Volume 110, Issue 1

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

OPINIONS

Ruing the Raids

Opinions writer Lamia Haque discusses the damage ICE raids have caused and what we as a country should do to repair it.

From “Love Story” to “Lover”

Arts & Entertainment writer Irene Hao reviews Taylor Swift’s newest album “Lover,” one that embodies a significant point in Swift’s career and personal life.

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Volume 110 No. 1

Assistant Principal of Chemistry and Physics Scott Thomas will now also be the Assistant Principal of the Tech Department.

The Spectator welcomes Physical Education teacher Rebeca Morel-Wernham, Social Studies teacher David (Fang) Wang, and Math teachers Carrie Chu, Patrick Honner, Rayleen (Soo Bin) Lee, and Andrew Wille. The Spectator also welcomes back School Counselor Lok Man (Cecilia) Yang, Social Studies teacher Catherine McRoy-Mendell, and Physics teacher Dr. Ulugbek Akhmedov.

stuyspec.com

By MADDY ANDERSEN and ERIN LEE When senior and Student Union (SU) President Vishwaa Sofat began his search for a running mate, he was set on finding someone who embodied the characteristics that both he and former SU President William Wang (‘19) valued most deeply. For him, junior and now SU Vice President Julian Giordano was the clear candidate.

“I was looking for someone who not only was passionate about doing the work, but was also capable of doing the work.

Passion only goes so far, but having the will to learn things, having learned things already, having shown that the Student Union was and will continue to be a priority—I found those things in Julian,” Sofat said.

With help from their Executive Council—seniors Chief of Staff Lena Farley and Student Leadership Team (SLT) Representative Nina Jennings, and sophomores Chief Auditing Officer Aaron Wang, Deputy Chief of Staff Neve Diaz-Carr, and Deputy Chief of Staff Theo KubovyWeiss—Sofat and Giordano plan to continue creating change at Stuyvesant in hopes of bettering the student body.

Sofat and Giordano were elected in the first contested SU election in two years, running against the Tam-Kuke and Kahan-Yan tickets. Sofat and Giordano cited their prior experiences as the biggest factor

in their win, with Sofat’s previous caucus leadership and SU vice presidency and Giordano’s work as a delegate of External Affairs. “Because we had the experience and because we had worked with the administration,

community. “Our involvement within Stuyvesant was also a key factor. It wasn’t just our experience within the SU, but it was also our desire to help our school. We had done things; we had taken initiatives that weren’t

Matt Melucci / The Spectator

Assistant Principal of World Languages Francesca McAuliffe is also now the Assistant Principal of the Art and Music departments.

14

Vishwaa Sofat and Julian Giordano: Leaders of the 2019-2020 Student Union

Milan Haiman (‘19), the first student from Stuyvesant to compete in the International Math Olympiad in over 20 years, won a gold medal and placed 8th in the world.

Katherine Sanchez (‘19) won a $10,000 college scholarship from the Random House Creative Writing Awards for her poem “RedWhite-and-Brown Skin.”

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September 11, 2019

NEWSBEAT

Kelly Kang (‘19) was selected to compete on the USA International Earth Science Olympiad Team, which won five medals this past week in Daegu, Korea.

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

we knew how to draft a fully efficient platform. We knew everything in depth, which was a major advantage that influenced all the other ways we interacted on the campaign,” Giordano said.

The other advantage over their competition, the pair claimed, was their commitment to improving their school

in our profile. Julian had been at SLT meetings without him needing to be at meetings. It’s our passion. It’s what we love to do. That put us apart from our opponents,” Sofat said.

Sofat and Giordano see their contested election as a sign of great student interest in the SU. “Running contested and

the recent increase in high-quality applications point to one thing: the SU has been successful in getting students involved and making sure they understand the role of the SU,” Sofat said. “More and more students are seeing that their involvement is key and want a chance to become involved, and we welcome their involvement.”

They also note that running contested strengthened their platform and helped them fine-tune their ideas about initiatives they hope to accomplish this upcoming year.

“Contested elections [don’t] just make things fair, but they actually help us improve the way we run the Student Union,” Giordano said. “We learn a tremendous amount from the people who run against us and the ideas they propose. It’s a learning experience for us to go up against someone, and it forces us to really think critically about what our policies are and what we want to do.”

After going through election season together, Sofat and Giordano have developed a unique dynamic with one another. “If you’ve ever been around me and Vishwaa, you’ve noticed that a lot of what we do is just argue,” Giordano said.

The combative nature of Sofat and Giordano’s relationship, however, allows them to push one another to refine their ideas and policies. “If we are arguing, we are able to capture the student perspective. If it is continued on page 2

Nicholas Jun and Aixa Lacroix Introduce New Spanish Club In May, seniors Nicholas Jun and Aixa Lacroix founded the Spanish Club to promote the study of the Spanish language and Hispanic culture.

The two received help from Spanish teacher Anna Montserrat, who proposed the idea to the Spanish Honor Society and helped formally establish the organization.

Lacroix, who is from Argentina, is a native speaker. Jun, however, learned Spanish at a bilingual elementary school in Omaha, Nebraska. Jun was the only Asian student in his grade and grew up with mostly Hispanic and white friends.

“Growing up with them (it was a small school) diversified not only the friends I hung

Zoe Oppenheimer/ The Spectator

By KAREN ZHANG and NICOLE BUREK

out with but my overall perspective of the world. I grew to appreciate my own Korean

heritage while appreciating the blend of Latino cultures I found surrounding my life,”

Jun said in an e-mail interview.

Despite these background differences, Lacroix and Jun

decided to co-found the Spanish Club using their different perspectives on the Spanish language as an asset. “While I represent what it’s like to be a native speaker and grow up in a culture and household that speaks Spanish, [Jun] represents the other side of that, which would be learning Spanish despite having no relations to the language at all,” Lacroix said. “Since our origins are super different, together we can unite our interests and passion for the language and culture in order to attract different members—those who are Hispanic, and those who are just simply interested in the language.”

Jun cited his past experiences as a reason to establish the Spanish Club. Though he is no continued on page 2

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The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

News Nicholas Jun and Aixa Lacroix Introduce New Spanish Club continued from page 1

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and NASA

WORLDBEAT Category 5 Storm Hurricane Dorian has left at least five people dead after pummeling the Bahamas, and is now approaching the U.S. In fewer than 24 hours on August 3 and 4, two mass shootings— one in El Paso, Texas and a second in Dayton, Ohio—left a combined total of more than 30 individuals dead and more than 50 wounded. The Dayton shooting was the 251 mass shooting in 216 days.

Italy’s political parties are discussing the formation of a new government after the previous nationalist-populist coalition collapsed.

The Amazon Rainforest is on fire. The fires are human-induced and could have not been purely natural. Some believe Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is responsible, as he promised to develop mining and farming when he took office, both of which require the burning of forest land.

longer the extreme minority in his school after moving to New York, he is able to place himself in the shoes of the minority Hispanic student at Stuyvesant. “I knew what it felt like to be the minority in a school and what it would’ve meant for a club dedicated to my heritage to have existed,” Jun said. “The lack of a significant club dedicated to the promoting of the Spanish language and Latino culture left me disappointed.”

Montserrat was very willing to help her students start the club. “Several students from my AP Spanish class are members of the Spanish Honors Society [and] approached me last semester telling me that they would be very interested in having a Spanish club, and my response was, ‘Great! I would love to be your advisor,’” Montserrat said in an e-mail interview.

However, Montserrat hopes that the club’s meetings will primarily be a studentrun discussion of Spanish language and culture. “The club is for the students and organized by the students.

I will help to start the club, of course, and organize any events or duties that they need

help with,” Montserrat said.

The club plans to have members partake in many different activities, such as reading short stories; learning of and about Spanish slang, music, and dance in Spanish-speaking countries; and visiting places with Hispanic cultural significance, including restaurants, museums, and exhibitions. The club will also provide recommendations of study abroad programs, which Jun has experience with from his travel to Seville, Spain. For the general public, Jun and Lacroix plan to host cooking competitions and bake sales, and possibly host a Spanish Day, inspired by Japan Day, to celebrate Hispanic culture, cuisine, and dance.

The Spanish Club also aims to have connections with existing clubs, such as ASPIRA, as well as the Spanish department. This includes introducing members to the National Spanish Honor Society (NSHS), taking the National Spanish Exam, writing to pen pals in Spanish-speaking countries, and participating in “Albricias,” which is the NSHS student academic magazine.

A large portion of the Spanish Club will also revolve around community service.

The club plans to work with

volunteer organizations to assist during the holiday season by visiting places such as nursing homes to sing holiday songs in Spanish. “It’s really important to give back to the community, and this way, the Spanish Club has a much bigger impact than just meeting in school sometimes and talking about culture,” Lacroix said. “We’re really trying to get out there and help people [...] and show what our school represents.”

The Spanish Club’s impact extends beyond volunteer service, particularly in the political climate seen today.

“Especially with the current negative political stance and view of immigrants from Latin America, it’s important we stay educated about the facts of Latin American cultures and start to place ourselves [in] their shoes,” Jun said.

All students are encouraged to join, regardless of their background or whether they learn Spanish in school. “The Spanish Club is a place where, regardless of your grade level, you’ll be able to learn the language in a non-traditional setting by being exposed to different activities that you wouldn’t have the chance to do in a normal classroom,” Lacroix said.

Noor-Al Stuy Places Second at MIST Nationals 2019

By SUBYETA CHOWDHURY and RUBY ETHIKA Every year, Stuyvesant’s Muslim Student Association’s (MSA) 60-person team Noor Al-Stuy (“Light of Stuy”) participates in the annual Muslim Interscholastic Tournament (MIST). With Noor Al-Stuy’s second-place win at regionals earlier this year, 23 of the team members were able to attend and place second at MIST Nationals held in Baltimore, Maryland from July 26 to July 28.

MIST Regionals are held in early April, while MIST Nationals are held during late summer. If competitors place among the top three of their respective categories during MIST Regionals, they qualify to participate in MIST Nationals. For the past 10 years, Noor-Al Stuy has always placed either first or second place overall at MIST Regionals, allowing team members

to attend Nationals each year.

This year, Noor Al-Stuy competed in Knowledge Test One, Extemporaneous Speaking, Original Oratory, Prepared Essay, Short Fiction, Spoken Word, Debate, Math Olympics, MIST Bowl, Community Service, and Social Media.

Noor Al-Stuy worked harder in their competitions for Nationals than they did for Regionals, and used their mistakes in Regionals to improve themselves. “[The Community Service team was] able to step our game up at Nationals to place first, rather than how we placed third at Regionals due to problems with our presentation,” senior Nabil Mahmud said in an e-mail interview.

Senior Abdulla Elkhadrawy agreed and said in an e-mail interview, “This year at National [MIST Bowl, we] placed second compared to first at Regionals, which makes sense considering the competition was at a whole different level. Students

are a lot more competitive [at] the national level because of the fact that they placed in their respective region.”

By the end of Nationals, New York won second place as “Overall Region,” and Stuyvesant won second place as “Overall School.” Noor Al-Stuy received second place in MIST Bowl, third place in Short Film, and first place in Humanitarian Services and Community Service. For individual awards, Anika Hashem (‘19) won first place as “Overall Competitor” and in Short Fiction, and senior Ali Taoube won first place in Extemporaneous Speaking. Sharjeel Ansari (‘19) and former MSA President Mohammed Haque (‘19) won first place in Debate.

While Nationals were more significant than Regionals, it seemed to have a much more relaxed atmosphere. “Being surrounded by friends and being able to compete and practice alongside them was

an incredible experience. Nationals overall seemed a lot more enjoyable this year with everyone in hotels rather than dorms, [and we had] time to work on competitions and relax a little,” Mahmud said.

Junior Lamia Haque agreed and said in an e-mail interview, “During those three days, there were chants, competitions, and new friendships with students across the nation.”

Noor Al-Stuy’s competitors left Baltimore in triumph.

“It was overall a fun experience to spend time away from home with my friends, and it [was] especially satisfying once we lifted the trophy we worked all year for in the end,” senior Irtesam Kha said in an e-mail interview.

For next year, Noor Al-Stuy wishes to gain more team members and further improve their competitions. Mahmud wants Noor Al-Stuy to “[push themselves] to even greater heights to increase the visibility of

MIST at Stuyvesant,” he said.

Elkhadrawy would like to improve on taking a step back and reflecting. “Sometimes you are so caught up with deadlines that you never live in the moment and enjoy the experience of practicing for a competition,” he said.

MIST is a gratifying experience for students and one that Noor Al-Stuy members wish to share with others. “I definitely recommend doing MIST to freshmen. It’s a time for freshmen to bond with others and compete in things that they enjoy,” said Haque, who competed in MIST last year and plans to join again next year.

“MIST as always does a great job of bringing hundreds of like-minded students who are competing for the intention of bettering themselves. It’s humbling and inspiring to see so many people giving it all [they’ve] got for three days,” Elkhadrawy said.

Vishwaa Sofat and Julian Giordano: Leaders of the 2019-2020 Student Union continued from page 1

just one person making the decision, or if we are in constant agreement, then we are doing something wrong somewhere because it’s not supposed to be easy. We are not making easy decisions,” Sofat said.

Giordano said, “We are both equally dedicated and fully committed to the Student Union, but we oftentimes have differ-

ent perspectives. We have different experiences, and that allows us to constantly challenge each other with different ideas.”

The Sofat-Giordano administration has already initiated multiple projects listed on their platform, albeit many are in their initial phases. One of their largest initiatives is increasing school spirit in an effort to create a more supportive environment within the Stuyvesant

community. “We’ve been working to open the school store for longer periods of time, and the store would become the central location to sell items like apparel, [...] physical education uniforms, goggles for swim gym, aprons for lab, drafting kits, notebooks, [and] school supplies,” Sofat said. “We will be able to create more of a lively scene through the school store, which is currently not being

utilized [to] its greatest capacity.” Sofat and Giordano also hope to host student events such as trivia and movie nights to increase school spirit as well.

Sofat and Giordano want to improve their school environment in other ways as well.

The pair will participate in this year’s SLT meetings as student representatives alongside Jennings, and they plan to present a proposal regarding sanitary is-

sues in the cafeteria. “We know that the cafeteria has been messier and messier,” Sofat said. “Our SLT team is working on finding a way to make sure the school is neater and students use the trash cans more effectively.” This proposal is part of a larger effort to begin a conversation about allowing students to bring outside food continued on page 3

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

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News Vishwaa Sofat and Julian Giordano: Leaders of the 2019-2020 Student Union continued from page 2

and beverages into the school.

They also plan to reopen the conversation about PSAL frees at SLT meetings. “Principal [Eric] Contreras has pledged to have a subcommittee within the SLT to further the conversation about PSAL frees. We hope that the administration will continue to support us on this proposal because it allows us to give our athletes an opportunity they deserve and other schools provide,” Sofat said.

Additionally, the pair is introducing a speaker series that will combine the efforts of caucuses and the External Affairs department to bring guest lecturers to Stuyvesant.

“In the past, the way lectures have worked is that they’ve been disjointed,” Giordano said. “If we unite them under one program, this Student Union lecture series, [...] we can use our combined forces to contact more speakers and get them here [and] get better advertising for all of them so we have more students attend.”

So far, the SU has reached out to assistant principals for lecturer suggestions and to students for topics they’re interested in. Sofat and Giordano hope that this series will complement the in-school curriculum and provide a unique learning experience for students. “We can really have discussions without thinking about grades and really change the way we see education at Stuyvesant,” Sofat said.

Sofat and Giordano also hope to work with caucuses on other projects in addition

to the integrated lecture series.

“We also want to work with the Senior Caucus and our Alumni Association to create a Stuy[vesant]-specific Linkedin [that] allows students to reach out to alumni [who] are in an area of their interest, [to get] internships or advice and also to get college help,” Sofat said.

The SU continues to search for other ways to improve the lives of the student body, some of which are more technological. StuyActivities, which was introduced last year, and the SU website are both being updated for better user experiences. Furthermore, the SU plans to develop a Chrome extension personalized for Stuyvesant students and modeled after Momentum, a personal dashboard that helps and inspires users to focus. “The idea is to have a Chrome extension that students can have on their computers that tells them everything they need to know,” Giordano said. This extension would provide easy access to important links, such as Talos and StuyActivities, and information such as the type of school day and the schedule.

While working on these larger initiatives, the pair also aims to improve students’ lives on a smaller scale. For example, Sofat and Giordano finalized the details for a printing station on the seventh floor, which will be available for students once equipment is set up.

“We currently only have one printing station on the second floor that has three computers and one printer. It gets really clogged up. It’s hard for students to print, and so we want to change that,” Giordano said.

“We’re really excited about [it], and we think it’s a no-brainer project that’s going to have a big impact on the student body.”

Additionally, the pair released a question and answer document addressing popular Talos questions to help students navigate program changes and alleviate the volume of e-mails the Program Office receives.

Beyond the walls of Stuyvesant, Sofat and Giordano help students around the city develop their own student governments through their roles as Youth Partner Facilitators for the Manhattan Borough Advisory Council. “As a Youth Partner Facilitator, [...] you are a student who is applied and who is willing to put in a bit of extra work to help develop meetings, but you aren’t taking charge of the room and telling students how to run their student governments,” Giordano said. “You are using your skills as a leader to facilitate conversations and bring everyone’s voice out, not just yours.”

These various projects and ideas, both in and out of Stuyvesant, showcase a shift in the SU as it finds a different balance between past and new initiatives. “They’re being successful at not just continuing upon the legacies of past administrations, but also creating their own legacies and creating new projects that [...] future administrations can continue,” Kubovy-Weiss said.

These projects also demonstrate the dedication and effort of the SU so early on in the school year. “This is by far the most productive [way] I’ve seen the SU work. Vishwaa and Julian are both really committed

to making goals a reality within a set time frame and encourage everyone to treat our projects and goals with the same level of urgency,” Jennings said in an e-mail interview. “The dynamic of SU has definitely shifted to be more proactive and effective at all times.”

For Diaz-Carr, the SU’s efficiency is due to its supportive environment. “This environment is not a hostile, boss-worker one, but instead a peer one, where we can all build off of each other’s ideas, allow for each to grow, learn from our mistakes, and create effective change together,” she said in an e-mail interview.

While the Executive Council is confident in the productivity of the SU under its current leadership, the student body is more skeptical.

“People have this concept of the SU, whether it’s corrupt or annoying or whatever it is, but Julian and Vishwaa have devoted an enormous amount of time and energy and resources,” Kubovy-Weiss said.

“They want to make progress.

They want to change [the] SU. They want to move [the] SU.” Farley agreed with this sentiment. “What I keep saying about the SU this year is I want to make what we do widespread. We do a lot of things that students don’t necessarily see, so when people talk about the SU, it’s usually dismissive,” she said in an email interview. “There’s always more students can know about what we do, and I think they should see everything we do.”

In order to ensure that the student body is aware of their progress, the SU is continuing

to increase transparency between the school community and themselves. “We’ve set up surveys and polls, and we’ve tried to send out e-mails about notifications and applications as early as we can,” Wang said.

“We’ve also not only worked on transparency outside of the Student Union, but also [on] transparency within. If every member of the Student Union is aware of their responsibilities faster, the Student Union as a whole is more efficient.”

Sofat has been working toward creating a more efficient and coherent SU throughout his three years in student government, and he is thankful for the experiences he has had during his high school career. “I’ve had a really good run within the Student Union. I’ve been able to bring change within the Stuyvesant community and impact my peers’ lives directly.

I’ve always wanted to help people, and the Student Union gave me that opportunity for the last three years,” Sofat said.

While Sofat will be serving his final term in the SU this year, Giordano is looking forward to contributing to the SU as it continues to improve Stuyvesant. “Since I’ve come to Stuyvesant, I’ve been interested in student government, and I’ve been impressed by the state of the Student Union and the fact that the Student Union is able to accomplish so much,” he said. “The Student Union does great stuff, and it’s amazing to be a part of a really progressive group of students who are making their voices heard and actually creating real change within our school.”

Stuyvesant’s Summer of 2019

By AMY HUANG and CHRISTINA TAN Summer gives Stuyvesant students the chance to create new memories. From visiting the Taj Mahal to hiking through Machu Picchu, students reported a wide range of activities. Here is an overview of how Stuyesant spent its summer.

Breakdown of Response by Grade:

What did you do this summer?

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The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

News Stuyvesant’s Summer of 2019 If you traveled abroad, where did you go?

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

If you stayed in the city, what did you do?

Maine Connecticut Las Vegas Boston Belgium The Netherlands France Germany England The Carribbean Italy Montenegro Albania Washington D.C. Cyprus Spain Norway Egypt Cape Cod New Jersey Amsterdam Japan Florida Korea California Kenya Hong Kong

Most Read Titles 1. “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng 2. “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah 3. “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck 4. “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood 5. “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt 6. “Salt to the Sea” by Ruta Sepetys 7. “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini 8. “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens

“This summer was my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary, so to celebrate, my whole family went to Wyoming! We went to a ranch for a week, and I got to ride horses and go fly fishing. We also had a square dancing night, and all of my freshman P.E. square dancing skills turned out to be super useful.

We then spent a few nights in Yellowstone National Park, and my family hiked and explored the park. We saw Old Faithful erupt, and we also saw hundreds of bison! They were all over the sides of the road, and a few even crossed the road in front of our car. It was incredible.”

—Maddy Andersen, junior “In the spring, my soccer team won both state cup and NPL division title so we went to Colorado for nationals. That was such a great experience because we had worked hard the whole year leading up to the finals so it was a great reward at the end. Although we didn't do great, we had a great time bonding from playing laser tag to just hanging out all in one hotel room.”

—Aki Yamaguchi, junior

Did you stay connected to your peers?

If you did stay connected, how?

“At the beginning of July, I was lucky enough to summit Yosemite's El Capitan via the historic Nose route.

Climbing the Nose was the culmination of years of training, and it’s the highlight of my climbing career.

I spent four days and three nights on the wall to ascend the 3,000 foot formation.”

—Carter Ley, junior “I went on an 8 day canoe trip through the Allagash Wilderness with my age group at camp. We had to carry all of our gear, clothes, food, and materials for 8 days with us, and we eventually travelled over 90 miles on canoe.”

—Morris Raskin, sophomore “I made my own makeup and made products for a handmade makeup brand.”

—Elena Hlamenko, junior

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

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Features Uncovering the Hijab: Talking with Stuyvesant’s Muslim Students

By JULIE WEINER and RAYMOND WU

In an increasingly diversified world, the mixture of different cultures has led to the growth of both toleration and fear-led rebuttals of globalization. As Islam spreads and the Muslim population grows in the United States, Islamophobia grows along with it. The hijab, a headscarf worn by many Muslim women, is a large point of contention; is it a symbol of patriarchal oppression, or is it a liberating and empowering emblem for women? For many of us, the hijab, worn by only a minority of Stuyvesant students, can seem like a mystery. Here is a look at some of Stuyvesant’s very own female Muslim students, and what they have to say about the hijab custom and their individual experiences of being Muslim at Stuyvesant.

SUBYETA CHOWDHURY

ZAAKIRAH RAHMAN

“The entire idea behind a hijab is modesty and the idea that you don’t really need your physical appearance to appear as attractive to someone,” junior Subyeta Chowdhury explained. “The entire idea is [...] to be humble and show that my physical appearance, like my hair, even though it is a measure of beauty, [...] doesn’t measure everything about me.”

Former Muslim Student Association member Zaakirah Rahman (‘19) has worn a hijab since the summer after fifth grade.

Like most girls, she made her decision to wear a hijab when she reached womanhood. “It just felt like a step [I] was ready to take,” she explained.

Chowdhury began wearing a hijab in the sixth grade. Even though no other women in her family wore a hijab, they all supported her choice. Chowdhury was inspired by the principles of modesty that were taught in the religious institution that she attended, which emphasized concealing one’s physical beauty in order to emphasize inner characteristics.

Chowdhury’s experience of wearing a hijab at Stuyvesant is different from when wearing one at her middle school. Unlike at her middle school, where many of her classmates were also Muslim, Stuyvesant is “much bigger and it’s much rarer to find someone [who] wears a hijab,” she said. “It [does] feel out of place certain times. And I felt like every time someone saw me from Stuy, they would have kind of a stigma or a perception of me that I was kind of less, in any way.”

Chowdhury specified that during physical education, wearing a different uniform made her feel out of place and judged by the other students. Even outside of Stuyvesant, she sometimes feels awkward or uncomfortable wearing her hijab. “I’ve gotten weird stares before from people on the subway,” she shared. “I’ve been called names.”

Furthermore, non-Muslim students’ perceptions of their peers who do wear hijabs have made Chowdhury question her own decision to wear one. “I did consider, ‘I should probably stop wearing one,’ because I always felt every time someone saw me, they [thought] ‘Oh, she’s probably stupid,’” Chowdhury said. “There’s just this stigma.”

At the end of the day, however, Chowdhury is confident and proud of her decision to wear a hijab, regardless of what others might think or say. “No regrets,” she exclaimed. “I am considering changing the style, though.”

YASMEEN HASSAN “Hijab is a word in Arabic that means a cover, or a wall, or a barrier,” junior Yasmeen Hassan defined. “It’s a way to show you are proud to be a Muslim and represent the Muslim race.”

Though hijabs are generally associated with a head covering, their concept applies to the whole body. “When you are wearing a hijab, it’s not only just wearing a headscarf,” she explained. “It’s also wearing loose clothing that doesn’t show your body figure. It’s just a cover for your body to protect you from other people.”

Hassan began wearing a hijab in seventh grade, shortly after she got her period (as is customary in Muslim tradition). “It was my choice. My parents are pretty religious and they would have wanted me to wear it eventually, but I started wearing it on my own, and they were okay with that,” she said.

In contrast with Chowdhury’s transition to high school, Hassan felt that she blended in more at Stuyvesant than in her middle school, Christa McAuliffe. She stated, “Here [at Stuyvesant] there are obviously a lot more hijabis because it’s a bigger school.”

Though Hassan feels comfortable wearing a hijab at Stuyvesant, this is not always the case everywhere she goes. She explained that strangers, not friends or even acquaintances, treat her differently because of her hijab. “I was running to catch the bus because I was late, and these three white guys were just screaming, ‘Yeah, go run away from the police.’ It was kind of scary, but it makes me want to sort of wear [a hijab more], to show people that Muslims aren’t bad—that they’re actually good people,” she recalled.

Despite facing Islamophobia, Hassan is proud of her tradition and encourages other Muslim women to embrace wearing the hijab. “Don’t force someone to wear [a hijab] or take it off,” she clarified. “They will get on the right path eventually.”

The strength of the hijabi women around her greatly inspired and empowered Rahman when she was younger. “I remember I spent a lot of time with this one cousin. She was also a hijabi.

I remember I used to think, ‘Oh, she’s this really religious person,’ but then I realized that there’s a lot more to her, like she was a really outgoing person,” Rahman recalled. “Even though there might be a social stigma about a person wearing a hijab like, ‘They’re probably going to be super religious or isolated [or] they’re not going to be able to talk to people,’ that’s not true at all.”

She also shared a moment of strength exhibited by her mother: “One of my earliest moments is leaving the supermarket with my mom, and she wears a hijab, and someone told her, ‘Go back to the country you came from,’ and she was like, ‘No, you go back,’” Rahman reminisced. “I was like, ‘Yeah mom.’”

These experiences, among others, inspired Rahman’s decision to wear a hijab. She learned that even though hijabis might receive strange or condescending looks, “they still are these strong people who still go about their day, doing their things,” she stated.

Though the hijab is a symbol of strength for Rahman, she has felt uncomfortable wearing it in multiple occurrences, including at Stuyvesant. “Recently, this kid in my class was just randomly like, ‘Oh, you’re fasting right?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and he [was] like, ‘Oh, isn’t it true that you break your fast if you’re bleeding?’” Rahman recounted. This interaction, along with instances when she was singled out by her teachers or classmates for being the only hijabi in the class, made Rahman feel uneasy as a hijabi.

AFSANA AHMED Junior Afsana Ahmed is one of many Muslim women at Stuyvesant who do not wear a hijab. “I chose not to wear a hijab because I don’t feel like I’m Muslim enough to wear one,” she explained. Ahmed wore a hijab during her freshman year, but does not wear one anymore. “My parents told me to wear the hijab once I started high school to show that I am Muslim,” she explained. Her parents were initially disappointed when they learned that Ahmed decided that she no longer wanted to wear the hijab, but they are much more accepting now.

When Ahmed wore a hijab, she felt people treated her differently compared to when she did not. She recalls more jokes being made about her Muslim identity when she wore a hijab.

“Now that I don’t wear a hijab, I don’t get as many looks from people on the street. People just treat me more like a normal person,” Ahmed said.

The lens through which one views the hijab, including location and identity, changes the meaning behind it. For Chowdhury, Hassan, and Rahman, the hijab is a tangible symbol of their Islamic identity. They see the hijab as empowering as it is their choice to wear it, and it allows them to maintain control over their body. For Ahmed, the choice to not wear a hijab was hers to make.

However, in certain parts of the world, such as France and Saudi Arabia, that choice is stripped from the individual. Assistant Principal of Social Studies Jennifer Suri elaborated, “The extent that women have worn it [has] varied over time from periods of veiling, from laws being stricter about veiling to women choosing to veil, to times of [veiling] essentially being prohibited.” In this sense, the hijab can be an oppressive tool for leaders to exert their power to control their people’s lives, namely their clothing and faith. Unfortunately, even at Stuyvesant, all four hijabis could recount times they felt uncomfortable in their hijabs.

While the hijab can represent different things for different people, it is clear that the hijab is a meaningful and essential part of Islamic life and tradition.

Yaqi Zeng / The Spectator

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Page 6

Features

By HAYEON OK Real people. Real mistakes.

Real dreams. These are the stories that Humans of Stuy brings to light. Founded by Keshara Senanayake (‘14) in September 2012, Humans of Stuy is a Facebook page that pairs photographs of Stuyvesant students and faculty with a short interview that pieces together the “majestic mosaic of the brightest students in the city,” as Senanayake described. He mentioned that the mission of the club is “to capture the diversity and uniqueness in Stuyvesant High School [...] one photograph at a time.” The page was inspired

by Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York, where photography is used to highlight the stories of New Yorkers. An interview, ranging from a single sentence to multiple paragraphs, accompanies each photo and gives a small glimpse of their life.

Senanayake described how the beginnings of the club started to form once he got his first camera. “Initially I was walking down Brooklyn one day as some guy approached me. He’s like, ‘Hey wanna buy one of my cameras?’, so I bought my first DSLR for like 40 bucks off the street,” he explained. “I always consider myself a social nomad. I love meeting new people and I think a big part of high school is not just

By RAYMOND WU Despite being a constant presence at school, substitute teachers often are elusive figures, coming and going according to no specific pattern and staying in our lives for short bursts of time. While we get to know our teachers very well, we cannot say the same for their temporary replacements. In an effort to combat that, here are the stories of some of Stuyvesant’s substitute teachers: RAYMOND VASQUEZ Substitute teacher and aspiring English teacher, Raymond Vasquez, has worked at Stuyvesant for almost two years. He studied accounting at Baruch College before shifting his focus to English literature, his real passion. “My father was an accountant, my mother was a database administrator, and they both now are programmers, so we’re a very technological family,” he described. “[Accounting] was fun, but it wasn’t my passion, and I realized that quickly, and I always knew that I loved reading.”

Vasquez eventually decided to study literature because he has always enjoyed learning about people’s different interpretations of their reality. “I just saw [the] really profound effect it had on myself and the students around me. Literature can be interpreted in many ways, and every student can take these readings and apply it to life lessons, whether it’s morality [or] whether it’s confidence. I just thought it was a great way for students to become comfortable with themselves and the world around them,” he explained.

Though Vasquez did not major in education initially, it was something that he always knew he wanted to go into. He was inspired to pursue education in part because of his godfather: “My godfather was a teacher for 30 years, and he was definitely a big influence on me. He’s been

One Photograph at a Time

grades but the creation of meaningful connections. And so I said, ‘Hey, let’s make it happen.’” And so the fated Facebook page was created.

For the students currently involved in the club, photography is an impactful medium for preserving memories and presenting them to others. For Humans of Stuy President Allison Eng (‘19) explained, “Photography is really good for capturing these moments and [for putting] a face to a story. You hear stories every single day but [without photos].

You don’t feel connected.” Eng was inspired in her freshman year to pursue photography within Stuyvesant by a group of sophomores who took photographs of their friends and scenery to post on Facebook.

She recognized the significance of snapshotting meaningful moments to remember. “Recently, I was writing my senior portrait for English class so we had to reflect on everything,” she recalled. “I found that a lot of the moments I remember are [in] photos. If I didn’t take a photo of this moment, if I didn’t take a photo of that moment, I would have just kind of forgotten it.”

Senior and Humans of Stuy Vice President Eugene Seo explained how photography has also formed a community within Stuyvesant, in which each pho-

tographer can become very close to students of the same interests.

“The photography community at Stuy is really, really tight-knit, so everyone knows each other,” Seo said. “The incoming freshmen get to know the upperclassmen, and that has made it a lot easier for us to get photographers because we know them from other communities like the Indicator and Spectator.”

Junior Frances Sy is also involved in the club. She took photographs for her middle school yearbook and also takes photos to simply have fun with her friends. “I just really like taking pictures because it captures the moment. I know that sounds really cliche but it’s true,” Sy explained. “If my mom hadn’t taken pictures of me when I was younger, [the memories] would [...] be different.” A unique practice Sy uses when photographing and interviewing people for Humans of Stuy is reaching out to people who are shy. “I try to get people who don’t really talk as much to write for me,” she explained. “A good majority of the people that [other Humans of Stuy members] interview are people who are really outspoken, so for me it’s a way to output [the quieter kids’] views on things.”

With passion comes the struggle when finding people to interview. “I would get a lot of

rejections and they would be like ‘Oh, I don’t have anything’ and they tell me, ‘Oh, maybe later on or something,’ admitted Eng. Despite this, she found that “if you go up and ask enough people they always have something to say even if it’s a short quote,” she said. When members of Humans of Stuy are able to conduct an interview, it is often a very meaningful experience. Sy described a particularly memorable story that she heard from a senior about his uncle whose parents passed away early, causing the uncle emotional trauma. “It was really unfortunate because [the uncle] was so smart [and he] just had a, really, high education. It was really upsetting because you know the potential people like him have,” Sy described. “It was different from the stories I encountered with other people because he wasn’t talking about himself. He was a vessel for someone else’s story, which I thought was really cool.”

Each photographer is chosen by the President and Vice Presidents through the submission of a portfolio and a form at the beginning of each semester. Generally, the applicants already have experience with using a camera or taking photos with their iPhones, if the quality is good enough.

For those without experience, a lesson is provided to teach the proper usage of cameras.

The Enigmas of Stuyvesant: Substitutes

helping me through this process,” he said.

Vasquez became a substitute at Stuyvesant during AP season, when many substitutes are needed to proctor exams. After he applied, he received a call and shortly after, started a week-long trial run where he was able to get more familiar with the staff and Assistant Principal of Organization Dr. Gary Haber, in particular. “I’ve been here consistently for about a year and a half, going on two years, just helping out wherever I can,” he added.

Helping out means taking over classes full of teenagers for absent teachers, which can be difficult, though Vasquez believes he has found a working solution. “Having conversations with the students, I think it helps. Because the age difference isn’t that great as opposed to other teachers, I can relate, I can understand the conversations that are going on, the trending topics, so [that] helps a lot,” he elaborated.

However, one of his favorite moments while substituting involved laying down the hammer.

“It happened recently, about a week or two ago when ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (2019) came out,” he started. “I had to help one student—it was in science lab.

Her table, her group, everyone else saw ‘Endgame’ and so they wanted to talk about it. I walked up to them [and said], ‘Hey guys.

No one likes spoilers.’ The student looked up at me and she was like, ‘Thank you so much.’”

When Vasquez is not substituting at Stuyvesant, he is pursuing his Master’s in Education to become an English teacher.

TROY A. BURRIS Troy A. Burris is a substitute teacher and English as a Second Language (ESL) professor at Borough of Manhattan City College (BMCC). He started substituting at Stuyvesant in 2012, due to its convenient location right next to BMCC. Though Burris currently

lives in New York, he grew up and lived in Ohio until he was 20. “I left Ohio when I was 20 with $12 in my pocket, that’s no lie, and I lived to tell about it,” he recounted.

Burris did not move directly from Ohio to New York, however. “I eventually got into community college after having been [in Atlanta] for six months, finished school there, met somebody and moved to Tampa with them, and was there for three years, then moved to LA, was there for four, then moved to Atlantic Beach. I was there for three [years], before I moved to New York,” he said.

He elaborated, “I chased the

fessor, Burris feels proud of his accomplishments: “We’re lucky that we [Burris and his partner] ended up where we did and being in a place where we can actually buy an apartment in the building we were renting in,” he said. “I mean, that’s a huge accomplishment.”

JERRY SCHECTER Jerry Schecter has been a substitute teacher at Stuyvesant since 2001, and his 20th anniversary of working at Stuyvesant is rapidly approaching. However, his relationship with the school started much earlier, for he once attended Stuyvesant as a stu-

“Having conversations with the students, I think it helps. Because the age difference isn’t that great as opposed to other teachers, I can relate, I can understand the conversations that are going on, the trending topics, so [that] helps a lot.”

—Raymond Vasquez, substitute teacher sun. I grew up in Ohio. Horrible winters, rained all the time, cloudy all the time, don’t see a lot of sunshine, so I really chased warm winter for a long time.

When I moved up north, people were really shocked, people that knew me.”

Burris got his Bachelor’s degree at Georgia State, and later attended a Master’s program at Adelphi, where he got his Master’s in Education, specifically for ESL. At BMCC, he also teaches the academic critical reading and critical thinking classes. From his teaching experience, he has learned valuable skills for education: “Classrooms need to be task-oriented and student-centered,” he greatly emphasized.

From leaving Ohio low on money to eventually becoming a New York City College pro-

dent. Since then, the school has changed drastically, especially in terms of the technology. “In class, there were no labs, and in order to have the few times when the students could handle equipment, the entire [class] had to line up one at a time, come down the stairs of the recitation hall, and line up and go to the microscope,” he recounted.

“That’s how we learned how to use a microscope. That’s also how we learned how to dye and prepare a slide with onion skins.”

Rather ironically, there were no substitute teachers at Stuyvesant when Schecter was a student.

He reminisced, “I think there was a different attitude, and it was not necessarily a healthy one. Teachers came in when they were very sick and the only times they stayed [home] were if

For the future, Eng discussed plans to expand their sale merchandise and consider a new idea proposed by Seo—a donation fund, similar to that of Humans of New York, where donations would be collected to help interviewees facing financial hardship regarding extracurriculars, for example. Seo also mentioned, “Our future goal for Humans of Stuy, statistics-wise, [is] to reach, by the end of next year, 12,000 followers on the page. We’re currently at 9,200.”

For Sy, her personal goals for the future are to interweave her interests in photography with psychology to capture different stories. Sy sums up her passions for photography best when she says, “The [emotions] are still there even though it’s frozen in frame.”

In essence, Humans of Stuy is about slowing down and observing. Senanayake explained, “Humans of Stuy really emphasizes the importance of [...] stopping and looking around you. In the four years of Stuy, it’s very geared towards a career path, like getting into a good college, getting a good job, and so on. But I think [Humans of Stuy] showed me, as corny as it sounds, that what’s really valuable is the people you meet.”

there were a death in the family.”

There was one instance where his French teacher, Dr. Moore, had to take a leave because of a heart attack. “Other French teachers gave up their lunch and their free periods to teach his class. He came back after the first term but he became very ill during my upper junior year, and he died. Another teacher took over his class permanently,” he said.

Like Vasquez, Schecter enjoys reading, so he went to college and earned a degree in language and literature. He also likes biology and chemistry, though he could not go into a scientific field because of his “limitations in math,” he said.

Schecter decided to become a teacher while in graduate school, though it was not something he initially planned to pursue. “While I was in graduate school, I started to take teaching courses because the cost of going to graduate school for a Ph.D and meet[ing] my financial obligations to other people— my family—was impossible, so I decided on a teaching career, and I haven’t regretted it,” he explained.

To control a class, Schecter likes to joke around. “Excuse me, class, who has the chloroform?” he joked. He believes charm to be especially important with appealing to a class, though it does not work universally.

He is not shy with making jokes about his age either. When asked about his hobbies, he laughed and replied, “Hobbies?

I’m at an advanced age. Breathing is very nice. Breathing is terrific.”

Retirement does not seem to be coming soon for Schecter, however. “I come in because I really enjoy being around here. I enjoy these kids and they know that. I enjoy the classes. I also enjoy the faculty. And I like being around them,” Schecter said. “I really should be thinking about retiring but I find [substituting] too much fun.”

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Page 7

Features Stuyvesant’s Perceptions on Course Exceptions

By SAMMI YANG and SOPHIA LIN

Talos has been loading for 30 minutes; an error message pops up for what seems like the 100th time. At this time of the year, Stuyvesant’s countless overachieving students try to rack up as many Advanced Placement (AP) courses as they can take— including ones Talos deems them unprepared for. Course exceptions present these students a chance to appeal for a class they wish to take. However, course exceptions don’t come easily: both the assistant principal of the department in question and the student’s guidance counselor must confirm that the student is capable of taking the course. Unfortunately, not all programming requests are decided in the student’s favor, and many students are denied their requests.

It’s not a secret that AP courses aren’t easy; however, these potential difficulties do not faze AP-seeking students. There are many factors that impact a student’s decision to enroll in a higher-level class, including a desire for challenge, peer pressure, and college credits. Unsurprisingly, the primary motivating factor that drives Stuyvesant students to take an AP course is its appeal to colleges. Unlike regular courses in the subject, AP courses are supposed to be taught at the collegiate level, so students who excel at them are typically considered better candidates for college, and for Stuyvesant students, that is always a priority.

Additionally, some students believe that students who take AP courses are ultimately more engaged than those who take regular courses. Junior Cynthia Or shared that she has increased

her historical and political knowledge by taking AP World History. However, AP courses not only come with greater privileges, but also with greater responsibility. Or expressed the difficulty of having to retain almost twice the knowledge required of regular Global History students. She described the countless nights and lunch periods she spent finishing her outlines. In contrast to the Global History Regents, which only tests material learned in sophomore year, the AP World History examination tests material learned in freshman year.

Sophomore Vivien Li considered both the pros and cons of an AP course when weighing her options. Like many other Stuyvesant students, she wanted to make the most of Stuyvesant’s opportunities and concluded that AP courses were worth the extra stress. “If I need to spend an entire year learning a course, then why not go all the way instead of halfway?” Li reasoned.

Regardless of the motives for taking a specific course, the results of student requests don’t always come back the way students want them to. For these students, the outcomes may seem unfair. A student who wished to remain anonymous shared, “I felt that it was unfair because I know people who are only [in the second term] taking Introduction to Computer Science, who were chosen instead of me, when I’ve dedicated a year into studying computer science in Annual [Computer Science].”

Opinions like these are not rare, but APs and guidance counselors do, in fact, put much time and thought into these requests.

For instance, Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman considers factors other than the aver-

age of the student. “There are all kinds of reasons why a kid with an average that’s a little below might be a fine candidate for an AP class. For instance, a kid who maybe had a tough transition to Stuy didn’t do so well first semester, but in the next few semesters has done better and better, then sure, that student ought to be fine, and shouldn’t be penalized for performance a couple of years ago. A kid with the same average, though, could’ve started out really strong, and done worse and worse; then, that student may be a less viable candidate,” Grossman explained.

Some assistant principals believe that students don’t always know what they’re getting themselves into when applying for certain AP courses. In fact, alumnus Timothy So (‘19) admitted, half-jokingly, “I took AP World because I was a confused freshman, and everyone was taking APs so I thought I needed to as well.” To make sure that students aren’t getting into situations they can’t handle, administrators going through course exceptions carefully evaluate whether or not the students are ready for the course. Computer Science Coordinator JonAlf Dyrland-Weaver, who makes the decisions for AP Computer Science requests, worries that students don’t always consider the contrast between the AP class and the Introduction to Computer Science class and end up struggling or disliking the course as a result. “If you’re just someone who happens to be good at computer science in the intro course, that doesn’t mean that AP is the right course for you because the problems get harder.

You might find that you start to struggle. If you’re just taking this because you were good at CS and

Majors at Stuyvesant: Stressful or Supportive?

By LAMIA HAQUE

In order to receive a Stuyvesant diploma, there are certain requirements that students must meet, but students have the ability to choose from many different electives and classes to fit these requirements.

Brooklyn Technical High School (Brooklyn Tech), on the other hand, has a different system. At the end of the sophomore year, each student chooses a major. This system sparked an interest among Stuyvesant students. Junior Alfayed Alam and senior Victor Liu prefer science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) focuses, stating that they would choose the majors Biological Sciences and Chemistry, respectively. Junior Roshni Patel would pick Finance and sophomore Aishwarjya Barya would go for Law and Society. Of the 19 majors available at Brooklyn Tech, students can usually find something to further pursue in their high school career.

For many students, Brooklyn Tech’s major system makes the school one of their top choices.

Every student is required to rank their majors, and once a major is chosen, it cannot be changed. This may seem drastic, but Patel speculated, “It would be chaotic otherwise because people would change their majors for something easier or something harder.” She added that the strictness of the major system may help establish a focus and that if changes were allowed, then they should be within the same field to prevent any issues.

In addition, majors are based on the classes in which a student received a high grade. Liu supports this part of the system: “It wouldn’t make sense for a person to take on a major that they are not

good at, or else they’ll likely suffer in their coursework and regret such a choice,” he said.

Sophomore Charlotte Kastoun disagreed. “It forces a student to focus their studies on certain topics that might not even interest them,” she explained. Kastoun elaborated that if a student has a higher grade in biology than in history, but is interested in history, then it would not be fair for that student to major in biology. In her opinion, the major system does not prioritize personal choice.

Furthermore, “There are multiple factors that play on whether or not you do well in a class. Teachers play favorites, give unfair or easy tests, curve too much or not at all, etc,” Barya pointed out. These biases affect class averages, thereby proving that one’s grades may not reflect how they do in the class, but rather the nature of their teacher.

If the major system were to be implemented at Stuyvesant, it would be beneficial mainly to those whom have already decided on a career path. “If I were given the option to choose my major, I could really delve into advanced subtopics of bioscience or chemistry,” said Alam, who has decided to pursue a scientific field. Patel, who hopes to major in finance, also believes that she would personally benefit from a knowledge of finance as it is not usually taught in school. In this way, students can immerse themselves in one topic, helping them pursue it in the future.

Similarly, the major system could be stressful for those whom have not decided on a career path.

Kastoun pointed out that the major system would decrease the freedom to choose from a multitude of classes in a variety of subjects,

putting more pressure on students to pick the “right major,” Kastoun said. Liu added, “One thing I like about Stuyvesant is how many elective selections it offers, and I don’t like the idea of pre-ordaining what electives a student should take because they had chosen that major in their sophomore year.” To Liu, sophomore year is too early for one to choose a major, and like Kastoun, he believes that students may later regret their decisions.

Despite opposing views on the effects of a major system, students do agree that the system can be restricting. Heng and Barya said that though there are 19 majors offered at Brooklyn Tech, they neglect certain fields, especially the arts. Additionally, if a student were to choose one major, their elective choices would be limited to those required for their major. Furthermore, the major system would hold students back from trying multiple things by forcing them to make a decision early in their high school years. “It is especially true if you begin a major and realize it is not at all what you expected and that you want to pursue a different field,” junior Chrisabella Javier said.

With a major system, Stuyvesant students would have to make big decisions in their second year of high school. For the most part, though some students believe that majors would help ground them in a specific subject area, the system is only beneficial for the select few students who have already decided on their career path. The major system might also be an extra stressor for those who do not know their path. High school is a time to explore one’s interests without being tied to just one subject, and the major system restricts one from doing so.

you didn’t really care, then when you start to have problems that might be more difficult in AP, if it’s not the sort of thing that you enjoy doing, then you’re going to struggle and you’re not going to [enjoy] doing it,” he cautioned.

While the approval of the APs is the main concern of students, guidance counselors also play an important role in the decision process. Some students have wondered why guidance counselors are part of the process. An anonymous senior said, “I honestly don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to receive permission from our guidance counselors because they don’t always know about the subject so there are things that might be misperceived.” Guidance counselor Paul Goldsman knows that guidance counselors have to consider aspects of students that the APs can’t. “We know the students in a very different light. In some cases, APs are approving or rejecting exceptions without ever meeting a child. And so especially with upperclassmen, we’ve worked with these kids for two to three years, so we know them really well. So I think it just makes [sense],” he explained. Goldsman elaborated that the guidance counselors are happy to help students who want to challenge themselves, but he also recognizes that they do have limits.

Unsurprisingly, some students directed complaints to Talos itself. A main concern was that having course selections online was a confusing process because directions were unclear.

Junior Kaitlyn Lee expressed, “I would [rather] stick with an inperson process because, with the course selections, I had so many questions and a lot of people didn’t know how to answer them

or what exactly to do. I had to keep going back and forth, asking my guidance counselors, so I feel like it would be easier if it was done in person.”

Dryland-Weaver acknowledges Talos’ flaws and encourages improvements. “We’re early on in using Talos as a tool for this, so there are definitely improvements. One thing is just getting information out to students and faculty in a timely manner,” he said. Dyrland-Weaver agrees with Lee that Talos causes some confusion and sympathizes that it becomes annoying for teachers as well. “I’ve had a bunch of students who were concerned. They thought that they needed to have their information, their exception request in by May 1, and it wasn’t until May 6, because I didn’t have to give my results until May 1. So they were bugging me about it,” he continued.

Still, there are teachers and students who find the portal to be a huge improvement from the former way course selections were done. “I feel like [Talos is] more efficient than the in-person program changes because in person, you’re just waiting on line for hours, and you’re just standing there, and there’s no [certainty] that it’ll even get [approved],” junior Yi Ling Wu said.

Goldsman comments on how the online process has also developed tremendously throughout time: “I’m very happy with Talos, especially based on where it started. I think that there are some improvements that need to be made. [...] I think especially where it’s come from, like I remember last year, it was such a mess, but it’s improved tremendously and I think it’s only going to get better. I’m excited to see how it continues to advance.”

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Page 8

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Editorials The Spectator

Should We Shorten the Schedule?

The 10-period school day shapes every student’s experience at Stuyvesant. When a student can eat; when he or she can move to the next class; which electives a student can take, and how many—all of these are touched by the daily division of school life into 10 41-minute segments.

Proposals to replace the 10-period day with nine periods have been discussed during School Leadership Team meetings, and they’ve been gaining more traction over time. Their arguments are severalfold: for one thing, there is a widespread sentiment that students have abused the 10-period day; rather than add a free period to their schedule, students have filled all 10 of their periods up with classes—to their own mental detriment. While a 10-period schedule allows students to take more classes, it also means that each period is relatively meager in length, preventing many teachers from teaching their curriculum as thoroughly as possible. In Advanced Placement (AP) European History, for example, students who wish to learn additional content must stay for weekly after-school tutoring sessions, and content on the AP exam is taught until almost the day before the test, which also happens to be the makeup date. Furthermore, several AP Calculus BC teachers last year were unable to teach the entire curriculum prior to the test, forcing students to resort to timeconsuming independent study. In general, many teachers have no choice but to gloss over content and shorten in-class discussions and activities otherwise essential to creating engaging, in-depth

learning experiences, just to keep moving forward.

We endorse the nine-period day, but with major reservations.

While a nine-period day would increase yearly instructional time by more than 15 hours per day, it would not be compatible with the Stuyvesant Diploma as it exists today. Under the current system, students fill the majority of their schedules with classes required to earn a Stuyvesant Diploma. Each term, students must take at least one extra class beyond New York State requirements: Music and Art Appreciation during freshman year, Introduction to Computer Science and drafting sophomore year, and a 5-Tech, 10-Tech, and two science electives throughout all four years. During freshman year, these requirements are not overly burdensome, since freshmen are often still left with one or two frees. However, while freshmen have more available periods, most electives are not accessible to them. On the other hand, upperclassmen have fewer free periods to take a wider range of electives, because the classes required by the Stuyvesant Diploma take priority. A student’s ability to take courses based on interest is a valuable part in developing passions; if there is already a limited number of periods to take interesting courses, implementing a nine-period day without remodeling the Stuyvesant Diploma would exacerbate the issue.

There are several courses of action that can be taken to help rectify this issue. One idea being considered by the administration is getting rid of the drafting requirement, and making the course a 5-Tech elective. While

this would lead to a noticeable drop in the number of drafting students, drafting teachers would be able to maintain their positions since they are hired with the capability to teach other electives.

Additionally, science electives are some of the most highly subscribed classes; however, many students take these courses not because they have a genuine interest in them, but because they need to fulfill the two science electives requirement. Students who truly want to take the class have a lesser chance of enrolling, since students who need the class solely to receive their Stuyvesant Diploma will take their spots. If students are not required to take classes that they are not interested in, this changes the learning environment into one where students are there to learn for the sake of learning—and not to simply check off a box.

It is clear that implementing a nine-period day will create conflicts because of the Stuyvesant Diploma. If the administration does plan on diminishing the number of periods, it should also consider lessening the number of required classes to accommodate the shift. The administration has already made changes to the roadmap students take throughout their high school career: for example, health, which was previously taught in junior year, is now being taught in freshman year.

These changes are notable, but if Stuyvesant takes extra steps to further amend the requirements of the Stuyvesant Diploma, adopting the nine-period day will be much more realistic.

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FAC U LT Y

ADV I SE R

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The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Opinions Afghanistan — A Second Vietnam?

By BRIAN MOSES As America’s longest war in Afghanistan nears its 18th birthday, many political leaders on both sides of the aisle have begun to question the necessity and indeed the viability of continuing military involvement in the country. Several Democratic presidential candidates, including Pete Buttigieg, have promised a complete withdrawal within a year of their inauguration.

President Trump’s administration is reportedly nearing a deal with the Taliban, the Afghan government’s main political rival, to withdraw American forces entirely in exchange for a promise by the Taliban to not harbor any more terrorists. Trump’s prospective deal with the Taliban effectively accomplishes America’s primary objectives in the region: under the terms of the deal, the Taliban promises to not harbor any terrorist groups, to cut ties with al-Qaeda entirely, and to reach an immediate ceasefire pending separate negotiations with the recognized Afghan government.

It’s not hard to see why so many in Washington argue for a troop pullout. The financial costs

By JULIE HA and KAYLEE YIN

of keeping ground troops in Afghanistan is growing ever more extreme, now estimated at over $1 million per soldier annually.

Considering this, it’s no wonder that the war in Afghanistan has cost U.S. taxpayers a mind-boggling $700 billion dollars in total, and it will cost roughly $45 billion next year. For context, the entire U.S. military’s budget in Fiscal Year 2019 was $639 billion.

What’s more, years of focus on low-intensity counterterrorism operations have shifted the military’s focus away from deterring great power rivals like Russia and China, even while those same countries have been rapidly catching up to American military technology. For instance, both nations have recently begun producing jet fighters promised to be technologically on-par with America’s flagship F-35 plane.

These increasingly aggressive countries have used their growing power to exert influence in strategically important areas like Ukraine and the South China Sea. All this is happening while America continues to be tied down in Afghanistan, a region of little to no strategic and economic relevance. At the same time, aging American infrastruc-

ture has been steadily falling apart, even as China and Europe are constructing impressive highspeed rail and transportation systems that travel at hundreds of miles per hour. It also doesn’t help America’s case that the national deficit, traditionally taken as a measure of fiscal health, is reaching its highest point ever, signaling the country’s increasing reliance on imported goods.

The war in Afghanistan seems increasingly unwinnable. Even after all of the time, effort, and money that America has spent in the region, the U.S.-backed Afghan government controls just over half of the country, with the rest disputed or under Taliban control. After spending nearly two decades in the “Graveyard of Empires,” as the country is known, America has precious little to show for it.

One of the biggest reasons why the Afghan government has been ineffective in its fight against the Taliban is the political corruption endemic in its system.

A 2009 report by the U.S. Agency for International Development stated that corruption within the Afghan government was “pervasive, entrenched, systemic, and by all accounts now unprecedented

in scale and reach.” The situation has seen little improvement since then, with the nation ranking 177th out of 180 countries in the 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index. The country continues to be fractured into many different tribe-controlled territories, and it is continuously plagued by underdeveloped or flat-out nonexistent infrastructure.

Despite this, some Republican leaders in Washington and Pentagon officials have argued that keeping ground troops in Afghanistan is vital to America’s national security and that a unilateral withdrawal would create a power vacuum that could be filled by terrorists or foreign nations. This cycle has already played out many times in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Libya, and it shows no signs of stopping in Afghanistan.

But the Taliban are increasingly unlikely to help regional terror groups (primarily ISIS and al-Qaeda) plan further attacks there once the U.S. leaves. They have always been focused on Afghanistan only, in contrast to alQaeda’s global ambitions. And the Taliban consider IS-K (ISIS’s local chapter in Afghanistan) to be its rivals; the two groups have

fought numerous battles, and conflict between them remains persistent.

Furthermore, the argument that withdrawal could put American citizens at risk ignores the fact that over 2,000 American service members have already died in Afghanistan, with over 20,000 troops suffering wounds.

That’s not to mention the civilian casualties that occur as a result of the continued conflict. In fact, during the first six months of 2019, U.S. and Afghan forces were responsible for about 1250 civilian deaths—incidentally, even more than the Taliban.

Of course, coming to a peace agreement with the Taliban, which remains a militant organization, isn’t an ideal outcome.

There’s a chance that the group won’t honor its pledge not to harbor or materially support terror groups in Afghanistan. Even worse, the Taliban might use this opening to try to conquer more of the country instead of reaching a ceasefire with the recognized Afghan government. But the alternative to a deal—a never-ending war with no concrete goal, is worse still. These are the stakes of America’s longest war; they should not be ignored.

Planned Parenthood Withdraws From Title X

After a months-long battle with the Trump administration over its new rules regarding abortion counseling, Planned Parenthood officially announced its withdrawal from federal funding on August 19, 2019.

The new regulations, which were issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, forbid all grantees under the federal Title X program from referring patients for abortion. Since its inception, Title X has provided Planned Parenthood with approximately $60 million annually, making the organization its largest benefactor. As part of its initiative, the reproductive healthcare provider has been able to assist over 1.5 million low-income women— nearly 40 percent of all Title X patients—with various services ranging from contraceptives to STD testing. However, the organization has been largely associated with abortions, as it provides services such as abortion referrals, medical abortion, and in-clinic abortion procedures. Inevitably, the healthcare group has been the target of criticism by Republicans and other outlets of the pro-life movement.

Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of Planned Parenthood, publicly berated the Trump administration, stating that “When you have an unethical rule that will limit what providers can tell our patients, it becomes really important that we not agree to be in the program.”

Ultimately, the organization, with many other healthcare providers such as the American Medical Association, believes that the new gag rule is highly unethical and unsafe. Additionally, it is a direct attack on all Title X health centers, creating a distrustful environment among doctors and patients where physicians are required to withhold certain medical information from patients.

Such includes pregnant women who may not be informed of all options available to them. As a result, many of those who are protected by the program would be left with nowhere to go for re-

liable healthcare.

Planned Parenthood aids its patients in a plethora of ways in addition to providing information about abortion, such as giving access to birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, patient education, and general wellness exams. However, if the organization were to still function under the enactment of the new gag rule, women would likely lose confidence in the healthcare provider. This lost sense of trust in Planned Parenthood would cause some women to stop visiting their clinics as a whole, consequently leaving them unable to reap many of the benefits offered by the organization.

Though the withdrawal will not entirely deprive Planned Parenthood of federal funding, the impact left behind by the organization’s departure will have many immediate effects. According to The New York Times, patients in states where Planned Parenthood comprises all or nearly all Title X funds (such as Utah and Minnesota), will have to delay or forgo care. However, the largest impact may be seen among people of color as well as members of the LGBTQ community.

Of the four million people Title X served in 2016, 21 percent identified as black or African American and 32 percent identified as Hispanic or Latino; the gag rule will only strip these women of their already limited healthcare options. Furthermore, because of various barriers, including limited access to care and higher rates of poverty within these racial communities, women of color in underserved areas are already more susceptible to particular health issues. For instance, black women account for 69 percent of HIV diagnoses for women in the South.

Simultaneously, LGBTQ people will sustain a detrimental impact from the withdrawal of Planned Parenthood from Title X as well. Statistically, LGBTQ people are more likely to be involved in an unintended pregnancy or obtain an STD than those who are not queer; this is due to the lack of LGBTQ-inclusive sex education. In fact, according to a

report published in June 2016 by Medical Care, a journal, over 30 percent of transgender patients revealed that they had delayed or refused to seek care due to fear of discrimination.

Despite the fact that the poor, women of color, and LGBTQ people are the most vulnerable to health issues, they are the people whom the Trump administration is targeting with the execution of the gag rule.

And while the reproductive health services Planned Parenthood provides through Title X funding benefits women in many ways, Planned Parenthood’s with-

earlier and modern times.

For example, the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, along with her sister, addressed the same goal as today’s Planned Parenthood did, but through dramatically different ways in her early efforts. Sanger initiated The Negro Project in 1939, which would spread reproductive health services throughout low-income and primarily black neighborhoods. She recognized that racism was inevitably political, floated the stereotypes of the “carelessly reproducing” black women, and sought to counteract them by establish-

Just as The Negro Project used eugenics as a framework and Planned Parenthood’s withdrawal from Title X deprives low-income patients of affordable reproductive health services, both sides are guilty of allowing the game to progress at the expense of those on the sidelines. drawal from the program comes as a shock. The tradeoff for abortion referrals communicates the false notion across media that Planned Parenthood is more concerned about making a prochoice or pro-abortion political statement than it is about promoting reproductive health needs and education among women.

This is not the case. The decision to withdraw is less a political statement than it is a desperate attempt to persevere in keeping its goal of providing accessible reproductive healthcare to women across all socioeconomic backgrounds alive. The constant politicization of Planned Parenthood by the Trump Administration is what renders the goal of clinics like Planned Parenthood political. The cycle of politicization is proven to exist through mistakes made by Planned Parenthood in addressing women’s reproductive health and navigating political structures in both

ing clinics in the rural South and working with African American leaders like W.E.B Du Bois and Mary Mc Leod Bethune.

Throughout the years, however, Republicans have often used the eugenic nature of Sanger’s language as a representation of an immoral story behind Planned Parenthood’s services.

Sanger herself very publicly made eugenic claims, stating that “the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective” in her 1921 article The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.

Following the 19th Century economist Thomas Robert Malthus, her belief was that birth control would specifically alow low-income black women to wait until they were wealthier or until they had children. In all, this embrace of eugenics ultimately led to forced sterilization as Sanger’s plan further unfolded;

many black women would not even know they had been sterilized until they unsuccessfully tried to have children. Because of this, Planned Parenthood was deeply intertwined with the Eugenics Society and nearly financially dependent on eugenicists who funded the early projects of Planned Parenthood, from opening birth control clinics to publishing progressive literature.

However, activists like Gloria Steinem argue that Sanger’s use of eugenics and racist rhetoric was more a political ploy than a deep-rooted belief, made to garner support for birth control.

This would be understandable, considering that women’s reproductive health information, let alone that of women of color, was still very taboo in the 1930s; it was a criminal offense to send birth control through mail.

Ultimately, there is no way to confirm if Sanger’s intentions were to truly expand services to black women even while receiving funds to diminish black propagation. Nonetheless, Sanger’s mistake of funding Planned Parenthood through careless racism not only stripped black women of liberation and their rights but also allowed Planned Parenthood to be politicized by structures that kept those rights at bay.

Despite Sanger’s intentions, the battle over women’s reproductive health services is repeatedly and wrongly rendered as a battle over political control, providing a striking parallel to the position of women in this battle today. With the effort to undemonize something as essential as reproductive rights, whether that be contraceptives or abortion in both earlier and modern times, women in need of such reproductive health services represent a pawn in a political game. There is a winning or losing side, and there are strategies, circumventions, and a goal of domination. Just as The Negro Project used eugenics as a framework and Planned Parenthood’s withdrawal from Title X deprives low-income patients of affordable reproductive health services, both sides are guilty of allowing the game to progress at the expense of those on the sidelines.

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Page 10

Opinions Trump’s Attitude Toward Anti-Semitism is Anti-Semitic

By JONATHAN SCHNEIDERMAN

When President Donald J. Trump, a man who has inspired multiple terrorist attacks, said that Jews who vote for Democrats are disloyal, he got a lot of attention. A lot of that attention focused on his invocation of the age-old canard that Jews are disloyal. Most of the rest of the responses focused on the equivalence he drew between the state of Israel and the Jews: Trump’s rationale for calling Jewish Democrats disloyal was that he, unlike the Democrats, is friendly toward Israel, and thus friendly toward Jews, and thus worthy of Jews’ loyalty. Many liberals pointed out that the idea that the diaspora Jews are ultimately loyal to Israel is just another variation on the “disloyalty” trope that has consistently been used to jusify antiSemitic persecution.

(Before I go on, two parentheticals: one, Tablet Magazine’s Yair Rosenberg has a fantastic piece in the Washington Post on Trump’s paradoxical view of Jews, in which he argues that Trump sees anti-Semitic tropes as accurate but admirable; he does an excellent job at dealing with the fact that Trump both invoked the “disloyalty” trope and criticized Jews for not being disloyal enough. Two, no group has done as much to promote the equivalence between diaspora Jews and Israel as the Jewish right. Pundits like Ben Shapiro regularly proclaim that not only anti-Zionism but any opposition to the State of Israel is anti-Semitism.)

But Trump’s comments weren’t just indicitive of an anti-Semitic attitude toward Jews; they were indicative of an antiSemitic attitude toward anti-Semitism, one that is fairly endemic

By LAMIA HAQUE As part of the Trump Administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, nearly 700 immigrants believed to be working without legal documentation were taken away from large worksites in Mississippi on August 27, 2019. Over 600 agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, showed up at the worksites for the biggest raid since December 2006.

While it may have seemed sudden, the raids were “the results of a year-long criminal investigation,” according to ICE Acting Director Matthew Albence. Each of the arrested individuals would appear in front of an immigration judge, who would decide as to whether or not they can stay in the country. But lesser known than the crimes of the workers is that five of the raided worksites were operated by companies which for years have intentionally hired undocumented workers for commercial advantage or private financial gain: Koch Foods, Peco Foods, PH Food, A&B, and Pearl River Foods.

Affidavits show that authorities believe employers hired workers who used the Social Security numbers of dead people as well as those who wore government-issued GPS ankle bracelets while awaiting deportation hearings.

Though the immigrants needed jobs to support their families, companies went on with their actions, disregarding all potential consequences. The

on the Christian right today. That attitude is that to not be anti-Semitic is to do a favor to Jews, a favor that ought to be returned.

Under the attitude’s framework, Jews who don’t return the favor are ungrateful. A remarkably honest 2008 piece in the conservative City Journal asks in its title, “Why Don’t Jews Like The Christians Who Like Them?”

The City Journal piece cites statistics demonstrating that, while most Evangelical Christians have a favorable view of Jews, “Jews don’t return the favor,” with a large portion (though not a majority) of Jews having an actively unfavorable view of Evangelical Christians.

I cannot claim to speak for all Jews, but I am a reasonably liberal Jew who pretty uniformly supports Democrats and is also pro-Israel (a phrase which here means Zionist, as I despise Benjamin Netanyahu with a passion), and I can speak for myself in explaining my own views, though I should specify that “White Evangelical” would be a more appropriate term here than just “Evangelical.” The reason for the asymmetry breaks more or less into two facets: one, Jews like me don’t trust Evangelicals’ philo-Semitism. I know that according to Evangelical doctrine, Jesus will come when the Jews occupy the Holy Land. I know that according to Evangelical doctrine, I am little more than a pawn on the road to the Second Coming of Christ. I know that according to Evangelical doctrine, I will burn in Hell forever because of my sinful refusal to accept Jesus or even God. I do not appreciate this, and it does not incline me favorably toward Evangelicals.

Someone who thinks I will be met with eternal torture when I die—and that I will deserve it—

is not someone I like.

Two, I abhor what Evangelicals have sowed and reaped nationwide. I see that Trump has been boosted largely by Evangelical support. I see that allegedly deeply religious people have been able to brush away his barenaked amorality by comparing him to Cyrus, the Persian Emperor praised in the Bible for allowing the Jews to return to the Holy Land. I see that in the name of combatting the rights of women and sexual minorities, Evangelicals have embraced a movement that denies the right to asylum and separates children from their parents, puts them in miserable facilities, and refuses to give them basic medical care. In short, I see hypocrisy. I concur with the Atlantic’s Adam Serwer that the cruelty is the point of the Trump movement, and I see Evangelicals embracing that movement.

Quite aside from my suspicion of Evangelicals’ philo-Semitism, I am disgusted by the role they have staked out for themselves in contemporary politics, led by luminaries like Jerry Falwell, Jr. And yet I am expected to have a favorable view of them, just as they have a favorable view of me?

In addition to the fact that anyone who thinks I deserve eternal divine torment does not like me, no matter what they say in a poll, anti-Evangelicalism is very different from anti-Semitism. Jews have been a targeted minority for two millennia. Hatred for us and our existence has been deeply rooted in “Western” society from almost its very beginning.

Indeed, the rise of Christianity in Europe was greatly aided by the nascent Church’s embrace of anti-Semitism as it sought to distinguish itself from Judaism and appeal to Roman elites.

The fact that we currently enjoy a status of widespread prosperity, safety, and ostensible popularity, is a historical anomaly—and one that is already fraying at the edges, as conspiracy theories about are spread by Fox News and the President and acted upon by white supremacist terrorists. We are constantly aware that Jews have thought they were safe before. In the musical Cabaret, which takes place in the late Weimar Republic, the Jewish Herr Schultz brushes aside a warning about the ascendant Nazi Party by protesting that he is “a Jew. But also a German.

A German as much as anyone.”

To Herr Schultz, the serious rise of the Nazi Party is unthinkable because he is too assimilated, an attitude that was all too common among Jews at the time.

We must always live with the knowledge that we cannot make that mistake again.

Evangelicals are different.

Whereas Jews are an ethno-religious group that must always live in fear of the very real threat of persecution, Evangelicals are an entirely religious group to whom “persecution” means that ostensibly religious bigotry is no longer tolerated. Evangelicals have historically existed in positions of privilege or safety, at least.

In short, anti-Evangelicalism is very different from anti-Semitism; the latter is a lot worse.

But in the attitude that Jews somehow owe something to those who help them or are “loyal” to them is betrayed an understanding of anti-Semitism that views one of the world’s oldest bigotries as a bargaining chip. Evangelicals like Jews, but Jews need to return the favor.

Trump will do Jews the favor of supporting Israel, but they have to support him; to do otherwise

#MississippiICERaids

corporate officials in charge of the companies violated employment law, but it was to no one’s surprise that on the day of the raids, they were not among the individuals who were taken away. To make matters worse, there are no records of any company officials being charged in federal court.

The raids left communities broken. Over half of the workforce at the Koch Foods plant, which has annual sales of $3 billion, were detained, leaving the plant with few workers to continue producing and packaging food. The same happened at the other large food plants, negatively impacting local economies. The investigation may have been planned months in advance, but ICE agents clearly underestimated the drastic effects of their operation.

The arrests also left hundreds of children unattended after their second day of school; they were taken to local elementary schools until they could be reunited with extended family members. The circumstances were harsh, especially on younger children. Scott County School District superintendent Tony McGee put it best: “It’s tough. It’s the second day of school and you’re 5-years-old, and you come to school with a mom and dad, and all of a sudden, you get ready to go home and you don’t have one.”

About 154 students did not show up for class the day after the raids. Because the local school districts are funded in part based on daily attendance

rates, the raids had a potential chance of impacting school funding. Communities kept this to themselves and focused on the wellbeing of children instead of politics. Lee Anne Brandon, director of communications at the Mississippi Department of Child Protective Services (MDCPS), explained that though 680 people were arrested, all were affected. “Mississippi is a big small town,” she said. “Everything from our economies to our school systems, to our church and religious and civic groups—We’re all being touched by this in one way or another.”

Of the 680 arrested, 303 undocumented immigrants were released and 377 remained detained. ICE made custody determinations on a case-by-case basis, meaning that the futures of the families in Mississippi were in their hands. With most families, if both parents were arrested, one parent was sent home within 24 hours. However, with one family, it took days before ICE authorities realized

they had detained both parents of two children in Mississippi.

Bryan Cox, the ICE spokesman, said the parents made no claim of children while being detained, but Ana, the mother, told the authorities that she did have children. She was not released until eight days later, when she then told an ICE official where she was held that her children were home alone.

ICE’s careless operation left young children at home without food and their parents.

Many found out about the raids through a video in which an 11-year-old begged: “Government, please show some heart.” Sentimental viewers were quick to reshare the video, causing it to rapidly spread on social media platforms. This turned into a case of hashtag activism, where social media users show support for a cause through means of a like or share. A rising number of reshares led to increased awareness, but nonetheless, it was not enough to help families who were still separated.

With other national issues on the rise, #MississippiICERaids disappeared faster than it appeared on social media platforms. It was replaced by other hashtags created by those who wished to appear civically aware. Social media users believed their jobs were finished once they reshared a post or changed their profile picture to pay their respects to the situation. However, their actions failed to aid the impacted families in any way beyond creating brief discussion on the subject.

would be to be disloyal. Hidden implicitly in this attitude is a threat: if Jews continue to be disloyal, Trump may decide to turn against us.

His current and “loyal” attitude toward us sees him spreading the aforementioned Soros conspiracies and inspiring terrorists like the one who committed a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg. Trump apologists pointed out that that terrorist didn’t like Trump, but they left out why: he didn’t like Trump because he felt like Trump wasn’t fully honest. He liked Trump’s talk, but felt that by consorting with the likes of Jared Kushner, Trump was failing to walk the walk. It is scary to imagine that a Trump who no longer felt that he owed loyalty to the Jews might decide to start walking that walk.

Trump’s transactional attitude toward anti-Semitism is, of course, anti-Semitic: bigotry toward us is not a bargaining chip, and respect for us is a bare minimum, not a favor. But it is also ironic: Trump may believe that Jews are obsessed with “loyalty,” even if he admires us for it and treat us accordingly. But the very fact that Jews are remaining proudly disloyal while Trump rants about it lays out the contrast between him and the Jews in stark light: Jews, who have refused to live up to his expectations, are not Shylocks bent on giving only in exchange for getting. We do not terribly care that you have a Jewish daughter if you flagrantly disregard human rights elsewhere. But Trump exactly fits the conniving model he projects on us.

If he were capable of it, he would do well to consider some self-reflection.

Currently, there are more effective ways to help immigrant families affected by the ICE raids in Mississippi than tweeting or posting on Instagram. One can, for instance, donate to an organization like El Pueblo Mississippi, which provides legal services to immigrant families and promotes a community phone line for those affected by the raids. The MacArthur Justice Center and the Mississippi Center for Justice also accept donations and provide legal aid to families through volunteer lawyers who work pro bono.

A few other groups also embraced non-hashtag activism. Reggie Williams, director of missions at the Scott County Baptist Association, said that his organization raised about $24,000 and collected nonperishable food items to make sure that the families were able to have three meals a day. A local school district called Jackson Public Schools also partnered with the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance to help families and students feel safe during a time of anxiety and fear.

Sometimes, a reshare on social media is simply not enough. It is high time that we recognize the continued ignorance posed by social media users and take concrete action toward resolving the tragic effects of ongoing events. It can be anything from donating food to volunteering as a pro bono lawyer, but we must keep “#MississippiICERaids” from disappearing yet again.

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Page 11

Opinions Japan’s Prime Minister Wants to Increase Representation of Women in the Workforce—His Field Excluded.

By KRISTIN CHENG The enactment of Japan’s Gender Parity Law, whose goal is to make the number of male and female candidates as equal as possible, has ushered in a new generation of female politicians, who bring with them new concerns and unique perspectives. They have drawn from personal experiences and have begun to promote policies that benefit all Japanese people.

These policies include penalizing workplace harassment, further criminalizing nonconsensual sex crimes, and prohibiting discrimination against the LGBTQ communities. Women politicians are forcing Japan to hold necessary discussions that, while brushed aside for decades, are critical to its democratic future.

For their part, Japan’s political parties seem to be all for the effort. Since it is the parties themselves that nominate candidates for office (unlike the open primaries in the U.S.), the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) and the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) have set goals for the amount of female representation they would like to see: 30 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

And in Japan’s recent election for the upper house of Parliament, four parties—the DPP and the CDP included—have surpassed these target numbers, achieving near-parity with 49.6 percent female candidates.

It’s disappointing, then, that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), to which Japan’s current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe belongs, stands in opposition to this progress, maintaining the same maledominant culture it always has.

In the same Parliamentary election, women comprised a mere 14.6 percent of candidates for Abe’s LDP. And though Abe was commended in 2014 for appointing five women to his cabinet, only one of them remained in her position by 2018.

But these numbers are not just disheartening—they’re ironic, considering Abe has been lauded for his encourage-

ment of “womenomics” and assertions that empowering women will benefit the economy. In fact, he recently stated that “enhancing opportunities for women to work and to be active in society is no longer a matter of choice for Japan. It is instead a matter of greatest urgency.”

would elevate people like Satsuki Katayama, the current sole female member of his cabinet, to real positions of power. She is currently Japan’s Minister of State for gender affairs and regional revitalization, and enjoys little public recognition and even less power. But if Abe appointed her to run the finance

the opportunity to fully participate in their country’s public and economic life, but it also deprives Japanese citizens at large of the important conversations and policies that female politicians bring to the table.

Abe’s rejection of female politician participation is costing Japan economically, too.

Why has he chosen to perpetuate deeply entrenched inequalities when change is a self-proclaimed “matter of greatest urgency”?

Why then, is he seemingly stripping opportunities from women in politics at a time when other parties are providing them? Why has he chosen to help perpetuate deeply entrenched inequalities when change is a self-proclaimed “matter of greatest urgency”?

If Abe and the rest of his LDP truly considered increased participation of women in politics a priority, they

ministry or act as chief cabinet secretary, he would demonstrate that he is serious about making his “womenomics” rhetoric more than just words.

As it stands, however, Abe’s actions work to the severe detriment of female politicians.

His behavior is all the more concerning because the adverse effects it reaps don’t just impact women. His hypocrisy deprives not only women of

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Strategist Kathy Matsui of Goldman Sachs predicts that if female labor participation equaled that of men—roughly 80 percent—Japan’s gross domestic product would increase by 15 percent, or $5 trillion.

Take this alongside the fact that Japan has plunged by numerous spots in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index (falling last year to 114 out of 144 countries, where it

lies between Guinea and Ethiopia), and change seems all the more necessary.

A good first step would be an extension of the aforementioned Gender Parity Law. While it currently does require government organizations and large companies to set and disclose nonbinding targets for increasing the proportion of women in recruitment and management ranks, the law did not set such obligations for the political sector. The implementation of a similar system for the government would not only set target numbers for the proportion of women candidates representing political parties in elections, but it would also force politicians to reckon with the Gender Parity Law and its goals, which are to promote the employment and promotion of women.

But even then, it’s difficult to effect real change when Japanese male politicians feel that such measures to combat gender inequality are unwarranted. When asked to explain why there are so few female representatives in Japan, 41 percent of respondents from Abe’s LDP answered that it was due to a lack of interest in politics on the women’s side.

Only 11 percent of LDP members answered that inequality was caused by the parties not being seriously committed to recruiting women—the most plausible argument, considering that the leaders of Japan’s political parties nominate candidates themselves.

Ultimately, if Japan is to truly resolve its gender issues and reap the clear and plentiful benefits of female empowerment in politics, the one change that desperately needs to occur is a shift in these politicians’ mindsets. Their assertions are markedly invalidated by the high percentage of female candidates from other parties in the recent parliamentary election. It’s clear that women are ready, willing, and fully able to participate in politics and governance.

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Page 12

Science Koalas Declared Functionally Extinct in Australia

By CLAIRE SHIN

The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) released a statement on May 10, 2019 stating that only around 80,000 koalas are now believed to remain in their original habitats. AKF Chairwoman Deborah Tabart said that “the remaining koalas represent approximately one percent of the 8 million koalas that were shot for fur and sent to London between 1890 and 1927.” Out of the 128 federally recognized electorates in Australia (which have been monitored since 2010), 41 contain no koalas whatsoever.

In dozens of other districts, only small numbers of koalas remain. If the koala population continues to fall at current rates, koalas will no longer be able to reproduce at rates high enough for future generations to thrive. This dangerous population decline has caused koalas to be declared functionally extinct, meaning that they are no longer a viable species.

Widespread deforestation and subsequent habitat loss has severely affected koala populations, as they can no longer survive in the places they once thrived in.

Koalas tend to live in eucalyptus trees and spend much of their time in between forks in the trees’

branches. Clearing such eucalyptus trees for human settlement places large amounts of stress on these animals and greatly increases competition between individual koalas for ever-shrinking pockets of land.

This habitat loss has other, less obvious effects: common diseases that affect koalas include conjunctivitis, pneumonia, urinary and reproductive tract infections, and more. These infections may lead to female infertility, another cause of their functional extinction. Such urinary and reproductive tract infections come about during times of stress, something that is a result of deforestation. In areas that do not contain enough habitat to sustain a population of koalas, these diseases are more likely to spread.

Though all of the aforementioned issues are very much real problems that pose a threat to koalas, some researchers disagree with the designation of koalas as functionally extinct. Biologist Christine Adams-Hosking of the University of Queensland states that “there is no danger of koalas going extinct in Australia overall. But at the rate of habitat clearing that is going on, we are going to see increased local population extinctions.” Nonetheless, it is certainly possible for koalas to become extinct due to

their inability to produce viable offspring. These local population extinctions are essentially precursors to the total extinction of the koala in Australia.

The alarming frequency of local population extinctions has attracted wildlife support groups looking to help the koala and has led to a rise in local habitat protection efforts. These groups aim to educate the public about the sustenance of koala populations, and the importance of taking steps to protect existing koalas. Proposed solutions include planting more eucalyptus trees, protecting known koala habitats, and encouraging more environmentally-friendly lifestyles. People around the world who have received the news of the koala’s habitat loss and have the desire to help out may donate to and fund AKF. It is also possible to “virtually adopt” a koala and take care of necessary veterinary fees, rehabilitation programs, enclosure maintenance, and more.

It is extremely important to help protect and support these precious creatures, and supporting efforts to help conserve their habitats may well have a beneficial impact on their survival.

While efforts such as these do have an advantageous impact on

koala populations, Tabart maintains that Australian politicians should be playing a role in preserving these animals. The Bald Eagle Act is a U.S. federal statute that protects two species of eagles. It was a successful attempt at protecting the American icon due to political backing and a unanimous agreement on the importance of ensuring that the eagle did not go extinct. In the last six years, the Australian government has not written anything to protect the koala since a Senate inquiry that exposed the fact that the koala was in danger. A Koala Recovery Plan was supposed to have been passed in 2014, yet it has not even been written. AKF has proposed a Koala Protection Act, modelled after the Bald Eagle Act, that has not been set into place. The purpose of the act is to see that koalas receive the highest level of protection of any animal species in Australia. The Bald Eagle Act helped the 487 nesting pairs in 1963 increase to at least 9,789 nesting pairs in 2007.

Tabart demands that koalas be afforded the same respect and attention the eagles were given.

Koalas have been an extremely important part of Australian culture, as they played a large role in Aboriginal tradition and historical

myths and legends. Even today, koalas and their habitat play a large role in helping the overall environment by resisting world climate change. In fact, the eucalyptus trees that are essential to koala survival are one of the most important species in the world in storing carbon. Yet this importance is not being reflected in conscious decisions being made to destroy koala habitats by industrialization, deforestation, and more. Habitat loss is one of the factors that have led to the functional extinction of koalas, something that may result in their total extinction if proper measures are not taken. The Australian Koala Foundation has proposed countless plans and acts that will help koalas, yet they have not had a lasting impact due to the inability of Australian political leaders to dedicate efforts into koala depopulation. The United States serves as an example that AKF wishes to follow in preserving animal populations and habitat restoration, but at the moment, AKF does not see the necessary political intervention happening in the near future. At the end of AKF’s statement regarding koala depopulation, Chairwoman Tabart stated that “zoos are not the answer. Saving [the koala’s] habitat is.”

That Time Stuyvesant Students Built a Particle Accelerator

By KRISTOFF MISQUITTA

The sheer complexity and technical know-how inherent in building a particle accelerator made this a considerable undertaking for a group of teenagers, even if they were considered the best and brightest students in New York City. But the project began in earnest; the students began to build the machine from scratch. Donations of materials from multiple manufacturing companies helped keep the project afloat, and the students received a half-ton of steel, five miles of copper wire, and an already-constructed transmitter for a control system. In the end, various other donations and fundraising efforts by the students helped to dramatically lower the price of construction to $10,000. While this already seems like a huge amount (especially in the 1960s), consider that the Large Hadron Collider (the largest particle accelerator in the world) cost a total of $6.4 billion and took around 30 years to build.

The Committee divided the

student task force into small, specialized groups, each tasked with constructing or designing parts of the cyclotron; one group designed the electromagnet, another created the vacuum chamber, and so on.

Testimonies from Stuyvesant students and teachers of the time indicated that the power required for the accelerator to function “tanked the electrical system for the building and surrounding area,” an effective indicator of the sheer scale of such a project.

The Cyclotron Committee was not formed solely in the spirit of scientific curiosity nor of patriotism. Besides contributing to incredible advancements in medicine, chemistry, and physics, particle accelerators present awe-inspiring possibilities that, at times, almost seem to cross into the realm of science fiction. In 2010, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking published an article asserting that particle accelerators are the “last and best hope of building a real time machine.” Given Einstein’s foundational theory that time slows down for fast-moving objects to protect the cosmic limit

of light speed, Hawking reasoned that it would theoretically be possible to transport humans to the future through the temporal fourth dimension. The only machine capable of transporting matter to such speeds as of now is a particle accelerator, though it is limited to only the most minuscule of particles.

Particle accelerators can also reach temperatures of up to 7.2 trillion degrees (close to the estimated temperature of the universe just after the Big Bang), and the inside of the Large Hadron Collider is regularly kept in subzero conditions (colder than outer space.)

Though their efforts clearly could not match the scale of the Collider —which began construction in 1976—the Stuyvesant students of the Cyclotron Committee undoubtedly hoped, aided by their own skill and will, to capture each of the fascinating elements of the creation of a particle accelerator.

The 1962 issue of the Indicator suggests that the machine was completed, but to this day there seems to be no evidence of the project’s actual completion.

The Cyclotron Committee was not formed solely in the spirit of scientific curiosity nor of patriotism. Besides contributing to incredible advancements in medicine, chemistry, and physics, particle accelerators present awe-inspiring possibilities that, at times, almost seem to cross into the realm of science fiction. In 2010, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking published an article asserting that particle accelerators are the “last and best hope of building a real time machine.”

Given Einstein’s foundational theory that time slows down for fastmoving objects to protect the cosmic limit of light speed, Hawking reasoned that it would theoretically be possible to transport humans to the future through the temporal fourth dimension. The only machine capable of transporting matter to such speeds as of now is a particle accelerator, though it is limited to only the most minuscule of particles. Particle accelerators can also reach temperatures of up to 7.2 trillion degrees (close to the estimated temperature of the universe just after the Big Bang), and

the inside of the Large Hadron Collider is regularly kept in subzero conditions (colder than outer space.) Though their efforts clearly could not match the scale of the Collider —which began construction in 1976—the Stuyvesant students of the Cyclotron Committee undoubtedly hoped, aided by their own skill and will, to capture each of the fascinating elements of the creation of a particle accelerator.

The 1962 issue of the Indicator suggests that the machine was completed, but to this day there seems to be no evidence of the project’s actual completion.

Stuyvesant students are often credited as exceptional, whether it is in academics, service, or creativity. Like true scientists, they challenge themselves and push the limits of nature and of knowledge, turning fiction into reality and driving society to ever greater heights. Even though its ambitious goals never achieved fruition, the Cyclotron Committee retains its impressive mark on school history, serving as one of the crowning achievements of the school ever since its inception.

The Bacteria of Theseus?

By KRISTOFF MISQUITTA Two millennia ago, the Roman writer and philosopher Plutarch posed this timeless paradox: if every plank of a sailing ship is replaced throughout its journey, is it still, fundamentally, the same ship? Seventeenth-century thinkers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke pondered the question’s meaning with theory and logic, thinking up new ideas of natural law, human nature, and governance in attempts to provide an answer. Today, genetic scientists bring the “Theseus paradox” to life in cutting-edge experiments and research. The subject? The genomic data, or DNA, of Escherichia coli, more commonly known as E. coli.

These unlikely philosophers, termed “synthetic biologists,” exploit the many existing building blocks of life to engineer entirely

new biological systems. Propelled by technological advances in computing and DNA sequencing, they have reprogrammed bacteria to invade cancer cells, generate biofuels, and coalesce into vibrant microbial art. These intrepid experiments have not only attracted lengthy queues of big-name customers like Goodyear and DuPont, but have also launched nascent biotechnology companies and startups like Moderna and Zymergen into the spotlight. Rolling in government grants and record-setting investor funds, they are on track to complete their most ambitious experiments yet.

Jason Chin and his team at the British Medical Research Council are at the vanguard of these efforts, having recently reported the successful transplant of the largest-ever artificial genome into living E. coli. These “synthetic” bacteria are identical to their nat-

ural counterparts, save for slower replication and more elongated shapes. However, the researchers did not simply bundle the same organism in a different wrapping paper and call it new. In fact, every TCG, TCA, and TAG codon in the original DNA was replaced with a “synonym” codon in the replica. Such a copy-and-paste operation should, theoretically, have muddled the instructions and resulted in a dysfunctional product; and yet, the synthetic bacteria thrive. It is hard to say which is more astounding: the modified DNA molecules functioning identically to the original chains, or the (so far) successful viability of the organism itself.

The scientists’ experimental method was to exploit the inherent redundancy of life’s genetic code: across all organisms, 64 DNA codons encode only 20 amino acids. In nature, the assignment of multiple codons for the same ami-

no acid prevents minor DNA mutations from snowballing into the production of misfolded, broken proteins. In most labs, this inborn biological defense mechanism neither helps nor harms experiments. But in the crafty minds of Jason Chin and his fellow scientists, this redundancy represented a prime opportunity to hijack the bacteria and transform them into prolific protein factories.

After substituting codons at more than 18,000 sites across the 4-million-base-pair bacterial genome, Chin was left with three unassigned codons. Though small, the vacancy adds a whole new dimension of freedom to lab-based protein production. E. coli are already able components of drugs that help treat multiple sclerosis, cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis. Pharmaceutical giants like Eli Lilly depend on robust E. coli populations to supply insulin for medicinal use, yet store them

in 50,000-liter bioreactors prone to viral infection. The synthetic bacteria may now be recoded to resist viral infection, potentially saving the industry millions of dollars each year.

Despite being almost entirely artificial, the synthesized bacteria undoubtedly still display the fundamental characteristics of life.

That they can move, grow, and proliferate is a development that blurs the once-clear boundaries between the organic and the synthetic. Yes, scientists are optimistic that, if given virtually unlimited freedom to rewire their machinery, they can transform synthetic bacteria into drug-producing factories built for medicinal chemistry. But they are also cautious as they contemplate their answer to a slightly modified version of Plutarch’s paradox: if every part of a bacterial genome is replaced, is it still, fundamentally, the same bacterium?

Julian Giordano, Belgium / The Spectator

Francesca Nemati, Barcelona/ The Spectator

Zoe Oppenheimer, Botswana/ The Spectator

Matt Melucci, Hawaii / The Spectator

Sasha Burshteyn, Portugal / The Spectator

Anais Delfau, Barren Slide, Maine Appalachian Trail / The Spectator

The Spectator â—? September 11, 2019 Page 13

Summer Photo Essay

On the Road

By THE SPECTATOR PHOTO DEPARTMENT

Page 14

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Arts and Entertainment music

Artist Profile: Androgynyous Fashion and Fashion the Appeal of Mark Tuan The Raw, Candid

By FARIHA MABUD few male idols are comfortable in make people feel comfortable, articles of clothing that are more not especially exaggerated or Lil Peep Korean pop (K-pop) is far feminine than androgynous. luxurious.”

By THEO KUBOVY-WEISS

In a world where popular music is often bland and almost overly palatable, finding music that is gritty, raw, and honest, both musically and lyrically, is often a challenge.

In recent years, however, we have seen a rise of artists whose music defies the convention of agreeability without complexity. This is because it’s refreshing to listeners to have (often gratuitously) explicit and graphic lyrics in contrast to the clean, easy-to-listen-to music that we have become accustomed to.

One artist who has led the rise of this grittier type of music is Lil Peep, whose dark and raw sound has amassed a cult following.

Peep’s music is unreserved and unrelentingly offensive: with innumerable mentions of drugs, sex, and violence in his lyrics, his music appears to be abrasive on the surface. However, behind the explicit imagery, Peep’s music is uniquely honest, open, and vulnerable. Whereas

fixed. “Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 1” saw Peep’s first mainstream success with the song “Awful Things” reaching 79 on the Billboard Hot 100. While Peep’s music achieved more mainstream success, this did not affect the music itself; it remains what it has always been: explicit, obscene, and honest. The tape features tracks like “Better Off (Dying),” which confronted Peep’s struggle with his sexuality. “Cocaine lined up, secrets that I’m hiding / You don’t wanna find out, better off lying / You don’t wanna cry now, better off dying.” By letting his guard down completely and pouring his heart into his lyrics, Peep finally received the recognition he deserved for his revolutionary style of music.

However, the success was short-lived. Just three months after the release of his sophomore mixtape, Lil Peep died of an accidental drug overdose. While

Emily Chen / The Spectator

other artists tend to shy away from subjects like depression, suicide, loneliness, and isolation, Peep confronts these issues head-on.

On his first mixtape, “Hellboy” (2016), Peep rejects the impulse to make easily digestible, widely appealing music which we see in many artists’ debuts; he defines his sound from the beginning and doesn’t shy away from expressing his true self.

On the song “OMFG,” Peep refers to his suicidal tendencies with the lyrics, “Used to wanna kill myself / Came up, still wanna kill myself / My life is going nowhere / I want everyone to know that I don’t care.”

On the following track, “Drive-By,” Peep mentions his struggles with drug addiction, singing, “I don’t wanna die alone right now, but I admit I do sometimes / These drugs are callin’ me, do one more line, don’t fall asleep.”

Peep’s music is a continuation of the emo rock of the ‘90s from bands like My Chemical Romance, modernized with influences from trap and hip-hop; Peep reinvigorated the genre after it had fallen out of fashion. Further, the hollow, powerful, and impassioned sound of Peep’s voice made the merge of the two genres seamless.

On artists’ sophomore records, we often see a development of their style—an improvement upon their debuts. However, on Peep’s second mixtape, “Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 1” (2017), there is very little development upon the sound of “Hellboy,” and for good reason: his sound is fresh and new enough that it requires no adaptation. After having effectively created a new genre, Peep saw no need to change what did not need to be

music

By IRENE HAO “Fighting with true love is like boxing with no gloves.”

These are lyrics from one of Taylor Swift’s newly released songs, “Afterglow.” Yes, Taylor Swift is back and better than ever.

The American singer-songwriter and record producer has certainly come a long way from her country roots of “Tim McGraw” (2006) to settling, albeit rather jaggedly, into the pop world with “Blank Space” (2014) and “Look What You Made Me Do” (2017). She’s broken countless sales and music chart records, selling more than a million copies of four consecutive albums

the event was of course tragic, it was no secret that Lil Peep often veered close to the edge of death, whether through his suicidal tendencies or drug use. Notably, Peep seemed remarkably accepting of his proximity to death. Peep left behind a newly-formed genre, a wildly passionate fanbase, and an enormous arsenal of unreleased music.

Just under a year after his death, Peep’s posthumous album, “Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 2,” was released. Unlike many other posthumous albums that seem poorly pieced-together and incoherent, “Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 2” (2018) is remarkably congruous. Just as was the case with his sophomore mixtape, Peep’s style remains consistent. Led by “Falling Down,” a collaboration with XXXTentacion, “Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 2” is Peep’s most popular album to date and cemented his place as a truly profound and forward-thinking figure in popular music.

In the time since his initial rise, Peep has paved the way for other artists to be similarly honest and open in their lyrics. While prior to his music, modern artists often eschewed graphic and personal subject matter in their lyrics, Peep familiarized the public with these concepts in popular music. Artists like XXXTentacion, Lil Uzi Vert, Juice WRLD and Lil Skies have all achieved fame and success (often greater than that of Peep) with similar styles of music. Thus, while Peep’s career had an abrupt ending, his legacy in the music world lives on forever.

from a stranger to androgyny.

Androgyny is highly characteristic of the industry—the idols’ androgeneous fashion is often tauted alongside their highly polished visuals. In contrast to a more conventional Western beauty standard, Korean visuals embrace makeup and fashionforward trends that best deliver their music. By playing with masculinity and femininity, K-pop stars open up fashion possibilities and make experimental fashion more acceptable for men and women both.

Enter Tuan Yien. An American Born Chinese, Tuan Yien, who often goes by his English name Mark, is no doubt one of the prettiest boys I’ve ever seen.

As a rapper and visual—the member of a group thought of as the most attractive—in the boy group GOT7, Mark’s modeling career outside of usual group promotion stands out.

Of course, being based in South Korea definitely influences his specific shade of androgyny.

“Soft masculinity” is popular in Korea, in contrast to the rugged aesthetic popular in the West. “Compared to the 80s and 90s, now there are a lot more soft masculinities—pretty boy images and gentle male images—represented in media, and consumers welcome and widely consume them,” author of “Korean Masculinities and Transcultural Consumption” Dr. Sun Jung said. “I think the phenomenon should rather be explained through the notion of hybrid or versatile masculinity—soft yet manly at the same time—which is different from effeminised.” But whereas male idols often abide in this sphere of versatile masculinity, Mark diverges into the sphere of true androgyny with a mix of traditionally male and female visuals.

I delved into the subject of Korean androgyny because of Mark’s cover and page spread shoot for JSTYLE’s September 2018 publication. In it, Mark sports a comfy pink sweater fitted over a classic turtleneck and plaid skirt. The effect is incredibly charming. He looks good.

The apparent traditional femininity associated with the skirt isn’t downplayed and is only incorporated with his strong visuals—natural eye makeup, strong brows, a defined jawline, and subtle red lipstick. The skirt is particularly interesting considering that even within K-pop, very

Mark’s spread in a February 2019 issue of THE STAR, another one of my favorites from his modeling career, highlights two more iconic looks. In one, Mark wears a bright neon pink low v-neck muscle tee, under a transparent cropped mock puffer jacket and sports sequin short shorts that show off his bare legs. It’s kind of risque, but all the more attractive.

In the other outfit, he’s dressed in a chiffon coral sequined cowl neck, tucked into some bright pink sequin pants that mimic classic Levi’s. His makeup makes him appear delicate, yet powerful.

While this does not downplay his own manliness, Mark doesn’t agree with statements describing him as particularly manly. “When other people say my personality is like this [manly] or that [a real man], I don’t know what to say. It doesn’t seem right to say ‘thank you for viewing me like that’ but then again, explaining my personality is difficult,” said Mark in his July 2017 interview with Ceci. So, it’s not to say he has a preference for looking particularly masculine or feminine, but that he doesn’t care about how he’s perceived based on his appearance. I view Mark as a blend, instead epitomizing a more fluid interpretation of what it means to be beautiful.

When it comes to his own everyday style, Mark often says he feels the most comfortable in a street style: simple and classic without lacking in small details such as jewelry. He’s also expressed interest in starting his own brand, having already tested the waters with two Represent x Mark Tuan collaborations in the past. Unlike his magazine photoshoots, his collaborations have been minimal, monochrome, and versatile unisex collections, embracing a form of androgynous streetwear that has been popular in both Korean and American youth cultures. While these collections only comprise of the basic fitness streetwear— hoodies, sweatpants, pocket tees, and accessories—I’d like to see them expanded upon to contain more experimental pieces.

“I think [my own line] can express my own [style] things with a bit of a vintage feel should be more popular,” said Mark in a September 2018 interview with Stream. “If I were to design a brand or clothes, I want to have some small highlights, and at the same time the clothes should

He continues the thought in a Q&A with SHIN YOUTH. “My thinking is to design clothes that everyone can wear, regardless of whether you are a guy or a girl, whether you are young or old. If I have such an opportunity in the future, I want to continue trying.

Of course, if I can have my own fashion brand in the future, I’ll be very willing to do it,” Mark said.

In K-pop, group images are often carefully thought out and planned to market to a gendered demographic (boy groups target women and girl groups target men). The industry’s apparent androgyny is more of a byproduct of its use as fanservice— such as crossdressing—used in marketing than a purely organic trend. Mark’s use of androgyny is an exception to its general use in pleasing target fan bases. His use is of his own desire to delve into a sphere of fashion where gender isn’t the main thing to consider—looking good and being comfortable are. “A lot of people can’t wear high fashion so if I were to do that, I think I would have regrets,” Mark said.

As for my own interest in Mark’s modeling career, I would like to see him in some more experimental fashion. As often as he expresses his want for comfort, it would be interesting to see Mark in a wardrobe that

Anita Wu / The Spectator

comprises more of chunky heels and long skirts. However, I think the outfits he wore to Milan Fashion week—mostly oversized and layered—also serve as a good pointer to where his modeling career is going. As his fellow group member Kunpimook Bhuwakal said, “You know what, these days the world of fashion is so open. People can wear whatever they desire. You don’t have to care about brands or what [one] should or shouldn’t wear anymore. There’s no such thing and people can be carefree about their own style.”

Taylor Swift’s New “Lover”: Herself

[“Speak Now” (2010), “Red” (2012), “1989” (2014), “reputation” (2017)] in their respective debut week. Swift has achieved immense acclaim and a towering number of awards from MTV, the AMAs, Billboard, and Grammys. And after almost two years since her last album “reputation,” this renowned artist dropped her latest masterpiece and seventh studio album “Lover” on Friday, August 23.

The album drop did not come as much of a surprise to many loyal fans. Swift is known for sprinkling hidden clues in her music videos months before album releases. Posted in late April this year, “ME!”, one of the lead

singles of her album and a collaboration with Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco, was not only a tone-setter, but also a music video full of Easter eggs. The selfempowerment song featured an opening scene with a snake slithering across a colorful, chalk-covered sidewalk and vanishing into a swarm of butterflies, and the title of her album and next single “Lover” on a neon pink sign with a heart in place of an “o.” One of Urie’s lines in the opening scene between him and Swift is “You need to calm down,” which turned out to be the title of another one of Swift’s singles, dropped later in the year in June.

And with such soaring expec-

tations and long months of buildup, Swift’s “Lover” indisputably rose to the occasion. The 61-minute-and-48second album spans 18 tracks, the highest number of songs bundled into a Swift package since “reputation.” Already 450,000 units have been sold and 14 tunes have taken Spotify’s U.S. Top 15 on the first day. But its success is due less to how mainstream and charttopping her music-video singles are (like “1989”), and more to how it stands alongside her past albums, her journey as a female solo artist in the cutthroat music industry, and herself. Each of the 18 songs in “Lover” covers a diverse range of styles and sub-

ject matters. If “reputation” was a masterful showcase of female badass-ery, “Lover” is a stellar rendition of Taylor Swift as Taylor Swift. Think pastel hues and cotton candy clouds. It’s warm and inviting, a resurrection of the artist “reputation” marked the death of. It’s not a mix-andmatch of genres like “Red” or the confident declaration to switch to pop in “1989,” but a disparate collection of poetic verses, styles, and ideas. Swift bundles up all the drama, heartache, and “edge” into a peculiar, but pleasant, parcel of beauty. continued on page 15

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Page 15

Arts and Entertainment

film

By JACQUELINE THOM The best kind of period drama is one that tugs at your heartstrings for an era gone by, even if you weren’t alive to see it. That’s exactly the case with Quentin Tarantino’s latest hype, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Ever the romanticist, Tarantino has imbued us with a longing for the Hollywood of yore with drive-in theaters, sleek cars, neon signs, and an abundance of hippies.

While Tarantino has managed to maintain his wittiness and command on-screen, the film is lacking, even for the casual viewer.

That’s not to say that there isn’t much to love about it, however, and even more so if you have time to unpack its slew of nearly obscure references reserved for movie buffs.

The stars of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” are none other than Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, who act as brotherly duo Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth. Dalton, the former star of the 1950s Western show, “Bounty Law,” is fearful of falling behind in the industry, while his stunt double Booth struggles to get a job after the death of his wife, whom he is rumored to have murdered. Together, Dalton and Booth, while fictional, seem very real in their 1969 environment, realized by from their banter to their shared gathering of their bearings to their corny middle-aged men dialogue.

Adding to the heart that their relationship brings to the film is the

music continued from page 14

fact that Dalton is prone to crying at any time, and Booth is also Dalton’s designated driver/drinking buddy/electrician/therapist/best friend.

Stitched between Dalton and Booth’s comical interactions with each other and their co-workers, Tarantino intersperses the main action with side stories concerning period-specific names like Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski, Steve McQueen, Charles Manson, and Bruce Lee. Just for fun, Tarantino gives Al Pacino a small role as Dalton’s spaghetti western-loving casting agent, and Kurt Russell has some roleplay as an unnecessary narrator for the film.

F o r those who expected the quintessential Tarantino classic—a movie rife with violence, meticulous attention to history, and then a warping of history, plus great acting and the graininess of good ol’ 35mm film—“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” has all these things. For the casual viewer who just wants to see Brad Pitt being Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio not being a strong, independent man, and are curious to see what would have

happened if 1969 didn’t end the way it did, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” has all these things.

For once, both sides are united.

This is a genuinely good film...at first. Things get a little hazy when the film passes its middle mark (it’s 161 minutes long). It starts to feel long, but like most of Tarantino’s films, it gives that constant sense of something bigger looming on the horizon.

that nothing goes wrong and we all just got psychologically spooked about a sidequest surrounded by a mysterious aura characterized by serial killers. Then the story winds back up again like nothing ever happened, but leaves viewers uneasy, warily laughing at whatever other wonky misfortunes come upon the film’s cast. The film ends just as badly, giving viewers little in the way of a resolution following an adrenaline-fueled sequence and actor business that just doesn’t match the urgency of what had happened.

More attention is paid to Tarantino’s childhood memories living in Los Angeles, aesthetics, and his love of historical dramedy, and there’s certainly superb acting and visuals to boot. Unfortunately, other things like a strong main narrative and any serious undertone that the movie hinted at fell flat.

The climax isn’t really a climax when you realize it’s over, the rest of the star-studded ensemble is uncharacteristically left to the wayside, and the only real thing for solace is how well Tarantino films everything, from Rick Dalton’s fake movie clips to Cliff Booth kicking some butt.

Don’t watch this film like it’s going to be a classic. It’s more of a buddy western with a wholesome friendship and big names thrown in. Only some really good popcorn might keep you going with this one.

Sabrina Chen / The Spectator

Unlike its predecessors however, this one never makes it back full circle, not even with a witty quip by Dalton or Booth. Instead, viewers are left with a heap of dissatisfaction long before the film is over. The action invariably slows down at some point, succumbing to dialogue attempting to be enigmatic and the promise that something will go wrong. It turns out

Taylor Swift’s New “Lover”: Herself man,” a nod to another track “The Man,” the music video is a proud proclamation of her support for pride and LGBTQ+ rights. “The Man” stands out as a subtle, notso-subtle callout to the rampant sexism women face, especially in the music industry. Here, Swift connects to her fans: she isn’t above them. She goes through the same thing. She summarizes the complex, sometimes misunderstood issue in such a brilliant yet simple way, with a catchy chorus of “I’m so sick of running / As fast as I can / Wondering if I’d get there quicker / If I was a man […] If I was a man / Then I’d be the man.”

The more sentimental songs are undoubtedly “The Archer” and “Soon You’ll Get Better.”

The former discusses the infa-

ter track, featuring Dixie Chicks, a poignant tune dedicated to Swift’s mother, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2015 and re-diagnosed earlier this year. Dixie Chicks, a country musical group of three, is her mother’s favorite band. “What am I supposed to do / If there’s no you?” is heart-rending by itself.

Another standout is “Cruel Summer,” agreed upon by many to objectively be the best one in the pack for its head-bopping beat and breathtaking vocals. And it’s no coincidence that the song bears the same name as West’s 2012 album.

Summer of 2016 was Swift’s lowest point when she faced off in a feud with West and Kim Kardashian.

Nevertheless, the song narrates the fragility and uncertainty of love and is definitely a summer bop.

Serena Chan / The Spectator

It’s not a Taylor Swift album without some romance, heartbreak, self-reference, and shade, and “Lover” is no exception. “In my feelings more than Drake,” she belts in her first track, “I Forgot That You Existed,” an upbeat and light melody accompanied by soft piano and fading background vocals. It’s a fitting first track, a clever transition from her previous darker album, with the singer musing how her past controversial vendettas and bad blood should stay in the past.

“Cornelia Street” tells of an early relationship Swift had while living in her New York City apartment in Tribeca. “Death By a Thousand Cuts,” which the artist says is an inspiration from the Netflix film “Someone Great” (2019), speaks of gut-wrenching heartache and references “The Story of Us” (2010) in, “If the story’s over, why am I still writing pages?”

A majority of these tunes are likely about Swift’s current boyfriend Joe Alwyn, an English actor. From the body-swaying title track “Lover” with its slight winter holiday vibes, to the quirky “fancy you”s of “London Boy,” and to the religiously seductive “False God,” “Lover” progressively appears to be less about shading her rivals and more about her current happiness. “I Think He Knows” is a finger-snapping, uptempo number also about Swift gushing about her boyfriend, with lyrics such as “Lyrical smile, indigo eyes, hands on my thigh / We could follow the sparks, I’ll drive.”

Furthermore, a couple of these numbers present some of Swift’s political and social commentary.

“You Need to Calm Down” is the epitome of a sassy Swift, biting back on online haters with sharp words of “snakes and stones never broke my bones.” While showcasing Cher’s quote, “Mom, I am a rich

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”: A Modern Buddy Western, But Nothing More

mous dramas Swift was associated with, including “playing the victim” and “snake” with Kanye West and Katy Perry, with lyrics such as “all of my enemies started out friends” and “Who could ever leave me, darling / But who could stay?” But perhaps more emotional is the lat-

A looming dark cloud in this cotton candy production, some may point out, is that at age 29, Swift’s lyrics still reminisce of high school sweetheart, most evidently in “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince.” At first listen, it may seem so. The old Taylor came to the

phone, but some preferred the new Taylor—the one who took artistic risks and didn’t play it safe. With lyrics like “Waving homecoming queens / Marching band playing,” it’s evocative of her “You Belong With Me” (2008). But it’s equally as important to realize that teenage romance is Swift’s specialty. “It’s Nice To Have a Friend,” for instance, mentions school bells and sidewalk chalk, but lyrics such as “Church bells ring, carry me home / Rice on the ground looks like snow” depicts how her concept of love has evolved.

But perhaps what’s most striking is the album cover, which bears an interesting, easy-to-miss detail.

Throughout the album, Swift frequently mentions blue feelings, indigo eyes, and pink skies, but the final track “Daylight” introduces a new hue: gold. She sings, “I once believed love would be black and white / But it’s golden […] I once believed love would be burnin’ red / But it’s golden.” Black and white is a reference to the color scheme of “reputation” and burning red “Red.” If one were to gaze at the plethora of colors in the backdrop of the album cover from left to right, it’s wispy clouds of pink fade into blue, into indigo, and finally, into golden, as if the album both visually and musically ends the whole experience glittering not in the spotlight, but in love.

And so, she concludes her album with these spoken words, “I want to be defined by things I love, not the things I hate, not the things I’m afraid of […] You are what you love.” Lyrics such as these are the driving force of “Lover.” Swift is vulnerable and unafraid to be so.

It’s an unlikely fusion of a dreamy love story sprinkled with feminism, LGBTQ+ representation, and most importantly, self-love. She exudes confidence in her vulnerability. And that imperfection is what makes “Lover” raw, emotional, and her.

playlist

A&E Realizes That Summer is Over

By THE ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT DEPARTMENT

Heyyyy, it’s your favorite department A&E giving you a friendly reminder that summer is over once school starts. Because we’re your friend, here are some songs to help you get over your crippling academic anxiety.

“Summertime” My Chemical Romance Alternative Rock “Summer Days” Martin Garrix ft. Macklemore and Patrick Stump Funk “California Dreamin’” The Mamas & The Papas Folk Rock “Young Dumb & Broke” Khalid R&B “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” Car Seat Headrest Rock “Summertime in Paris” Jaden ft. WILLOW Rap/Pop “All Day Long” Chance the Rapper ft. John Legend Rap “Summer Time High Time” Cuco Synth-pop “Stay Young” Graveyard Club Pop “Marco Polo” Boyscott Alternative Rock “Warriors” CoCo and The Butterfields Alternative Pop “baseball” Hippo Campus Indie Rock

Page 16

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Arts and Entertainment

By JAVED JOKHAI Eastern philosopher Lao Tzu coined the famous phrase “A bowl is most useful when it is empty.” As a frequent enjoyer of cereal, clam chowder, and chili, I take issue with this. The bowl is one of our oldest and most versatile inventions ever created. In the plethora of ways that the average person can use a bowl, the bowl being empty throughout the activity is a rare occurrence.

However, from one bowl-lover to another, I am willing to meet Lao Tzu halfway. An empty bowl has the capacity to do anything while a bowl of chili can’t even hold chowder, to my dismay. But what happens when the bowl makes the transition from useful to useless? Do we simply eat the chili, clean the bowl, and let it sit there until it is used again? In this sense, a bowl’s life is just the cyclical repetition of being capable of anything, then being delegated to a mundane task. Now, imagine what would happen if one day, the bowl decided to abandon the circular train-track that is its existence and shun every possibility it could be used for in order to exist for its own sake, to become permanently “useless.” What would that look like?

The Bronx Museum’s multiartist and multi-medium exhibit “Useless Machines For Dreaming, Thinking, and Seeing” explores this concept of what it means to be useless. The exhibit proudly displays machines that are, essentially, failures. Machines are tools designed to do a specific and necessary task for a person in the most efficient manner possible. In essence, machines are the antithesis of art.

Machines are inextricably linked with human function and value functionality over style, as opposed to art which exists as an individual and serves no practical purpose. The two could be no

further apart. Or so I thought.

In the process of becoming art, machines have to achieve something crucial. The machine must become useless.

Wim Delvoye’s “Cloaca Travel Kit” is a machine that performs a task that is completely unnec-

essary to us. Its purpose is to simply defecate in the museum, something that both toddlers and tourists who did not visit the bathroom before the Bronx Museum have no issue doing on their own. Other machines in the exhibit seem to do nothing in the most literal sense, such as Shyu Ruey-Shiann’s “Dreambox.”

Previously a motorcycle used to travel across Taiwan, it was deconstructed, with it’s moving pieces gently humming as they were hung on the four lateral sides of a black cube, presumably the aforementioned box part. The whirring contraption looked, in my opinion, akin to a perpetual motion machine. This comparison was rather ironic due to the machine being a perpetual motion machine, a purely theoretical concept, while acting as a box for the artist’s memories of travelling through Taiwan, something which exists only in the confines of the artist’s mind.

game as well.

Although this seems fastpaced and exciting, the game is drawn out over more than a decade—uneventful compared to

Jason Lin / The Spectator

As an observer who has loved colors all her life, I was greatly intrigued by the idea of a circus held solely in black and white—a color scheme that symbolizes the separation between ordinary life and the circus. Erin Morgenstern’s “The Night Circus” features this environment. Amid overly descriptive, vague, and complex text that hovers between the teen and adult genres is a book that, at its heart, maintains a dream-like feature.

“The Night Circus” centers around a circus that opens at sunset and closes at dawn. The novel redefines the word circus and its connotations: it traces the circus’s circular formation of tents as a derivative from the Greek word “krikos” and fills the tents with illusionists, contortionists, acrobats, and snow leopard trainers, no longer an event that appeals to children exclusively.

It’s the setting for two young magicians, Marco and Celia, to secretly test each other’s skill and stamina by creating mystical circus tents until one is declared the victor. They were bound in this game by their guardians when they were children. However, to say the now-adults Marco and Celia are solely the main characters would be a lie; all the performers and spectators of the circus are lured into and confined in the

a fundamental truth that a useful machine could never do; to be human, is to be useless. We, as a species, could be seen as flesh machines, with our brains being the most powerful motherboard the world has ever seen. Yet, the number of us that drift through life without any calling or purpose is higher than any of us would like to believe. Even those of us that are not drifters, those that have a hobby, career, or life path, are more capable of leaving it all than we are willing to confess, something completely foreign to the useful machines.

A finance manager, burdened by first world problems, is more capable of waking up one day, quitting her job, and using her life savings to buy a cabin in the woods than her mind, concerned with how much of her life she spent in business school, would ever admit. We exist before we find any form of purpose in life

am glad that at least some veterans in this country are readjusting to civilian life, a “useful” machine would be disgusted not only by the bomb-defusing robots, but by the lackadaisical nature of all the machines featured in the exhibit. However, these “useless” machines have exposed

and, unlike our metal brethren, cannot reside in the comfort of knowing what that purpose is.

However, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I discovered something in the exhibit while staring at the machines doing nothing beautifully. Whenever addressing the machines, the museum-goers

treated the machines as individuals. “The ‘Dreambox’ is making so much noise,” “Look at the ‘Tentaculosa’ dance,” and “Is the travel kit really pooping?” were all overheard. Though using the machines as nouns may not seem special, it is in every regard. If I were to fill my bowl with some cereal and give it to another person, one would say that I fed that person, not the bowl. The bowl was simply a tool used to do so.

Therefore, it would be expected that we would say that the artist made so much noise, or that the engineer designed the machine to move in a dancing fashion, or even that the madman was using a machine to make poo in the exhibit. But we didn’t. We personified the machines, treating them as though they are acting by their own accord. I even caught myself referring to the machines with gendered pronouns instead of the alienating “it,” used to describe inhuman things. By existing for their own sake, by ignoring what they are supposed to be to become what they could be, by being useless, the machines achieved a form of agency, a central tenet of humanity.

Though their mechanical brothers would be disappointed in them, I’d like to believe that the machines in “Useless Machines For Dreaming, Thinking, and Seeing” are proud. Guest creator Gerardo Mosquera said the exhibit is “a reflection on how being useless could be a human achievement.” I hope the machines understand that the title they are under, despite the connotation of the word “useless,” is something to be proud of. For it is because they are useless, not despite it, that they are profound.

In a very real sense, even we can walk down the street, bowl of clam chowder in hand, and be grateful that we are all, amazingly, useless.

Le Cirque des Rêves

Literature

By SUAH CHUNG

Some machines do what every 65 year-old who successfully saved a 401(k) does: retire and take up a hobby. This is the case for the bomb-defusing robots who, with the help of artist Fernando Sánchez Castillo, moved on to painting. While I, for one,

Credits to http://www.bronxmuseum.org

art

Defecating Suitcases, Perpetual Motion Machines, and Ruminations on Being Useless

most young adult literature. Nevertheless, the unique plot is nonlinear, jumping around in time.

Morgenstern takes advantage of the fashion of the late 1800s and early 1900s to create both intricate dresses and formal wear. However, examination of the period opens up a valid critique of how the spectators never wonder how the impossible feats of illusion occur or how the circus manages to move entire tents, bonfires, and ticket booths from location to location. Especially without the aid of recent technology, this venue seems incredibly dubious and unorthodox, which makes it surprising that it was accepted so readily.

Nevertheless, Morgenstern could have chosen to make the spectators more liberal to connect with

her more modern audience and to establish the mysteries of the circus as her central focus.

Even though the novel’s central focus is direct, Morgenstern includes multiple character perspectives, which may blur the reader’s comprehension but may also evoke thought. Morgenstern often mentions the personal lives of seemingly random characters in the novel who later add complexity and variation to the story.

The majority of these characters are enigmatic, but it is challenging to balance this characteristic while also achieving emotional depth and attracting the audience’s empathy. Morgenstern successfully executes this through Isobel, the fortune teller, after Marco admits he has loved Celia instead of her for more than a decade. Morgenstern uses tarot cards such as La Papessa, an indicator that things are not what they seem, to make the betrayal heart-breaking, as Isobel was too blind to see the truth. Another effective character was Tsukiko, the contortionist, who confided in no one and had an indiscernible expression. The novel reveals that the girl Tsukiko loved had killed herself to save Tsukiko in the last game between two magicians, explaining the contortionist’s withdrawn and guarded personality.

These characters’ lucid personalities explain the motivation behind their actions, allowing the reader

to glimpse into their souls.

The romance between Marco and Celia, however, is not as welldeveloped. The characters seem almost interchangeable because their identities and personalities are not developed. Marco spends most of his time away from the circus, creating the circus tents from London, while Celia travels with the circus internationally, so they go years without speaking.

Consequently, their passionate dialogues seem sudden and ingenuine, because they don’t know or trust each other. Although the chandeliers shaking and the air changing in response to Marco and Celia’s touch was creative, these theatrics eventually made the relationship seem purely physical rather than personal. A personal connection never echoed to match the physical, only further emphasizing the lack thereof.

Morgenstern instead overcompensates for these two characters with her detailed prose, a perfect fit for the ethereal quality of the circus. She combines the five senses and creates an immersive atmosphere, the closest sensation to which is eating while reading. Morgenstern’s vivid imagery highlights the beauty in the fashion, the food, the lighting, the tents of the circus, and more, creating a flawless atmosphere.

She also subtly incorporates a variety of unique elements, such as French, German and Japanese

phrases. These phrases and their meanings continue to capture the reader’s attention over multiple reads, after the ending has lost most of its mystery. Morgenstern sprinkles in the German word “wunschtraum” to describe the large, animate clock at the entrance of the circus as a dream of hope or ambition, which questions the motives of the circus founders. The French phrases are more plentiful, which range from “beaux rêves,” meaning sweet dreams, to “tête-à-tête,” a chat between two people, providing context and suspenseful insight into future events in the second read. Tsukiko’s Japanese name is intriguing because it means “moonchild,” someone who prefers to live in a dream. Since this name describes a motif for all of the characters, it also accentuates Morgenstern’s consideration of detail.

“The Night Circus” is a tangible, beautiful dream, so intensely described that a single read is unsatisfying. Erin Morgenstern’s first novel is not perfect, but the distinctive elements and storytelling method test the boundaries of appealing literature, a promising read. To get into the mood, listen to “Never Enough” and the acoustic cover of “Rewrite The Stars” from “The Greatest Showman” (2017).

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Page 17

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

Going Back to Fantasy Stuy

By CHRISABELLA JAVIER It’s September, so now we’ve got to say goodbye to somehow doing nothing in a chaotic way and go back to Fantasy Stuy. Time to take a hit off our magic vapes filled with potions and board the subways run by the MTA (Magic Transportation Agony) and prepare to enter the gates of our school.

Entering Fantasy Stuy, I notied the enchanted staircases that are supposed to bring us from the first to 69th floor with ease. Of course, they’re still disenchanted because the world hates us. I took out my Stone of Far Speech to complain about it on the FaceScroll group when suddenly, a figure teleported behind me.

Fantasy Brian Moran. Crap.

“Stone and wand, please,” he said.

With a sigh, I gave the objects to him. Once he teleported away, I made my way to my homeroom and got my schedule.

My first class was period 28, taught by the necromancer corpse of Aristotle. As

I enchanted the doodles in my planner to Naruto run, I could hear the kids behind me talking about raiding Fantasy Area 51. The kid next to me fell asleep, but woke up suddenly when the teacher asked for a jewel. He then immediately took out his Fantasy Juul, which subsequently got summoned away from him.

“This class is so boring,” I whispered to myself.

I made plans to go to the Talos automation later to remove this class. I then proceeded to throw my Muji quill into the air a few times before it hit the Board of Enhanced Intelligence, when it immediately got taken by the teacher. I reminded myself that I have to endure 10 more months of this. And it’s junior year, so I had to try

to care. I proceeded to have a mental breakdown in class.

Every other class went similarly. It seemed that time moved slower in Fantasy Stuy,

burn itself up. (Man, that is a mood right now.) Finally, after about 70 different looped periods, I had a free period, which I spent taking a fantasy nap in the Magic Hudson staircase.

Well, trying to take a fantasy nap. I was

Cadence Li / The Spectator

mostly because it was enchanted to make time go as slowly as possible unless you had a free or lunch, which moved faster than a phoenix could

kept awake by a magic vaper having an argument with a couple “levitating” in the staircase.

While I did make a Bubble of Silence around me, I could still see someone shoving magic mushrooms down their throat—the fun kind, not the

ones that suffocated me in Potions class.

My lunch period was next.

For lunch, I went to Normal McDonald’s. Just plain old Normal McDonald’s. Across the street, I could see someone buying totally-not-illegal magic food from Regular Halal Cart. I wondered if they have a fantasy food permit.

Finally, the torture that was existing in Fantasy Stuy was over. Tired, I gulped down a potion of total stamina mixed with some caffeine pills and lined up to talk to the Talos automation. When it was my turn, I asked Talos if it could get rid of all my classes. In return, it punched me in the face. Much better than I expected!

Once I recovered, I went to F a n - tasy Brian Moran’s office to get back my Stone of Far Speech. Tired from my long day, I began texting my friend Fantasy L Vaysman dumb memes from a fictional Not-Fantasy Stuy. Wonder how cursed that universe must be...

How To Defeat the Program Changes System

By EMILY CHEN Disclaimer: I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart; I’m simply very tired of seeing the same Facebook post every. single. semester. This is dedicated to all the ambitious freshmen out there, for fighting for your spot in that AP class and for the hatred of all upperclassmen. I do not take responsibility for any repercussions a student may receive while following these steps. Results may vary. Please destroy this when you finish so that the Program Office doesn’t sue me.

Welcome back (not really)!

For the grizzled veterans, hopefully, you have regenerated some brain cells in the past two and a half months (however, I don’t expect you to have gotten any more sleep than usual. That’s asking for a bit much). More importantly, welcome, freshmen! Now for the actual reason you started reading this article: you need to find out how to get your program changed without saying you’re sexually attracted to your teacher.

To prepare, I suggest spending your entire summer worrying about this. Plan your classes perfectly. You don’t need to sleep, you don’t need food— what you need is another AP class, five more electives, and band lunch. Remember to massage your hands before going to bed. I don’t want anyone getting cramps while filling out their program change requests.

That could kill you.

Step 1. Don’t use the Facebook group search feature.

Of course I am annoyed by this part of the process, but for the best results you obviously would have to make a Facebook post in the Dear Incoming whatever group, despite the other 956 exact same posts. It’s always a good thing to just double, triple, and 956-ple check to make sure that everyone who commented on all the other posts still has the same answer.

If you do this enough times, Facebook will upgrade you to “conversation starter,” hence making your posts all the more significant.

most of your devices lag and for Talos to crash. Pray to the Elysian gods of Mount Olympus that one of your devices will load and you can transfer into that class with the teacher who allegedly gives no homework and two tests a semester.

Hope you’ve been using www. typing.academy to practice your typing speed. IT’S GETTING REAL NOW, FOLKS. Step 4. Inspect element.

When Talos gives you your program change number, right click and choose “Inspect Ele-

Step 2. Ignore everyone who calls you a bad person.

It’s time to get serious. Do you want that program change?

Do you WANT IT?? Well then, it’s time for you to ignore all the angry students who spew hate in the comment sections of your fabulous Facebook posts. They just aren’t as dedicated as you are. Have a friend who desperately needs that same fifth-period English spot as you because she needs 10th free for a sport? BLOCKED. CANCELED. BEGONE. You don’t need that negativity in your plans. People telling you to suck it up and do the best with what you have? Actually try in a class? Do a reasonable amount of work? Pffft, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Now focus.

ment” to change that number and make you appear higher on the list of program change requests. Badly photoshopping the number nine over 1557 may be less effective, but give it a try.

If the FBI dude in your computer camera comes knocking down your door, refer to Step 2.

Step 3. Prepare your devices.

Use as many devices as possible—better yet, try to sneak into a computer lab at school.

(Imagine you are buying Kpop tickets; it’s practically the same thing.) Be prepared to have

Step 5. Visit your guidance counselor a minimum of 11 times.

This is assuming in-person program changes are at least five days after school starts, and that you have at least one free

in your schedule. Two times per day, and one extra time on the day of program changes, just for luck. This really allows you to build a positive relationship with your guidance counselor; I’m sure they would love to spend those lunch periods listening to how badly you MUST have fifth period English instead of seventh period English, especially while they struggle with Talos and the other 60 students who badger them all day (who don’t even deserve to have their programs changed).

Remember to stress the point

called. When you finally meet with your very tired guidance counselor in the cafeteria, be polite, and have some manners (you know, that thing where you say thank you). Show them that you aren’t too crazy. You two should practically be best friends by now if you followed the previous step.

Step 7. If all else fails, blame Talos. Always.

Don’t get scared at the word “fail”! You’ll probably be pretty good friends with it in about two weeks. Curse Talos out for

Ignore all the angry students who spew hate in the comment sections of your fabulous Facebook posts.

They just aren’t as dedicated as you are.

that since you have been doing AP Calculus since you were 12 cells old, you can handle the work. You will truly be helpful in relieving their stress! More visits = best buddies = strings to pull => program changed.

Step 6. Be patient at in-person program changes.

At this point, you’ve done everything possible to get your program changes approved. All you can do now is grab a sandwich from Ferry’s and maybe a sleeping bag, and wait for your number to be

things like its speed and bootstrap use (though, preferably not in school. Again, I do not take responsibility for any repercussions you may receive as a result of this process), because dangit, you should have bubbled Brooklyn Tech, HSMSE, heck, maybe even Staten Island Tech, instead of Stuy.

In all seriousness, if anyone, and I mean ANYONE, takes my spot in AP Nap Time, I will end you. You have been warned. Anyway, good luck!

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Page 18

Humor

By AARON WANG and KELLY YIP You may be wondering why you decided to choose a high school with 10 floors. If that’s the case, you might also be wondering how to get around this agonizing tower most efficiently. The Spectator presents several of the unspoken rules of navigating Stuyvesant so that you and your peers can have a better experience treading up the bridge, followed by another nine floors to your first class each day.

Rule #1: To choose the proper stairwell, look for the most crowded one, since that must mean that it’s obviously the student favor-

Unspoken Rules of Navigating Stuy

ite. You’ll easily identify this by the incessant screams of agony and the damp blanket of sweat caused by the horde of hormonal adolescents that covers the vicinity. And as any other logical, intelligent Stuyvesant student would do, force yourself into the crowd and through the doors into the stairwell. You should have had experience doing this on the subway.

Be sure to enter through the door that others are trying to exit from and likewise, go up the staircase against the concentration gradient. By the power of aggressive active transport and “accidentally” knocking out students with the five-ton textbook in your backpack, you’ll progress up the

stairs in no time.

Rule #2: After going through the sweaty stairs, you will find yourself navigating the hallways.

You may quickly notice how a majority of students fast-walk to get to class on time. This is a foolish thing to do because they are just building up lactic acid; instead, walk at a very slow pace to conserve your energy.

Rule #3: In such a high-stakes pressure cooker, it is important that you make sure to take a breath and enjoy yourself. What better way to do that than to use the few dysfunctional escalators to your advantage? These moving steps provide an excellent view

of the many Stuyvesant walls.

You mustn’t forget to halt everyone behind you so they enjoy the view. Simply stretch out on your escalator step and position yourself into the fish pose you learned from your last yoga class. Ensure that there is no space for anyone to walk past you, and be sure to raise your arms and legs if they try to step over you. If anyone tries to remove you, make a hissing sound like a creeper until they go back into submission or until you blow up, whichever one comes first. This way, everyone has a chance to take a break and enjoy the various shades of grey on the walls as they pass.

You may also choose to do the same as you walk through

the halls. However, you now have to put in a tad more effort, because the floors move only slightly less than the elevators do. As you walk through the halls, be sure to slow your pace to that of a sloth (0.15 mph) and occasionally stop to do your yoga.

These rules, though unspoken, should have been common sense, but alas, they must be stated in this article. For the few individuals who have read these sacred rules, satisfaction is guaranteed, and your peers will surely be grateful to learn from your demonstrations.

May the uneducated students at Stuyvesant learn from your dutiful actions.

The Official Spectator Guide to Infiltrating Area 51

By THE HUMOR DEPARTMENT

As September 20 approaches, millions of patriotic Americans are preparing to storm Area 51, under the rallying cry of “Let’s see them aliens.” But only some of us are going to be chilling with our new extraterrestrial friends—others are going to be the Kyles who die in the first wave. So we here at The Spectator Humor HQ have compiled a list of tips for how you can ensure that you make it into the alien vaults of Area 51.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Fill the 11th floor pool with Mountain Dew and declare it a Kyle-fueling zone.

Yeet a fish into the ocean.

Befriend a Naruto runner and ride them into battle while flinging Dorito shurikens.

Become a Naruto runner yourself.

Perform Kage Bunshin no Jutsu and let the clones carry you.

Dirt-block your way up to the world limit and then use a bucket to spawn a waterfall that you can use to enter the fort.

Grow a neckbeard and use your chivalry and fedora to m’lady your way into the base.

Build a Nether Portal and use that to easily get inside the fort.

Ender-pearl over the wall/through the fence.

Using the dirt block tower from earlier, drop some TNT to B L A S T that wall open.

Bring a Karen with you in case you get hungry or need a cannon fodder/bad wine mom jokes.

Tell the guards to “go commit rooftop fall” and use their confusion to break through the defenses.

Alternatively, seduce the guards.

Start shouting “Creeper! Aww maan…” to unify the masses under one mantra.

Bring a semi-full cup of bubble tea and rally Subtle Asian Traits minions to join the cause.

Use big brain stonks to buy out Area 51 and deport the military.

Render the military useless by playing the Cha Cha Slide, thereby forcing them to dance to it.

Stand in front of the soldiers and do it to ‘em.

Hand the officers a Pepsi, preferably while blasting loud Kpop music.

Hit them with that ddu-ddu-du.

Blind the military with vape smoke (and suffocate them with the scent of pineapple and mango).

Channel the power of the Old Town Road when riding your horse through the crowds.

If all else fails, call upon the furries to uwu the enemy into submission.

The weebs will serve as the frontline, using their waifu pillows as shields.

Hire their cousins, the otakus, to defend you with their katanas. Keep in mind: payment must be in limited edition to-scale action figures (and body pillows).

Once their defenses have been shattered, feel free to have the aliens run amok!

To leave, steal a UFO and fly home or fly to your alien lover’s home world.

If you choose the latter, die on that planet after you realize you haven’t packed any oxygen. Wanna know why intergalactic relationships don’t work well? That’s why.

Bring in the gym teachers and have them storm the area while yelling “My grandma could run faster than you snails!” The soldiers will then experience extreme PTSD flashbacks from their old gym classes and cease fire.

Convince the president that there’s a hurricane in the area. Don’t worry, the aliens will be fine.

Alternatively, convince the president that the aliens of Area 51 are coming in illegally.

(Spec Humor is not responsible for any of the following occurring to you: death, injury, madness, confiscation of your phone and/or Starbucks coffee by Area 51 guards, Gamer Juice Syndrome, retirement, unretirement, extreme death, or alien child support.)

Bill de Blasio Wants to be President.

He Won’t Be, Unless He Tweets About Lentils.

By LENTIL ENTHUSIAST

Despite nearly non-existent poll numbers and flagging campaign enthusiasm, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is continuing his run for president. Among political consultants, the public, and even within his own staff, closest friends, and advisors, there’s growing consensus on the chief reason his campaign never got off the ground: he’s never mentioned lentils.

In a comprehensive Spectator review of de Blasio’s campaign materials, executive documents, cable news interviews, and social media accounts, we found that the mayor never once mentioned lentils. For a public career spanning decades and culminating in the mayorship of America’s largest city, the total absence of even

a single lentil is striking.

Long-accepted wisdom in modern American politics holds that remaining silent on—or worse, questioning the primacy of—America’s favorite compact vegetable protein takes a toll on any politician’s standing with the public. Ever since Stephen Douglas’s ill-advised reference to lentils as “those weird little peas” in a debate with Abraham Lincoln in 1858, no contender for America’s chief executive has kept mum or spoken ill of the tiny bean pebble (per the seminal 2017 Columbia University review, “The Pulse of American Politics: Campaign for the Presidency and Lens culinaris”).

That is, until Mayor de Blasio’s bid.

“He’s got the policy proposals, the name recognition, and the

fundraising connections in NYC to keep his campaign going,” one senior campaign staffer said. “But all that doesn’t count for a whole lot without some solid lentil credentials to back it up.”

Among the Democratic presidential candidates, Bill de Blasio stands alone in his lentil reticence.

During a CNN interview last month, Senator Cory Booker (NJ) called the diminutive legume “one of the better plants.” Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA) told a crowd in Iowa, “Americans don’t eat enough lentils. My solution?

Make larger spoons so that you can really pack a bunch of them in a single scoop.” Former Vice President Joe Biden tweeted, in what some pundits have called an attempt to regain lost ground after lack-luster debate performances, “Each night at the White

House, President Obama and I would sit down, eat tasty lentils, and discuss our favorite foreign policy views and songs off the hit Broadway musical, ‘Hamilton.’”

President Donald Trump even took to Twitter late Tuesday night to air his own take on de Blasio’s lentil hesitation, writing, “I hope @BilldeBlasio wins the losing Democrats primary. Easy win for me! No president before more pro-lentill [sic] before me!!”

De Blasio, however, seems unconcerned (or unaware) of this staple of presidential campaigning. “I can’t believe he’s this oblivious,” NYC-based political consultant Samantha Soczewica said. “But then again, maybe that explains the subway.” (De Blasio’s communications director, when reached for comment on this piece by text, only replied with an

emoji depicting a crying cat. Following texts asking for clarification went unanswered.)

In early primary states, concern from voters over de Blasio’s lentil silence is obvious. “Does he like lentils? Or does he hate them? Until he says one way or the other, I’m assuming the worst,” said Desiree Williams, a streetcar operator from Concord, New Hampshire.

Now, with other low-performing Democratic candidates beginning to drop from the primary, lentil lovers across the country are asking the question: is de Blasio next to go?

One close friend of the mayor, reached by phone, said, “Without lentils, his campaign may as well be over. I like the man, but I like lentils more.”

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Page 19

Humor Resume 101: How to Really Stand Out From the Crowd

By HELENA WILLIAMS It’s 11:32 p.m. and you’ve got to have a fancy one-page resume uploaded for your Well-Apportioned Scholarly Tryst, Exceedingly Outstandingly Foolish Task, Impactful and Meaningful Employment (WASTEOFTIME) before the clock strikes midnight. However, because you’ve been stocking up on Mountain Dew and shurikens for the Area 51 raid, you’ve got a blank page staring you in the face. So how do you make a resume that will appeal to the tired old geezers reading it?

Part 1: The Font Serif or non-serif ? What size should it be? The font you use for your resume is exceedingly important. It’s the first thing that’s noticed. However, there’s a question most people don’t ask: what color should your text be? Because everyone sends in a black-and-white resume, the odds are that if you make your resume a unique color, it should really catch the reader’s attention even before they pick it up. In fact, try changing the text color to something flashy like hot pink, obnoxiously bright red, or even rainbow. If you have a fancy word processor like Microsoft, don’t stop there—add drop shadows, glows, and even make your words curve around in a circle! As for the font itself, some good fonts to try include: • Papyrus • Zapfino • Comic Sans MS • Jokerman • Brush Script Some people might call these fonts “disgusting,” “an affront to humanity,” or “incurable by even Dr. Phil,” but they mean to say that they’re attention grabbers. After all, while your resume might cause the reader to suffer from a simultaneous stroke, seizure, and heart attack, it will certainly remain

By VICTOR KUANG Hey, everyone! Now that it’s September, seniors like me are super flippin’ stressed ‘cause we’ve gotta worry about where to throw our lives for the next four years. Of course, as it is the fate of everyone in this building, even the underclassmen will be curious about this process. Fear not! It is my pleasure to teach y’all the basics you need to get into whatever college you need to go to.

Now, you might be wondering how this guide is different from the others you’ve read on Facebook or in books. See, unlike the things I’ve just listed, this guide isn’t boring, is super relatable, is not some last-minute attempt at satire by using some overdone topic, and is the ONLY guide that can cram three years of high school into three weeks! Let’s get hoppin’ into it.

Step 1. Contemplate what in the whippersnappin’ heck you’ve done with your life.

In short, just think of everything you’ve done since

imprinted in their memory for a long time!

Part 2: The Qualifications Let’s be honest. Not everyone is mad clouted. Sure, some of us got to be employed by the Dedicated, Ubiquitous, Meaningful Business (DUMB) or were captain of the Superbly Talented, Universally Professional, Inspired Division (STUPID), but not everyone gets to be the leader. Some of us have to be the ones who give over a thousand hours to a team and *sniffle* get one vote out of 50 for a *sniffle* position that you really cared about *sob* after they treated you badly *hic*.

And even more of us have never spent any time after school in school or used our summers doing productive things like those kids who do CIEE and get to study abroad to learn a language because Java doesn’t count as a foreign language.

On that note, if you’ve never gotten a leadership position, or even any sort of position, for that matter, don’t stress out over it. After all, there are plenty of other things you probably didn’t even know counted as qualifications! Think back over your long and tumultuous life as a human being and remember all of the things you’ve achieved.

• Some possible qualifications: • Has juggled reading a 50page study guide in 10 minutes, smuggling an XXXXL cup of steaming hot coffee past security, and holding an overstuffed binder while running up the broken seven-to-nine escalator with a 30-pound backpack at 7:59 a.m.

• Has watched every episode of Meme *clap* Review *clap*.

• Has commuted from AP Euro on the second floor to Honors Chemistry on the ninth floor every day for a semester without be-

ing more than 30 minutes late.

• Has managed to barter for a slightly better schedule with the dragons of the Program Office.

• Has tricked at least one freshman into asking Mr. Moran for directions to the 11th floor pool.

• Has mastered the art of falling asleep in class while appearing to be “closing your eyes to think about the question being asked.”

• Has fallen asleep while standing in chorus and belting “You Raise Me Up” at 200 decibels.

• Has fallen asleep while attempting to light a Bunsen burner.

• Has fallen asleep while operating a bandsaw.

• Has fallen asleep while waiting for code to compile.

• Has fallen asleep while writing an English essay, written another part of it at 6:00 a.m., finished it during one free period, edited and printed it during a second free period, and turned it in at the start of English class while managing to look somewhat innocent.

If it comes down to filling that last part of the paper, and even 40-point font can’t make your resume look big, you may have to do something that no test prep or study guide can help you with: improvise your own qualifications. However, once you practice it enough, what we in the industry call “fibbing” is actually quite simple.

1. Copy a description of one of your more challenging courses (if none of them were challenging, just put a phys. ed. one, because “inspiring a lifelong commitment to physical activity through a variety of positive experiences in sports, games, and dance” sounds

really, really good) and put it into your resume.

2. Add something like “achieved” or “studied” in front of it (e.g. “After intense study, was inspired to attain a lifelong commitment to physical activity through a variety of positive experiences in sports, games, and dance”).

3. Repeat until you’ve managed to BS your way through a full page.

Part 3: The Colloquialisms and Phrases Used in a Sequential, Well-Ordered, Grammatically Correct, and Deathly Serious Manner To Express One’s Intent and Qualifications for a Position in a Written Format, Otherwise Known as The Language When you’re writing a resume, it’s important to stay away from passive, wimpy vocabulary that makes what few real qualifications you do have appear flimsy. Instead, make sure to pack your resume with the utmost pretentiousness of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel’s descriptions that deliberately emphasize how thoughtfully, profoundly, and successfully you have done your utmost to waste your time in the past several cycles of time of your natural human life.

WRONG: “Helped form a sub-team focusing on video analysis.”

RIGHT: “Willed into being a sub-team wholly devoted to the subtle and delicate art of carefully examining videos.”

WRONG: “Wrote Onionstyle satire for school newspaper.”

RIGHT: “Used creative talents to compose intelligent and provocative wit resembling on a surface level the humor used within the Onion publication in order to better augment the newspaper belonging to the school.”

Hitchhiker’s Guide to College Apps

you were in the womb. Think of any achievements you’ve had, like making USAMO or finding out what internet corn is. Think of extracurriculars like clubs you’re a part of or have even started.

Okay, you’ve thought of something? Great. Skip to step three.

Wait, what’s that? You HAVEN’T thought of something? AND you have bad grades? In that case, great! Most of this guide will teach you how to catch up!

Step 2. Create a nonprofit.

Okay, let’s be brutally honest here: you’ve screwed up. And now you’ve gotta think of a spike that’ll make you stand out.

Seeing The Guy She Told You Not To Worry About’s resume has gotten you really shook, and now you think your chances of getting anywhere are down the hatch.

Well, fear not, child! Wanna incorporate applications from a random field, business, and your imagination while looking like a complete saint? Simply make a nonprofit with the in-

tent to spread education! Make sure you heavily advertise it on Facebook for maximum clout.

Then, try to get adult recognition by e-mailing random people about your project. Finally, proceed to be super inactive with your organization and dismantle it at the end of June.

Maintaining a nonprofit is very expensive in the long run, and you only need to pad your resume for a year.

If you believe setting one up will manage to turn your 70 overall into a 54, or worsen whatever SAT/ACT score you have, don’t worry about it! Colleges will see that you’ve devoted a lot of time and effort in making a literal company in such a short amount of time.

This is no easy feat for anyone, and that’ll outweigh your crappy academic record and put you on par with some of the top students in the country. What are admissions officers gonna do, see through your plan and deem the nonprofit as a resume booster? Nonsense!

Step 3. Write essays.

Ignore the usual advice

that’s usually in the form of: make it come from the heart, it’s not like a school essay, every word matters, etc. They’re lies.

See, that’s what the admissions officers want you to believe. By having high schoolers follow the usual essay advice, not only do they hope to make more roast compilations of wannabe good essays, but they also want to make sure the entire process stays that way. Not only is this boring, but it’s also stressful.

Thousands of people lose their minds for this sort of thing.

This is your chance to help stop the madness.

You’ll want to pen this essay with a very strong introduction that immediately causes admissions officers to gasp in awe, respect, and slight concern for your mental health. Berate them with insults, write in all caps, or even write in the enchanting table language. The possibilities are endless, but you’ll REALLY stand out amongst the thousands of other applicants.

Then, just repeat this process for your paragraphs, and there you go. A stand-out essay that no officer will forget any time

WRONG: “Accepted via application into ARISTA Honor Society.”

RIGHT: “After undergoing an arduous and extremely challenging application process involving trial by exhausting essay questions and listing out extracurriculars, was admitted via a secretive and mystical initiation ceremony to Stuyvesant’s honor society known as ARISTA.” WRONG: “Volunteered with Key Club for over 30 hours per year.”

RIGHT: “Spent a lengthy duration of time exceeding 30 hours per annum completing charitable and valuable work for a school organization known as the Key Club, a group of students with good intentions and pure hearts whomst perform acts of community service at various locations around the fine city of New York, formerly known as New Amsterdam.”

In conclusion, resume writing is a skill best likened to surviving four APs at once: incredibly hard to do, difficult to employ more than once, and something that will probably cost you more sleep than it should. So as college season approaches, crack your knuckles, load up on those stupidly overpriced cups of Starbucks coffee, and stop crying about Spiderman not being in the MCU—we’re in the Endgame now.

And finally, if, by some ridiculous roll of the cosmic dice, an admissions officer for my college application happens to be reading this… I’d like this to be recorded as an example of me showing initiative and mentoring my fellow Stuyvesant students in the art of proper resume writing while making hilarious and inspired commentary on the social status of our society at large. Thank you very much.

soon.

Of course you’ll have to write multiple essays, so simply rephrase a few things and BAM! A bunch of essays uniquely tailored for any question!

Step 4. Get recs.

Many people will say that this is one of the first steps you should do when applying to college, but they couldn’t be further from the truth. As a senior, you’ll have the hardest classes you can take, so your teachers will know you well at your smartest.

But let’s say, for some reason, all your teachers hate you.

That’s fine; just write the recs yourself and slap a teacher’s name on it. It’s not like your teachers will ever know, AND you can put your college essay writing skills to additional use.

And there you have it, folks: a quick and easy guide on how to get into college with just three weeks of work! No alternatives will be written as this is a sure-fire way to get in somewhere. So just relax, you’ve got nothing to worry about!

Page 20

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Humor

By VERONIKA KOWALSKI

Hey there, fellas. It’s me, your usual spot in the cafeteria.

All the way in the back corner, under those recycling posters written in rudimentary Spanish with the sides all gunked up.

Since my friend Nellie the Trash Can and I take all your crap every day, I believe it’s high time you buckle down and pay attention to what we have to say.

First, you’re always blasting music from your JBL

A Day in the Life of a Cafeteria Table

Xtreme. When it works, it works, but when it doesn’t, it sucks. Also, please sit up. Hate to tell you this, but manspreading is going out of style these days. Second, do I look like a trash can to you—err, I mean, a garbage dump? Sorry, Nellie.

This isn’t a restaurant. There are no waiters to clean me after you leave. By 8:05 a.m., I always have more abandoned boats than the Bermuda Triangle.

You guys are gross. And no, the cafeteria staff aren’t supposed

to be giving Nellie a tour of the room. That’s not their job.

R.I.P. to the teacher who decided to gently remind students to have decency. Her self-assigned duties lasted less than a day because, apparently, no one could hear her, even through two loudspeakers and a microphone.

There are even more problems on the other side of the cafeteria. My cousin, the robotics kids’ table, has his own issues. He’s got to deal with

the incessant banging of frustrated students who realize the vending machines are greedier than they seem. They take your money and don’t even give you the food. One time, he told me a freshman even tried to crawl up the shute because his Doritos got stuck. He almost made it all the way in, too, except his backpack wouldn’t fit.

Now that you’ve heard all this, I trust that you’ll observe that the contents of the compost bin are rising faster than

the ocean’s sea levels. The actual trash bin, however, is as untouched as a senior’s Common App account. This is due to the mystic Marissa Maggio, who implements social change without ever stepping foot in the realm of the Cafeteria. We feast our eyes on her stunning bottle cap portrait. We thank her for occasionally supplying us with defense for Nellie’s basketball games. She protecc, she attacc, but most importantly, she raise the stacc.

Elizabeth Warren Introduces Plan to Fix Stuyvesant Escalators

By JONATHAN SCHNEIDERMAN

DES MOINES, IOWA— Speaking at a forum on educational policy on Thursday, Massachusetts Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren released a detailed 12step plan to fix Stuyvesant’s escalators.

The plan, which was later released in full on Senator Warren’s Medium page, involves the assembly of a panel of escalator experts to conduct research into

escalator best practices and repair policies. It then calls for the creation of a federal specialized task force to carry out the panel’s recommendations.

“For too long, thousands of Americans have struggled because they can’t even get to their first-period or even second- or third-period class on time,” Warren said. “We have simply got to do something. You know, I met a bright, intelligent student the other week. Good head on his shoulders. Studied for all his tests with only two Juul sessions per

hour. And his cumulative grade in chemistry was a 98. Pretty good, right? Except that, thanks to the seven-to-nine escalator, he was late so often that his grade plummeted a whole point down.

The situation where a student can see their chemistry grade go from a 98 to a 97 because they were a minute late to class daily is just unacceptable. No American should have to face the indignity of a 97,” the former Harvard professor added.

The plan immediately drew comparisons, largely favorable,

to other candidates’ escalator policies. It is most similar to those of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has vowed to replace every escalator entirely with inclined elevators. While Warren would replace the twoto-four escalator with such an elevator, her elevator would not come with leather seating and a fully stocked bar. Former Vice President Joe Biden criticized the plan, calling its $5 billion price tag expensive and adding that his plan would fix the escalator system with the exception of the

two-to-four escalator, which his administration would burn into a clump of sad ashes. Kamala Harris, whose plan would put the escalators in a box with a flask of hydrocyanic acid and a radioactive source, could not be reached for comment.

At press time, Bill de Blasio was emphatically denying to a group of perplexed Iowans that he had ever even been to New York. “Never been to the place,” he said. “I couldn’t even tell you how to get from Gracie Mansion to a gym by subway.”

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Page 21

Sports Sports Editoral

By Subhan Chahal The American women’s record-setting triumph against the Netherlands in the FIFA Women’s World Cup Final in France stole the headlines this past summer, lighting the path toward women’s equality in sports in terms of both pay and respect.

However, the Women’s World Cup was far from the sole major showpiece this past summer, with the past two months jam-packed with international football tournaments across the continents, from the inaugural UEFA Nations League in Portugal and controversial Copa America in Brazil to the CONCACAF Gold Cup in North America and the African Cup of Nations in Egypt.

Copa America South America and CONMEBOL’s prestigious continental championship commenced in Sao Paulo this past June, and it was shrouded with claims of controversy and corruption that concluded with a Peruvian fairytale run, a Lionel Messi red card, and a resurgent Brazilian side claiming their ninth Copa America title.

Despite their preparations being hampered by a Neymar ankle injury just days before the tournament began, the youthful Brazilians seem to have put their 2018 World Cup disappointment behind them, giving the Selecao their first international honor since 2007.

Though the Brazilians lacked conviction for large swathes of the tournament, they—putting in unconvincing performances in their opening matches against Bolivia and Venezuela, and needing to go to penalties to defeat Paraguay in the quarterfinals after a goalless draw—were statistically the deserved triumphants.

Brazil recorded the most clean-sheets (five) in the tournament and only conceded in the final against Peru (a side that famously defeated Uruguay in a penalty-shootout in the quarters before routing the defending champions, Chile, in the semis).

Furthermore, they scored 13 goals in the tournament, almost double the amount that the Chileans, Argentines, and Uruguayans

Non-Stop Summer of Soccer

had amassed. However, it was the Argentines that stole the majority of headlines, despite Brazil’s success.

Though talisman Lionel Messi had a lousy tournament by his standards, recording only one goal (from a penalty) and one assist in the entire tournament, Argentina managed to recover from a defeat to Colombia on opening-night to defeat Qatar and Venezuela en route to a semifinal clash against Brazil.

Despite the Brazilians claiming a 2-0 victory over their bordering rivals, the overly physical match was shrouded with controversy. After the match, Messi and Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni blasted the referees for their inability to use VAR properly and award Argentina two blatant penalties in the second-half.

Controversy continued in Argentina’s third place match against Chile, where Messi received only the second red card of his career after doing little-to-no harm in a hot-headed altercation with the furious Gary Medel. Again, after the match, Messi claimed that the corrupt tournament was designed for a Brazilian victory and that CONMEBOL had wanted him to receive a red card after his earlier comments.

Despite Messi’s claims of corruption against the tournament organizers, he was awarded a negligible three month ban from international football, which means he will not miss any of Argentina’s 2022 World Cup qualifiers or the 2020 Copa America. This is an incredibly miniscule punishment when compared to Didier Drogba’s six-game European ban in 2009 after using much more colorful terms to describe the refereeing in the Champions League semi-final match against Messi’s Barcelona, of all times.

In an attempt to make the tournament coincide with the European Championships, tournament organizers have pushed for a Copa America in 2020 (hosted by Argentina and Colombia), giving Brazil their first chance to retain their crown and Messi the possibility to finally lift his first international trophy with Argentina.

UEFA Nations League The inaugural UEFA Nations League kicked off in Portugal this past June, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Co. being crowned champions in Porto and claiming only the nation’s second-ever major international trophy in the process.

A European competition designed to replace friendlies with competitive fixtures, the Nations League finals’ qualifications began last September when the top-twelve ranked European nations tousled in a round-robin style competition for four tickets to the summer’s event.

Despite a talented pool that included the French world champions, Belgium’s golden generation, and Spain’s youthful prodigies, it were the talented Dutch, Portuegese, Swiss, and English sides that managed to book their tickets to the semifinals in Portugal. Randomly drawn semi-final pairings saw the hosts face Switzerland and the Dutch take on England.

Despite taking a hiatus from the national team after the World Cup, missing all of Portugal’s qualifying matches, Ronaldo didn’t need much time to make an impression during his Nations League debut versus Switzerland.

The Juventus marksman registered a hat-trick, including two goals in the final two minutes that salvaged a convincing 3-1 victory for Portugal and booked a place in the Nations League final.

The Netherlands followed suit in the other semi-final, exploiting England’s defensive errors to snatch a 3-1 victory in extra time. Fielding the $75 million Barcelona signing, Frenkie de Jong, along with the center back pair of Golden Boy, Matthijs De Ligt, and PFA Player of the Year Virgil van Dijk, the future of Dutch football seemed to be in safe hands.

Yet, despite fielding the more complete side on paper, it was the Dutch who collapsed in the final, losing 1-0 from a Goncalo Guedes half-volley midway through the second-half. With Ronaldo picking up his second international trophy in the past three years, he will look to lead his country to a third at next summer’s European Champion-

ship.

CONCACAF Gold Cup North America’s revamped continental championship returned to the States this summer, with a Mexican side thwarting their young, exhilarating American rivals to claim their eighth CONCACAF title.

Entering the tournament, the United States and Mexico were at an all-time low. Injuries to Javier Hernandez, Hirving Lozano, and Hector Herrera and the refusal of current MLS top-scorer Carlos Vela to play in the tournament left the Mexican roster weakened.

On the other hand, new and inexperienced American coach Gregg Berhalter left American fans concerned after losing the two June warm-up matches before the tournament began.

However, despite their struggles, the arch-rivals prospered throughout the competition, both scoring in the group stage en route to topping their groups.

In a particularly memorable match for American fans, the United States smashed Trinidad and Tobago, the team that had infamously eliminated the U.S. from World Cup qualifying in 2017, for six goals.

Yet, the American and Mexican dominance does not imply that the underdogs were poor in the tournament; in fact, the minnow nations gave the heavyweights problems throughout the cup. Curacao and Haiti provided fans hope for the future by escaping their groups, with the latter managing to defeat mighty Costa Rica to top their group.

In the quarterfinals, Curacao were unlucky to narrowly lose by one goal to the United States, after dominating large swathes of the match, while Haiti held their own against Mexico in the semifinal, only to be sunk by an extra time penalty.

However, in the end, it was two familiar foes, the United States and Mexico, that clashed in the final, with the Mexicans claiming their first trophy since 2015 after Jonathan dos Santos’s late winner for El Tri. Despite the disappointing result against Mexico, this year’s edition of the competition has seen a resurgent United States side.

Their 20-year-old Chelsea starlet, Christian Pulisic, dazzled along with Schalke prodigy Weston McKennie in midfield, both contributing five goals in the competition. Still recovering from their heartbreak against Trinidad more than two years ago, the United States gave supporters hope that their youth can mature, bringing global success to the country.

African Cup of Nations In a tournament that has been no foreigner to upsets in the past, Africa’s most-coveted competition commenced this past summer in Egypt, with Manchester City winger Riyad Mahrez leading Algeria to an unexpected triumph in North Africa.

Players of the host nation, Egypt, were clear favorites to win the competition. Mohammad Salah and Co. were the most successful team in the competition’s history, and under a new coach named Javier Aguirre, they managed 20 goals in their last eight matches.

However, despite not conceding a single goal in the group stage en route to achieving maximum points, the North Africans were stunned by lowly South Africa in their first knockout stage game, conceding a fatal goal with five minutes left to play.

Despite Salah’s failure for his country, other Premier League stars prospered for their home nations. Former Watford striker Odion Ighalo led Nigeria to a bronze-medal finish with his record-setting five goals, while Liverpool and Senegal winger Sadio Mane scraped Senegal to a silvermedal finish with his inspiring displays.

However, it was Manchester City winger Riyad Mahrez who stole the headlines this past summer, with his three goals, including a last gasp free-kick against Nigeria in the semifinals, blasting Algeria to the promised land. Algeria’s stunning victory over Senegal concluded our summer of international soccer, with competitions around the continents introducing new super teams, talented youngsters, and a beautiful game to keep tabs on in the future.

Girls’ Soccer

Stuyvesant Girls Soccer is Ready For The 2019 Season

By Ethan Kirschner and Benjamin Hamel

It was 2-1 in the final minutes of the Mimba’s biggest game of the year. They needed one goal against Tottenville, a team that had gone 12-2 in the regular season, to advance to the quarterfinals of the City Championship. They were desperate for a goal to send the game to overtime. They had opportunities but were never able to fully break through with an equalizer. The girls were forced into an abrupt end to the season and were left to think about what could have been.

Overall, the 2018 Stuyvesant girls’ soccer team, the Stuyvesant Mimbas, had a phenom-

enal year. They were 8-4 in the regular season, which was good enough for third place in the Manhattan division. They even won their first playoff game as an underdog to James Madison.

It is even more remarkable that the Mimbas had such a successful year with only three seniors.

The team is looking forward to an even better year this season.

“Last year was a great year, and we are hoping to build momentum for a better end to the playoffs by working on better ball movement and communication,” junior and captain Aki Yamaguchi said.

This year’s team is led by a senior class comprising of seven girls and that is headlined by goalkeeper Emory Walsh,

who only allowed 18 goals in 13 matches last season. Two key attacking players, Aki Yamaguchi and Shivali Korgaonkar (second-leading goal scorer), are looking to build off their impressive 2018 season, when they scored 14 and six goals, respectively. They will be asked to handle even more of the scoring load as they take the next step in their high school careers.

This dynamic scoring duo could be the face of the Mimba’s for years to come. However, other players will have to play a bigger role this season to fill the void left by last year’s seniors. “Last season, our seniors were the foundation of our defense. I’m confident that the underclassmen will be able to step up and

fill their shoes,” Walsh said. It certainly won’t be one individual who will make up for the loss of the three seniors. Instead, midfielders and strikers, as well as the incoming freshmen, will have to take the initiative to track back and play defense in order for the team to be successful. Coming off of an injury from last season, sophomore Lucinda Bryce will look to play a crucial role in the Mimba’s attack and have a positive impact on the team for this season.

The girls will have to make up for the loss of their seniors while facing an increase in competition. “This season, we got moved up a Division, since we got third place last year,” Korgaonkar said. She further added

that this year will be especially difficult because “every single game will be a challenge.” However, the team is welcoming the increased competition not only because it will make them stronger as a unit, but also because they will also have the opportunity to play against Beacon High School and Lab United, the two biggest rivalry games of the year.

Overall, this year’s team looks poised to build off last season’s postseason run to be the greatest one yet. Though they currently have more accomplished competitors, with many returning starters, the Mimbas believe they can make it back to the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year.

Page 22

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Sports Sports Editorial

Athlete of the Issue

How the Beasts Serve Up

By Aki Yamaguchi

JM: No, no—honestly, it’s weird being responsible or trying to be, at least. I was a slacker so to speak, and now I’m less of a slacker, so when I say, “Hey guys, do this,” I feel obligated to do those things as well. My outlook has definitely changed: it’s also thinking about how you impact the incoming freshmen. The role the previous captains played in our high experience when we first joined the team and how welcoming they were play a big part of my thinking. HK: Yeah, I think that being captain is a little bit strange, as you are the top of the chain under Mr. Miller, but then again at the same time, it’s not as much of a step-up from last year, as we only had four seniors. The two captains depended on the juniors sometimes, so I think that a lot of times—in game especially— Jeremy and I were very vocal and it has translated a lot to this year.

We are continuing it a year later but without the previous year’s seniors.

Henry Kotkin Grade: Senior Height: 5’8” and a half Eye color: Green Hair color: Brown DOB: 10/10/2002

Jeremy Moller Grade: Senior Height: 5’10” Eye color: Brown Hair color: Brown DOB: 10/10/2002

Led by senior captains Henry Kotkin and Jeremy Moller, the Stuyvesant Peglegs are looking to qualify for playoffs this year. Both Kotkin and Moller have been key players for the team, with Moller being a top scorer and Kotkin an assister. Moller has also played in most games since freshman year and Kotkin sophomore year, proving they have been instrumental for the Peglegs.

6. How do you deal with playing soccer and your schoolwork? Do you have any tips?

HK: I think that for me personally, I’m actually more productive during soccer season than not

2. What do you want to improve for yourself this year?

HK: Personally, I want to get a goal because I haven’t had a PSAL goal yet. JM: I, on the other hand, have scored a goal—multiple of them—so my goal this year now that I’m playing striker is to get at least 10 goals.

3. Why did you want to join the soccer team?

HK: I honestly couldn’t see myself going to Stuyvesant and not playing on the soccer team. It was like a necessity for me; it was the one thing that had to be part of my life. I am definitely glad I did it because it’s how I met most of my friends coming into freshman year. JM: Yeah, I love soccer, so just being on a sports team at Stuy[vesant] is a very important part of the high school experience. The bonds that you form with your teammates are unparalleled to those of the classroom or school. Just the friendships that you form on a school team are priceless; plus, soccer is a lit sport, and I get the bag always.

4. What are your respective positions on the team, and what do you do there?

HK: I’m a central midfielder, so essentially what I do is I control the middle of the field and try to link up the defense to the attack when we are on the offense.

To add on, I also try to stop their team from doing the same thing. JM: I play striker, which means the primary goal for me is to score. Part of Henry’s job is making sure that I score, so if he’s doing good at his job, I do well at mine.

5. How has the captaincy changed your playstyle and outlook on the game?

HK: It hasn’t changed him at all.

Matt Melucci / The Spectator

1. When did you start playing soccer?

HK: I started playing when I was three, and I started playing on a club team since I was eight. JM: I started playing when I was two or three—whenever walking was a normal thing for me—and I think I started playing club when I was seven.

during it because I feel like I’m really doing something. Out of soccer season, I’m not being productive and not working properly, as I have time to slack off. During the season, I feel like I’m always working, so it pushes me to be more productive with my schoolwork, I’m definitely a better student during season. JM: Yeah, in addition to that, any sports team for that matter plays an important role in taking your mind out of a very concentrated school focus. Having soccer afterschool helps relax your mind as you are getting out of the stressed school setting. Often when I get home after soccer, I’m in a much calmer and more relaxed place where

moment?

HK: My personal favorite memory is last year when we were winning a game against a team a little weaker than us and our captain Kevin Mitchell [19’] stepped up to take a penalty and missed.

That’s definitely been my favorite memory. We definitely kept on making fun of him for that. JM: Well, I don’t like to put people down, so my favorite memory was a game against FDA. Toward the end of the game, it was tied 2-2, and they fouled our goalie really bad. Literally kicked him in the face (HK: How is that your favorite memory). I’m sorry—is this your story? No. Anyway, he had like 13 fractures in his cheekbones and had over 40 stitches, so he had to come out of the game. We were all very upset with the game, the other team, and the ref, and at the end of the game, we got a free kick outside of the box. A former player hit it and he scored—we all went crazy and stupid. So it was great because we beat the team. It was just a great comradery, and we were all united over the mutual fact that our goalie got hurt, so we fought back.

8. Proudest moment so far?

JM: My proudest moment was freshman year when I was still struggling to find my place on the team and the role I played.

We had this game at MLK and it was our first time playing them; I started and it was a real reinforcement of my capabilities and the coach’s faith in me. MLK is a really good team, and it was truly the beginning of when I felt like a part of the team. HK: I think my proudest moment was against Columbia Secondary when we tied 1-1. Jeremy and I actually have the same birthday, so it was on our birthday. JM: Yeah, the athletes of the issue literally have the same birthday. You aren’t going to find that anywhere. That’s so cool—am I right? HK: Anyway, we played really well as a team; Jeremy and I played together at center midfield. I was just proud of our performance because we bossed the midfield that game against three really solid midfielders.

Choice drink: >HK- Mango Nectar >JM- Raspberry lime seltzer with orange juice Favorite food: >HK- Bacon >JM- Vietnamese sandwiches— the grilled pork ones near my house Motto to live by: >HK- You can’t lose if you don’t concede.

“The bonds that you form with your teammates are unparalleled to those of the classroom or school.” —Jeremy Moller, senior and co-captain

I’m able to do my work and be more productive.

7. Favorite memory or

>JM- Chase the bag.

Fun fact: Our birthdays are the same day (October 10).

Mets March to Postseason

By Rudolph Merlin

Brodie Van Wagenen was hired to replace Sandy Alderson as the general manager of the New York Mets on October 29, 2018. That year, the Mets were, as usual, in the cellar, finishing with a dismal record of 77-85 and missing the playoffs for what felt like the 10th year in a row even though it had only been three. A lot would be needed to be done to revamp the team back to its 2015 pennant-winning ways. The pitching was great, but the main issue was the Mets’ lack of power and consistency in their batting lineup. The Mets were second to last in the National League in hits (1282), had a collective batting average tied for last in the National League (.234), and were bottom five in OBP (on base percentage) and SLG (slugging percentage). Wagenen attempted to address this in a series of strange signings that included aging second baseman Robinson Cano for a whopping $24 million per year, an average slugger in mediocre catcher Wilson Ramos, and a left-fielder by the name of J.D Davis who batted .175 in 42 games with the Houston Astros in 2018. These purchases alongside several relievers were met with great criticism from journalists and Met fans. When asked about these purchases in January, Wagenen proudly responded: “Our goal is to win a championship...come get us.”

The Mets had no problems getting the engine running (going 9-4 their first 13 games). Two young talents—utility player Jeff McNeil and first baseman Pete Alonso—emerged from the lineup and put up MVP caliber numbers. McNeil went 4-5 on the second game of the season and quickly became one of the league’s top hitters. Meanwhile, Alonso’s power became known to everyone almost immediately, hitting 18 home runs in a span of two months. Despite terrific performances from these two, coupled with ace pitching from Jacob DeGrom, the Mets could not keep the engine running. Relievers from the likes of Robert Gsellman to Chris Flexen had trouble not letting up runs. By the end of June, the Mets blew a league leading 20 wins all thanks to the ineptness of the bullpen. 2018 All-Star closer Edwin Diaz was all too irregular, and the Mets plummeted to a dismal 40-50 before the All-Star break, 13.5 games behind division leaders Atlanta Braves. Wagenen’s infamous words hung over his head.

Then came the Homerun Derby, where millions of baseball fans saw Alonso destroy the competition and take the title. I took this as a sign that perhaps the underperforming team from Queens, New York was not yet out of the playoff picture. And when the second half of the MLB season began, it was Alonso who was leading the miracle the Mets needed to get into the postseason.

Since July 12, Alonso has crushed 24 HR’s and has broken both the National League

rookie season record and the Mets franchise record. He is on pace to reach 50 by the end of the season. Shortstop Amed Rosario and Davis also began to make their impact on the Mets. Davis’s batting average jumped from .275 to .311 in a month, while Rosario has recorded a career-high 143 hits even before September. Ramos has turned his season around as well with an ongoing 22 game hitting streak and a .407 BA in

If the Mets are able to get a winning record from these three series, then perhaps a playoff spot would not be a miracle, but rather a “Mets-pectation”

August. Wagenen’s questionable signings are beginning to have paid off, and all the while, McNeil has one five highest batting average in the MLB. From the run support came a boost of confidence to some of the weaker links in the pitching rotation. Seth Lugo and Gsellman have dominated as relievers since the All-Star break and Diaz has quietly recorded 25 saves. More importantly, though, Steven Matz got his big break. Matz has an ERA of 1.75 in his last eight starts.

This is a much better statistic then the 4.00 ERA he held in the month of June. His dominance is a metaphor for the Mets’ pitching, which is currently the finest in the MLB. Matz is pitching like an All-Star against top-caliber teams and could be extremely valuable as the Mets head into their last 30 games. Since the All-Star Break, the Mets’ bullpen ranks first in the MLB and leads in lowest ERA and lowest runs allowed, a complete turnaround from their 21st place rank just two months ago.

The Mets have won 27 of their last 40 games, including a sweep of the AL Central Division Leaders Cleveland Indians.

But what determines the Mets’ chances to make the postseason is their ability to stand toe to toe with the best five teams of the National League. The Mets recently lost six close games and are due to compete against the Nationals, Phillies, and the Dodgers in the coming weeks.

These are all teams that, like the Mets, have dominated July and August. If the Mets are able to get a winning record from these three series, then perhaps a playoff spot would not be a miracle, but rather a “Mets-pectation.”

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Page 23

Sports Sports Editoral

continued from page 24 The Kansas City Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes, last year’s top-scoring quarterback, only averaged about two points more per game than a mid-tier quarterback who you could get in later rounds. The Steelers’ James Conner, the Jets’ Bell, the Bengals’ Joe Mixon, the Rams’ Todd Gurley II, and the Chargers’ Melvin Gordon are all running backs that should be considered for the first round. Wide receivers will also begin to be drafted in the first round; DeAndre Hopkins of the Texans and Julio Jones of the Falcons are likely to be the first ones off the board.

Sleepers In the first few rounds, you should make safer picks of established elite players. However, later in the draft or after the draft, look to pick up some sleepers (players who look poised to have a breakout season). Some popular sleeper picks are the Buccaneers players Chris Godwin and Jameis Winston. Additionally, many fantasy gurus peg tight end Vance McDonald, running backs Latavius Murray and Jerick McKinnon, and wide receivers Robby Anderson and Sterling Shepard as strong sleeper picks you could steal in

Fantasy Football Preview 2019

the middle to late rounds. Jameis Winston can emerge this season as a mid-tier QB1 with a high ceiling. He has the drive to play for a new contract this year, and he could be a good fit for new head coach Bruce Arians’s system. It is difficult to nail all the perfect sleepers, but always be on the lookout for players with big-time potential, whether that be through trading or the waiver wire.

Busts and Handcuffs Almost every year, there is at least one elite fantasy option that lets your team down. Last year, Bell became the biggest fantasy bust of all time, being picked first in many drafts just to sit out the entire season in search of a long-term contract. Melvin Gordon could be the next Bell this year, as his contract holdout will likely extend into the season.

Consider trading for or picking up the Chargers’ backup running back Austin Ekeler instead.

Also, if you have Elliot, try to pick up the Cowboys’ backup back Tony Pollard as a handcuff if Elliot continues to hold out.

Staying updated on NFL news throughout the season is vital, as even one little change affects several aspects of the league. For example, the shocking retirement of the Colts’ quarterback

Andrew Luck limits the fantasy value of their wideout T.Y. Hilton and Eric Ebron. Conversely, the retirement of Rob Gronkowski boosts wideout Julian Edelman’s fantasy value. An ACL injury to Lamar Miller of the Texans opens up the opportunity for backup Duke Johnson Jr. Another possible bust is Browns tight end David Njoku.

With the arrival of Odell Beckham Jr., and the presence of Jarvis Landry, Njoku will have a diminished role in a stacked offense. While busts are infuriating, make the best of them by planning ahead.

Rookies Last year, it was Saquon Barkley. The year before that was Alvin Kamara, and Dak Prescott in 2016. Each year, promising players fresh out of college invade the NFL. This year’s rookie class is no different, with several rookies looking to make an immediate impact. Among those players is the number one pick out of Oklahoma, Kyler Murray, quarterback for the Cardinals. He will lead the Air Raid offense from Week One under new head coach Kliff Kingsbury. He is worth a late-round selection given Murray and Kingsbury’s experience running spread offensive schemes at

The Pinheads Aim to Turn Heads Coming off of a secondround playoff exit in 2018, the Stuyvesant girls’ varsity bowling team, the Pinheads, hopes to do more in 2019. The team finished with a 9-1 record last year, which tied them with Beacon for first place in the Manhattan A Division. Previously in both 2016 and 2017, the Pinheads displayed impressive undefeated seasons, but fell short of a championship; they will look to conquer a fourth straight division title and beyond in the upcoming season.

In the first round of last year’s playoffs, the Pinheads were matched up against the Midwood High School Hornets. The Hornets had a 6-2 record and finished second in the Brooklyn A Division. The Pinheads and Hornets split the first two games, and it ultimately came down to a third game. In the final game, Stuyvesant bowled a total of 533, which trumped Midwood’s score of 406, making the Pinheads victorious by two games to one.

Senior and co-captain Erica Ruan was a key piece in the final round, bowling a match-high 183.

As the Pinheads moved on to the next round, they faced Susan Wagner High School. The Falcons of Susan Wagner went 8-2 in the regular season, good for first in the Staten Island B Division. Surely they would prove to be a tougher matchup to the streaking Pinheads. This proved to be the case, and unfortunately, the Pinheads fell to the Falcons at three games to none. Susan Wagner ended up going all the way to the semifinals before los-

The Top 5 Lists Here are my predicted top fantasy players at each position: Quarterbacks 1. Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs 2. Deshaun Watson, Texans 3. Baker Mayfield, Browns 4. Aaron Rodgers, Packers 5. Drew Brees, Saints Running Backs 1. Saquon Barkley, Giants 2. Christian McCaffrey, Panthers 3. Alvin Kamara, Saints 4. David Johnson, Cardinals 5. Ezekiel Elliot, Cowboys Wide Receivers 1. DeAndre Hopkins, Texans 2. Julio Jones, Falcons 3. Michael Thomas, Saints 4. JuJu Smith-Schuster, Steelers

5. Odell Beckham Jr., Giants (ok fine, Browns) Tight Ends 1. Travis Kelce, Chiefs 2. George Kittle, 49ers 3. Zach Ertz, Eagles 4. Hunter Henry, Chargers 5. O.J. Howard, Buccanneers Defense / Special Teams 1. Chicago Bears 2. Los Angeles Rams 3. Philadelphia Eagles 4. Buffalo Bills 5. New England Patriots 6. Trading Strategy The difference between a good team and a great team lies in trades. One strategy is to make two for one trades. Receive an elite player for two good players.

Also, know who you are trading with. For example, if you want to trade with a huge Cowboys fan, trade them Cowboys players, which will cloud their judgment and lead to a favorable trade for you. Lastly, stay active on the waiver wire and keep up with NFL news. Think of how injuries or trades affect the fantasy landscape, and acquire players accordingly. So as the leaves turn red and the temperatures dip, sit back, relax, and watch your fantasy team carry you to glory.

Boys’ Bowling

Girls’ Bowling

By Jeremy Lee and Angie Grzybowski

Oklahoma and Texas Tech, respectively. Running backs David Montgomery of Chicago and Josh Jacobs of Oakland should also flourish from the start in their new homes. Jacobs is likely the safest rookie to take as Jon Gruden’s team lacks real depth in the half-back position. Wide receiver Mecole Hardman looks to make some noise in Kansas City as well.

ing to the New Dorp Cougars.

In this upcoming season, with the departure of only three seniors from last season, the Pinheads look to continue their winning ways. According to senior and co-captain Ruo Yan Chen, their biggest struggle in the upcoming season will be the lack of underclassmen. “Our current team consists of mainly seniors, and our main concern will be recruiting underclassmen to train for the seasons to come,” senior and co-captain Stephanie Liu said. The Pinheads are looking to

Division. When commenting on the state of the team, Ruan said, “We recently met up in the beginning of the month, and everyone seems to be at the top of their game.”

As for their biggest challenge of the season, Ruan views Beacon as their toughest competitor, but she believes that they can prevail as they have in prior seasons.

To improve in the playoffs, Ruan thinks that the team needs to practice in the same lane as their competitors before a game. “One of the main problems from the

Led by a strong class of returning seniors, the Pinheads look to continue their winning ways.

recruit new players as the season rolls around again, since the team is all seniors with the exception of a single junior.

They have been holding regular practices throughout the summer. Chen is optimistic about the upcoming season and has seen improvements among individual players throughout the summer.

She anticipates that several players have the potential to qualify for the individual championship, and the team may see more improvement as the season progresses. Ruan is also confident about the team’s capabilities and believes that their team can win every game in the Manhattan

previous year was that the players weren’t used to the lanes at Staten Island, so this time, we will definitely practice there before the actual game,” she said. Because lanes vary between different alleys, Ruan believes that this is “the team’s best way to prepare for this season’s playoffs.”

The Pinheads have had success in the past. They’re used to winning, and yet they feel the need to do more in the upcoming season. They have a good chance, and if there is going to be a time to succeed, it will be this year.

Led by a strong class of returning seniors, the Pinheads look to continue their winning ways.

Spartans Bowling Season Preview

By Rudolph Merlin

In approximately one month, the PSAL Boys Bowling season will be underway. Fall afternoons at Astoria Bowl will be packed with Manhattan and Queens highschoolers lounging around after a long day of school. However, for the Spartans, heading to Astoria Bowl will mean picking up from a successful season and practicing to win the Manhattan I Division again.

The Stuyvesant boys’ varsity bowling team finished the 2018 Season with a 6-4 record. Though this third-place finish was one of their poorer performances in recent history, the Spartans were nevertheless ranked 12th in New York City. In the first round of the playoffs, they defeated James Madison in straight games before losing in the quarterfinals 2-1 to fifth seed Curtis High School.

This year, there will be a whopping nine seniors returning to bowl in comparison to the three last year. The most notable of these seniors is senior Samuel Fang, who led the team averaging 161.4 pins in 15 competitions.

His average was one of the best in the borough, and coupled with a high score of 253 pins, he won first place in the PSAL Manhattan Bowling Championships. He was also invited to the PSAL Individual NYC Championships, where he finished in 11th place. Nevertheless, Fang thinks there is room for improvement. “I’ve been practicing a lot on making more of my spares. A mistake I saw last season was that I relied too much on strikes, and I was missing quite a few single pin spares,” Fang said.

Also returning is junior Eric Kim, who has improved his average by more than 37 points his sophomore year. Kim often played in Game B of matches, but he is now likely to start in Game A alongside Fang and seniors Harshul Singh and Eeram Labib.

Last year was the Spartans’ first year adjusting to some new teams in the Manhattan I Division. Their biggest threat this year is Hunter College High School, which similarly has a large number of returning players. The Spartans infamously broke Hunter’s threeyear regular season undefeated streak last October, winning two games to one and reintroducing themselves as elite competitors in the Manhattan AI Division. The two schools hold a 1-1 all-time record against each other, and their matchup this season is sure to be extremely competitive. Two additional teams are also joining the division: Beacon High School and Graphics Campus. However, they should not be much trouble, as their top players average less pins than most of the Spartans do. Nevertheless, spares and extra pins will play a huge difference, as the Spartans lost a couple of games last year by a matter of 1015 pins.

The season is scheduled to begin on September 23. Though the team doesn’t yet know their game schedule, the Spartans are confident that they will have a strong season. “As a team, I’m extremely confident that we’ll be able to perform better than last year and hopefully make it further in the playoffs,’’ Fang said. On the evidence, there’s no reason to doubt him.

The Spectator ● September 11, 2019

Sports Editorial

Page 24

The Spectator SpoRts CALENDAR

USWNT: Scoring the Greatest Goal

By Caroline Ji Many watched spellbound this summer as 24 national soccer teams contended against each other in the riveting 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France.

Amongst the 24 teams, the USWNT (United States Women’s National Team)’s players were the favorites going into the tournament as they were the reigning champions from the 2015 World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Notable players from the USWNT included team captains forward Alex Morgan, forward Megan Rapinoe, and forward Carli Lloyd. All of these players were expected to be key for the United States in the tournament.

Throughout the entirety of the tournament, the USWNT remained strong and confident. Its players were brilliant in the group stage, claiming victories against Thailand (13-0) in a spectacular match, Chile (3-0), and Sweden (2-0), with pivotal goals scored

by Morgan, Rose Lavelle, Rapinoe, Lloyd, and Julie Ertz. They ultimately concluded the group stage with a commanding lead of nine points, making them the front runner in Group E. The USWNT would continue to display strokes of excellence in the next stage, the knockout stage.

In the round of 16, Megan Rapinoe scored two penalty goals, just enough to make irrelevant Spain’s single goal. Rapinoe brought her

momentum into the quarterfinals, where her two goals once again won the match, this time against France. In the semifinals, Morgan and Christen Press scored one goal apiece against England to advance to the finals, which was especially impressive since Rapinoe, who had been playing brilliantly in the tournament so far, did not play in the match due to injury. In a heated final, the Netherlands national team and the USWNT fought tooth and nail in the blazing heat. Though both teams had spectacular moments and missed opportunities, in the end, it was the USWNT that reigned supreme. The USWNT won 2-0 against the Netherlands, with goals from the experienced Rapinoe and the young Lavelle.

Though the USWNT’s final victory against the Netherlands resulted in immense celebration, the team still isn’t completely satisfied. USWNT players have been fighting for equal pay with their male counterparts long before the World Cup even started, highlighting the apparent flaws within the United States Soccer Federation.

It has been statistically proven that the USWNT garners almost $1.9 million more in revenue than the USMNT (United States Men’s National Team) does and places significantly better in competitions and matches. However, reports state that the yearly salary of any member of the USWNT ranges from $16,538 to $46,200

without bonus prize money, while the yearly salary any member of the USMNT earns ranges from $25,000 to $300,000 without bonus prize money. This juxtaposition of salary ranges highlights a huge disparity between female and male soccer players, an issue that must urgently be rectified.

The USWNT has not kept quiet about the issue and is using its World Cup glory as a platform to raise awareness about unequal pay between females and males.

Team captains Morgan, Rapinoe, and Lloyd sued the United States Soccer Federation with EPA (Equal Opportunity Employment) complaints in March 2019 concerning inequitable pay and funding not just on the international scene, but on soccer community holistically, from female youth soccer players all the way up to the USWNT. The lawsuit has since been the subject of much controversy from those who protest it and those who support it, and it is still under mediation. Furthermore, Rapinoe, known for being unapologetically outspoken, has stated that she nor any of the other members of the USWNT will be attending the White House following its World Cup victory in an attempt to make a stand against what Rapinoe described as “an administration that doesn’t feel the same way and fights for the same things that [the team] fights for.”

Ultimately, the USWNT is a prime example of the many struggles female athletes face in a society where women all across the globe from a multitude of occupations suffer from salary injustice. Though it may take some time to remediate gender pay inequalities, the USWNT gives a voice to those who do not have one. The team was victorious in the World Cup, but it has yet to be victorious in what may be its toughest fight yet. All in all, the USWNT is headed in the right direction, and it remains fearless, confident, and resilient in its attempt to score its greatest goal yet, one that will transform society and inspire people across the world.

september

Stuyvesant Sports:

9

monday

friday

14

By Krish Gupta For 29 weeks, football-less Sundays have slowly passed by since the New England Patriots were crowned champions of the NFL (again). As the summer concludes, it means one thing: fantasy football season is ramping up once again. The NFL landscape has transformed this offseason with a slew of trades and notable retirements, so it is only fitting that the fantasy landscape was shaken up as well. Without further ado, here is your 2019-2020 fantasy football preview: The Consensus Top Four This year, inexplicably, there is a quartet of players who could all be taken with the first pick: Saquon Barkley of the New York Giants, Christian McCaffrey of the Carolina Panthers, Alvin Kamara of the New Orleans Saints, and Ezekiel Elliot of the Dallas

Cowboys. These dual-threat running backs will in many weeks single-handedly carry your fantasy team to glory. However, Elliot is currently holding out, so he is on the outside looking in on the top three running back choices. The Cowboys and Elliot both have a salary number in mind, but neither side is budging. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says he’s confident the sides will reach an agreement in time, but if the cautionary tale of Le’Veon Bell’s holdout last year teaches anything, it’s that false hope will make or break your fantasy team.

If Elliot plays, he is a top-tier and consistent RB1. Barkley is most commonly the first pick, as he will likely be most of the Giants’ offense. Often, choosing star players from weak teams— not your Super Bowl favorites— is a better move because they account for a large portion of the team’s offense, racking up

touches and receptions. For the Panthers, McCaffrey has emerged as a gem, especially in PPR-scoring leagues, as he is a prolific pass-catcher as well as runner. Kamara has been a revelation for the Saints, and he had been sharing snaps with Mark Ingram. With Ingram gone, Kamara will receive everything he can handle and could easily be fantasy’s top scorer. That these four players will be the first four picks is mostly undisputed, but draft boards get a bit sloppier from here.

The Rest of the First Round After the top four is taken, only running backs and wide receivers should be taken in the first round. The number one rule to remember during a fantasy draft is to be patient and resist drafting a quarterback early. continued on page 23

Varsity Football Stuyvesant High School vs Benjamin N. Cardozo High School Pier 40

saturday

Varsity Girls Soccer Lab Museum United vs Stuyvesant High School Newtown High School Field

Professional Sports:

8

sunday

NFL New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys @4:25PM

8

Sports Editorial

Fantasy Football Preview 2019

13

Varsity Boys Soccer Stuyvesant High School vs MLK Jr. East River Park (1)

sunday

NFL Buffalo Bills at New York Jets @1:00PM

Wrapup • • • • • •

Andrew Luck shocked the NFL after announcing his retirement at 29 due to the mental and physical strain continuous injuries caused him.

Justin Verlander pitches his third career no-hitter joining an elite list of pitchers to accomplish the feat.

Virgil van Dijk wins both the UEFA Men’s Player of the Season and Defender of the Season awards while Lionel Messi, Frenkie de Jong, and Allison Becker pickup Forward, Midfielder, and Goalkeeper of the Season respectively.

Defending U.S Open champion Naomi Osaka was knocked out of this year’s Open by Belinda Bencic, who has now beaten Osaka three times this year.

The United States basketball team lose to Australia.

This is their first international loss in thirteen years.

The Spectator’s Sports Department make a new Instagram to cover all things sports. Check it out @spec_sports.