Volume 108, Issue 16 by The Stuyvesant Spectator

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

FEATURES

OPINIONS

STUYVESANT3

CANNABIS IN 420 WORDS OR MORE

The department shares differing opinions on marijuana and its use. Good article to read in Battery Park.

Never given a thought to the glass boxes in the walls? Writers Talia Kahan and Zoe Oppenheimer did it for you, investigating the history and future of the StuyCubed project.

see page 14

see page 9

Volume 108  No. 16

June 8, 2018

stuyspec.com

Bill de Blasio Unveils Controversial Plans to Reform the SHSAT

NEWSBEAT

By GEORGE SHEY

Senior Matteo Wong is the Valedictorian of the Class of 2018 and senior Kai Hin Lui is the Salutatorian for 2018.

Senior Delaney Demark won a merit scholarship totaling $24,000 over four years for college from the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Scholarship Fund.

Seniors Yu Xin Zheng and Anthony Hom earned the distinction of honorable mention awards from the Breslin American Writer Award Committee for their original essays.

Junior Jerry Ye won the 20172018 School Wellness Student of the Year Contest and will attend the Think-Move-Achieve Conference on Thursday, June 7.

Freshman Jeffrey Huang’s watercolor painting Gander at the Canal has been accepted in the Manhattan Borough Arts Festival, Visual Arts Exhibit.

2017

Jane Rhee / The Spectator

In a controversial move rekindling the heated debate over race and the educational system, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Saturday plans to reform the admissions criteria for New York’s specialized high schools, eight highly regarded institutions where students gain entry based on a single test. According to Mr. de Blasio, the aim of these plans is to tackle the lack of diversity that he claims the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) creates. Though Black and Latino students make up 67 percent of New York’s public school population, they are grossly underrepresented within the specialized high schools. At Stuyvesant, often regarded as the most highly sought after school of the group, only 10 seats were offered to Black students out of 902 total this year. “The [SHSAT] isn’t just flawed— it’s a roadblock to justice, progress and academic excellence,” Mr. de Blasio wrote in an op-ed piece originally published on Chalkbeat. “Can anyone defend this? Can anyone look the parent of a Latino or black child in the eye and tell them their precious daughter or son has an equal chance to get into one of their city’s best high schools? Can anyone say this is the America we signed up for?” The plans include the expansion of the Discovery program, to begin in the fall of 2019. As part of this policy, the city will allocate 20 percent of seats in each specialized school to low-income students who score just below the cutoff and attend a summer session. The city has already begun this program, however to a far lesser extent, offering five percent of this years’ seats through this method. It remains unsure exactly how the Discovery program would tackle the lack of diversity, as a significant portion of the specialized high schools consists of low-income students. However, the city estimates its implementation will increase the percentage of Blacks and Latinos offered seats at specialized high schools from nine percent to 16 percent. Others are skeptical of whether or not bringing in students who scored below the cutoff would ultimately help them. “These students, who did not meet the entrance criteria to get into Stuyvesant in the first place, will not be prepared to pass the classes at Stuyvesant. Already, I

know several students who passed the SHSAT but are still struggling to pass, so how could it be an improvement to bring students who didn’t pass the SHSAT?,” Stuyvesant student Benson Goldman said. Mr. de Blasio disagrees. “Anyone who tells you this is somehow going to lower the standard at these schools is buying into a false and damaging narrative,” he wrote. “It’s a narrative that traps students in a grossly unfair environment, asks them to live with the consequences, and actually blames them for it. This perpetuates a dangerous and disgusting myth.” The most ambitious plan on Mr. de Blasio’s agenda is to completely abolish the SHSAT, in favor of a selection standard based on middle school class rank and scores on the standardized statewide tests. Doing so would require approval from the state senate, with the vote to take place this Wednesday. Historically, Albany has voted in favor of a single test decider of specialized high school admission. Alumni of the specialized high schools aren’t too happy with the proposed changes. “We firmly oppose the amended bill that completely

eliminates the test and substitutes unnamed subjective criteria,” Larry Cary, president of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation board, said. Cary also noted that Mr. de Blasio proposed the bill near midnight on Friday before the scheduled Wednesday vote, without a hearing. “That is no way to make policy,” he added. Additionally, there was no mention of Asian American students—a major demographic of the specialized high schools—by Mr. de Blasio in either his Chalkbeat op-ed piece or his announcement, despite the fact that any change to the SHSAT would inevitably affect their composition. Kenneth Chiu, president of the New York City Asian-American Democratic Club, expressed the group’s concerns. “[Mr. de Blasio] never had this problem when Stuyvesant [High School] was all white. He never had this problem when Stuyvesant was all Jewish,” Chiu told NY1. “All of a sudden, they see one too many Chinese and they say, ‘Hey, it isn’t right.’” Various Asian American groups have already gathered at Sunset Park on Monday, accusing Mr. de Blasio of discrimination against them

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Rihanna (Robyn Rihanna Fenty) launches her inclusive cosmetic brand Fenty Beauty.

september

[NEWS] Chancellor Carmen Farina announces the Free Lunch For All policy, providing free lunch for all public school students.

and immigrants, NY1 originally reported. “For new immigrants, the test [is] something that is a leveling factor. It’s easy to prepare for, they know about it, they can buy a book or they can buy a course,” Stuyvesant alum Chris Kwok said. “So it’s a ladder of success for them.” Others are critical of Bill de Blasio’s plan as it only addresses the symptoms of what they perceive as a larger systemic problem. “Mayor de Blasio is approaching the subject of racial segregation from the wrong perspective,” Goldman said. “Rather than giving all students the tools they need to pass the test by improving the middle schools, rather than addressing that major renovations and infrastructure projects need to happen in neighborhoods such as Crown Heights, Harlem and Williamsbridge, where the majority of the population is black and poor, Mayor de Blasio takes the easier, less expensive, way out.” The vote will take place at 2 p.m. Stay tuned to The Spectator to hear the result.

[NEWS] Dr. Ernest Oliveri begins his first days as the interim acting AP of World Languages, after former AP Arlene Ubieta resigned during the summer.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 2

News Wellness Council Hosts First-Ever Meditation Class By ELENA HLAMENKO, PETER TAM, and JAMIE ZENG

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and NASA

WORLDBEAT Volcán del Fuego erupted in Guatemala on Sunday, with a massive plume of smoke and ash affecting at least 1.7 million people. The death toll from the eruption has risen to 65, and around 46 people were hospitalized for injuries. The Guatemalan Government declared a national emergency and called for three days of official mourning for the victims Sunday.

Aaron Persky, the California judge who drew national controversy in 2016 for sentencing a Stanford student to just six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, was recalled on Tuesday. He is the first judge to be recalled in California in over 80 years.

China offered to purchase nearly $70 billion of U.S. farm, manufacturing, and energy products if the Trump administration abandons threatened tariffs. President Donald Trump has pressed China to commit to reduce the $375 billion U.S. merchandise trade deficit with China by $200 billion.

The Social Security program’s costs will exceed its income this year for the first time since 1982, forcing the program to dip into its nearly $3 trillion trust fund to cover the benefits. This is three years sooner than expected a year ago, partly due to lower economic growth projections, the trustees of Social Security and Medicare reported Tuesday.

Students gathered in the third floor gymnastics room for the Stuyvesant Wellness Council’s first meditation class on Thursday, March 10 with Dr. Param Kulkarni. Dr. Param guided students through two meditation techniques, transcendental meditation and mantra recitation. Dr. Param has worked with renowned institutions such as PerceptiMed, Inc., University of Houston, and the College of Optometry. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at NYU Langone Health, where he conducts applied research in machine learning, deep learning, neuroscience, signal/image processing, and software development, and teaches at Columbia University. Dr. Param also hosts meditation classes at local community centers in his free time. Guidance Counselor Undine Guthrie introduced Dr. Param to the Wellness Council. Guthrie, who meditates often, believes that meditation has an important place in schools like Stuyvesant. “[Meditation is] one of the avenues or one of the tools that students can use to empower themselves and to kind of relax, give the mind a break,” Guthrie said. Wellness Council Event Coordinator Adam Oubaita was instrumental to making sure the meditation seminar ran smoothly, from arranging the meeting with and reserving a room for Dr. Param, to publicizing the event via Facebook and e-mail, to reaching out for student feedback and scheduling future seminars with Dr. Param. The goal of the meditation class was to educate the student body on how to manage stress by learning relaxation techniques. The two main techniques that Dr. Param taught were transcendental meditation and Hare Krishna. Transcendental meditation involves the relaxation of the entire body to focus on breathing, whereas Hare Krishna is a sanskrit mantra, meant to be chanted repeatedly during meditation to promote consciousness and inner thoughts. “Both types of techniques have been found effective in relieving stress on small-scale studies.” Param said. The Wellness Council received largely

positive student feedback and plans to continue hosting meditation sessions with Dr. Param every Thursday. Students began by taking off their shoes, sitting in a comfortable position with their palms on their thighs and the soles of their feet touching the floor, and closing their eyes. They listened to Dr. Param’s voice as he directed them through relaxing every muscle in their bodies, from the bottom of their toes to each leg to their torsos, abdomen, chest, shoulders, neck, and head. Dr. Param then guided students through deep breathing, which involves breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth in counts of four, with a longer exhale than inhale. Both progressive muscle relaxation and guided breathing activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which reduces anxiety and promotes calmness. Dr. Param also encouraged students to pay attention to their surroundings by simply focusing on what they could hear. In the latter half of the seminar, Dr. Param taught students how to meditate by reciting the Hare Krishna mantra to improve their focus. Each student received a piece of paper with the 16-word mantra, which read: “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna / Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama / Rama Rama Hare Hare.” Initially, students recited the mantra by reading off of the paper. When they memorized the mantra, some students closed their eyes while reciting with the rest of the group. At the conclusion of the session, Dr. Param invited the students to attend his next meditation seminar in the following week. After attending the session, participants learned about using the meditation techniques as a coping mechanism for stress and anxiety. “[The session] helped dispel some of my misconceptions about [meditation]. I thought it’d be just sitting silently not saying anything, but it’s about specifics on what your conscience focuses and how one can control it,” senior Nathaniel Belysion said. Through Dr. Param’s detailed instruction on how to moderate the body and to focus one’s mental flow, students like Belysion had the opportunity to explore physiological selfregulation as an access point to mental relaxation. Besides relieving stress,

meditation also decreases metabolism, lowers blood pressure, and improves heart rate, breathing, and brain waves. Students attended the program for various reasons. “I was interested in learning more about meditation, especially from a neuroscientist,” junior Jocelyn Tang said. “I felt that it would be a very informative session and I could relax after school.” After learning about the class from his psychology and architecture teachers, senior Daniel Tam decided to attend. “[I gave] it a go because it could open my mind to something useful,” Tam said. Other students, such as Belysion and junior Joshua Weiner, attended the session for extra credit for their classes, though they still benefited from meditating since “I’m also a very stressed person,” Weiner said. Students who participated in the class had positive reactions. “It was pretty effective. I felt that my heart rate was lower after the meeting. I’m kind of an anxious person, so I think I noticed quite a difference,” Tam said. “I learned that meditation doesn’t require anything special [...] it is possible to meditate on a regular basis,” Tang said. “This seminar also showed the importance of listening to your own body and taking care of yourself.” The Wellness Council also received critique for the meditation session. Students’ main concern was the proximity of the larger gymnastics room to the third floor gymnasium, where a sports team held practice during the session. The noise from the gymnasium was distracting to some students, especially when they were trying to concentrate on meditation, but it also served as good test of concentration, until “it just felt like white noise,” Tam said. In addition, Weiner commented on the sustainability of weekly meditation seminars with Dr. Param. “With enough experience, or even with teachers at Stuy like Ms. Guthrie, there’s people [here at Stuyvesant] who can be that resource [for meditation, which] I think a lot of people might value,” Weiner said. For now, the Wellness Council, along with Dr. Param, are hoping to conduct more meditation classes in the future. Dr. Param is planning to lead additional meditation classes every week until Thursday.

ARISTA Executive Board Undergoes Organizational Reforms By MAI RACHLEVSKY and DIEGO VASQUEZ ARISTA’s executive council for the 2018-2019 year, which will officially be inducted on May 30, is made up of President Julia Arancio, Vice President of Events and Services Lucy Zhang, Vice President of Operations Crystal Wang, and Vice President of Web Development Ivan Zhang. This new board will be the first to implement a number of new reforms pushed for by the outgoing Executive Council. One of the major changes the last board pushed for was the re-

moval of the positions of Vice President of Tutoring and Executive Vice President. “Throughout the course of this year, both the old and new Executive Council noticed that many of the old Tutoring Committee functions were obsolete, especially as we continued to shift much of our operations online,” Wang said. “As a result, we formed the new Operations Committee, which would assume these ‘outlier’ responsibilities and would work more closely with Web Development.” According to Sophie Feng, a graduating board member, “Not all of those positions were nec-

essary [...] especially because a smaller group tends to better delegate tasks and work more closely.” These changes will be put to the test as ARISTA bids farewell to its graduating members and begins its application process in search of new ones. Around the first week of May, ARISTA announced that it was beginning to accept applications for 2018-2019 board members. According to Feng, this process was a rigorous one. “We interviewed them all really closely, there was a pretty strenuous application which had a written portion, interviews, and teacher recommendations [consid-

Hurricane Maria Makes Landfall in Puerto Rico Finishing off an unusually busy hurricane season, Hurricane Maria makes its landfall in Puerto Rico. As the territory struggles to function and get medical care for its citizens, the Trump Administration is widely criticized, especially by the mayor of San Juan, for failing to respond adequately. Though the official death count will end up at 64, a later study will find it to be in the ballpark of 5,000.

ered] before their selection,” she said. The new board is excited for the next year and to lead ARISTA toward success. “A large focus of the new Executive Council is to optimize how we run the organization and to ensure that ARISTA is fulfilling its purpose to the fullest extent,” Wang said. To this end, ARISTA members are now allowed to apply to more than one committee, allowing the Executive Council more flexibility in delegating responsibilities to their members. The new executive council is already thinking of their goals and hopes for the 2018-2019 year. “Our biggest focus this year is to stream-

[SPORTS] Widespread National Anthem protests in the NFL in response to Donald Trump saying that all players who take a knee should be released. These protests would continue throughout the NFL season.

The 69th Primetime Emmy Awards are held, marking several Emmy firsts, including Riz Ahmed and Dave Chappelle becoming the first Muslims to win acting awards.

line everything. In the past few years of ARISTA, we are [sic] using the website a lot more, we have these new positions, and they’re really great and effective. We’re just here to make sure they get implemented in the best way possible,” Arancio said. The new board emphasizes that they aren’t looking to make drastic changes to ARISTA. Their focus is on improving what they already have. “We’re not trying to alter the face of ARISTA because we feel that what we have is really strong and works really well—we’re just trying to take out all the bugs,” Arancio said.

German Election Euro-skeptic, conservative Alternative for Deutschland(AfD) party becomes the third largest party in the Bundestag; Social Democratic Party, the center-left party, has its worst showing in a national election since WWII, and Merkel’s Christian Democrats lose more than 60 seats.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 3

News HBO Films Family-Friendly Documentary About 9/11 at Stuyvesant By MADDY ANDERSEN, KAYLEE YIN, and MISAAL TABASSUM Representatives from Home Box Office (HBO) recently visited Stuyvesant to film an upcoming family-friendly documentary in partnership with the 9/11 Tribute Museum this May. The short film aims to provide a more digestible way for kids to learn about the 9/11 attack and its impact on the city. Senior Susan He, junior Adam Elsayed, and freshmen Jonathan Schneiderman, Tolulope Lawal, and Reilly Amera were filmed performing monologues from “With Their Eyes: September 11th: The View from a High School at Ground Zero,” a collection of monologues curated by English teacher Annie Thoms and originally written by Stuyvesant students. The film also features several other members of the Stuyvesant community, including students in Ms. Thoms’s class, members of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), and Assistant Principal of Social Studies, Jennifer Suri. Suri explained that the producers of the documentary reached out to her about creating the film because of her previous work with the 9/11 Tribute Museum. “I’ve written curriculums and lesson plans for [the Tribute Museum] and collaborated with them on some presentations for teachers on teaching about 9/11,” she said. “So, [HBO] reached out to me and let me know about this project, and I, in turn, connected them with [Ms. Thoms] and Lab Middle School, because they were also looking for a middle school.” Suri was filmed in conversation with her daughter and the director of the film, Amy Schatz. “They wanted a middle schooler to ask me questions about [9/11], so I had my daughter

do it [...] and Amy asked questions, and I tried to answer them, about, you know, why did this happen,” she said. Schatz also wanted to film students performing monologues from “With Their Eyes,” which was originally the 2002 Stuyvesant Theater Community’s (STC) winter drama. The student actors were filmed in discussion with the alumni who originally created and performed the play. “With Their Eyes” began when 10 students recorded interviews with students, faculty, and staff members about the experience and the aftermath, following the lead of actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith. Students transcribed the interviews into “poem-monologues,” which they then performed and presented during the winter drama. The monologues “are the voices and the actual language of Stuyvesant community members,” Thoms said. “It was a form of oral history. It was a way to capture these stories in the moment for the future.” Schatz found it important that these monologues end up in her film. “What Amy said to me was that for this particular purpose, for a documentary that’s aimed at students and at kids, having a piece of documentary art that was created by students [in the film] seemed to make a lot of sense,” Thoms continued. The original performance put most of the focus on the monologues themselves and not on the technical details. “All the actors were on stage at the same time. Each actor would have different parts to play, and you would get into costume on stage, as everyone had a black base layer. The set was very simple; they had [...] a staircase and maybe a little more,” Amera said. “They would act the monologues, and the other actors would try to react to it on stage.” Continuing, Thoms said, “We saw it as an ensemble piece, and we

wanted it to be clear that these actors were taking on these roles. Each actor interviewed two or three people, so each actor was playing two or three people on stage. [...] That was a very conscious, intentional decision.” The student actors who were filmed performing monologues were inspired by the original play, and used a similar structure with one person performing and the other actors responding. “That’s kind of what we did as well. When you weren’t performing, you were reacting or having a fake conversation,” Amera said. The group of five student actors were chosen from a larger group who all had to audition. “Both in the original production, with the ten actors that we chose, and this production, we wanted to choose a cast that was in some ways, representative of the breadth of Stuyvesant [...] We wanted to have students from different grades, we wanted to have students of different genders and different races and ethnicities, so students that would look and feel and sound like Stuyvesant,” Thoms said. Thoms worked with student director Mika Simoncelli to pick the student actors. This choice was reflective of the documentary’s strong emphasis on diversity. “I think [having diversity] helps [portray] the story better because [9/11] happened to everyone,” Amera said. “Also, the original production had a lot of cross-casting, like you had guys playing girls and people playing races that weren’t theirs. I think that it really captures the nature of the story because [...] [9/11] happened to so many people that we really need to have diversity to really grasp the gravity of it.” Amera felt drawn to participate for multiple reasons. “Part of it was I thought it would be a really cool experience because you get to look at this groundbreaking thing in the eyes of

someone who was there,” she said. “Also, for more shallow reasons, I wasn’t going to be participating in the spring comedy [...] so I saw this opportunity and was like, ‘Might as well try out!’” The experience of being part of the HBO documentary has allowed the actors to see 9/11 through the eyes of the students who experienced it themselves. “I read for a freshman and a senior, at the time, and seeing the freshman’s point of view, for someone who’s still getting adjusted to Stuyvesant I can see how it can really affect your Stuyvesant experience,” Amera said. She explained that she developed a more personal bond to the situation and gained a new understanding of the events discussed. “I definitely feel a lot closer to it. Before, it was something that I knew about, but [...] I didn’t really have the kind of connection they did,” she continued. “For me, 9/11 has always been a little far away. They don’t really teach it to us because we’re expected to know it [...] but this helped me really perceive the information and process it.” Senior Susan He explained that performing also helped her learn more about the effects of 9/11 on Stuyvesant. “I didn’t know that people [...] relocated to Brooklyn Tech for 3 weeks [...] After the attack, school was closed [...] and they couldn’t go back to Stuy[vesant] for a week or two,” He said. The actors anticipate a new outlook on 9/11 for those who watch the documentary. “I hope people get the chance to hear the actual [...] firsthand experience that people had [...] from high school students who knew a world before 9/11,” He said. “We don’t know a world without that kind of fear. We don’t know a world without terrorism, [...] where Al-Qaeda isn’t a thing or [...] ISIS isn’t a thing, because it’s just changed the world so

much, and it was such a turning point.” In the process of filming, the actors also got a chance to talk to several of the alumni who created and performed the original STC play. “Ms. Thoms contacted some of the people who were in the original production and got them to come here to talk to us, and that was probably one of the coolest parts of the entire experience. I got to talk to one of the people who was originally interviewed,” Amera said. “Hearing them talk about it was kind of surreal [...] they said that even after 9/11, they never talked about it [...] For them, it’s kind of like their experience, [...] and for us to have a part and act in it, it was pretty special.” Adding on, He said, “It was really awesome, but it was also surreal to know that these were the people who put this play together, and it was just really cool to meet them and actually have a conversation with them about why they decided to make this play.” Both Thoms and Schatz saw the value in having the alumni come speak to the student actors. “Our [current] seniors were one year old when this happened. Our juniors and sophomores and freshmen weren’t born yet. To explain 9/11 to an entire generation that doesn’t know it as their own experience and know it, if at all, as their parents’ experience, [Schatz] thought it would be really interesting, and I absolutely agreed, to have that,” Thoms said. Ms. Suri concluded by emphasizing the importance of the documentary to the Stuyvesant community. “I think as Stuyvesant students, you know, this is a part of our history, it’s important to know about this as our community. To keep the memory alive of the people that perished and as a part of the history of this institution and this neighborhood.”

The Environmental Club Pursues New Initiatives at Stuyvesant By HANAH JUN, ERIN LEE and RUTH LEE Members of the Environmental Club have started a number of schoolwide environmental initiatives aimed at creating a greener and cleaner school. Recently, they hosted this year’s seventh annual Earth Day Fair and introduced new projects like the new recycling stations. Urban Ecology and biology teacher Marissa Maggio, who supervises both the Environmental Club and the Green Team alongside AP Environmental Science teacher Jerry Citron, oversaw the fair and the projects and made sure that they came to fruition. The Environmental Club is a service club that carries out work in and outside of school to raise environmental awareness by maintaining the rooftop garden and taking part in the Billion Oyster Project, which aims to restore oyster populations in New York Harbor. “The whole point of the Environmental Club is just to get urban kids in contact with nature and to start actively working to make New York City a better place to live,” Maggio said. The club has a cabinet that leads the organization, whose members include junior and president Kenny Wong, sophomore and vice president Yifan Wang, sophomore and secretary Julia Hart, and

sophomore and secretary Kristie Chu. The Green Team, which is a small branch of the Environmental Club, was formed this spring as a result of a project created by the New York City Department of Sanitation and the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability. This initiative, called the Zero Waste program, aims for New York City public schools to produce zero waste by 2030. “The Green Team’s [purpose] is to come up with initiatives and programs […] to get more recycling and [create less waste] within the building,” Maggio said. She recruited members for the Green Team from the Environmental Club and AP Environmental classes, and reached out to the entire student body through e-mail as well. The Green Team will continue working next year; however, there is discussion regarding whether or not they will become a separate organization or remain as a part of the Environmental Club. The team chose a recycling theme for the seventh annual Earth Day Fair held on April 20. “[The Earth Day Fair] is one of the few days during the year where we can perform outreach and access all the students in the school to show them all the important issues,” Hart said. “We wanted to educate our school on a wider scale, because at any other point in the year we’re lim-

ited to educating only those that are a part of our club.” The objective of the fair was to teach the student body about their environmental initiatives. There were games and activities such as recycled arts and crafts which served to portray the importance of these projects in a creative fashion. The club organized several events during Earth Week, including a presentation from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The presenter came in to talk about the history of trash in New York City and the redevelopment of the Fresh Kills Landfill, which holds the majority of our trash. “[The landfill] has been completely redeveloped into one of New York City’s largest new parks since the 19th century,” Maggio said. The end of construction and unveiling of the park is predicted to be in 2030, though parts of the park will slowly be opened to the public before then. One of the Environmental Club’s most significant projects is the school’s rooftop garden, which was established four years ago. The development of the garden was a joint effort between the club members and Maggio. “They wanted to have a garden for a long time, and I just found the place where they could do it,” she said. The club also maintains a plot down at Battery Ur-

run water, leave garbage everywhere, [and] don’t recycle, despite having stations everywhere to recycle,” she said. “I’d like to not see Starbucks cups in their classroom garbage can when there is a green bin four feet away. [People are] leaving cafeteria food in the middle of the hallway, or dumping all of the cafeteria food in one bin instead of sorting it into the three bins. That’s the biggest problem right now.” Though it is the end of the year, the club still has upcoming events. The Green Team presented their initiatives on May 18 at the second annual Department of Education Sustainability Showcase at St. Francis College. Additionally, the club will elect the 2018-2019 cabinet during the the Environmental Club Cabinet Elections on May 29. The Environmental Club has clear goals for the coming year. “[The goals are] definitely [increasing] recycling and emphasizing the fact that we need to take what we’re using already and not throw it away,” Hart said. Creating an atmosphere where people are more open to solving these problems and making change is also something they have been working to achieve. “It’s a matter of creating a culture in which it’s important or it’s valued to take care of the building that you’re in, or the planet we live on,” Maggio said.

the #MeToo Movement begins Actress Ashley Judd accuses media mogul Harvey Weinstein in a breaking story by The New York Times, beginning the #MeToo movement.

“Younger Now” by Miley Cyrus is released.

ban Farm. “We get to be outside and harvest our vegetables [...] it’s always my favorite part of the spring and summer,” Maggio said. Last year, the club grew crops such as tomatoes, carrots, and squash. This year, they are expanding their options to include onions, corns, and daffodils. Members who visit over the summer to help harvest get to bring the food home. However, Maggio hopes that the food will be able to make its way into the cafeteria one day. The Green Team also implemented a system to encourage better sorting of garbage and waste by giving the recycling bins grades. “We put up ‘grade pending’ signs, like what New York City uses to grade restaurants, and the students from the Green Team created a rubric for the grading stations. During Earth Week, we went around the recycling stations on all ten floors and graded them based on how the sorting [was done],” Maggio said. The rubric consisted of grades of A,B, C, and F, and the stations are graded twice a week at different times. “We’re hoping to see if grading [the bins] will affect students’ behaviors,” Maggio continued. Though many green initiatives have been started in the past few years, Maggio believes that there are still several environmental issues at Stuyvesant. “We waste electricity,

october

Final Republican Obamacare Repeal Effort Fails The Graham Cassidy bill, a last-ditch effort to repeal and replace Obamacare collapses, marks the end of a seven-year promise Republicans had failed to fulfill.

[NEWS] Stuyvesant faculty reinstate the conference day on select Mondays

“Turtles All the Way Down” by John Green is released.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 4

Features What is the Funniest or Most Unusual Experience You’ve Had in Class? By THE FEATURES DEPARTMENT

Andrea Fenyves (Mathematics)

Eric Ferencz (English) I don’t really have any particular memories in mind, but I can tell you this. I often teach first and second period, and when students come in late, they hand me a little slip of paper indicating their lateness. And it reminds me of a Mitch Hedberg joke: when someone hands you a

flyer, it’s like they’re saying, “Here, you throw this away.” I don’t know what to do with these slips. I already know that the student came in late because they walked into my classroom 15 minutes after the bell rang. As Hedberg said in another joke: “I bought a doughnut,

and they gave me a receipt for the doughnut. I don’t need a receipt for the doughnut. I’ll just give you the money, and you give me the doughnut. End of transaction. We don’t need to bring ink and paper into this.”

Vincent Miller (Physical Education)

Mayumi Gurung / The Spectator

At least from my perspective, my parents definitely make me do unreasonable things. Occasionally, they will suddenly become interested in something and force it on me. For example, they went through a phase in which they

tried to force me to learn how to cook. Sometimes they are even more forceful, making me sign up for a program for writing speeches in Bengali, which I absolutely despised. However, I don’t feel that they are completely unreasonable.

I believe they have changed their expectations of me since middle school. I really appreciate that they seem to have gone from wanting a son with a 4.0 GPA to one who’s a balanced human being.

Eric Grossman (English)

Last year, there was a kid who was sleeping every single day, and the classmates were discussing different torture methods to keep him awake, [saying things] like “We should put something on his chair,” or “We should poke him,” because he slept every single day

in class. He was also sitting in the very front desk, right in front of my face. But he was actually a very smart kid and a nice boy. We just woke him up with different methods every day.

My class starts with minutes each day. Maybe five or six years ago, in my sophomore class, there was a student whose vision for his relationship with me was based on Epic Rap Battles, so he wanted to throw as much shade at me as possible and hope that I would then diss him back. But that wasn’t something that he indicated through set-up, or “here’s what I’m thinking of doing for minutes.” He just stood up and started ranting about how terrible I was but in

tremendous and lengthy detail. I’m not easily offended, and I knew that he was joking, mostly. He was kind of a silly kid, anyway. I think the rest of my students were horrified and so deeply shocked and offended that for the rest of the week, every time they saw me, like coming into class, I’d see them in the halls, and they apologized for what he had said. They tried to reassure me that none of it was true. I was like, “no, no, I’m really okay,” but it was too upsetting

Manuel Ramirez (French)

Mayumi Gurung / The Spectator

Marissa Maggio (Biology) looked up, and it was one of our students who was visiting Mexico on her Girl Scouts trip. The second time it happened, I was walking down the stairs at my hotel in Hong Kong. It was eight o’clock in the morning. I was going to get my laundry from

“Super Mario Odyssey” is released on the Nintendo Switch.

the place across the street. In the lobby was the entire Stuy Robotics Team. I was walking down the stairs, and I heard, “Maggio!” I froze because it was the weirdest experience ever.

Nozima Nurullaeva / The Spectator

Emilio Nieves (English)

A kid was sitting in the back of the room, a freshman, and he had a crush on a senior, so he thought she liked older guys. So, he started drawing chest hair with a ballpoint pen all over his chest, and I said to him, “What are you doing?’” He said, “That girl likes older guys, so I want to show her how manly I am.” The funny part was all the other kids who sat in his group tried to talk him out of this, and I said “This isn’t going to work!” And then, the girl walked in because they were in the same class, and she said, “That was really cute, thanks for trying. Can I take a picture of this? My friends are never going to believe me.”

On two different international trips, I’ve run into my students. I was once in a backpackers’ village in the middle of the jungle in Tulum, Mexico with three other teachers from my school. All of a sudden, we heard, “Ms. Maggio! Mr. Falco! Ms. Bernstein!” We

Seniors have a tradition of engaging in a sort of conga line down all the floors of the school in June near the end of the last day of classes. It can be a bit rowdy, especially if you are teaching class. I don’t mind because the seniors don’t mean any harm, and they are simply letting loose four years of pent-up tension. One year, in

The Houston Astros defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games to win their first World Series in franchise history.

november

for them. They’d be like “I’m sorry about what he said. You’re not like that.” I don’t even think I dissed him in the moment. I probably said “Thank you for your minutes.” I found ways over the rest of the year. He was disappointed that I didn’t get up and start doing my own thing. It wasn’t like he was free-styling; it was more like Epic Rap Battles without the rap, or even really the epic.

the mid 2000’s, there was a male student who, for some reason, deviated from the conga line and ran into and around my classroom yelling “wooooooo” and banging on a small, hand-held drum. Nothing too strange about that except he was wearing nothing but a speedo.

“Super Mario Odyssey” is released on the Nintendo Switch.

Eight people are killed and almost a dozen injured after 22-year-old Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov plows a pickup truck down the Hudson River bicycle path next to Stuyvesant. Many students were at the scene of the horrific event, and many more shocked by the tragedy.

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Senior Caucus hosts the second annual Pep Rally.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

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Features What is the Funniest or Most Unusual Experience You’ve Had in Class? Vincent Miller (Physical Education) For my birthday last year, the softball team had gotten me a birthday cake to celebrate. They put the cake down on a chair, and I didn’t realize it, and then I sat down on the cake. They

Josina Dunkel (Social Studies) When I was student-teaching, here at Stuyvesant, I was teaching a U.S. History class on the second floor, and at the time, we taught U.S. History to seniors. So I was about five years older than the students in the class. And there was a kid in the class who just was not impressed by me, at all. Like, at all. But I finally asked a question that I guess compelled him to participate; he put up his hand, and I was so happy to call on him, and then a mouse ran across the back of the room, and I screamed and jumped up on the desk. So, he continued to not be very impressed by me. Also during one of my first years teaching here, I was showing some Sumerian art, and a student looked at it and said, “They’re all bald. Did the ancient Sumerians have a higher instance of baldness in their society?” and I was like, “Thank you for thinking that I would know the answer to that question. Hair doesn’t show up in the archaeological record, but I would imagine that it was probably pretty much the same as it was today, and they probably shaved. You just never know what people are going to ask, so you can’t necessarily anticipate.

sang me Happy Birthday, and I sat down. I was very flustered because I was in the middle of teaching class. I changed my shorts and then we tried to cut around where I had sat in it.

Heather Huhn (English) then the whole class laughed. The other moment, this year, I said the word “name tag,” but I said “taahg.” I really drew out the ‘a’ like a true Wisconsinite would, and then the whole class laughed.

Irene Mouzakitis (Mathematics) I had a student in middle school two years ago who had test anxiety. Just before every test she would run to the bathroom and throw up. She would be fine; however, I would fear she might vomit during the test, so I always

had a vomit bucket handy under my desk. Five minutes into the eighth grade math state exam, she started feeling sick and tried to hold it; I ran and pulled the bucket, and she vomited in the bucket.

Nozima Nurullaeva / The Spectator

I’m from Wisconsin, and sometimes my Wisconsin accent comes out. When I was a student-teacher, we were actually reading this book [The Master and Margarita], and I said the word “supernatural,” but it came out as “supernaahtural,” and

Apollo Rising By THIBAUD ROY A student walks into Stuyvesant’s entrance and glances at the digital clock, which reads 7:58. “Oh no, I have drafting!” he exclaims. Rushing to the two-tofour escalator, he finds it broken. He sprints up the escalator stairs and to four-to-six. Not working. In his head, he curses out the school. He doesn’t want to risk it and run up from the sixth floor to the tenth. Gasping for breath as if he’d had just finished a marathon, he walks into her drafting class. The clock reads 8:03. “There goes today’s participation points,” he says. If only he had known which escalators were working, he would’ve been on time and not sweating profusely while trying to figure out how to draw an isometric circle. The Sophomore Caucus has come up with a solution to address this issue by introducing a new online program, dubbed Apollo, aimed at reducing the time students take to get to class every day. The program tracks escalators that are working and those that are not working by crowdsourcing students at Stuyvesant. Sophomores Jesse Hall and Ivan Galakhov, Director of Information Technology for Sophomore Caucus and Assistant

to the Director of Information Technology for Sophomore Caucus, respectively, created Apollo. Wearing Supreme tees and toting secondary computer bags, Hall and Galakhov sat down to explain the creation process behind Apollo. While describing their role on Sophomore Caucus, Galakhov and Hall made it clear to me that though Hall held the position of Galakhov’s superior in the IT department, they operated more like co-directors. The two, who have been friends since middle school, explained how they both got into computer science. “English wasn’t my first language. Coding kind of helped me without interacting with people. I am extremely antisocial,” Galakhov said. “I am the social one of us. I have no reason why I got into computers. I’ve always had a way with computers,” said Hall, laughing with Galakhov. “In middle school, Jesse was well known as a computer kid. I was the weird one that didn’t talk,” Galakhov added. They smiled at each other, seemingly reminiscing on middle school. Hall’s and Galakhov’s CS skills made them good choices to lead the Sophomore Caucus IT department.

Sophomore Caucus President Vishwaa Sofat tasked the two with the project. “Sophomore Caucus wanted us to do a hardware solution initially and then changed their minds and told us to shift their resources to an online crowdsourcing solution,” Hall said. Hall and Galakhov switched their focus from a ticketing program for SU that would help with school dances and other events to Apollo. While Galakhov and Hall’s program is the first online solution, Apollo is not the first attempt at tracking working escalators. Krzysztof Hochlewicz (‘15) created a physical system to track the escalators in 2015. It involved “computer mice dangling down the escalators, and when sensors detected movements in the handrail, [the system] indicated that the escalator was [not] broken. It was the ugliest thing, and it was really delicate,” Hall described. The Sophomore Caucus IT department was tasked with improving upon this system and chose to make it purely digital. Hall and Galakhov pulled up the program on their computers. “The emojis of up and down allow students to easily identify the escalators and choose up or down.” Hall pointed out. “A lot of

“Lady Bird” is released in the United States.

The iPhone X is released for Apple’s tenth anniversary.

people who consistently give good information count more and vice versa; if people are consistently found to spam, their votes will be blocked, and their votes will be nulled by the system,” Hall said. Response to Apollo has so far been positive. “We did the SU test, and it worked pretty well. Once we have it running, there is a concern that less and less people will use it, which is why we may implement the leaderboard system and give some weekly or monthly reward,” Galakhov said. Gifts such as Chipotle or iTunes gift cards are further incentives for students to cast their votes. The link to Apollo can be accessed through a link in an e-mail sent to all Stuyvesant students and is available on iPhone and Androids. Hall and Galakhov scoffed at the concept of creating an app for the escalators. “Just pull up the link and save it to your screen,” they said. Hall and Galakhov encourage students to send information about Apollo to them on potential improvements and updates. Hall concluded, “Once this system is publicly deployed, I think it can have a positive impact on the student life of Stuyvesant and have a net effect of reducing stress on people.”

Stuyvesant’s girls’ swimming team, the Penguins, won the PSAL championship, defeating Brooklyn Technical High School 59-42.

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what we have learned during the creation process is what’s called ‘intuitive design.’ No one is going to read instructions, so it has to be completely idiot-proof. We’ve tested it on my little siblings, and they were able to use it.” Apollo gives students the option to cast a vote for ‘Working’ and ‘Not Working,’ and the current state of the escalators determined by crowd-sourcing is displayed to the right. “Even President Vishwaa was able to figure it out,” Hall tagged on with a chuckle. Apollo’s simplistic layout lets students quickly view the condition of the escalators, and in addition to ‘working’ and ‘not working,’ there is ‘broken,’ which is manually put in by Hall and Galakhov. “We have a bunch of math going on in the background that prevents random freshmen from spamming,” Hall joked. “It’s hard to topple,” Galakhov added. “If we see an influx of people voting, we can stagger it.” He wrote out the formula, f(x) = x-ln(x), which gives the weight of the vote, preventing a person from voting too much. Hall and Galakhov plan on future updates for Apollo. “We are thinking of implementing a leaderboard that lets the votes of

Former MLB pitcher, Roy “Doc” Halladay passed away in a helicopter accident at the age of 40. Halladay was a two-time Cy Young winner and threw the 20th perfect game in MLB history in 2010.

9 “The Band’s Visit” premieres on Broadway.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

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Features Manhattan Cruisin’ and Juilliard Blues By ANTA NOOR You can find Dr. Horenstein on the seventh floor either teaching about blood splatters or the biology of cells. At first glance, you would think that Dr. Horenstein’s first and only passion is science. At least, you definitely wouldn’t have thought that a forensics and biology teacher was also a secret actor! However, learning more, you’ll be surprised to find out that not only did Dr. Horenstein love acting, but also writing, and even worked as a waiter! What were you like as a child? I was very motivated to do well in school. I was always really studious and physically active as a child. I had a lot of energy, and I was out of my house as much as possible. I was always at my friends’ houses. I was always at sleepovers. I spent as little time in my home as I possibly could. What did you want to be when you were a child? I had no idea what I wanted to be. The two things, or actually the three things, I was most excited about were tennis; I played a lot of tennis. I was also a competitive swimmer. I also did a lot of creative writing (mainly poetry). I don’t think I did fiction, just mostly poetry. Then, when I was like 11 or 12, out of nowhere, I remember saying to my father that I wanted to take an acting class. Then I started doing acting on stage like in theater plays. All of that, except writing, continued through high school. What inspired you to go to Juilliard for college? I wanted to study acting. In the late ‘70s, Juilliard had three components, so you could go for music, dance, or theater. Now, they have more, but when I went, it was just for acting. Did you stay at Juilliard for four years and then graduate with an acting degree? No, I left. I dropped out my first year; I was very unhappy there. I should’ve seen it coming, because when I was deciding where to go to school, my high school

acting teacher told me not to go to Juilliard. He told me that Juilliard was a place for polishing your techniques, not learning techniques. In terms of the work of an actor, he said it wasn’t going to help me. The problem was that Juilliard was hard to turn down. Juilliard was a very famous school; it was like getting into Harvard for me. Now that I think of it, I would’ve been much happier going to a different school. One of my other problems was that the school was so small. There were only 30 kids in my school and less than 100 kids in the acting departments, and there was no housing, not even a cafeteria. There were no extracurricular activities, no outside life. As an 18-year-old, I wasn’t ready for that. I needed more of a support system than the one I got there, and that was hard for me. Do you think your acting career would’ve gone further if you went to a different school? I think that’s possible; it’s definitely not inconceivable. If I went to a different school that I enjoyed more, I might’ve also enjoyed acting more. I didn’t have someone who took my hand and helped me grow as an actor. At Sarah Lawrence [where he went after], professors were really interested and mentored you and supported you, whereas at Juilliard, it was very much sink-or-swim. I was unhappy at Juilliard for the reasons I mentioned, but I need to say that many of my fellow students were very happy there. For the right person who is 100% sure that they want to pursue a career in acting, the school can be a terrific place. For one thing, it can open up doors for you in the profession. For example, the upperclassmen put on an amazing production the year I attended that was so well received, the entire show, including all the student actors, was transplanted to the Public Theater for a run the following summer. Pretty awesome. Yet, that’s why I told my students early on that it’s not good to choose schools based on reputation. You have to find a school that’s the best fit for you; I might’ve been happier at NYU than I was at Juilliard. Are you still acting in any way? Actually, I stopped for a while

after dropping out of Juilliard, but then about 4 years ago, for some reason someone actually suggested, “Hey, have you ever thought of taking an acting class?” and it just clicked for me. Then, I started taking acting classes again, on and off for four years now, mostly during the summer, and I really enjoy it. It’s sad to me that I let it go for as long as I did. What happened after Juilliard? So I left Juilliard and transferred to Sarah Lawrence but not the year after. I took a gap year and worked as a waiter and lived the city life. I found an apartment in Manhattan, which was really cool, because at this time, a waiter could live in Manhattan on their salary. I was living on Carmine Street, which is in the heart of the village. I was sharing an apartment with two others, an NYU law student and a guy who was struggling to be an actor, and I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I was also taking dance classes, because I had an amazing movement teacher. I loved it so much that when I left Juilliard, I took ballet and modern dance classes while working as a waiter. Then, I went to Sarah Lawrence, and my focus was still the arts and humanities, not science. Sarah Lawrence has an amazing creative writing program, so the first class I took was a fiction writing class taught by a very young writer at the time, and this was his first gig, and he was amazing. What did you like about Sarah Lawrence? I liked Sarah Lawrence because it had a lot of support, and I liked the students a lot. They were very quirky, interesting, and very much their own people. When I went to high school, everyone was trying to conform, but at Sarah Lawrence, it was like a bunch of misfits. It was people that didn’t fit anywhere else but fit in at Sarah Lawrence. They were just really smart, interesting people. The class size was also really small. You would sit around in a table, and every class would be a seminar class. You’d be sitting around at your table drinking coffee talking to your teacher. The other cool thing about Sarah Lawrence was that everything is divided into

two components. One component is the classwork, and the other component is working intensely on your individual projects. Every week you meet for a half hour with the teacher, and you work on your individual project, so professors and students get a lot of facetime, which was really great for me. When did you become interested in biology? At Sarah Lawrence, I had a really amazing biology teacher. After I graduated, I was like, “What am I going to do with myself ?” Then, out of the blue I was like, “I want to be a biochemist.” When I graduated, I went back to being a waiter, and I was living in the Hell’s Kitchen area. I went to take classes at Hunter and took all the classes I never took like genetics and biochemistry, and this is where I got all my undergrad science credits. I took what was needed to get into a PhD program in biology. I was really enjoying it, and I thought maybe medical school, but that didn’t really interest me, so I thought the PhD program sounded like fun. I still wanted to stay in the city, so I ended up going to Columbia. How long were you at Columbia? I was at Columbia for a while, longer than I should have been. It took me 10 years to get my PhD, which was longer than it should’ve taken me. One problem was that after my second year, my thesis advisor left the school, so I had to start all over again. My next advisor―it didn’t work out―I wasn’t happy with him, and I was with him for over a year. Then, when I finally got settled into a lab I liked, it was the beginning of my fourth year. I also changed my subject from biochemistry to biophysics. I had to learn some new stuff, and all that took around 10 years. When did you decide to go into teaching? When I was doing my postdoctoral work, I realized I didn’t want to be a researcher. One of the reasons was because I wanted something that was more social, and I found research to be very lonely, and I wanted something more interactive. Also, the funding was so bad for grants that biology

jobs were extremely hard to get, and you would have to leave New York, and I wasn’t willing to do that. So, those were the two major reasons why I didn’t stay in research. I wanted to do something social, and I liked kids, so I joined the New York City Teaching Fellows program and that’s how I ended up teaching. Where was your first teaching job? I really wanted to work with middle school students. I ended up at a small middle school in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn that’s no longer in existence. I realized that I wasn’t really using my biology background, so I went to one of the Urban Assembly high schools, and while I was there, there was an ad for a job here at Stuy. I applied and got the job and started working September of 2012. What do you teach at Stuy? I teach Advanced Topics in Biology, which is one of the freshman biology courses, and I also teach Forensics. What do students learn in Forensics? Forensics is the science of crime solving. It could be fingerprints, taking fingerprints, blood splattering patterns, DNA evidence, hair evidence, toxicology, autopsies, or handwriting analysis. Any other future plans? I’m not planning to go back to school anytime soon. I am in the Math for America program, which is a fellowship for math and science teachers to get more experience, and I go about 10 times a year. I do plan to continue taking acting classes but am definitely not planning to go back to school. Dr. Horenstein definitely had an eventful life from waiting tables to acting to taking science classes and becoming a biology teacher here at Stuyvesant. However, one of the most important takeaways from this interview is how Dr. Horenstein chose happiness in the end by choosing a career he loves and can still learn about to this day.

Things You Never Knew About Mr. Tamosaitis But Always Wanted to Ask By VERONIKA KOWALSKI Music teacher Joseph Tamosaitis can be seen strolling around the first floor with his briefcase in hand. Soft-spoken but brilliant, after earning a full scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music, Tamosaitis decided to pursue a career in teaching. It was never a conscious decision to have music in his life; music always had to be in his life. As a five-year-old, Tamosaitis was naturally drawn to the piano. Though his parents encouraged him to play, his drive came from

within himself. At 11 years old, as soon as Tamosaitis auditioned for the East Northport Junior High School Orchestra in Long Island, his teacher Dr. Robert Padgett committed him to the double bass. There weren’t any double bass players in the orchestra, and Dr. Padgett saw inherent ability in Tamosaitis. “I really did not want to play the double bass,” he said. “But it became my main instrument.” As a result, Tamosaitis was introduced to future Ithaca College Orchestra conductor Henry G. Neubert, who gave him private lessons on the double

Roy Moore’s #MeToo scandal begins The Washington Post reports on allegations by four women that GOP Senate Candidate Judge Roy Moore made sexual advances toward them when they were teenagers. Moore loses his Senate campaign on December 12.

bass. Additionally, the humorous Professor Isaac Nemiroff of Stony Brook University taught him how to compose music. “Nemiroff was a very kind of encouraging and loving teacher. When he liked something you wrote, he’d say, ‘You really did it this time!’ in a way that may anger people,” Tamosaitis mused. “A lot of composers are like that. They’re really blunt. They really are.” While still in high school, Tamosaitis played in the prestigious New York String Orchestra’s Christmas Eve seminar at Carnegie Hall. The principal cellist was

15-year-old Yo Yo Ma, who later put out 75 albums and won 18 Grammy awards. “Yo Yo was always so clever, and he knew it. But he became a completely different person after he went to Harvard,” Tamosaitis explained. As a teenager, Yo Yo Ma enjoyed causing minor mischief. It wasn’t until Ma entered Harvard that he took music more seriously. “Most of what I learned for music, I learned it in high school. Most of what you learn will be from high school. When I went to Juilliard, I was doing the same things, maybe using the same techniques in a more advanced way, surrounded

10 “Reputation” by Taylor Swift is released.

continued on page 19

“Coco” is released in the United States.

The Homeless Coalition, in addition to the Wellness Council, host Stuyvesant’s second annual Homeless Coalition Charity Run.

by people who played better. The teachers you have when you’re younger are more important. By the time you’re 17, you’re pretty much formed. And high school teachers—they do all the work. They really put you in the right direction,” Tamosaitis said. “It’s a tough job. It’s a frustrating job.”

21 “Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp” is released on iOS and Android.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

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Features By TALIA KAHAN AP season has just ended, and students who took APs are relieved; and so is the Assistant Principal of Organization, Dr. Gary Haber, who organized the AP tests. But besides administering AP tests, who is Dr. Haber, and what is his role at the school? Dr. Haber grew up in Middlesex County, New Jersey, where he went through the public education system. He attended Rutgers University, where he studied human biology. From there, Dr. Haber began working as a chiropractor in the Financial District of Manhattan. For a while, he was content with that job, but after witnessing the events of 9/11 first-hand, Dr. Haber decided that he wanted to work with people and help others more directly. “[9/11 was] the one stopping point. You look at your whole life; this could have been over today, being that I was right there. Right there,” he said. So, when he saw a New York City Department of Education advertisement in the New York Times for math and science teachers, he knew that he wanted to apply. Dr. Haber mentioned that one incentive for applying was he wanted to do something for New York City, especially after the tragic events of 9/11 that had occurred a few years earlier. Dr. Haber explained, “It’s not the same as the Peace Corps, but it felt like I have an opportunity here, and I had the credentials that they want, exactly what they want.” Dr. Haber was initially accepted into the Teaching Fellows program for a two-year contract but ended up teaching for five years. During those first five years, he taught at the Bayard Rustin Educational Complex, which is better known as the Humanities Educational Complex. Now, the building houses six different public schools, but it only held one during Dr. Haber’s time there. He taught different science classes at the complex, including Living Environment, sustainability, psychology, physical science, and bioethics. Dr. Haber tremendously enjoyed teaching and especially loved teaching freshmen. “People said [that] they wanted the 12th graders. I said, ‘I’ll take the

ninth graders.’ They talk the most, but they are so much fun,” Dr. Haber explained. He also noted that students tended to drift away after their freshman year but then return to him their senior year. Dr. Haber explained that despite the common misconception that teaching is all about a teacher’s knowledge of the subject material, the teacher’s relationship with the students also has a large contribution to his or her overall success as a teacher. On a similar note, his most gratifying experiences were not always related to the material. “It’s not a content thing—it’s about building relationships with young people […] I can teach science, but it’s working with people, developing relationships, developing rapport with people. That’s what makes this so rewarding,” Dr. Haber noted. In the middle of his years of teaching, Dr. Haber began spending multiple periods a day working on administrative tasks, such as setting budgets, purchasing, and procurement. He loves administration and feels that it is very natural for him. He explained, “Administration or operations is all about aligning resources to get the best possible educational result. It’s all about how you use your resources […] There are so many different constituencies—students [and] parents asking, ‘What do you think is the best possible result?’ and then budgeting accordingly and managing.” Another reason administrative tasks came so easily to Dr. Haber was because he had previous experience with technological applications, such as Microsoft Excel. Now, almost everybody knows how to use Excel, but at the beginning of Dr. Haber’s administrative journey, that was a rare skill. After teaching and working as an administrator at the Humanities Educational Complex, Dr. Haber was invited to work as Assistant Principal at the Hudson High School of Learning Technologies by the then-principal of Hudson High School; that principal had previously been directing the Humanities Educational Complex. Dr. Haber worked at Hudson High School for six years. Dr. Haber was pleasantly

Anna Yuan / The Spectator

Hanging With Haber

surprised when he learned that Principal Eric Contreras was interested in having him interview for a job at Stuyvesant. He recounted, “[Contreras] reached out to my former principal. [Hudson’s principal] said, ‘I have to talk to you. […] Sit down, Dr. Haber […] They asked you to interview to work at Stuyvesant.’ You can imagine; it came out of nowhere for me.” Dr. Haber applied, got the job of Assistant Principal of Organization, and began working at the beginning of the second semester this year. Though Dr. Haber knew that Stuyvesant was going to be different from the previous schools he had worked at, he was not ready for the culture-shock he would face here. He explained, “There’s no question, the first three weeks I had to find my legs. The title is Assistant Principal Organization and Operations. I have experience with this. But coming into a new school, it’s a different culture. […] There’s a different ethos here. There’s a normalization of serious academics here.” Dr. Haber elaborated that here, it is commonplace and accepted to be

a nerd, a situation he had never encountered before. In fact, he noted that he is not entirely comfortable even using the term “nerd.” As Assistant Principal of Organization, Dr. Haber has many different responsibilities. For one, he manages the budget, procurement, compliance, supervision, and payroll. Another large part of Dr. Haber’s job is managing the AP and Regents testing schedule. For those tests, Dr. Haber explained that it is his job to make sure that everything runs smoothly, therefore allowing the students to achieve their best possible score. He explained, “We try to do everything that we can to ensure the best possible testing conditions, so they don’t have to focus on anything other than what they have to do.” During AP and Regents season, Dr. Haber circulates through rooms, making sure that all problems are being taken care of. For Dr. Haber, the biggest challenge at Stuyvesant is the sheer number of students. This is still an issue for him even though a job that might normally be done by one person at other smaller schools

is split among three at Stuyvesant (Brain Moran, Casey Pedrick, and Dr. Haber). He explained, “If I send out an email, and one percent of the student body responds to me, that’s still a lot.” Dr. Haber has been learning that even though he wants to, he can’t work on every small issue and problem that comes up. “You have to make decisions and move on to the next decision,” he said. “There’s no time. Based on all the information you have at that time, you make your decision and move forward.” Despite Dr. Haber’s busy life at Stuyvesant (his typical day begins at 6:30 a.m.), he still tries to make time to spend with his wife and threeyear-old son. Dr. Haber described, “Principally, I try to spend my time reading to [my son]. Now, it’s light out. First we exercise, and then we read.” Soon, he hopes that they will be able to make it out to his house in Pennsylvania and visit his parents in the Jersey Shore area. As for spending time alone, Haber loves bicycling and reading.

Things You Never Knew About Mr. Tamosaitis But Always Wanted to Ask continued from page 18

Once he graduated from Juilliard, one of Tamosaitis’s first teaching jobs was at Ardsley Middle School in Westchester, New York. He taught a compulsory music appreciation class. Most of the students were animated, but there was one student who sat at the back of the class who did not speak as much. He was blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and lanky. More than a decade after the child graduated from Ardsley Middle School, Tamosaitis saw his picture on the news. “I know that

kid,” Tamosaitis said. He “hadn’t changed much at all.” The student was Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Tamosaitis started teaching at Stuyvesant in 1999. There was an opening for a position because chorus teacher Holly Hall left to sing in the Vienna State Opera. Tamosaitis knew Bernard Lieberman, the principal at the time since the 1970s, as a fellow bass player. “It was a lot of fun,” Tamosaitis recalled. “I didn’t know it would be so natural.” Before then, Tamosaitis had taught students in middle school, in college, and in special education

programs. “There’s no way of really comparing Stuyvesant,” Tamosaitis emphasized. “It’s so different.” Tamosaitis featured the Symphonic String Orchestra in the Spring Concert on Friday, May 4. When asked about his favorite part of the performance, Tamosaitis replied, “The Bottesini,” without missing a beat. Giovanni Bottesini’s “Grand Duo Concertante” was chosen by senior Max Chan, who played the solo part for the double bass along with junior Sean Takada on the violin. Their flawless execution of even the most challenging parts of the piece stunned the audience as well as the rest of the orchestra.

“Spongebob Squarepants” premieres on Broadway.

december

StuyHacks hosts the hackathon Local Hack Day, with over 250 students across the city in attendance.

“More people should have come to the concert,” Tamosaitis revealed. “There weren’t many people there in the audience, did you see? But we sounded really good. More people should come.” By the end of the evening, the audience was thinning, but the atmosphere was electric. Tamosaitis had invited former math teacher Dr. Robert Maksudian to be a guest conductor for Alan Hovhaness’ Psalm and Fugue. This was a pioneering act, but because of Dr. Maksudian’s love of music and the teachers’ longstanding friendship, the piece was a great success. When Tamosaitis isn’t teaching music theory or conducting his or-

chestra, he spends time with his wife, Colleen. He met her at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he taught the double bass. She was a student of former principal flute player Alexander Murray of the London Symphony Orchestra. “Being a New Yorker at UrbanaChampaign, it was really lonely. But we became close friends. We were well suited for each other. She has a sense of what’s good and what’s not, musically. There’s no fooling her,” Tamosaitis remarked.

United States recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel President Donald Trump announces the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, spurring talks about the possible movement of the U.S. Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The German Pop Duo Die Loches, comprised of 18-year-old twin brothers Roman and Heiko Lochmann, performs in the Murray Kahn Theatre. They were invited by Goethe Institute to promote the German language and culture.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

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Features A Recollection of the Sleep-Deprived Days By JANE ZHENG and LAI WA CHU Stuyvesant teachers can be unpredictable—they might surprise the class with an assignment that takes an entire night to complete, or they might allow flexible deadlines for a certain project. Even though these teachers have to be authoritative and uphold certain classroom rules, they do have more to share, including the relatable experiences they have had, and the advice they give from once being high school students themselves. When asked about what characteristics she shares with her students, biology teacher Marissa Maggio replied, “Procrastination.” As a teacher of freshman biology and Urban Ecology, she relates

to her students’ motivations of “try[ing] to find that moment to irritate teachers.” She also recounted, “I would very much wait till the last minute, stay up all night and cram [...] redo papers five times, because I didn’t think it was good the first time, [...] [and] obsess over every point on a test.” For her students, it is hard to imagine that she was once like them. She admitted to “all of the things [she] makes fun of [her] students for,” she said. However, she also understands the struggles Stuyvesant students go through on a daily basis. “I understand where they’re coming from, but it still makes me laugh,” she said. On the other hand, Mandarin teacher Xue Pan offered a different quality she relates to in Stuyvesant

students: being responsible. She tries to be responsible to her students in her teaching and with her materials, just as how a number of her students are responsible for their own actions and academics. Having attended a specialized high school in China, Pan had a similar experience to Stuyvesant students. She shared, “High school was very similar to Stuy. Students were super competitive. I felt like I was under a lot of pressure and stress.” With that similar parallelism and training, Pan easily identified with her students. She said, “I can understand how they feel, because [...] I have been there. I can see why someone had a bad day, or why sometimes they shut down.” Biology teacher Jessica Quenzer

also shared a similar experience in high school. Having once being extremely obsessed with grades as many Stuyvesant students are, Quenzer said that she would tell her past self, “Go to parties.” Up to this point, all of the teachers interviewed fit a category of the Stuyvesant stereotype. Surprisingly, SPARK director Angel Colon did not relate. “I was never like this,” Colon admitted. He further elaborated that his work years at Stuyvesant were more of a “redoing” of his high school career. Though their high school days are over, these teachers are surrounded by students who have entered the same cycle of balancing grades, friends, and activities. Pan notices all the stress

that her students go through, but she confidently said, “I won’t be like, ‘Oh, what would happen to my students?’ I [know] they [are] going to be okay.” She also offered a final piece of advice: “As long as [the students] have faith in themselves and can pick themselves up from where they were left, they will be okay.” Colon gives his students the same advice. As a counselor, Colon has seen the type of situations students get themselves into. He recollected students having been influenced by both negative and positive things, but even so, “You survive those experiences,” he said.

By TASFIA RAHMAN and MATYLDA URBANIAK Most of us haven’t considered learning awesome since kindergarten, when all we were learning were addition and spelling words. To the rescue came Kahoot!, promising to make learning fun. First launched in August 2013 in Norway, Kahoot!, a gamebased learning platform that uses competitive trivia to teach students, had already amassed 50 million monthly users just four years later. Known for its quirky music and leaderboard features, the website has become a sort of cultural phenomenon, with one game played over livestream in May 2017 having more than 10,000 players. Despite only being around for a few years, many of Stuyvesant’s teachers prefer using Kahoot! as a way of reviewing material before an exam to conventional methods, such as handing out review packets. Freshman geometry teacher Anthony Del Latto said, “It’s something that’s really good for review sessions because that’s what I use it for, and I’ve found a lot of success with that. And the kids really love it.” He first learned about Kahoot! from multiple students in his double period geometry class. After listening to the suggestions of his students and using it in his classroom, Del Latto admitted, “For multiple choice questions, it is a legitimate form of assessment.” However, as Kahoot! does not include a short response setting, Del Latto does not use it frequently. Despite this shortcoming, Del Latto enjoys the fact that he can see results in real time within minutes. He explained that Kahoot! allows his students to see which multiple choice questions were particularly difficult and the common mistakes made by students. He stated, “When the percentages pop up on the smartboard, [students] can see that a certain number of students got [a question] correct or incorrect. We can talk about what errors

they might have made in the multiple choice questions. It helps students recognize where they might have gone wrong.” As Kahoot! is easy to use and has quick results, Del Latto recommends using Kahoot! to other teachers. He clarified, “It’s good to use in a review session, but I don’t think it’s something you should use every single day.” Though Kahoot! may particularly lend itself to math questions due to the time limit ensuring quick thinking on the part of the students, chemistry teacher Kenneth Kan has found that its format is also helpful for teaching his students chemistry. Kan is no stranger to the world of creative review methods. Prior to using Kahoot! for review, he used Jeopardy!, which is similar to Kahoot! in that it is a competitive trivia question game. However, the similarities stop there. “Jeopardy! is much more difficult to monitor because Kahoot! is a computer-based program. I used to play Jeopardy!, and I put the kids in groups to answer the questions. The problem with Jeopardy! is that if one person knows all of the answers, then the other people on their team can just leech off of them. That’s what I like about Kahoot!; it measures what one person knows,” Kan said. “I also used to do turn-based Jeopardy!, where there was no ringing in of the answers, but the kids didn’t like that.” Kan first learned about Kahoot! two years ago from another teacher. After trying Kahoot! once, he realized that it was the superior way of reviewing with students and began to use it all the time, getting other teachers to use the website. “Kahoot! gives them an idea of the types of questions that are going to be on the exam. Practice questions teach students about the language of the questions, and they need to get used to the language of the questions [in order to do well]. One thing I like about Kahoot! is that you can review the questions

Jason Lin / The Spectator

Kahoot! Culture

that you got wrong at home, since I can send out the link to the Kahoot! to the entire class,” Kan said. However, Kahoot! itself is only part of what makes the system so useful for Kan. “I give extra credit to students who make the leaderboard, so the top five students from the Kahoot!. It really makes everyone take the game more seriously,” Kan laughed. Sophomore Nicole Zheng enjoys using Kahoot! in class in order to review for exams. She explained, “I do learn more when using Kahoot! because it provides me with a better understanding of what I know and don’t know about the topic. The mistakes I make help me focus more on my weak points so that I can improve and do well on the test.” Freshman Vicky Shiu agreed with Zheng. “It allows students to learn more effectively when used in the classroom, at least for me in my biology class where some topics are so difficult to comprehend. Kahoot! is an interactive activity that encourages a competitive environment. The competition only gives motivation for students to understand the topic better in order to beat their friends,” she said. Zheng revealed, “It’s exciting because of the competition that comes with it. This helps me stimulate my brain to think faster and prepare better for my tests.”

Not everyone adores Kahoot! to the extent that Zheng does. Sophomore Joseph Yu thinks that Kahoot! is effective, but he dislikes the competitive nature. He pointed out, “Kahoot! is taken too seriously by some people. But overall, it’s a fun learning experience that does a good job at reinforcing what we learn in class. Everyone looks forward to it.” Yu has also noticed a disparity in the teachers that use Kahoot! in their classrooms. He said, “Generally, the teachers in easier classes tend to use Kahoot! while the teachers in the more difficult classes don’t, which annoys me sometimes.” Students do not just use Kahoot! in the classroom. Sophomore Caroline Magoc has put herself in the role of the teacher and uses Kahoot!. As the co-president of Stuyvesant Geography Club, she works to tutor freshmen taking AP Human Geography. In fact, she first learned about it herself from Kan’s class. “[When] using it for a teaching club, it’s more for confirming that students understand something than preparing for a test. Also, since we tend not to make our own Kahoot!’s, sometimes the information can be wrong or misleading, and we have to step in and correct it, so Kahoot! isn’t the most accurate source for learning but can be

very useful nonetheless,” Magoc explained. Kahoot! lets all users create their own games, so it’s important to fact check any quizzes, just like Wikipedia. “I prefer it over other tools because it’s quick, easy to set up, and usually covers most of the information needed,” Magoc concluded. She believes that by using Kahoot!, she has been able to become a much more effective teacher. Kahoot! is already working on creating new ways to continue educating children, including a homework app launched last year. While the beta version of this app is currently only available in Norway, Kahoot! plans to expand this service to educators outside of its country within the next two years, letting them assign homework consisting of Kahoot! quizzes. Partnering with Kaplan to provide test prep services, having more and more teachers become aware of the system, and seeing the success of Del Latto and Kan’s students, Kahoot! is going to become even more prominent in education. Hopefully, they’ll be able to convince more teachers to use the program so that we can all spend as much time as possible listening to the sweet jams of the question music.

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is released in the United States.

15 8

The Spectator publishes a piece containing controversial statistics on cheating, to be noticed by the New York Post in January.

SHINee’s Jonghyun (Kim Jong-hyun) commits suicide.

“The Shape of Water” is released in the United States.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

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Features

STUYVESANT3 By TALIA KAHAN and ZOE OPPENHEIMER As you walk down the halls of Stuyvesant, you might notice small glass cubes: some empty and some filled. These cubes are part of the StuyCubed program, also called Stuyvesant Mnemonics, and include blocks that commemorate previous Stuyvesant graduating classes and historical landmarks, such as the Great Wall of China and the World Trade Center. StuyCubed started as an effort to remember the building that housed Stuyvesant before the school’s move to its current location and the history of Stuyvesant. The two lead artists, Kristen Jones and Andrew Ginzel, were involved with the project from the planning stage of the new building’s construction. Parent Coordinator Dina Ingram, who plays a large part in the revamping of StuyCubed, described, “They [Jones and Ginzel] were here from the very start when they had the structure done and made actual blueprints of the location of every single block, every floor, where [the blocks are] on each floor and in the wall.” The intention of StuyCubed was to memorialize the first 85 years of Stuyvesant and provide a

means to continue the history of the school. In the 1992 document explaining the purpose of the cubes, Jones and Ginzel state that the ultimate goal of Stuyvesant Mnemonics was “to endow the new Stuyvesant High School, first of all with the essence of its own history, secondly with a distinct sense of the extraordinary riches, raw materials, and curiosities that establish the basis of knowledge, and finally, to give to successive generations so that they might reflect on the significance of their time and have the opportunity to make their own contributions to the visual history.” When the cubes were first installed, it was decided that they would be divided into four categories: the history of Stuyvesant, artifacts from the old Stuyvesant building, artifacts from the world at large, and empty cubes to be filled by the next 88 years of Stuyvesant students. In addition to memorializing previous Stuyvesant graduating classes, StuyCubed also teaches small, often forgotten, pieces of Stuyvesant history. Ingram explained, “I did not know that there was a fire in the original building [...] You learn a lot about the history of Stuyvesant, like how far back SING! goes.”

Recently, beginning in the early 2000s, many of the graduating classes stopped filling their cubes. After doing a sweep of the building, Ingram realized that “[The StuyCubed Administration] has 10 individual alum years to track down.” Some cubes have also been damaged after 9/11 and the wear and tear of the building. In order to begin revitalizing StuyCubed, Ingram put together a team: Matt Polazzo, Kerry Trainor, the Stuyvesant High School (SHS) Alumni Association, Casey Pedrick, and Leslie Bernstein. When Polazzo, the Coordinator of Student Affairs, found out about the empty cubes, he knew that he wanted to play a part in revamping StuyCubed. He described, “It was always really frustrating to me that there were blocks that were going unfilled. At that same time, many of the artists found out, and they were also frustrated. I thought that our frustrations could join together, and get them filled for once.” Polazzo’s role along with the SHS Alumni Association’s will be to contact all alumni whose blocks have not been filled. Polazzo’s first success came on Friday, May 25, when the class of 2006 came to fill their cube. YanJie Hou (‘06), the Chief of Operations of the Stuyvesant

Alumni Association and an ‘06 graduate, explained in an e-mail interview that “it was a grade-wide effort [of the people in the 2006 Facebook group] but very much spearheaded by [their] senior class president, Mike Kimlat. Mike asked for ideas from [the] Facebook group of what were representative items or memorabilia from [their] times at Stuyvesant […] Mike was the one who gathered all of the items and brought [them] to Stuy to assemble.” Geometry teacher David Peng (‘06) added that there had been a previous, unsuccessful effort in 2012 to fill the cube and the initiative had only been continued in the 2017-2018 school year. Their cube contains the 2006 senior t-shirt as the background, a Stuyvesant Advantage card (a card which offered discounts for Stuyvesant students to various restaurants and stores in the neighborhood), the back of an ID that showed a second semester senior schedule, a 2006 graduation tassel, a pin displaying Conan O’Brien, the graduation speaker for this class, shrunken copies of this class’s SING pamphlet, and a prom souvenir. Ingram has taken steps to ensure that StuyCubed will not be forgotten in the future. She

has made it a senior class activity to fill the cube. She said, “The senior class president will now be starting to find out what they want to put in the block. When the new freshmen come in at Camp Stuy they will be shown their place.” Ingram also hopes to work with the Big Sib program to incorporate a scavenger hunt designed by Biology teachers Marianne Prabhu. Prabhu’s scavenger hunt, which she did with her freshman classes earlier this year, uses the cubes. Prabhu explained why she created the scavenger hunt in an e-mail interview: “Last year, I realized that students didn’t know a lot about the history of Stuyvesant, so we used the cubes as an icebreaker to find specific artifacts in different areas of the building.” Polazzo, too, wants to institutionalize the filling of the cube. He explained, “I want it to become a large part of the senior activities. The artists proposed, and I agree, that it would be like a block party, and there would be an unveiling. I want people to start thinking about their blocks by the time they are freshmen.” Next time you walk by a small, 6’’ by 6’’ glass cube, be sure to look inside and discover an old—or a new—part of Stuyvesant’s history!

2018 End of TPS for Salvadoran Immigrants President Trump announces the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Salvadoran immigrants.

The Big Sib Chairs implement a series of new bylaws, addressing concerns with how members and chairs are chosen and removed.

january

7 The 75th Golden Globe Awards are held.

The Language Department begins its annual International Film Festival, with many different movies from various cultures being displayed after school. The event lasts until January 19.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

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Features From Stuyvesant Student to Nobel Prize Laureate: Dr. Richard Axel By AMANDA YAGERMAN, CLAIRE TEMPELMAN, and TASFIA RAHMAN A desk piled with research papers, a wall of whiteboards covered in nearly-illegible formulas and calculations, and shelf upon shelf overflowing with novels: this is what you’ll find in the office of Dr. Richard Axel (‘63), a Nobel Laureate in the field of Physiology or Medicine. His office may seem overwhelming, but behind the office door is a humble and deeply passionate scientist: Dr. Axel, and his student, Linda Buck, who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize for their research and subsequent discoveries about the fascinating and complex connections between smell and the brain. Years at Stuyvesant Raised in Brooklyn in a family of Polish immigrants who’d never finished high school, Dr. Axel was grateful for the opportunities Stuyvesant offered him when he entered the school in 1959. He reflected, “This world of knowledge that Stuyvesant afforded me was an absolutely spectacular experience. I just tried to enjoy learning because it was the first time I was in an environment where I got the feeling that knowledge has value unto itself and was not necessarily an end unto itself and not a means to an end. And I embraced it; I really loved it.” While describing the environment at Stuyvesant, Dr. Axel was reminded of the people he met there. In awe, he characterized them as “the smartest and most interesting group of people that [he had] ever been surrounded by.” He further recounted, “I went from Stuyvesant to Columbia College to Johns Hopkins Medical School. And I really feel that the students in Stuyvesant were more balanced [and] more intelligent than [those] in any of my subsequent educational

experiences.” Though Dr. Axel is deeply engrossed in the sciences now, he was particularly inclined toward American Literature and basketball as a teenager. When asked about his favorite class, he replied, “I was particularly fascinated by literature. The great old threepiece suited teacher named Lowenthal taught me American Literature, something I’ve stayed with my entire life. I minored in English at Columbia, followed this interest in American Literature, and still maintain it.” Dr. Axel also played basketball during his time at Stuyvesant—but, he claimed, he began to play more because of his height than his superior athleticism. He explained, “I was starting center because I was tall and most of these boys were shorter.” Nonetheless, Dr. Axel enjoyed the game, and has fond memories of his time on the team, including one particular exhibition game. Dr. Axel recalled that the opposing team’s starting center was about seven feet tall, but the significantly shorter Axel had to guard him. He said, “For the first seven to 10 minutes of the game, he scored 18 points, and I didn’t get to touch the ball […] I was wearing thick glasses, and he had a wingspan of about 20 feet!” After finally getting the ball, Axel tried to maneuver several times but couldn’t. That was when the starting center said, “What you gonna do, Einstein?” This tall stranger was none other than Lewis Alcindor, A.K.A. Kareem Abdul Jabbar, one of the greatest basketball players who ever lived. But Dr. Axel’s favorite part of this story took place much more recently: “I met him at a dinner about 5 years ago, and I recounted the story to him. And he looked down at me, and he said, ‘I don’t remember,’” Dr. Axel said. Axel reflected on what had become

of the two since that high school game. “Here he was, a man who went on to become perhaps the greatest basketball player ever, and I went on to become a neuroscientist. Who, I asked, had the greater degree of ecstasy?” he said. Dr. Axel revealed his unending gratitude to Stuyvesant for teaching him more than what would later become his major. “Not because of the science, but because [Stuyvesant] taught me the value of knowledge and learning, the excitement,” he said. Falling in Love with Science Dr. Axel realized that he wanted to pursue science in 1967 during his college years, when scientists discovered that the gene was made from DNA. Smiling, he recalled, “Experiments from others, people far brighter than I, that this magical substance called the gene actually was made of DNA.” His fondness of the memory reveals his initial spark of curiosity that is visible in his work today. “DNA consisted of a sequence of only four component bases, and the information contained within a gene was encoded by that sequence. So there had to be a code. So you could decode the gene,” he continued. “And it was at that moment in ‘67 that the genetic code was being deciphered. It was so exciting to think that one could actually read the information of the chromosome. And it was that I think that sent me over the edge.” To this day, Dr. Axel remains appreciative and humbled by the field of science. “I don’t have any regrets going into science. Science has been very good to me. I have the greatest job in the world because I have freedom. I get to do what I enjoy.” This job includes continuing his extensive research of the olfactory system as well as teaching and studying alongside

students at the Columbia University Medical Center, where his lab is based. Winning the Nobel Prize Dr. Axel won the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for answering the question of perception: “How is it that you could recognize and identify this vast universe of chemicals that we define as odors? With a chromosome that consisted solely of perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 genes, how could you possibly identify the universe of odors, which is a much larger number?” He and Buck were able to answer this question by conducting a series of experiments on mice. Through the experiments, they determined that about six percent of the human chromosome is dedicated to encoding odors. When Dr. Axel found out he won the Nobel Prize, he didn’t believe it at first. He got the call around 3 o’clock in the morning while in San Francisco with his then-fiancée, now-wife. “She said, ‘It can’t be true; it must be a friend of yours just pulling your leg,’” he said. However, after checking the Nobel Prize website, he and his wife finally believed he won. “So that’s how much confidence she had in me,” Dr. Axel said, laughing. However, despite his achievement, Dr. Axel never forgot who he was. “It’s a marvelous experience; you go to Sweden, and you’re treated with such respect, and you’re a star for a week. But, the important thing is to remember who you really are: you’re a scientist. You were a star because you took so much pleasure in the doing of science. So, it was a great experience, but you can’t let it dictate who you are.” He took out an unassuming box and opened it, showing us his Nobel Prize. After a few minutes of looks of pure astonishment on our faces, he laughed. “It came in a nice box,” he said before placing it into a cabinet and

proceeding to tell us his plans for the future. Though he is genuinely grateful for an acknowledgement at such a level, he expressed how at the end of the day, he is just a scientist, and there is always more work to be done. Looking Ahead When asked about his plans for the future, Dr. Axel replied instantly with a renewed vigor. It was clear to see that he was truly a scientist for the sake for knowledge and not fame. “We understand how it is that every one of perhaps millions of odors has unique representation—an identifier in the brain. But the question we are now trying to understand is far more complex. That is: ‘How is meaning imposed on representation of neural activity?” he said. He is eager to explore this new question along with the opportunity to share the process with the next generation, his students at Columbia. He explained, “It’s particularly nice to share a Nobel Prize with one of your fellows or students.” Dr. Axel not only shares the credit for his work with others, but also insists he has very little to do with the progress made; he shared his Nobel Prize win with Linda Buck but insisted, “She did it. I didn’t do anything. She succeeded in identifying the receptors through a very, very clever series of experiments. I won’t detail them, but they were really clever. I was impressed.” Dr. Axel can’t wait to get closer to solving the puzzle he’s spent his career studying and to work on it with today’s brightest young minds. “I’m older, and I can address these more esoteric problems that may take a very long time to understand,” Dr. Axel said. “So my students will understand if I can help them to move in the right direction. It’s a problem for the next generation.”

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“Call Me by Your Name” is released in the United States.

“Culture II” by Migos is released.

19 12 “Camila” by Camila Cabello is released, marking her solo debut album.

The Freshman Caucus hosts a speaker event featuring professor Leo Tilman as part of its new lecture series initiative. This marks the beginning of a long line of speaker events with a variety of speakers and topics.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

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The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

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Editorials STAFF EDITORIAL

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

A Brief Year in Review This isn’t the first time we’re choosing to forego a traditional staff editorial. But after this year—after a year of living through and reporting on the October 31 terrorist attack right outside our doors, of participating in a national walkout out in memory of the fallen students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, of running to Jupioca

the day of its grand opening, of getting photos with Die Loches, of watching Real Madrid win its third consecutive Champions League and cheering on the girls’ swim team as they secured another city championship— it has become clear to us that our lives have become increasingly less about us as high school students and more about our lives

as teenagers trying to figure out where we stand in this scary and empowering thing we call life. We hope that we have been able to capture the spirit of living in concentric global, local, and personal circles through our reporting this past semester (and through the timeline of the past year you’ll find running through this issue).

By MICHAEL DEKHTYAR “The shooter’s motive is not yet known.” This is a phrase which has appeared a demoralizing amount of times in American media over the past decade. Almost every time it is uttered, it is in reference to yet another mass shooting. It also provokes discussion of another, more complex question, one that divides the country in half each time it is asked: “What can be done about gun violence?” To get anywhere with this question, both sides of the aisle must find a common ground through statistics and empirical evidence. Undoubtedly, these are the two most powerful weapons in the arsenal of any commentator or debater, no matter the issue. So which side do data and history favor? Let’s start with some backstory. The 1996 omnibus spending bill included a provision called the Dickey Amendment, which mandated that funds for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) could not be used to promote the cause of gun control or regulation. As expected, the amendment was heavily lobbied for by the NRA, as it would supposedly restrict the CDC from performing research with findings in favor of left-wing gun policies. Since the bill was passed, many critics have cited the Dickey Amendment as a “ban” on gun research, one that stifles reform and hinders any chance at productive discussions by limiting the amount of data that both liberals

and conservatives have to work and argue with. The Dickey Amendment was unclear on the definition of “promoting” gun control. Would it apply to all studies on gun laws and statistics? Or would it ban the publication of research that supported the cause of gun control? Since the amendment diverted funds for studies on gun policy to other areas, one must assume that it is the former; the proponents of the amendment did not want any research being done on guns in America. However, as famed criminologist Gary Kleck recently revealed, the CDC did in fact perform a study of gun-related crimes and interactions, perhaps in secret. The researchers asked the people taking the survey if during the last 12 months, they had “confronted another person with a firearm, even if [they] did not fire it, to protect [themself], [their] property, or someone else.” The results were astonishing; respondents used (legal) firearms eight times more in defensive situations than in offensive situations, such as robberies or shootings. The reason for why the study was not published or even mentioned by the CDC is currently unknown, as its existence was only discovered recently. It could be that the CDC feared reprisal for a possible violation of the Dickey Amendment. Alternatively, the researchers may have been disinclined to publish their findings due to the potential political ramifications. Either way,

Thomas Chen** William Lohier* Emily Xu

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

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Kerry Garfinkel We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity and length.

© 2018 The Spectator New York, NY 10282 the study proves that the Dickey All rights reserved by the creators. (212) 312-4800 ext. 2601 Amendment did not completely *Editor-in-Training opinions@stuyspec.com stifle all research by the CDC on * Managing Board gun crime and usage. Furthermore, what the crit- ** Editors-in-Training ics of the amendment don’t take into account is the very real impact that the private sector has on gun policy research. Not-forprofit organizations and independent researchers have conducted The Spectator will now accept unsolicited Op-Ed pieces groundbreaking and in-depth written by outside students, faculty, and alumni. These studies of the effects of varicolumns, if selected, will be published in The Spectator’s ous governmental policies over Opinions section. Recommended length is 700 words. the years. For example, in 1995, Kleck (the same researcher who Articles should address school related topics or items uncovered the aforementioned of student interest. Columns can be e-mailed to CDC study), working with Marc opinions@stuyspec.com. Gertz, conducted a nationwide survey of gun usage in defensive situations. Kleck and Gertz found Do you want to reflect on an article? that in the year before the survey was conducted, nearly 2.5 million Or speak your mind? American adults legally possessing a firearm used their weapon Write a letter to the editor and e-mail it to in a defensive manner, no matter opinions@stuyspec.com or drop it in if the gun was discharged or not. The Spectator box in the second-floor mail room. This means that on average, defensive gun usage outranked gun crimes by five times in 1995. Restrictions on research are almost always done with political motivations in mind, left or right. However, in the case of the Dickey Amendment, the fact of the matter is that government oversight simply does not extend to • Shuhong Jiang, Sharon Zou, Christine Yan, Fion Sin, and private investigations and studies. Abir Taheer were the photographers for the Asian AmeriThe amendment (an example of can Heritage photo spread in issue 15. such oversight) failed to halt gun • In the article “Stuyvesant Goes National in National Hispolicy research, as proved by the tory Day Competition,” Joseph Califano was the former CDC study, and did not apply to Special Assistant and top domestic aide of President non-governmental studies, so its Lyndon B. Johnson, not Joseph Catalano. passage did not harm the general debate on policy.

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The 60th Annual Grammy Awards are held.

Kylie Jenner gives birth to Stormi Webster.

Stuyvesant is featured on the New York Post’s front page, in an article calling out the school’s students for not “[learning] their lesson” and remaining “defiant” when it comes to cheating.

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New York City’s First Gender and Sexuality Alliance Summit is held at Stuyvesant High School by the NYC DOE, to address services for LGBTQ youth.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 13

Opinions The Crucial Missing Factor in the Gun Policy Debate By JONATHAN SCHNEIDERMAN More than 1,000,000 people around the world, myself included, participated in the March for Science on April 22, 2017, demonstrating for evidence-based policy. Despite largely being directed at the Trump Administration and in particular Scott Pruitt’s Environmental Protection Agency, the march had a more general pro-science tone. One of the more amusing chants to come out of it was “What do we want? / Evidence-based policy! / When do we want it? / After peer review!” and many signs read “Evidence-Based Policy―Not PolicyBased Evidence.” This pro-science based policy position is an easy (and correct) one to take on issues like climate policy that are obviously and intuitively based in science, so it has become widespread (albeit not widespread enough, but that’s a conversation for a different column). Unfortunately, it has experienced much less widespread support in areas of policy not obviously linked to science, where debates often consist entirely of two sides disputing the theoretical merits of policies without discussing actual empirical data―in other words, policy debates in areas outside of science-linked policy tends to be based entirely on hypotheses and not on theories. One of the most egregious of

such areas is gun policy. Some gun policy debates center around what the goal of gun policy ought to be; for instance, should gun policy be limited so as to promote gun rights, or extensive so as to promote general safety? These debates are based in value judgments and disagreements thereon and can be had entirely through reasoning and argumentation. However, they are not most gun policy debates. A 2018 RAND Corporation survey of gun policy experts found that most disagreement is not based on what the goal of gun policy should be, but on what the results of various gun policies would be. These debates are not based on subjective disagreements over values but disagreement over the objective, measurable results of gun policy. As a result, they ought to be easy to resolve; conduct a study with a large sample size about gun policy, and you’ve got answers to one of the biggest controversies in the country. Analyze and run regressions on available data and keep track of data that is currently going uncollected; gun policy is one of those areas where research is frustrating because of how mind-bogglingly little available information there is. And yet the gun policy debate is still raging wildly, usually going something like this: LIBERALS: This is really super obvious. If you have fewer guns, you’ll have less gun violence. Every other

developed country has extensive gun policy and much less gun violence. CONSERVATIVES: No amount of laws will keep weapons out of the hands of criminals, who don’t follow the law anyway. All gun control will do is prevent law-abiding citizens from being able to defend themselves. And those countries are different because they don’t have factors x, y, and z that America does have. That’s not a debate going anywhere. It’s two people shouting at each other about the merits of testable but untested hypotheses. It doesn’t have to be that way, and it shouldn’t. This research is doable. But it’s not free; the labor required to collect and analyze data with certainty costs money, and it currently gets outrageously little funding from the government, which ought to be funding research that could lead to extremely valuable findings for public health. There’s a sordid backstory to this; unsurprisingly, it involves the NRA. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded a study that concluded that the presence of guns in a home increases the risk of homicide in the home in 1993. Outraged, the NRA lobbied for an amendment called the Dickey Amendment, to be made to the omnibus spending bill declaring that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to

advocate or promote gun control.” While it is factually true that the amendment does not stop the CDC from funding gun policy research, the amendment was accompanied by a $2.6 million dollar cut from the CDC’s budget―the exact amount the CDC had spent on research into gun-related deaths that year. It sent its message loud and clear to the CDC, and since then, the field of gun policy research has been severely underfunded. This helps nobody. As a pretty down-the-line liberal, I think it is probably the case that stricter policies about implementing background checks, limiting who has access to guns, and putting strong limits on what kinds of guns can be sold would be effective and helpful. I even walked out on both March 15 and April 20 in support of those kinds of policies. But I don’t actually know, and no one else does, either, and no one will, until we lobby for the repeal of the Dickey Amendment and the expansion of evidence that can follow. The Dickey Amendment, to be sure, does not stifle all gun policy research. Privately funded research exists. But federal funding is an extremely important part of any sort of research―so much so that when, in 2017, the U.S. federal government’s share of research funding fell below 50 percent, it was pretty big news. A research sector being deprived of federal funding is a research sector

seriously impaired. Furthermore, it is the CDC’s responsibility to fund this research. The CDC’s job is to fund public health research, and this is a seriously public health issue; 38,148 people died from firearms in 2016. Not only is it a public health issue, but it’s also a public health issue for which research would be a massive boon to government policymaking, so it’s all the more the case that the federal government has a responsibility to fund it. To be clear, this is not the Second Amendment debate, which is about what gun policy ought to be or what it even is constitutionally allowed to be. That’s a separate debate, and it’s fundamentally about whether the pros of gun policy outweigh the cons. But before that debate can be meaningfully had, we must first know what exactly the pros and cons of gun policy are; does gun control actually decrease gun violence? The Second Amendment debate is also an important one, and it needs to be had. But it cannot be the first priority. If we are to achieve that evidence-based utopia for which we marched last April, we’re going to need evidence. And that means tearing down statutes that do nothing but stand in the way of evidence.

By ANNE RHEE In Tucson, Arizona, Republican lawmakers John Huppenthal and Tom Horne recently banned the study of Mexico and its inhabitants, ruling such studies to be illegal because they supposedly went against a state law banning “racially divisive studies.” Multiple other pieces of curricula were also banned, including books such as “Critical Race Theory and The Words of Cesar Chavez.” The ban was eventually reversed, but its existence shows the lengths that lawmakers, schools, and figures of authority will go to censor underrepresented history and define how students should be molded based on the political dogma of the time.

Many students are taught in history classes that are extremely Americentric. Many times when the curriculum has been changed to reflect all perspectives of a story, educators face a pushback from conservative lawmakers, who believe that learning from a curriculum that includes often negative actions on behalf of the American government will lead to citizens becoming disenchanted with their country. This has led to a spike in the amount of publishers and educators trying to “factcheck,” or essentially censor certain parts of history, so we only hear one side of the story. This is shown especially in the state of Texas, where studies have shown that educators constantly look for opportunities to monopolize the textbook industry. The practice of banning these parts of history to glorify one’s country is a part of whitewashing and commonly used to block out the culture and history of the underrepresented minorities in U.S. history. In fact, historical precedent has proven that our teachers and the school curriculum often overstep their bounds in teaching students what is and is not acceptable. For example, J.D. Salinger’s classic novel “Catcher in the Rye” was banned for several decades from being taught in school because of the writer’s usage of curse words. Although the school board’s reason behind this was well-intentioned, it is inevitable that students are eventually exposed to vulgar language. It is unreason-

able for schools to control what we hear or set certain age limits for content. Ultimately, the school board’s attempts to censor what we hear in the school space are useless, as any restrictions are easily avoided in the public space. Our 21st century society should realize that the censorship of words and ideas, particularly historical narratives which compete with traditional ones, has no place in a modern day school system. We need to reestablish what “freedom of speech” really means over two centuries after it was conceived. Freedom of speech should not only be about letting people express themselves openly, but should also include being allowed to take part in any form of discourse you wish to converse in without being judged for the language being used or the topics being discussed. Yet we should not embrace the use of all words or ideas regardless of meaning. When using a word or discussing an idea, we must be able to understand the context and history from which the word or idea has been developed to comprehend the true value of what we’re saying and how it will affect the people around us. Understanding the history of a word or an idea has significance, as people will no longer judge the speaker negatively due to their newfound understanding of what they are saying. Adopting such a method of understanding the history of a word or an idea rather than alienation or isolation of

Stuyvesant hosts the Second Annual Regeneron Awards Ceremony, to congratulate participants of the Regeneron competition.

as shown in Tucson, Arizona and the governor’s censorship of ethnic learning material and the whitewashing that educators continue to use today, denying people the equal use of all language deprives us of engaging in meaningful discourse. One goes to school for an education that allows them to learn to the best of their ability, but a limited, censored education undermines the value of what education can allow them to truly be. Continuing to deprive ourselves of the true value of unlimited discourse will only continue to take away from our worldly education, which is just as important as the education we are exposed to in classrooms.

The official White House portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama are revealed.

The Philadelphia Eagles defeated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII.

certain parts of language is inherently more helpful to the way we think. Furthermore, it should be noted that the intentions behind the use of a word or presentation of an idea must be considered and taken into account. There is always a possibility that the speaker didn’t understand the meaning of what they were saying. Although history is important and so is the development of the word, when it is spoken, its current and contextual meaning is the only meaning that the listener hears and interprets it as. Censorship may seem largely a vestige of the past, but society still continues to censor what it deems to be inappropriate and harmful. But,

Vivian Lu / The Spectator

Shuhong Jiang / The Spectator

The Censorship of Language

12 9

The opening ceremony kicks off the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. It was here viewers across the world fell in love with the likes of Chloe Kim, Adam Rippon, and Nathan Chen.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 14

Opinions Cannabis in 420 Words or More By THE OPINIONS DEPARTMENT

President Richard Nixon classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug with the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, effectively putting it on the same level of abuse potential and danger as heroin and LSD. Since that harsh listing, lawmakers have slowly been taking legislative steps to soften the legal stance on the drug. They have legalized marijuana in 29 states, eight of which also legalized it for recreational use. In this spread, Opinions writers share their thoughts on how the U.S. should handle its current drug laws and what future marijuana holds in this country.

Marijuana Legislation and its Much-Needed Reforms America’s policies surrounding marijuana vary drastically by state. This fact arouses controversy when it comes to dealing with those who carry marijuana, whether for recreational or medical purposes. The policies in place now are outdated, mislead, and useless in modern times when authorities should be cracking down on more consequential issues like opiate abuse or gun control. The U.S. has long had problems with marijuana, and often not for the best reasons. The reason marijuana was ever illegal in the first place was because of a racial prejudice against Mexican immigrants in the early 1900s. Smoking marijuana, a traditional means of intoxication among some of the immigrants, was more than enough of an excuse for local authorities to attack the newcomers. Eric Schlosser writes in his book “Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market” that “Police officers in Texas claimed that marijuana incited violent crimes, aroused a ‘lust for blood,’ and gave its users ‘superhuman strength.’” From here, the accusations extended well into the late 20th century, especially as the stereotype of marijuana users grew to include other minority groups and supposed social deviants. Although there are currently 29 states that have legalized medical marijuana, and eight that have legalized it for recreational use, policies are

still very much rooted in racism and false beliefs of marijuana’s capabilities. What our federal and state governments don’t see is the incredible range of health benefits that smoking marijuana provides for many. Yes, smoking marijuana can cause health problems common in tobacco smokers, like bronchitis, and yes, it leaves users at a higher risk of cancer, but reputable sources like The New England Journal of Medicine and The Journal of the American Medical Association have shown time and again that the medical benefits of marijuana far outweigh excuses for keeping the drug illegal. When taken as a prescription, smoking marijuana doesn’t harm the lungs, but rather increases lung capacity. Other health benefits include better management of weight, and it eases the symptoms of epilepsy, seizures, post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia, anxiety, chronic pain, glaucoma, and so much more. Most importantly, no one has ever actually died from overdosing on marijuana. In fact, a 2010 study conducted by “The Lancet” medical journal found that alcohol was the most harmful “drug” to individuals, followed by heroin, and cocaine. Despite all the evidence pointing out that marijuana is more good than bad, governments on both the state and federal level refuse to change their mostly outdated policies. More disturbing is how useless current marijuana prevention laws are. Not only

are some ethnicities being targeted more than others, but money is being wasted on the persecution of minor drug offenses, like the possession of miniscule amounts of marijuana. Policies do absolutely nothing when it comes to seriously cracking down on those who abuse marijuana and use it for non-medical purposes. A particular 1992 case in Indiana shows what happens when there are no clear definitions for what counts as “criminal activity” for offenders associated with marijuana. A man by the name of Mark Young was arrested for being a middleman in an illegal trading of marijuana. He was convicted based on the testimony of former coconspirators who started cooperating with the government. Despite having not actually distributed the drugs himself or participated in any violent crime, Young was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of a parole. If this doesn’t sound absurd already, in comparison, a person convicted of armed robbery in Indiana usually serves five years in prison. A rapist serves twelve and a murderer can spend anywhere from eight to twenty years in incarceration. Additionally, large-scale prohibition has always resulted in an increase in illegal substances. The most famous example of this is the U.S.’s nationwide ban on the production, transportation, and sale of alcohol from 1920 and 1933, simply known as the Prohibition. In the first six months of 1920 alone, there were over 7,000

violations against the act that enabled the Prohibition, a number that would dramatically increase over the years. Instead of trying to tackle and immediately put down all those who are found in the possession of marijuana, our federal government should be aiming for a more lenient system that focuses on marijuana education while enforcing as much proper usage of the drug as possible. Policies should also be updated so that all states have the same laws concerning marijuana, with clear lines establishing how much possession of marijuana is legal and what amounts can lead to fines, jail time, and then incarceration.

Serious medical studies have provided clear-cut evidence that marijuana is ultimately more beneficial when used as a prescription drug. The laws in place now only hurt users who have a valid reason to possess marijuana and fosters an illegal market that benefits from irresponsible usage of marijuana and other drugs. With current legislation doing nothing to efficiently prosecute sizable offenses related to marijuana, it’s extremely important that the U.S. finds a way to stop wasting time and money on the pursuance of minor marijuana offenses and the incarceration of otherwise innocent citizens.

Michael Hu / The Spectator

By JACQUELINE THOM

Tiffany Yee / The Spectator

Undermining Marijuana

By JENNY HUANG Marijuana, the most popular but still for the most part, illicit drug in the USA today, has been gradually gaining more and more acceptance for recreational and medical uses. In fact, more research is being done about the drug’s effects on both mental and physical health, with the results often being compared to the effects of marijuana’s legalized counterparts: cigarettes and tobacco. While these research results are responsible for

perpetuating a more positive outlook on the usage of marijuana, they also downplay of risks and side effects associated with consumption of the drug, making it appear much more benign than it is. Proponents of the legalization of recreational marijuana often compare the substance to tobacco, which is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the USA and leads to lung cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Cannabis, on the other hand, has little to no association with cancer or deaths. But note that since marijuana is still largely illegal, data accuracy may vary due to the lack of research subjects, and these statistics can hardly be taken into account against cigarettes, whose effects are well-researched and widely known. Moreover, nicotine, the highly addictive compound found in cigarettes, is also linked to higher rates of heart diseases. Conversely, medical research on marijuana has proven that cannabinoids, compounds found in cannabis, may possess anticancer properties, and marijuana does not contain compounds that are as physically addictive as the nicotine in cigarettes. In addition, the CDC has reported that excessive alcohol consumption has been associated with

around 88,000 deaths per year (from 2006-2010). Overdose may lead to brain and organ failure, and eventually death, whereas excess marijuana consumption during a limited period of time cannot do such damage. Consuming alcohol while taking medication could also influence the effects of the medication on the body. It is also no surprise that chronic drinking is associated with long term health risks such as liver disease. After comparing the effects of marijuana with alcohol and cigarettes, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that marijuana is much more benign and perhaps, even beneficial in contrast. However, with limited research on the subject, it is still difficult to conclude that recreational marijuana is safer than alcohol or cigarettes, but there are proven adverse effects of marijuana on the consumers. For one, marijuana, like cigarettes, requires consumers to smoke the substance in order to deliver the active compounds directly into the brain. Smoking delivers harmful toxins and carcinogens that irritate the lungs, leading to higher risks of lung infection, especially when marijuana users tend to inhale and hold in more smoke when consuming cannabis for the active chemical, THC, to reach the brain. Therefore, it is safe to say

that no matter what is being smoked, smoking nonetheless has adverse effects on the lungs and user’s long term health. Marijuana consumption also leads to temporary euphoria, loss of a sense of time and reality lasting up to an hour, along with higher heart rate. This lack of time, perception and related impaired physical coordination could lead to accidents when the user does sports or drives. A higher heart rate also leads to increased chances of a heart attack in elderly consumers or those showing signs of heart failure. Moreover, higher doses of marijuana or continued marijuana usage can lead to severe anxiety, paranoia, financial and academic issues, problems with socializing and impaired learning or memories. Long term marijuana users often are shown to display diminished skills related to memory and learning, and teens who abuse marijuana are show to have declines in their IQ. According to The National Institute on Drug Abuse, frequent marijuana usage is linked with a lower satisfaction levels in life, higher likelihood of dropping out of school and higher rates of accidents, absences and injuries during work. Further research also demonstrates that long term marijuana use can be worsen the mental health of its users, promoting depression, anxiety and worsening

conditions of those with schizophrenia (NIDA). Although marijuana lacks nicotine, long term marijuana users still exhibit withdrawal symptoms, suggesting that marijuana can be addictive without a physically addicting compound in the drug. Current evidence is compelling enough to say that none of the substances—marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol—when used excessively, is “safer” than the other. After witnessing the deadly effects that over-consumption of alcohol and cigarettes have upon our society, calling for recreational legalization of another substance that can be just as deadly and harmful when abused, if not more, should not be our next step. While we would like to believe that recreational substances like alcohol may be beneficial if used in moderation, the reality is that nothing can prevent the eventual abuse of the substance and thus, the long term health and social problems attached. Upon legalization, it would be hard to turn back. We may find ourselves dealing with another widespread epidemic of abuse and its aftermath, much like we had with alcohol and cigarettes.

The 90th Academy Awards are held.

“Black Panther” is released in the United States, becoming the first Marvel film with a predominantly black cast.

4 march

The Pirates, Stuyvesant’s boys’ swimming team, defeated Brooklyn Technical High School 55-42 to win the PSAL championship.

PyeongChang 2018 Olympics Winter Games The 23rd Olympic Games is hosted in South Korea, where North and South athletes march together under a united flag. It is the first time the two separate countries have agreed to unite for a symbolic purpose since the split.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 15

Opinions

Mayumi Gurung / The Spectator

Cannabis in 420 Words or More Legalizing Marijuana: A Civil Rights Issue

By JULIAN GIORDANO There are many people who view the legalization of marijuana as a moral issue, or one that has to do with the use of marijuana as a principle, and not in terms of its practical effects and results.

Many of these people argue that marijuana is an immoral “gateway” drug in order to justify its criminalization. Yet from a pragmatic perspective, the societal and economic implications that have resulted from the criminalization of marijuana are in no way justifiable, and they all point towards legalization as the logical solution. Each year, the government spends $3.6 billion on over a million marijuana arrests, 88 percent of which are simply for possession. This is an enormous amount of money being spent on an issue that has seen little to no improvement in recent years, with marijuana possession rates in 18 to 25 year olds actually increasing between 2001 and 2010. This is troubling considering that most of these arrests are for possession, meaning that millions of people are ensnared in the criminal justice system for crimes that are more civil than criminal. Even worse is that African Americans are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession then their white counterparts, even though usage between the two groups is essentially the same. Once a person is arrested for marijuana possession, it permanently

tarnishes their criminal record, which can prevent them from receiving financial aid or getting hired in the future. So regardless of the moral implications of legalizing marijuana, it is obvious that it would save the government time, effort, and money while decreasing racialized and out-of-proportion arrests. Additionally, the criminalization of marijuana fuels illicit drug cartels and criminal activity. If marijuana was legalized, drug cartels wouldn’t be able to charge insane prices on the black market, and local businesses could grow and sell marijuana in a law-abiding manner. This would help grow many local economies and small business while providing tax revenue for the government and decreasing criminal activity on the black market. Perhaps the greatest example of legalizing a substance to decrease addiction, usage, and increasing tax revenues is cigarettes. Usage levels have shrunk enormously since the mid 1900s, and tobacco sales provide millions of dollars in tax revenue each year that are spent on government programs to fight addiction. Considering that marijuana is also able to decrease addiction to opiates as a similar but

less damaging drug, legalizing it could prove important in fighting the opioid epidemic. Finally, one of the clearest reasons to legalize marijuana is that more dangerous and fatality-causing substances such as alcohol and tobacco are already legal, and the criminalization of marijuana weakens the authority of the rule of law. If something that isn’t very dangerous is illegal while something much more dangerous is legal, it makes people doubt that the criminal justice system is a good force in their lives. To be fair, legalizing marijuana doesn’t endorse it as being healthy and safe. In fact, there are many negative health effects that can result from frequent marijuana usage, especially from a young age. When adolescents smoke marijuana, it can lead to a lifelong addiction which can cognitively impair them and alter the course of their brain development. It increases the likelihood that students will drop out of school and there is some evidence — though not enough — to suggest that marijuana acts as a gateway drug in encouraging the use of more dangerous drugs such as cocaine. While these health ef-

fects are discouraging, there is a lack of research and studies backing them, and work needs to be done to understand the consequences of usage in their entirety. From a cost-benefit analysis, the criminalization of marijuana is bad for our economy, our society, and our legal system as a whole, making legalizing it the most logical solution. There are many ways in which marijuana’s legalization can be regulated. One such way would be to legalize marijuana to users 21 years and older with a system of taxation, licensing, and heavy regulation similar to that of cigarettes and alcohol. This would decrease the strain on the criminal justice system, take away revenues from many drug cartels, prevent disproportionate arrests of African Americans, and provide states with money to reinvest into programs that help with addiction and education. Not legalizing marijuana for practical purposes is simply nonsensical, as in a country that has legalized alcohol and tobacco, the criminalization of marijuana is an unnecessary burden upon society.

Legalization Requires Justice Reforms By ANGELA WONG

Elena Sapelyuk / The Spectator

Marijuana legalization is on its way across the U.S.: polls consistently show that over 60 percent of Americans support it. As of today, 29 states have legalized medical marijuana, and eight of those states—Alaska, California, Colorado, Nevada, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, and Washington D.C.—have already legalized its recreational use as well. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) estimates that there were 8.2 million marijuana-related arrests made from 2001 to 2010, with 88 percent of the arrests being for processing the drug. These arrests cost the U.S. about $3.6 billion dollars every year, with the costs of simply housing prisoners ranging from $30,000 to

$71,000 per prisoner per year. In addition to marijuana arrests being costly, they are often targeted against people of color. Despite almost equal recreational marijuana usage rates, blacks are four times more likely, and Hispanics more than three times as likely, as whites to be arrested for marijuana, according to recent ACLU studies. While eight states have already legalized marijuana, only California and Oregon have pushed for justice reform regarding marijuana. Over 6,000 Californian citizens are in prison for growing and distributing marijuana, many of which will need to serve at least 20 years in jail. After the legalization of the drug in 2015, California permitted the 6,000 prisoners to apply for early release from jail and to have their crime erased from their records.

For a crime as simple as distributing marijuana, having a stain on one’s record is socially debilitating. For example, having such a conviction can make it difficult or near impossible for one to receive a student loan, get a job, maintain a professional license, secure housing, and adopt a child. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker recently proposed a bill to legalize recreational marijuana with a number of goals, one being to reform the current criminal justice system when it comes to marijuana. His bill recognizes an important nuance in the marijuana legalization movement. He believes that the country’s drug laws are “badly broken” and that “they don’t make our communities any safer—they divert critical resources from fighting violent crimes, tear families apart, unfairly impact low-

income communities and communities of color, and waste billions in taxpayer dollars each year.” It is thus the responsibility of the other six states that have legalized the recreational use of marijuana to then work towards releasing their prisoners convicted of marijuana-related crimes. If recreational marijuana use has been their only crime, citizens of those states must be allowed to have clean records. And if the legalization of the drug is to be nation-wide, the U.S. has a responsibility to repair its drug laws and pardon current offenders. If the U.S. is willing to move forward in the case regarding recreational marijuana use, it must also be willing to help those who were damaged by the broken system of the past with it.

Shuhong Jiang / The Spectator

Legalizing Marijuana: An Unnecessary Evil

By ANNA LU The debate over the legalization of marijuana is far more convoluted than just a scientific weighing of the drug’s benefits in relation to its risks. Marijuana has been the star of a seriously horrific drama, its prohibition by the federal government causing criminal trafficking of marijuana to soar in

conjunction with the number of people jailed for its possession. Supporters of the legalization of marijuana argue that making marijuana widely accessible would shut down its illegal trade, therefore depleting criminal organizations of a source of income. Additionally, making marijuana legal would mean that less people get thrown in prison for such a small crime, saving the government a lot of money. While these arguments are all wellintentioned, legalizing marijuana entirely isn’t necessary. Many states have opted to legalize and decriminalize medical marijuana exclusively in hopes of remedying the problem of America’s massive incarcerated population. Taking steps to reform marijuana laws, however, is much better than legalizing it all across the board, as marijuana is still a drug that induces impaired cognitive function and other negative effects. The main argument used by proponents of marijuana use is that it alleviates chronic pain and symptoms of many disorders, including multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. In states that have legalized medical marijuana dispensaries, people who suffer from these

conditions are able to obtain treatment, causing marijuana use to increase. However, since the only substantial evidence of the medical benefits of marijuana refer to treatment of chronic pain and seizures, it is not appropriate to cast a sweeping net and allow medical marijuana to be administered for a myriad of health conditions. Medical marijuana should only be allotted to those with a prescription as treatment for afflictions that have conclusive evidence supporting it. In addition to access to pain and seizure treatment, the legalization of medical marijuana benefits people in another less immediately apparent way. Decreased rates of opioid abuse have been linked to states that have legalized marijuana for medical use. This makes sense considering that medical marijuana is used, first and foremost, as a way to alleviate pain, which is also why people turn to opioids. A paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research noted that states that provided access to marijuana dispensaries had decreases in deaths caused by opioid overdoses and cases of opioid misuse. Other research concluded that

Senior SING! Steals the show.

A stage collapses during the Soph-Frosh Sing! Performance, injuring a number of students.

certain strains of marijuana were more effective at treating chronic pain than opioids and also provided less side effects. Considering that our country is currently facing an opioid epidemic, legalizing medical marijuana may be an effective solution for saving lives as well as improving them. Decriminalizing marijuana, and drugs in general, has also been shown to have positive effects, despite the common reasoning that minimizing the penalties on drug possession causes an increase in drug use. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 52 percent of all drug related arrests in 2010 were for the possession and use of marijuana. Nearly 90 percent of all 8.2 million cases of marijuana arrests between 2001 and 2010, involved the possession of just small amounts of marijuana. Unsurprisingly, all of these arrests are expensive; ACLU estimates that states spend more than 3 billion dollars every year processing the large numbers of arrests of those who break marijuana laws. If state law enforcers could disregard the possession of small amounts of marijuana, they would be able to save a considerable amount of

money that could be used to better local communities. Also, the decriminalization of drugs may be better for drug users, not because they can get away with drug use, but so they feel more inclined to seek treatment for drug abuse and addiction. Many cases of drug overdose could be prevented if people felt safe getting help for their drug problems without having to worry about being busted for possessing drugs. This would apply to the very large population of marijuana users in states that have not yet legalized it. The complete legalization of marijuana is unnecessary, but there needs to be a reform of marijuana laws so that it doesn’t deny medical treatment for those in need of it and doesn’t feed into America’s mass incarceration problem. This way, those who really require marijuana for medical treatment receives it, while those who use it recreationally, and illegally, don’t have to suffer to extreme ends for doing so. Legalizing a drug is a big deal, one that doesn’t come without consequences, so if there are ways to avoid said conflicts, they should be employed.

Ohio Governor John Kasich speaks at Stuyvesant in a question and answer forum.

Term limits are removed in China The parliament, the National People’s Congress, votes in favor of the removal of the term limit that has been imposed since the 1990s, allowing Xi Jinping to be the leader of China for life and changing the constitution.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 16

Arts and Entertainment

Music

Arctic Monkeys Take You to Outer Space

When I first heard that Arctic Monkeys were working on their sixth album, their first project since the release of “AM” in 2013, I was elated. Arctic Monkeys, consisting of frontman Alex Turner, guitarist Jamie Cook, bassist Nick O’Malley, and drummer Matt Helders, first came together in Sheffield, UK in 2002. They were in their late teens and their music had the exciting, energetic charm of a group of young boys just trying to see what they could do. Their success was instant and constantly gaining traction; by the time that their fourth album, “Suck It and See,” was released, they were wildly popular in the United Kingdom and their next venture with “AM” became a hit in America. Now, they are 16 years into the game, a remarkable longevity. But that is precisely what made me worry about the expectations I would place for their latest release, “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.” What if I didn’t like it? What if they had reached their apex already? What if they would disappoint, or lose the originality and reliable quality that made them my favorite band? Evidently, these questions were on the band’s mind as well. Each album that they’ve put out has a unique sound; they are constantly experimenting and taking their music in different directions as their experiences inevitably change. Their first two albums, “Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not” (2006) and “Favourite Worst Nightmare” (2007), were youthful and quick-paced; garage rock that drew its inspiration from The Strokes. Their third, “Humbug” (2009), was heavy, psychedelic stoner rock, dissonant and sinister-sounding. “Suck It And See” (2011) couldn’t be more different: whimsical, mellowed melodies sung in a soothing drawl. Finally, “AM” (2013) incorporated a new electric sound, slightly dark and very rhythmic. Their range is undeniable. Despite their constantly evolving music, certain things never changed. Alex Turner, who writes the band’s songs, is consistently a lyrical genius, providing elegant and poetic content. His songwriting is complex, characterized by creative phrasing and vivid imagery that gracefully evokes emotion. It is, in a way, Shakespearean: sometimes nonsensical, but always beautiful. For instance, in “Library Pictures,” Turner sings, “Library pictures of the quickening canoe/ The first of its kind to get to the moon/ Trust some ellipses to chase you round the room/ Through metaphors and curly straws and goo.” At the same time, Turner can be undeniably romantic, as in “Suck It And See,” where he croons, “Your kiss, it could put creases in the rain.”

Furthermore, the same themes are prevalent. Turner offers keen observations and commentary on the world around him and the people in it—club culture, relationships, human behavior, and love. It is the type of meaningful material that defined what music means to me. And so, when I first listened to “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino,” I panicked. To be fair, the reviews that I had read beforehand and the generally stressed mental state that I was in didn’t help, but I couldn’t escape the fact that the Arctic Monkeys threw me a real curveball. For a moment, it felt like everything had changed, and maybe not in a way that I liked. The sound was different, but so were the instruments and the singing itself! The guitars that have always been a key component in the band’s indie rock content were hushed and the drums slightly faded, in order to make room for the piano and science fiction sound effects—the buzzes and ringing that feel like they belong to spaceships or

that Arctic Monkeys have ever created, and is a testament to the fact that their quality doesn’t change as the band ages, but remains dynamic. One of the biggest themes in “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino” is its science fiction nature: it takes place in a hotel on the moon. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Turner said, “I like the idea that the record be named after a place. It isn’t something that I’ve done before, but I do consider many of my favorite records almost being like places that you can visit.” In this case, the place is Tranquility Base, the site of the first lunar landing. As such, the album really sounds like what you would listen to at a jazz bar in outer space. The music is slowed down and deeply contemplative. At the same time, there is a type of wild creativity that is purely artistic. The album paints the picture of a singer who created a new world for himself in order to better understand the one he is living in. The structure seems to have

the score of a movie taking place in a distant galaxy. And what was this music about? The lyrics seemed confusing. They were beyond nonsensical: I had no clue what some songs were about at all. It felt as though my emotional connection with the music had been jeopardized. However, the longer that I listened to the album, the more my appreciation and respect grew. Without question, “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino” is the most mature music

broken down; there is rarely a repetitive chorus and the music seems very fluid. In “The World’s First Ever Monster Truck Front Flip,” both Turner’s singing and the instruments seamlessly transition between an upbeat, robotic sound and a slow, almost Elvis-esque ballad. However, despite the lack of typical song structure, there is a definitive symmetry to the music. While the words themselves rarely repeat, the verses have melodies that change in the same way throughout the song,

Klaire Geller / The Spectator

By GABRIELLE UMANOVA

[NEWS] Stuyvesant Students participate in the state level National History Day competition, with two teams advancing to finals.

[NEWS] Stuyvesant hosts its third annual International Women’s Day Run to promote female empowerment and wellness.

often framing a unique bridge. One notable trait of the album is the renewed intensity of Turner’s Sheffield accent. When listening to the opening track, “Star Treatment,” I wasn’t immediately sure if it was Turner performing; it sounded as if John Cooper Clarke was reading spoken word poetry at a bar. It comes off as strange at first, but considering the frankness of the song, it seems fitting: Turner begins the album by considering how the band has changed and where they started with the line, “I just wanted to be one of The Strokes.” It begins the mixture of sincerity and fiction that are intertwined throughout the album. As in the rest of the album, there is a large amount of restraint when it comes to the instruments, as if the rest of the band is taking a step back. The heavy inclusion of the piano throughout the album plays a big role in creating this effect—slowing the music down and giving it a more soothing effect than the band’s past music (akin to the slow ballads of “Suck It And See”). In songs such as “One Point Perspective” and “The World’s First Ever Monster Truck Front Flip,” the Arctic Monkeys set a beat with a repetitive single piano note, which gives their music a range it did not have before. By contrast, Turner’s singing seems dramatic and sweeping, changing in inflection and tone. It has undergone a significant change as well, with Turner using a falsetto that he has never used before. The focus has clearly shifted to the frontman of the band, which is slightly disappointing considering the talent of the rest of the musicians. Matt Helders is a very gifted drummer, but it seems that his personality, and that of the rest of the band, is less integral to this album. Another major theme of the album is the commentary on the modern world. On the track “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino,” Turner reflects on the growing divide as humans interact with one another, mimicking a hotel receptionist with a harrowingly robotic voice. His high-pitched voice and unsettling timing—the delivery of the lines feels jagged by unexpected pauses and excessively drawn out word— give the song a creepy mood, but lyrics such as “Have you ever spent an entire generation trying to figure that one out?” give it depth. Other tracks such as “She Looks Like Fun” and “Batphone” contribute to the theme of social commentary as they explore the effects of social media and technology. In “Batphone,” Turner describes being “sucked into a hole through a handheld device.” At the same time, there is a strong sense of reflection on and consideration of the band’s legacy. One of the most powerful lines on the album is “I sell the fact that I can’t be bought” on “Batphone,” which evidences a powerful

self-awareness. In the past, Arctic Monkeys had several songs rejecting the notion of selling out in their early work, an image that stayed with them, but in one line, Turner questions whether that can be true if they still depend on their music’s ability to sell. One standout track on the album is “Four Out of Five,” which sounds much more like Arctic Monkeys’ former material—the guitars are amplified, and there is a greater sense of structure with distinct verses, bridges, and choruses. It is the most rapidly paced song on the album, and the lack of falsetto makes Turner’s singing harken back to the style of “AM.” The album alternates between odd, fantasy-like lyrics, such as “the Moon’s side boob,” and sincere poetry. “One Point Perspective” is a stellar example, as it concludes with the lines, “Or maybe I just imagined it all/ I’ve played to quiet rooms like this before/ Bear with me, man, I lost my train of thought.” Turner’s voice loses all theatrical quality when he sings these open, nostalgic sounds, revealing an impressive ability to mold his music. The album concludes with “Ultracheese,” a slow ballad with the quiet, thoughtful ambience of a cocktail lounge. The last line of the album is monumental, a simultaneously simple and powerful confession of what it is that drives Arctic Monkeys. “But I haven’t stopped loving you once,” Turner croons, and somehow, without any obvious context, it is immediately clear that the “you” he is referring to is really music. Throughout the album, the frequent allusions to a life in “deep space” or one where “you gaze at planet Earth from outer space” evoke a certain sense of escapism, or, perhaps, disillusionment. In their long history, Arctic Monkeys have often been critics—of selling out, of foolish mind games, of insincerity— but had limited their scope to the lifestyles immediately before them. With “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino,” they have broadened their perspectives to the rapidly changing world, as they consider our growing dependence and obsession with technology and what that means for our future. The album conveys a fear of detachment or a breakdown in friendships, romances, and the ways in which we connect to one another. In that sense, “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino” is a defense of the things that are uniquely human, the things that drive us to create music and art. Yes, maybe we lost something with this album—dance anthems and fun tunes with a clear chorus—but we gained something more valuable with its introspection and examination of the world we live in: a challenge for us to do the same.

The revival and 10th season of “Roseanne” is released.

27 23 “Isle of Dogs” is released in the United States.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 17

Arts and Entertainment How Beychella Made Coachella History

music BY LUCY LU

I’ve hated Coachella for as long as I’ve known about it. The idea of a crowd of privileged college students wearing daisy dukes and feathered crop tops to a desert where they take pictures for social media isn’t very appealing. There’s really no problem with people wearing what they want, until flower crowns turn into Native American headdresses. That’s when the line between self-expression and cultural appropriation is not just crossed, but soared across with a pair of oversized sunglasses in hand. The festival was originally founded as a way for lesserknown bands to perform, in hopes that their collective fan base would be able to provide a steady income. The founder is known for being very conservative and often donates to anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ organizations. Sets typically catered to a more alternative taste, with bands like FatBoy Slim, Nine

Inch Nails and the Chemical Brothers performing. But until they got the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Beastie Boys to perform in 2003, they were barely making money and were virtually unknown. That year, they drew international attention and grew even more in the following years by featuring Madonna in 2006 and Paul McCartney in 2009. Since then, Coachella has been including well-known artists in its annual lineups. From its founding up until today, the festival is still largely associated with white music. The audience demographic lacks in diversity as well, with a white majority ranging from 18 to 35 years old. This year, Beyoncé became the first black woman to headline the festival, nearly three decades since its founding. Why has this taken so long? While Prince headlined in 2008, as did Jay-Z in 2009, the number of black artists listed on previous lineups are paltry. The amount of female

artists performing is dwarfed by the number of their male counterparts, though their numbers are currently growing, with new artists like Hayley Kiyoko, Cardi B, and SZA replacing the many male bands that have performed in previous years. Recently, rap music and R&B has become more mainstream, and has thus made it onto the Coachella lineup. Queen Bey put on a show that fell nothing short of what you would expect of her. Of course, how black it was made it an iconic moment. It featured Wakanda, Egyptian queen Nefertiti, black sororities, stepping, swag surfin’, the HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) marching band, quotes from Malcolm X and Maya Angelou, and majorettes. Her mother, Tina Knowles, had warned her that perhaps her audience would not be able to appreciate her performance because they “would be confused by

all of the black culture and black college culture,” she said. Despite her mother’s warnings, she began with “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” to start a show that would exhibit her pride. The NAACP named the song “The Negro National Anthem” in 1919. There was a mock probate, in which black sorority members are initiated. She brought out Jay-Z and Solange for duets, followed by Kelly Rowland and Wendy Roland, reuniting Destiny’s Child. There was a homecoming complete with HBCU alumni as band members, majorettes, dance captains, and steppers performed. Not only was the audience living for this moment, but Adele, Rihanna, and Chance the Rapper were, too. As amazing as Beyoncé’s performance was, its symbolic value is what makes it historic. She refused to tone down her culture in order to tailor it to her audience. Beyoncé certainly didn’t have

to perform at Coachella; she’s probably well-known enough to start her own festival. Coachella boycotts in protest of the owners’ support of right-wing organizations have become a thing, too. Despite this, Beyoncé made the choice of performing for an audience that possibly wouldn’t understand, at an event where the founder may have been against what she stood for. She used Coachella’s fame and her own as a way to educate young people about black culture and encourage them to enroll in black colleges and universities. Her show sets the precedent for future female artists of color to create their own space where their cultures can shine, with or without a white institution. In an age where audiences are able to recognize the importance of cultures and embrace them through music, it is imperative that those cultures are recognized on a privileged stage, one like Coachella.

Ms. Karp’s students at the Stuy Young Curators Presentation on June 6th.

“Invasion of Privacy” by Cardi B (Belcalis Almanzar) is released, marking her debut album.

april

29 “Ready Player One” is released in the United States.

Jupioca’s 155 Chambers Street location opens.

8 “Mean Girls” premieres on Broadway.

10-11 Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress about Facebook’s use of data.

Page 18

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Arts and Entertainment Get A Life: The Summer Edition

Events Calendar

June

ONGOING CONCERT Female Composers’ Festival @ Spectrum, Brooklyn until 6/16

SUNDAY

PARADE Coney Island Mermaid Parade @ Coney Island

CONVENTION Jazz Age Lawn Party @ Governors Island

SUNDAY

PLAY Black Box New Play Festival @ The Gallery Players until 6/20

ART SHOW “American Painters in Italy: From Copley to Sargent” @ Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art until 6/17

MONDAY

FILM “Maria Lassnig: New York Films 1970–1980” @ MoMA PS1

THURSDAY

MUSIC Make Music Day NYC @ Union Square

FILM “Escape in New York: Outdoor Films on Governors Island” @ Governors Island until 6/23

SCULPTURE “The Spanish Gardener” @ Degraw Street and Columbia Street until 7/15

SATURDAY

MUSIC Make Music NY Free Trolley @ Sunset Park 5th Avenue BID

SATURDAY

FASHION SHOW New York Summer Fashion Explosion @ Hotel Pennsylvania

TUESDAY

DANCE CLASS Midsummer Night Swing @ Lincoln Center until 7/14

THURSDAY

ART SHOW “David Bowie Is” @ Brooklyn Museum until 7/15

MUSICAL “Handmaid’s Tale: The Musical” @ The Bell House

ART SHOW “Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965-2016” @ Museum of Modern Art until 7/22

CONCERT BRIC Celebrate! Brooklyn Festival @ Prospect Park until 8/11

TOUR Catacombs by Candlelight Tour @St. Patrick’s Basilica until 8/30

july

FRIDAY

FILM RELEASE “Ant-Man and the Wasp” @ all theaters

SATURDAY

CONCERT boy pablo with HOAX BAND @ Baby’s All Right, Brooklyn

FRIDAY

CONCERT Warm Up 2018 @ MoMA PS1

FRIDAY

LECTURE “What Does it Mean to Be an American: Conformity, Silence, and Lies” @ Strand Bookstore

TUESDAY

PLAY Shakespeare in the Park: “Twelfth Night” @ Central Park until 8/19

MONDAY

DANCE Anabella Lenzu Dance Theater Workshop @ Peridance Capezio Centeruntil 7/27

ART SHOW “Giacometti” @ Guggenheim Museum until 9/12

FRIDAY

CONCERT Panorama Music Festival @ Randall’s Island until 7/29

SATURDAY

ART SHOW Huma Bhabha: “We Come in Peace” @ Metropolitan Museum of Art until 10/28

FESTIVAL NYC Poetry Festival @ Governors Island until 7/29

Missile Strikes Against Syria In response to the Douma chemical attack in Syria, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France carry out military strikes against multiple Syrian government sites.

august

WEDNESDAY

CONCERT Smashing Pumpkins @ Madison Square Garden

Kendrick Lamar’s “DAMN.” becomes the first rap album to win a Pulitzer Prize

Barbara Bush dies.

16 .

14 Beyoncé becomes the first black woman to headline the Coachella Festival.

16 Khloe Kardashian gives birth to True Thompson.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 19

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 20

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

End of School Year Reflections

By YARU LUO Congrats! You’re embracing the final stretch of the 2017-2018 school year. Whether it was your first or final year, it’s important to look back at everything you’ve learned as a high school student: - Iced coffee is the most important meal of the day. - Everything is a competition in high school. Your friend tells you he’s tired because he slept at 4:00 a.m.? Tell him you didn’t even go to sleep.

- Rewatch High School Musical and practice your cello. That stuff is accurate. Senior Dee Pressed recalls how his “favorite time of the day is when we break out in song every single lunch period, so don’t be the only one left out.” - Use rolling backpacks. You’re an adult now, so you need to upgrade your normal bag. They’re the coolest, and no one will step on your foot when you walk in the halls—great for personal space! - Don’t use your locker. Have too many textbooks? Buy a bigger rolling backpack. Remembering

combinations is hard anyway. - Walking to class? No. You need to impress your teachers. You have to sprint to your classes! How else can you go down one flight of stairs in five minutes? Go especially fast, crouch down, put your arms up, and scream “NARUTO!” when you see Markova or Choubs. Be sure to give them a wink too to show them how much you appreciate them. - If you cut out sleeping, you get an extra eight hours of work done every night. There’s no need to sleep when you can read about

Peglegs Finally Win A Game

By ALWIN PENG

After an unprecedented 0-9 season, the Stuyvesant Varsity Football team has won a scrimmage against P.S. 89’s peewee flag football club. The 89ers put up a hard fought battle, scoring a 5-0 lead in the first quarter. Coach Football Man talked about how nervous he was after realizing that his team could go 0-10, delivering the eloquent statement: “I nearly [redacted] my pants.” Senior and captain Perry Wang stated, “We had a tough first quarter, but during halftime, I told my team, ‘It doesn’t matter if we win or lose. I know we are outmatched, but we can pull this off. But even if we do lose, at least we can smoke our juuls afterward.’” Quickly, the football team rallied, putting up six points by blinding the 89ers with vape smoke and luring them off the field with “enhanced” brownies. Astonishment swept the stadium—for the first time in history, Stuyvesant football was one point ahead. However, their lead did not last long. In the third quarter, determined to keep their lead, Wang attempted to tackle the 89ers’ star quarterback. The quarterback ducked down, and using his height to his advantage, completely sank into the turf. Wang went careening over him and smashed his head into the ground. Ironically, this head injury actually improved Wang’s mental capacities; some reports say that a sense of awareness and consciousness returned to Wang’s eyes for the first time in years. He got up and smiled, signalling he was okay, but was quickly taken into the stands when the coach noticed that he was missing a few of his front teeth. Without their captain, the Peglegs suffered. The 89ers scored again and again, managing to use

their superior strength to their advantage. Before long, the 89ers were up 32-6. At this point, twoyear linebacker, How Hon Hwang said, “I gotta get high. It’s better to take this L as high as a kite.” Fellow teammates agreed, and everyone on the bench took out juuls. Vape smoke rose up from the benches, forming a gigantic cloud that enveloped the stadium. The soccer moms of the P.S. 89 kids were outraged and decided to pull their kids out of the game, handing the Va r s i t y Peglegs their first default w i n . We attempted to reach out to both parties for comment but the soccer moms were too busy breaking copies of Grand Theft Auto games and saying “Not In My Christian Household!” while most of the Peglegs were too stoned to give a com-

Anna Ast / The Spectator

prehensible response. Either way, the Peglegs did a fantastic job winning their first game of the year. Go Peglegs! UPDATE: One of the soccer moms took

a break from picking up her son from every after school activity that exists and had the time to give us a statement about the events detailed above. Mary Anne White explained her take on what happened: “I always been raised in a Christian household, and I tryin’ keep it Christian. Us Americans, we a Christian nation, and we ought to keep it Christian. I read the King James Bible every day since I was five years old, Church every Sunday, and don’t even think about talkin’ back to my parents cuz you’ll get a bar of soap in your mouth. Nowadays, kids don’t know how to act. Doing their devil lettuce or their vape or their juuls and their USB drives and whatnot. Now, how ya gonna raise your child Christian if they grow up with influences laak this ‘round them? I’m just tryin’ ta raise mah kids right. When I saw that cloud of devil lettuce smoke, I knew I had to intervene, and that’s where that be. Lord Jesus forbid my child come home with a Playboy mag, I will take it to the county, I will take it to the sheriff. Our family, we’re from Farmingville Staten Island, where our chief export is tractors. But I want my kid to work on Wall Street. But god knows what happens on Wall Street. I heard stories, I sure you had too. Hookers, cocaine, all sorts of devil worship. Just laak those Stuyvesant kids.”

Macbeth and write a 1,000 word short story about how you connected with Macbeth and his conversations with imaginary objects. - Study underwater so no one can see you crying. - High school is a time when you e-mail your honors math teacher at 1:02 in the morning and he responds at 1:04 with a smiley face. - You can also message your computer science partner at 4:00 a.m. and get a response. - If you ever get caught sleeping in class, look up, put your hands together, and say ‘Amen’.

6 “Invasion of Privacy” by Cardi B (Belcalis Almanzar) is released, marking her debut album.

Hope this reflection brings back some nostalgia and is a pat on the back for all the wisdom you’ve gained through the strenuous experiences of high school. Good luck to the graduating class, and here’s to another one to three years for the rest of us!

Gee Whiz Diner Bans Stuyvesant Students

By MICHAEL DEKHTYAR

After retaining its wellearned place in the hearts of students in and out of school for years, the Gee Whiz diner has decided to ban any Stuyvesant students from its premises after receiving several noise complaints. The manager, Geezus Wizus, made the following statement: “We’ve been allowing those weird aspiringBroadway-actor kids in for way too long. It’s time they received a wake-up call that not all people want to hear sopranos gathering in circles and performing off-key renditions of ‘O Fortuna’ all the time.” Members of the Stuyvesant Theater Community (STC) were particular targets of the complaints. “When they were in here after their last show they sang so high one of the windows broke. This is the third time this has happened. No one’s called the police for fear of being attacked by the tall one with the good butt—Alexis or something,” one anonymous tipper said. But the closure of the diner has raised fears around the school of where exactly STC will go to celebrate their shows months after they actu-

ally ended. Gee Whiz was in a prime location, just blocks from the school, and the caucasian food selection was passable enough to appeal to the even the most picky students. Alternative options for parties have been introduced as part of an emergency action to quell a rebellion against the STC High Command, also known as the Slate; these options include (among other places): Dunkin’ Donuts, eating the Lights and Sound crew, the McDonald’s, and invading the Stuyvesant Spectator’s offices to eat their snacks (“which we don’t have,” said Editors-in-Chief Jane Rhee and Beaux Watwood, stuffing their mouths with moon pies). Surprisingly, some students supported the closure, citing the diner’s large portions. “The spaghetti bowl was way too big; it was almost the size of my palm. My raw paleo-ketogenic weight watchers vegan diet doesn’t allow for such blasphemous consumption,” sophomore Cosmo Coen complained. Whether theater kids will migrate to another, more welcoming environment to celebrate beating the juniors, or whether they will simply starve after the next show, remains to be seen.

8 “Mean Girls” premieres on Broadway.

- If you’re one minute late to Spanish, you might as well grab some McDonald’s on the way and be 25 minutes late.

Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress about Facebook’s use of data.

10 Jupioca’s 155 Chambers Street location opens.

Missile Strikes Against Syria In response to the Douma chemical attack in Syria, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France carry out military strikes against multiple Syrian government sites.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 21

Humor Dear College Board

By NIKKI DANIELS Dear College Board,

Jade Lo / The Spectator

As someone who has taken 12.67 Advanced Placement courses each year, and over three years all 38 AP tests you offer, I feel particularly qualified to say that there are simply not enough AP tests and would hereby like to advocate for the expansion of the Advanced Placement program. I have easily become fluent in vital languages like Chinese and Spanish, useless languages like Japanese, Italian, German, and French, as well as dead languages, nonetheless given an AP, like Latin. Yet, I also the desire to take AP Old Norse and become fluent in a language many of my peers would correctly term “useless”. While I am aware of the costs associated with creating an AP test and finding proctors, I anticipate that it will be a very successful course. Nevertheless, even if only 100 people take it, the College Board will make a whole $9400. As I enter my senior year of

high school, I would also like to take AP Antarctican History. Last year I was enrolled in so-called AP World History yet we seemed to skip the history of Antarctica. Although we discussed the history of the other six continents there was never any discussion of the ice filled land that is inhabited by diverse species in unique gelid ecosystems. In order to gain a true understanding of the world I request that this course be created. Even more important, the College Board should create an AP course detailing the history of Atlantis—located in the ocean and ruled by Atlas, Poseidon’s first born child, it has clearly had a very significant impact on the development of the world we see today. It is also important that AP tests be upped in rigor to truly determine the masters who deserve a score of five. The best way to accomplish this is to halve the time allotted for the AP tests,while still giving the same number of questions. For example, for the AP United States History test, why should students be given

a whole 55 minutes for only 55 questions? Instead, students should be given exactly 27.5 minutes to answer the questions. It is my strong belief that if students need a whole minute for each question they do not

deserve a five on the test anyway. Hence, there is only one true way to push the students of our generation to be their best selves: AP tests must be made more difficult and we must add more courses. In order to

gain a well rounded education, students need to push themselves to learn what few others know. Best, Nikki Daniels

Seniors Reflect on all the interesting things they could have done instead of studying By OLIVER STEWART As their final year at Stuyvesant comes to a close, seniors are beginning to look back on the last four years, bringing up feelings of nostalgia, achievement, but most of all, of wasted time. Looking back on the hundreds of hours of time spent studying, reading, finessing papers and pretending to be awake in Chemistry, many seniors share a sense of regret at the fact that they have spent the past four years doing nothing outside the realm of school and strictly college-related extracurriculars. Senior Aaron Lu summed up the emotions of many among the graduating class. “It’s ridiculous,” he grumbled. “I haven’t seen my family or the sun for three and a half years,” he went on. As they enter their second

term, more time is freed up and seniors are struggling to figure out how to deal with the reality of not having stress and overload fill every second of their time. We found senior Grace Kachinsky making snow angels in shredded piles of her extensive notes from junior year and absentmindedly tossing her graphing calculator back and forth with the half asleep Lara Webb. “This is great!” Grace yawned. “There are no obligations and I don’t have to show up to anything on time! I just wish that

all of high school

was like this.” However, when asked what they would have done if they had had more time over the last few years, the seniors were less clear. “Um… one of those social type things,” said Grace. “Like real life Facebook,” Lara interjected. Despite a widespread sense of contrition, not all seniors feel like they have wasted the best years of their lives. “I for one don’t know what all the fuss is about,” sniffed Arjun Fawcett. “If I had a life, how would I maintain this 4.1 GPA?” He continued, showing off a freshly printed, up to date copy of his transcript, which he pinned neatly on his bedroom wall next to 739 others. Christine Jegarl / The Spectator To further investigate

The Cucumber Craving Kappa

By LAURA ILIOAEI Recently, the Stuy Recreational Swim Club opened the 1st floor pool to all students after school every Friday. Bothered and hot from AP exams, I decided that a dip in the pool would cool my mind to numbness so that my brain wouldn’t fry by the time Regents and Finals season rolled around. Since I have tenth free and the swim gym class wasn’t

in the pool on a particular Friday, I had the mischievous idea of sneaking in and having the entire place to myself for forty minutes. I know that food isn’t allowed in the pool area. But hey, who the hell was going to know or notice that I was eating a cucumber sandwich by it? (Potential onlookers being distracted with promposal and/or crippling senioritis) I didn’t get past two bites before a cucumber slice slipped

away from the bread and fell into the water with the gentle “sploosh” of a coin throwninto a fountain. But unlike a coin tosser, I definitely would’ve NEVER wished for what events unfolded afterward. I tried to retrieve the slice from the water, but the moment my fingers curled around its edges,a reptilian hand pulled me into the pool! I was submerged completely, without any air in my lungs to tide me over.

Beyoncé becomes the first black woman to headline the Coachella Festival.

Kendrick Lamar’s “DAMN.” becomes the first rap album to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Panicking, I thrashed around in an attempt to get away from whatever was pulling me further into the water’s depths. I did not want my spirit to roam Stuyvesant, mournfully wailing over how I died by a giant FROG or whatever was trying to drown me. A surge of adrenaline rushed through me, and I channeled it into my arms before elbowing something incredibly scaly with all my might.

the thoughts of the seniors on the matter, the Spectator planned on sending a representative to Senior Prom. However, upon arrival, it emerged that all the seniors were planning on going home early to cram on the correct protocol for graduation, fearing the effects it might have on their participation grade if not sufficiently prepared. Although they did nothing but study for all of high school, seniors can rest easy knowing that they are now free as birds with no more textbooks and tests holding them back. “I can’t wait!” rhapsodized Aaron Lu. “I’m going to have so much free time, and I’ll sleep for 10 hours a night!” he continued. “Anyways, gotta go to my Cornell orientation, so bye, losers! I’m off to enjoy the rest of my life with no more stress!”

The clawed limb released me, and I swam for air. When I broke the surface of the water, that first breath of oxygen was my most thankful. I heard a loud noise behind me and turned around to find myself face-to-face with a kappa. He looked exactly like how traditional artworks depicted him: a humanoid mashup of a grandfather who has cheated continued on page 23

“A Higher Loyalty” by James Comey is released.

Khloe Kardashian gives birth to True Thompson.

Barbara Bush dies.

Avicii (Tim Bergling) commits suicide.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 22

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

Proms Ruined Thanks To Stuy

By VICTOR KUANG

As the students of the other schools happily enjoyed their proms, the seven Stuy saboteur groups stormed into each prom. Armed with posters of their high school acceptance letter, the Stuyvesant students went completely berserk. The place that these proms happened at ended up being completely trashed by having Stuyvesant’s many SHSAT cutoff scores graffitied across the entire place. In addition to this, the room was filled with Stuy kids wearing golden gauntlets with colorful stones engraved that made half of the other school’s kids have a mental breakdown. Snapping their fingers to activate this power, groans of “I don’t feel so good.” from the non-Stuy kids engulfed the room. The non-Stuy kids also started to have symptoms such as a mental breakdown coupled with anxiety that a normal Stuy kid experiences everyday. It was also reported that some disintegrated at the sound of these gauntlets. Seeing a haven turned into a barren wasteland before their eyes, the survivors were forced to evacuate the scene. Once they had made it somewhere safe, the survivors started to weep; it didn’t matter what college they’re going to, or what they accomplished in four

Mandy Mai / The Spectator

As we all know, Stuyvesant High School is a particularly boring place with people inhaling flash drives and hog urinals at the expense of full-bladdered individuals. In May and June however, Stuy is a completely different place thanks to prom. Prom season is a time where everyone, namely the select popular individuals, can pull off all sorts of shenanigans for their own satisfaction. For example, the real mvps manage to get their crushes admission to their dream school in hopes that they will go to prom with them. The list of activities can go on and on. This year, however, is different. Unlike previous years of allout mayhem that included fighting for Mrs Damesek’s affection, and people getting mad hype, the school seemed to be even more dead than usual. Not a single promposal has been made during this season, leaving the school doctor with no cases of mono to deal with. In an attempt to bring back the prom spirit Stuyvesant High School once had, Junior Ryan Wu and Senior Nishchay Bajaj spent countless minutes trying to plot something. After some debate, they finally settled on a plan

that would ruin the proms of many other schools. Although their initial legion of ten supporters was strong enough, they managed to gain even more support. With oddly effective methods of persuasion such as showing a slideshow of everyone’s GPA in the theater, Wu and Bajaj managed to stun the entire school into joining their movement. “It’s really incredible, you know?” Bajaj remarked. “When Ryan and I first made this campaign, we kinda planned to have only two or three awkward seniors and juniors involved. But somehow, we got more people to join our cause, and it’s evident that the entire Stuyvesant community has one common goal.” “Obviously if we’re gonna go to EVERY school in the city, we’d never accomplish our task,” said Wu. “In lieu of that, we’re just gonna pop up at the proms of other specialized high schools. That way, we can really show our dominance, and we might even teach our freshmen a thing or two about being a Stuy kid.” Sometime in mid June, thousands of Stuyvesant students marched into train stations near Chambers Street, and were headed straight to the proms that were happening in other boroughs.

years. All that matters is that the pain of rejection from four years ago has gone back to haunt them. With the other proms being ruined, each prom saboteur group roared in cheers. Everyone involved actually felt happy, an emotion that many have not experienced since graduating middle school. “Before participating in this, I was just a boring, normal guy,” freshman Jonathan Xu com-

mented. “But after what happened at these proms, I feel enlightened. Now, I am going to look forward to the next three years of my life.” Now that everyone’s spirits were actually up, the Juniors and Seniors started getting excited for their respective proms. People were macking on their crushes, and students were doing regular prom season activities at Stuyvesant High School. As for Bajaj and Wu, they were immediately forgotten after prom ended.

Senior Helplessly In Love With Freshman, But No One Is Shocked By LAURA ILIOAEI

Normally, a senior being in love with a freshman is a hypothetical situation; pure fantasy. When the topic is brought up, it’s usually joked about and regarded as some sort of social taboo. But in the year 2018, if anyone tried to crack a joke about how senior Iam Smitten “was trying to bag freshie Serah Bellum, ha-ha,” she’d look at you with a starry-eyed yet serious expression, and respond, “So what? I love her. (I still do.)” It all began when Smitten ran into Bellum’s homeroom several minutes late. “A Big Sigh for our Big Sib,” Bellum had said, shaking her head. Such wit entrapped Smitten. And like a jolt of lightning, an electric, passionate fire struck her by surprise. She had committed an ultimate sin: she had fallen head-over-heels for a freshman. Thank the spirit of Peter Stuyvesant himself that her emotions were not strong enough yet to be perceived by those around her— well, apart from her close friend. “Wow, this is so humiliating. Sophomores get enough teasing

for being ‘freshman hunters,’ and they’re two years your junior,” her close friend, Nat Perceptive had said, glaring at her in disapproval. “With a name like hers, she’s bound to have one hell of a mind.” “With a name like hers, she’s going to give you a lack of coordination.” “Too late. I’m already weak around her. My heart is a symphony. My legs are gelatin.” Perceptive shook her head, knowing that any advice she’d give Smitten would be futile. The Infatuation was already turning into Puppy Love. All she could do was cringe and slap reminders of college applications on her friend to remind her of manda-

tory priorities. Bellum didn’t quite reciprocate Smitten’s feelings, but she didn’t find them to be an inconvenience. At the end of the first semester, she invited Smitten to accompany her to the Met “for a date.” Really, she just needed a partner who would help her take adequate photos for her art appreciation final project. She relished the power of having an upper-

23 Kate Middleton gives birth to Prince Louis of Cambridge.

22 “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” premieres on Broadway.

classman wrapped around her finger. “You’re in AP Art Appreciation? Wow,” she cooed. “You’re a top dog.” Some of Bellum’s classmates (who were paparazzi taking photos of the illicit couple) rolled their eyes. “‘Top dog’? More like a freshman’s b*tch.” And with a portfolio of Polaroids of the two posing wantonly amongst the artworks, these freshmen marched to the Big Sib Board, threatening to “expose corruption worse than any cheating scandal.” The entire Big Sib Board broke into tears. For a moment the freshmen thought that the Board would give in to their demands, but one student stood up and exclaimed, “Are you trying to make fun of the fact that we all only know how to make out with our study guides, and make love to our textbooks despite having been here for four years?” A second rose to speak. “I have a confession. When I was a freshman, I dated my Big Sib.” Everyone gasped. The Chairs fainted. The freshmen caught them in their arms, and

considered to seize their former demands in order to pursue a conquest of a different kind. When the second semester started, Smitten sought the advice of her guidance counselor. “Let me guess,” they said, giving her a smug expression. “Is this about you having that terrible crush on a freshman?” “How did you –“ “Everyone knows. We’ve been paying hush money to the New York Post so that they wouldn’t write ANOTHER article trying to shame Stuyvesant.” Temporarily after that, Smitten attempted to stay away from Bellum. But can a fly truly shy away from honey for all eternity? Absolutely not. Hence she made a wild promposal to Bellum. She bribed the Robotics team into creating a boat on wheels in which she stood upon as it rolled to Bellum, her hands outstretched as she serenaded, “We’re technically not canon, but I will go down with our ship, even if everyone else tries to tear it down with cannons. Will you sail with me at Prom?” And wildly enough, Bellum accepted.

South Korea-North Korea summit leading to better relations The leaders of the two nations, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un of North Korea, meet at the border and cross into each other’s country. This marks a historical turning point in international relations as a whole as peace talks are underway between President Moon and Kim Jong-Un, allowing for a possible peace treaty to be drawn up that can formally end the 1950-53 Korean War.

24 “Humanity” by Ai Weiwei is released.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 23

Humor By CHRISABELLA JAVIER Thanos, the intergalactic conqueror also known as the Mad Titan and the Thicc Icon, has just announced his intent to run for Student Union (SU) president, against [insert power hungry and Ivy League desperate candidates here]. The announcement was in the form of a public Facebook statement, where Thanos stated his two main campaign promises: kill half of the population of Stuyvesant in order to secure more funding, resources, and spots in advanced classes for the remaining students, and open up the 5th floor roof for lunch periods and class time. His sudden announcement has ignited a spark in a large portion of the student body, who were already disenchanted with what they believe to be a corrupt and shady AF SU. “I fully support him,” sophomore Stowe C. Opath said.“He’s power hungry, but not too power hungry. I can certainly see him getting this done within the lifespan of the Solar System. Plus, he’s got a plan to achieve what he wants: gather school funding and approval for an Infinity Gauntlet, retrieve the Infinity Stones, and *SNAP*! He might even

Thanos Runs For SU

be able to make the cafeteria not smell like the death of all our hopes and dreams!” Furthermore, Opath sees Thanos as a Candidate of the People. He claims, “There’s probably so many options for student to assist: there’s a guy in my Comp Sci class with a 200 average, and I’m 100 percent sure he has the Mind Stone. I’m down with helping by ripping it out of his smug head.” His brother, Sike Opath, agrees, “ Thanos is much better than anyone

e l s e running, they ei-

Katherine Lwin / The Spectator

ther want too much, like extra credit for clubs, napping for extra credit, a working WiFi system, playing “Gucci Gang” instead of morning announcements, and lead free water, or BS their lack of a plan by saying ‘OUr gOal iSN’t tO wIN, ItS To sENd a MeSSagE.’ Mass genocide of the student population is the only reasonable platform any of these candidates have. Everyone else’s arguments for their positions are just stuff like ‘we believe this will make the student body happy’ and ‘we are the only ones running you people have no choice.’” Some of his other supporters are excited for the implementation of his policies. “I got rejected for applying to 5 APs because apparently a GPA of 64.999 can’t be rounded up to 100 to make the cut. But if everyone else in those classes dies, then they

HAVE to let me in! And if he kills me instead, then I get to be released from the turmoil that is human existence! It’s a win win!” says freshman Dez Perate. However, for all the many supporters of Thanos’ candidacy, there are just as many who oppose him. “I’ve got a thriving business reselling Supreme™ juul pods! If he actually implements his policies, I’ll lose half my customers!” junior Kappy Talist exclaimed. Others believe that he’s just another candidate wanting to look good for colleges. “Oh, he looks good now, but we all know he’s never going to get anything done. Two years ago Kim Jong Un got elected as SU president by promising to nuke the school, but here we are, still an intact and non radioactive school!” junior Kim Jong Il stated. As of time of publishing, Thanos has retrieved the Reality Stone and has used it to fix more of the subway than the MTA has done in a decade, to great acclaim. The Spectator desperately wants to give him an endorsement, but is too fearful of the 57 excessive facebook messages they will inevitably receive from each other candidate to do so.

The Great (Stuyvesant) War By WILLIAM HUANG and HELENA WILLIAMS The Stuyvesant Class of 2019 has made history. With the entire class having GPAs above 98 and being sports captains who have each cured cancer, the big-time Ivy league colleges such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton have resorted to other means to select the most qualified candidates. They’ve decided to host a battle-royale competition within Stuyvesant, where the last student standing will be guaranteed a spot at the Ivy of his/her choice. “There is little distinction between a Stuyvesant student with a 99.9 average and a student with a 99.8,” says a Harvard admissions officer. “Therefore, students must distinguish themselves by being the

most cunning and ruthless individuals in their class. We are looking for students who will change world. We want the next Mark Zuckerberg, Stephen Hawking, and Joseph Stalin. When this nation inevitably falls to tyranny, we want our campus to be spared by our alumni.” Unlike the fight-to-thedeath contests in battle royal video games, this is a competition of sabotage. Students must do everything in their power to lower the averages of their peers below the 98 threshold of the Ivy-leagues. They may employ a number of tactics, such as stealing textbooks, stopping their peers from getting to class on time, and posting inaccurate study guides on Facebook. Some students have already formed hallway gangs during their free peri-

ods to physically abuse their particularly high-achieving peers and to make them tardy. Students are encouraged to make alliances and double cross each other as necessary. The colleges monitor the progress of this competition through the teachers, who will be happy to accept bribes from students to lower their competitors’ grades. Teachers who have long held grudges against some of their students see this as an opportunity to fail them with impunity. Students must also compete in the realm of extracurricular activities. To get an edge on the rest of their classmates, students must oust each other from leadership positions and claim them for themselves. In response, the fascist Student Union has announced

its plans of using its private army to forcefully eliminate the top 1% of the class, while the power-hungry president has mandated that he be named co-captain of every single team and club. Several members of the greyducks, the peglegs, and whatever the ping pong team is called have engaged in fist-fights over the title of team captain, while the Innovation Lab has become a major battlefield as science clubs battle to reserve it. For those who may be worried that the Ivy league colleges favor academics over extracurriculars or vice versa, the admissions officers put these doubts to rest. “We will be taking a holistic view of our potential candidates. The student with the highest average and the most leadership positions will

be the winner,” says a Yale admissions officer. “I feel right at home,” says an anonymous junior. “My friends and I love backstabbing each other on a daily basis, though none of my friends outside of Stuy seem to comprehend the sentiment.” “I am thinking about setting my classmates’ houses on fire,” remarks another anonymous junior. “I can do all things through my tiger mother who strengthens me. I know no limits.” While some parents have expressed doubts over the ethics of such a competition, there is no denying that this will prepare Stuyvesant students for the same level of competition in college and to climb the corporate ladder in the future.

The Cucumber Craving Kappa continued from page 21

death for far too long, a turtle that has bathed in the algae and mud of the ocean deep, and a duck that has wished to poke its beak into undersea affairs. Bluntly stated, he was ugly. But it was the kind of ugly that is also simultaneously very, very cute. He was an ugly, cute creature that was a divine entity who was capable of not only killing me, but of consuming my soul afterwards as well. (So much for trying to RIP in peace.) Nervously, I put my hands

up in a gesture of surrender, hoping that this lethal river god would have mercy. I tried to meet his gaze, but I then noticed that he wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking at my swimsuit. It was then that I realized that because it was a green onepiece, I looked like a giant cucumber. Now there’s a whole load of info about kappa that I’m omitting because there’s only so much that can be crammed into an article, but just know that cucumbers are amongst their most favourite things to eat.

I knew that my cucumber sandwich was right where I left it, but I was too far away from the diving platforms. That left only one option. I took a deep breath… And ripped off my bathing suit. It’s not everyday that you need to strip in front of a deity in a lifeor-death situation, but I bet YOU wouldn’t have been able to propose a better solution in my position. I threw the swimsuit at the kappa and then when I reached the diving platform, I threw the sandwich at him too. Immediately after I sprinted

into the changing rooms, feeling that embarrassment that only accompanies inappropriate nudity. As I was trying to simultaneously dry and redress, I heard the kappa scream an ugly enraged amplified croak before the sound of tumultuous water followed. Immediately afterwards, there was flooding from underneath the door and I was knee-deep in leadridden,new chlorinated pool water. A band-aid floated past my shin. I wasn’t going to stay to see what happened next. I was out of Stuy before you could say “Atlantis.”

“This Is America” by Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) is released.

“Beerbongs and Bentleys” by Post Malone is released.

may

27 “Avengers: Infinity War” is released in the United States.

Thank god that the cameras were malfunctioning that day, because apparently “major damage” had been done in the area and swim gym was going to be canceled for the next few years (Un-Aquatic Freshman rejoice!).The school administration was still trying to hunt down who had been responsible for the damages to get them to pay for the costs, but I’m pretty sure that my soul, sleep, and meaningless contributions to Stuyvesant have been payment enough these past few years.

A number of Stuyvesant students hold a pro-gun walkout in response to the Stuy Says ENOUGH! walkout at Rockefeller Park.

The 70th Met Gala, themed “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.”

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 24

Sports Stunt

Stuyvesant Stunt Rewrites the History Books

By FRANKLIN LIOU and JOOAHN SUR

For the first time in Stuyvesant history, the stunt team made the playoffs, ending their season 6-4. This was a huge leap forward from the past two seasons in which the team was near the bottom of their division. The team finished the season with a record of 3-8 in 2017, a slight improvement from their 2016 record of 1-9. They did, however, get knocked out by the second best team in the city, Susan Wagner High School, in the first round of the playoffs. The team scored a few points but failed to capitalize on several opportunities by making costly errors. Despite the loss, the fact that the team made the leap to the playoffs is impressive. General expectations

for the team were low, as there was little reason to believe that this team would be any better than those in the past. However, the cheerleaders believed in themselves, and they were determined to create a winning culture. “We definitely wanted it, and I think that really played a big role in getting us there in the end,” sophomore backspot Erica Chen said. With a revamped roster and strong execution, the team was successful in the regular season, defeating John F. Kennedy High School, James Monroe High School (by forfeit), John Bowne High School, Academy of American Studies, Harry Truman High School, and Morrisania Educational Campus (by forfeit). However, the most important change made by the team was the

Cricket

This year, Stuyvesant’s cricket team, the Tigers, has had a confusing season riddled with inconsistency. They have been unable to find a system that works for them every game, and their results are ample evidence of that. With a 3-6 record, which puts them at the bottom of the standings of their Bronx/Manhattan league, the Tigers have just three postponed games left to play, and they need a 5-5 record at this point to have any chance to qualify for playoffs. Their inconsistency and a number of unforeseen circumstances have cost them their season. Because of AP exams, the Tigers have played a few games without a full starting 11. They missed out on a game against Lehman, who they beat, because of some confusion on the PSAL’s part regarding field locations. The Tigers cannot dwell on these details and must find a solution to their problems on the field. This inconsistency has an explanation: “It’s just one of those things that comes with having a young team. We play a lot of teams that have veteran players or [players that] have been playing this sport for years. Secondly, we don’t have any cricket fields near us, and this doesn’t give us the best opportunity for practice and training. This puts us at a disadvantage,” sophomore and co-captain Vishwaa Sofat said. The Tigers have just six active upperclassmen (four seniors and two

upon in upcoming years. Of course, this year was not a perfect one for the stunt team, and they have many things to work on for next year. One of the issues this year was a regular lack of attendance at practice, which greatly hurt the team chemistry. Stunt is a team-oriented sport, so even if a few people miss practice, it becomes challenging for them to work on routines that require the coordination of the entire team. Furthermore, the new assistant coach, Nicholas O’Stanton, was still adjusting to the team, putting much of the leadership burden on captains Zong and junior Sharon Li. Next year, this team could easily go even farther with another year of growth by the team and coaches. With 38 of the 42 members of the roster returning (including both

Zong and Li), another year should only improve the team’s abilities and communication. After just one winning season, the stunt team was able to create a winning culture. Now, after getting their first taste of the playoff atmosphere, the team’s standards are raised up another notch. “Our goal was simply to make it to playoffs and make a name for Stuyvesant STUNT,” Zong said. The team truly did just that this year and hopes to add to their list of team accomplishments with every flip and tumble that they perform in coming years. “Moving into cheerleading season, we are expecting to get even better next year and hopefully make it into finals next year,” Zong added. And all of a sudden, those goals do not seem to be too far-fetched at all.

Golf

Inconsistency Costs The Tigers Their Season By AHMED HUSSEIN

way they approached each game. “We had a more organized system in terms of distributing routines. In stunt, there are a total of 24 premade routines created by PSAL. As a result, it’s important to know how to use each player in order to create a roster that would maximize the team’s potential,” junior and cocaptain Kevin Zong said. “We also began to pick up more of these routines. In previous years, our team would learn only the easier routines and try to perfect those rather than learning the more difficult ones and giving those a chance as well. This year, however, we were able to learn and nearly perfect 23 out of the 24.” Being able to compete in more routines and shift their mindset gave the stunt team that extra push into the playoffs and is a strategy that the team looks to improve

juniors) out of 22 players. Many of those 22 are newcomers who are still learning the basics; this leads to many mistakes in games. However, senior and co-captain Aryan Bhatt finds promise in this predicament. “Only very few players will be graduating in the next two years, and the majority of our team is made up of underclassmen that are showing an insane amount of promise, so I’m confident that in the next two years, with all this hard work they’re putting in, the Tigers are going to reach heights we never have before,” Bhatt said. With practice, many of these players can become consistent bowlers and batters. Despite the seemingly poor performance, this has been the Tigers’ second best season to date. Given last year’s 0-11 record, this season is much more impressive and a great start for the Tigers to build on in the years to come. Some of these new players, including freshman Sayan Shil, Stuyvesant’s wicketkeeper, have already proven themselves this season. Shil was integral in the Tigers’ win in the game against Francis Lewis, which they won by only two runs. Shil’s crucial eight runs in the last over won the game for the Tigers. Another consistent underclassman is sophomore Fatin Ahmed, who has proven himself as a dangerous dual threat, batting and bowling consistently, something very few players have done this season. With these key younger players, the Tigers’ future looks bright even as this season winds down to an end.

Eric Schneiderman Resigns After Assault Claims The NY State Attorney General, who had filed a lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein and praised the intentions of the #MeToo movement, is placed under scrutiny after four women speak up about their experiences with him, which entailed extremely violent, non-consensual sex. Schneiderman resigns shortly after these accusations are released.

Eagles’ Season Ends Early in the Playoffs By ELIAS FERGUSON The Eagles, Stuyvesant’s coed varsity golf team, wrapped up their regular season with a solid 7-2 final record. Coming in third after Hunter College High School and the Bronx High School of Science, the Eagles made it to the second round of the playoffs before losing to Tottenville. In the last few games of the regular season, the Eagles defeated Eleanor Roosevelt High School and Lab Museum United but lost to Hunter in the last game of the season. Against Lab, the game started out with senior Christopher Chan taking four of the six holes played, with the other two being even. That win took Chan’s personal season record to nine wins out of nine matches. Sophomore Alexander Camaev lost to Lab’s Landon Bauer, losing four holes and drawing three before the game was called in favor of Bauer. Finally, Eagles Freshman Ethan Machleder played Zachary Roth to a draw, with both players managing to take two holes. The game ended 3-1. Eleanor Roosevelt was easily beaten by the Eagles 5-0. Chan continued his excellent streak

with another win, taking five of five holes against Amanda Cavaliero. Eagles freshman Declan Stacy won impressively against Eleanor Roosevelt’s Michael Eckerstrom, who is a senior. Stacy took all five holes played. In the loss against Hunter, the Eagles took one match and drew one. Chan remained undefeated, taking four of six holes played against Hunter’s Tyler Kim. The next three matches resulted in three losses for the Eagles, with Camaev and freshmen Ethan Machleder and Stacy all losing to their Hunter counterparts, handing Hunter the three wins necessary to take the game. The Eagles advanced to the second round after a victory against Susan E. Wagner High School of 4-0. Only the fourth match of the day wasn’t a victory for the Eagles, which ended in a draw between Machelder and Wagner’s Alex Angamarca Tigre. During the regular season, Wagner had an excellent season, but that was ended quickly by the Eagles who play in a much more competitive division. The Eagles crashed out of the playoffs with a loss against Tottenville in the second round. Tottenville had been absolutely

“Fresh Off the Boat” and “black-ish” are both renewed for Season 5 on ABC.

Stuyvesant’s girls’ badminton team defeated Brooklyn Technical High School to claim the PSAL title.

Jane Rhee completes a flesh against Long Island City High School en route to a 90-34 Stuyvesant victory.

dominant in the Staten Island division with an undefeated record of 12-0. However, last year, the Eagles defeated them in the second round 3-1, so this loss to Tottenville represents a real turnaround. The Eagles lost four of the matches. However, they were playing without senior Jeffrey Luo, forcing Camaev to play two matches in a row. The only match the team won was when Chan barely edged out his opponent, winning with one point. The senior ended his Stuyvesant golfing career undefeated in three of his four seasons playing for the team. His achievements in the individual tournament are also remarkable, as he won the competition last year and came in second this year. Despite the loss, Camaev looked to next season, saying, “I’m going to practice for the next season [...] We didn’t play to our full potential because we didn’t practice enough.” Camaev has confidence in his teammates’ abilities to improve for next season if they work hard and practice. This ends the Eagles’ season as they wait for next year, when they will try and go deeper into the playoffs.

12 Israeli singer Netta Barzi wins the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon, Portugal, with her song, “Toy.”

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

Page 25

Sports Coach’s Corner

Meet Retiring Coach Eric Wisotsky

By SAM MERRICK Eric Wisotsky has been a teacher at Stuyvesant since 2001 and is perhaps best known for teaching United States History, Economics, and Government, and being one of the coordinators of the annual National History Day competition. What one may not know, however, is that Wisotsky has also been a dedicated coach of the girls’ varsity handball team since 2010 and the girls’ table tennis team since 2015. He was also the coach of the girls’ bowling team from 2014 through 2016. Unfortunately for the Stuyvesant community, this is Wisotsky’s last year coaching at Stuyvesant. While he is sad to be moving on, Wisotsky has decided to retire from coaching so that he can spend more time with his wife and two-year-old daughter. Wisotsky grew up in Chappaqua, NY and has received degrees in a multitude of subjects. He graduated from SUNY Oneonta with a bachelor’s degree in History and then attended the New York Institute of Technology where he received a Masters in Instructional Technology, and College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, where he received a Certificate in School Building and District Leadership. Now, Wisotsky lives with his family in Putnam Valley, New York—a whole 50 miles north of Stuyvesant. Putnam Valley holds a special place for Wisotsky because he lives in a community where his father

spent his summers, as did Wisotsky when he visited his grandparents as a kid. He also loves animals and has enough space to have two cats and a dog, and raise chickens for their eggs. As Wisotsky recalls, he wanted to become a teacher at Stuyvesant ever since he graduated college. This is no surprise considering the fact that Wisotsky comes from a family of teachers. In fact, both of his parents were New York City teachers, his sister is a teacher, his aunt is a teacher, his uncle and cousin both work in education, and even his wife teaches kindergarten in their local school district. Though Wisotsky has a long commute, he is happy to make the daily trip to Stuyvesant and be around motivated students who care about academics. Prior to teaching at Stuyvesant, Wisotsky taught at a school in which the students were not very motivated, and it was not the environment in which he wanted to teach. Instead, he was able to attain his dream job as a Stuyvesant teacher and has not regretted his decision. “The academic culture and the motivation of the students continue to make it a joy to teach here,” Wisotsky said. Indeed, Wisotsky can readily relate to Stuyvesant’s intensely competitive environment since his high school was very competitive as well, and he has taken the lessons he learned from his high school experience and applied them to his teaching.

As Wisotsky aptly said, “I feel I can best help students in a place like Stuy, especially the ones who tend to slip through the cracks. I didn’t always fit the mold in high school, so I really try to reach out to kids who might struggle in similar ways here.” Wisotsky said he “love[s]” Stuyvesant, further remarking, “The students continue to inspire me, and I continue to make new connections.” In reflecting on his nearly two decades at Stuyvesant, Wisotsky said, “Other than various policy changes over the years, I’m not sure how much has changed [at Stuyvesant] because my perspective has changed as well.” Wisotsky’s zeal for teaching is also mirrored in his passion for coaching. Though he was never a part of the handball or table tennis teams in high school or college, Wisotsky was on his high school’s baseball team and has always remained involved in athletics. While he could have joined his college’s baseball team, the thought of waking up for 6 a.m. morning practices in college did not appeal to him, so instead, he opted to be on his college’s varsity ski team for three years. After college, he played softball for a number of years, and then in 2012, he switched back to playing baseball. Currently, Wisotsky both manages and plays in the Hudson Valley Men’s Senior Baseball League (MSBL) for adults 35 years of age and older. Yet, this did not stop Wisotsky from devoting a significant amount of time

to the Stuyvesant handball and table tennis teams over the last several years. As the head coach for the girls’ varsity table tennis and handball teams, Wisotsky has always emphasized teamwork both on and off the courts (for handball) or the tables (for table tennis). In fact, on the handball team, “We have always referred to our team as a family. Everybody contributes and supports each other in different ways,” Wisotsky said. Wisotsky has also emphasized to his players that “raw skill” can only take a player so far and that “temperament is as important in winning as skill,” he said. Indeed, one motto for Wisotsky’s teams is that “the difference between a good player and a great player is up here, while pointing to our heads,” he said. More specifically, Wisotsky has always reiterated to his players that “keeping a cool head, staying confident, and not getting rattled by spectators, the other players, or the score is key,” he said. “I remind them to stay cool, calm, and collected, and take one ball at a time.” Another critical aspect of Wisotsky’s coaching philosophy is demonstrated by yet another one of his teams’ mottos: “Don’t keep score, just keep scoring.” As Wisotsky said, “the idea is not to lose confidence if you are behind by a lot, not to be overconfident if you are ahead by a lot, and not to get nervous if it’s a close game. I emphasize keeping emotions in check and staying con-

fident in one’s ability; then you can get emotional and celebrate after the game.” In addition, Wisotsky has helped the team improve by encouraging the players to reflect on how they can improve for the next game. “Every game is a practice to get better for the next game,” he said. Indeed, Wisotsky’s coaching philosophy is echoed by Shirley Liu, a senior on the girls’ handball team. “Mr. Wisotsky is always enthusiastic, supportive, and encouraging. He recognizes our commitment and effort and always reminds us to not keep score and just keep scoring,” Liu said. Even though Wisotsky has decided to retire from coaching the Stuyvesant teams, he continues to keep very busy with his other passions, including his love of music. He likes going to concerts and plays guitar, a little piano, and blues harmonica. He manages to find time to build guitars as a hobby and is currently working on a “cigar box guitar. These go back to the mid 1800s and were especially popular again during the Great Depression amongst musicians who couldn’t afford to buy instruments,” Wisotsky said. It is clear that Wisotsky is multifaceted and a role model for the students of Stuyvesant High School. He will be very missed next year as the coach of the table tennis and handball teams, but lucky for Stuyvesant, he has no plans to stop teaching and helping his students continue to achieve their goals.

Softball

The Renegades’ Run Ends in Quarterfinals By ETHAN WEISBERG and SAMUEL STAMMLER Stuyvesant’s softball team, the Renegades, began their postseason against Staten Island Technical High School. After falling behind 3-0 in the first inning, the team had to climb out of the early deficit. They rallied and put Staten Island Tech away with some late runs, finally cruising to a 14-8 victory behind their powerful offense. This first playoff game served as a wake-up call, alerting the Renegades that playoffs would not be a breeze. Considering the team hadn’t played since May 8, rust could have been a factor for miscues on defense and at the plate. “Our defensive game was a little off today, but we had a few strong plays that saved us crucial runs,” senior and co-captain Charlotte Ruhl said. “Once we were able to start hitting we did really well, but it took us a whole lineup to start hitting.” The Renegades underper-

formed offensively at the beginning of the game, not scoring a single run for the first two innings. “We played really [sloppily] because we weren’t concentrating, and I think we were a little nervous,” senior and co-captain Frankie Michelli said. Regardless, they finished the game strong, batting .354 as a team and securing the win with an eightrun third inning and a five-run fifth inning. “Once we calmed down, we were able to play as good as we know we are,” Michelli said. It seemed like everything was clicking for the Renegades in the second round game against Francis Lewis in a 16-3 mercy victory. Once again, the offense put on a show. Despite giving up two quick runs in the bottom of the first inning, they were able to overwhelm Francis Lewis by scoring three runs or more every inning. Their offense was so strong that they had a team batting average of .600, only .025 off from their big-

gest win of the season (33-5 against High School for Environmental Studies). Junior Talia Kirshenbaum had a monster game, finishing 3-3 with one double and two triples to accompany four runs and five runs batted in. Unfortunately, this offensive success came crashing down in the quarterfinal game against Fort Hamilton. The Renegades were shut out 5-0 and hit a measly .120 as a team. This was the first time this whole season the Renegades played a game without scoring a single run and their worst offensive performance of the entire season. It could not have come at a worse time, as it officially eliminated them from the 2018 AA Division playoffs. Unfortunately, the Renegades were unable to meet Coach Miller’s original goal to “win the division this year and be ranked top five in the city,” he said, as they were seeded seventh and came second in their division behind Manhattan Center for

Science & Math. However, despite not meeting these lofty goals set by Miller, the Renegades had a phenomenal season. The team made it to the fourth round of the playoffs, the deepest run with the current core. While on paper the team looks in decent shape next year, losing only three of its 16 members, a deeper dive yields concerns. Senior and cocaptain Delaney Demark’s leadership will be hard to replace. Michelli has been the undisputed ace pitcher for the team her whole career, never dipping below 46 innings pitched in a season and peaking at 100 2/3 innings during her sophomore campaign. The Renegades will need someone to take her place on the mound, with two potential options being juniors Ally Archer or Allie Lennard. Similarly, Ruhl, Michelli’s battery mate behind the plate, will also be greatly missed. Her four home runs paced the team, and her 24 runs batted in were one behind the team leader Archer’s. Besides her

powerful presence in the lineup, her unquestioned leadership behind the plate will leave a void both as a leader and as a catcher. The returning Renegades will need to step up to replace these three key members of the team both on and off the field. Though the Renegades did not end the season on the best note, it would be impossible not to call the year a success. Not only did they win several games by more than twenty runs, but they also defeated some incredibly tough competition with their offense. Ruhl voiced concerns about the Renegades’ ability to compete against faster pitching at the beginning of the season, but their close victory against Benjamin N. Cardozo High and their mercy of Francis Lewis showed they were up for the task, putting in hours both at the batting cages and at practice to improve. While the team has question marks in the field heading into the offseason, the Renegades fought hard until the final out of their impressive season.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle get married at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

19 18

Sante Fe School Shooting Another school shooting in Sante Fe, Texas occurs, demonstrating that despite efforts to stop gun violence with walkouts and protests, it remains a chronic issue that will not stop until appropriate policies are made to regulate guns.

The girls’ ultimate frisbee team defeated Fieldston High School to win the city championships.

Both the girls’ and boys’ outdoor track teams won the Manhattan Borough Championships, continuing their run of dominance in the PSAL.

Gina Hapsel Chosen for the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Former CIA Deputy Director Gina Hapsel is nominated by President Trump and sworn into her new position by a 10-5 vote from the Senate Intelligence Community and a 54-45 from the Senate. Hapsel has been widely criticized for her involvement in the CIA’s past torture and detention programs in Thailand. She is the first woman to hold this office.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

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Sports Boys’ Lacrosse

Peglegs Make Playoff History By LUMI WESTERLUND and LEE-ANN RUSHLOW As the Peglegs walked off the field on Thursday, May 17, they held their heads and sticks high despite a 6-13 loss to Midwood High School in the semifinal round of the playoffs. With their head coach Di Wu leaving Stuyvesant in upcoming months, the final game was an emotional goodbye both for him and the graduating seniors. “When it was already clear to the offense that we were going to lose in the last quarter

against Midwood, we had three or four minutes of incredible playing, crisp passing, smart shots, and perfect positioning that I’m going to remember for a long time,” senior and co-captain Dima Hvirtsman said. The team claimed a 10-1 win in their initial playoff game against Albert Tuitt Educational Campus, making it the team’s first playoff win since they began playing in 2008. That wasn’t the only first for the team that game. Senior Rafsan Hamid scored three goals of 10 (what his teammates call his first

“hat trick”), and in their previous game, the Peglegs saw a goalie switch as junior Xiangyu Gao took over as main goalie, leaving senior goalie and co-captain Sam Brimberg to score four goals in the position of Attack against Tuitt. Looking ahead, the team hopes to continue implementing some of their new techniques that they have deemed effective, such as subbing players rapidly and the “pass from X,” and passing from behind the goal. “I think in high school lacrosse, it is very important to be patient and

catch the other team off guard. With the ‘pass from X,’ we were able to open up so many more scoring opportunities,” said coach Wu. Next season, junior and cocaptain Rubin Peco is excited to take the Peglegs farther than they have ever been in the playoffs. “We’re just gonna do what we did this year but times 10. Practice will be more intense. Pre-season and stuff will be more drawn out,” Peco said. Coach Wu laid the groundwork for a great team, and the Peglegs will carry on the techniques he introduced for

years to come. In the upcoming season, the Peglegs will get a new head coach, but Andrew Ligayi, a Pegleg alumnus, will remain as assistant coach to help ease the transition in coach Wu’s absence. “I want to tell the team that the foundation has been set, and the winning culture has been restarted. Now it is up to the rising players to carry this new tradition. Trust your skills, trust your teammates, stay motivated, stay focused, stay hungry, and do Stuyvesant proud,” coach Wu said.

Boys’ Track

Greyducks Win Borough Championships for 19th Consecutive Season

By YAE JUNE LEE and CHRIS KIM

The Stuyvesant Greyducks, the boys’ track team, put on an outstanding performance at the Borough and City Championships in their spring outdoor track season. The team had only one goal in mind since they began the season back in March—to secure another Manhattan Borough Championship title. “Both the boys’ and girls’ outdoor track and field teams are expecting another victory in the Manhattan Borough Championships to add to our win streak,”

sophomore sprinter Nicholas Siauw said. The Greducks did just this, continuing their 19-season run of dominance at the Manhattan Borough Championships on May 20. Both field and track event runners performed well at the meet. The 4x100-meter relay team, composed of seniors Anthony Hom and captain Jonathan Choi, junior Joseph Lee, and sophomore Nicholas Siauw, went on to break school’s record with an exceptional time of 45.17 seconds. Core field eventers such as sophomore Harper Andrews, junior Jef-

fery Wu, and senior Shijie Xiedeng also finished strong in their own respective events. Wu placed third in the long jump event with a distance of 19’4.5”. Coming right after Wu, Andrews placed fourth in the long jump with 18’11”. Xiedeng placed second in both the discus throw and shot put. Both the field and track competitors have had success throughout the season. However, Stuyvesant was unable to carry this momentum into the City Championships. The Greyducks battled their way to an 18th place finish. “We went slower than

last week, and the rain messed everybody up,” Siauw said. The steady stream of water ensured a slippery and dangerous Icahn Stadium track, hurting the runners’ overall times. Two defining features of this year’s team that will also shape the Greyducks for years to come are the abilities of the new underclassmen and the importance coach Mankit Wong plays for the team. “Our new recruits are doing exceptionally well and even pose a threat to some of the upperclassmen. It’s the first outdoor season that the Greyducks are under new management but Coach

Wong is leading the sprinters well,” Hom said. With the end of the Freshman Sophomore City Championships, the Greyducks’ season finally winds to a close. Considering that many contributors are not seniors, this team has more years of contention with its current roster makeup ahead of it. Seniors make up just five of the 92 members of the roster, so another year of experience and practice will hopefully keep the run for Manhattan Borough Championships going.

Boys’ Baseball

Illustrious Pegleg Careers Untainted By Latest Playoff Defeat

By DIMITRIY LEKSANOV

Playoff Recap With the way that the PSAL boys varsity baseball playoffs were structured, there was a legitimate possibility of a storybook ending for the Stuyvesant Peglegs. They had finished their season in a tumultuous fashion, needing a walk-off triple from senior Michael Gillow to get by the winless William C. Bryant Owls before dropping their final regular season game 4-2 to the lowly, 3-12 John Bowne Wildcats early one muddy Sunday morning. Despite the shaky finish, however, later that same day, the Peglegs were granted the 13th seed in the AAA playoffs, setting up a home playoff game against Susan Wagner High School from Staten Island. More than just granting home field advantage, though, this seeding was doubly intriguing, as it afforded the Peglegs a potential rematch against their archrivals, the Beacon Blue Demons on Friday, May 25. Though Beacon had

swept the Peglegs over two games in early May by an aggregate score of 19-5, the third time may have been the proverbial charm. Purely by coincidence, May 25 also happens to be the anniversary of Stuyvesant’s last playoff victory, a 1-0 heart-pounder against Fort Hamilton in 2011 that was ultimately decided by an RBI double by Scott Chiusano (‘11) in the bottom of the first inning. Unfortunately for the Peglegs, that bid for redemption never even got off the ground, let alone came to fruition, as Susan Wagner defeated Stuyvesant 8-0 on Wednesday, May 23, extending Stuyvesant’s playoff losing streak to eight consecutive games. End result notwithstanding, the tussle with Wagner was not a total disappointment. Sophomore Owen Potter, for instance, pitched a steller one and two-thirds innings to close out the contest, showing off excellent command while fanning three and holding the Falcons hitless. Additionally, while the Peglegs failed to

Inauguration of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem President Trump’s decides to break with long-standing U.S. foreign policy and international consensus that the status of Jerusalem should be part of final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The American embassy in Israel is moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

score, six of nine starters, including promising sophomore Franklin Liou, managed to grind out base hits, indicating that team-wide offensive production was there but failed to come through at some crucial points. Finally, toward the end of the game, senior Ronin Berzins recorded his first—and only—varsity hit, slapping a hearty single into left-center field. Ultimately, though, the Peglegs were overmatched. Wagner had played against other strong teams from Staten Island all season, which may have caused them to finish with a record (8-8) and seed (20) unrepresentative of their true baseball prowess. As senior Simon Carmody put it, “Wagner was seeded incredibly low for the amount of talent that they have,” and it showed from the beginning. Ace junior pitcher Jared Asch was tagged for six runs over the first three innings, and fellow junior Matthew Deutsch gave up another two over just one out of work. Furthermore, considering

that four of those eight runs were unearned, it is safe to say that the Peglegs’ shoddy defense put them in an insurmountable hole right off the bat. Senior Testimonials When a high school team’s season ends, thereby also ostensibly ending the careers of the team’s senior members, it should be a cause for reflection more so than a cause for mourning. So, in a look back at the careers of some of the Peglegs’ longest-tenured members, some have offered to give quotes about their four years with the organization. Sam Merrick, utility player: “This season was a really pleasant surprise. We lost a lot of great players from last year, but we worked really hard and proved a lot of people wrong. I’m extremely proud to have worn a Stuy baseball jersey for four years.” Merrick began his career at Stuyvesant as a two-year starter for

Real Madrid won its third consecutive Champions League knocking off Liverpool, 3-1.

Israeli-Palestinian Border Clashes Israeli border guards shoot and kill dozens of rioting Palestinians on the IsraelPalestine border in the deadliest clash since the Gaza War; the Palestinians had been protesting the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem.

continued on page 27

Yale defeats Duke 13-11 to win the school’s first ever Men’s NCAA lacrosse championship.

the junior varsity team. Initially an outfielder, Merrick converted to middle infield during his freshman year after spending much of spring training on the bench. He later won the starting position and went on to hit 0.214 while finishing second for the team’s Gold Glove Award. The following year, Merrick moved to first base, showing off impressive flexibility and a more consistent bat. On varsity, Merrick spent most of his time as a reserve outfielder and backup second baseman but saw extensive action during his senior season, racking up five hits after senior and co-captain Khyber Sen went down with a hip injury. Perry Wang, outfielder:“Baseball was the first thing I joined in high school and will be the last chapter of my time here at Stuy. Though we could not come through in the playoffs, I am extremely proud of the team and how we destroyed naysayers by coming together and winning double-digit games for the second

Stuyvesant’s boys’ ultimate frisbee team, the Sticky Fingers, won the State Championships.

The Spectator ● June 8, 2018

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Sports Athlete Profile

Athlete of the Issue: Frankie Michelli

By YAE JUNE LEE and CHRIS KIM

I guess I was eight or nine. I had played baseball with my brother and dad before, but [being in the league was] my first time on a team. Honestly, for the first few years, my parents would have to drag me to my games because I was so nervous to play.

Frankie Michelli Height: 5’6” Eye color: Blue Hair color: Blonde DOB: 8/28/2000 Spirit animal: Golden Retriever Choice of drink: Coffee Favorite food: Sushi Do you play outside school? I used to! I played in West Side Little league until sophomore year, when they disbanded the team because not enough players showed up to each game. When did you start playing softball? I started in fourth grade, so

Why did you stick with it? After every game I would realize how much fun I had, and eventually I was able to get over my anxiety of playing. I love being on a team and competing at the level we do, especially when we win. How do you balance schoolwork and softball? Do you have tips for others who want to do the same? I actually am more productive with my schoolwork during softball season! I find it’s easier to concen-

trate after practice or a game, and you really need to force yourself to be efficient. I’m sure everyone says this, but plan ahead and be organized.

What is your strategy for constantly improving yourself ? I think about how hard my teammates work and the time they’ve devoted to softball, and that drives me to keep getting better. And honestly, I want to win. I think about our tough competitors and how good it would feel to beat them. What’s one of the biggest obstacles you’ve faced? Personally, every season there are a few games where I’m in a slump—I don’t pitch as well as I can, and I sometimes lose focus. It’s hard to get out of that, and it really does

shake my confidence. Luckily, my amazing co-captain and star catcher Charlotte Ruhl knows how to coax me out of it. Proudest memory? In my sophomore year, we won the first round of the playoffs against a Queens team that we weren’t expecting to beat! It was a good game all around—everyone played so hard, and it was great to get to move on to the second round. One funny thing that’s happened while playing: In the last inning of a tie game with a runner on first base, a popup was hit to our shortstop Lili. As she caught it, her glove ripped, and the ball went straight through. It was such an intense point in the game, and for that to happen then was just

hilarious. Which of your teammates is the funniest? Julianna Fabrizio and her memes. What’s your favorite part about being on the team? I love everyone on the team; they’re just great people to hang out with. We also have the best coach [Mr. Miller]—he is so supportive, knowledgeable, and a great person to be around. A fun fact: Our one and only Eve Wening has been elected for Junior Caucus! She’s great! Motto to live by: This is pretty cheesy but “Keep your eye on the ball.”

Girls’ Track

Stuyvesant Greyducks Dominate Boroughs By ARYAN SHARMA and BERNARD WANG The last two months of school promise three things every year: AP tests, sleepless nights, and a girls’ outdoor track Borough Championship. Year in and year out, Stuyvesant’s girls’ outdoor track team, the Greyducks, have set the bar for girls’ track in Manhattan with dominant performances over their competitors, having won four consecutive outdoor track Borough Championships in a row. This year, the Greyducks added one more first place finish to their collection on May 20, reclaiming consistency after a seemingly bumpy season. At the close of the winter season, the Greyducks were a group of runners who had won indoor Borough Championships but faced uncertainty. Both their track runners and their field eventers showed signs of rust, and their margin of victory at Borough Championships was the closest it had been in recent history despite the strong finishes by upperclassmen. “In the past, we never

had a problem with winning and had a large lead over the school in second place in terms of points, but we were worried this time around, as we only won by around 20 points in this year’s indoor season,” junior and cocaptain Jeanette Cheung said. The team traveled to DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx for the long-awaited meet when May 20 arrived. The chance of the Greyducks defending their title seemed to be slim. The pole vault event, in which the Greyducks expected to score a significant number of points, was cancelled due to thunderstorms, and they entered the meet with multiple injuries. Despite the setbacks, the team once again put together strong performances in a multitude of both track and field events. Junior Clara Mohri, despite being injured, ran and won the the 1500-meter run (5:23.67) and placed second in the 3000-meter run (11:42:02). First place in the 3000-meter run went to freshman Julianne Yotov (11:21.85) instead. Additionally, sophomore Angela Zhong won first place in the 1500-

meter race walk (8:19.29). For field events, sophomore Tina Zheng won the discus throw (70-05.00) while setting a new personal record in the process. Freshman Chloe Terestchenko, who joined the Greyducks this season, placed second in the high jump (4-02.50). When asked about her new personal record and first place finish, Zheng said, “I pushed my limits during the week of Borough’s. I was in shock, but more importantly, happy [that my hard work paid off].” Zheng, Yotov, Terestchenko, and Zhong are key underclassmen who performed above expectations at Borough Championships. As a whole, the Greyducks stepped up as a team and asserted their dominance in Manhattan, which is full of respectable competitors. “We have been borough champions since the indoor season of 2014, so if we’re counting the cross country, indoor, and outdoor seasons, our most recent win would be our 14th consecutive win,” Cheung said. The Greyducks sent a group of athletes to compete at City Cham-

pionships a week later. Stuyvesant athletes competed in the 1500-meter race walk, 3000-meter run, and discus throw. “Unfortunately, our 4x800-meter relay didn’t qualify for City’s. We also had one more athlete who was very close to qualifying in the race walk,” Cheung said when asked about the expectations for the team going into City Championships. “We always want as many people as possible to qualify for City Championships, but we have a lot of people on track to qualify next year, so we’re looking forward to that.” Though the inability of athletes to compete was disappointing, the ones that did compete they still put up a reputable performances. The Greyducks’ sole athlete on the podium at City’s was Zhong, who set a new personal record at the meet, winning third place in the 1500meter race walk (7:59.76). “Looking back to how I was in freshman year made me realize that hard work really does pay off, and that practice makes perfect. This season has been going really well for me, and I am excited and happy to end it off with

a PR,” Zhong said. The Greyducks found more success from four other medalists; Mohri placed fourth in the 3000-meter run (11:01.51), with freshman Julianne Yotov coming in at sixth place only a few seconds behind (11:08.51). Junior Bernice Chen (8:03.24) and Cheung (8:10.74) secured fourth and fifth place at in the race walk, rounding off the Greyducks’ strongest event. Underclassmen will ended the season with the Freshman-Sophomore Championships on Sunday, June 3. Hopes are high for next year with the increasing number of newer athletes and with the younger athletes getting better with experience. “Our freshman Chloe has been showing a lot of potential in several events!” Cheung pointed out. “Specifically, she has been doing relatively well in the high jump and placed second at Boroughs.” Fall will usher in a new group of runners, marked by the absence of co-captain Nnadi, a notable senior. However, the Greyducks will continue to protect their place atop Manhattan in the years to come as they did this season.

Boys’ Baseball

Illustrious Pegleg Careers Untainted By Latest Playoff Defeat continued from page 26

straight year.” Known best for his power and quickness as a tailback for Stuyvesant’s varsity football team, Wang’s speed and elusiveness also came through in flashes on the baseball field. Though he failed to find substantial playing time on the varsity

squad, recording just one regularseason at-bat over two seasons, Wang was an asset on the basepaths, adding a meaningful spark off the bench as a regular courtesy runner. Additionally, Wang came through in big moments in the outfield, such as with his improbable lead-preserving sliding catch against George Washington High School while playing for

the junior varsity team his sophomore year. Sam Stamler, second base: “It was definitely disappointing to lose in the first round again, but I’m certainly proud of the team that we became after four years together. We may have lost in the box score, but I would not have traded the last four years for the world.”

For as little playing time and recognition as he received, recording just one at-bat over his four years on the Peglegs, Stamler has worked as hard as anybody, re-working both his physical ability and his mechanics. As a freshman, Stamler threw with a stilted, downright broken motion, one resembling a Quentin Tarantino-esque rendition of Boston

Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale’s iconic three-quarters delivery. However, after working tirelessly to correct it, Stamler’s motion tightened up, and his velocity and accuracy became comparable with many other members of the team. His performance at the plate grew too, culminating in an improbable double during the spring training of his junior campaign.

Anti-Euro Populists Take Over Italy’s Government Start of the 3-day 85 Bowery Hunger Strike outside City Hall Two populist parties with a history of anti-Euro sentiment, the Five Star Party and the League, Tenants of 85 Bowery who were displaced in January and have since been homeless resumed their hunger push through a new government where they have control over the parliament, completely strike. The tenants and supporters demand that Mayor de Blasio guarantee on paper a deadline by which the ousting the Italian political establishment. Immediately before doing so, both parties claim to tenants can return home, end pro-developers’ displacement agenda, and enact community-led rezoning plans. have never been concerned about the Euro, but outside observers are still extremely skeptical.

30 ABC cancels its show “Roseanne” following star Roseanne Barr’s controversial Tweet.

31 The first half of Season 4 of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” premieres on Netflix.

June 8, 2018

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THE SPECTATOR SPORTS Champions League

European Titans Clash in Kiev By SUNAN TAJWAR and AHMED HUSSEIN The 2018 Champions League final saw a clash between two of Europe’s most exciting and successful clubs dating back to the turn of the century—Spain’s Real Madrid and England’s Liverpool. Both teams, after largely disappointing domestic competitions with a combined total of zero trophies, had one final chance at the Champions League to bring home some silverware this season and be crowned the kings of European football. If you weren’t a Liverpool fan in the beginning of the season, then you would not have bet on this team to make it all the way to the Champions League final. Liverpool was notorious for a sloppy defense and at times suspect midfield, so their attacking line would have been the only source of hope for Reds fans everywhere. But coach Jurgen Klopp and club management did an excellent job in filling in the weaknesses that were present in the squad. They brought in the likes of Virgil van Dijk in the winter to sturdy up their central defense and youngsters Trent AlexanderArnold and Andrew Robertson to fill in the full-back positions on the flanks of the defense. But the greatest signing of the season had to be Egyptian winger Mohamed Salah, who set the footballing world alight by putting up numbers that resembled those of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. He broke the record for goals in a single premier league season with 32 and scored against the top-notch competition of Chelsea, Manchester City, and Tottenham along the way. He was declared the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) Player of the Year and is being touted to win the Ballon D’Or (the award that goes to the voted best player in the world at the end of every year). The success of these signings, especially Salah’s, has made many forget Philippe Coutinho’s departure, now seemingly forgotten by Liverpool. Salah’s success also opened up the game for Bobby Firmino and Sadio Mane in the attack, paving

the way for Liverpool’s finals berth. Liverpool’s path to the Champions League final saw them rout FC Porto (Portugal) in the round of 16 with an aggregate score of 5-0. But it was during the second round, when they dismantled Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, one of the favorites to win it all, when they proved themselves to be a major threat among the contemporary European royalty by beating City 5-1. City used Guardiola’s gloried tikitaka passing and possession style of football to tear through the Premier League on their way to becoming English c h a m p i o n s. It was more of the same in the Champions League until they ran into Liverpool. The constant high press paired with a tight defensive performance opened up the game for Liverpool’s inform attackers to completely exposed City’s defence, or lack thereof. They then carried this momentum to the semifinals, where they got past a gritty Roma team. However, the toughest had yet to come, as Liverpool and Salah would now be put up to the test against Los Blancos, the two-time defending champions. As for Real Madrid, there is not much more to say—coming in, they were the two-time defending champions of Europe, and unlike the Liverpool squad, their starting lineup knows what it is like to play in the final with all the eyes on them, where star players are needed the most. The quality in their team is unquestioned, with Ronaldo, arguably the greatest player in the world, and Toni Kroos and Luka Modric, two of the best mid-

fielders in the world. The road they took to get to the final was also undoubtedly the toughest this season. In the round of 16, they coasted past the Neymar-led French champions Paris Saint-Germain and edged out defending Italian champions Juventus in the quarterfinal, before beating the German giants and perennial European football superpower Bayern Munich, led by Robert Lewandowski,

Rebecca Collins / The Spectator

who is arguably the greatest striker in the world today. The Los Blancos had a chance to make history here; they had a chance to complete the three-peat, and their performance would not disappoint to say the least. The game was played in Kiev, Ukraine, with an equal distribution of red and white jerseys dispersed throughout the stands. The eyes were on the two stars, Ronaldo and Salah. Ronaldo was a global super-

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a 1-0 lead. However, the goal was more the error of Liverpool’s goalkeeper Loris Karius than it was the skill of Benzema, as Karius carelessly threw the ball right at Benzema in his own goalie box. Liverpool stormed right back, though, as Sadio Mane scored just four minutes later from a headed flick from Dejan Lovren off of a corner. Despite the tie score, Madrid’s manager had a secret weapon up his sleeve in Gareth Bale, a true example of Real Madrid’s embarrassment of riches for him to be coming off the bench. And it did not take long for Bale to make an impact. In the 64’, Gareth Bale gifted us with a moment of true magic with an acrobatic bicycle kick over his shoulder from the edge of the box from Marcelo’s cross, which floated into the top left corner of the goal. And when Gareth Bale’s curler from outside the box bounced off of Karius’s hands right into the goal in the 83’, it was all but over. This was a second major goalkeeping error that would prove fatal to the English side’s slim hopes of winning the Champions League. After his performance, many question Karius’s position on the Liverpool side next season. The German was visibly distraught after the final whistle, but his teammates picked him back up, showing the harmony in the Liverpool locker room. With his teammates’ support, Karius will surely bounce back to make amends for his blunders. The game ended 3-1 to Real Madrid, and Los Blancos had their three-peat and fourth win in five years. Manager Zinedine Zidane, despite being only with the team for three years, made his claim to be considered among the all-time greats with this accolade, in addition to already being considered one of the greatest players to ever compete. With his fifth Champions League title, Ronaldo only further solidified his claim to being not just the greatest player in the world, but the greatest player of all time. But this Madrid team will do more than just be remembered for the three-peat; they will be remembered for defining our era, just like Real Madrid’s Galacticos had done at the turn of the century.

WRAPUP The Tigers, Stuyvesant’s coed cricket team, ended their season by narrowly defeating the High School for Construction, edging out their competition by one point with a final score of 93-92. The Peglegs, Stuyvesant’s boys’ junior varsity baseball team, defeated Manhattan Center for Science & Math and brought home their seventh win of the season with a final score of 20-1, widening the margin from their last game, where they won 19-0.

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star, a multiple time Ballon D’Or and Champion League winner, and his production on the pitch has never failed to live up to his ego. And then there was Salah, this humble Egyptian man with a scruffy beard and messy hairdo, who more than anything else represented the power of a so-called mortal man and had been Liverpool’s club hero the entire season. For the past 10 years, football has been dominated by the “alien” Leo Messi and the “cyborg” Ronaldo, and Salah was the only man in the past decade who put up the same goal scoring tallies as those two did but gave off the persona of a mere mortal as well. The first half of the 2018 Champions League final was sadly defined more by the controversy in between gameplay rather than the actual football on the pitch. In the first 20 or so minutes of the first half, Liverpool were clearly the better side. They played calmly out of their defense, the captain Jordan Henderson and James Milner controlled the midfield against Kroos and Modric, and the attack, boosted by fullbacks Robertson and AlexanderArnold, looked threatening. But then Sergio Ramos came to Real Madrid’s rescue. When a defensive altercation with Salah saw their arms get locked up in the play, and when Ramos’s tackle took Salah to the ground, Salah fell awkwardly on his left shoulder. Ramos won the ball fairly, but it was a tough play nonetheless. And after this historic season, Salah saw his season with Liverpool come to end, walking off crying to a standing ovation by the Liverpool and Real Madrid fans alike. Losing Salah was a nightmare for Liverpool fans, but manager Klopp was by no means defeated. The first half ended with a score of 0-0, but the second half proved different. As the game progressed, Karim Benzema struck for Real Madrid in the 51’ to give them

Angela Zhong and juniors Bernice Chen, Jeanette Cheung, and Kayla Lew placed third, fourth, Sophomore

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fifth, and eighth, respectively, in the 1500-meter racewalk at the Girls’ Outdoor Track PSAL City Championships.

Stuyvesant’s boys’ ultimate frisbee team, the Sticky Fingers, dominated the competition, winning both the city and state championships. Stuyvesant’s girls’ ultimate frisbee team, the Sticky Fingers, defeated Fieldston High School in the city finals to win the ultimate frisbee city championships.