Volume 109, Issue 7

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

SPORTS

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

PSAL Frees: Thoughts from Students, Athletes, Administration

Cheap Ass Food

In light of the recent decision to end the debate over PSAL frees, senior Jeremy Rubin frames the debate in “PSAL Frees: Thoughts from Students, Athletes, and Administration.”

In this issue’s Cheap Ass Food column, senior Laura Ilioaei sets out in search of the best dollar bubble tea in Flushing.

see page 23

Volume 109 No. 7

The Stuyvesant Math Team, led by seniors Milan Haiman, Matthew Kendall, Hanna Yang, Kimi Sun, Akash Das, and Rishabh Das hosted the 2nd Annual Downtown Mathematics Invitation.

Over 203 students representing 20 different schools in New York City attended the competition.

German Pop Star Wincent Weiss Performs at Stuyvesant

By EVELYN MA and NEIL SARKAR The Foreign Language Department hosted its second annual concert in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut on December 6, featuring German pop star Wincent Weiss. On the day of the concert, both the lower and upper decks of the Murray Kahn Theater were filled with students, waiting for Weiss to appear.

The event began with greetings from Principal Eric Contreras, who thanked German teacher Rebecca Lindemulder for her significant contributions in organizing the event. A representative from the Goethe-Institut, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering the study of the German language and culture, also spoke.

After the opening statements, the buzzing sound of anticipation filled the auditorium, and the crowd immediately livened up as Weiss walked onto the stage and began to perform.

Weiss began the concert by beckoning Stuyvesant students to leave the second-floor balcony to come down to the first floor. He proceeded to jump off of the stage and into the crowd, where he posed for pictures and high-fived awestruck fans. Weiss also encouraged fans to clap along to the beat, turn on their phone flashlights and sway their hands, and sing along to the lyrics of his songs.

Weiss is traveling across North America to cities like Montreal, New York City, Los Angeles, and Mexico City in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut. Weiss is popular in Germany, and in 2017, he was awarded Best German Artist

by MTV Europe Music Awards.

The concert is part of a larger effort by Assistant Principal of World Languages Francesca McAuliffe to host more diverse cultural events within the Stuyvesant community. “I’m currently planning to do a trip to the Spanish theater with some students in the spring,” she said.

Photo courtesy of Legacy

Legacy Places First at Reign or Shine Dance Competition

By EVELYN MA AND TINA ZHENG Stuy Legacy, an urban dance team at Stuyvesant, came in first at the New Jersey Institute of

stuyspec.com

Zoe Oppenheimer / The Spectator

The Stuyvesant Model United Nations team competed at the SciMUN Competition on Saturday, December 8. Seniors Adam Oubaita, Ben Platt, and Elisey Goland won Best Delegate awards.

see page 11

December 19, 2018

NEWSBEAT

The Stuyvesant Speech and Debate team competed at the 2018 Blake Invitational on Friday, December 14. Junior Jeremy Lee and sophomore Justin Sword won the tournament in the Public Forum division. Junior Christian Bae placed ninth in the congressional debate division.

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

Technology (NJIT)’s Reign or Shine XII Dance Competition on November 11. NJIT hosted their 12th annual competition, inviting Legacy and nine other urban dance teams in the New York-

New Jersey metropolitan area to compete.

Stuy Legacy was established in 2015 and has since grown to become a competitive team, winning at several elite competitions.

For this particular competition, senior and Executive Director Kyle Tau decided to take the team in a different direction in terms of their dance style. Unlike previous competitions where they typically danced to a medley of “hype” hiphop songs, Tau decided to choreograph this piece to a single song, “Love Me Now” by John Legend.

The piece is his way to “appreciate the present with all the things you love, because in the future those things might fade away,” he said in an e-mail interview. continued on page 2

“It would be nice to eventually have more concerts with different languages in the building, so that would be something worth expanding in [the] future.”

While Weiss primarily sang German songs at the concert, he also included a medley of popular American songs including “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran, “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, and “In My Feelings”

by Drake. Many students named this part of the show their favorite part since they could understand and sing along with Weiss.

Despite the lyrics of Weiss’s songs being in German rather than English, many students still had a positive experience at the concert.

“He did a great job performing for an audience that mainly spoke English while singing entirely in German. That really goes to show that music can go across languages and that it’s such a powerful tool,” sophomore Luca Bielski said.

Weiss’s performance was memorable for students who

had never been to a concert in a completely foreign language. “I was excited because he’s widely known throughout Germany and to have someone famous in another country take the time to come to Stuyvesant made this experience unforgettable,” sophomore Roshni Patel said.

Others were grateful for the opportunity to attend their first concert. “I’d never been to a concert, and I’m glad I was able to get a sense of what it feels like to be at one,” freshman Pranav Paranji said.

The Student Union (SU) ensured that the concert ran smoothly by assisting with event security and managing tickets. SU President William Wang thanked the many students who attended for their enthusiasm. “This event wouldn’t go on every year unless the students were actually so into it. I’m so happy that the students actually took time out from six to seven, even later than seven to go see this famous German pop star,” he said.

PSAL Free Proposal Rejected by SLT

By MADDY ANDERSEN and ERIN LEE, with additional reporting by JEREMY RUBIN “My reaction to the decision is really one of disappointment.

I’ve met for probably 10 or more hours with either [Health and P.E. Teacher Peter] Bologna, [Assistant Principal of Safety, Health, and P.E. Brian] Moran, or [Principal Eric] Contreras, and I’ve really made the effort to make every possible compromise, so much so that some other people in the SU [Student Union] thought I’d compromised too much. I gave up everything we could’ve possibly given up, and Mr. Contreras said to me just before the meeting a couple days before, that ‘compromise is the way to go and that we’d all need to work

together to do this,’ and I feel I’ve done that for months,” Junior Caucus Director of Project Management Baird Johnson said.

Johnson and other members of the Student Union (SU) worked for over two years drafting the PSAL free proposal, which was pitched at the School Leadership Team (SLT) meeting on December 4. Parents, athletes, and P.E. teachers who attended had the opportunity to share their thoughts on the proposal.

After a heated three hours, the SLT voted on whether or not to continue the discussion at a later date by sectioning off a smaller sub-committee made of students, administrators, teachers, and parents. continued on page 2

Page 2

The Spectator ● December 19, 2018

News Legacy Places First at Reign or Shine Dance Competition continued from page 1 Senior Marvin Wong and junior Crystal Liu were also responsible for choreographing the piece along with Tau. “Love Me Now” holds a special meaning for the team. “The song is talking about a lover who he’s going to love right now but she’s eventually going to leave him. We made that into a metaphor and said that Legacy is something we have now and how we’re going to treasure the present before it’s going to be gone, before we graduate,” Liu said.

continued from page 1 When only seven out of the 17 voting participants voted in favor of continuing the PSAL free conversation, the meeting was finally adjourned. PSAL frees would not be discussed at SLT meetings for the rest of the year.

The PSAL free proposal would have allowed PSAL athletes to have a free period in place of a P.E. class. The proposal consists of two sub-proposals. The first, which is modeled after Bronx Science, would allow students that play at least one sport to have a free period during their season. They would still be programmed into a P.E. class, however, and would attend P.E. once their season ended.

The second sub-proposal, modeled after Brooklyn Technical High School, would apply to athletes in two consecutive seasons. They would be not be required to enroll in a P.E. class for the semester they were in season.

Though it was less inclusive, this sub-proposal had fewer logistical issues and was generally favored over the first proposal.

Junior and SU Vice President Vishwaa Sofat considered the second proposal to be “an effort to make compromise with administration and P.E. department athletic directors based off what we understood were their biggest concerns regarding programming and other logistical problems,” he said.

Both proposals would only be available to students who passed two semesters of P.E. in freshman year, meaning the proposal only applies to students in 10th grade and above. Additionally, athletes would have to pass the FitnessGram and sign an agreement with parents and coaches in order to be exempt from P.E. PSAL frees would be optional for athletes.

However, if students chose to have a free, they would have time to relax, do homework, or study for an upcoming test. “Student athletes spend a disproportionate amount of time out of school doing their extracurricular activities, which are both mentally and physically taxing. The idea of giving them 40 minutes a day, every other day, to do work, to do whatever type of housekeeping they can around the school is really appealing and somewhat necessary as a lot of student athletes indicated to us,” senior and SLT Representative and Chair Joshua Weiner said.

Sofat first began developing the PSAL free proposal during his freshman year, working alongside former SU President Tahseen Chowdhury (’18) and other SU members. “They called multiple high schools, and they looked at statistics, PSAL rules, New York City Department of Education rules. They really put a lot of time and effort into this proposal,” SU President William Wang said. “We had two to three years of research and work completed, and it is an 18-page proposal.”

PSAL frees have been pitched multiple times to the SLT. In fact, the SU presented PSAL frees at an

Legacy members followed an intense schedule practice, rehearsing two to three times a week for three hours at the Gibney dance studio, starting two months prior to the competition. As competition day neared, Legacy began to practice daily at Stuyvesant.

Sophomore Lucy Bao commented on her personal growth since joining Legacy, especially through balancing rigorous practices and schoolwork. “I think I’ve grown as a person. In terms of academics I’ve started managing my time better because I know practice is time-consuming so I don’t really

procrastinate as much,” Bao said.

Despite their hard work, Legacy members were disheartened after third and second place were announced because they did not think they had placed first.

Seconds later, Stuy Legacy was given the first place title, a shock to the team. “Every single one of us jumped up and we ran on the stage and everyone was just huddling together in a group around the trophy and jumping together and crying,” Bao said.

Liu agreed, recounting similar joyous emotions. “It was an adrenaline rush times 10,000 be-

cause we were at a competition with just college students, so they were all older than us,” Liu said.

Legacy’s recent win is meaningful to the team’s members, especially Tau, as this school year will be his last year dancing with Legacy. Tau joined Legacy in his freshman year after joining Stuy Squad, an annual student-run dance showcase. Since then, he attributes Legacy to “defin[ing] myself as a person these past few years,” he said.

Underclassmen like Bao also see the win as an opportunity for growth. “I hope that I get to

learn more about dance and life in general, and I’m really excited to see everyone grow together,” Bao said.

Looking forward, Tau’s aspirations for Legacy include expanding its name and for its current members to keep improving as dancers. Likewise, Wong hopes that the members of Legacy continue building their skills and enjoy their time on Legacy. “I want everybody to grow and become better dancers because that’s what Legacy’s all about. It’s about a group of friends dancing, just having fun,” he said.

PSAL Free Proposal Rejected by SLT

SLT meeting two years ago; however, the SLT did not make any decisions. “The scene wasn’t that different. The only difference was that this time you had a ring of P.E. teachers all around the room, and that day it was only Mr. Moran making his case,” Sofat said.

During this SLT meeting, a variety of students, teachers, and members of the administration had chances to present their ideas and concerns about the proposal. Three-season coach and P.E. teacher Vincent Miller strongly voiced his opinions during the meeting. “Each athlete is actually considered a ‘studentathlete’—academics always come first, physical education is a part of the academia, so that comes first before athletics,” he said.

Moran voiced a similar opinion. “There is a big difference between physical fitness, athletics, and physical education. I recognize that student-athletes commit a tremendous amount of time to their sport, but I don’t believe that we should [offset] that work load by taking away physical education and robbing students of a potentially life-long educational experience,” he said in an e-mail interview.

Though SU members are aware of the proposal’s drawbacks, they are still fighting for their voices to be heard. “P.E. teachers are definitely overlooked at Stuyvesant and across the city.

That’s a completely valid point,” Weiner said. “But as a representative of the students, [...] my interest is that if there are 100 to 200 students who need some sort of break in their week because they are under high amounts of stress, I am going to try to get it for them.”

Both Weiner and Sofat wish that they could have established better communication between them and the administration at the meeting. “We understand that no staff should be forced to [do] something that they don’t want to do. We understand that doesn’t really create the best environment within our P.E. classes. That’s not what we want. What we did want and do want is at least an effort from the P.E. department and others to understand where we’re coming from,” Sofat said.

However, SU members have also reflected that there were faults within their proposal. They received updated information about the Department of Education’s policy regarding the requirements for city P.E. curricula the night before the meeting. “We had to change up the entire proposal only because we were given the new policy from the city by Principal Contreras a day before the SLT meeting which really pushed us back. We spent all night and most of our school day trying to fix the proposal and trying to accommodate students, teachers, administration, and programming,” Wang said. “Unfortunately, we were harshly criticized at the SLT meeting because of that.”

Additionally, SLT members could not read the proposal prior to the meeting since lastminute changes had to be made

the day before. This easily led to miscommunication, as some issues and concerns brought up by SLT members were already addressed in the proposal.

According to Johnson, disagreement during the meeting stemmed from this lack of preparation. “Some of the objections at the SLT meeting showed they just had no knowledge of what was in it. Not only were they not willing to compromise, they were not willing to know what they were compromising about and that’s extremely disappointing,” he said.

During the meeting, SU members were taken aback by its unexpected direction. “We really expected it to be a productive environment where we would try to work out every detail as to how it would get done or at least set up a way to do that in the future,” Johnson said. “What we weren’t prepared for, and what I think [...] was the mistake on our part, was for the Stuyvesant administration to come in battling against us when we were woefully unprepared and unknowing that any type of battle would take place.”

SU members noted that some student athletes who attended the meeting did not fully represent the opinions of the student body. “In talking to Mr. Contreras, we agreed that in the spirit of compromise we shouldn’t have a bunch of athletes show up and discuss and argue for it, and then the P.E. teachers brought their own athletes to argue against it on bases that [had] nothing to do with the proposal, students [who] hadn’t read about it, students [who] hadn’t been involved with it, and students [who] are really unrepresentative of the student body, especially the athlete body,” Johnson said.

Many of the students who spoke against the implementation of PSAL frees attended the SLT meeting to support their coaches. “My entire experience as a Stuyvesant student has been as a three-sport athlete and because of that I’ve had a lot of interaction with the coaches and P.E. staff.

They have made me feel really safe and welcome here,” senior Talia Kirshenbaum said. “When I heard they felt disrespected by this policy and they felt that their profession wasn’t being appreciated, even if I don’t fully understand maybe their logic behind that, just hearing that that was what made them feel was reason enough for me to want to defend that.”

Instead of voting on whether or not to implement PSAL frees, the SLT voted on whether or not to continue the PSAL free discussion at a later date. “The vote was actually for whether we should continue to talk about it except in an outer committee specifically for PSAL frees or whether we should just abandon the topic throughout the entire school year,” Wang said.

“I was surprised that we even got seven votes because a lot people warped our words and our policy.”

There was still much up for discussion between teachers, administration, and students by the end of the meeting. Members of

Q: What is the PSAL? A: PSAL stands for Public School Athletic League, a group that promotes and organizes student athletics in all New York City public schools. It is the oldest, largest sports league in the United States, allocating on average $27 million to 45,000 student athletes across the city.

Q: What would PSAL frees mean for student athletes?

A: The PSAL free has the potential of taking on a number of iterations. The general idea, however, is that students who are officially registered as PSAL athletes would be exempt from attending physical education classes during their seasons. the SU were not in favor of the decision to call a vote, especially because there were questions still up in the air about the proposal. Three questions regarding the legitimacy and legality of the PSAL free proposal are still yet to be answered. “There are a lot of legal problems with the information that Contreras gave us.

The Department of Education is extremely vague,” Wang said.

Sofat believes that this lack of legal information ultimately weakened the PSAL free proposal. “We’ve never gotten a concrete response from legal, [...] but having these answers from legal are really crucial,” Sofat said.

“When you have three big questions that should change your outlook on this proposal unanswered, no committee should vote on a proposal this big.”

Members of the SU also reflected that they had put too much trust in the administration before pitching the proposal. “We had talked with the administration about the proposal, we had brought them drafts of this proposal, went over our arguments with them, and we had thought that for the most part, they were pretty on board with it. When it came down to vote, that didn’t pan out, which was a pretty big disappointment,” Weiner said.

Johnson said, “I think we were naïve in thinking that the Stuyvesant administration, because they say they are open to students, would be open to us and try and help us along in this and [make] something that works for everybody and they very much were not that way.”

Sofat expressed his disappointment towards the decision of the SLT meeting. “I was really sad, I’m not going to even lie.

The last two years this has been my baby, basically. It has been something I truly care about.

Seeing that as a community we weren’t even open to considering it, it didn’t make me think this was the Stuyvesant I knew, and I still don’t think it is,” he said.

It was not just SU members who disagreed with the decision to end the conversation. “It was clear that the students had prepared a lot for the meeting and

they had all their points lined up. It was very impressive, and I think, for them, they deserved the respect to have the conversation continue,” senior Ally Archer said.

Both administration and students noted that the PSAL free proposal touches upon a much larger issue where students are forced to choose either to succeed in school or to succeed within their extracurriculars. “The bigger picture here is that if it’s stress, and if it’s lack of sleep, I think that’s a schoolwide problem, not necessarily a P.E. problem. The fact that it falls on P.E., I don’t think is necessarily right. Maybe we should relook at our homework policy, maybe we should relook at other activities that also interfere with students’ sleep habits and their study habits,” Miller said. “It’s not just sports and P.E. that should be affected. I think that this is a schoolwide issue that maybe needs to be examined more closely.”

Members of the SU believe that the Stuyvesant community can start to resolve this issue by establishing better relationships between teachers and students. “We are definitely going to be trying to come up with a stronger and more overseeing homework policy,” Wang said. “We have talked with administration, especially Contreras, and I’ve talked to [Assistant Principal of Organization Dr. Gary] Haber as well; we are planning to try to create a committee between a bunch of teachers and a few students, and hopefully we will create [...] a program to help all teachers and students understand how homework is not supposed to take up more than half an hour to 45 minutes per class per night.”

Despite the drawbacks of the SLT decision, the SU will continue to pursue this proposal.

“The SLT is just one way, and has been the most traditional way of going about policy changes; however, that does not mean that there cannot be other subcommittees made for tackling this specific policy,” Sofat said.

“In the SLT, PSAL frees might not be brought up for the year.

But will PSAL frees still be something we work on? Absolutely.”

The Spectator â—? December 19, 2018

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The Spectator ● December 21, 2018

Features

By Susannah Ahn This year’s parent-teacher conferences (PTC) represented a chance for students and parents to reevaluate grades and set goals for future terms. With so many teachers and grades to discuss, the pressure on students was definitely a defining factor of the meetings. Sophomore Suhani Agrawal noticed this change. “I think in general terms, there does seem to be more pressure around PTC season due to the simple fact that you start to get the feeling of grades coming back as a whole, and for most kids, there’s a lot of added pressure from family. And just the general workload during the time increases,” she said.

She also stated that this pressure depends on the type of relationship students have with their family, and the certain expectations that are behind it. “I think it goes either one of two ways; for most students, pressure by parents is added during PTC season because parents have high expectations and sometimes

Exploring Student-Parent Relationships

don’t understand what a student is exactly going through, but for others, their family can either be carefree or just supportive in general,” she stated.

When asked about the type of relationship he has with his family, sophomore Bwohan Wang replied, “The relationship between me and my family is a positive one, since they are very supportive of my studies and my club activities. They also try to assist me as much as possible in any subjects or topics that I may struggle in.” He described his family as positive when it comes to school in general. His parents’ attitudes toward his grades are also on the more lenient side, as he mentions that he is given independence when it comes to schoolwork. “My relation between me and my father is not a very strict one since he trusts in my ability to be responsible and complete my work.”

He acknowledges the small sacrifices that his family makes to leave room for his schoolwork. “They also try to make life as easy as possible for me, letting

Ting Ting Chen / The Spectator

Here are Today’s Student Announcers

By Veronika Kowalski “Young Lo Lo” and “The Real J FaBreezy.” Name a more iconic duo.

Seniors William Lohier and Julianna Fabrizio stepped up to become the 2018 Fall term student announcers when their debate coach, Julie Sheinman, asked the team captains of Speech and Debate for volunteers. “[My decision] was kind of on a whim,” revealed Fabrizio, who is the captain of Policy. Lohier, who is the captain of Speech, was ready to dive in headfirst. Usually, becoming a student announcer entails a more formal process in which a series of candidates read a script on the intercom, but Lohier and Fabrizio felt they were up to the

task.

Lohier and Fabrizio started the next day and quickly began to adopt their own style. Toward the beginning of October, they told their first joke. “I don’t remember why we decided to tell the first joke,” Fabrizio admitted. “It was a Halloween-themed pun, which was turning the word “gulag” into “ghoul-ag.”

“It wasn’t a conscious thing,” she said.

“We just did it,” Lohier added. “And we just kept doing it.”

They brainstorm their jokes during their shared first and second periods. Sometimes, they plan them out ahead of time, listing them out on a sheet of paper.

Other times, they have to think of their jokes on the spot. continued on page 6

me concentrate on assignments and understanding that I may need to cancel previously made plans due to examinations,” he said.

These relationships vary, however. In an interview with another student, sophomore Claire Shin described her relationship with her mother as a sterner one.

“I feel like sometimes, I have to hide lots of things from my mom—things like grades, mostly, because personally, I’ve set the bar really high for my family because I got into Stuy,” she said.

Shin also acknowledged the expectations that she is faced with.

“In middle school I did well; my mom wants me to carry that on. I feel personally that sophomore year is harder than freshman year. Despite what a lot of people say, I find that I get a lot more work, and I have to work harder for grades that weren’t as good as last year,” she said. She summed up her explanation with a truthful note, admitting, “It’s just—not very good.”

Another sophomore, however, had a relationship that was

a fair medium between the two, describing not only her parents but how she puts pressure on herself. As Agrawal stated, “Personally, my parents support me in what I want to do, and when it comes to grades, there [are] definitely different expectations than [those from] middle school.

I’d say that for them, seeing me stay up late to work or study for tests shows that I’m trying.

They are very open to whatever I want to do, but right now, I feel like I don’t exactly know what I want to do, so I feel like I add more pressure on myself than my family does.” She observed the differences between students and parents as a whole. “Parents tend to plan for the future more and think on the line of ‘I want my child to become a doctor, or engineer, or lawyer, etc.,’ while for Stuyvesant students, it’s hard to plan ahead and easier to support each other and help each other with what we currently enjoy most,” she said. In the end, Agrawal views the connection between her and her family as a supportive one. “When it comes

to my family, they seem to be happy with whatever I currently enjoy most, and that’s the best thing I could ask for because I don’t like to plan ahead; I’m more of a go-with-the-flow person.”

The variations of these relationships can depend on the type of expectations your families may have for you as a Stuyvesant student. These expectations affect how students view their school lives and grades.

For some, having strict parents would mean having a more strict life with pressures to exceed high expectations. For others, having less strict families can affect their view of their life as a student in a less stressful way.

Despite the variations in these student-parent relationships and the differences each student has, it’s important to remember that grades and other school-based subjects should not control and dictate your relationship. It’s best to focus on working with your family to build that relationship up with strong foundations.

Willkommen Wincent Weiss!

By Laura Ilioaei German pop sensation Wincent Weiss performed in the Stuyvesant theater on the evening of December 6, 2018.

Prior to his appearance onstage, the auditorium was filled with anticipation and swarms of not only Stuyvesant students, but also students from other schools interested in attending the concert. Once he made his entrance, the audience’s eagerness dissolved into cheering screams as the air crackled with the energy that accompanies live performance music: the vibrations of drum beats that playfully beckon for you to bob your head to the beat, the ground-shaking bass that traverses throughout your limbs, and the vocals that pluck at your heartstrings.

Weiss is currently performing at various schools throughout North America that are involved in the “Schools: Partners For The Future” (PASCH) initiative set by the Goethe Institute, a nonprofit culture association dedicated to promoting study of the German language, awareness of German culture, and fostering of positive relationships and diplomacy between nations. Stuyvesant is a PASCH-involved school, and this concert has enabled students who don’t take German as a language to be exposed to it through the universal art of music.

“I hope this [concert] was an inspiration for everybody to learn German,” Weiss said. He hoped that if he were to perform at Stuyvesant again in the future, students would have a greater likelihood of singing along to his songs in full. This was not to say that the qualities of music that break language barriers were ignored.

“The best thing is that you see that just the music counts and just the melodies, and even if the guys don’t understand every word I’m singing in German, they all like dancing and loving,” Weiss said. “This is what makes me really happy: to see German music does this to people even if they don’t understand the lyr-

ics.”

Though he’s currently touring North America, Weiss had never envisioned international ambitions for his career.

“I never thought German music would go out of our country borders, so this is a really exciting experience for us,” Weiss said. “But I think I don’t want to be an international star, because one country is really enough for me. It’s really crazy; I’m not the guy who wanted to be in the middle [and who] everybody is crowded around, so one country’s really enough for me.” He chuckled and expressed the irony of his situation, for his growing popularity within his country has caused strangers to recognize and salute him in the street. However, Weiss still enjoys performing outside of Germany. “This is a nice experience for me,” he said.

At the same time, he’s also skeptical of the prospect of his music circulating throughout the globe despite selling out venues in Germany. “I will sing in German, so I think this will not cross the border of Germany,” Weiss said. “But let’s see; if the students like it and share it, maybe we can be here more of-

ten and play songs.” Little does he know that students have already been sharing clips of his performance on social media. Stuyvesant kids were particularly overjoyed when Weiss donned Stuyvesant apparel in the middle of the show. Despite becoming overheated, he chose to retain Stuyvesant’s spirit until after he went backstage postperformance.

Regardless of his unwarranted doubts, he has come far from his days of YouTube uploads of acoustic covers.

Thanks to the remixing of one of his covers, “Unter meiner Haut” (Under My Skin), by DJ duo Gestört aber GeiL, he gained recognition, and the song received a platinum certification by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI), Germany’s equivalent to the Recording Industry Association in America.

From there, he has continued to sing for a variety of audiences and will continue to do so for years to come. “The job is lovely. I love to sing,” Weiss said. “I hope to do this for many more years.”

And may he inspire those audiences, too.

The Spectator ● December 21, 2018

Page 5

Features

By Saad Ghaffouli and Ruth Lee Alfred Lin (’90) and Edwin Lin (’93) reminisce about their days at Stuyvesant and the struggles they overcame to get to where they are now: Partner at Sequoia Capital and Head of Global Fixed Income at Citadel, respectively. With their success, they donated $1 million to the Stuyvesant Alumni Association for a new robotics lab, which is predicted to open by the summer of 2019. Here, they express their enthusiasm for giving back to the supportive community of which they were once a part.

How would you describe your time at Stuyvesant? Are there any memorable experiences that stand out to you?

AL: Stuyvesant was very important to my development.

My parents were very focused on Edwin and me being good at math and science. Going to Stuyvesant was rewarding and intimidating at the same time.

In elementary or junior high school, it was easy to be at the top of my class, but at Stuyvesant, the competition was more intense. The most impactful experience I had was being on the math team. Being somewhat of a nerd and not very athletic, it was my first time being valued both as an individual contributor and a team member. Edwin

Alfred and Edwin Lin: The Million Dollar Contributors to the Robotics Team and I actually both became math team captains, and that was one of the more emotionally shaping experiences during my time at Stuyvesant.

EL: I can’t agree with Alfred more. Stuyvesant was my first introduction to meeting people who were equally driven. When you walked through the doors of 345 Chambers Street, it was not only intimidating but also rewarding. The powerful combination of collaboration and friendly competition was instrumental in my early development. Both Alfred and I went on to attend Harvard, and our experiences at Stuyvesant made our adjustment to college as well as to the workforce considerably easier. My most memorable experiences were similar to Alfred’s: being captain of the math team, attending math competitions for the school, city, and state, and thinking about how to solve problems.

AL: The caliber of excellence we encountered at Stuyvesant was unlike anything we had ever seen before. In some ways, Stuyvesant was more rigorous than Harvard and ended up shaping my character and ambition. Even traveling to Stuyvesant was an endeavor. We lived in Queens, and to get to school on time, we left the house before the sun came up every day—we took the railroad to the subway and then had to transfer to another subway line. We would often stay late for after-school

Here are Today’s Student Announcers continued from page 5

While Lohier has third period free to do the announcements, Fabrizio has to sacrifice a few minutes of her AP Psychology class.

When Fabrizio has exams in Psychology, Lohier must recite the announcements himself. His jokes, it follows, are also performed solo.

“Hey Will, you wanna hear a bad joke?” he says. “I don’t know, Will, do I?” Fabrizio and Lohier often receive complaints about their crackups. Though they initially did not plan to make jokes as a daily part of their routine, they were “egged on” by the number of people who told them to step up their game.

“At a certain point, we would just kind of accept it. We were like, ‘You know what, we’re going to try and go for the record of most complaints,’” Fabrizio conceded.

“We’ve gotten so many,” Lohier agreed. “I think we’re up to 20.”

While Fabrizio receives many groans and grimaces from her current teachers, she still garners appreciation from the school’s staff. “[Secretaries] Bonnie and Donna are always cackling with us,” Lohier said. “They’re the nicest people. They’re always, like, a-ki-ki-ing with us.”

“Mr. Moran laughs sometimes,” Fabrizio commented. “Mr. Wisotsky loves them. Ms. Weissman loves them.” And so do biology teacher Marianne Prabhu, social studies teacher Ellen Siegel, and computer science teacher Samuel Konstantinovich.

In Fabrizio’s opinion, the best joke of the year has been one of the Thanksgiving specials. “Why does a turkey lay an egg?” she asked. “Because if it dropped it, it would break!”

Lohier also has a personal favorite. “I was so proud of myself for coming up with a joke about chili beans,” he expressed. “Why are beans in the North Pole so spicy?

Because they’re chilly beans!”

Jokes aside, Lohier and Fabrizio have made some other changes to the morning announcers’ repertoire. “A lot of people have commented on how instead of saying, ‘Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance,’ we say, ‘Please rise if you wish to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.’ It wasn’t a conscious decision. It was something that just happened. I didn’t remember what to say once,” Lohier admitted. The Student Union sent him an e-mail encouraging him to maintain this wording.

Lohier and Fabrizio look up to previous Student Announcers Rishika Jikaria and Sam Schneiderman (’15), who began the tradition of personalizing the announcements. Jikaria had a memorable way of signing off the mic.

She was a role model for Lohier and Fabrizio in other ways, too, being Lohier’s team captain for Speech and Fabrizio’s Big Sib. As for advice for future announcers, Fabrizio conjectured, “Be yourself. Don’t let the haters get to you.”

“In fact, let the haters spur you on to be even worse than you already are,” Lohier concluded.

activities and take the reverse route back. The commute and our different commitments made us disciplined and forced us to use our time wisely.

How were you involved with the Stuyvesant Robotics Team, if at all?

EL: Neither of us were specifically involved with the Robotics team when we attended Stuyvesant—it was maybe in its nascent stages in the early ‘90s. But on my last visit to the school, Principal Eric Contreras described the many pressing needs of the school. He showed me videos of the robotics team and gave me a tour of the current lab. At that time, the coach and a few students were there, all of whom were working on their machines. They eagerly showed me their many first place medals from competitions and demonstrated their current project work. The team also mentioned that they sometimes were forced to work in the hallways. It became clear that the current lab and resources did not satisfy their needs. After my visit, I called Alfred and said we should really do something for Stuyvesant. We called Principal Contreras the next day and informed him that we wanted to fund a new robotics lab.

AL: There were multiple reasons for our gift. One of them was that we wanted to honor our parents. They emigrated

from Taiwan and when we first moved here, we were temporarily poor. But they taught us that anything is possible. Stuyvesant was a very important time in both Edwin’s and my life, and we both had the desire to give back. When we were at Stuyvesant, the robotics team was not fully developed yet. But in San Francisco, I’ve seen many companies investing in robotics. I believe this new lab can have a tremendous impact if it harnesses the creative energy of students who are interested and passionate about the field.

EL: When I was at Stuyvesant, I attended many city, state, and national competitions with the math team and never had to pay for administration fees, travel costs, or lodging. These days, I hear many Stuyvesant students can’t afford to attend the competitions that they have worked so hard to qualify for because their families do not have the financial means to do so. How can that be right for society? Being able to provide resources for these deserving students was an important part of why we got involved.

AL: To Edwin’s point, Stuyvesant had a profound impact on our lives. Our experiences there gave us the confidence to believe that we can do anything in the world if we only work hard enough. We wanted to give back to Stuyvesant and provide an enriching experience for today’s students

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so that they will look to their future with the same optimism and confidence we had.

What do you hope this new lab will bring to the student body?

EL: What is most important is for students who have interest or a curiosity in robotics to be able to explore the field. It’s not necessarily important to immediately excel at it. Life’s journey affords everyone ample time to determine their true passion. If this lab can make just one student more interested in robotics and that interest develops into a significant contribution to the world, we’ve succeeded.

AL: We hope the lab will accomplish two goals. One is to open people’s eyes to what is possible. Even if the students do not pursue robotics as a career path in the future, being surrounded by others who are passionate and discovering what is possible with technology can be incredibly useful. It is valuable to be able to envision a future that is different from today. The second goal is to allow students who are very interested in robotics to learn more about their passion so that they can continue pursuing robotics in college or graduate school. And hopefully one day, they will build or create companies that change the future of our lives.

Page 6

The Spectator ● Decemeber 21, 2018

Editorials Staff Editorial

For more detailed coverage of this issue, see pages 1 and 23.

The average day of a Stuyvesant student-athlete looks something like this: she attends a three-hour practice every day, leaving school after dark and arriving home at eight.

Sweaty, hungry, and exhausted, she starts her homework in preparation for the next day’s classes. Assuming the student is taking only the minimum six academic classes—not including any APs—and that her teachers adhere to the homework policy (30 minutes of homework per class), she has three hours of homework. Accounting for an hour to eat and bathe, she goes to bed at midnight at the earliest. She wakes up at six the next morning to make it to her first period class.

The push by the Student Union (SU) to grant PSAL athletes gym frees, which are intended to lessen some of this burden at home, was recently shut down by the School Leadership Team (SLT). SLT members and physical education (P.E.) teachers cited logistical issues. Additionally, they said that the PSAL free proposal was disrespectful toward the P.E. department, and that P.E. classes teach life skills and fitness habits. In a vote divided between staff and students, staff resolved to cease all discussion on the issue. They suggested that if students found it difficult to balance academics and athletics, they should simply quit the latter.

This issue calls us to introspect: Are we students first? According to the administration, we are students first, to the extent that we should sacrifice our identities or our mental health to prioritize academics.

According to the student body, we understand that our lives outside of the classroom are often more important in defining who we are and how we decide our time.

Here’s the thing—the administration seems to be conveniently forgetting what they boast about Stuyvesant students, which is that we are talented and dedicated inside and outside of the classroom.

Every fall and spring, students and

Students First? administration alike highlight the fact that Stuyvesant students excel in academics AND athletics, debate, writing, and the arts. The new “just quit if you can’t handle it” response blatantly negates the image of Stuyvesant as an environment that fosters the well-roundedness we project.

The decision to shut down the PSAL proposal, then, has much greater implications. It indicates to us that administrative support for student mental health is shallow.

Athletes are certainly not the only subgroup of students who could benefit from an extra 41 minutes every other day in order to complete their schoolwork. All students deserve to feel that the administration supports their efforts in balancing their academic and extracurricular endeavors, and to hear that the school would rather have its students quit their activities accommodate them is discouraging.

Stuyvesant’s biannual Open Houses flaunt the school’s 32 teams and 122 clubs. However, providing these opportunities for students to involve themselves in their school community is meaningless without institutional support for academic-extracurricular balance. If Stuyvesant is going to have all these non-academic activities, the administration should assume that students will participate and venture in these different interests, and should aim to accommodate them.

The administration’s cheapening stance towards the SU is just another example of a lack of practical respect for student activities—it is the job of SU leaders to propose policies that will benefit the student body, and considering the amount of work put into the proposal (two years of work, culminating in an official proposal that addressed logistical concerns), the outrage of student representatives over the SLT decision is understandable. For the adults in this building to dismiss their efforts is unacceptable.

There is, as a rule, a lack of compromise between the student body and administration. Principal

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Contreras claims to seek out solutions that work for all sides of the Stuyvesant community, but when it came to an issue unpopular with the staff, he backed a complete shutdown of the student body. According to Contreras, he left the option to continue discussion up to a vote because he cares about running the school democratically, but the committee that voted on this issue vastly overrepresented teachers and staff.

Out of 17 members, only three of them were students.

The PSAL issue is a question of where the school’s priorities lie.

We are talking about the mental and physical health of 160 students compared to the personal offense of 12 physical education teachers.

As the leader of the SLT, Principal Eric Contreras has the power to reopen the conversation on PSAL frees and overrule the board’s decision. If his goals are truly to fairly represent the constituents of the Stuyvesant community, to protect the mental and physical health of his students, and to encourage well-rounded students, he should reopen the question of PSAL frees in a committee that fairly represents student athletes, coaches, and P.E. teachers. The goal is a fair compromise, not a shutdown.

The following proposal for a new solution to the PSAL issue is sourced from coaches and student athletes in collaboration: As of now, Students can submit ZQT10 forms to get a 10th period P.E. class for athletes to begin their practice early. In this plan, instead of replacing P.E. classes with a free, student athletes could be programmed into a tenth period gym class taught by a coach, who would take them to the pier for practice or run their workouts in school. Athletes would be able to gain another free during the day while still being enrolled in and attending a P.E. class.

Additional propositions for compromise are to extend this option only to upperclassmen and athletes who play two or more seasons.

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

E DITOR S I N C HIEF

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By Jonathan Schneiderman *Minor spoilers for Mad Men follow.* The Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, having invaded Palestine, attempted to wipe out the culture of the indigenous Israelites in 167 BCE. He outlawed traditional sacrifice and the observance of Shabbat, installing idols and sacrificing pigs—the archetypal unkosher animal—in their Temple.

The Israelites, however, were having none of this, so they rose up against the Seleucid Empire under the leadership of Judah Maccabee, a leader whose bravery was matched only by his keen military skill. Thanks to Judah’s leadership, they managed to throw off Antiochus’s Hellenistic shackles and preserve Jewish (or at least protoJewish) culture against the forces of imperialism.

So goes the narrative of the Books of Maccabees, and while modern historians largely view the Maccabean Revolt as more of a civil war with Seleucid intervention than an anti-Seleucid revolt, that is the version of events that has

describes them going around the land of Israel and circumcising all the babies they could find (To be clear, the problem here is not the circumcision in itself. Circumcising one’s own baby is fine. Going around and circumcising others’ babies en masse is absolutely not).

Today, we might describe such fighters in the same general region of the world as terrorists. And after winning the war, they established a hereditary monarchy, which was against contemporary Jewish law.

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The rabbis invented the famous miracle of the oil so they’d have a reason aside from the Maccabees to celebrate Chanukkah.

That the Maccabees broke Jewish law to seize power in the wake of their victory is important even if one doesn’t particularly care about Jewish law in itself. Jewish law, like all laws, is a representation of Jewish morals. The Maccabees, having just fought a war ostensibly to preserve Jewish culture, immediately uprooted it. And their dynasty, the Hasmonean dynasty, was full of kings with names like John Hyrcanus and Aristobulus―names that, if they were any more Greek,

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Rec o r d

The authors of Stuyvesant Hosts Third Annual Pep Rally, published in News, Issue 6, Volume 109, are Evelyn Ma, Ruth Lee, and Emma Donnelly

Eight Nights of Confusion

remained dominant in the Jewish conscience: the Maccabean Revolt as a victory of Jewish uniqueness over assimilationism.

Every year near mid-December, Jews around the world celebrate this triumph over assimilationism by participating fervently in the American “holiday season,” complete with Chanukkah songs at annual school holiday concerts right alongside “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and unwrapping presents à la Christmas.

Herein lies the central contradiction of Chanukkah as it exists today: the holiday centered around our victory over the people who tried to make us assimilate has turned into a performance of Christmas. Modern-day Jews, then, have a lot to reconcile. How do we justify the opening of presents―a custom which has its roots in Old World Jewish practice, but whose form today is very much a Christmas imitation―as we tell the story of the Maccabees and their fight to keep Judaism unique?

To be clear, the issue here is not that Chanukkah has changed; it’s the nature of cultural practices that’s changed, and that’s fine. Nor is there anything inherently wrong with gifts. The issue is that the most significant aspect of modern-day Chanukkah practice is a direct attempt to mimic Christmas.

That might not be a bad thing, but it would seem to run against Chanukkah’s strongly anti-assimilationist core.

One way we could do it is by questioning the foundations of the holiday and in particular the Maccabees, altogether. The Maccabees were extremist zealots. They killed almost as many Jews whom they deemed too Hellenistic as Seleucid soldiers, and Maccabees One

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would be wrestling naked while smeared with body oil. Chanukkah can be a valuable opportunity to both challenge what are ostensiblythe fundamental ideas of the holiday―“Were they right to fight violently against assimilation or is what we’re doing here fine?”―and discuss how ambitious people can take advantage of cultural anxiety to seize power and elevate themselves.

But, though we should absolutely ask those questions, it would be a big mistake to make Chanukkah into a contrarian anti-Maccabee rampage. Questioning the values and revered figures of one’s culture is important, but there’s little value in just tearing them down.

Instead, Chanukkah can be a constructive and nuanced holiday. Jewish families should use Chanukkah not to elevate or condemn the Maccabees or their ideas, but as a way to start conversations about the questions Chanukkah raises, namely: Do we compromise our Judaism with Chanukkah gift-giving?

These questions have resonance far beyond Chanukkah, particularly for diaspora Jews. For Jews in America, assimilation was a way to be safe and to be able to exist in society. The television drama “Mad Men,” which takes place during the 1960s, does a good job of depicting the progression of Jews in American society, from Rachel Menken, who in the first episode is an Other whom the series’ characters treat with belittlement and distance, to Michael Ginsberg, whose wry, cynical, Jon Stewart-esque personality is a welcome presence in the offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. But Ginsburg

doesn’t just achieve this status out of nowhere; his legal first name is Moshe, and he was born in a Nazi concentration camp.

Ginsburg, and Jews in America generally, would not have achieved the relatively accepted status Jews have today were it not for their assimilatory efforts, and if there’s one lesson of Jewish history, it’s that status is a very precious thing indeed. But Chanukkah can provide an opportunity for Jews to self-reflect and ask ourselves where the line is between assimilation and cultural self-destruction.

I do not know what a discussion-based Chanukkah would look like for every Jewish family; it is neither my place nor my wish to dictate the practices of the global Jewish community. But for me and my family, it looks like talking―a word which here means “arguing”― about the place of the Maccabees at dinner and at the Chanukkiah and ultimately deciding to replace giving presents on Chanukkah with giving presents on Purim, another Jewish holiday—which we plan to begin doing next year.

At Stuyvesant, it means making a Chanukah decoration for my genetics class’s holiday decoration assignment and badly changing the lyrics of “All I Want for Christmas is You” at the Big Sib-Little Sib dance, which I definitely did not sneak into.

But at the end of the day, what I really care about is that other Jews recognize and talk about the contradiction in Chanukkah—not how they put that into practice.

The contradiction need not ruin the holiday―Jews are no stranger to contradiction and irony, and we can embrace it. But the critically aware practice of Judaism, no matter how it manifests itself, is something which I care greatly about.

The Spectator ● December 21, 2018

Page 7

Opinions Teaching Teachers

By Kaylee Yin

High school graduation rates in the United States are at an alltime high, with more than four out of five high school students receiving a diploma within four years, according to the Washington Post.

Despite this progress, graduation rates still have not met their full potential. The U.S. News & World Report found that 11 states across the country have no high schools with 100 percent graduation rates. And for students of particular racial backgrounds, graduation rates continue to lag behind the national average. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Hispanic students in public high schools graduate at a rate of 79 percent while black students have a graduation rate of only 76 percent.

When juxtaposed with the graduation rates of white and Asian students, who have a national average of 88 and 91 percent respectively, these numbers are especially striking.

In order to bridge this gap

between graduation rates, the country’s initial focus should not be on getting rid of “unsuccessful” teachers, but rather on finding what makes them unsuccessful at instruction.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) envisioned a solution to resolve this issue and mainly focused on improving the staggering graduation rates of black, Hispanic, and lowincome students. The foundation began an initiative in 2009 to observe teachers’ classroom performances and their students’ exam results. Teachers whose students scored exceptionally well would receive bonuses and advance to higher positions. Over a period of five years, the foundation spent over $200 million testing this tactic in seven schools.

Meanwhile, the John Muir Elementary School in San Francisco decided to take a different approach. The math department at the school developed a method in which teachers found topics their students were struggling in by holding classes that focused on faculty coaching and intensive teamwork. The teachers would then create lessons based specifically on topics that students struggled with.

Based on the results of each respective technique, the BMGF initiative proved to be ineffective.

The outcome showed that neither test scores nor the dropout rates for the schools where the foundation’s strategy took place in were any better than schools that hadn’t taken part in the experiment. On the other hand, the percentage of the students at John Muir—who are mainly poor African Americans and Latinos, with one-fifth of them being homeless—who passed the math statewide exam more than

doubled. In only three years, the number of passing students increased from 15 percent to 35 percent.

Ultimately, the Gates’s attempted initiative demonstrates a huge flaw with the U.S. education system. If the country wants to obtain higher graduation rates, lower dropout rates, and ideal exam scores, then it needs to focus on how to improve the quality of teaching. Throwing money at schools is not enough.

The No Child Left Behind ruling created guidelines that holds schools accountable for students’ scores on state tests.

Through this federal legislation, schools can be shut down if they are deemed ineffective. The main issue with the ruling is that teachers are instantly at fault for producing such low test outcomes.

However, the reason for why some teachers aren’t successful in instructing students is because the education system chooses to evaluate them solely based on test scores achieved by their students. By doing this, the real issue of students actually obtaining low exam scores in the first place is ignored. The focus becomes placed on teachers, who are criticized for their poor teaching.

In order to solve this problem, the country needs to work on how to improve these exam scores and not on immediately blame teachers. There needs to be greater emphasis placed on demonstrating methods for teachers to effectively educate their students. That way, both the quality of teachers in schools and test results are improved.

The solution to this is stronger professional development.

Professional development should not just be about exposing teachers to a single concept

in a one-time workshop or giving them basic knowledge on an ideal technique. Rather, it has to be about truly altering traditional practices and coaching teachers on how to implement new ways of teaching.

Over 90 percent of the country’s teachers take workshopstyle training sessions. Though these teachers may be learning valuable tactics, they often have trouble actually incorporating these techniques in their lessons.

According to the Assistant Principal of Social Studies Jennifer Suri, teachers across Stuyvesant have to go to professional development three Wednesdays a month during their free period.

On top of these sessions, teachers also have monthly meetings depending on the department they teach. These meetings typically range in topics that are discussed. “For example, last month [during] the Social Studies department meeting, Dr. Polanco presented on how she uses Plickers for formative assessment. […] A lot of times, that’s what [the departments] will do. They’ll share something that they did in the classroom,” Suri said.

However, when asked about whether professional development makes a difference in the way teachers actually execute their lessons, Suri replied, “I think sometimes. It’s not always.”

Continuous practice is the only way to ensure that new teaching strategies can persevere in learning environments. Merely explaining a skill to teachers makes it so that only 10 percent of them can incorporate what they’ve learned in practice, as reported by the Center for Public Education. However, by instructing teachers step by step on how to implement proper ways

Democracy’s Retreat in Eastern Europe

By Michael Dekhtyar Sebastian Kurz, Chancellor of Austria. Andrzej Duda, President of Poland. Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary. These men are among the most powerful and recognizable figureheads of Eastern Europe’s revolt against liberal and social democracy. Their ruling political parties, like Poland’s PiS (Law and Justice) and Fidesz in Hungary, remain a constant thorn in the European Union’s (EU) side for their relentless crusades against Brussels politicians, who are portrayed as distant, uncaring bureaucrats out to trample over the rights of smaller continental nations. Exploiting the effects of the 2015 migrant crisis on Germany and France, leaders like Orban and Duda have done great damage to the EU’s attempts at negotiating a universal agreement on refugees and on the whole can be seen as symptoms of an antidemocratic plague rapidly spreading across Europe.

Red, white, and undemocratic

In Poland, the rejection of democracy has manifested itself in a constitutional crisis between the ruling government and the supposedly independent judiciary.

PiS’s passage of a law mandating that Supreme Court justices above a certain age retire was intended to force the resignation of around two-thirds of the presiding justices, including its president, Malgorzata Gersdorf. And since the government has the power to nominate new justices, the “purge” of the country’s top judges would have shattered the legal and political independence that the judiciary enjoys.

However, a ruling by the Court of Justice—the highest judicial body in Europe—ordered the Polish government to reverse the law and end its assault on the Supreme Court’s autonomy. Top PiS officials have avowed their intent to disregard the court ruling and continue with their attacks on the judiciary. Protests have erupted time after time against the government’s actions, but they seem to have no effect on President Duda and his cabinet.

But perhaps the most significant gesture of defiance is the simple fact that Ms. Gersdorf still shows up for work.

Orban legend Poland’s constitutional crisis is just one expression of the struggles that liberal democratic values have faced in Eastern Europe. All over the region, populist leaders invoke fears of migrant hordes waiting outside their nations’ borders and of out-of-touch EU bureaucrats doing everything in their power to trample over the rights of smaller countries. The most prominent example of such demagoguery is Hungary’s Viktor

Orban. One of the most influential politicians in Europe’s array of right-wing parties, Orban has served as the main opposition to the mainstream Brussels establishment.

His party, Fidesz, was initially founded in the late 1980s as a youth movement to oppose the Soviet domination of Hungary, aiming to fight against the puppet government that the Russians had installed. During these early forays into politics, Orban distinguished himself as one of the leading anti-communist figures in Europe. For a time, his willingness to work with western liberal democracies and his promotion of free-market capitalism helped to assure the world that after the breakup of the Soviet Union, authoritarianism, along with nationalist rhetoric, was on its way out.

Considering this, Viktor Orban’s conversion from pro-democracy celebrity politician to hardline national conservative has been nothing short of astonishing. His recent attacks on migrants and promotion of nationalist rhetoric have confirmed that Orban’s rigid ideology represents a genuine opposition to large-scale European unity. The 2015 migrant crisis predominantly affected France, Germany, and Italy, but its negative effects were cleverly utilized by Orban to demonstrate the weaknesses of liberal democracy.

The way forward The EU must show that it is willing and able to uphold its mission of supporting open, free, and democratic governments across the continent. Sanctions against member nations would do far more harm than good; Brussels must not risk the offending

countries leaving the union. Neither would forcing a universal refugee policy on Europe work, as the political ramifications of such attempts have shown. Calls for a “true European army”—as Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, the leaders of France and Germany respectively, put it— serve only to increase fears and speculation about the importance of the voices of smaller countries in the union’s policies. The EU was founded to end conflict between nations, and the only way to achieve this is to lessen the influence of larger countries over policies that affect all of Europe.

The solution to this widespread disillusion among weaker countries is to bring more of them to the negotiating table.

Politicians like Duda and Orban were able to gain such widespread support for their Euroscepticism because of the unwillingness of the EU itself to bring in weaker countries to work out viable compromises on key issues, like the modern economic crises in Italy and Greece. The 2015 refugee controversy captured the international media’s attention for months for two main reasons.

One was the sheer scale of the situation: hundreds of thousands of displaced persons arriving on European lands all at once greatly strained the infrastructure of the affected nations. The second and more significant reason was the seemingly unending inaction on the part of the EU to find a solution to the crisis. France and Germany essentially attempted to strong-arm smaller nations into adopting their migration policies by opening their borders to refugees. This led to great diplomatic pushback, particularly in Eastern Europe, as traditionally conser-

of teaching in their daily classes, approximately 85 percent more teachers can actually transfer the skill. In order to do this, studies suggest that successful professional development programs would require anywhere between 50 and 80 hours of coaching.

Though restructuring professional development so that it is beneficial may seem expensive, the largest cost is actually teachers’ time.

Organizing professional development for a positive impact on student development simply requires a restructuring in funds to pay for teachers and coaches.

During the 1990s, Manhattan’s District 2 changed the way it provided professional development to great avail. In the end, the district got rid of one-time workshops and did not have to spend millions of dollars in the process.

The only problem left was how much time teachers were actually willing to spend on frequently taking workshops on top of their already hectic schedules. In many districts, the time spent would have to be part of the contract and possibly even compensated.

Such compensation may include providing a stipend that pays at a different rate than regular school hours and lowering the teaching load of teachers by increasing the number of staff members.

Ultimately, altering the education system so that it focuses more on effective instruction proves to be useful in the long run. Students will become more immersed in what they are being taught and recognize their weaknesses as a result of more in-depth learning. In addition, teachers will in turn be recognized as more adequate instructors, and they will yield better exam results.

vative governments denounced the pressures to open their borders as an attack on their national sovereign rights. As Viktor Orban himself put it, “You wanted the migrants; we didn’t.” Leaders of resisting governments encouraged the other countries of Europe to resist the changes. Their rhetoric worked: Austria declared its borders closed to migrants in 2017.

The European Union is now in the most danger it has been since the Schengen Area nearly ripped itself apart during the euro crisis of 2009. Germany and France can no longer assume that the union’s member nations will always follow their lead. They must ensure that each step of the process—along with healing diplomatic ties and resolving conflicts over policy—is democratic, stable, and reasonable. Dismissing Orban and his allies as rightwing upstarts to be voted out of office come next election is no longer a viable view. Instead, European countries must work out common economic, social, and political goals that they can each take steps to achieve.

Organizing more and larger summits among all European nations would ensure that every government has a voice in continental politics and would also have the effect of pacifying rebellious member nations. This might lead to a detente between Brussels and the various Eurosceptic governments of Eastern Europe and increase economic and political cooperation among the EU countries. The dominance of Western and Central European nations over EU policy must end in order to resolve the tension with Eastern Europe.

Page 8

The Spectator ● December 21, 2018

Opinions Political Chaos in Sri Lanka Threatens Post-Civil War Stability

By Julian Giordano

the war, but with a brutal use of force against Tamil forces and civilians alike. He’s been accused by the United Nations (UN) of war crimes related to denying humanitarian aid, attacking civilians, and refusing to cooperate with international investigations. After the war, he was linked to the deaths of journalists investigating him and his war crimes. This resulted in a dip in popularity that prevented him from being re-elected and instead allowed Sirisena, a former member of Rajapaksa’s cabinet, to take advantage of the situation by running for president. In his campaign and first year of office, Sirisena gave hope for a Sri Lankan partnership with the UN, as well as a crackdown on corruption and an investigation of war crimes. But in his past three years in office, very little has been accomplished, partially due to a deteriorating relationship with Wickremesinghe. In bringing back Rajapaksa as Prime Minister, there are many worries that the government is turning back the clock to Rajapaksa’s former presidency. If he ends up being appointed as Prime Minister in January, Rajapaksa will likely steal much of the power from Sirisena and achieve de facto control over Sri Lanka.

The potential for Rajapaksa’s resurgence to power is one of the major reasons why the U.S., among other countries, is condemning this democratic crisis. In a statement, the U.S. State Department said, “The U.S. is deeply concerned by news the Sri Lanka Parliament will be dissolved, further deepening the political crisis. As a committed partner of Sri Lanka, we believe democratic institutions and processes need to be respected to ensure stability and prosperity.”

Other countries such as China are supporting Rajapaksa because they have been allies with him in the past. China specifically profited from Rajapaksa’s leadership, which

Joyce Liao / The Spectator

Barely a decade after the end of a 25-year civil war, Sri Lanka is again facing a political crisis, with two prime ministers claiming power and the government being divided. The chaos began on October 26 of this year, when Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena unseated Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe—later claiming that one of Wickremesinghe’s cabinet ministers had been plotting his assassination.

In a hurried and contested snap-election, former President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa was appointed the new Prime Minister.

Rajapaksa is credited with ending the country’s bloody civil war, but also faces numerous accusations of human rights abuses and war crimes. While Rajapaksa asserts that he has popular support and a majority in Parliament, Wickremesinghe still claims to be Prime Minister (even changing the Prime Minister’s website to display a picture of him with text saying “I’m still the Prime Minister”), leaving the country divided between Wickremesinghe’s and Rajapaksa’s supporters. The two groups have been protesting outside the Parliament

building and causing unrest and violence within it, with opposing parties throwing chairs, books, and chili paste at each other.

The situation surrounding the replacement of the Prime Minister is incredibly suspicious and can appear coup-like because of the lack of democratic process surrounding it. When Rajapaksa was appointed, President Sirisena suspended Parliament—possibly to strong-arm votes for Rajapaksa— and after intense criticism, promised to reassemble Parliament on November 14 to allow a clear vote.

But less than a week before the set date, Sirisena reneged on his promise, redissolved Parliament, and called for snap-elections in January. In response, Sri Lanka’s highest court allowed Parliament to reconvene on November 14, and Parliament ended up rejecting Rajapaksa as Prime Minister with a no-confidence vote. Two days later, another no-confidence vote was held in which Parliament once again rejected Rajapaksa. Despite this, President Sirisena is standing

by Rajapaksa as Prime Minister, and Wickremesinghe has remained in Temple Trees, the official residence of the Prime Minister.

While political power remains divided within the country, the Parliament is still overwhelmingly opposed to Rajapaksa and as a result, voted on November 29 to suspend the Prime Minister’s budget. This will likely be one of a series of actions taken by the opposing forces of Sirisena and his Parliament to seek dominance over the government until the newly scheduled election on January 5.

In the meantime, this conflict will only further exasperate the divides between Sri Lanka’s Buddhist Sinhalese majority and Tamil Hindu minority, two ethnic groups whose historical conflicts originally led to a bloody 25-year civil war between 1983 and 2009. Rajapaksa was credited with ending

helped establish a Chinese port and airport in Sri Lanka and left Sri Lanka heavily in debt. India, on the other hand, the other major geopolitical force in the region, supports Wickremesinghe due to his past attempts to establish closer relations between their two nations. Because Sri Lanka is a small island country often affected by the geopolitics of the countries around it (notably the China-India rivalry), it is likely that the outcome of the political crisis in Sri Lanka will both affect and be affected by the nations around it.

Deal or No Deal

By Brian Moses British Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50 of the European Union (EU) Constitution on March 29, 2017 based on the results of an earlier referendum, whereby the UK would formally leave the EU within two years. Just a few weeks ago, she struck a Brexit deal with the EU Parliament outlining the UK’s conditions for leaving the EU. It addresses several important issues, including legal protections for UK citizens living in the EU and EU citizens living in the UK and along the shared border with Ireland.

Being a member of the EU allows people from all member nations to travel between countries and gain the right to live and work therein. After Britain leaves, the status of four million people will be thrown into question.

The deal also stipulates that Britain will temporarily stay inside of the EU customs union (free trade zone) to avoid a “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland (Northern Ireland is politically a part of Britain). This is important because

the economies of Ireland and North Ireland are integrated, and the border has historically been a point of tension; for decades, Britain has fought against a terrorist insurgency operating within Northern Ireland, whose goal was for Northern Ireland to defect to Ireland. This part of the deal ensures that violence will not flare up in the region again. Finally, the UK agrees to pay $39 billion to the EU to satisfy contracts— which were made prior to voting—and leave the EU. This includes aggreing to pay into the budget and various other programs.

The bill does have its flaws, mainly in its vagueness about the future trade relationship between Britain and the EU. Leaders from both the Labour (Liberal) Party and May’s Conservative Party attacked the bill fiercely.

Labour’s head, Jeremy Corbyn, attacked the deal as being “failed and miserable” and “the worst of all worlds.” Corbyn, who has long favored a closer relationship with the EU after Brexit, accused May of surrendering the country’s sovereignty to the EU without gaining the trade and other benefits that come with being a member nation. Eurosceptic “brexiteers” expressed similar sentiments, with pro-Brexit leader Nigel Farage describing it as “the worst deal in history.” The present outrage at May’s deal really stems from a gross overestimation of the kind of deal that Britain would be able to get with the EU when leaving.

The EU always had more bar-

gaining power than the UK in negotiations because of its greater economic power. Over half of Britain’s import and export trade is with EU nations, but under 10 percent of EU imports and exports are with Britain. Despite claims that the EU relies on the UK’s $11 billion net contributions to its $100 billion budget, Britain’s contribution only represents 0.07 percent of the remaining 27 members’ GDP, and the shortfall could likely be made up without significant changes.

Susu Tran / The Spectator

In spite of this, May’s bill is very unlikely to pass in the British Parliament. And with only 18 weeks left in the 104-week transition period, there is no time to negotiate a new deal (even if there were, it likely would not get better for Britain).

That leaves many pro-Brexit ministers now suggesting a “nodeal” exit: leaving the EU without negotiating any deal. However, this would have detrimental long-term and catastrophic short-term consequences. A study by a UK-based think tank claimed that air travel

could grind to a halt, manufacturers could run out of parts, and there could even be food shortages in the short term. In the Longterm consequences would also be dire: a report released by the Bank of England stated that under a nodeal Brexit, the economy would shrink by eight percent, unemployment would increase by about 3.5 percent, and house prices would tumble by 30 percent—a worse economic crisis than the Great Recession.

Some eurosceptics have claimed that since econ o m i c predictions were wrong before, they will be wrong again, but this is unlikely. Prior predictions of economic c o n traction w e r e based on how economists thought business leaders would react to the onset of a smooth Brexit in two years. In comparison, these predictions are based on disruptions of trade and an integrated panEuropean economy. And that’s not to mention the fact that all of the extremely important things that May’s deal resolved—the status of EU nationals and the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland—would be left unresolved with potentially devastating consequences.

Considering the unlikeliness of the passage of May’s deal and the devastating impact of a

What is of utmost importance now is that Sri Lanka is able to maintain its democratic institutions, not succumb to dictatoriallike rule, and not be threatened by the ethnic tensions that the conflict brings out. If the country can trust the outcomes given by Parliament to be democratic and representative of the will of the people, then some sense of political stability will be brought back to the nation—regardless of who emerges as Prime Minister.

no-deal Brexit, some politicians have begun suggesting a new alternative: a second referendum on Brexit. Considering the undesirability of other options, this is the best choice for the UK right now and is supported by a narrow majority of UK citizens. In the original referendum, most UK voters thought they were voting between staying in the EU and leaving with a deal, not between staying in and leaving without a deal. Both before and shortly after the vote, many proBrexit politicians expressed sentiments that a Brexit deal would be quick and painless, which has not turned out to be the case.

Those advocating for a second referendum point to the fact that Britain’s current status within the EU is the most advantageous of any member nation: in its original accession agreement, the country negotiated four “opt-outs” from EU regulations. These include not having to adopt the euro as currency (and therefore being able to set their own monetary policy) and not being a member of the Schengen agreement, meaning it does not have an open border with the EU. The country is also not bound by the Fundamental Charter of Human Rights or by EU legislation concerning justice and home affairs, all of which give the EU less control over Britain’s internal laws.

However, there still is the issue of time constraints, as only 18 weeks remain in the transition period. This is likely not enough time to organize a second referendum, considering that the first referendum took 60 weeks. The best course of action now would be to extend the transition period long enough for a second referendum.

Though this has its own issues, it is the only realistic way for Britain to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

The Spectator â—? December 19, 2018

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Arts & Entertainment

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The Spectator ● December 19, 2018

Arts & Entertainment Theater

By STEFANY QUIROZ Get your corsages, suits, and dresses ready! Broadway’s new musical, “The Prom,” directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, is a new and refreshing Broadway experience. With America politically divided on controversial issues such as the oppression of the LGBT community, “The Prom” manages to accurately portray this generation’s high school experiences and horrors through humor, touching dance numbers, and songs.

The musical follows four narcissistic Broadway stars: Dee Dee Allen (Beth Leavel), Barry Glickman (Brooks Ashmanskas), Trent Oliver (Christopher Sieber), and Angie (Angie Schworer), as well as their agent Sheldon Saperstein (Josh Lamon). After getting bashed by critics for their most recent musical, the four actors embark on a quest for good publicity in order to get back into the public’s good graces. This quest leads them to Edgewater, Indiana, where Emma (Caitlin Kinnunen), a lesbian high school student, is prohibited from attending her school’s prom with her closeted girlfriend, Alyssa Greene (Isabelle McCalla). The actors adopt Emma’s dilemma as their cause and rally for her, hoping to boost their suffering reputations.

In order to reveal these characters’ true identities and struggles, the plot makes use of a spectacular score composed

by Chad Beguelin and Matthew Sklar, comprised of a variety of genres, ranging from pop, classic Broadway belting songs, and slow ballads. Leavel’s delivery of “The Lady’s Improving” brings the house down, her starlike belt-

Music

By CAROLINE PICKERING

ing voice complementing her diva character’s development, while “Love Thy Neighbor” resembles a church choir number, convincing the narrow-minded student body to be more accepting by pointing out rules in the Bible that they did not follow.

Perhaps one of the most emotional songs is “Barry is Going to Prom,” in which the audience views a dream coming true for Barry after a life of discrimination. Prior to the song, Barry details his struggle in high school when he was discriminated against by both his family and peers due to his sexuality, resulting in him not attending the high school prom, as well as not being in contact with family members for many years.

Ashmanskas’s emotional performance demonstrates how far he has come as a person, as he now is no longer afraid to deny who he is: a man ecstatic to finally be able to wear his sparkly suit and have the night of his dreams he has planned and desired for so many years.

In addition to the musical’s spectacular score, Casey Nicholaw’s choreography, along with the extremely talented ensemble, takes one’s breath away.

The numerous dances, ranging in style, are full of tough, intricate moves that the group manages to execute spectacularly. For instance, the “You Happened” number combines several differ-

ent genres of dance, from graceful leaps seen in ballet to the sharp movements and flips commonly seen in hip hop. Instead of moving in unison, the number consists of the ensemble splitting into smaller groups doing different dance moves.

But aside from the soundtrack

Ka Seng Soo / The Spectator

and dancing, “The Prom” boasts an impressive cast, including its supporting characters. Martin Moran gives an admirable performance as Mr. Hawkins, the principal of Emma’s school.

Along with being a diehard Dee Dee Allens fan, he persistently supports Emma in her fight against the student body and

Mrs. Greene (Courtenay Collins), the head of the PTA, who is also Alyssa’s mom and the leader of the homophobic movement against Emma.

Caitlin Kinnuen, however, is the true heart of the show, stealing the spotlight with her heartwarming performance as Emma.

Her struggles are poignant and relatable for many in the LGBT community: being kicked out of her house by her parents upon coming out, facing constant discrimination at her school by the students and adults of the community, and being prevented from speaking up about not being allowed to attend prom with her girlfriend.

These everyday issues for LGBT people are best exemplified in her love letter song, “Unruly Heart.”

Written by Emma as a response to her exclusion from the prom, she chooses to post the song on social media to show all the cruel treatment she has endured, and it receives support from many other American teens who have gone through similar moments of discrimination. The truth in its lyrics tell her story as a young, gay teen, who “tried to change/ Thinking how easy life could be/[But] just kept on failing.”

She goes on to describe how she will no longer hide from others’ judgement, but calls out her bullies and speaks to the audience, seeking acceptance and love for

all members of the LGBT community.

However, the musical became a topic of controversy just weeks after its premiere. At the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the cast performed their closing song, “It’s Time to Dance.” The number ends with a kiss between Kinnuen and McCalla, making it the event’s first ever same-sex kiss that was televised across the nation. This received many positive responses from viewers, who expressed their pride and said instances like this gave them hope that love can still win. Despite this, the performance received major backlash and negative remarks from conservative viewers, who claimed that child viewers had their innocence stolen and demanded a boycott against Macy’s, claiming that the company was attempting to “push their agenda on little kids.” Ironically, these responses may as well have been lines delivered straight from the show by the homophobic parents and student body that discriminate against and oppress Emma.

“The Prom” makes it clear what side it supports in a nation where acceptance of people in the LGBT community has turned into a battle. It speaks for the LGBT youth and community across the nation who have been forced to face unimaginably horrible discrimination, whether they identify with Alyssa, who hides her true self in an attempt to be seen as the perfect child, or Emma, who is open about her sexuality and faces constant oppression and harassment for just being herself. Through its emotional performances, breathtaking dances, and humorous scenes, “The Prom” seeks to spread one simple message: acceptance.

Twenty One Pilots Are Back and Better Than Ever in New Album “Trench” (2015). Many of the songs incorporate a strong bass line paired with low synth waves, giving it a much more ominous sound than that of the higher synth and melodic patterns present throughout their previous albums. One thing that this new sound lacked, however, was Twenty One Pilots’ trademark ukulele. Though there are often only a few songs with

“Not many of the instrument choices have changed over the years, yet “Trench” finds a way to be radically different from albums like “Vessel” and “Blurryface.”” ukulele per album, fans almost always lovingly associate the band with the instrument. “Trench’s” use of ukulele was extremely underwhelming, only appearing softly and briefly in “Hype” and

“Legend.” However, though not many of the instrument choices have changed overall, “Trench” finds a way to be radically different from previous albums.

Though they are musical geniuses, Twenty One Pilots’ real pièce de résistance is their lyrics.

Every song they release has layers and layers of meaning, which fans will most likely spend the rest of their natural lives debating. There is poetic symbolism packed into every verse, line, and word. There are plethoras of double meanings and hidden subtext underlying every song, which only add to their intrigue.

Lyricist Tyler Joseph has become a master at packing his songs with beautiful and deep phrases that can convey almost every emotion.

Without a doubt the most cheerful song in the album, “Smithereens,” is written with so much love, it’s difficult not to smile while listening to it. The song mainly relies on strong vocals and drums, giving it a humble and honest tone that perfectly fits with the message it’s trying to convey. The song was written for Joseph’s wife, Jenna Black—a beautiful proclamation of absolute adoration. Joseph wears his affection proudly as he sings, “For you, I’d go/Step to a dude much bigger than me/For you, I know/I would get messed up, weigh 153/For you/I would get beat to smithereens.” No matter what he’s up against, Jo

Jennifer Sun / The Spectator

One of the biggest names in alternative music is back with another hit album. After months of anticipation, the band Twenty One Pilots dropped their fifth studio album, “Trench,” on October 5, 2018, surpassing all the hype it received by fans worldwide. It is clear that the songs were composed with effort and consideration for their place in the album, as each song flows cohesively from one to the other no matter what order they are played in. However, this does not stop the tracks from being unique and brilliant in their own ways.

Every song on the album differs in emotion and character, from the dark ferocity of “Pet Cheetah” to the simplistic yet heartfelt “Smithereens.” Bandmates Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun synchronize poetic phrases and toe-tapping rhythms with eloquence and ease, giving listeners catchy beats that remain in their heads for the rest of the day. Despite having a calmer sound than the band’s previous works, “Trench” stands its ground with its own kind of intensity, displaying a sense of musical maturity that has been developing since the band’s first album release in 2009.

“Trench” is by far the most unique album the duo has produced, having a sound unlike any of their previous works. Overall, it has a much less upbeat feel than its predecessor “Blurryface”

The Prom: Broadway’s New Inclusive Musical

seph knows that he would see it through for his wife, even if it ends badly for him.

As he suffers from depression, Joseph has made mental illness one of the biggest overarching themes throughout all of the band’s works, and “Trench” is no exception. Several of the songs focus on depression and trying to overcome it, and he is unafraid to convey his thoughts and experiences with mental health in his music. This has helped many of the band’s followers in their per sonal dealings with mental illness,

and there are many who claim they owe the band their lives.

Overall, “Trench” is a fantastic album that was completely worth the wait. It is a deeply emotional and heartfelt work, with each song having thought and effort painted into the slightest details. Additionally, the music is fresh and allows each song to stand out on its own, showing true musicality on Dun and Joseph’s part. “Trench” bridges old and new sounds in a stunning and refreshing way that leaves listeners begging for more.

The Spectator ● December 19, 2018

Page 11

Arts & Entertainment Get A Life: The Holiday Edition

By THE ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT DEPARTMENT

DECEMBER

ONGOING 21

PERFORMANCE “Circus Abyssinia: Ethiopian Dreams” @ Classic Stage Company until 12/22 $22-$59

31

FRIDAY

MONDAY

PERFORMANCE “A Dancer’s Christmas” @ Ailey Citigroup Theater until 12/22 $25

MARKET Holiday Market @ Union Square until 12/24 FREE

FIREWORKS New Year’s Eve Fireworks @ Prospect Park

PERFORMANCE “The Infinite Wrench” @ Kraine Theater until 12/30 $14-$20

26

PERFORMANCE “The Nutcracker” @ Lincoln Center until 12/30 $60-$200

21

EXHIBITION Dyker Heights Christmas Lights until 12/31 @ 11th to 13th Avenues from 83rd to 86th streets, Dyker Heights FREE

CONCERT AJR with Michael Blume @ Manhattan Center Hammerstein Ballroom $35

WEDNESDAY

FESTIVAL WinterFest until 12/31 @ Brooklyn Museum FREE

Music

PERFORMANCE “Christmas Spectacular Starring The Radio City Rockettes” @ Radio City Music Hall until 1/1/19 $44 and up

“Maoz Tzur”

Every December, once you turn on the radio, classics such as “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and “Santa Baby” might blare out. While these songs might be absolutely iconic, they have unfortunately taken attention away from other winter holidays. This year, to save you from tears, we are gifting you a holiday-themed playlist focusing on Hanukkah and New Year’s (Eve)!

EXHIBITION Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree @ Rockefeller Center FREE until 1/7/19 MUSICAL “Clueless: the Musical” @ Pershing Square Signature Center until 1/12/19 $105 and up ART SHOW “Ego Obscura” @ Japan Society until 1/13/19 $10-$12

ART SHOW “Interior Lives: Contemporary Photographs of Chinese New Yorkers” @ Museum of the City of New York until 3/24/19 FREE

ART SHOW “Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again” @ Whitney Museum until 3/31/19 FREE

“What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” Ella Fitzgerald Jazz “New Year’s Eve” Pale Waves Pop Rock

“Left to Right” Michelle Citrin Pop

“New Year’s Day” Taylor Swift Pop “This Is The New Year” A Great Big World Pop

“Let’s Start the New Year Right” Bing Crosby Soft Rock

“Chanukah Light” Ari Goldwag Pop “Hanukkah, O Hanukkah” Barenaked Ladies Folk

“New Year’s Kiss” Casiotone for the Painfully Alone Rock

“Sivivon Sov Sov Sov” Kenny Ellis Swing

“Happy New Year” ABBA Pop

By LAURA ILIOAEI

41-21 Main Street, Downtown Flushing Express Tea Shop is located a few streets away from the Flushing Main Street station. It’s hard to miss if you’re a passerby because there’s a large vertical sign advertising “$1 BUBBLE TEA” right outside its door. Their atmosphere is that of one of the most tranquil food spots on Main Street. This cozy hole-in-the-wall, slightly underground shop blocks the hustle and bustle of traffic outside with a soundproof door. While there’s another food establishment bordering the place, it can only be seen, not heard, through another glass. The only audible sounds in the place are those of the person behind the counter cooking or maintaining the workspace. It was reminiscent of the intimate feeling of watching my own family in the kitchen enveloped in a bubble of focus as they execute the tasks that accompany cooking.

12 oz. Milk Bubble Tea ($1) The $1 deal on bubble tea is limited to a single size and flavor. The taste is nothing spectacular, but no component of it lacks in any qualities that the risk of a low price poses to a consumer. The worker behind the counter doesn’t skimp on the tapioca, and the balls are delightfully large and soft to chew, unlike some starchy rocks I’ve bitten into at establishments that advertise discounted boba prices. The tea itself is a standard sweet milk tea. It was a lovely accompaniment to my food.

Jianbing ($3.50-$4.50) Originally I was only going to get the $1 bubble tea, but I noticed that the place also sold “Chinese Pancakes”; peering at a customer diligently munching on one at one of the wooden bar stools at the granite countertop, I knew that this shop specialized in jianbing. I ordered one with all the fillings for $4.50: cage-free egg, wonton crackers, sausage, green onion, and cilantro. Normally I like to get mine with pork floss, but the option wasn’t available here. Regardless, the jianbing was phenomenal. It was prepared on the spot like a crêpe, and I could feel its heat trying to burn my hands through the paper wrapper, fragrant and steaming the air. The sausage was bland, but the onion, cilantro, and hot sauce compensated for its lack of seasoning. The wonton crackers were an interesting addition, ensuring that every bite crunched and melted wonderfully on my tongue.

Sasha Burshteyn / The Spectator

ART SHOW “Voice of My City: Jerome Robbins and New York” @ New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center until 3/30/19 FREE

“Hanukkah Dance” Woody Guthrie Folk

Sasha Burshteyn / The Spectator

ART SHOW “Hanukkah Lamps” @ Jewish Museum until 2/28/19 FREE

NEW YEAR’S (EVE)

Cheap Ass Food: Dollar Bubble Tea (and Bomb Jianbing)

EXHIBIT The Origami Holiday Tree @ American Museum of Natural History until 1/13/19 $18-$22.50

INTERACTIVE EXHIBIT “Holiday Train Show” @ New York Botanical Garden until 1/21/19 $20

Playlist: Christmas is Not the Only Winter Holiday That Exists HANUKKAH

MARKET/ICE RINK Bryant Park Winter Village @ Bryant Park until 1/2/19

ART SHOW “GingerBread Lane 2018” @ New York Hall of Science until 1/21/19 $13-$16

BOOK RELEASE “Watching You” by Lisa Jewell

FRIDAY

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The Spectator ● December 19, 2018

Arts & Entertainment Music

By LAURA ILIOAEI “Tu penses à moi, je pense à faire de l’argent.” (“You think of me, I think of money-making.”)

And money may she make.

Aya Danioko (better known by stage name Aya Nakamura) dropped her second album, “Nakamura,” on November 2, 2018, a work which has already received gold certification by the Syndicat National de l’Édition Phonographique (SNEP), France’s equivalent of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Among the album’s tracks is a song with nearly a quarter of a billion YouTube views that became a viral international hit and contributed to Nakamura’s rise to fame: “Djadja.”

The video illustrates a successful Nakamura coolly dodging a man of lesser merit who pursues her, Djadja, whom she repeatedly encounters—at the park walking with her friends, at a cafe where he is a waiter attempting to serve her, via text message while she hustles at home, at the club where he turns out to be the bouncer, and even at girls’ night in a lavish home.

While “Djadja” shouldn’t be

FILM

By MORRIS RASKIN

ignored, this isn’t to say that the other tracks from the French R&B/Soul artist should be disregarded. In an interview with TRACE (think France’s version of “The Shade Room,” but solely for urban, contemporary-based music and artists as opposed to general celebri-tea), Nakamura stated that “Oula” was her most

don’t know what time it is, but I’m late”) was my reminder of how modern-day society, especially in a more urban setting, stresses the scarcity of time. It is this scarcity, coupled with ambition, that portrays the reason for the failure of a relationship described in a later verse: “J’ai des rêves et des projets/Plus les

that it is arguably more personal and intimate than her first, “Journal Intime” (“Diary”). Yet the irony of R&B is that as the artist sings of their life’s pleasures and pains, the listener delves within themselves and becomes ingrained in the song. It’s one of the greatest representations of empathy and homogenization

While Nakamura retains a warm character within her interviews, no interviewer has ever managed to weasel out more information about her personal life and how it has influenced her music. personal track on the album.

While Nakamura retains a warm character within her interviews, no interviewer has ever managed to weasel out more information about her personal life and how it has influenced her music. This leaves nosy fans to poke for answers in her discography, surrendering themselves to interpretation.

In listening to “Oula,” the first line “J’sais pas quelle heure il est, mais j’suis en retard” (“I

jours passent et ils nous dépassent,” (“I have dreams and projects/Days pass, and they pass us”). The narrator of the song, inferred to be Nakamura herself, abandons her lover to pursue her ambitions. Consequently, distance grows between them and the relationship is destroyed, remaining a memory between the piano keys of the track’s instrumentals.

Perhaps the reason why this album is called “Nakamura” is

between artist and listener. “Djadja” had me furious at the lover that I don’t even have!

Even if non-French listeners may not grasp themes in the lyrics, they will still be able to experience the rich velvety timbre of Nakamura’s voice and feel the emotions that transcend her lyrics. The rhythms of her songs are often polyphonic, accompanied by a dominant steady beat perfect for freestyle dancing.

Granted, her music is officially

characterized as “R&B,” but not even she considers herself to be an artist of the genre. Various elements of Afropop and hiphop effortlessly blend into the soundtracks: synthesized sounds reminiscent of drum beats and the kora are not uncommon, with influences from her Malian upbringing. She never raps but often rap-sings, unmistakably emotionally charged like in “Sucette,” in which she and French rapper Niska alternate between repeating a verse at the song’s conclusion about being unable to trust anyone—being stuck in a mess.

But stagnation is a state that Nakamura will not be reverting to anytime soon. Indeed, she had topped music charts in The Netherlands in August 2018, being the first French artist to achieve this since Edith Piaf ’s “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” (“No, I Don’t Regret Anything”) single back in the 1960s. But her border-breaking isn’t only limited to France or even Europe, for that matter. Nakamura recently allowed the New York style, culture, and music publication “The FADER” to interview her about how she’s changed the music scene in France. Perhaps the U.S. may be next on her radar.

The DC Cinematic Universe Sucks (and What to Do about It) herent plot, actually entertaining humor, and even sensical dialogue—the movie’s climax was solved after the two main characters realized their moms have the same name. And for a movie called “Batman vs. Superman,” there was surprisingly little Batman vs. Superman action. One thing they did have, though, was terrible special effects. A man can only handle so many “villain creates a sky-beam that will end the world” climaxes before he gets tired.

This is not to say Marvel did not have its misfires either.

“Thor: The Dark World” (2013) wasn’t exactly a good movie, and “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015) was a little all over the place, but overall, its movies range from passable to very good.

The next DCEU movie that came out was “Suicide Squad” (2016), and it was really at this movie that I began to understand why the DC Universe was so terrible. The DC Universe was never subtle; it never tried to be. Exposition was shoved in at the strangest moments, and it was obvious they didn’t put a lot of time into thinking about how to make their stories link up. For example, in “Batman vs. Superman,” there was one huge, out-of-place plot point: an email containing a video clip of each o f

the Justice League members using their powers. It didn’t make any sense in the context of the movie, and it was obviously just trying to rush an Avengers-style, big team-up movie, which would come one and a half years later.

After “Suicide Squad,” things picked up for the DCEU, but only very briefly. “Wonder Woman” (2017) was a box office and critical hit, but still got beaten out at the Global Box Office by “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” (2017), a movie about a ragtag team of nobodies joining forces to save the galaxy. This might have come as a surprise to many people, as “Wonder Woman” was really the first (good) big budget female-led superhero movie. This just drives the point that with good char-

acter development like the Guardians had, you can make people care about things they’ve never even heard of. We cared about those characters, and it made us want to see them again.

The general public knew Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, but the studio didn’t give her very much character development in Batman vs. Superman, so we didn’t care about her as much.

It might not come as a surprise that releasing “Justice League” (2017) as the studio’s next movie probably wasn’t a great idea. We had only met three of the characters so far (Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman) and only two (Wonder Woman and Superman) had gotten a solo movie. With “The Avengers”

Daniel Berlinsky / The Spectator

If you were to tell someone 20 years ago that a movie pitting Batman against Superman would be outperformed in the box office by a film that pits two second-tier Marvel characters, Captain America and Iron Man, against each other, they wouldn’t believe you. But it’s true—and it shows just how much things have changed in the landscape of superhero movies.

Before “Iron Man” (2008) started a universe of interlocked stories and characters for Marvel, its movies were not so great, judging by quality and box office success. Yes, movies like the original Spider-Man trilogy weren’t bad, but movies like “Fantastic Four” (2005) and “Ghost Rider” (2007) weren’t critical or box office darlings. And as a result, they were forced to sell their most famous superheroes like Spider-Man and the X-Men to other companies, left only with B-Listers like Captain America.

On the other hand, DC’s The Dark Knight trilogy was a hit with moviegoers and critics alike. In fact, “The Dark Knight” (2008) made over $1 billion at the global box office and was nominated for eight Oscars.

Clearly, DC had had a head start over Marvel.

As such, DC took advantage of their success in 2013 and started a project called the DC Extended Universe, or the DCEU, attempting to copy the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which had already pumped out critical and box office smashes such as “The Avengers” (2012).

The first DCEU movie to arrive, “Man of Steel” (2013), was met with indifferent critical reception. Aside from starring Henry Cavill as Superman, the film was simply mediocre and forgettable.

Of course, this wasn’t enough to stop DC, who went right ahead and made their next movie.

This movie, “Batman vs.

Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016), was truly terrible. It lacked a compelling story, a co-

“Nakamura”: An Album More Intimate Than A Diary

(2012), all of the main characters had solo films before the teamup. Eager to match the success of Marvel, DC rushed into it and gave us “Justice League.” N o t only was this movie an unprecedented flop at the box office, but it also caused Henry Cavill (Superman) and Ben Affleck (Bat-

Our favorite comic book characters mighr be headed down a dark path. man) to quit. This movie was the lowest grossing DCEU movie of them all, and it had characters like the Flash, Cyborg, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and more; it wasn’t exactly given that this movie should make so little money.

So the DCEU seems somewhat hopeless as of now. The solution? Start over.

It’s pretty much too late for anyone to save the DCEU in its current state. Batman and Superman are gone, and it’s going to be hard to make a “Justice League 2” starring Cyborg and Green Arrow. If DC starts over, they can try again, starting with the basics: Superman and Batman. Give us new perspectives, instead of making every movie an origin story. Start with four or five barely connected stories, and then bring them together for the Justice League. Make us care about your characters. Make us feel what they feel. Don’t try to copy Marvel; start your own thing.

The DCEU needs a change to happen soon, or our favorite comic book characters might be headed down a dark path.

The Spectator ● December 19, 2018

Page 13

Arts & Entertainment

By MATTHEW WAGMAN You’ve heard Imagine Dragons. They’re practically everywhere, from dance to rock radio, action movie trailers, Disney cartoons, the League of Legends Championships, and poorlymade science fiction love stories.

But have you really heard Imagine Dragons? I don’t mean to get all 1984 “doublethink,” but what really is Imagine Dragons after all of the promotion, radio plays, and multiple hour-long clutterfests? Yes, they do have a few hallmarks, including big drums, powerful vocals, and arena-sized choruses. However, these have all taken inspiration from previous music like ‘80s arena rock, grunge, and ‘90s mainstream British rock. And, as you have no doubt heard on the radio for the past five years, these sounds have been repurposed into utter genericness by other popular bands like Fall Out Boy, Thirty Seconds to Mars, and WALK THE MOON. Imagine Dragons can best be described as pop rock, even though they make everything from EDM to heavy metal.

Bandmates Dan Reynolds, Ben McKee, Daniel Platzman, and Wayne Sermon have toured the world in larger and larger arenas around the globe since their massive breakout hits “Radioactive” and “Demons” were released in 2012. And with last year’s hits “Believer” and “Thunder” and four albums under their belt, it doesn’t seem they’ll stop bringing out the giant light shows anytime soon.

Imagine Dragons has always tried to do tons of things at once, and nothing’s changing that here. They continue to flip between very different styles, whether it be the electronic crunch of “Machine” or “Natural,” the electronic bombast of songs like “Bullet in a Gun” or “Boomerang,” or the bright and folksy strings of “West Coast.”

The trouble is that they don’t really stick to one style, and never

Culture

By JIAHE WANG Sophomore Anna Moiseieva Ukraine

“Bad Liar,” “Now you know, you’re free to go” and the occasional personal detail of songs like “Cool Out,” “I’m standing on your front porch saying, ‘Don’t go.’” The problem is that Reynolds tries to make his messages too universal, giving his music little authenticity. He’s unable to construct a working balance of the universal and intimate that other hits like the brutally honest “Lucid Dreams” by Juice WRLD and the well-written “Ghost Stories” by Coldplay have, even falling short of the respectable cheesiness of U2.

Reynolds also tries to play at social commentary, talking vaguely about the political state of the world on songs like “Machine” and “Love,” taking stabs at social issues like suicide and the price of fame on “Bullet in a Gun” or the degradation of interaction stemming from technology in “Real Life.” These messages are pretty blurred, and don’t actually make any major impacts in their manic

stretch to be universal.

What really concerns me is how similar the songs sound in melody and vocal style to the band’s previous work, and other artists’ recent hits. Imagine Dragons even goes so far as to blatantly rip off others’ songs in small sections of their own, like the vocal jump of the Journey hit “Don’t Stop Believin’” in “Cool Out,” and the rhyme scheme AND phrasing of Avicii’s “Hey Brother” for the verse in “West Coast.” Basically, Reynolds has run out of ideas, and his way of dealing with it is just (possibly unconsciously) taking others’.

Overall, “Origins” is a disappointment. I’ve been listening to Imagine Dragons practically half of my life, and they’ve always shown signs of improvement and landed at least two songs close to my heart per project, but not on this one. The lyrics have gotten lazy and some of the themes boring, but that’s not to say the music’s bad. In fact, it’s mostly neutral and inoffensive enough to achieve the status of background music. But being neutral is worse than being offensive, because it means you didn’t even have the impact to annoy someone. Songs like “Mo Bamba” by Sheck Wes and “Daft Pretty Boys” by Bad Suns may have annoyed me at first, but they provoked enough of a reaction that I actually had emotions toward them to alter. Other contemporary bands like Coldplay or Kings of Leon may have had a few off albums, but they were good enough to keep me interested and listening.

Imagine Dragons needs to reassess how they make their songs, figure out what their sound and emotional persona really is, and stick with and evolve from it. It seems that fame and misguidedly pushing their own boundaries is the only thing beyond a belief in generic and directionless world unity they seem to care about.

Thanksgiving Dinner Menus from Different Cultures lot of fish. Though these foods were actually from Maryland, they cooked them the way they did back in Zhoushan,” Yan said.

They also had Eight Treasures Congee, a popular dish in all regions of China. It is a festive porridge made from eight different ingredients, combined uniquely in each f a m i l y.

The version Yan’s mother made consisted of red beans, rice, dates, walnuts, sesame seeds, and goji berry. It has a rich red color and is sweet and sticky. “My mother’s parents and her nanny back in China taught her how to make it, and then she gradually made her own changes to it,” said Yan. Yan also went to her grandparents’ house later that day for what she calls “Thanksgiving Part Two.” “My grandparents love cooking, so they made these crispy spring rolls, which were filled with carrots, minced meat,

and lettuce,” she adds excitedly.

“There was a l s o

n/

e Ch

r to

cta

pe eS

Th

Yan spent Thanksgiving at her family friends’ house. Both families are from Zhoushan, a seaside city in Eastern China. As such, seafood was a staple at all of her family gatherings. “We ate shrimp, crab, lobster, and a

verses, and cliché changes in instrumentation.

In terms of vocals, Dan Reynolds has obviously fallen into a rut of his own making. He regularly switches from plaintive crooning to full-on shouting, which they’ve done since their 2009 self-titled indie CD. Reynolds’s voice even seems to be slightly degraded from all his dynamic singing on some tracks, coming out stretched and raspy.

He completely overuses the double repetition of some words in an attempt for maximum catchiness, with just a few being the “Real, real” of “Zero,” “Boomerang, boomerang” of “Boomerang,” or the “Aye, aye, aye, aye, digital, digital” of “Digital.”

The only noteworthy thing about the songwriting is that Reynolds no longer seems especially angry or lost in any song except “Natural,” “Machine,” or “Real Life,” which was essentially the whole idea behind Imagine Dragons to this point.

What takes the place of anger, however, is heartbreak.

Reynolds recently divorced (and later started dating again) his wife of seven years, Aja Volkman, the frontwoman for the band Nico Vega, with whom he has three children.

Their tumultuous relationship is evidenced in the resignation o f

isa

Sophomore Christine Yan China

have. Their last album, “Evolve” (2017), did start to move towards a more coherent sound of well-polished synths with a hint of guitar, but like their first two albums, the only thing tying that album together is its jumbled disorder. On their newest album, the only connection between songs is the wacky and fragmented experimental electronic drumming. At least all this random percussion is a break from their previous style of smothering their tracks with the largest drums they could, but a full kitchen cupboard of sounds doesn’t quite mesh with Reynolds’s shouts the way 10-foot upright timpanis do. In addition to drums, many of the tracks are connected through their retainment of the band’s characteristic arena-filling sound, but with even less guitar and more and more expensive pop-inspired synthesizers. The extra synths only heighten the sense that Imagine Dragons decided to embrace more of a pop format of songwriting, with loud and quiet segments connected by a whole mess of vaguely related prechoruse s ,

Al

Moiseieva, who’s from an Ukrainian family, had a lot of ethnic food apart from the typical turkey and mashed potatoes. One dish she loves is blini, a Russian pancake made of wheat, eggs, and milk. Though it is usually meant to be sweet rather than savory, Moiseieva’s family has their own unique recipe in which they stuff it with a mushroom filling seasoned with salt and pepper.

Moiseieva described the texture as “kind of mushy because of the mushrooms, but also crisp because of the fried crêpes.”

She also had several different salads such as Shuba (pickled herring with grated vegetables like potatoes and onions, layered with mayonnaise) and Olivye (chopped peas, eggs, carrots, and bologna, also mixed with a generous amount of mayo).

Imagine Dragons Stray Far From Their “Origins”

Alex Lin / The Spectator

Music

some lobster stew. I’ve been eating this dish for as long as I can remember. I like to mix the soup with some white rice and it tastes like heaven.”

Sophomore Nozima Nurullaeva Uzbekistan Nurullaeva spent her Thanksgiving with her close family at

her own house. She had both the standard roast turkey and typical Uzbek food. One of her favorites was samsas, also known as samosas, which are triangular pastries with crispy golden crusts stuffed with an explosively juicy filling of pumpkin and minced meat.

The star of the dinner, however, was Plov, which Nurullaeva described as “yellow rice with caramelized carrots, chickpeas, and diced lamb.” The base is an aromatic meat broth, which is sweet yet not too fatty. The dish is seasoned with a variety of spices, including saffron, cumin, coriander, and garlic. Two salads are served with the Plov: one made of tomato, raw onion, and cucumber, tossed in a light vinegar dressing, and the other of raw tomatoes cut into tiny cubes, croutons, and small chunks of mozzarella cheese. The crunchiness of these sides balance out the heartiness of the rice, keeping the combo both refreshing and addictively succulent.

Sophomore Roshni Patel India Patel, who’s Hindu, had a large family dinner with 16 of her relatives. Their dishes consisted of entirely homemade traditional Indian food which, as Patel describes, “has an overall spicy flavor and smooth texture.” Because of their background, their entire Thanksgiving dinner was vegetarian.

Some of the dishes include khandvi, kofta curry, naan, pani puri, and palak paneer. The khandvi is a rolled-up pancake that is usually eaten as an appetizer. The batter, consisting of buttermilk and flour, is mixed with curry and garlic, cooked in a pan, and then cut and rolled into bite-sized chunks. It is soft and airy, with a touch of herbal aroma.

Gulab jamun is a dessert made from powdered milk, flour, pistachios, and occasionally raisins.

It it rolled into bite-size balls by hand and then fried in sizzling oil. Before serving, they are soaked in a sweet syrup made from melted cane sugar. The golden-brown balls of dough are rich and spongy, which wonderfully contrasts with the stickiness of the syrup.

Page 14

The Spectator ● December 19, 2018

Arts & Entertainment Get Into That Holiday Spirit!

By AGATHA EDWARDS

It is now officially the holiday season! If you’re staying in NYC for the winter break, there are plenty of places to go celebrate and see amazing exhibits of festivity. You don’t have to celebrate Christmas to come to these places, because they’re mostly all about winter and spreading joy. They all give off an amazing winter vibe that will relax you during the long break from school.

The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

The Holiday Train Show New York Botanical Garden ($30) Where else can you see a huge holiday-themed train set based on NYC? This display is open all year round, but from the Thanksgiving weekend to New Year’s Day, a holiday twist is put on the exhibit. The evenings are the best time to go because the exhibit is not crowded and the lights are put into action. Though the price is $30 and the location is way up in the northern part of NYC, this display will astound you. You walk into the exhibit and see miniature versions of over 150 of NYC’s most memorable landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, and Yankee Stadium, all decked out with festive lights. A miniature train rides around all of the landmarks, going around over a half-mile of track. All of the sights are built with bark, leaves, and twigs—not something normally seen or heard about during the holiday season. It’s really cool that there is a holiday exhibit that uses organic objects instead of man-made ones, like lights. There are even more events at the train show, including classical music concerts, poetry reading, and activities for kids.

Bryant Park Bank Of America Winter Village

Zoraiz Irshad / The Spectator

Bryant Park

Rockefeller Plaza This is the classic symbol of the holidays in NYC. Everyone should go here at least once in their life, because where else can you see a lit-up tree that is over 75 feet tall? The center will be open for the whole winter break, but will most likely be more crowded at night

when the lights are more visible. If you’re aiming to take a great picture without a lot of people, go in the morning when it’s still dark.

A new tree is selected every year; this year’s 72-foot-tall Norway Spruce was donated by a lesbian Latina couple, Shirley Figueroa and Lissette Gutierrez. Five miles of lights are used to decorate the tree every year, and

the 9-foot 2018 Swarovski Star on the top of the tree includes three million Swarovski crystals! Seeing this tree, alone or with others, will truly astonish you.

You just get such an amazing vibe from this place with all those holiday feelings finally getting to you. It is truly amazing to see a tradition of NYC that has been carried on since 1931.

This holiday-themed village is the winter wonderland of Manhattan. There are so many activities to do, shops to visit, and programs to try out at Bryant Park Winter Village. The shops are open until January 2, 2019, while the ice skating rink (the only free one in NYC) is open until March 2. The holiday shops are outdoors and serve food and gifts from around the world, so you can Christmas-shop here! They sell all kinds of stuff, from jewelry to cookie dough to paintings to crêpes! The ice skating rink is huge (17,000 square feet) and free unless you rent skates. There is also a place called The Lodge, which is indoors and holds dozens of NYC restaurants, so this is a go-to place to get a bite. Lastly, there is the Overlook, which has free games and art supplies to play with while you watch the skaters below on the rink. There are other events like concerts, caroling, scavenger hunts, and tree lighting: everything to get you into the holiday spirit.

Dyker Heights Christmas Lights 11th Avenue to 13th Avenue, from 83rd to 86th Streets, Brooklyn Dyker Heights is said to be one of the most festive neighborhoods during the holiday season. It is not well-known because it is in southern Brooklyn, but the displays here are incredible. Some light displays in this area are worth over $20,000! The houses generally have their lights on from Thanksgiving weekend until New Year’s Day, and stay on from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. every night. You can find any decoration you can think of in these houses’ yards: huge lawn ornaments, motorized displays, Christmas trees, and amazing lights. The lights are so spectacular that there are two bus tours and a walking tour, which do cost extra, but seeing everything is so worth it. The holiday season is all about sharing, so make sure to bring along friends or family and share your experience here. Seeing all of these amazing displays (for free!) will really give you those holiday vibes.

The Spectator ● December 19, 2018

Page 15

Arts & Entertainment Holiday Crossword

By JACQUELINE THOM

DOWN: 1. Kwanzaa / 2. Secret Santa / 4. Danish / 7. Moroccan / 8. Frosty / 10. New York / 13. Mean ACROSS: 3. Christmas / 5. Reindeer / 6. Hippopotamus / 9. Rockettes / 11.

Die Hard / 12. Buddy / 14. Oranges / 15. Llamakkah

CLUES ACROSS 3. “The Nightmare Before _________” is definitely a Halloween movie 5. Besides the mandrill, this is the only other animal to have a red nose 6. This unideal, large animal is wanted for Christmas (hint: Gayla Peevey) 9. Every year, this group stars in Radio City Music Hall’s “Christmas Spectacular Show” 11. Jake Peralta thinks that his favorite movie of all time, starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, is a Christmas movie called _____ _____ 12. Will Ferrell once played an elf named _________ 14. Instead of cookies, British people leave this fruit for Santa 15. If you add llamas and Hanukkah, you get __________

DOWN 1. The number of days of this holiday is two fewer than Hanukkah 2. An event where groups of people exchange gifts without knowing who they’ll receive one from 4. Yuletide comes from which culture?

7. The name of “The Office’s” fifth season Christmas episode is called “_________ Christmas” 8. Do you remember _______ the Snowman?

10. The city that Kevin McCallister gets lost in in “Home Alone 2” 13. “You’re a _____ one, Mr. Grinch.”

Manhattan’s Wintry Tradition: Holiday Window Displays

By LEA SHVARTS and ANDREW NG

Besides the Rockefeller Tree, some of the most popular sights in NYC during the holiday season are the window displays put up by the city’s many department stores. Started in 1874 with Macy’s adaptation of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” holiday window displays have become a distinctive art form by the 20th century with the contributions of artists such as Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali. More than just about product placement, the windows are now a competitive art field and part of a long tradition in New York.

Saks Fifth Ave 611 5th Avenue Overall: 2.5/5.0 Stars Creativity: 2.5/5.0 Stars Festivity: 2.0/5.0 Stars Craftsmanship: 3.0/5.0 Stars At first glance, Saks Fifth Avenue’s window displays are oddly jarring this year. The windows revolve around an eerie collection of mannequins basked in sharp red light. The collection, titled “Theater of Dreams,” might be a reference to “Marnie,” an opera that just debuted at the Metropolitan Opera whose titular character fears the color red. However, this obscure connection is lost on most viewers. The glamourous displays are highly detailed and certainly pretty, though in an arguably shallow way. There is too much focus on shiny jewelry and elaborate clothing, stripping the display of any warmth, and the red lighting is very jarring. The windows exhibit many oddly put-together ensembles that clash with traditional tropes, and the cold-faced mannequins make viewers feel somewhat uncomfortable. For example, one man is wearing a top hat, a suit, and a corset. It’s a bold social commentary on gender norms, but it doesn’t draw away from the uneasiness it evokes. The front windows cover a brief narrative of an extravagant lady (who is also a lavish spender) who goes to Saks Fifth Ave and finds herself in a daze from all the beautiful luxury products it has to offer. The narrative hardly has any plot and is just untasteful promotion for the store.

The Spectator ● December 19, 2018

Page 16

Arts & Entertainment Tiffany’s

Tiffany Yee / The Spectator

727 5th Avenue Overall: 3.0/5.0 Stars Creativity: 4.0/5.0 Stars Festivity: 2.0/5.0 Stars Craftsmanship: 3.0/5.0 Stars

This year, Tiffany’s windows are filled with dazzling diamonds and arbitrary images.

Titled “The Holidays Made

by Tiffany’s,” the jewelry store presents five very neat and abstract windows that lack a cohesive element. One of the windows, displaying an

open oven with a tray of gingerbread cookies, assumes a 1960s look with the addition of a bright orange neon light.

The pop of orange and red from the neon grill contrasts with the soft blue background that is always present in Tiffany’s windows. The look is live-

ly and avant-garde, in contrast to Tiffany’s usual calmer displays, screaming of nightclubs from the ‘60s—yet it seems out of place. Another window displays dancing robots while a third has a row of white mice carrying assorted candy. They don’t add up and don’t have

much to do with the actual holidays. Tiffany’s windows are missing some element of charm. The word “Ice,” spelled out in big bold letters, takes up the space of one of the windows—a nickname for diamonds, it also reflects the pretty yet cold displays.

Bergdorf Goodman 754 5th Avenue Overall: 4.0/5.0 Stars Creativity: 4.0/5.0 Stars Festivity: 3.5/5.0 Stars Craftsmanship: 4.5/5.0 Stars

Tiffany Yee / The Spectator

A medley of the usual green and red, you might be expecting a conventional window set. But take a closer look, and these windows are definitely quirky (albeit without the eeriness of the Saks Fifth Ave display). That’s because the usual cold gaze of the mannequins have been replaced by candy! The men’s department displays various mannequins whose heads have been replaced with sugary sweets.

They don fashion from the boutique and have pleasing color schemes. One display demonstrating this includes a line of five mannequins, each with a stylish suit jacket to complement their chic ensembles. To top it off, each mannequin has a peppermint head! What these displays lack in interactivity is made up for by the pure grandiosity of the displays and the quirky yet approachable ensembles.

The women’s department expands on the candy theme with each window representing a specific sweet including ice cream, peppermint, cotton candy, gingerbread, lollipops, and more. Female mannequins wear stylized outfits, and the backgrounds are all very detailed and artistic. Though not the most creative theme, Bergdorf Goodman’s execution is astounding as usual. Lighthearted and fun, the displays reminds us that one of the greatest joys in life is as simple as eating sweets!

Macy’s Herald Square

Tiffany Yee / The Spectator

151 W 34th St Overall: 4.0/5.0 Stars Creativity: 3.5/5.0 Stars Festivity: 4.5/5.0 Stars Craftsmanship: 4.0/5.0 Stars Adorable, eye-catching, and bright, this year’s Macy’s Herald Square window display is as captivating as usual. Titled “Believe in the Art of Giving,” the windows focus on the story

of Sunny the Snowpal, a bubbly snowman that goes on a mission through outer space to find Santa Claus. Beaming with joy and wonder as it travels around space, Sunny reminds one of childhood wonder and holiday memories. The whimsicality of going to outer space matches a child’s perception of the holidays as something very special and surreal.

As usual, the windows are in-

teractive, with buttons to press that make characters turn and screens that take your picture.

Each of the six windows also has a few sentences advancing Sunny’s story. Though the windows are colorful and sparkle just like freshly fallen snow, Macy’s sticks to its usual dependence on blue lights, snowflakes, and turning figures that are a bit too familiar and reminiscent of the displays from past years. Though not ex-

traordinary, the displays show a strong effort.

Two windows stick out particularly this year. One features a collection of Christmas toys alongside a large fox with dazzling snow-white fur and rubyhue eyes. The departure from the plastic material seen in the rest of the windows is refreshing, and the fox is realistic and appears to be crafted with more attention to detail. The second

showcases three animal families in cozy pockets of snow.

The window is very sweet and reminds viewers that even in the cold weather, they can remain warm when around loved ones. One of the snow pockets also includes two adorable polar bears snuggling against each other’s fur, both holding “Mr.” cups and challenging the heteronormativity that has been ingrained in our culture.

The Spectator ● December 19, 2018

Page 17

Arts & Entertainment

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Page 18

The Spectator ● December 21, 2018

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

By Chrisabella Javier

Picture this: it’s third period on a Thursday morning. You are the average amount of depressed. All of a sudden, the announcements come on—a planned out peppy talk about clubs and standing up for the cult that is America. The morning announcements make or break a day. Needless to say, the administration is aware of this.

Now let me tell you a dumb story. A story about how I became part of a secret project to create the perfect announcers.

Our story began in the fall of 2017. Unknown by the student population, the world was about to change forever. This was stage one of what history shall know as the Char Char and Marky Mark project.

Two specially chosen seniors, Charlotte Ruhl and Mark Shafran, were placed in the roles of student announcers. They were chosen due to their previously shown abilities in whatever clubs they joined to kiss up to college. As part of this incredibly top secret project, the two of them would have their genetic information sampled and would be subject to constant

The Char Char and Marky Mark Project

surveillance throughout their daily lives. In return for this, they would receive 50 cents in scholarships.

Stage one of the Char Char and Marky Mark Project was a complete success. For the freshies reading this for some godforsaken reason (not that I would expect you to read any section other than Humor), they became the most iconic duo Stuy had ever seen.

They were a household name everyone anticipated when third period came. People would carry them up the broken escalators.

For once, people were willing to listen to the announcements about an interest meeting for the Thinly Veiled Meme Club. A guy named Mian Broran even resold Char Char and Marky Mark branded vape juice. But alas, all good things must come to an end. Surprisingly, people have lives outside of Stuyvesant. The hordes of college acceptance letters finally broke down upon their doors.

Knowing this day would eventually come, the administration took their DNA. As part of a technically-extra-credit-but-you-willfail-if-you-don’t-do-this project, Dr. Ned’s class was assigned the task of cloning designer humans

Dorothy Wang / The Spectator

U.S. Discovers Oil on North Sentinel Island

By Michael Dekhtyar Days after Christian missionary John Chau was killed by natives of the isolated North Sentinel Island, a spokesman for the U.S. military announced that massive underwater reserves of crude oil have been detected off the island’s coast.

Mr. Puppe Et, a high-ranking official in the U.S. Navy, told a crowd of journalists and reporters that various submarines deployed in the area had found that the local underwater terrain was flush with plentiful supplies of oil. He also announced the beginnings of future efforts to extract, process, and transport the oil back to the U.S.: “We are pleased to announce that the U.S. Navy will play an integral part in a brandnew initiative to ensure that our great country can use this clean, environmentally safe resource to power its booming economy for years to come.”

During the spokesman’s speech, dozens of journalists in the audience received notifications that North Sentinel Island had been invaded by the U.S. mil***REDACTED DUE TO ILLEGAL INFORMATION*** ***This article has been adapted by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Ma-

rine Corps, the U.S. Corps of Engineers, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, Mark Zuckerberg, and the traffic camera outside of your house.*** ***PROCEED: GOVERNMENT-SANCTIONED INFORMATION***After a short and peaceful campaign by Red Cross forces allied with the U.S. Health Force, the people of North Sentinel Island have agreed to incorporate democratic values into their regressive, intolerant culture. The chief of the Sentinelese people cooperated with U.S. forces and signed an agreement (under no threat of force whatsoever) to leave the island and accept a popular democratic government ruled by a benevolent executive.

Local elections to choose representatives in a new parliament will take place on April 1, 2019. President Trump declared the peaceful campaign “a bigly success” and promised the American people in a formal speech that democratic values will be spread all around the world before the end of his first term, with absolutely no possible delays or problems. He also granted John Chau a posthumous Congressional Medal, apparently for his great achievement in “spreading democracy around the world, whether it likes it or not.”

that would incorporate the best parts of Char Char and Marky Mark. I was part of this project.

Stage two consisted of the creation of multiple fast-aging clones genetically built and trained to be the perfect announcers. In this process, we would usually have to draft and build giant tanks in order to hold and protect them. Of course, since this is America and public education is underfunded AF, we just stored them in the juul room stalls on the 10th floor. In order to save money on the power bill, we just poured Monster into the stalls and hoped it would do the same thing as electricity. (I think it did? Idk.) Finally, someone—whose name I am not saying because he does my trig homework for me—was too lazy to walk to the water fountains full of lead and instead just drank the juices out of the tanks, killing at least three clones. By the time the next semester came, only two had survived, code-named Adam ABBAs and Maya Microsinovac.

However, version 2.0 was much less successful. Despite being perfectly designed in order to emulate their most successful traits, “A and M in the AM” felt more like a cheap reflection

of Char Char and Marky Mark.

It had seemed that they missed something: the essential part that made Char Char and Marky Mark so amazing. Of course, we were all idiots who didn’t know what that essential thing was.

So they blamed it on human error. (Specifically, the caffeine that contaminated the clones.) The administration looked at us and channeled its inner mom in order to shame us into doing better next time: “You disappointed us! We’re only doing this to make your lives better! But all you want to do is be satisfied with having mental breakdowns on the floor! Do you know how hard we worked in order to force you to do our jobs?” Then the administration began chasing us around with a slipper.

As the summer came, we were hard at work. They needed to find that essential element X. Was it style? Humor? Too much anxiety?

Not enough anxiety? When the next school year came, version 3.0 of the project came out, named William Lohier and Juliana Fabrizio, adding on the worst possible jokes known to mankind. The only good thing it did was keep my drafting teacher from realizing

that none of us were doing work.

Otherwise, the attempt at being announcers was just as unsuccessful. So, what was it that made Char Char and Marky Mark so great?

One day, the others in the group and I were told to report to a lecture hall. Just us, the administration, and the couple having sex in the back.

“You have disappointed us once again. What is your excuse?”

A silence. Then, I finally had the courage to speak.

“If I may, maybe the reason all of our efforts have failed was because our project is inherently inorganic. Char Char and Marky Mark were not a corporate shell.

They were just two seniors who believed in the power of the student announcements. Maybe instead of trying to make fewer reboots and sequels of success, we should form something new and original.”

A beat. Then the room went up in laughter. Because nobody cared.

And so the capitalistic Char Char and Marky Mark project continues. And all I can do is record it for an unread section of The Spectator.

Why Wincent Weiss Can Hit My Line

By Gabrielle Umanova

The most attractive person to ever walk the halls of Stuyvesant High School (sorry Mr. Schechter), Wincent Weiss, graced us with his presence on December 6, 2018. The German-crooning superstar, a talent that puts the entire music department to shame, almost instantaneously became the highlight of everyone’s Stuyvesant career. He also sent at least half the population into cardiac arrest, myself included. Damn papachen.

Well, as you all know, the year is 2018, an era of shooting your shot. So @Wincent, there are a

lot of reasons why you can hit my line ;))!

• • • •

•

Jawline is spectacular, 10/10 That mic flipping thing that he did, I mean wow—what a coordinated lad My guy doesn’t really know how to put on a sweater, but idk it’s kind of cute Brilliant at flossing (both the dance move and, based on the state of those pearly whites, the dental procedure) Very politely refused a request that he take his shirt off, which was like a major disappointment but also

• • • • • •

very gentlemanly; my mom is impressed The way that he jumps over all the railings and up and down the stage really has me overwhelmed; nimble boi Writes songs about his BFF and sister = EXTREMELY WHOLESOME VIBES Engages with his audience so a very humble popstar Speaks really nice English but not so nice that my intelligence is threatened Butt hot Win in the name

In summary: Wincent Weiss, Prom 2k19?

Caffeine Crisis: All Coffee Replaced By Hot Chocolate

By Helena Williams As December rolls in faster than a senior’s grade drops, holiday cheer has once again gripped Stuyvesant. Students and teachers alike have begun celebrating with festive activities: sitting around the campfire of burning report cards, singing “O Come All Ye Sleep-Deprived,” and drinking even more scalding hot coffee.

But it appears that someone has tricked the entire Stuy population: starting on December 1, all coffee in the general vicinity of Stuyvesant has been replaced with hot chocolate.

The resulting lack of caffeine has sent certain student populations into a panic. While the seniors remain miraculously unaffected (probably due to the development of senioritis among 93 percent of the senior population), the freshmen and sophomores are losing their minds. “I’ve only just started attending Stuy, and they’re taking away my only source of nourishment? How do I take AP AT Honors Accelerated Biology without being able to pull three all-nighters a week?” complained one freshman, while attempting to finish the ninth page of his biology homework.

However, among the juniors,

a panic of epic proportions has spread like wildfire. “What madness is this?!? I haven’t slept since sophomore year, and I’ll have to consider missing a meeting of one of the five clubs I created!” junior Slee Pei said. She is among those who have been signing up for the Soul Drive, where students have been trad-

Tony Chen / The Spectator

ing their souls for hours of sleep.

With the sudden lack of caffeine, students have been collapsing in the hallways of Stuyvesant, while juuling in the Hudson staircase, while swimming in Swim Gym, and even during tests, which completely defies Stuy logic.

However, some sophomores have discovered a solution: using their chemistry lab periods

to brew up caffeine. “If I use dimethylurea and malonic acid as reagents, I should be able to produce caffeine!” a sophomore declared. Freshmen are also capitalizing on this market by using “biology research projects” as a cover for planting coffee bean trees and expect results within several years.

During this coffee crisis, the security guards have become increasingly frustrated by the number of false alarms in the morning hours. “With everyone bringing in hot chocolate, we can no longer watch the look of despair on a student’s face as they throw out their $5.00 pumpkin spice latte…this job isn’t fun anymore!” Officer Cawfi told a reporter.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to tell when coffee will return to Tribeca. As a result, the Program Office has provided an AP for students with averages of 99.9 or higher: AP Napping, which can be found under the elective category as both a single or a double period, potentially helping these students maintain their averages. Because most Stuy students have an average of 99.8, this class is incredibly selective, but enrollment will certainly help these students survive.

The Spectator ● December 21, 2018

Page 19

Humor How to Bribe Stuyvesant Teachers with Gifts 101: A Comprehensive Guide

By Omar Ali and Mohamed Eleish Bribing Giving gifts to teachers is an art form, requiring extreme levels of finesse.

It’s a game that’s easy to play, but hard to master. But worry not children; after hours of relentless research (a.k.a. asking our friends who got their grades curved) and hair-tearing, we have put together the guide of all guides, encompassing numerous bribing techniques, tips, and tricks for you to use on some highly requested teachers, because we all want that college rec. With the holidays right around the corner, we also made sure to include the festive gifts you should be buying for them. So settle down and buckle up, because we are about to take you on a sucking up journey like no other.

•

•

Perfect Gift: A violin to accompany his love for Spanish music.

•

•

•

Griffith

Compliments are your new best friend. Anything from his variety of ties, his outfits, or his cologne that can be detected within a 25-mile radius are perfect for this.

Always volunteer for his extra credit—usually coming in the form of handing out tape, giving back homework, or, if you really want to impress him, scolding other students for their poor work and lecturing them on the calamity that would follow a 0.001 inch inaccuracy on their work.

Advertise a drafting kit to him; it’ll really show him how much the class means to you.

Perfect Gift: A diamond-encrusted T-square, readily available at your local Target or Walmart.

•

Greenwald

If she asks a question for “extra credit in my heart,” that is your one-way trip to curve heaven.

Plant A Kiss?

By Laura Ilioaei

A year’s worth of Euglena had frozen and perished in the biology lab after the spontaneous snowstorm last month. Naturally the biology department panicked and begged its Euglena dealer, Bronx Science, for more of the bacterial colonies. But Bronx Science, in an act of pettiness that showed that it was Stuyvesant’s rival first and Euglena dealer second, shipped boxes of mistletoe to the department instead.

“WE’RE DOOMED!” boomed Mrs. Maggio’s voice, carrying despair that exited the door and echoed in every corridor of the hallways, ricocheting into the chambers of the heart and Chambers Street itself. “WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH ALL OF THIS?!”

Dr. Tu chuckled mischievously, knowing all too well that the volatility of adolescent emotion was a bacteria culture worthy of study in itself. With a roll of duct tape, ribbons, small holidaythemed pouches, a ladder, one of the boxes of mistletoe, and two hours, she prepared the biology lab room for tomorrow’s antics.

The next day, biology students quickly shuffled into the lab, perplexed as to why they were not given a pre-lab or any packetwork describing what procedures they were going to execute that day.

What was even more peculiar was that numerous red ribbons were suspended from the ceiling with mini felt pouches of various designs attached to the end of them, concealing something hidden within.

A curious student gave one a gentle tug. It slipped off with ease, revealing a red ribbon tied around a bundle of mistletoe. His eyes widened at the sight of the rounded, minty leaves. His partner’s eyes widened too, but he was shocked with revolt.

“I am not kissing you.”

“Why not? It’s tradition.”

“You ugly.”

“Hate to break it to you, but you ugly too.”

“Yeah, but at least I’m smarter than you. You have a 91.99999986 average, but I have a 91.99999987 average.”

At this point the rest of the class was listening in on their squabble. Some even whipped out their phones to film a juicy Snapchat story. One classmate decided to intervene.

“A hundred-millionth of a GPA point doesn’t change the fact that you’re both idiots.”

The entire class became clamorous, whipping out their transcripts and yelling at her about how a hundred-millionth of a GPA point was worth extra sacrifices in sleep schedules, sanity, and a shortened life span for the sake of the extra merit.

“You’re the stupid one for saying something so nonsensical!”

The couple under the mistletoe shrieked, embracing one another for support.

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’m gonna redeem myself by saying something that makes perfect sense: it’s a waste if these two,” she pointed at the couple under the mistletoe, “don’t kiss.”

Dr. Tu walked in through the door, tired of everyone’s theatrics.

“Whoever kisses under the mistletoe first gets an AUTOMATIC 100 ON THE LAB! Everyone else has to write a report about oxytocin and compare it to Euglena growth!”

She didn’t need to say it twice.

The couple tried to kiss.

Yes, tried to.

First, their noses collided.

Then, everyone face-palmed when they resorted to simple pecks on the lips, even though everyone was so romantically awkward they didn’t really know how to kiss, either. Dr. Tu even gawked at the sight and internally noted that there were some bases that not even higher-education knew how to cover.

• •

•

Recite the previous night’s textbook reading in full; she’ll faint from excitement.

If you say something and she starts wildly motioning for the class to write it down, you know you’ve hit the jackpot so keep going.

Say anything about Hamilton; trust us on this one.

Perfect Gift: A copy of her new book, signed by Andrew Jackson himself.

Ask to borrow his books.

•

Laugh at every single one of his jokes, no matter how bad they are.

Make a horrible pun of your own if you really want to impress him, preferably after he just made one.

Never go 30 seconds without letting him know you’re also a die-hard vegetarian who finds people who don’t recycle sickening.

•

•

• •

Hanna

•

•

•

Citron

•

Lam

your utter agreement with his conspiracy theories (My personal favorite: the cure to cancer has been discovered, but the government insists on keeping it a secret).

Always volunteer to do the questions and/or to draw a picture for his word problems.

Constantly let him know how long you’ve waited for him to be your teacher and how much of a wonderful guy he is.

Express your never-ending heart pang for the squeegee that he uses on the board.

Remindhim to give out the homework or tests at the end of the period; he’ll call you a good man and give you a good grade *wink wink*.

Express

Perfect Gift: A new baton to demonstrate that gravity indeed exists by throwing it in the air and nearly hitting the first row of students.

Andrea Huang / The Spectator

•

Bravo

Bring up Don Quixote de la Mancha (his favorite book) and talk about the symbolism it brings up, because it definitely has something to do with the lesson.

Always ask if the class should sing a song; after all, everyone signed up to be a part of the Spanish choir when they decided to stay in this class.

Make sure to volunteer a ridiculous amount when

the Spanish AP comes for an observation—this one doesn’t need any explanation.

Perfect Gift: A reusable water bottle, for that environmentalist passion of his.

Subtle Asian Dating: VISHWAA SOFAT

By Yaru Luo ATTENTION ALL GIRLS…and guys? It’s 2018. The Spectator doesn’t discriminate (unlike other Stuyvesant organizations).

Looking for a tall, tan Vice President to bring home this holiday season to impress your parents?!?!

Well look no further!

VISHWAA SOFAT PROS • despite his last name, he is very fit! plays croquet or Indian badminton or some other stick game • stands at a whopping six feet tall • stays awake all night plotting to take over the school and overthrow Principal Contreras. never sleeps; will respond to ur texts and give u attention asap • will buy u anything u want. if he runs out of $$, he can take it from the Stuy treasury • low maintenance (just give him some food) • made a mixtape. getchu someone who’s multitalented • can serenade u in Hindi Facebook bio: • favorite TV shows: “Scooby Doo” and “Suite Life on Deck” • favorite books: “Goose-

bumps” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”

•

CONS • 3.99 average, sorry ladies • passes out after one shot • trips on air • will bore ur friends with stories about saving fake countries in MUN

•

replies in either 0.00057 seconds or five to seven business days might actually be in love with William Wang

Serious inquiries only!

Slide into his DMs

Page 20

The Spectator ● December 21, 2018

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

By Michelle Lai It was November 4, three days after the dreaded Early Action deadline and the day my friend Anna added me to the “subtle asian traits” Facebook group. I remember hovering my cursor over the notification with slight hesitation and confusion.

What was this group even about?

Was it going to fill my newsfeed with posts from white people making fun of my physical features or gossiping about Forever 21’s new qipao-patterned snapbacks?

I was thoroughly shook when I discovered that this group (now nearing one million members) of predominantly East Asians could create such quality memes—memes I never knew I needed in my life until then. Though I knew barely one percent of the people in the group, I knew that we all enjoyed doing the same thing: tagging our friends in at least 20 memes a day with the comment, “LMFAO MEEE.” Scrolling through the group for hours made me feel comfortable and extravagant. Gone were the days of seeing Dear Incoming Stuyvesant Class of 2020 posts like, “yo how easy is it to get a 95+ in [insert science elective class]?” and “is it plausible to apply to college as a junior with three subject tests that match Stuy’s address?”

This group made my jaw drop

By Oliver Stewart Ah, the holiday season. The beautiful period starting on Thanksgiving, better known as the -33rd Day of Christmas, all the way through the beginning of January is a time when the glorious institution of consumerism reigns supreme. It is a time to celebrate the beauty of capitalism by buying beautiful, nonrecyclable plastic items and mak-

Obvious East Asian Characteristics

as wide as Pikachu’s whenever I saw the messages that white people dared to send to Asians on Tinder. It disregarded the rest of Asia and made me realize that I was not the only disgrace to my ancestors. And discovering that there were other poor souls like me who couldn’t speak Mandarin, read or write Chinese (save for phonetic Cantonese spelling), maintain a 99 average, or play the violin and piano was quite comforting.

Yet this grand feeling didn’t last too long after I found out that there was a “subtle asian dating” (SAD) group. There were actually multiple groups, each dedicated to a certain area of the world, making me question the breed of men present in the Big Apple. Stalking the group on a friend’s account allowed me to see that everyone in the group was the definition of a perfect [redacted] Asian.

Posts from college students advertising their ABB and ABG (Aggressive Boba Buyers and Active Buff Guys, respectively) friends all started off the same way: “Looking for a wholesome [insert acronym and suggestive emojis]??!!” The credentials went on to include that each person saved animals from global warming in the Arctic during their breaks, modeled on the side to pay for their Ivy/UC/ UK school tuition, and managed to work out and rave every weekend.

All of them were looking for someone who could handle being their S.O. for the rest of their lives—or at least one semester.

Being that I am the prospective valedictorian’s best friend, was featured in a SAD post with a heart that said “THIS COULD BE YOU” over my face, am

“proficient” in three languages, have a roly poly body, and can run up seven flights of stairs without arriving late to class (at least in freshman year), I decided that I was the perfect candidate for all of these attractive men.

Upon trying to gain admission into the SAD group, the

Ban Christmas Music

this jingle-bell-filled, snow-glorifying music never stops ringing through the air.

It is due to this second point that we at The Spectator are bringing you this public service announcement. Having reviewed the situation, we have concluded that ideas such as “fun” and “merriment” are dangerous, and they ignore the true meaning of Christmas: buying things. Christmas music often focuses on joy,

tion from American values; do you think a bald eagle feels joy? No! A bald eagle only buys things and feels freedom. Joy and similar concepts are antithetical to what Christmas music should be doing—exulting consumer culture and advertising products to the American people. As such, all Christmas music is subversive communist propaganda and must be eradicated. We would like you to join us in pioneering

people streaming her hit single “All I Want For Christmas,” and this is only a small fraction of the different “festive music” people play from the -33rd Day of Christmas on Thanksgiving until the 12th day of Christmas on the fifth of January. In this song, published at the height of the Cold War in 1994, notorious communist Mariah Carey rejects the consumerist doctrine that Christmas should be all about

Having reviewed the situation, we have concluded that ideas such as “fun” and “merriment” are dangerous, and they ignore the true meaning of Christmas: buying things. ing life hard for retail workers.

In recent years, Christmas music has become a staple of this season, and the cheerful echo of

By Victor Kuang After attending this school for over two years, I’ve had to deal with lots of nuisances, such as schoolwork, family drama, and my abusive editors (please send help). I’m pretty sure plenty of people can relate to my suffering, but no one in this school has suffered as much as junior Alek Iannelli.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he was destined for tragedy from a very young age.

A quiet individual, Iannelli was a classic introvert and played with himself often. This changed when he found himself having lunch with junior Maya Graves.

Annoyed at Iannelli’s weak at-

which we all know is a communist lie perpetrated to spread discord in the beacon of freedom that is America. Joy is a distrac-

an initiative to ban all playing of Christmas music.

Every year, Mariah Carey makes almost $480,000 from

capital and instead focuses on dangerous radical socialist ideas such as “love.” She even goes so far as to say that she “don’t care

Who Is Alek Iannelli?

tempt to crack a hard-boiled egg, she decided to go crack it open herself. Impressed by such a raw display of power, Iannelli felt he found his soulmate.

Each day after that, he would always sit near Graves seeking her company. Though she would often flip him off, she occasionally gave Iannelli a Hershey Kiss and let him sit at her table. After hearing about her love of history, Iannelli was motivated to do better in that class. Finding various documents such as the White House’s beer recipe, he vigorously read each article despite not knowing what three-fourths of the words meant. With his knowledge, he participated for the first time in class after hear-

ing about John Adams’s alcoholism. Diving into an eight-minute speech about fermentation, yeast, and sugar, he left the entire classroom speechless. He was then sent to the principal’s office, where his parents were informed of their son’s actions. Furious with such an inappropriate event, Iannelli’s mother decided to use a slipper on her son, tiger-mom style. As he left the office trying to dodge his mother, Graves was disgusted by Iannelli.

After almost six years of knowing her, he never mustered the courage to ask her out. Attempting to overcome his fear of talking to people, he found a group of friends by talking about real football and conspir-

acy theories. Having a following of people for the first time in his life, he mustered up the courage to ask her out.

Knowing Graves’s taste for athletic men, Iannelli decided to buff himself up. After a week of drinking protein shakes and eating romaine lettuce, he asked her to play tennis.

Iannelli was confident in his victory. He would win, allow her to get 15 points (he had to let one ball go to be nice), ask her out, and live his life in peace.

Unfortunately, this plan greatly backfired. Not only did he realize that tennis was much harder than it looked, but Iannelli also forgot about Graves’s strength. Graves turned out to be

first question appeared on my screen: “Will you respect everyone in this group as to uphold your family honor?” I stared at my keyboard and typed, “I’ll make Mulan proud.”

about the presents” and doesn’t “want a lot for Christmas.” This blatant, disgusting Soviet propaganda is a common theme in Christmas music, and it could pose a serious danger to our American values of consumerism. If people start believing that what will make their Christmas perfect is “family” and “holiday cheer,” pillars of American industry like Walmart will lose sales as people forget that Christmas should be about going into debt and filling your tiny apartment to the brim with glorious Americanmade tchotchkes.

This is the music that our children are being exposed to at their most impressionable stage of life. Do we really want extremist leftists like Mariah Carey to be dictating America’s future? We say no! We implore you to join us in boycotting and petitioning for a blanket ban on inflammatory so-called Christmas music in favor of only listening to Macy’s jingles this holiday season.

a very experienced tennis player.

Turning into a game of dodgeball, Iannelli ended up losing 1-0 (he didn’t even get 15 points) to Graves. Asking her out anyway, he became even more depressed after she called him out on not knowing how to crack open an egg at the age of 16.

He never let Graves go from his mind. Only having history to comfort him, it broke what was left of his heart when he remembered that he once wrote about his love life and received a four out of seven on an AP Euro DBQ. As AP Euro teacher David Hanna wrote on the DBQ, “Hit or miss, I thought they never missed, but I’m thankfully wrong this time.”

The Spectator ● December 21, 2018

Page 21

Sports Football

Changing the Narrative: The End of the Football Season

By Franklin Liou and Jooahn Sur

The Peglegs, Stuyvesant’s varsity football team, saw their season come to an abrupt end on Saturday when they lost to Petrides High School’s Panthers, 52-40. Though the point margin was significant, the Peglegs’ performance kept the Panthers on their feet.

The Peglegs started strong, taking advantage of a Panthers fumble and scoring a quick touchdown for the first seven points of the game. The Panthers, however, then went on

to score 30 unanswered points, and the game soon seemed outof-reach for the Peglegs. That was the moment when the team displayed the grit and determination that ultimately helped them finish the season with an 8-1 record. Several quick touchdowns and key stops on defense had the Peglegs trailing by just two points at halftime 30-28 with momentum on their side.

The team carried this momentum into the second half and retook the lead by scoring a touchdown early in the third quarter; the Peglegs managed to climb out of the large hole they

had dug themselves into and put themselves in position to advance to the semifinals. But in the end, the Panthers ended up celebrating a hard-fought victory on the field after they capitalized on some mistakes made by the Peglegs.

The tears that were shed by the seniors captured just how heartbreaking this loss was. The Peglegs, without junior starting quarterback Lucas Dingman and running backs Franklin Liou and Kevin Chan, were extremely close to defeating the only team that had beat them in the regular season. Despite

Athlete of the Issue

Samuel Fang, a junior on the Stuyvesant boys’ varsity bowling team, secured a spot at the PSAL Borough Individual Championships by being one of the top-scoring players in Manhattan’s PSAL league, eventually winning first overall and even advancing to the PSAL City Individual Championships.

In the 15 games bowled during the regular season, he averaged 161.4 points with a high of 253. In three playoff games, he averaged 183 points with a high of 222. He consistently averaged around 170 points as one of the team leaders.

Points < 140 140-170 170-190

Skill Level Below average Average

190-220

Above average Good

> 220

Excellent

Name: Samuel Fang Grade: 11 Height: 5’10” Hair color: Black Eye color: Black DOB: 1/7/02

1. How did you start bowling?

Around the end of eighth grade, one of my friends invited me to go bowling with him for fun, and after playing a few games, I was able to reach a high game of 168. This showed me that I had a bit of skill in the sport, and my goal was just to try to beat that. When I found out that Stuy had a team for it, I really started to practice and see it as a competitive sport, which made me enjoy it a lot more.

2. How do you secure a spot in the PSAL Borough Championships?

managed to not only make the playoffs, but also advance past the first round. Overall, the Peglegs have much to look forward to next season. Though they will be losing their seniors, the backbone of the team, their strong core of juniors, remains intact.

After years of residing in the basement of the standings, the Peglegs certainly switched the narrative with a strong 2018 season. Perhaps they will be able to build on it and go farther into the playoffs to finally bring a championship to Stuyvesant.

Girls’ Track

Right Up Your (Bowling) Alley: An Interview with Samuel Fang

By Allison Eng

finding themselves down 23 at one point, the team was miraculously able to retake the lead. A game in which they scored six touchdowns certainly should have ended in a win, but in the end, their defensive errors cost them.

Despite this heartbreak, the Peglegs have much to be proud of. They won three more games this season than they had in the past three seasons combined.

Their offense averaged 30.7 points per game while their defense allowed just 11.6 points per game. Despite losing several star players to injury, they

During the season, there are 10 team games that we play against other schools, and the top-scoring players in the borough are put into the Borough Individual Championship. I happened to be one of those chosen players, and from the team games, I placed third. During the championships, however, the lane conditions definitely favored my bowling style over those of my other competitors, and I was able to get first with about a 170 average.

3. What do you mean by the lane conditions favoring your bowling style?

The lane conditions refer to the amount of oil on the lane, which not only protects the wood’s surface, but also changes how much a ball spins. The strategy for getting strikes is curving into the middle rather than hitting the ball directly straight, because this gives much more pin action in the “domino effect” and gives more strikes. The lane conditions favored me in that there was less oil on the lane, which helped my ball spin a bit more to get many more strikes. For many others with higher spin than me, the little oil made their balls spin too much and their shots more uncontrollable.

4. By placing first in the borough championships, you also qualified for the City Individual Championship.

How did you do?

The best players from all the boroughs were present.

This competition was definitely much harder, as there were many more skilled bowlers, and many of them were better than me in terms of skill. However, since I bowled league at those lanes every week, I knew the lanes pretty well, which gave me a bit of an advantage. I was lucky enough to place 11th with about a 200 average. That was probably my biggest accomplishment this season—being able to do pretty well among the best bowlers in the city.

5. How have your teammates

at Stuyvesant impacted your performance and the way you train?

When I was a freshman, the seniors of the team definitely helped me build my skills and work on my weaknesses. They also got me into practicing weekly at a league, which I still go to. The team in general is very encouraging and definitely helped my performance.

6. What league do you practice in? When do you find time to go?

I usually practice at Jib Lanes on Saturday mornings.

7. Do you have advice for people who want to practice competitively and balance their schoolwork?

For people who want to balance sports and school, my best advice is to manage time wisely and not procrastinate, as doing so would allow more time for both sports and school.

8. How do you constantly try to improve yourself ?

Beating my highest score is usually my motivation to keep practicing. Otherwise, watching people who are better than me also makes me want to improve.

9. What’s your favorite thing about the Stuyvesant team?

My favorite thing about the team is our teamwork during the games and how well we’re able to perform even under pressure.

10. What’s something you’ll be looking forward to next season?

I’ll definitely be looking forward to improving my scores and making a better contribution to the team.

Choice drink: Water Favorite food: Chinese Food Motto to live by: Forget the past and look forward to the future.

Fun fact: I can solve a Rubik’s Cube in six seconds.

Greyducks Learn from First Two Meets

By Bernard Wang and Aryan Sharma The Greyducks, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity indoor track team, competed in their first meet of the season at the Armory Track on Sunday, December 2. This meet was an opportunity to give the freshman athletes their first taste of competition. The Stuyvesant freshman 4x800-meter relay team placed fourth, and the varsity 4x800-meter relay team placed fifth. Freshmen Alicia Jas Yu and Alina Dufenyuk also gave their first go at the 600 meter run and placed 11th and 12th, respectively. Senior Jeanette Cheung also represented the team well, winning first place in the varsity 1500meter race walk and qualifying for city championships.

Five days later, the Greyducks were back at the Armory for their second meet of the week. Freshman Zuzi Liu had a strong showing, placing fourth in the freshmen 55-meter dash (8.47), while junior Angélique Charles-Davis placed sixth in the varsity 55-meter dash (7.68). “After having a rough season last year, it was good to start this year well,” said Charles-Davis, who competed in her first finals round since freshman year. While only Liu and Davis made it to the finals, many other athletes had reason to celebrate. Senior Vivian Cribb came in 15th in the varsity 55meter dash (8.09) while sophomore Chloe Terestchenko and junior Ester Suleymanov placed in the top 15 in the varsity 55-meter hurdles.

Despite some early success, the Greyducks are looking to recalibrate and fill their roster strategically. The team lost significant members who competed in sprint events last year.

They will look to focus on improving the current sprinting program, which isn’t perform-

ing as well as the distance program. “We hope to get a good 4x200-meter relay going,” Davis said. “And [we hope to] get some of the fast underclassmen running some solid times that they’re capable of.”

These two meets have provided good experience for the underclassmen, who are looking to gradually fill in the gaps left by departed seniors. “For the first two meets, we’ve been trying to see people’s events.

Many of our freshman are looking really strong too,” said junior Liza Reizis.

The only way to improve is to commit to a consistent and rigorous practice schedule, which is what the Greyducks are maintaining as the season progresses. The girls have started to diversify their practices and conditioning as well.

“We did a lot of stuff in the weight room and also focused a lot on our starts and form,” Charles-Davis said. In a sport like track and field, technique is as important as athleticism, and polished form can mean the difference between a podium finish and 10th place.

“We are more determined than ever to win Borough’s and have athletes qualify for the city championships. But the will to win means nothing if you don’t have the will to prepare,” said junior Jing Su, perfectly encapsulating the emphasis the girls place on their practice schedule. They know how important practice is in the grand scheme of things.

The Greyducks have barely scratched the surface of the season and are just beginning to tap into their potential. If the team can stay on their upward trend from the first two meets, they will improve as time goes on and add to the number of strong finishes they’ve accumulated thus far.

Page 22

The Spectator ● December 21, 2018

Sports Editorial

By Ahmed Hussein and Sunan Tajwar With January just around the corner, the midway point of European soccer seasons is here. As is expected during the midseason, debates about which teams are underperforming and which teams are performing better than expected are beginning to get heated. Here’s what we think:

The Good Borussia Dortmund: Borussia Dortmund sit at the top of the Bundesliga at the time of writing. Even if Bayern have a successful second half of the season, we just can’t see Dortmund choking on this one.

There’s something about this year’s Dortmund team: they play with purpose and press their opponents high up the pitch, an effective strategy given their youthful core, with time and stamina on their side. As soon as they win the ball back, they have the players they need in advanced positions, ready to attack in seconds.

If you watch a Dortmund game, you see just how much of a threat they are on the counter. For much of this season, American wonderkid Christian Pulisic has been injured, with Jadon Sancho taking his place.

The skillful winger has played so well (five goals and eight assists in 19 games) that Pulisic will have to earn back his spot.

Marco Reus is back to his best after a career ravaged with injury, but the creative German is looking to leave injury in the past. Paco Alcacer has been instrumental off the bench, scoring key goals throughout the season and earning the top spot on the Bundesliga scoring charts. Their attacking prowess is impressive, but any team is only as good as their defense, and Dortmund have been stellar this season. After shaky defending last season, Lucien Favre has definitely worked with his backline in training. He realized they were struggling to defend set pieces so he bought centerback Dan-Axel Zagadou, a towering presence at 6’ 5”, into the starting line-up.

Dortmund’s best player, though, is definitely right-back Achraf Hakimi. Sure, the aforementioned attackers score the goals, but Hakimi is the transition between defense and attack. He wins the ball, runs at players, plays perfect crosses to

Europe in Shambles

teammates, and even chips in with a goal here and there. His form will have Real Madrid ruing letting the Moroccan go on loan.

Juventus: Did we expect any less?

When a team goes out and signs a man who is in the conversation to be the greatest of all time, the team will inevitably get better. Of course, this man just happens to be the metahuman that is Cristiano Ronaldo. As it has been throughout its history, Juventus’s defensive backline has been among Europe’s best, conceding few goals, executing those patented timely aggressive challenges, and holding down the fort with only three at the back with the full-backs playing more like wing-backs.

Miralem Pjanic’s development into a top-tier midfielder, the addition of defensive midfielder Blaise Matuidi, and the unstoppable rise of Paulo Dybala have allowed Juventus to control the midfield and maintain forward pressure.

But it has ultimately been the addition of Ronaldo to the front attacking line that looks to push Juventus over the top and into the European throne. Ronaldo and Mandzukic have created one of the deadliest one-two punch strike partnerships in Europe, with Mandzukic acting as a class number nine target man and Ronaldo doing what he has done throughout his entire career: scoring with the right foot, left foot, head, and any other part of the body in any position in the attacking third. After a slow start, Ronaldo and Mandzukic have taken everything Juan Cuadrado, Douglas Costa, and Paulo Dybala has fed them and turned them into goals and points on a matchday basis. But Juventus have been winning the Serie A in Italy for consecutive seasons now before Ronaldo got there. Juventus have been on the brink of winning the UEFA Champions League for years now, often falling short to Ronaldo’s former team, Real Madrid. But with Ronaldo crossing enemy lines, Juventus as of right now seems poised to lift the famous old trophy in Madrid in June.

The Bad Real Madrid: The “Royal Whites” have not played like the kings of Europe so far this year. As the current champions of Europe until the next winner is crowned in

June, Madrid have not neared the high standards they set for themselves last year. Ronaldo’s departure was a huge loss, with the Portuguese winger scoring most of Madrid’s goals last season. But the team’s problem is far bigger.

Madrid have the firepower with Gareth Bale, Marco Asensio, Karim Benzema, and Mariano Diaz more than capable of scoring goals. The team just can’t seem to score goals. They don’t have a pep in their step, and that can only be explained by the loss of Ronaldo’s locker room presence. Ronaldo was a respected figure in the locker room, with everyone looking up to him. When Madrid conceded goals last season, he would rally the troops and provide the emotional push for his teammates. But without that, the players seem like they don’t have a reason to play. They aren’t creative in attack and are poor in defense. They need a leader to step up and whip them back into shape or this season will only go down hill. Now we’re not saying that Madrid are doomed. They have shown glimpses of their potential, with Bale and Benzema scoring, but they are leaking goals, and their victories are too narrow. Sergio Ramos needs to control the backline and make sure they work on their weaknesses in training because weaker teams are creating too many chances against them.

Bayern: Bayern Munich, the record champions of Germany, the death star of the Bundesliga, have looked like a shell of themselves so far this year. Coming into the season, the addition of promising young midfielder Leon Goretzka, who Bayern purchased from Schalke on a pre-contract, and the return of world-class keeper Manuel Neuer had the Bavarian-hopeful believing a treble would not be out of reach. Early wins in the super-cup final against Eintracht Frankfurt, Hoffenheim, Leverkusen, and Schalke in the Bundesliga, and Benfica in the UCL (all in convincing fashion), had Nico Kovacic’s men riding high early into his first season of coaching the record champions.

Then Bayern began to stumble. The defending German champions dropped points in underwhelming ties against Augsburg (Bundesliga) and Ajax (UCL), and were simply outclassed by Monchengladbach

in a 3-0 thrashing. This allowed for German rivals Borussia Dortmund to take top position on the Bundesliga table. Matters only worsened for the defending champions when they squandered two leads against Dortmund away from home, allowing Dortmund to extend the gap between the two by seven points with a 3-2 despite a good performance from Robert Lewandowski. The following matchday didn’t fare much better for Bayern, as they tied at home 3-3 with Fortuna Dusseldorf, a recently promoted team, choking away two two-goal leads. The problem for Bayern has not been going forward; world-class attacking players like Lewandowski and James Rodriguez have produced goals in these underwhelming performances.

But Bayern’s defense is pitiful to be generous. Neuer has not been the same after his foot/leg injury and the year layoff; he looks to have fallen off from the greatest keeper in the world to simply above average.

Jerome Boateng doesn’t have a sense of where he is on the pitch and is failing to follow through on tackles, with some of his worst displays being against Dortmund and Dusseldorf. And worst for last, Niklas Sule. Niklas Sule is playing like a tugboat on the pitch. He looks slow, confused, and probably couldn’t man-mark a tree right now if asked. As for Niko Kovac, he hasn’t exactly done much to address these problems either. Kovac has utterly failed to adjust his tactics to patch up the hole going through the center of his defense. Unfortunately for him, for a club with a history of championships and as high standards as Bayern, a sacking might be in order for Kovac if he doesn’t salvage this self-destructing death star with its vulnerable point smack dab in the middle of his last line of defense.

the Ugly Monaco: Monaco came into this season with high hopes of challenging French champions Paris Saint Germain. With the acquisition of Aleksandr Golovin, the Russian who took the World Cup by storm last summer as well as high potential players all over France under the tutelage of Arsenal legend Thierry Henry, the club looked strong, but at this point, that has all fallen apart. At this point, they

find themselves knocked out of the Champion League, getting just one point from five games. They sit in the relegation zone in Ligue 1, two points away from safety. Henry pulled off some sort of miracle to still be in a job with the team in shambles. Henry is not totally at fault, however, with injuries plaguing squad. Much of the starting lineup is injured, and many players are forced to play out of position. With such bad luck, Monaco can only hope to escape relegation and use the summer to regroup and build up again.

Manchester United: Coming into the season, the Red Devils were all looking forward to Jose Mourinho’s historically magical third season.

The chosen one spoke highly of his previous success managing clubs like Chelsea and Real Madrid in his third season, both of which he won the league with. But Manchester United’s season has been disappointing thus far, to say the least. The reds look anemic, struggling to salvage points from teams from middle and lower levels of the Premier League Table. West Ham put a 3-1 scoreline on that exemplified their frustrations against lesser opponents willing to be more patient that they are. As for facing higher level opponents, United fans should be hitting the panic button. Tottenham embarrassed the Red Devils at the Theater of Dreams in Manchester with a 3-0 scoreline. United was then lucky to scrape a point away from Chelsea. But it was all summed up in the horrible performance against cross-town rivals Manchester City that colored Manchester blue for what seems to be years to come, as City look to be in prime position to win the title, currently 16 points above United. The only thing saving Mourinho’s job right now is a win against Juventus in the UCL, in which he excessively gloated for a man whose team sits in seventh place right now, to say the least. With the Premier League virtually out of reach and their Champions League chances looking slim, United are wasting a talented roster, especially midfielder Paul Pogba. It is a shame for a club as historically great as Manchester United that their greatest achievement in the Premier League this season is a comeback win against Newcastle.

Girls’ Gymnastics

Felines Get Off to a Sluggish Start Against Rivals

By Elias Ferguson and Aki Yamaguchi The Felines lost their first meet of the season to their division rivals, The Bronx High School of Science, losing in every event except the vault. The team is taking this loss with a grain of salt, however, seeing that the Bronx Science team won each event by only a slim margin and was aided by the disqualification of a Stuyvesant gymnast.

Though the meet was ultimately a disappointment for the Felines, who hoped to start their season on a positive note, the win over Bronx Science in the vault represents serious

improvement in the category.

Coach Vasken Choubaralian described vaulting as one of the focuses for improvement early on in the season, and the performance against Bronx Science is a step in the right direction.

Despite the loss, senior and captain Lee-Ann Rushlow was a standout performer for the Felines. “Lee-Ann did really well [in] a strong day all around,” Choubaralian said. Rushlow led the Felines in every event except for the uneven parallel bars, where she was the Felines’ second best performer behind freshman Agatha Nyarko. Rushlow especially stood out on the vault, impressing coach Choubaralian. After the meet, he said, “Lee-Ann got

a 8.20 on vault, which is a very good score.” Rushlow’s 8.20 was the top vault score in the whole meet by a considerable margin of 0.40 points.

Nyarko gave a strong performance for her first PSAL meet, performing well on the parallel bars. Coach Choubaralian said, “Agatha scored really high on bars, [getting] a 7.20.”

However, Nyarko’s performance was not without blemish.

She was disqualified during her balance beam event. “On beam, Agatha was expecting a high score,” he said. “[But an official] noticed she had earrings and disqualified her so we couldn’t count her score.” Though it was a blot on her record, her

excellent performances in other events dulled the blow to the Felines’ score.

Sophomore Naomi Khanna also had what Coach Chubaralian described as a good day, consistently sitting just behind Rushlow in most events. This year’s captains, seniors Xinyue Nam, Olivia He, and Rushlow all agreed that the team surpassed expectations going into Wednesday’s meet. Nam mentioned that the team broke “100 at their first meet, [scoring] 106.4 even with one of the beam scores disqualified.” They all can also conclude that both the newbies and the returning members are all stepping up to replace the graduated girls as the team has

many skilled gymnasts this year.

The team’s next goal is to get “newbies competing so they can get into the hang of things [and making sure to] perfect form to maximize point gain,” He said.

For the future meets, Choubaralian will make sure the performances are implemented more smoothly and are up to grade with all the requirements.

Some of the girls are in clubs outside of school and are working on integrating different skills into their PSAL routines in order to maximize their points.

However, the team is confident that higher scores are well within reach and that the opportunity to lead the division is still on the table.

The Spectator ● December 21, 2018

Page 23

Sports Editorial

PSAL Frees: Thoughts from Students, Athletes, and Administration

By Jeremy Rubin

The School Leadership Team (a committee made up of administration, teachers, parents, and students) recently voted against a Student Union proposal to implement physical education (or PSAL) frees. PSAL frees would have given athletes a free period in place of their regularly-scheduled physical education class. The Spectator asked the student body, teachers, and the administration about their thoughts on the matter. This is what they said. * This quote was taken from a Google Questionnaire form.

“Each athlete is actually considered a ‘student-athlete’—academics always come first, and physical education is a part of the academia, so that comes first before athletics. Same thing [applies] for when I coach my players: schoolwork comes first.

If they have to make up a test, or if they have to make up a quiz, or if they have to make up classes for whatever reason, or they have to do something after school for their class, that comes before our games and practices. Schoolwork is more important than anything.”

—Vincent Miller, physical education teacher and coach

“I believe that Stuyvesant has one of the most unique and rigorous physical education programs in New York City. I am very proud of the variety of classes we offer, and there is a big difference between physical fitness, athletics, and physical education. I recognize that student-athletes commit a tremendous amount of time to their sport, but I don’t believe that we should offset that workload by taking away physical education and robbing students of a potentially life-long educational experience. Instead, I support the student-athletes that spoke in the SLT meeting about homework guidelines and making sure that students in need are receiving the support they need to succeed.”

—Brian Moran, Assistant Principal for Security/Health and Physical Education

“I think that it’s really easy to think that physical education is just exercise, and I totally understand athletes not thinking that they gain anything from physical education, but I think it would be a mistake to marginalize the effect of having a different sort of education in your day. I personally believe that that’s really valuable for being a healthy person.”

—Talia Kirshenbaum, senior and PSAL athlete

“PSAL frees would be great for athletes, but [PSAl frees] hurt the rest of the student body. If implemented, it would follow that there would be fewer PE classes to accommodate for the fewer students required to take PE. Fewer classes means less flexibility when making schedule changes. No one wants their schedule to be confined around a specific PE class, yet this may have been the reality for students had PSAL frees been implemented. Additionally, many students participate in non-PSAL extracurriculars, so it does not make sense that these students “need” the PSAL free to get their work done. Regardless of our extracurricular, we all have work to do and extracurriculars to prioritize.” —Carter Ley, sophomore*

“I don’t think I argued against PSAL frees necessarily, but I argued, as Mr. Miller stated earlier, that the issue PSAL frees are trying to solve is more systemic and foundational within Stuy and how we function as a school.”

—Ally Archer, senior and PSAL athlete

“My reaction to the decision is really one of disappointment. I’ve met for probably 10 or more hours with either Bologna, Moran, or Contreras, and I’ve really made the effort to make every possible compromise, so much so that some other people in the [Student Union] (SU) thought I’d compromised too much. I gave up everything we could’ve possibly given up, and Mr. Contreras said to me just before the meeting a couple days before that ‘compromise is the way to go and that we’d all need to work together to do this.’” And I feel I’ve done that for months. It’s disappointing to me that the other side seems totally against compromise and [some] people haven’t [even] read the proposal. Some of the objections at the SLT meeting showed they just had no knowledge of what was in it.”

—Baird Johnson, junior and PSAL athlete

“I think not enough attention is given to extracurriculars at Stuyvesant, but [this applies] especially [to] sports. Especially in this day and age, it’s become increasingly important to find the time at an early age to develop healthy habits, and a big part of that is exercise. Granting PSAL frees not only recognizes and gives more respect to Stuyvesant’s athletics, but [also] allows our students to better represent our school in PSAL competitions. As well as encouraging more students to partake in athletics, it grants athletes more time obviously to complete their work or perhaps to just rest in school.”

—Mitchell Leung, senior and PSAL athlete*

“The debate over PSAL frees is rooted in the larger question of how Stuyvesant students can play on a sports team, do well in school, and stay physically and mentally healthy (sleep is a notable factor). PSAL frees make logical sense in all of the manners laid out by the Student Union, and they are the most efficient means through which to improve the health and academic and athletic performance of Stuyvesant students.”

—Julian Giordano, sophomore*

“PSAL frees should be a thing. As an athlete, I already have a lot of the skills necessary to perform at a pretty decent level in most sports regardless of my experience in them. As such, much of the time spent in gym class learning the very basics of how to play basketball, how to lift weights, etc. is wasted time. If the same issue happened in math class, I’d simply be placed in a more advanced class that more suited my skill level. However, no such thing exists for PE. Similarly, when I’m in season, I have considerably less time to do work. I often get home after 8:00 p.m., and by the time I’ve showered and eaten, it can be close to 10:00 p.m. Many of my teachers over the past four years have not honored the time limits for homework, so there are times where I’m up past 2:00 a.m. doing homework not because of procrastination but because of time commitments. It’s extremely exhausting to be working hard from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. That’s 18 hours straight. A PSAL free would be a step in the right direction for allowing student athletes to succeed in sports and keep up the reputation of Stuyvesant as a school that succeeds in almost everything it does and maintain a difficult and advanced course load at the same time.”

—Malcolm Hubbell, senior and PSAL athlete*

Girls’ Table Tennis

Zoraiz Irshad / The Spectator

Peglegs Show Improvement Despite Early Loss

By Isabel Leka and Kaitlyn Duong The Peglegs, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity table tennis team, started their season strong with a decisive win against McKee/ Staten Island Technical High School. Seniors and co-captains Katherine Lee and Allison Eng dominated in their matches while the duos of underclassmen, featuring freshman Madison Cheng and sophomores

Lolita Rozenbaum, Shiho Watanabe, and Julianna Yu, easily defeated their opponents in the doubles matches. Their next game, however, proved to be a bigger challenge.

The Peglegs faced their biggest competitors, defending champions Millennium High School, in the second game of the season. Unfortunately, the Peglegs were outmatched and were handed their first loss of the season in a 4-1 win by Mil-

lennium. All four wins by Millennium were blowouts, with each match resulting in a 3-0 loss for the Peglegs. However, Eng won her second singles match 3-2.

Despite the tough loss, the game marked a significant improvement from the 5-0 losses the Peglegs suffered against Millennium last season. Eng’s win against the school may be the spark that the team needs in order to keep progressing and improving through the season. “It seems like we’re better [than we were] last year,” coach Emilio Nieves said. “We managed to win a game from them. Last year, they shut us out both times that we played them, so we certainly have the ability, but we just have to continue to keep playing.”

It is still early in the season, so with more experience, the team will keep improving.

The Peglegs still need improvement if they want to beat Millenium and pursue the Division I title. Under the leadership of Lee and Eng, as well as with their athleticism and the desire to win, coach Nieves believes that the Peglegs have the capabilities

to beat Millenium by the time the playoffs roll around. “We know that we have the physical ability to beat them,” he said. “They’re very fundamentally sound, so I think playing them has focused them on what we need to do to try to beat a team like that.”

The Peglegs are looking forward to their next match against Millennium later this month, which will be key to their chances of making a championship push this season.

More than just a glimpse of hope, the loss against Millennium also revealed some of the Peglegs’ weaknesses, allowing them to hone in on certain skills. “[Our] first doubles are really good, young players: Lolita Rozenbaum and Madison Cheng. They can learn how to cut because a lot of the serves we face in the game are cutting, and they weren’t able to properly return [them]. With practice, it can easily be fixed,” Eng said.

Coach Nieves has emphasized the importance of being able to return serves in practice, especially [receiving] different types of spins. The Peglegs are good

all-around players with a lot of potential, but in an individual and double sport, they will need to refine and master their technical skills in order to beat the competition.

Captains Eng and Lee have been crucial both as players and as captains. They have both played with the majority of their teammates for at least a year, creating an intimate bond between captains and athletes.

Coach Nieves has depended on their input on ways to improve during practice and believes that they have the same end goal: to get better and perfect their game.

With hard work, the desire to win, and the willingness to make sacrifices, coach Nieves believes that the team has a shot at surpassing Millennium and reclaiming the division title. “If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?” he asked, quoting former New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath. With this mindset and guidance from Eng and Lee, the young team is looking forward to a very competitive and exciting season.

The Spectator ● December 21, 2018

Page 24

The Spectator SpoRts Girls’ Basketball

Phoenix Experience and Talent Forecast Strong Season

By Damian Wasilewicz

their role during the game,” Miller said.

These efforts led to a two win streak. The team’s game against the High School of Fashion Industries, especially, saw a strong performance across the team. Archer, in particular, stood out with 24 points, 14 rebounds, and five assists.

Though the team lost some experienced players who graduated last June, including former captain Shannon Lau (‘18), the current athletes are confident that they will be able to fill these gaps. “One thing that has stood out to me so far is how strong the rookies are,” Kirshenbaum said. This year’s rookies are freshman Paige Wolfing, freshman Alison Chan, and sophomore Maya Sundarajan.

Archer spoke favorably of each of them. “Maya has been really consistent with her shot around the paint. Paige is really strong and willing to bring the ball up or drive to the basket,” Archer said. “Alison, as many of us on the team have determined, is very similar to Shannon. She is a great ball handler and amazing at finding the best passes

Julian Giordano / The Spectator

The Phoenix, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity basketball team, started their season off strong, winning back-to-back games against the High School of Fashion Industries and A. Philip Randolph Campus High School. Their opening games have set the tone for a promising season from a team full of both seasoned players and fresh talent despite a rocky start.

The team ran into some issues during their offseason. One obstacle was getting the team back into a basketball mindset, according to senior and co-captain Ally Archer.

“I know for a lot of people on the team, myself included, we hadn’t touched a basketball in almost a year,” said Archer, stressing the importance of bring the team’s skills back up to par. The team made use of several offseason scrimmages to identify issues early on and fix them before the season started.

“There had been issues with passing and shooting the ball without using the shot clock, which I wanted us to try and improve upon,” Archer elaborated.

Another issue that the Phoenix faced was a shorter time to practice during the offseason. A number of players on the team play more than one sport, including volleyball, and the overlap between the playoff season for volleyball and the offseason for basketball took away some time. Several players were also unable to practice due to injuries. Despite these setbacks, senior and co-captain Talia Kirshenbaum seemed confident that the team more than broke even. “We lost some valuable time, but I think we’ve been making up for it with a lot of basic training,” Kirshenbaum said.

The team’s coach, Vincent Miller, stressed the importance of the team’s mental and physical strength this season. “Since late October, the team has been preparing to play with a higher level of aggression and intensity,” coach Miller said. Miller feels confident in the team and is holding high expectations for their performance this season, believing that this year will mark the team’s sixth consecutive time entering playoffs. “We have learned and reviewed all of our plays so that every player knows

These photos were taken at the Girls’ Varsity Basketball Game against School of the Future on 12/14/2018 at 4:30 PM in the 6th Floor Gym.

to an open player.”

The team also came out with a 52-18 win against Lois Brandeis High School on December 7, which was then offset by a 54-41 loss to Millennium High School four days later. “Millennium High School is our biggest rival simply because they challenge us the most,” Miller said. Despite the loss, members of the team remain optimistic.

“We lost by 13, but we were losing by 20+ for most of the game,” senior shooting guard/point guard Britni Canale said.

Ultimately, the combination of experience and fresh vitality that the roster holds puts the Phoenix in a strong position for the rest of the season. It is now up to the players to deliver.

Girls’ Gymnastics

Felines Get Off to a Sluggish Start Against Rivals See page 22

Wrapup

Zoe Oppenheimer / The Spectator

The Phoenix, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity basketball team, defeated School of the Future 53-37 in their second win of the season.

The Pirates, Stuyvesant’s boys’ varsity swimming team, got their second win on the trot, beating Hunter College High School 5831.

The Peglegs, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity table tennis team, continued their dominant start to the season with a 5-0 win against Seward Park Campus, bringing home their fourth win of the season.