusers and openly misogynistic artists on its label, did not break a binding contract over a rape accusation.

Many #FreeKesha advocates have contrasted Sebert’s situation to that of Chris Brown, who, in 2009, physically assaulted his former girlfriend, pop-star Rihanna. Both Sebert and Brown are celebrities who have produced popular music with Sony. Brown, an abuser, is still producing music with them, whereas Sebert, a possible victim, will no longer do so unless she wants to be in a partnership with her alleged abuser.

However, while the general public may consider Sebert’s loss a complete outrage, the case involves far more than just rape culture. From a legal standpoint, Sony Music did nothing that was heavily controversial. As Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich stated, “You’re asking

the court to decimate a contract that was heavily negotiated and typical for the industry.”

Additionally, this case is lacking concrete evidence that Sebert was, in fact, raped. It is often extremely difficult to irrefutably prove rape, and this worked much in Gottwald’s favor. Her allegations were disregarded by Kornreich as “outright lies that have been advanced to extort a contract renegotiation and money.”

The case took to court once again, and on April 6, 2016, the case was dismissed for a different reason. Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich said that, “While Kesha’s [claim] alleges that she was sexually, physically and verbally abused

by Gottwald for a decade, she describes only two specific instances of physical/sexual abuse, and the most recent event described was alleged to have happened in 2008 and so falls outside of the statute of limitations.”

However, the idea that a contract should be prioritized over the safety and well-being of an individual is concerning for rape victims, as is the idea that a work contract could put someone’s safety and well-being at risk in the first place.

In a high-profile job where someone is thrusted into the public eye, the fact that that person him or herself is a source of revenue should not affect his or her personal safety. If Sony’s contract has enough leeway for a rapist and an abuser to get away with his actions, but not for a rape victim to leave a place of abuse, there is a grave moral problem within the music industry.

Moreover, Sony does not just affect those involved in the music industry—they are the creators of much of the content that we refer to as “pop culture,” shaping our societal norms, standards, and opinions. If possible rapists and indirect supporters of rape culture have the ability to be in positions of power

in the music industry, content that spreads rape-friendly ideas are distributed to the masses. (When Robin Thicke affirms, over and over again, that women who deny sex actually “want it,” it is not too crazy to believe that those that listen to the song will begin to believe him.)

Sebert may have lost the court case, but in the public eye, she remains vocal about the issues regarding rape culture: “This issue is bigger than just about me. I think about young girls today—I don’t want my future daughter—or your daughter—or any person to be afraid that they will be punished if they speak out about being abused, especially if their abuser is in a position of power. Unfortunately, I don’t think that my case is giving people who have been abused confidence that they can speak out, and that’s a problem,” she said in a Facebook post on February 24th, 2016.

She concludes with a warm, reassuring message to her fans. “I just want to say that if you have been abused, please don’t be afraid to speak out. There are places that will make you feel safe. There are people who will help you. I for one will stand beside you and behind you. I know now how this all feels and will forever fight for you the way perfect strangers have been fighting for me.”

Rape and other forms of abuse are unfortunately relatable to many who may see her message. As frightening as this case could have been for them, the mere fact that a celebrity in an industry that does not protect rape victims is speaking out against said industry is especially important.

Sebert’s outspokenness and the fierce backlash that followed were heard by Sony, and Gottwald also took to Twitter to deny the rape allegations completely, but the majority of the general public still stood with Sebert.

Been There, Seen That

creating a built-in audience. This led to its success, and as of right now, “Matilda” is running in London’s West End, Broadway, and is on tour. The same goes for revivals. Broadway producers know that by bringing back treasured classics such as “Les Misérables” and “Fiddler on the Roof,” people will want to see it again, and parents feel comfortable exposing their children to it.

Adaptations like “Matilda” and “Les Misérables” are incredible, Tony Award-winning works of art.

The familiar stories compel people who might normally scoff at theatre to come and discover how magical it really is. In addition, fresh takes on old shows can make audiences who have already seen another version realize something new. For example, Deaf West’s 2015 revival of “Spring Awakening” had a half-

deaf cast, and used American Sign Language to talk. Accompanying them were counterpart actors who spoke and sang on their behalf.

The story revolves around teenagers and adults not communicating properly, so this rendition added an extra touch that made it so critically acclaimed and led to its national tour.

However, when it seems that nearly all Broadway shows are playing it safe by regurgitating the same plots, it’s easy for theatre fans to feel bored. The world is constantly changing, and this should be reflected in the arts. Playwrights are creating contemporary plays, but because of this environment, their work is rarely being funded.

“The Book of Mormon,” the last original show to have won the Tony Award for Best Musical, satirizes religion by poking fun of some of

the ridiculous aspects of Mormon missionaries. This relevancy to today is part of what makes it so good and one of the most popular shows around.

By no means are Broadway adaptations inherently bad. Many of them are engaging, well-executed pieces of theatre. However, it’s disheartening to see every Broadway season be filled with mostly unoriginal stories. This isn’t an isolated problem: it has begun to impact Hollywood productions as well, though to a lesser extent. While it’s doubtful adaptations and revivals will stop being so prevalent any time soon, it’s important that theatre lovers go support original Broadway shows or attend Off and Off-Off Broadway shows to demonstrate their interest in them.

Otherwise, original plays and musicals may be completely erased.

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 16

Arts and Entertainment Get a Life: The Cultured Edition

calendar ONGOING

4/25/2016 MONday

4/30/2016 4/26/2016

5/3/2016

SATURday

TUESday

“Sakura Matsuri: Cherry Blossom Festival” “Fully Committed” “Taste of Queens” Festival Musical “Tuck Everlasting” Food Tasting Brooklyn Botanical Garden Lyceum Theatre Musical FRIday New York Hall of Science Broadhurst Theatre “Louis C.K., Russell Brand, Jim “The Huntsman: Winter’s War” Gaffigan & Vanessa Bayer” “White Denim Concert” Film Screening Comedy Show Concert Select Theaters New York City Center MainStage Bowery Ballroom TUESday

Art Show: “Printing Women: Three Centuries of Female Printmakers, 1570-1900” New York Public Library Art Show: “Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty” Museum of Modern Art Play: “Romeo & Juliet” Public Theater until 5/1/2016 Play: “Exit Strategy” Cherry Lane Theatre until 5/6/2016

4/22/2016

APRIL MAY 4/21/2016

4/24/2016

“American Psycho” Musical Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre

Christine Jegarl / The Spectator

The meme, according to Merriam-Webster, is “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture” and dates back to 1976.

The term was coined by Richard Dawkins’s book, “The Selfish Game,” in 1976 to describe human “cultural transmission.”

Nowadays, however, we use the word “meme” almost exclusively in relation to the Internet and how we turn ridiculous jokes into staples of our culture.

There’s a wide variety of memes that we’ve grown up with, from the black-and-white rage faces of the mid-2000s to the viral Vines of 2016. The odd thing about memes, however, is how quickly the weirdest ideas can spread for different reasons, then sud-

“American Psycho” Musical Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre

“Waitress” Musical Broadhurst Theatre

denly die out, get replaced by a new weird idea, and continue the cycle.

I’ve seen memes unexpectedly blow up into huge phenomena.

In 2015, for instance, there was the infamous dress. A Scottish woman photographed her dress and posted it on Tumblr, casually asking her followers about its color, as it had sparked debate among her Facebook friends.

Once her post became popular enough, discussion of this dress was inescapable. People had no idea whether the dress was black and blue or white and gold. It was the first thing people brought up when we returned to school a mere 48 hours after the posting of this photo. Someone in my Spanish class brought in a printed picture of the dress, sparking more debate over its color. I even saw it on CBS News that morning; the flimsy Internet observation had gained relevance alongside news of heinous crimes and political controversy. A mere two weeks later, the dress had vanished from conversation. It was back in the vault with dozens of other old jokes.

More recently, we had the “Damn, Daniel” meme. This Vine was nothing more than one young man shouting “Damn, Daniel” to the eponymous Daniel day after day and commenting on his sneakers, saying, “Back at it again with the white Vans.” Somehow, people latched onto this joke, and soon, “Damn, X” or “Back at

4/29/2016

“Lee Krasner Exhibit” FRIday Art Show Robert Miller Gallery Drake’s “Views From the 6”

“Game of Thrones” Season 6 Premiere Television Premiere HBO

Album Release

5/6/2016 FRIday

“Captain America: Civil War” Film Screening Select theaters

“NYC Independent Film Festival” Film Screening Producers’ Club Theaters & Bar

Why We Love Memes

THINKPIECE

By Jenna Bawer

WEDNESday

SUnday

ThURSday

“Lee Krasner Exhibit” Art Show Robert Miller Gallery

4/27/2016

it again with X” became common phrases overheard in the school hallways. Daniel and his friend gained massive popularity, even appearing on “The Ellen Show” and receiving a lifetime supply of Vans from the shoe company. For posting one short video online, they gained as much popularity as B-list celebrities. This joke was worthy of a chuckle in February, but was pushed aside by April.

The reason Internet memes have become the connotation of the word “meme” is probably that the Internet makes it much easier for bizarre jokes and trends to spread rapidly. With platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram, specific tags can be used for jokes, which make them more accessible and get them enough popularity to trend. We have no choice but to use the Internet if we want to succeed, and with the widespread nature of memes among young people, chances are, we will always be exposed to some variant of whatever is popular.

Because we are all exposed to them so frequently, memes form a sense of community. We use them in casual conversation, because we know everyone else knows what they are. Even the silliest, most overused joke will at least get attention, because people recognize it from social media. This purpose of memes is similar to the purpose of inside jokes—you only understand them if you’ve been within

a certain social circle (examples: broken escalators and postSING! depression for Stuyvesant students). With internet memes, however, these jokes can proliferate across the country through social media, and suddenly a seemingly ridiculous reference actually makes sense to a large group of young people throughout the nation. They make for easy comedy with our friends, despite usually not being funny out of context.

Memes separate the millennials from the baby boomers, allowing today’s youth to have jokes to ourselves that older people— who typically don’t use Facebook, Twitter, or Vine for the same kind of entertainment—won’t understand until we explain it to them (which allows us a sense of superiority over adults by knowing something they don’t).

When older people try to use these jokes, often they don’t exactly understand them. The television channel block, “The Splat,” which airs Nickelodeon children’s shows from the 1990s, once made an innocuous Twitter post about “Splat and chill,” a reference to the “Netflix and chill” meme, which is a reference to adult intimacy. In an attempt to look cool, the company accidentally (or not?) insinuated a suggestion that people get it on to shows like “Rugrats.” When companies try to use memes this way, it is often embarrassing. They are run by adults who are not within

the social circle that circulates these memes in the first place, and thus do not understand where the joke originates and why we find it funny.

The fleeting nature of memes can actually work in a nostalgic favor. When remembering a meme from a certain time period, you can flash back to all your friends who were joking about it.

For example, the Chuck Testa and Soviet Russia memes are very outdated, and, as such, no longer funny. However, I remember the class clown in fifth grade quoting them all the time, which reminds me of my elementary school friends. Like watching a cartoon from the early 2000s may take you back to your childhood, outdated memes can do the same. This is partly why SING! is so loaded with pop culture references and memes; not only are they funny now, they make each year’s SING! a time capsule, full of Stuyvesant memes and Internet memes that represent what we found funny that year.

Memes will come and go, but there will always be something for us to make a huge joke out of. As ridiculous as it is, Internet memes are a part of millennial culture, and bind us together whenever we want to make fun of someone, parody a dance, or just joke around using something we know our friends will understand. Like Rick Astley sings in his memetic song, we are never going to give them up.

VR: By the Numbers

By Shaina Peters Virtual Reality (VR) is a new digital technology that allows users to truly immerse themselves in an environment, such that they feel as if they are removed from this world and inserted in another.

2010

3

$799

316

The year the first prototype of a

Companies that have released VR

Price of the HTC Vive, one brand

Number of games currently avail-

VR machine, the Oculus Rift, was

machines for customers to buy

of VR technology

able to be played on VR machines.

developed

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 17

Arts and Entertainment It’s Z016… Or is it?

MUSIC

By Victoria Huang The date March 25, 2015 may bring unpleasant flashbacks for anyone who remembers it as the day Zayn Malik left the British boy band, One Direction. However, the young English and Pakistani singer has decided to release his new album, “Mind Of Mine,” the following year on the exact same date. In his debut album, Malik shows off his new style, which has changed significantly since his departure from One Direction.

Malik was first exposed to the spotlight on the show, “The X Factor,” when he auditioned as a solo artist in 2010. However, he didn’t make it through the auditions, prompting judge Simon Cowell to put him with four other young singers to form the boy band, One Direction.

The following four years, Malik released four albums with the group, but on March 25, 2015, he announced his withdrawal from the band through a Facebook statement, explaining that he wanted to be a normal 22-year-old and just needed a break.

Now, he is 23 and has decided to become a solo artist under the name of ZAYN. On January 24, 2016, he released his first single, “PILLOWTALK” which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. When Ma-

FILM

lik released the album, “Mind Of Mine,” on March 25, 2016, it then debuted at number one on the Billboard’s UK album charts.

In this 18-track album, Malik seems to be struggling to find his new sound away from the bubblegum pop ballads of One Direction. Some songs have a more R&B sound to them, like “dRuNk” and “rEaR vIeW.” However, there are still a handful of pop songs lurking amongst his album like “TiO” and “LIKE I WOULD.” “Mind Of Mine” is a battlefield in terms of styles for Malik, as he tries to discover his new sound and stick to it.

In his time singing with One Direction, Malik would often sing background vocals or obscure harmonies that opposed the melody.

However, in “Mind Of Mine,” he steps out of his comfort zone; not only does he break off from the PG boy band maturity level, but he also varies his range more and focuses on his vocal ability now that he isn’t shadowed by the other four boys in One Direction.

In more ways than one, “Mind Of Mine” is definitely a big transition from his time in One Direction. Coming from singing about first kisses and innocent love, in his new album, Malik focuses on the sexier and more mature parts of love. For example, in “BoRdErZ,” he sings, “So take it off / And break down our love, our walls.” Malik

even dedicates a whole song, “PILLOWTALK,” to making love. In it, he expresses the innocence and the rough part of sex by singing, “Yeah, reckless behavior / In the bed all day, bed all day, bed all day.”

Although most of his tracks focus on the more physical parts of love, his album isn’t purely about sex. It also has its warmer parts,

From singing about first kisses and innocent love, Malik’s new album focuses on the sexier and more mature parts of love. like in “fOoL fOr YoU” when he sings, “Cause I’m a fool for you and the things you do.” This Beatles-inspired ballad presents Malik more as a hopeless romantic. Meanwhile, “iT’s YoU” gives off a more R&B vibe as Malik expresses how deeply in love he is with his beloved. These two songs are sure to make listeners swoon.

Because his album focuses mainly on the more intimate parts of love, his type of audience is very limited. It almost seems like he is forcefully proving himself as a more sophisticated man that broke off from a boy band that mostly ap-

Allegiant: A Feminist Dystopia

By Julia Arancio

Rina Lubit / The Spectator

The latest installment of the Divergent movie series, “Allegiant,” is one more example that not every sequel should be made into a movie.

Robert Schwentke directed the film, along with the first two films, “Divergent” (2014) and “Insurgent” (2015), which was premiered on March 9, 2016. He starts the movie by throwing us into the world of dystopian Chicago immediately after the protagonist, Tris (Shailene Woodley), and her boyfriend, Four (Theo James), discover that their world was simply an experiment conducted to rid the world of “impure” genes.

This discovery throws Chicago into chaos, opening a window for a rival leader, and Four’s mother, Evelyn (Naomi Watts), to take control.

In order to escape this regime and to indulge their teenage curiosity, Four and Tris decide to escape the walls of Chicago to find the creators of their society. They escape with Caleb (Ansel Elgort), Tris’s estranged brother, Peter (Miles Teller), their constant frenemy, and Christina (Zoe Kravitz), Tris’s best friend.

Schwentke’s direction is completely uninspired, since the acting, cinematography, and script were highly disappointing. Since the movie is based off of the best selling book, “Allegiant,” by Veronica Roth, fans everywhere expected the script to be heavily based on the original manuscript. Not only does the movie change some major plot elements, but it also loses many of the witty comments and personality that the original dialogue had.

The cinematography and special effects were also missing. The formats of the shots were quite

predictable, and the colors used always had a murky brown and saturated pink undertone. The special effects were overdone to make the film seem like a classic action movie, but there were no memorable sequences of fighting or use of cool technology that made the movie special.

The acting was probably most disappointing. The cast was filled with young stars, many of whom have been with the series for all three movies. They lost the youth and spark that the original movie captured, making character-driven scenes seem boring. Shailene Woodley, a highly respected actress, was particularly disappointing. Her lack of energy, understandably due to the lackluster plot, brought the whole cast down with her, making it seem as if Woodley didn’t want to be a part of the franchise.

The acting does, however, point to the differences between the two main characters. Four is portrayed to be cynical and powerful, while Tris is shown to be intelligent and kind.

The contrast between the characters, especially Tris’s submissiveness, reflects the movie’s drive to remain relatable, despite having a heroine, rather than a hero. It insists on showing Four as the classically hot blockbuster star in order to preserve interest and intrigue in the movie. These actions backfire, since Four just seems like the stereotypical depiction of an action star. He is one-dimensional and quite boring, despite the movie’s attempt at distracting us with lingering shots of his body.

Tris, on the other hand, is depicted in two startlingly different ways. She goes from being independent and fearless to being a weak girl in constant need of her boyfriend’s help. Whenever she faces a problem, her peers, seeing her as the leader of their group, turn to her for advice. But when the situation seems hopeless, she retreats back to Four, relying on him to save the day. Though the book shares a somewhat similar plot line, the movie makes a point of showing Tris’s helplessness, an aspect that the book doesn’t delve into. Whether or not this portrayal was done to ensure that viewers bought tickets, it is startlingly sexist for a movie that prides itself on having a female lead.

It was obvious that the filmmakers were trying to capitalize on their “strong female protagonist,” be-

pealed to pre-teens.

However, there is one track in particular, not sex-related, that attracts the most attention. It is track six, “INTERMISSION: fLoWer,” in which Malik serenades in Urdu, the national language of Pakistan.

Translated, he is singing “Until the flower of this love has blossomed / This heart won’t be at peace / Give

cause everything from the movie’s publicity campaign to their posters was sure to show Tris/Shailene Woodley in the foreground while her male posse stands behind her.

But after seeing the movie, their assurance of a strong female lead seems like an empty promise.

The movie’s portrayal of Tris makes one question why Hollywood blockbusters are so resistant to having strong female leads.

The answer is one that is being explored, but it still alludes to the fact that the industry remains unwelcoming to new and progressive storylines involving women.

Even movies like the “The Hunger Games,” a wildly successful movie that had a female lead, includes identity crises. The protagonist in “The Hunger Games” was strong and smart, but the filmmakers insisted on highlighting her love triangle to make her seem more relatable. In fact, what made that movie successful was that its writers reversed their on-screen stereotypes, making the main character, Katniss, the hulking and brooding leader, while her male counterpart, Peeta, was depicted as kind and sweet. This swap was one of the reasons that the movie was interesting yet successful, but it was only one factor, in addition to its great acting and interesting camera techniques, that made the movie successful.

“Allegiant,” on the other hand, continues to use classic gender stereotypes that do anything but evolve its characters. It becomes distracting how little faith the filmmakers had in themselves in creating what could have been a strong female lead. They include unnecessary shots of Tris’s half-naked body in the shower in order to objectify her. They also give Four a lot of screen time to take the attention away from Tris.

The book does not suffer from the same problem. Though not the best book in the trilogy, “Allegiant” holds its own as a decent read. The movie, on the other hand, strays far away from the true plot of the book and seems to flail around looking for something to say.

But why, then, did the production company decide to flesh out the book into two movies? Money, maybe. Or fame. But, mostly likely, money. Unfortunately, its efforts in this regard have failed, as this feminist tragedy and cinematic flop should hopefully close within a week.

me your heart.” This song provides a simpler and calmer side to the otherwise sexual album. In this 130-second intermission, another aspect of the singer’s mind is seen as he exemplifies his love for his heritage in the Pakistani folk song.

He really makes an effort to differentiate himself from other pop and R&B singers by embracing his Muslim background and providing a new perspective that is rarely, if ever, explored in the world of mainstream pop.

Malik’s vocals can definitely be described as smooth and sultry, making his songs much more in-

timate and affectionate. While too much of anything can often be bad, Malik is able to use his range to enhance the album, providing the songs with dimension. In “dRuNk,” his suave riffs contribute to the overall sensuousness of the song.

One of his best moments in the album is the series of long notes he hits in “iT’s YoU.” The chorus brims with his talented vocals as he nails each long note gracefully and with poise.

While Malik’s vocals vary from track to track, the background music does not. The mellow tunes are quite similar, and the beat drops seem to be equivalent in power.

One thing to be noticed is the lack of real instruments used in his album. His background beats primarily consist of electronic sounds and computerized accompaniments.

If this album truly represents what goes on in Malik’s mind, then perhaps the main thing we learned after listening to this album is that Zayn Malik has had sex. And lots of it. Despite the charts, “Mind Of Mine” is a mediocre album. It doesn’t have much diversity, but there surely is one thing that we can’t deny about Malik and his album. He has an amazing vocal range that seems to be the characteristic of Malik that has carried over to his solo career and the characteristic that brings the artist most of his new listeners.

Low Budget, High FILM Expectations

By TJ Westfall As you ignore your fiancé’s texts while driving away from home, you hear the radio report a multitude of blackouts hitting several cities in the United States. You glance at your phone for a moment, only to crash into another car and black out.

Thus begins “10 Cloverfield Lane,” directed by Dan Trachtenberg, a science-fiction sequel to the 2008 horror film, “Cloverfield.”

Howard Stambler (John Goodman) saves heroine Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), from her car accident (and a worldwide apocalypse). The two, along with Emmett DeWitt (John Gallagher, Jr.), agree to live in a fallout shelter that Stambler built, but tensions begin to rise as Michelle finds clues that point to Stambler’s troubled past.

“10 Cloverfield Lane” could have been a very dull film, given its low budget of $15 million. Set in a small, homely bunker under endless acres of luscious farmland in the heart of Louisiana, the film does not have much daylight. With the outside world presumably contaminated with radiation, the three characters are forced to sit around, play board games, and talk to each other. Trachtenberg instead focuses on the suspense and mystery surrounding Stambler. His motives for saving Michelle are suspiciously unclear, which gives her reason to disbelieve the entire situation Stambler asserts she is in.

With no outside narrator directing the sequence of events, the film leaves the viewer (and Michelle) to interpret the details for themselves. For example, immediately after the crash, Michelle wakes up in a locked room, attached to an IV drip, giving both her and the viewer a sudden bout of confusion. By showing this scene, Trachtenberg uses his limited budget to bring the most out of the film, effectively using immense amounts of intriguing character development to keep the viewer entertained.

“10 Cloverfield Lane” is almost nothing like its predecessor, “Cloverfield,” which allows it to be completely new and refreshing.

“Cloverfield” is a found-footage horror film that focuses more on the monsters themselves, rather than the characters fleeing from them. Trachtenberg takes the film a step back from horror and plays around with the three characters’ psychological states.

One of the ways he does this is through dialogue about each character’s past. He covers it with a subtle, nihilistic undertone, stemming from the possibility that everyone outside the bunker is dead.

One of the few characters who appears to be a part of the outside world is Ben, Michelle’s estranged fiancé, who tries to make amends with Michelle over the phone before her crash. However, with no cell service in the bunker, Michelle’s constant feelings of worry and regret are clearly seen throughout the film. Thus, Trachtenberg’s use of his characters’ disorganized and complex feelings is a remarkably different approach than the horror sequences used in the original.

“10 Cloverfield Lane” does not reveal the cause of the apocalypse until the final 20 minutes, allowing the viewer to focus more on the interactions between Michelle and the others. In effect, Trachtenberg would have not have lost much if he had cut the final 20 minutes, because the charm of the film lies within the characters.

The two films’ only major similarity is the name “Cloverfield,” which naturally angered the public hoping to see a continuation of the first film. However, if “10 Cloverfield Lane” had followed the lines of its predecessor, its popularity would have been significantly lower. Had Trachtenberg done this and used elements from “Cloverfield,” viewers would criticize him for his lack of creativity or how stale the new film was. It was a bold and respectable move by Trachtenberg to take only the name of the film and turn it into something completely new. He questions the validity of the common phrase, “The sequel is never better than the original,” with “10 Cloverfield Lane,” and a third “Cloverfield” would be welcomed with open arms.

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 18

Arts and Entertainment 5 Shows on Netflix That You Need to See if You Haven’t Already

By Alex Berg In the past few years, Netflix has become the go-to activity for whenever people have time to spare. Because Netflix has a vast array of television shows and movies, it can be difficult to know what to watch. A select few shows have all sorts of hype surrounding them—everyone from your cousins to your next door neighbors have seen and gushed about them. But are they really worth your time?

5: How I Met Your Mother “How I Met Your Mother” is about five friends living in New York City.

The whole show is told through flashbacks from the perspective of the main character, Ted Mosby. The goal throughout this nine-season series is for Ted to tell his future children the full story of how he met their mother, and each episode is a flashback to a certain event that brought him one step closer to meeting his wife. Viewers learn about all of the failed relationships he has had leading up to meeting his wife, along with many other miscellaneous events and excursions with his friends. Some characters who really add to the show are Robin, the caring Canadian, and Lily and Marshall, the married couple. Another fan-favorite is Barney, a womanizing player who wears suits every day and takes home random girls every night.

This show is fun to watch because the plotline is lighthearted and the show is easy to understand.

The characters’ unique antics, such as Robin’s Canadian pride, Marshall’s innocence, and Ted’s hopeless romanticism, make this show exceptional. The characters also face many difficult situations regarding their love lives, careers, and a variety of other personal woes that keep the program very interesting as well. “How I Met Your Mother” is a great show because it is a perfect mixture of drama and comedy.

3: Jane the Virgin

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4: Parks and Recreation “Parks and Recreation” is centered on a government worker named Leslie Knope who is extremely passionate about everything she does. Leslie is always upbeat and full of energy, and she sets out to improve her community of Pawnee, Indiana. There are a bunch of supporting characters who really enhance the story as well, including Leslie’s caring best friend, Anne; her snobby and pretentious coworker, Tom; her cold and deadpan boss, Ron; her dark and funny intern, April; her goofy and lively friend, Andy; and her constantly ridiculed, but entirely innocent coworker, Jerry. A lot of the story is told from individual commentaries by each of the characters styled as documentary-style interviews, which are sprinkled throughout every episode.

This show is incredibly funny and very enjoyable due to its diverse range of personalities and its clever writing. Something that makes this show unique is the fact that the lead actress, Amy Poehler, is a comedian in addition to an actress, so she is able to deliver a performance flawlessly that has a perfect balance of humor and drama.

All of the characters have very different but very big personalities that blend in a way that is unique and fun to watch. This, along with a plotline that is easy to follow, makes “Parks and Recreation” a show that is hilarious and very easy to enjoy.

2: Nurse Jackie

ich

/T “Jane the Virgin” tells the story of a 23-year-old girl who he Sp lives with her mother and grandmother, and grew up having ec tat never met her dad. This show is an American spin on a Spanish or telenovela. Everything was going well for Jane, and she was planning to marry her boyfriend, Michael, until one mistake changed her entire life. At a regular gynecologist check-up, Jane is accidentally artificially inseminated by her boss’s sister. As a result, she has to decide what to do about the mistake. The stress from this dilemma turns into a series of problems that changes Jane’s life.

This show is so interesting because Jane is caught in a constant whirlwind of drama.

It is also great that this show has mainly Hispanic actors and actresses in its prominent roles. With every episode, a new problem arises and Jane struggles to keep her life under control. As the show moves along, Jane is faced with a ton of dramatic decisions that make this show extremely intriguing and fun to watch.

“Nurse Jackie” is about Jackie Peyton, a passionate nurse and mother of two. She seems to have everything going for her: a loving family, a great job, and a good group of friends. However, Jackie’s world comes tumbling down when she becomes addicted to drugs. Working in a hospital all day, Jackie is easily able to acquire narcotics to fuel her addiction. She keeps her problem a secret from her friends and family, and continues going about her normal life as if nothing is wrong. As she falls deeper and deeper into this pit of drug addiction, her life begins to slip out of her control and she starts losing everything she cares about. Jackie’s friends are always there for her, including her best friend, Doctor O’Hara; her funny and adorable coworker, Zoe; and her strict but caring boss, Gloria.

“Nurse Jackie” is very intriguing because it evokes sympathy from its viewers. Jackie is very relatable because she is written as a caring mother and nurse, so the audience always roots for her to make good decisions regarding her addiction. In addition to this, the other characters have a very diverse set of big personalities that give the show many more positive aspects. The show’s dramatic plotline is balanced by occasional spots of comedy from characters with bubbly personalities, which prevent the show from being overly dramatic, but still allow it to have a very dynamic and heart wrenching plotline.

1: Orange is the New Black “Orange is the New Black” is, without a doubt, the best show on Netflix. This true story is based on Piper Chapman, a white-collar woman from New York who is convicted of a crime that she committed ten years prior to her trial, and is sentenced to eighteen months in federal prison. As soon as Piper goes to prison, problems arise in jail and at home regarding both her past and present relationships. The show’s dynamic characters are what make “Orange is the New Black” incredible, including Piper’s ex-girlfriend, Alex; the feisty Russian chef, Red; the lesbian junkie, Nikki; the delusional Italian, Lorna; the insane but relatable Crazy Eyes; the bold and loud Taystee; and the sensitive and funny Poussey.

As the show progresses, drama arises amongst the inmates involving topics such as love, contraband, and gossip. The vast array of diverse characters make the show unlike anything else, and the big personalities often clash and cause conflict amongst different groups in prison. The show’s unique plotline and one-of-a-kind characters make it one of the best television programs that has ever existed, and it is definitely worth watching.

Zootopia’s Hidden Message

Angel Zheng / The Spectator

FILM

By Sunny Zhao This year’s Best Animated Feature might already be in theaters.

Released on March 4, “Zootopia” had grossed over $500 million worldwide as of its second week in the box office. At first glance, “Zootopia” may seem like just another one of Disney’s typical talking animal movies, but it is much more than that. The movie contains a deeper message that bodes well for society at large. Through the work of an underestimated bunny and a sly fox, “Zootopia” advocates for equality with every scene.

“Zootopia” features a world devoid of humans and ruled by ani-

mals of every species. Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a small town dreamer. She wishes to go to the city of Zootopia, which, in Judy’s eyes, is a utopia where every animal, regardless of being a predator or prey, lives in harmony. She dreams of becoming the first rabbit police officer so she immediately moves to Zootopia after graduating from the police academy. There, however, Judy quickly learns that the city isn’t as perfect as she had believed.

Facing prejudice not dissimilar from sexism in our world, Judy is assigned to be a meter maid by Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) and isn’t allowed to advance past her position.

When Judy asks why she cannot be on patrol, Chief Bogo says, “Life isn’t some cartoon musical where you sing a little song and your insipid dreams magically come true!

So let…it…go.”

However, Judy soon learns of missing mammal cases and is given an ultimatum. If she cannot solve her case in 48 hours, she must resign. Without backup from the rest of the police force, Judy decides to team up with a fox con artist named Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman).

The duo discovers that all of the missing animals have become savages, extremely aggressive toward anyone that dares to approach. The general public quickly realizes that all of the savages are predators. In a city where the majority of the population is prey, the resulting media coverage ensures that a new fear is born, creating divisions within Zootopia strikingly similar to the racial segregation still present in today’s society. Violence rises, and protesters believe that all predators should be rounded up and sent away from the city. Judy and Nick are left in the shambles of a once unified city, with fear and violence becoming the new norm, and they have no idea how to fix it.

“Zootopia” could not have chosen a more perfect topic to discuss in our current day and age. With the controversial political debates

of the upcoming election and the looming presence of racism and sexism in this country, “Zootopia” illustrates these issues in a sly, but smart way. Judy represents a disenfranchised race. From the very beginning she is discriminated against as a police officer for being a rabbit. Both she and Nick are also victims of racial profiling, as they deal with societal prejudices about rabbits and foxes throughout the movie. “Zootopia” showcases how mass hysteria can lead to the segregation and irrational fear of a particular group.

This draws a clear connection to Islamophobia in the United States and how some Muslim groups are treated with hostility. The movie promotes equality of all people, regardless of race, and shuns the idea of fear dividing us. It shows that the actions of a few people do not demonstrate the beliefs of a whole group. “Zootopia” elevates the idea of acceptance: that we can all get along in harmony as long as we understand each other and look past previous prejudices.

“Zootopia” has bright, eyedazzling artwork and exceptional voice acting. Goodwin and Bateman perfectly bring Judy’s energy and Nick’s cleverness, to light. In addition, the voice acting talents of others such as J. K. Simmons, Idris Elba, and Shakira are more than

evident. The cast’s skill is mirrored by the animation team’s ability to perfectly sync the voices of each character up with a lifelike animation. The work of both the cast and the animators bring the city of Zootopia and its citizens to life.

The movie has several unexpected plot twists and multiple adult references that would amuse even the most bored parent. From an imitation of the “Godfather” to a direct reference to “Breaking Bad,” there are plenty of fun Easter eggs for the audience to discover. While only bearing a PG rating, “Zootopia” is fit for all ages and does not fail to stimulate the imagination.

While “Zootopia” is advertised as a film for kids, its message is important for people from all walks of life. It demonstrates the problems that divide and destroy people.

The film shows how fear is a powerful and dangerous weapon that could be used to single out someone or a group of people. In our own news we can see hundreds of articles about political and societal division, violent protests against ideals, racial conflicts, but almost nothing about understanding.

Nothing about combating the fear that divides us by understanding each other, with equality. I implore anyone who hasn’t yet to watch “Zootopia.” Its message is a lesson for all of us to learn.

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

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Page 19

The Spectator â—? April 22, 2016

Page 20

Art

Amber Yang / The Spectator

Anika Hashem / The Spectator

Meet The Artists

Daniel Tam / The Spectator

Jarett Lee / The Spectator

Vahn Williams / The Spectator

Cien Huang / The Spectator

Jiaqi Gao / The Spectator

Melanie Chow / The Spectator

Kristin Lin / The Spectator

Suzy B. Ae/ The Spectator

Klaire Geller / The Spectator

Yuxin Zheng / The Spectator

Angel Zheng / The Spectator

Karen Lai / The Spectator

Catherine Joh / The Spectator

Taylor Choi / The Spectator

Joyce Gao /

The

Spec t

Xinhui Xu / The Spectator

ator

Lynne Wang / The Spectator

Rachel Zhang / The Spectator

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 21

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The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

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The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

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The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 24

Humor These articles are works of fiction. All quotes are libel and slander.

By Jacob Faber-Rico

DOE Institutes Abstinence-Only Curricula in Chemistry, Physical Education, More

Last Monday, April 11, the New York City Department of Education (DOE) unveiled a new curriculum that will emphasize abstinence-only education in all courses and at all grade levels across the city.

Although abstinence-only philosophy has been used to teach sex education for years—at Stuyvesant, health textbooks list “abstinence” as “the most effective form of contraception”—the decision to extend it to curricula ranging from elementary school physical education to high school chemistry represents a radical new approach to education.

Under the new standards, chemistry teachers will no longer be required to teach students how to use laboratory equipment; instead, students will simply not do any labs. “In the past, we wasted valuable class time teaching students how to safely handle the strong acids and Bunsen burners used in labs” Assistant Principal of Chemistry Scott Thomas said.

“Students will learn much more from just sitting around and doing nothing for the entire double period.”

Likewise, physical education teachers will stop teaching students how to exercise safely in lieu of filling out Delaney cards each and every day of the semester. “If

we teach the students to never exercise, they can’t possibly get hurt while exercising,” said physical education teacher and Boys Varsity Basketball coach Phillip Fisher, who has long avoided injuries on his basketball team by never holding practice.

Across the school system, similar shifts to abstinence-only education are taking place. In mathematics, students will learn beginning in kindergarten that if they never attempt to solve a problem, they will never get the wrong answer; English classes will no longer require writing assignments so as to eliminate the possibility of students making a grammatical mistake.

“Love”: A Groundbreaking Student PoemPosal

By Wasif Zaman This document was found underneath Assistant Principal of Safety, Security and Saucy Student Affairs Brian Moran’s pillow.

When asked why this document was in his possession, a single tear ran down Moran’s face, before he whispered, “Because it contains more truth than the entirety of the universe.”

Dedicated to my one true love: Jessica (I think that’s your name) from my biology class.

on paper.)

(Wow that last line was brilliant even though it’s not even that relevant.)

I love you more than Quentin Tarantino loves making people vomit, More than Kanye loves Kanye, More than Rob Ford loves cocaine, More than Donald Trump loves spray tan More than Simón loves cell phones

So, now that you’re in love with me, I just have one more question to ask, To complete this insurmountable task, Will you go to prom with me?

(Please write your answer down below, assuming you can still write after being blown away, that is.) [ ] Yes <3 [ ] YES!! <3<3<3<3<3<3 ;) ;) ;) ;) [ ] YESYESYESYESYESYES——— ———(This line represents your heart flat-lining.)

“Love” A heart-wrenching poem from Wasseef “Bagdaddy” Zaxman, a fellow junior your such stunning, that I cant get my grammar right round you Haha, I’m so clever You won’t ever do better You should totally go to prom with me now Anyway, back to the “poem” (I put the parentheses there because I feel that I’m experimenting with the medium—this piece shouldn’t be categorized as simply “free-verse” or any other disparaging label like that—this is a dynamic mirror, a reflection of both myself and the human condition as a whole; the futile transience of life and love captured

back of a three-star Italian restaurant I love you like (Crap, writing this stuff is hard. I’m running out of similes.)

I promise that I can loaf you like bread

Wasseef “Bagdaddy” Zaxman is junior award-winning poet, playwright, philosopher and teenage heartthrob. This “Jessica” was reportedly so taken with Wasseef ’s wit, charm and creativity that she tattooed this poem on her neck.

And of course they went to prom together, this piece basically did the work for him.

Your Parmesan cheese-colored head Looks really yummy Like melted gold Or just something I’d find in the

This piece will be exhibitioned at MoMA, thanks to a cogent argument put forth by Zaxman (“A poem is just like a painting except with different letters”).

Joyce Gao / The Spectator

Teachers have long been pushing for such reforms, and many are happy to finally see them put into place. “This is a great idea,” history teacher Linda Weissman said. “It’s like I always tell my government students: never vote, and you’ll never vote for the wrong candidate.”

Many parents, on the other hand, are firmly opposed to the new curriculum. “This is ridiculous,” said Christine Fazio, mother of junior Gregory Dudick. “Gregory has refused dinner for the past week. Apparently his health teacher told him the safest way to avoid obesity was to never eat.”

Although radical in classroom education, the DOE’s new cur-

ricula are part of a much larger trend. The American Red Cross lifeguarding certification now consists solely of yelling at everyone to get out of the pool and go home, and the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles has stopped issuing licenses altogether. Even President Obama recently issued an executive order permanently closing all banks in the country in order to avoid another financial crisis.

“Universal abstinence is the best policy for the United States of America,” said Obama in an Oval Office address last Tuesday. “To ensure the safety of our country, I ask all Americans to do absolutely nothing.”

Boy Seeking Girl: A Résumé

By Kenny Lin and Wasif Zaman Curriculum Vitae

[Insert $waggy and slightly photoshopped photo here] Name: Deepak Ali Mobile: 917-666-XXXX Email: imsolonelybutdonttellanyone@stuy.edu Objective: I’m looking for a casual relationship with a female at this school that is aged anywhere from 15-18, preferably with a GPA of at least 88.3 (but at this point, I don’t really care about GPA) and also with a supermodel’s face/body (again, I am pretty lax about these guidelines, so anyone will do).

I plan to date part-time, and this includes occasional afterschool visits to Chipotle and a passionate hug or lazy kiss before first period at least two times a week (worry not— breath mints will be provided).

(Note: Eyewitnesses must be present at each encounter, or else it will not count.)

In return, I will work my hardest to guarantee a highly rewarding experience for my contractor (BTW, the contract is binding, and will last at least two years, and only I get to call off this business arrangement).

Furthermore, we must attend prom together, where we will take a minimum of four pictures together (so I can show them to my parents as proof), and you will only have three bathroom breaks, so use them wisely (be sure to go beforehand, and I’ll try to keep you away from the punch).

Qualifications: 2010-present – Intern at Aeropostale Offices Went on frequent coffee runs for upper level executives, often

passing by flagship store where adolescent females and their mothers would occasionally hold my gaze for 1.7 seconds before scowling.

2011-present – Volunteer Trash Picker on Hudson River Greenway Once offered to carry an elderly woman’s purse, though she was under the impression that I was attempting to mug her. (Note: This experience illustrates both my gentlemanly courteousness and my bad boy exterior.)

Skills: I am very proficient in having metaphysical yet romantic discussions that may seem fishily similar to those in “The Fault In Our Stars,” but are, I assure you, entirely original. (Just don’t consult the book until we have gone our separate ways.)

I am trained in basic etiquette, such as kindly offering to pay for the checks (but not adamantly—I don’t mind the feminists) and opening doors (unless, of course, females with left-aligned political beliefs offer to do it for me).

Past girlfriends have remarked that I am make their heart rates quicken, as I often pop out of their closets late at night and surprise them.

Recommendations/References: “Deepak is a sweet, beautiful, and loving boy.”

—Fatima Ali, a woman who happens to be my mother “[A] [not at all] obsessive, [not] clingy, [not] worthless excuse of a human being,” —Sadie Hawkins, senior “Once, I lent him a pencil. He tried to give it back after class, but it was a bit slimy and was covered in tooth marks. I told him to keep it.”

—Jewels Jackson, junior “Deepak [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] exists.”

—Melanie Chou, sophomore

Students Stage Strike for AP Waivers

By Tiffany Chen and Kenny Lin CHAMBERS STREET — On Thursday, April 8, 2016, Stuyvesant had a 0.03329 percent attendance rate, the lowest rate since April 7, 2016.

Many of the absent students were at home compiling a multitude of Change.org petitions and posting angry rants on Facebook as part of a protest against the elimination of Advanced Placement (AP) waivers, in a desperate attempt to get noticed.

“I didn’t even know there was a protest,” said sophomore and AP waiver advocate Asim Kapparova, who courageously remained at home. “I was just sick,” she said.

In previous years, students who wished to create a spiritual vacuum equivalent to hell for themselves waived into extra APs, sacrificing

their sleep, and ultimately their souls, over the course of a school year. However, the Department of Education (DOE) recently realized it was against the basic code of human rights to allow students to torture themselves in such a way.

Thus, the DOE only allowed students to sacrifice up to 98 percent of their souls, based solely upon their respective grade point averages. In previous years, students were able to use AP waivers to add an additional percentage of their souls to score extra credit.

Some teachers have expressed joy about the abolishment of AP waivers. “I love the new system,” biology teacher Melissa Maggio said. “It saves a ton of paper since we don’t have to print out all those extra waiver slips.”

However, not all teachers are happy with this new policy. “I used

to keep all my harvested souls in a

Thus, the DOE only allowed students to sacrifice up to 98 percent of their souls, based solely upon their respective grade point averages. jar,” irritated AP Calculus BC teach-

er Jim Cocoros said. “Now how am I supposed to beat [AP Calculus BC teacher Stan] Kats’s dead soul collection?” Other AP teachers who have asked not to be named have even hinted that they enjoy seeing students bring themselves to emotional suffering and turmoil that cannot be recovered from.

The students themselves are outright furious at the policy change. “I loved having no sleep at night,” sophomore Bermet Kalmokova said. “Besides, I had no soul in the first place.”

Angry protesters have even challenged the administration several times in an attempt to solve the issue peacefully. On April 9, for example, several dozen freshmen blocked off Ms. Zhang’s office, shouting provocative statements such as “Battery after tenth” and

“Come at me, bro.” A similar crowd gathered around AP of Security & Student Affairs, Health, and Physical Education Brian Moran, but was quickly dispelled when Moran came out and threatened to confiscate cell phones.

That said, however, the administration has suggested that students use Facebook in replacement of APs to go to sleep late.

“Who needs APs when you could waste time watching cat videos all night?” said someone who was rendered unrecognizable after receiving several beatings from angry protesters. “I mean, hit me up with all them AP waivers!”

Despite the protest’s overwhelming success, as of press time, the administration has yet to respond, or even acknowledge that there was a strike in the first place.

The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 25

Humor

By Michael Espinosa

Tired of PC bingo boards whose boxes have nothing but numbers and letters in an attempt to not offend anyone? Use this one instead!

Hillary Clinton accidentally deletes her lead in the polls

Ted Cruz found in a dark room, making out with the Constitution

John Kasich wins something other than Ohio

Donald Trump forgets the date of the Fourth of July

Ted Cruz becomes President of Canada

Bernie Sanders found dabbing at a rave to “lock down the youth vote”

Donald Trump declares himself “the most faithful candidate” only to be interrupted by his two ex-wives

Donald Trump says “the wall just got 10 feet higher” so often we end up with a wall three miles tall

Donald Trump angers white, working-class voters

Bernie Sanders wears a beret

Marco Rubio found dead, drowned in his own tears

Ted Cruz humiliates himself in a debate against the Stuyvesant Speech and Debate team

Clinton.exe crashes in the middle of a debate

John Kasich insults another candidate

Donald Trump says he will ban English classes so he can always have “the best words”

Bernie Sanders promises free halal food for all students in New York City

Donald Trump vows to deport the Kardashians in an attempt to win votes

Hillary Clinton promises to extend Obamacare to cover depression treatment caused by prom rejections

Students Protest Against Losing An Hour Of Sleep

By Not Sleeping

Julia Lee / The Spectator

Bingo: 2016 Election Edition

By Alexandra Wen

Ted Cruz admits he’s Kevin from “The Office”

The public finds out that Melania Trump is actually smarter than her husband

Bernie Sanders John Kasich gives 27-hour promises free speech and uses tuition, but only the term “political for The Ohio State establishment” University over 9000 times Republican establishment stages a coup after Donald Trump is declared the party’s nominee

Bernie Sanders promises to break up Stuyvesant squads that represent “the one percent of popular kids”

Bernie Sanders promises a FREE space for all bingo cards

ADVERTISEMENT

The clock turned ahead by an hour on March 13th 1:59 a.m., confusing those who forgot it was Daylight Savings and blessing those who got an extra 24 hours of sleep, since they decided it was best to save time and do nothing. Despite having coped with it for years, sleep-deprived high schoolers are now done with it and are now protesting Day Light Savings.

To protest losing an hour of sleep, teenagers are deciding to stop sleeping altogether, determined to show just how detrimental Daylight Savings can be. Some attempt to laugh their sleep deprivation off hysterically, while others cry out in despair more than they did when they realized that they couldn’t apply for a fifth AP. However, it is hard to tell if this sleep strike is a protest or if it’s just in the students’ daily routine.

“We can’t give in to the prying hands of the demon!” sophomore Stephanie Li said, insisting that

the sleep strike continue, reusing a phrase she normally utilizes for motivating their students to write Garfinkel essays at 4 a.m.

The students desperately need caffeine, but due to unfortunate circumstances like soul-crippling amounts of pressure and homework, most are already broke due to their earlier need for it. Nonetheless, students are protesting by buying more coffee. Those who have not have not been able to access caffeine have begun to suffer the hard way. Many have exchanged their souls for black holes in place where their eyes have rolled back into their skulls.

“You get used to sleeping for an hour a night, and sleeping for sixteen the next day,” said senior Alvin Lin, who ironically yells at underclassmen when they sleep past 8 p.m. “You still have a couple years before every part of you dies.” He then explained how heart attacks induced by the warning bell when it wakes students up can be fatal.

The Spectator â&#x2014;? April 22, 2016

Page 26

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The Spectator ● April 22, 2016

Page 27

Sports Girls’ Fencing

Boys’ Handball

Courtesy of Lelia Storkamp

Vipers Strike Back

Senior and captain Serena Chan (right) practices infighting with senior Megan Yip.

By Ray Jones and Issac Rose-Berman Last year the Vipers, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity fencing team, went undefeated in the regular season. But in the second round of playoffs, Tottenville, led by a strong senior class, outperformed them in both épée and foils, ending their season.

With Tottenville’s strong senior class having graduated, the Vipers are excited by their opportunity to go farther in the playoffs.

The Vipers have been training hard. They practice for more than two hours every day, working on both their fencing skills and on their physical fitness. They start their practice running from the tenth floor to the six floor and then back up to ten, with running sequences on each floor.

Last year, the team lost seniors Alice Oh, Tiffany Chan, and Sara

Chung, but many of the returning members have improved and the freshman class has brought in an abundance of new talent. “While the seniors were great role models and leaders, the new influx of talent has resulted in a better team ready to win the championship,” junior Sosonia Ma said.

So far this season, the Vipers have won all four of their matches, each of which was a decisive victory. Their first match against Millennium was won 90-49, their second match against Information Technology was 90 to a mere 22, and their third match against NEST+M was 90-57.

Their most recent game was against Millennium on April 12.

Fencing matches are split into six matches that use different weapons. One uses the épée, a sword-like blade that can strike at any part of the body except for the feet, and the other uses foils, which are long, straight blades

that can strike only the torso, neck, and groin. The épée team won 45-19 and the foil team won 45-33, finishing with a strong end score of 49-90. This win was especially encouraging because the team was missing the majority of its starters: two out of the three fencers for both épée and foil were subs.

“We had an amazing game,” senior and captain Serena Chan said. “If we keep fencing the way we are fencing, I think we can take the gold at playoffs this season.”

Though the Vipers chances are looking good this year, some are worried for next year’s season.

“Our team is great right now,” sophomore Sofiya Tsenter said.

“But many of the starters are seniors. With so many of them leaving, I think next year’s team will have a difficult time performing as well as this year’s.”

Still, many are optimistic.

“While the loss of the seniors will be difficult, I think we will be able to manage because of our intense practice, which results in great improvements,” sophomore Deborah Wei said.

Many players also express gratitude for their coach, Joel Winston. “He’s extremely knowledgeable about the sport. He’s a great teacher and motivator, and all of us have improved immensely with his support,” Tsenter said.

This year’s Vipers have been training hard and excelling at matches, maintaining hope of making up for last year’s disappointing conclusion by bringing home the banner.

With a New Lineup, Dragons Still Dominate

By Max Onderdonk

The Dragons, the Stuyvesant boys’ handball team, are well into a triumphant 2016 season, as they are atop their division with a record ten wins and one loss. The Dragons are currently coming off an exciting victory over the Bronx High School of Science, in which they swept the match 5-0. In handball, each match is a series of five games—three singles matches and two doubles matches—and whichever team wins the majority of these games wins the match.

The win was huge for the Dragons, whose only loss during the season so far had been during a previous matchup with Bronx Science, in which the Dragons fell three games to two. Bronx Science is currently undefeated with a 6-0 record, so Stuyvesant can expect to face them again in the playoffs.

While on the surface, it may seem the Dragons have had an easy season, they have had to work through a lot of change.

“Last year we had six starting seniors graduate, [so] that being said, I didn’t expect [us] to go very far,” senior Jonathan Yuan said. In handball, there are seven players who regularly participate in matches, and by

losing six, the Dragons essentially lost their entire lineup.

“The team really stepped up to the plate and is performing very well.”

Senior Rahul Debnath admits that it has been a tough transition for him and the other players who have been forced into the regular lineup this season. “[It has been] a big transition but we’re holding up well. A lot of players are still not used to the pressure, but we’re working on it,” Debnath said.

Jonathan Yuan believes a major factor for their success so far and a strength going forward is their team chemistry.

“Our team’s power comes from our relationships with one another. We treat each other like family and we’re there to cheer on a victory or for consolation on a defeat,” he said.

The Dragons have a reputation to fulfill of making the playoffs and being successful every year, and Debnath expects no less this season. “I believe 90 percent of handball is played off the court, [in that] a lot of it is in your head and quick thinking. We’re [more prepared] than most of these other teams and that’s our specialty. That will take us far,” he said.

Varsity Baseball

Peglegs Split Opening Series Against West 50th Street Campus continued from page 28

the bat. Fortunately, they recovered in the bottom half of the first inning, when senior Daniel Wohl knocked a single into shallow center field, driving in two runs and tying the game at two apiece.

Stellar pitching by both teams was evident, especially on the part of the Peglegs. Archer struck out five and gave up no earned runs in five and a third innings of work. Keep-

“I knew that I just had to throw strikes and attack the hitters with a good mix of pitches.” —Jack Archer, junior

ing West 50th’s bats quiet by mixing off-speed pitches with fastballs, he was able to con-

fuse the hitters and throw them off-balance. “I knew that I just had to throw strikes and attack the hitters with a good mix of pitches. I knew that as long as I kept them off the bases and didn’t give them good pitches up in the zone, we would have a good chance of winning,” Archer said.

Archer was aided by abundant run support, which gave him enough room to breathe and execute pitches. “I’m willing to take more risks when I have runs and make it tougher on the hitter instead of pumping fastballs down the middle,” Archer said.

At the end of the day, the Peglegs came out on top with a big statement win, beating West 50th by a score of 8-3. “I felt great and the team did too.

To come out and beat the defending division champions the first game was a real pickme-up,” Coach John Carlesi said.

Beating such a strong team would require the Peglegs to be running on all cylinders, and it was clear that they were up to the task. “We jumped on their starting pitcher, something that they didn’t expect us to do. After this, we picked up momentum and tacked on even more runs. Everything went well, [Archer] pitched really well, we got on base, and we played good enough defense,” senior Nathan Chandler said.

The Peglegs went into the second game of the series against West 50th Street Cam-

pus with the momentum and the knowledge that they could

junior Tobias Lange was able to keep the bats of West 50th

“I felt great and the team did, too. To come out and beat the defending division champions the first game was a real pick-me-up.”

—John Carlesi, Coach

compete against the powerhouses of their division. Unfortunately, unlike the first game, the offense was stagnant, and the confident mentality was weak.

Though the Peglegs managed to get seven runners on base, they failed to score a single run, primarily due to poor base running. West 50th Street Campus capitalized on the poor play, and after they took the lead on a home run, they never looked back. “We were a little flat in our energy the second game. I knew it from the start. Our offense went cold, and we didn’t adjust to the pitcher,” Carlesi said.

Stuyvesant showcased its pitching prowess yet again, as

Street Campus at bay. Lange’s performance wasn’t indicative of his stat line, however; in five and two thirds innings, Lange allowed five runs, four of those earned, and in the process, walked three and struck out nine. The defense was responsible for most of those runs, tainting his otherwise stellar start. “As a pitcher, all I can do is focus on what I can control, my pitching, and just keep the team in the game to the best of my ability,” Lange said.

The starting catcher, senior Max Schneider, praised Lange’s performance on the mound.

“West 50th is a really powerful team, and they’ll burn you if you leave the ball up, so thankfully [Lange] was able to

keep it down and get big outs,” he said. One tactic Lange used was mixing his cutter with his fastball. “It’s a pitch he’s been working on for a while and has struggled to command well in games, but he was able to locate the cutter well and used it effectively as a strikeout pitch.

When he has his cutter on, he’s at his best, and I feel like I have the freedom to call whatever pitch I think is best and really manipulate the hitters,” Schneider said.

Even so, West 50th Street Campus took the reins of the contest after putting up five runs in the sixth inning and tacking on an additional run in the seventh, making the final score 7-0.

Though the Peglegs would have loved to sweep their opening series against their division rivals, the two games showcased the reality of the issue: the Peglegs will be up against formidable teams, and will need to play flawlessly to succeed. But these games also served as an opportunity for the Peglegs to take away pointers, especially in the area of defense and base running.

“I think we can still be a competitive team from what I’ve seen so far,” Chandler said. “If we play clean baseball with the talent we have, we can go far.”

Carlesi has faith in his team as well. “If this team stays focused, and we play solidly, I think we can make some noise in our division this year,” he said.

April 22, 2016

Page 28

The Spectator SpoRts Boys’ Volleyball

CALENDAR

Beasts Feed Off Last Year’s Success, Start Season 6-0

April

22 FRIDAY

Baseball vs.

Beacon High School

Courtesy of Shun Bitar

Parade Grounds #1

23

Cricket vs. High School for Construc- SATURDAY tion Stuyvesant H.S. Gym

May The Beasts, the boys’ volleyball team, huddle on the court.

By Jacob Grunebaum With the month of April flying by, another dominant season for the boys’ varsity volleyball team is underway. Last year, the Beasts finished second overall in the Public School Athletic League with a record of 8-2, trailing just behind the High School of Environmental Studies with a record of 9-1. “Last year, the Beasts had arguably the best year since I have joined the team,” senior and co-captain Sam Kotlyar said. “The thing that I noticed the most was the team’s hustle and commitment to get every single ball, something that was unprecedented in the previous years.”

Last season the team relied heavily on the upperclassmen, namely Vincent Huang (’15) and Eric Lee (’15). “Vincent was essential to our team because he allowed all of our hitters to hit an ideal set most of the time, greatly improving our offense and overall play,” Kotlyar said. Lee was a top middle hit-

ter, and the departure of these two players has left large holes in the team’s formations.

But with a total of six seniors, the team is looking at even more veteran talent this season than last. “Last season we played really well seeing as we only had two veteran seniors playing. This year we have those former juniors, a year better, and we are looking great,” junior Jackson Deysine said. With six sophomores and three freshmen, Stuyvesant also benefits from young talent.

Building off last year’s momentum, the Beasts beat West 50th Street Campus handily in their first game on March 22, winning 2-0. In a rematch on April 4, they won yet again.

Having won every home game last season, the Beasts are determined to continue this streak for as long as possible.

About three weeks into the season, the Beasts are undefeated at 6-0. Their offense is flowing, and the team’s chemistry is working well. The team has changed from a 6-2 forma-

tion (six hitters, two setters) to a 5-1 formation, and this has produced positive results.

However, the team still has areas to improve on.

“I think the season is going decently well but we could be playing much better. Every game we have had so far, we haven’t been 100 percent.

Starters [were] missing, people [were] sick or we just [lost] our energy on the court. At tournaments we haven’t been that great. We have played against tough teams and we really pushed them but we seemed to not be able to [be] clutch,” senior and co-captain Tae Kyung Kong said.

On Monday, April 11, Stuyvesant swept Louis Brandeis in two sets. Utilizing yet another formation, the team displayed its flexibility. “I think we have the talent to be a serious competitor in the playoffs,” Kotlyar said. “We just have to keep giving 110 percent in all practices and games, learn from experience, and the rest will follow.”

Boys’ Tennis

Chloe Delfau/ The Spectator

Hitmen Strive To Bounce Back

Junior Zachary Wakefield playing doubles with junior Julian Neuman, serving against Beacon.

By Sean Stanton After a blowout 5-0 win in their first playoff game last year, the Hitmen, the boys’ tennis team, suffered a 4-1 loss to Townsend Harris in the

second round, ending their hopes of being the New York City champions. They finished the regular season and playoffs with seven wins and five losses.

The Hitmen are looking for a better regular season this year to get a good playoff spot. However, they have had a rocky start with a 3-3 record.

Though they began the season with a 3-0 start, the team has slipped, losing its past three games. Two of these games, against Beacon High School and the Bronx High School of Science, were disappointing 5-0 losses.

Throughout all the games, the doubles players have been the most consistent, and the two pairs have won five out of their six matches. In addition, sophomore Derek Lung has stepped up by winning three out of four of his matches.

They have four more games in the season to secure a better playoff spot, in hopes of not

repeating what happened last season.

“Our early loss was mainly due to a bad seeding in the playoffs,” junior and co-captain Zachary Wakefield said.

“Our team has gotten better and the rest of the league lost a lot of its seniors.” The Hitmen, however, have only lost one senior from last year. The remaining players have been able to step up to make the transition, with Lung in the singles spot, and sophomore Michael Kaydin switching from the doubles to the third singles spot.

Overall, the team has maintained its chemistry from last season, as they have only lost one player and gained two new players. “I think we have amazing team spirit. Our cheer on court and off court truly shows how close of a team we are. We basically live, breath, and eat tennis during the season,” Wakefield said.

Girls’ lacrosse vs.

Fort MONDAY Hamilton Randall’s Island Field 72

2

WRAPUP tuyvesant’s new stunt team had a close match against its oppoS nents, Lehman Campus, on Saturday, April 9, ultimately losing 11-10. he Renegades, Stuyvesant’s varsity softball team, won their T game against Hunter College High School on Friday, April 8 with an impressive final score of 21-8. girls’ varsity handball team, the Peglegs, also won its match Theagainst School of the Future, 3-2, on April 8. fter winning three games straight, the Peglegs, Stuyvesant’s A boys’ varsity lacrosse team, lost their game to Frederick Douglass High School 4-18 on April 8. The team came back five days later to win its game against Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy, 9-4.

Peglegs Split OpeningSeries Against West 50th Street Campus

By Wilson Wong After a dismal 2015 campaign in which Stuyvesant’s varsity baseball team sported a 3-13 record, the team is looking to turn things around under its new moniker, the Peglegs. Aiding this transition is the arrival of many younger players, whose raw talent will hopefully complement the experience of the veteran players. However, being in one of the best divisions in the city guarantees that the Peglegs will not have an easy season, as they will oppose teams like West 50th Street Campus, Norman Thomas, and Beacon, all of which dominated the division last year.

After a long offseason consisting of weight training and indoor work, the Peglegs are excited to get back on the field, where months of hard work

culminate in sixteen regular season games. “I think the team is more passionate and cohesive this year. We spent a lot of time in the gym this year, and the team is eager to bounce back from last year’s disappointing season,” junior Jack Archer said.

Stuyvesant opened its 2016 season with a two-game series against a premier West 50th Street Campus squad, one that routed Stuyvesant 15-0 and 11-8 last season. Archer, the opening day starting pitcher, posted an impressive 0.48 Earned Run Average during the regular season of his sophomore campaign, so on paper it was a good matchup against the dangerous bats of West 50th Street. But the Peglegs got off to a bumpy start, letting up two runs right off continued on page 27