Volume 103, Issue 13

The Spectator

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume CIII No. 13

Newsbeat

• On Saturday, April 27, Stuyvesant’s chapter of Global Citizens Corps held a carnival game fundraiser to raise money for a small Ethiopian orphanage at the annual Tribeca Film Festival Family Fair. The organization, with the help of social studies teacher Brenda Garcia, raised a total of $746 for their cause.

• English teacher Dr. Emily Moore was featured on National Public Radio on Saturday, April 20 to discuss her introduction to poetry and poetry’s modern relevance.

She is currently developing a summer course on the teaching of poetry with the Poet’s House and Kenyon College.

• Stuyvesant’s chapter of the Junior State of America attended the Regional JSA Spring Conference in Connecticut. Five Stuy students won best speaker awards, and a student was elected Lieutenant Governor of the Northeast JSA Region.

• Seventeen Stuyvesant students won medals at last week’s Greater Metropolitan Math Fair, six of which were gold medalists.

• Editors of The Spectator participated in the Harvard Crimson Journalism Conference on Saturday, April 27. Seven awards for art reviews, features articles, editorials, and photography, along with the distinction of overall excellence, were awarded to the school newspaper and its writers.

May 10, 2013

stuyspectator.com

207 to 103: Damesek Moves to Archie’s Old Office

BY DAVID CAHN This article is based on interviews with Principal Jie Zhang, Assistant Principal of Organization Randi Damesek, Assistant Principal of Security and Student Affairs Brian Moran, 12 teachers, and more than 25 students.

Due to the nature of its content, all of the teachers quoted have requested anonymity.

When Principal Jie Zhang announced to her cabinet in early April that Assistant Principal of Organization (APO) Randi Damesek would be moving to room 103 and that Assistant Principal of Security and Student Affairs Brian Moran was to take her place in room 207, it was the first time either of them had heard of the move.

According to Zhang, the move was a routine bureaucratic switch; traditionally, the APO’s office is next to that of the principal, and the Assistant Principal of Guidance (APG) is closer to the guidance suite.

When Zhang arrived at Stuyvesant in September, this was immediately an issue of concern for her, but she decided to wait for former Assistant Principal of Pupil Services Eleanor Archie

to retire before announcing the switch.

In addition to managing the guidance office, Moran is responsible for the security of the building. “The big need in my opinion is to handle the building safety […] Knowing that he’s walking around the floors makes me more comfortable,” Zhang said. Because room 207 is located near the bridge entrance, Zhang believes it is an appropriate place for Moran to work with the school’s security guards and safety agents. Room 207 also offered a convenient location for a SAVE room, which is a room designated by the school to house delinquent students during their suspensions. Previously, the SAVE room was located in the Principal’s conference room.

In spite of Zhang’s justifications, many students and teachers have been taken aback by her decision. While the Stuyvesant community can sometimes seem to court controversy and even enjoy its dramas, the backlash against Damesek’s change of office appears to be one of the rare issues to unify students and teachers.

Senior Bernie Birnbaum said

Boston Strong: The Wrong City to Mess With

that the recent change was accompanied by many “loud and angry Facebook posts” in the seniors’ Facebook group, even causing another anonymous student to claim that there was a “conspiracy to limit Damesek’s power.”

“All I know is that they might have had their reasons, but just to take someone’s office after all these years is kind of like a slap in the face,” said a teacher who requested anonymity.

Much of the backlash stems from the symbolism behind the change. Damesek’s new office is not only substantially smaller than her old office, but, in the words of junior Zeerak Abbas, “room 207 is a place of power because it’s near the second floor entrance.”

As expressed by many students and teachers, a respect for Damesek’s competence appears to be at the core of her support.

“If I have a problem I go to her and she takes care of it if she can,” one teacher said. Another agreed: “With Damesek, [the motto is] ‘if she can, she will.’”

Many students believe that the change of offices represents a deeper rift within the administration. “Does it symbolize

a shift in power?” junior Gene Gao asked. “What does it represent?”

Zhang admits that Damesek’s role within the building is changing. “[In September] I learned that the work was unevenly distributed… Damesek is willing, but I want to be fair,” Zhang said.

Since then, Zhang’s goal has been to “make Damesek [more like] a traditional APO… She took on more than she should have,” she explained.

So far, Moran has taken over a few of Damesek’s former responsibilities. These include managing fire drills, leading school safety meetings, and maintaining school safety policies and procedures.

Other options were available. “I originally wanted to be in room 101,” Moran said, regarding his proposal to occupy the room that is currently used to store lacrosse equipment.

Alternatively, Moran could have taken room 103, and left Damesek in room 207.

Zhang remains popular among the student body. “So far Zhang has been helpful, open minded and listened to our concontinued on page 2

Tribeca Film Festival

BY THE ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT DEPARTMENT

The beginning of May marks the end of one of New York’s most celebrated cultural events—the Tribeca Film Festival. Bringing together films and artists from all over the world, the festival offers the international community and especially the people of New York a glimpse into the vibrant world of current cinema, screening many films for the first time in America (and sometimes, the world). The festival’s films, which span numerous genres, speak to the power of the medium in transporting us to unimaginable places and crossing cultural boundaries. On page 20, the editors of the Arts and Entertainment department share their thoughts on some of the films displayed.

By TERESA CHEN There are three Bostons. The first belongs to the citizens who are born there, who take on the distinct “Bawstun” accent and proudly wear the vibrant red of the Boston Red Sox wherever they go. Second, there is the Boston of people passing through the city’s gates, searching to fulfill their dreams. This Boston is full of curious students temporarily calling the city their home as they attend a chain of top-tier universities.

Features

The third Boston is made of the influx of tourists pouring into the city each day, cameras in their hands.

No matter how different these Bostons may be, they converge into a single Boston with the annual Boston Marathon. Celebrated as a local holiday, the Marathon offers almost everyone a day off to enjoy the weather and to spend time with family. The invite is also extended internationally as spectators from all over the world come to cheer on those running the race, bringing a sense of unity and

Article on page 6.

Jie Zhang: The Cultural Revolution, Then and Now Principal Jie Zhang reflects on the lasting effects of China’s Cultural Revolution on her career and outlook as Stuyvesant’s principal.

pride to the comparatively small city. This year, even with the tragic bombing event that ensued on Monday, April 15, proved to be no exception. From the perspectives of the second and third Bostons, Stuyvesant students and alumni share their own stories and experiences related to the event.

The Student: Going Boston Strong “It’s not often that I am roused continued on page 6

Laura Eng / The Spectator

Wei Dan Yang / The Spectator

continued on page 20

Article on page13

Opinions

Point-Counterpoint on the Eurozone Austerity Crisis Should the Eurozone continue its austerity policies?

Opinions writers Daniel Kodsi and Justin Weltz offer their opposing perspectives.

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 2

News 207 to 103: Damesek Moves to Archie’s Old Office

“The big need in my opinion is to handle the building safety […] Knowing that he’s walking around the floors makes me more comfortable.”

—Jie Zhang, Principal

making it harder for each of them to do their respective jobs and it’s negatively affecting the student body, which is the most

“So far Zhang has been helpful, open minded and listened to our concerns.” — Tahia Islam, SU Vice President and junior

important thing,” he said.

AP Exam Scores to be Sent Online

By Dorit Rein and Jerry Xia

The College Board has recently announced that Advanced Placement (AP) scores will be delivered to recipients electronically starting this July. On Sunday, April 14, Principal Jie Zhang sent out an e-mail notifying Stuyvesant students of this change.

“This convenient new system replaces the old paper report, which will no longer be mailed,” Zhang said in the e-mail.

According to the official College Board website, there are many benefits to this new program. Students can review their entire score histories and see the statuses of their orders. Furthermore, students no longer need to request that scores be sent to institutions by phone, mail, or fax, since the scores will be available online.

This new online system requires users to have College Board accounts. Through the information

provided with these accounts, the College Board will send students emails on how to obtain their AP and SAT scores and send these scores to colleges. Students can also opt to receive practice questions for these exams by e-mail.

In order to access their AP scores, students will need to know not only their usernames and passwords, but also their student identification or AP numbers. The student identification number will be the same nine digit number on Stuyvesant ID cards, and AP numbers can be found on the AP Student Pack, which is distributed the day of the exam. These Student Packs will include a tear-off card with individual AP numbers that students can save for future reference. The College Board advises students to keep the tear-off cards, but if they are lost, students can call the contact numbers provided on the College Board website and provide identification information to access their scores.

“I don’t check the mail regu-

larly, so obtaining the scores online is much more convenient for me,” junior Albert Leung said.

In the past, students were given the option of receiving a mailed or electronic copy of their scores.

“Most students seemed to prefer the online scores, and it is more convenient to have one standard [electronic] system that everyone uses,” a College Board representative said in a phone interview.

This year’s AP score reports will be available at 5:00 a.m. EDT on Monday, July 8. If students need to send their scores to colleges before the online service is available, they may purchase a rush processing order. In New York, students will be able to access their scores by Friday, July 5.

College Board will provide more information and details on the new system through its website and emails to students who already have College Board accounts.

By Coby Goldberg and Brian Wei

For the third time in the past decade, a Stuyvesant student has been named a national finalist of the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad Competition (USNCO).

Junior Tsun Wong is among approximately 1,000 finalists who emerged from a nationwide pool of some 10,000 entrants competing in the UNSCO. Sponsored by the American Chemical Society, the competition consists of a series of tests put together to determine the four top high school students who will comprise the U.S. Chemistry Team. This team will compete in the International Chemistry Olympiad Competition, to be held this year in Moscow from Monday, July 15 to Wednesday, July 24.

The first phase, known as the local exam, was held on Saturday, March 2. It was a 110-minute exam consisting of 60 multiple choice questions. Each question was worth one point, with no deductions applied for wrong answers.

The local test had a broad focus, covering topics such as nuclear chemistry, periodicity, bonding, and acids and bases. Any student with at least a 95 average in Stuyvesant’s AP Chemistry course was allowed to take the local exam.

The next phase of the competition, the national exam, was administered on Sunday, April 14 at Adelphi University in Long Island, NY. The national exam is a threepart, 270-minute exam. The first part is a 90-minute battery of 60 multiple choice questions, once again covering “broad chemistry topics,” according to the UNSCO website. The second part lasts 105 minutes and includes 8 short response questions, all of which pertain to chemical theories and models. The third and final part of the exam is a 75-minute laboratory section, consisting of two laboratory practical application tests. In this section, the student is told the goal and ideal result of a lab and is given the materials. The student must then design and test an experiment.

Due to the broad range of topics covered, studying for the two exams can be a challenge for many students. “I knew the test was go-

ing to cover a lot of subjects in really complicated ways, so I made sure to study in a lot of ways,” Wong said. “I went online and searched for old tests. I did a lot of problems from the practice tests. I also read through my notes from AP Chemistry.”

The top 20 scorers on the exam will be announced on Tuesday, May 14. These 20 students will then attend a study camp at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, from Sunday, June 4 to Wednesday, June 19. There, after two weeks of college-level training, including problem-solving exercises, lab work, and testing, the fourmember U.S. Chemistry Team will be announced.

Despite his success, Wong expresses concern over the low number of Stuyvesant students aware of the competition. “There wasn’t much advertisement. The only time it is announced is through the speakers. I believe it should receive more attention,” Wong said.

Further discouraging students is the time commitment demanded of participants. “Oftentimes, our best students don’t take it because of the prep time needed. Kids here are too busy with APs and other stuff for this exam,” Dibbs said.

“Some schools actually take kids out of class to prep them.”

To address the low participation in the Chemistry Olympiad Exam at Stuyvesant, Wong plans to create a Chemistry Olympiad club, similar to the one that already exists to prepare for the Physics Olympiad test. He aims to generate greater student interest in the exam and provide an organized framework for studying for the exam. As of now, preparation is simply up to the students involved and their teachers, with no formal program of study.

Wong now joins seniors Beverly Zhou and Saif Choudhurry as one of three Stuyvesant students to reach the national finalists stage in the Chemistry Olympiad in the past decade. Though neither Choudhurry nor Zhou made it past this stage of the examination process, hopes are high for Wong. “He worked hard to study for this hard exam, and hopefully he will make a bit of school history with this,” Dibbs said.

Augustave Publishes Novel about Haitian Adoptee

By Alexandrina Danilov French teacher Elsie Augustave tells the story of a Haitian immigrant’s struggles for personal identity in American society in her new novel “The Roving Tree,” which came out in bookstores on Tuesday, May 7.

The novel was published by the Open Lens imprint of the independent, Brooklyn-based writing press Akashic.

Augustave relates the experiences of a five-year-old Haitian girl in America. Iris Odys, the main character, is the daughter of Hagathe, a Haitian maid who wants nothing more than a better life for Iris, and Brahami, a father who wants little involvement with his daughter. When Iris is five, Hagathe gives Iris up for adoption, hoping that the American couple adopting her will give her a life better than what Hagathe could offer. Iris is consequently taken from her small Haitian village, Monn Neg, to live in American suburbia.

The book explores Odys’s struggles with identity, loss, separation from her origins, and

“the impact of class privilege and color consciousness,” Augustave said. Set in the American suburbs and Haiti under an oppressive regime, the novel portrays Odys’s attempts to return to her roots in a class-conscious society.

Born in Haiti, Augustave was inspired by personal experiences and events she witnessed in her own life. In pursuit of her passion for culture, she has traveled to various countries like France and Senegal. She also spent time in Haiti with a graduate summer research grant from Howard University, during which she studied Haitian folk culture and the voodoo religion.

“I wanted to reflect on what I knew about Haitian culture. It is about what roles traditions play in that society,” Augustave said.

“The book was a way to bring all these influences together.”

Augustave collected journals, notes, and poems she had written over the years and decided to write a novel many years ago. Her investigations into the cultural practices of the Haitian people, along with her own imaginings about an ad-

opted Haitian girl she had been told of, inspired her to write “The Roving Tree.”

For Augustave, the writing process was an “on-and-off process for several years,” she said.

She would sometimes go three years without even touching the book. Nevertheless, “It was something I felt I had to do,” she said. “I needed to do it.”

The novel was Augustave’s first experience in fiction writing. Even so, she is already halfway finished writing her second novel and has begun writing a memoir. Augustave explained that though “writing can be a frustrating experience, the reward of writing is being able to sit back and read what you’ve written,” she said.

Since the announcement of the book’s publication, Augustave has been “called upon to do things [she’s] never done before,” she said. Augustave is participating in radio interviews, book readings, and various book signings in locations throughout the East Coast, including a book signing in the Tribeca branch of Barnes & Noble on Friday, May 22.

Alice Oh/ The Spectator

Michelle Lin / The Spectator

continued from page 1

cerns,” said SU Vice President and junior Tahia Islam, who recently raised her concerns with Zhang regarding the move. Islam is optimistic that Zhang will address the students’ unease in this situation with poise, as she has done in past.

Another teacher acknowledged that there might be reasons beneath the surface of the move. “There are two sides to it. When a new manager comes into any organization, she needs to feel like she has a team that she can work with and trust.”

Tension between administrators is spilling over into the hallways of Stuyvesant. Teachers are beginning to describe the creation of two different alliances within the school, a pro-Damesek camp and a pro-Zhang camp. But students don’t want division. A student requesting anonymity summed up the issue. “Both Ms. Damesek and Ms. Zhang do a lot for the school, together they basically run every element of it and they both do a great job. But this tension is

Stuyvesant Junior Selected as National Chemistry Olympiad Finalist

French teacher Elsie Augustave’s debut novel, “The Roving Tree,” explores one Haitian woman’s quest for identity and personal voice. The book was released on Tuesday, May 7.

The Spectator ●May 10, 2013

Page 3

News Cultural Events Showcase Stuyvesant’s Diversity

By Coby Goldberg and Andrew Wallace Two separate cross-cultural celebrations were held on Thursday, April 18, lending Stuyvesant a reflection of its cultural diversity for one afternoon and evening. The 38th annual International Food Festival and the fifth annual Culture Fest were both held after school. The Food Festival is run by the foreign language department, while the Culture Fest is a student-run event led by executive producer and senior Daniel Lin. The Food Festival was held immediately after school in the cafeteria and featured cuisine ranging from East Asian to Spanish ethnic food, distributed by volunteers from various culture clubs in the school and other interested students.

Each year, the foreign language teachers invite students in their classes to bring in the ethnic food of the language that the students are enrolled in. The food is then sold for prices ranging from three to five dollars for a plate of food, with all the profits given to the foreign language department. “The idea of it is having the experience of trying

the foods of the language and culture that you are studying in school,” Assistant Principal of World Languages Arlene Ubieta said. “But if we need a projector or a computer, or a certain software, we use the money that we raise from Food Fest.”

Some students, however, believe this system of selling the food brought in for free to be unfair. “The pricing was pretty unfair. Students brought in free food and then were charged to eat it. That doesn’t make sense,” sophomore Karendeep Alluhwalia said.

Others support the system.

“The prices seem worth it,” freshman Jonathan Aung said.

“It’s nice to try out the foods of different nations, plus the proceeds go to the school so it’s fair considering.”

Following the Food Festival, Culture Fest began at 5:30 in the auditorium, featuring eighteen diverse dance and musical performances, including boys’ hip hop, the erhu, and Korean ethnic dance. Tickets to the show were five dollars each.

Though it is usually held in December, Culture Fest’s date was pushed back due to complications with Hurricane Sandy.

The show is built purely on student participation, offering the opportunity to all students to showcase their cultural tal-

Culture Fest gives students who have interesting cultural talents a chance to put their abilities on display. Junior Kath-

“We are trying to get the community to be more together, and to really rebuild the community here at Stuyvesant High School”—Angel Colon, SPARK coordinator ents. “A lot of students don’t really get to participate in a lot of other productions like SING! and STC because they have a different agenda,” Lin said.

“But with Culture Fest, it’s more of a showcase of cultural talent and diversity. It’s not the same atmosphere, because Culture Fest is more of a school spirit experience, so it’s more fun.

It’s supposed to be an opportunity for more students to get involved.”

erine Oh performed a traditional Korean drum dance solo. “I started when I was three years old, so I’m in my 13th year,” Oh said. “I had taken pretty hardcore lessons from a young age, but I had to give that up when I went to high school.”

Though named after its ethnic performances, Culture Fest incorporated many non-ethnic performances. For example, groups of Stuyvesant students performed rave and hip hop

routines unassociated with any particular ethnicity. “I picked up a lot of freshman who told me they wanted to dance after the event called StuySquad happened, and I told them that we had practice almost every week and that they could join us. And because they’ve all improved so much, I wanted to give them an event where they could show off their skills,” junior Philip Lan said.

SPARK coordinator Angel Colon explained that Culture Fest, and, in part, the Food Festival, are both aspects of a larger cultural initiative at Stuyvesant aimed at displaying and promoting the cultures of the 59 nationalities represented at the school. “It’s something where we are trying to get the community to be more together, and to really rebuild the community here at Stuyvesant High School,” Colon said. “That’s the way Stuyvesant does things.

You guys are awesome in terms of juggling academics and extracurricular activities and still being able to squeeze in school community type of activities.

And that’s the type of thing we want to promote more and more.”

Danny Kim / The Spectator

Spanish Class Celebrates Literary Work of Federico García Lorca

Spanish teacher Milton Diaz and his eighth period Spanish Conversational class strung together a variety of acts in celebration of the late poet Federico García Lorca on Thursday, May 2.

By Andrew Wallace Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), a widely acclaimed and influential Spanish poet, playwright, and songwriter, is being recognized this year in “Lorca in NY: A Celebration,” a three-month citywide event for commemorating his life and works that will last from April 5 through July 21.

In the spirit of the festival, Stuyvesant Spanish teacher

Milton Diaz organized “A Celebration of Federico García Lorca” for the afternoon of Thursday, May 2. The event, featuring Diaz’s conversational Spanish class, presented some of García Lorca’s poetry, plays, and music in the library during ninth and tenth period.

Students in Diaz’s other classes were encouraged to watch the performances, and many attended. Several teachers were also in the audience.

The performers learned about García Lorca and studied his works in Diaz’s class for much of the year. “We knew about him, we read his poetry, we took tests about him,” senior Chamel Li said, one of two stage managers for the event.

As Garcia Lorca’s works are difficult to understand even for fluent Spanish speakers, it can be very hard for Englishspeaking Spanish students to appreciate them. However, Diaz was able to achieve that goal. “I often find some of Garcia Lorca’s work confusing at first, and his language can be a little hard to decipher. But with the help of Señor Diaz, everything began to make sense to me,” junior Won Young Choi said.

Also in attendance was Garcia Lorca’s niece, Maria García Lorca, who was vacationing in the United States when she received Diaz’s invitation to attend the event.

Though she never met her uncle, Maria García Lorca knew about him from her father. “I heard that he was a really warm, friendly, happy person who liked sharing things and having a good time,” she said.

Maria García Lorca thought the students did justice to her uncle’s work. “I think it was very moving and I think he would have loved what the kids did. What this is all about [is] very much related to what he was about,” she said. “I feel very grateful to have been a part of this and I think it’s very important to do things like this, on all levels. It was an incredibly moving experience.”

Junior Bikash Rahat, the second stage manager, explained the process of preparing for the event. “We met for the first two weeks in class

and got together all the parts.

It was really in the last week where we started putting everything together,” he said.

Rahat acted as a coordinator for the event, making sure everyone knew their roles and that everything was prepared for Thursday afternoon. This proved a challenge. “It’s a really complicated thing when not

“I was extremely moved. At the end of the performance, [Maria García Lorca and I] were in tears because it was so moving to hear the kids really express their deepest feelings and thoughts from a very real place.”— Milton Diaz, Spanish teacher

everyone has a Facebook and not everyone is online all the time or familiar with texting,” Rahat said. “It’s really hard to get certain groups together, and it’s hard to get information out when we need to.”

The wide variety of performances included dramatic interpretations of scenes from García Lorca’s plays and readings of his works. Two students even read original poems inspired by those of García Lorca.

Though García Lorca wrote only in Spanish, about half of the performances at the event were in English. This was done “to facilitate our work, to save time and to try to make it a little bit more understandable for some people who may not know Spanish,” Choi said.

One performance, featuring Diaz and music teacher Joseph Tamosaitis, stood out in particular. The act, a performance of the song “Nana, Nino, Nana,” included two student singers, Diaz on the guitar, and Tamosaitis on the bass. The finale of the event was a moving rendition of García Lorca’s poem “A Las Cinco de la Tarde” (“At Five in the Afternoon”), read collaboratively by the entire cast.

Diaz, who has a theater background and has been involved in Stuyvesant Theater Community productions (including one of García Lorca’s plays) in his 13-year career at Stuyvesant, was very proud of his students. “I was extremely moved. At the end of the performance, [Maria García Lorca and I] were in tears because it was so moving to hear the kids really express their deepest feelings and thoughts from a very real place. It’s not about getting a certificate or being part of an honor society or any of those trappings that go with meritocracy. It was something that had deep meaning. It was about them and developing personalities and individuality,” he said.

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 4

Features

Eva I / The Spectator

Courtesy of Annie Thoms

Eva I / The Spectator

Jennifer Leung/ The Spectator

Once a Stuy Student, Always a Stuy Student

(Clockwise from top left) Biology teacher Dr. Maria Nedwidek, computer science coordinator Michael Zamansky, English teacher Annie Thoms, and computer science teacher JonAlf Dyrland-Weaver have each experienced being both students and teachers at Stuyvesant High School.

By Alexander Gabriel and Maisha Kamal

Stuyvesant students are all too familiar with the sleepless nights and endless studying seemingly necessary to maintain their already above-average grades. By the time Stuyvesant students graduate, relief sweeps over them, and most are thankful that their times at Stuyvesant are over. For others, though, four years aren’t enough, and they end up coming back. Rather than arriving as visitors, however, they return as teachers who help enrich the experiences of current students with their unique insight.

Annie Thoms (’93)

Maria Nedwidek (’88)

When English teacher Annie Thoms came to Stuyvesant for the first time in 1989, her experience was similar to that of Zamansky: “The culture of test preparation was not as intense, but I knew Stuyvesant was at the top and so I aimed for that,” she said in an e-mail interview. For her, the “sheer nerdyness” of the school was what made it so appealing. After being alienated for her intelligence and interest in her academic pursuits in middle school, Thoms was finally surrounded by people with a similar academic drive at Stuyvesant. The heterogeneity of students was also valuable to her. “It’s good to be around lots of people who are brilliant in ways that are different than you,” she noted.

After deciding to become a teacher, Thoms did not think she would return to Stuyvesant. However, her experience of coming back as a student teacher to learn from her previous instructors would motivate her to seek a full time position. “I thought I would find myself teaching in a place that was a grittier, more typical public high school, but while I was at Stuyvesant I had a class that I fell in love with, I just got this awesome vibe from them, and it was such a great time,” she said. Between the bond she had formed with her students and the chance occurrence that another teacher had taken a maternity leave, Thoms eagerly accepted a job at Stuyvesant.

When asked about the changes in the student culture, Thoms was quick to note how little has actually changed from her days as a high school student.

“There is still a sense that the school’s students are smart and motivated, but the demographic has changed. There are many more Asian, as well as first generation immigrant, students, which contributes to the diversity, but at the same time homogenizes things,” she said. However, through teaching the Writer’s Workshop course, she has gotten to see the creativity and opinions of the student body that is sometimes forgotten amidst Stuyvesant’s math and science culture. “When given the chance, the students will really knock your socks off,” Thoms said.

For biology teacher Dr. Maria Nedwidek, attending Stuyvesant was a crucial step in developing her career in the sciences. “If I didn’t get into Stuyvesant, I wouldn’t have had an option,” Dr. Nedwidek said. “There weren’t other options for bright students. I liked science, and I wanted Stuyvesant because of the science and math.” Dr. Nedwidek maintains that most of the pressure of getting into Stuyvesant was from herself, not from her parents.

At Stuyvesant, Dr. Nedwidek focused much of her time on her science classes and working in the lab, getting to know some of her future co-workers without even realizing it.

After high school, she continued her studies at MIT, majoring in biology, before pursuing and receiving her Ph.D. at Princeton. She then began working at a lab in Harvard, where she began to consider running a lab as a career. Four years into this endeavor, though, she gave up working in academic science and wanted to continue teaching. She moved from Boston back to New York, with a job at the Dwight School on the Upper West Side. In 2005, a contact from one of her old teachers in the biology department invited her to teach at Stuyvesant, and Dr. Nedwidek landed the job almost instantly.

After teaching here for eight years, Dr. Nedwidek has had the time to witness the diversity of students that come to Stuyvesant. “A lot of the male students I have remind me a lot of my father, which is very weird and very interesting. My dad was a student here, and he was a lot like they are,” she said. “I think that a lot of students at Stuyvesant are similar: they get into mischief, but are passionate about learning. I think that when my students remind me of my dad, it makes me a little more forgiving towards them.” On the student culture of Stuyvesant, she commented that students seem to have a lot more academic pressure put on them than she did, but that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Stuyvesant was and it still is a great place. It’s just different,” she added.

JonAlf Dyrland-Weaver (’01)

Computer science teacher JonAlf Dyrland-Weaver’s time at Stuyvesant is what, he believes, ultimately led him to become a teacher. “I pursued teaching first, and my experience at Stuyvesant and the teachers here definitely had an impact on that. And being introduced to computer science here gave me the toolset to go on and continue learning it,” Dyrland-Weaver said.

As a new teacher, Dyrland-Weaver didn’t have much of a choice in terms of where he would teach, but had always thought of Stuyvesant as a place he wanted to return to. After Dyrland-Weaver spent a few years at another high school, Zamansky, already the head of the computer science department at the time, called up Dyrland-Weaver, his former student, and invited him to a job interview. He got the position and the chance to teach computer science. Coming back to his old high school to work as a teacher was “very trippy,” Dyrland-Weaver said.

“Sometimes I have a dream in which it’s the end of the year, and I realize I’ve been cutting all my classes to teach computer science. Then I realize I haven’t been cutting classes and I’m actually a teacher.”

Time has brought changes to Stuyvesant’s student culture, and DyrlandWeaver commented on the school’s increased competitiveness. “Students take AP classes for the sake of taking AP classes, not for an interest in the subject. Sophomores, and even freshmen, are starting to think about college. And the students just feel less appreciated and welcome by the school,” he said. However, he believes that Stuyvesant offers a lot more opportunities than it had in the past, both overall and within the range of computer science.

Michael Zamansky (’84)

Unlike most incoming freshmen, computer science coordinator Michael Zamansky didn’t feel much pressure when considering Stuyvesant for high school. “It was pretty much assumed if I got in, I was going. Not making it in was never really part of the equation,” Zamansky said. During his time at Stuyvesant, however, the computer science department was not what we know it to be now; computer science was only taught as an elective then.

After graduating and spending a few years working on Wall Street with computer science, Zamansky decided he wanted to explore other options. This led him to consider a job at Stuyvesant. Though Zamansky had connections to the school, acquiring a position was still rather difficult. He settled on being a math teacher at Seward Park High School, but when he was sent in for the job, an accident by the Board of Education led him to be removed: they had lost his teaching license. In a stroke of serendipity, it just so happened that Stuyvesant needed a math teacher, and his previously invaluable connection with the head of the school’s math department landed him the job.

Zamansky is content with his teaching position, especially following years of work in expanding the computer science curriculum beyond the introductory level. His passion lies not in giving students high grades, but in teaching and giving them valuable life skills.

“I look at it as I’m working with my students to impart knowledge and, hopefully, inspiration and to empower them to grow,” Zamansky said. The shirts that hang around room 307 show this goal’s success; each one was sent by a student of his who has gone on to land jobs in the computer science industry. Still, in Zamansky’s eyes, Stuyvesant is changing and not necessarily for the better. “A lot of students come here just to take classes, but they don’t really feel invested in Stuyvesant. And as an alumni, teacher, and a parent, it’s sad,” he said.

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 5

Features Stuyvesant from a Second Lens

By Emma Loh and Scott Ma

Leon Frajmund, sophomore The flood of students rushing through the doors before 8:00 a.m. has become a common sight on Chambers Street.

For sophomore Leon Frajmund, his experiences in his native country Brazil, where he lived for 14 years, tell of a completely different social and academic atmosphere. In Brazilian cities, for example, “you have to take a car to go everywhere, so you could only be in your house or in school. There was no hanging out on the Wall, in the park.

You’re at home or at school,” Frajmund said. Consequently, Frajmund not only had a driver to transport him to all of his activities, but a staff of ten in his household.

Frajmund moved to the United States the summer after eighth grade not only for his education, but also for his mother’s desire to pursue a master’s degree. While most immigrants have difficulties assimilating due to linguistic and cultural differences, Frajmund had attended a school that mimicked the American school system since the third grade. At this school, Frajmund not only learned English, but also studied Brazilian Social Studies and Portuguese. Additionally, Frajmund had already familiarized himself with New York City due to frequent family vacations.

“Since I always came here [New York] on vacation, I still think of this as a vacation place. So I [feel like I’m] on permanent vacation,” he said.

Though Frajmund’s experiences in Brazil are not an accurate depiction of a typical Brazilian education, he still believes that the education in America trumps the education offered in Brazil. “For one, [American education] is a lot better. Education in Brazil isn’t that good. I went to a really good school, but it was still way below Stuyvesant’s level. Also, it’s public here so I don’t have to pay, while in Brazil it was private and it costs a fortune,” Frajmund said. A difference in student culture, Frajmund said, was that “people [in America] are a lot more serious. They’re a lot more focused on schoolwork, while in Brazil it’s a lot of

partying.” However, the mental dynamic was not an issue for Frajmund as he assimilated into Stuyvesant, a community that he views as welcoming and outgoing. Frajmund said, “I like Stuy more than my old school.

Everything. Everything.”

Even though Frajmund does prefer Stuyvesant to his education in Brazil, he still returns to Brazil to visit his friends, grandparents, and his dog. “He wouldn’t fit in the apartment.

He’s a big German shepherd,” Frajmund said.

Sungwoo Park, Sophomore When sophomore Sungwoo Park begins SAT prep this summer, his friends in South Korea will have already spent years studying for the national college entrance exam. This strenuous nine-hour exam directly influences South Korean seniors’ admissions into college and career tracks. Due to the gravity of the exam, the majority of South Korean high school freshmen begin attending mandatory after-school study sessions that end at 7:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. This highly competitive and stressful structure of South Korean education was a large factor in Park’s eventual immigration to New York City. With a daily school schedule from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Park’s educational experience did not differ drastically from an American education apart from weekly after-school study sessions and etiquette classes.

When Park immigrated after the sixth grade, he did not experience the intense preparation for the standardized testing emphasized in South Korea.

While Stuyvesant is considered one of the most competitive schools in the nation, Park said, “Most Korean high schools are equally as competitive as Stuyvesant.”

Park attributes the main reason for his immigration to the fact that “American universities are considered to be the best in the world,” Park said. He was only able to move, though, because his grandparents already resided in Queens. However, assimilation was difficult for Park due to his lack of an English education. “They put me in the ESL class, and I learned how to speak through school. I’m

still learning,” he said. While Park continues to improve his English, he says that going to school in the United States has created many opportunities that would have been unavailable to him had he stayed in South Korea. Park is a member of the Robotics team and notes that if he had attended a South Korean school, there would be limited resources for extracurriculars and sports.

Park has not returned to South Korea since immigrating to America.

Ruojia Sun, Freshman With both parents working as diplomats, freshman Ruojia Sun moved around quite often during her childhood, going back and forth between China and America several times.

Between Chinese and American education systems, Sun believes there are many differences, especially with personal freedom. Both parents and teachers in China are stricter than their American counterparts. Students are generally given more homework and very few extracurricular options. “In China, a lot of the things kids do extracurricularly are things their parents want them to do,” Sun said. “Here, we definitely have more of a chance to be the type of person that we want to be.”

Education in China also fosters a greater sense of community. Students in a class are paired with the same teacher from first grade to sixth. In addition, students take on certain roles in the classroom such as helping the teacher or tutoring fellow students. Sun was the director for sanitation in her school and arrived early every day to prepare the classroom.

“That really made me feel like I was in a bigger community, and there was something nice about being able to contribute to the school,” Sun said.

In her school in Beijing, every class was held in a single classroom, including lunch.

Twice a week, students were mandated to stay at school for an extra hour for a study session.

Beyond academics, schools in China also stressed physical fitness. Students attended exercise sessions two times a day in

Laura Eng / The Spectator

Packing up your most prized possessions, knowing that the next time you’ll see them, you’ll be thousands of miles away from where you are now. Watching the only home you’ve ever known disappear from sight. Finding yourself surrounded by strangers who are unfamiliar with your appearance, language, and customs. Moments like these are foreign experiences to the majority of the student body; few of us know what it is like to be uprooted from our homes and face a new language, school, and environment. While most of us came to Stuyvesant with glossy expectations and passing grades in Regents Algebra, immigrant students, though possibly bilingual or trilingual, probably never heard of American slang terms like “swag.” While this diverse selection of students came to America in pursuit of higher education, a glimpse at their past experiences in school reveals a different means of looking at Stuyvesant.

addition to physical education.

There were also unique classes such as calligraphy, morality, and etiquette.

Because she arrived at America at such a young age, Sun had little trouble adapting to a new way of life. “When teachers did things, I would try to associate what they said to what they did, and I caught on pretty quickly,” Sun said. “I came here when I was in kindergarten, so by first grade, I pretty much knew how to communicate in everyday speech.”

It was similarly easy for her to adapt to education in China because her parents taught her the Chinese curriculum while working at the embassy.

For Sun, leaving a country means much more than simply adapting to a new one. “Part of me just didn’t want to become attached to people because I knew I would have to move so quickly,” Sun said. “If I made really good friends, I would have to leave them eventually.”

Maksym Bodarenko, Sophomore Sophomore Maksym Bodarenko immigrated from Ukraine to America in 2008.

His father, who worked for a company with a division in the United States, decided to move to take advantage of America’s educational system, in which the plagiarism, bribery of teachers, and smoking and drinking amongst high school students of Ukraine’s system are not as rampant.

Schooling in Ukraine is a completely different experience when compared to an education in the United States.

Schools are small, there are only eleven grades, upperclassmen have school six days a week, and students choose the

subject they want to major in right after elementary school.

The most significant difference, though, is the amount of unity among students in Ukraine.

Because students can attain high grades through bribery, they have a lot of free time to socialize and bond with their fellow students. “There’s actually the concept of talking to your teachers and figuring out a grade,” Bodarenko said. “You can persuade them to give you a better grade, a lot of the time this involves money.”

Entering the sixth grade after immigrating to America, Bodarenko’s greatest challenge was the language barrier. Though he, like most Ukrainian students, was bilingual, he did not understand English well. His father, who was a professional translator, helped him learn the language, thus lending him little difficulty in adjusting to the United States. “America’s very accepting because everyone’s so different. Everyone had their own thing going on culturally wise,” he said.

In comparison to his Ukrainian classmates, Bodarenko found Americans to be much less mature with respect to their age. “You live on the streets, there’s a lot more street smarts in Ukraine,” he said. “Odds are, you’ve gotten beaten up on the streets at least once, and you learn how to handle yourself on the streets. You start understanding a lot more stuff.”

According to Bodarenko, the United States education system would improve if group work was stressed over individual pursuits. “Because there’s a bigger sense of community, because you’re united with your class, people are willing to help each other a lot more,” Bodarenko said.

1230

1641

582

683

Number of students with first free

Number of students with tenth free

Number of students with no first and no tenth period

Number of students who have a full schedule Credits: Mr. Wong and Stanley Chan

Page 6

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Features Jie Zhang: The Cultural Revolution, Then and Now

By Arina Bykadorova and Stanley Chan

Katherine Chi / The Spectator

It’s 1966. Children are walking to school down the streets of Shanghai. When they get there, though, there won’t be any learning. The only textbook is the Little Red Book, and they’ll be either making posters or singing songs about Chairman Mao all day. And guess what?

That’s the way it will be for 10 more years.

Though nothing may seem to be more foreign than that to us, such a routine was once commonplace for Principal Jie Zhang. “For ten years, from [when I was] six to sixteen, we didn’t have a normally run education system. The school system basically stopped running,” she said. Born in 1960, Zhang spent her grade school years in the thick of China’s Cultural Revolution.

Sitting on a comfortable sofa in her office, it’s hard to imagine Zhang wearing a red scarf and singing songs about communism. Listening to her fluent English, speckled with only minor flaws and brief hesitations, it’s just as hard to imagine her enrolling at Stony Brook University in 1985 not knowing a single word of English. Nonetheless, Zhang identifies these experiences as advantages when working at Stuyvesant.

What Zhang feels has been the major takeaway from her childhood is practicing kindness. In February, junior Jack Cahn wrote in an editorial titled “We Want Ms. Zhang!” that the then-Interim Acting Principal started “a revolution of kindness.” Zhang was very touched.

“He really read me, even though I never walked around showing that I’m kind,” she said. “Deep down, as a child, I had periods of time afraid of things and you remember a couple of kind of people who really took you under the wing and helped you to survive hardship. That, to me, is a big thing that I feel I got out of my childhood.”

There was plenty to be afraid of during the Cultural Revolution, a ten-year sociopolitical movement initiated

by Chairman Mao Zedong in order to enforce communism and impose Maoist beliefs on the Communist Party of China. “The atmosphere was really bad, even though the kids didn’t know what was behind

it,” Zhang said. Teachers were forbidden to teach, and intellectuals, like Zhang’s parents, were persecuted. Zhang’s father, an engineer, lost one of his eyes after countless beatings.

As both were sent out of Beijing, her parents sent Zhang to live with her aunt in Shanghai.

“When I look back, there were bitter pieces, but there were also parts of a simple childhood,” Zhang said.

Those times also taught her strength and tenacity, but she admits that she has to put her maximum effort into her job here at Stuyvesant. “People say, ‘You can handle the stress.’

Because of what I have gone through, I am not as sensitive.

Somebody else might think that it is this big, the stress,” Zhang said, holding her hands apart.

“But I think it is this big, small,” as she brought them back together.

Back in China, the stress maintained its severity even after Mao’s death and the subsequent end of the Cultural Revolution. In 1976, as she turned sixteen, Zhang shifted her focus toward the future with the reinstated National College Entrance Examination, China’s annual college entrance exam and the only means of accessing tertiary education in China. Zhang had a year and a half to prepare for the one test that could lead her to a real education. “Overnight, I started studying. There was a set of self-study guides, sixteen books, that was published at the time. So we [the students] all went home to study,” she said.

The studying paid off. She was accepted into Tongji University and graduated with a major in electrical engineering.

After years teaching at a community college, she had the opportunity to come to the United States to continue her studies.

This time, Zhang majored in applied mathematics at Stony Brook. She spent her early years in the United States without speaking English or knowing how to get around. “When I was in graduate school, I worked in an office. If the phone rang, I was scared,” Zhang said. “Answering the phone is huge.”

At the time, New York City wanted to hire bilingual teachers, so Zhang was sidetracked from her Ph.D. and became a mathematics teacher under the Department of Education. She

taught mathematics at Forest Hills High School with experience in every course except AP Calculus. “I was a very happy teacher, and I really never thought of becoming an administrator,” Zhang said. However, she has had a series of opportunities: a scholarship to return to school, and the chance to become Assistant Principal of Math, Math Specialist, and Principal of Queens High School for the Sciences, and, of course, Principal of Stuyvesant.

“You have to have the courage to say ‘Yes,’ [and] I did that four times,” Zhang said.

Being an immigrant gives Zhang perspective on not only the many immigrant families at Stuyvesant, but also on students as newcomers to high school. “It really reminds me

“For ten years, we didn’t have a normally run education system. The school system basically stopped running.” —Jie Zhang, Principal at all times, that I need to be helpful to whoever I run into, whether this is a person without a big status or a person with a big status,” Zhang said. “To me, it’s about respecting everybody.

Really, I think both in personal life and professional life, that really has carried me.”

Despite the benefits that she was able to draw from her experiences, Zhang recognizes that it will take great effort to overcome the issues she has to deal with every day. “I’m working using my weakness. I’m working with people who have perfect language. It’s my short area. I’m using my weakness to do work with people who are using their strong point,” she said. Though Zhang regards her blend of Chinese and American culture as a synthesis of the best of two worlds, she does admit that her accent and her foreign education make her anxious about her shortcomings.

As a result, in every little thing, “I will make an effort to be perfect,” she said, even though she realizes that she will make mistakes and is open to suggestions from students.

It’s not always a big-shot college that makes a person fit for a job. In our principal’s case, it was major social and political upheaval, immigration, and years of teaching that brought her to that office on the first floor. Rising to attend to her duties at the conclusion of the interview, Zhang said, “I want to say that this job is my last before I retire. Coming back to school with students is really the best thing I did.”

Boston Strong: The Wrong City to Mess With continued from pg 1 from sleep by an outside noise,” Harvard freshman Daniel Solomon (‘12) said. For Solomon and other Stuyvesant alumni on various Boston campuses, the Boston bombing came as a complete surprise. Twin blasts shook the city during the finale of the annual marathon on Monday, April 15, killing three and injuring hundreds of victims. When news of the event first came out, students were bombarded with texts and Facebook messages as friends and family expressed concern and panic.

“There was definitely a lot of anxiety in the air during that time [...] Harvard sent out texts and emails to students that alerted of us the recent event and telling us to stay indoors as much as possible. I came home to an inbox full and Facebook full of concerned messages and well-wishes. It was nice to see that the Harvard community really cares about its members,” Harvard freshman Jenny Fung (‘12) said.

For Solomon, who is a member of The Harvard Crimson, which was doing its own coverage of the event, the night of the incident was spent tracking breaking news. “I turned the news on, and then turned it off. Twitter and the police-scanner were better, quicker sources of information, and we at The Crim monitored both as the night wound on,” he said.

Panic escalated when it was reported that the two bombing suspects had killed an MIT officer and engaged in a shootout in nearby Watertown on Thursday, April 18.

Solomon described it as “a contained skirmish [that] quickly escalated into a war, and Cambridge and Watertown were its theater,” he said.

“To no avail, the police shut down the subway, searching the Red Line for the shooters. We heard a duo had stuck up a 7/11 and committed grand theft auto.”

Solomon’s ponderings that night reflected the sense of uncertainty that perpetuated the entire city, and soon the entire nation, as it monitored the shocking events. “Is this connected to the Boston Marathon bombings?” he said. “If so, were the perpetrators the two suspects? Were they part of a terrorist cell? I was in no immediate danger, but was seized by the spectator’s irrational fear, that ineffable, second-grader fright I felt watching smoke rise off the Trade Center.”

In response to the events, the city government announced a lockdown, advising everyone to stay indoors. For Harvard students, the cancellation of classes created a peaceful environment. “Ironically, it was probably the most relaxed I ever felt at Harvard. I just played football and ran around in the yard with a bunch of friends for most of the afternoon, but then it started raining and most of us went back into our dorms with relatively high spirits,” Harvard freshman Edward Cho (‘12) explained.

Fung agreed, relating her own experiences that day. In light of all the tension, there was but a brief respite for the student community. “The Harvard community tried to make the best of it. There were plays and jam sessions being put on within the houses so that people [could] enjoy each other’s company and relax on this surprise and tension-filled day off,” Fung said.

For students at Boston University, however, uneasiness filled the atmosphere. “I woke up to find that the entire city was on lockdown,” Boston University sophomore Belinda Cheng said. “People [were] advised to stay inside and no cars were permitted on the road, and [...] the suspect was still at large. I was uneasy because [I’d] never been in a situation where my whole city stopped everything because there was a dangerous man on the loose.”

Looking back, Cho saw that the Boston bombing united the entire city. “The first day or two after the incident, almost everyone in Boston was focused on helping the injured

rather than hunting the culprits,” Cho said. “Boston had its priorities straight, and so many people showcased a level of compassion and humanity throughout the tragedy that surprised a lot of people out there.

Everyone, Bostonian and otherwise, was proud of how the situation was handled.”

“Boston has become my second home for the past three years and I didn’t realize the pride I had for it, coming from New York City,” Cheng said. “The city really came together after these events.” Upon the announcement of the capture of the younger Tsarnaev, one of the two responsible for the bombing, cheers rang through the streets under the slogan “Boston Strong.”

The Visitor: Shocking Introductions “Many people tell you you’re more likely to die in a car accident than in a terrorist attack,” said senior Leopold Spohngellert, and statistics have proven him right. When he and other students arrived at a frenzied Boston still recovering from the bombing event, the panic and surprise they felt was understandable. “When I took the train out to Boston at first, people were searching every bag,” Spohngellert said.

“They [would] search the old lady and the little kid, ‘cause everyone was considered possibly an accomplice. The scariest thing during the day was the fact that no one knew what was going on, so it was all very speculative.”

Senior David Kurkovskiy witnessed a similar scene upon his arrival in Boston. Kurkovskiy spent his time monitoring the news, keeping tabs on the situation with the Tsarnaevs. “I was watching the news for five hours, and I was flipping between CNN and MSNBC and FOX and on all the different channels, just flipping through their shows,” Kurkovskiy said.

The lockdown was “not [one] in the sense that our doors were locked from the outside; we were locking ourselves in because we were terrified of what was going on outside,” Spohngellert said. “Everyone paused their life until this one individual was found. It was like the most amazing game of hide and seek I’ve ever seen.”

Four days after the initial bombing event, Friday, April 19, the younger Tsarnaev was found under a boat in a Watertown house. In response to the news, Boston let out a sigh of relief. Kurkovskiy described the sight as an empty street. “There was no one there but these men in white suits,” he said. “They clean the stuff up and comb it for evidence.

There’s [also] just this giant area, like six blocks, cornered off, and on both sides there are these memorials, where people wrote in chalk all the names of the victims. The memorial was very emotional; there were all these things, people tied ribbons to a gate that we couldn’t get past. People tied flowers everywhere, it was a really nice scene.”

As Boston recovers, Spohngellert and Kurkovskiy hope that the event won’t worsen racial discrimination in the country. “Someone was telling me, how in their generation the thing was AIDS, and in ours it’s terrorism. We’ve almost gotten comfortable over what happens. This is something that’s happened already, multiple times, and something that can happen again,” Kurkovskiy said.

“It’s so real to us, especially so close to home.”

Despite the tragic events, Spohngellert is excited for the 2014 Boston Marathon. “I’m definitely looking forward to next year’s Boston Marathon, ‘cause I definitely felt a sense of pride as everyone rallied together in Boston and around the country,” he said. “I feel that was such an amazing moment where everyone was cheering on the street, and everyone was so happy that they caught this guy.

I’m looking forward to next year to see how we rally, how we move past this. I’m hoping we move past this, and that it doesn’t bring us down.”

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 7

Features Culturally in Tune The next time you’re strolling toward the music suite, pause and take a look at the glass case on your left. Within it is a community reflective of yet different from the academic rigor at Stuyvesant: trophies sit in glass cabinets, framed certificates hang on its walls, and bulletin boards showcase newspaper clippings of accomplished alumni.

But while music pulses through the community via piano keys and violin strings, several students at Stuyvesant are skilled in instruments less commonly played in a school orchestra or band, adding creativity to their respective cultures with a Western twist.

Sophia (Fish) Milnikiewicz: Bandura Sophomore Sophia (Fish) Milnikiewicz has been playing the bandura, a 55-string Ukrainian plucked folk instrument, since the summer of 2012. “It all started when my mom and I were searching for something for me to do during the summer. I wanted something that Stuyvesant couldn’t offer,” Milnikiewicz said. That summer, her mother suggested that she learn the bandura, which Milnikiewicz’s aunt used to play.

Milnikiewicz took lessons over the summer for two weeks at Kobzarska Sich, a camp dedicated to playing the bandura, in Emlenton, Pennsylvania. “Arriving at the camp, I was initially frightened because it was my first year attending, and I wasn’t sure how huge a barrier not speaking Ukrainian would be. Once other girls in my age group arrived, though, I had a great time. The camp perfectly balances hardcore lessons, ensemble playing, and fun,” she said.

Though it is an instrument played by plucking, the bandura is no walk in the park. “For

“The bandura and Ukrainian history and nationalism are deeply interconnected, so playing it is as much about keeping the tradition alive as it is about the music itself,” – Sophia Milnikiewicz, sophomore

me the hardest thing about playing it is coordination. The concert banduryst has an extremely difficult multitasking job: they have to pluck their

“I like its mystique the most. When I’m traveling on the subway with my bandura, people always look at the shape of the case and I can tell they’re wondering what the heck it is.”— Sophia Milknikiewicz, sophomore bass strings with one hand, pluck their treble strings with the other, sing, look at their sheet music, look at the conductor, and add some sort of emotion all at the same time,” Milknikiewicz said.

The bandura’s tone and style are different from those of traditional Western instruments. Its notes are always staccato because the strings are plucked and not strummed, and its tone darker than that of Western instruments, which are usually tuned in the 12note chromatic scale. Banduras are traditionally tuned to various diatonic scales and are usually optimized for playing in G major or E minor.

Milnikiewicz’s goal for now is to learn as many classic rock songs as possible and share them on YouTube. Despite her modern take on the instrument, the majority of music played on the bandura is Ukrainian folk and choral music. “The bandura and Ukrainian history and nationalism are deeply interconnected, so playing it is as much about keeping the tradition alive as it is about the music itself,” Milnikiewicz said.

After taking lessons at Kobzarka Sich, Milnikiewicz has continued to practice the bandura during the school year.

With her experience as a bandurystka, Milnikiewicz finds the instrument quite beautiful.

“I like its mystique the most.

When I’m traveling on the subway with my bandura, people always look at the shape of the case and I can tell they’re wondering what the heck it is. Is it some sort of strange guitar?

Or a flattened tuba? Even in school, people are always asking me what it is and they’re always so shocked and intrigued when I show it to them. People are so curious about it—I love it,” Milnikiewicz said.

Brian Phung: Erhu Senior Brian Phung began playing his first string instrument, the violin, when he was six. He has also been playing the erhu, a similar oriental instrument, for nearly two years.

Also known as a spike fiddle, the erhu is a bowed, two-string Chinese instrument.

Over the summer, Phung acquired an erhu as a gift from his uncle, who had visited from Hong Kong. Though Phung did not start playing right away due to fear of developing the wrong technique, he picked up on the erhu quickly due to his experience playing the violin.

Phung started to play covers of contemporary pop songs with senior Elliot Ziskin during his sophomore year.

Phung would play violin and Ziskin the guitar. “Eventually, we came across some Taylor Swift stuff and thought, ‘Hey, would this be awesome on erhu?’” Phung said.

Though Phung was already proficient in violin, he found playing the erhu quite different. The range is fairly limited, especially since the erhu has only the two middle strings of a violin. Furthermore, there is no fingerboard on the erhu,

“At first it seemed like I made no progress, but as the weeks passed, I could hear myself getting better,” – Scott Min, sophomore of precise shifts,” Phung said, describing the technical differences between Western and Eastern music.

In spite of the differences and lack of familiarity, it was the timbre of the erhu that first drew Phung to experiment with it. “The tone of it is so distinctly oriental, and I just loved the idea of mixing that with the sound of American pop music,” he said.

Currently, Phung and Ziskin are working on numerous performances for others.

They performed at this year’s Culture Fest, which was hosted on Thursday, April 18. Starting with the traditional Chinese “Butterfly Lovers,” they segued into a medley of American pop music, with titles including Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”

“The tone of it is so distinctly oriental, and I just loved the idea of mixing that with the sound of American pop music.”—Brian Phung, senior so the string must be stopped on the air. Because of this, it is harder to have better intonation on the erhu. “It’s a very Eastern thing to glissando, which makes finding the correct tones easier, as opposed to the Western tradition of denouncing [notes] in favor

and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s “Thrift Shop.”

“We never really performed [before Culture Fest], never having achieved satisfactory proficiency. Though as of late, I’ve been trying to change that and just go out there and play,” Phung said.

Seung Ki (Scott) Min: Korean Drums Sophomore Seung Ki (Scott) Min began playing the Korean drums at Korean school. The drums are used to play Samulnori, a traditional genre of percussion music, referring to four musicians who dance and play with four traditional Korean instruments: the kkwaenggwari (small gong), the jing (larger gong), the janggu (hourglass shaped drum), and the buk (barrel drum). In addition, there are four drums in the Samulnori. “Different percussion beats are put together to create harmonious sounds,” Min said.

Min found a teacher and took lessons after gaining interest in the drums at Korean school. “At first it seemed like I made no progress, but as the weeks passed, I could hear myself getting better,” Min said.

Since then, he has won numerous competitions playing these drums, and has played at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Traditionally, the music related to the Samulnori traces its roots back to traditional farmer’s music, or Nong-ak. In Nong-ak, there were bands of 24 or more performers. These groups would often play with the same four instruments used in Samulnori. Samulnori also has roots in Buddhism, where the samul is used for certain rituals.

Hayoung Ahn / The Spectator

By Aimee Li

Senior Brian Phung and sophomores Seung Ki (Scott) Min and Sophia Milnikiewicz (pictured above) demonstrate a wider musical diversity in Stuyvesant through their expertise in cultural instruments.

Page 8

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Features The Perks of Being a Zamansky

By Sanam Bhatia and Ariella Kahan After leaving for school in the morning, most students won’t be seeing their parents again for seven or more hours. However, sophomore Natan Zamansky and senior Batya Zamansky have the opportunity to see their father, computer science coordinator Michael Zamansky, all day long, because his office is always just a staircase away.

Being at Stuyvesant together has proved to be an interesting experience for all three,

drawbacks to his father’s presence in the building. In fact, there are advantages, namely “conveniences, storage, and easy communication,” he said. Both Zamansky siblings benefit from their father’s office. Natan Zamansky stored his oboe in the office last year and occasionally stops by in the morning, while Batya Zamansky goes there for the cookies.

Similarly, Batya Zamansky does not find being at the same school as her father a big deal. “I knew what I was getting into when I got into [Stuyvesant], and I accepted that. It was the school that made me go here in the first

place,” she said. “I would not have gone here if it would be a major issue, because I knew had the choice.”

Traces of awkwardness do arise in Michael Zamansky’s Software Development class, however, because both she and her boyfriend are in the class. But “[it’s] okay because [he’s] my dad,” Batya Zamansky said, brushing it off as merely familial intimacy.

She often reminds her father about extensions, homeworks, or project due dates that he forgets to send out to his Software Development class. She also described that her father’s presence offers other advantages than just

is that he brings his current class with him.

“Family has always been a priority,” Michael Zamansky said. The Zamanskys spent a lot of time together at home, but in school, Michael Zamansky allows his kids decide how to define their relationship. He thinks it has been working out well, especially because his children are good students. “Overall I think [we’ve] got an amazing dynamic,” he said.

Michael Zamansky did admit that before the family was sure how things would work out, there was one particularly odd incident. When Batya Zamansky had a Rowing Club

“I love the fact that 75 percent of the Zamansky family is in the same place every day.”—Michael Zamansky, computer science coordinator

hearing stories about her relatives at the school as a child.

Michael Zamansky, however, feels differently, focusing his pride on the network of computer science alumni from Stuyvesant. “I don’t think the legacy part amounts to much,” he said. “I’m actually prouder of the Stuyvesant computer science alumni family—I consider them my legacy and I consider Batya part of it […] Natan, hopefully as well, but we’ll see what he decides to do over the next two years.”

Having siblings and a parent at the school has certainly made the Zamanskys’ experience at Stuyvesant unique.

Alice Oh / The Spectator

sprinkled with awkward moments but also endless dinnertime conversation topics that stem from being at the same place at the same time.

Michael Zamansky is proud that a large part of his family has been educated at Stuyvesant, including his two children. It is a place where “you’re surrounded by a bunch of smart people with a wide range of talents,” he said. “I love the fact that 75 percent of the Zamansky family is in the same place every day.” Despite Michael Zamansky’s belief that the family spending so much time together is a benefit, one might think that the kids wouldn’t agree because of the resulting awkwardness. However, Natan and Batya enjoy the benefits of their father’s presence more than they are bothered by it.

Having a father at Stuyvesant is “not particularly awkward,” Natan Zamansky said.

The only awkward aspect is that he is often identified as “Batya’s brother” or “Mr. Zamansky’s son” by people whom he is not acquainted with. He added that his experience at Stuyvesant would be “comparatively normal” if his father did not teach here, as attending school with a sibling is not a particularly unique experience.

Natan Zamansky rarely interacts with his father during school and does not think that there are any substantial

“I knew what I was getting into when I got into [Stuyvesant]... and I accepted that. It was the school that made me go here in the first place.”

—Batya Zamansky, senior

Computer science teacher Michael Zamansky, his son and sophomore Natan, and daughter and senior Batya all find it convenient to have almost the whole family together in school every day.

“I would not have gone here if it would be a major issue, because I knew had the choice.”—Batya Zamansky, senior

convenience. For example, she learns about fall programming earlier and has an easier time getting program corrections. Plus, it is easier for her to receive parental permission for activities during the day or after school because her father is only minutes away.

Batya Zamansky does, however mention that her father’s presence comes with some immediate embarrassments. For the past two years, for example, during parent visitation days, Mr. Zamansky has stopped by his daughter’s classes. The only problem

competition, she asked her father, who was also the faculty advisor of the club, to attend.

However, she was reluctant to invite her father because she wasn’t sure what the other rowers would think. However, all of them were excited that Michael Zamansky would be coming on their trip. “That’s when I knew the dynamic would be great,” Michael Zamansky said.

With a large amount of alumni and two current students at Stuyvesant, Batya Zamansky feels there is some sort of Zamansky legacy at Stuyvesant, especially after

“It has been a gift to be able to see both of them develop and grow on a daily basis over these years.”—Michael Zamansky, computer science coordinator

For example, it opens up possibilities like Natan and Michael Zamansky biking to school together or Batya and Michael Zamansky performing a duet at Open Mic. “It has been a gift to be able to see both of them develop and grow on a daily basis over these years,” Michael Zamansky said.

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 9

Features Ideas City: A Different Schooling

Danny Kim/ The Spectator

ogist, creative entrepreneur, and thinker on innovation and global technology policy.

Ito is the Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab—the innovation center that brought us the technologies behind Amazon’s Kindle and Activision’s Guitar Hero games. He was a part of the foundation of Japan’s first Internet Service Provider and today maintains his role as a leader both in investment and online creativity as the founder of Neoteny Labs. He has authored and co-authored a number of books including Dialog—Ryu Murakami X Joichi Ito with Ryu Murakami, and Freesouls: Captured and Released with Christopher Adams, a book of Ito’s photographs that includes essays by several prominent figures in the free culture movement. He will examine the Untapped Capital of the internet as it continues to transform society in substantial and positive ways.

Streetfest (Clockwise from top left) The Mayoral Panel on Thursday, May 2 invited five current or former mayors to offer the governmental and policy-based perpsective on cities; Mayor Will Wynn of Austin, TX speaking prior to the Mayoral Panel; the Youth Panel explored the potential of youth as “untapped capital,” and what can be done to take advantage of their potential; Spoken word poet Jamarr Hall performs an original poem during the Youth Panel Discussion; Streetfest featured numerous artists such as Michael Alan, Hellbent, and XAM.

By Edric Huang When Jamarr Hall’s hand shot straight up into the air, requesting for a “seat at the table,” he gave off the impression of an outspoken—or perhaps, impulsive—youth. Who was he, a 20-something year old, to interrupt a panel of experts before they even began their discussion? Dressed classily in a sleek, black blazer and jeans, Hall continued his abrupt demands for that seat at the table as a representative of the youth in citie everywhere that have continually been denied a voice in greater discussion. That is, until the panelists themselves encouraged him to take a seat not at their table but in the spotlight, lending Hall the floor for his spoken word performance of “Budget Cuts,” an original spoken poem, at Ideas City’s Youth Panel Discussion.

“I remember sitting in class with my hands raised high, as if I wanted someone to reach down from the skies and pull me from this misery,” began Hall, who is actually a member of Philly Youth Poetry Movement’s poetry slam team. “Excuse me. Didn’t you see my hands raised for the past five minutes. I don’t have to go to the bathroom, I just think I have the answer to your question. So why won’t you call on me?” Hall’s performance focused on this denial of youth from the right of proper education and the formation of a unique voice through this performance.

Building off of his abrupt entrance, Hall attacked the hypocrisy of the former generation in raising yet criticizing today’s youth, but welcomed the possibility of a reversal

in such policy to spur action from them.

Abrupt, serendipitous moments as Hall’s entrance during the Youth Panel Discussion inspired new perspectives and a different way of learning at this year’s Ideas City, a four-day festival that lasted from Wednesday, May 1 to Saturday, May 4 hosted and organized by the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Ideas City, now in its third year, explores the future of cities around the world with an emphasis on the role of art and culture on their development. “As an institution dedicated to new art and new ideas, the New Museum strongly believes that the cultural community is essential to the vitality of the future city. We also believe that the cultural sphere is still a relatively untapped source of enormously powerful creative capital, especially in its potential to stimulate economic development and foster greater innovation in other fields.” Toby Devan Lewis Director of the New Museum Lisa Phillips said.

This festival’s theme is “Untapped Capital,” with all its conferences, workshops, and its Streetfest bringing attention to the under-recognized and underutilized resources that could bring unprecendented levels of change to cities.

From BC and AD to BI and AI The New Museum and the Executive Committee of IDEAS CITY are pleased to announce the full ine-up of participants for the IDEAS CITY Conference, which kicks off the four-day Festival (May 1–4) in downtown

Manhattan. IDEAS CITY was founded in 2011 by the New Museum, New York, as an unprecedented collaborative initiative that involves hundreds of arts, education, and community organizations in an ongoing, multi-platform discussion on the future of cities around the globe. Guided by the belief that arts and culture are essential to the continued health and vitality of urban centers every-

“I remember sitting in class with my hands raised high, as if I wanted someone to reach down and pull me from this misery.”—Jamarr Hall, spoken word poet

where, IDEAS CITY partners work together to exchange ideas, propose solutions, share with the public, and effect change. The IDEAS CITY Festival (May 1–4) includes a major Conference, participatory Workshops, an innovative StreetFest, and more than one hundred independent Projects and Public Events.

“The New Museum strongly believes that the cultural community is essential

to the vitality of the future city,” said Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director, New Museum. “We also believe that the cultural sphere is still a relatively untapped source of enormously powerful creative capital, especially in its potential to foster greater innovation in other fields and stimulate economic development. The IDEAS CITY initiative is an unprecedented step in expanding both our institution’s mission and its potential as a community hub, drawing the creative population together as agents for change.”

Old School, New Ideas Members of the Executive Committee for IDEAS CITY are the New Museum (founder); The Architectural League of New York; Bowery Poetry Club; Cooper Union; The Drawing Center; New York University Wagner School; and Storefront for Art and Architecture. The IDEAS CITY Conference (May 1–2) is dedicated to the exploration of Untapped Capital, the overarching theme of IDEAS CITY, examining under-recognized and underutilized resources that can be harnessed as catalysts for change. It will focus on four areas where Untapped Capital can be found and put to productive use: Ad Hoc Strategies, Waste, Play, and Youth.

The Conference commences with a Keynote address by Joi Ito, Director of MIT Media Lab, and culminates with a major Mayoral Panel, which previously drew a standing-room-only audience. The IDEAS CITY Conference takes place at the Great Hall at Cooper Union.

Joi Ito is a leading technol-

This panel will investigate how the maximum expression of design today is in the processes, open systems, and tools that shape society by enabling self-organization, platforms of collaboration, and decentralized networks

“The Ideas City initiative is an unprecedented step in expanding both our institution’s mission and its potential as a community hub.”—Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director of the New Museum

of production. Panelists: Jeffrey Inaba, Emeka Okafor, Thaddeus Pawlowski, Jennifer Wolfe.

A group of individuals, whose experiences combine analysis, public policy, activism, art, and architecture,will discuss these and other issues as they consider the future of waste. Panelists: Mai Iskander, Lydia Kallipoliti, Max Liboiron, and Samantha MacBride. Moderator: Jonathan F.P. Rose

Page 10

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Page 11

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 12

Editorials Staff Editorial

Advancing the Underserved Underclassmen Walk the halls of Stuyvesant at this time of the year and you’ll be met with a monotonous scene - students carrying highlighters in one hand and review books in another. Walk long enough and you’re guaranteed to see perhaps almost every brand of a review book ranging from Kaplan to Gruber’s.

It’s that time of the year again. The time when Stuyvesant students are reviewing between class periods, during class periods and any second that they get some free time. AP fever is spreading like wildfire and attendance rates are dropping considerably as students opt to use their time to review for a test rather than attend classes.

But is this a point of concern? Is the atmosphere that consumes Stuyvesant during the month of May a tell-tale sign of education gone wrong?

Should the administration be tightening the AP course selection process to prevent students from being caught up in this chaotic atmosphere?

We don’t think so. In fact, we believe that the Stuyvesant administration should consider taking steps to allow our underclassmen to have a greater variety of AP course selections to choose from.

Currently, freshmen are not offered any AP classes unless they demonstrate significant ability to be placed in an advanced class, and sophomores are only allowed to sign up for AP European or World History, and, in some cases, AP Physics B. There exists, therefore, a great disparity between the number of AP courses that Stuyvesant offers and the number of AP courses that Stuyvesant’s underclassmen can take.

Offering ambitious underclassmen a wider selection of AP courses will have three main benefits: it will allow them to explore and experience rigorous curriculums early on, and

AP fever is spreading like wildfire, and attendance rates are dropping considerably as students opt to use their time to review for tests rather than attend classes.

by spreading out the AP courses we take over four years instead of two, students will be able to take more courses than they currently can. Furthermore,

though we acknowledge that rankings come second to the educational benefits that this provides to students, offering more APs will undoubtedly raise us on everyone’s list.

Stuyvesant students deserve these opportunities. They are not just some of the smartest students in the city, but perhaps the most ambitious as well; they consistently demonstrate their desire to challenge themselves, and to learn. For certain students, exposure to more topics in greater depth would be far more educationally beneficial than an introductory course in Regents Biology.

These students should be encouraged to push themselves in this way, not deterred from it by the administration.

Many underclassmen have free periods, and many upperclassmen cannot fit all the classes they want into their schedule. During the first two years of high school, students often find themselves with one or two free periods, and no easy

These ambitious students should be encouraged to push themselves in this way, not deterred from APs by the administration.

way to fill them. Electives fill quickly, and give priority to upperclassmen; APs are, of course, largely unavailable to them.

However, many upperclassmen find themselves with full schedules and are disappointed that they cannot take all the classes they want. There are simply not enough periods in the day for them to learn everything that they want to.

This strange divide between sophomore and junior years is completely unnecessary, and puts an unfair burden on students in their junior and senior years. Being seventeen as opposed to sixteen does not make someone more qualified to take an Advanced Placement course; however, while sophomores have little to no options, juniors have way too many. By recognizing that sophomores are able to handle Advanced Placement work, we would be able to relieve some of the pressure of Stuyvesant’s upperclassmen. Rather than trying to cram eight APs into the last two years of high school, students would be able to spread them around.

Freshman and sophomore year would be more engaging, and students would far more easily be able to graduate having taken all the classes that they desire.

Furthermore, many newspapers such as the US News and World Report, judge high schools based on the proportion of students that take and pass Advanced Placement courses. Although this seems

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like an arbitrary way to measure scholastic efficacy, it is true that AP tests are perceived to offer a fairly accurate indicator of academic mastery of a topic. Unfair or not, the “College Readiness Index” that US News and World Report uses to judge American high schools holds some significance. By allowing more students to take AP classes as underclassmen, we would not just be boosting our rankings; on the contrary, we would be teaching students the skills and information that they need to excel in high school, college, and beyond as well.

We recognize that a lot of this is easier said than done.

Offering AP classes to underclassmen would require a drastic increase in the number of sections of certain classes. But perhaps the problem isn’t the unavailability of money, but the inability to use it for this very worthy cause. Our school is well endowed, and frequently demonstrates its financial flexibility with construction projects and for technology purposes. This can be contrasted with Bronx Science—a school that is far less aesthetically pleasing than ours, but offers nineteen sections of AP Psychology, to compare with our two.

Opening up our courses to underclassmen is the right thing to do. Not only does it increase exposure and allow students to explore, but it also decreases the perceived need for AP-crammed schedules in junior and senior year. Furthermore, though less important, it would also give us a boost in our ratings and would put us closer to schools like Townsend Harris and Brooklyn Latin, whose percent of students who take APs hover at 100% and 97% respectively.

As the administration reconsiders its AP selection policy, we urge them to reconsider a huge barrier for admissions that has been consistently been overlooked: grade level.

Danny Kim Sam Kim Justin Strauss

The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Lindsay Bu Noah Rosenberg Eugenia Sanchez

Offering ambitious underclassmen a wider selection of AP courses will have major benefits.

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A Note to Our Readers: The Spectator will now accept unsolicited Op-Ed pieces written by outside students, faculty, and alumni. These columns, if selected, will be published in The Spectator’s Opinions section. Recommended length is 700 words.

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The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 13

Opinions

Point - Counterpoint: Eurozone Austerity Crisis Pain Without Gain

Philip Shin / The Spectator

Hayoung Ahn / The Spectator

Keynesian Armageddon

Right now, you owe $187,993 to U.S. government bond holders, your family owes $746,397, and every year that amount increases by $9,511 per person. Over time, citizens have severed their connections to the money spent by the governments that represent them. They find it easier to simply ignore reality rather than confront out-of-control government spending that poses a grave threat to their livelihoods. Because ignoring our problems is unsustainable, we are eventually forced to choose between collapse and reform. Often, as is the case with the Eurozone, nations in crisis choose the latter, but only after they have reached the brink of the abyss.

The global recession of 2008 was devastating to the Eurozone. A period of economic growth and international trade ended abruptly as bubbles (an economic phenomenon caused by excessive amounts of speculation), which had been supporting the “boom,” popped. Financial stimulus in the form of bailouts was quickly extended to the weaker economies, most importantly Greece, by the stronger northern Eurozone nations. The lenders also imposed austerity measures on debtor nations in order to encourage more fiscal responsibility.

Austerity policies function by cutting government spending in order to diminish the debt and deficit in a country. By forcing Greece and, more recently, Portugal, Spain, and Cyprus to embrace austerity, politicians Angela Merkel, George Osborne, and their peers have set these countries on the path toward recovery. Most importantly, they have created relatively stable debt levels, reduced deficits by monumental amounts (Greece’s primary

deficit fell from €27.4 billion to €5.2 billion), and kept interest on new debt to a minimum. Secondly, a policy of austerity creates a more efficient market by eliminating the superfluous parts of an economy. Eurozone nations will then become more attractive to foreign investors. Finally, the particularly aggressive strain of anti-stimulus implemented in the Eurozone will allow the countries involved to start a full recovery in a shorter amount of time.

In 2008, the Republic of Latvia experienced an economic recession as the result of unsustainable debt levels. In response to this crisis, Latvia, prompted by the EU, instituted strong austerity measures. The country is now enjoying a reduced deficit (from 7.7% to 2.7% of GDP) and renewed growth that began as early as 2011.

The United States has recently pressured the Eurozone to reduce its austerity measures. Economists here believe that a gradual process of growth and stimulus would allow the Eurozone to ease out of its present predicament. In order to support their argument, they look to our recovery from the 2008 financial crisis as an example of success because of the growth in our economy. This is, however, a gross oversimplification of data. In fact, while our gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in 2012 was 2.2%, the debt grew 8.6%, ending last year with a debt-toGDP ratio of 102.9%. Our politicians continually push the “debt ceiling” higher, making it harder and harder to address the growing elephant in the room. Therefore, when criticizing the Eurozone for being unnecessarily harsh on its citizens, make sure to realize that our current situation supports their decisions. Fourteen hours have elapsed since I began this article, and you owe eight more dollars.

Hayoung Ahn / The Spectator

By JUSTIN WELTZ

By DANIEL KODSI 482.2 billion dollars. That’s the total value of the nine rescue packages that have been provided to eight different nations in the Eurozone. Europe’s second depression, which is now stretching into its fourth year, has resulted in widespread economic misery in the Eurozone nations and depressed the world’s economy. According to official government numbers over the last three years, the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate on average in the Euro Area has declined by .2% a quarter. The Madison Project finds that the Eurozone is recovering even more slowly than the United States did during the Great Depression.

The reason for this is clear and simple. Richer nations’ politicians have pushed for the worst policy imaginable during a crisis: austerity, a policy in which budgets are cut to reduce debt. It didn’t work in the United States 70 years ago, and it isn’t working now.

All that’s resulted from budget tightening is the removal of capital from the economy and further contraction of GDP among the Euro Area nations. It’s about time that the Eurozone implement stimulus packages that can put money back into the hands of citizens in fiscally troubled nations and remedy the deep recession, instead of making problems worse.

The appeal of austerity caters to a certain mentality of “no pain, no gain,” similar to how doctors used to apply leeches to patients to suck out toxins.

Conservative economists have argued that the only way to curb the “sick” nations’ budgets is by cutting spending, just like those doctors drained patients of their blood in the hope that the sickness would be removed. In actuality, austerity has worked just about as well as leeching has. It removed a vital substance—cash, the lifeblood of any economy—and prolonged the disaster. As countries like Ireland, Greece, and Spain have cut essential public programs and withdrawn funds from their economy, the growth rate has stagnated and the debt-to-GDP ratio has grown from 86.8 to 90%, due to contractions in production and reductions in spending.

And Eurozone unemployment is still growing, reaching a high of 12.1% in March! Not to mention that even though austerity is supposed to en-

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courage foreign investment and confidence, long-term interest rates on government bonds are still exorbitantly high as rational investors flee to the United States and Germany. While interest rates on U.S. long-term treasury bonds have dropped from 4.6 to 2.4%, interest rates on Greek bonds have soared up to just below 12% in the last few years. And the numbers get even worse: business investment is down to 19.7%, the household saving rate is down to 12.2%, house prices are down by 1.8% in just the last year, and underemployed part-time workers now make up 21.4% of the entire European Union—and these are just the stats on the Eurostat Homepage. It’s high time for austerity supporters to admit defeat and focus on real solutions.

So what’s the alternative? Shortterm stimulus packages to repair austerity’s damage and reinvigorate consumer markets. As recent evidence shows, these policies have been successful across the Western Hemisphere.

America had the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which authorized expenditures of $700 billion (and printed trillions of dollars besides). Germany and France both have had stimulus packages. Britain injected money into the economy from the very beginning with its own package of £500 billion. And a quick look at the charts, yet again, will show that while the United States’s GDP exceeds its 2006 level by 7%, the Eurozone’s output has been a mere 2% over the last seven years. Germany’s growth is at 3%, France’s is at 1.6%, and the UK’s is .8%. They’re all doing better than the suffering nations whose GDPs have uniformly contracted.

This leads us to one clear conclusion. Stimulus has worked; austerity has failed. Of course, once the necessary measures—be they injections of cash or slashing of taxes—are taken and growth returns to normal over the next several quarters, tax increases and spending cuts need to take place.

Instead of vague outlines, European politicians truly need to create precise plans that determine what needs to be done and follow whatever program they set. So, as John Maynard Keynes once stated, “The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity,” and we need to follow that advice. Politicians must increase spending now and turn to austerity only when the private sector can support itself on its own.

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 14

Opinions

By RISHAM DHILLON Three ways to tell that a government proposal to advance the research field is nothing more than a half-hearted political effort to inspire enthusiasm among the general population: 1 Forced creation of a memorable acronym for said project 2 A very ambiguous and vague plan of action 3 Over-the-top enthusiasm (since when does Washington get excited?)

Lydia Wu / The Spectator

When I first heard about President Obama’s new $100 million initiative to fund brain research, I was quick to applaud him on what appeared to be a highly promising endeavor. Although I expected his decision to be met with widespread approval among

the scientific community, I was surprised to find that it was instead met with skepticism.

And now, after having read the literature on the topic, I’m confident that even skepticism is too positive of a reaction to Obama’s seemingly impromptu proposal.

The BRAIN initiative, a comically forced acronym for Brain Research through Advancing Neurotechnologies, is a $100 million federal sponsorship project to be carried out through a partnership between the National Institute of Health, the Defense Advance Research Agency, and the National Science Foundation. Coled by Dr. Cori Bargmann of Rockefeller University and Dr. William Newsome of Stanford University, the BRAIN initiative hopes to generate a map of every single neuron-to-neuron interaction in the human brain.

The ultimate goal is to be able to understand just exactly how the brain is wired, so that, in theory, we can tackle disorders like autism and Parkinson’s.

But as romantic and ideal as Obama’s plan may sound (after all, who doesn’t want to “cure” Parkinson’s?), the president hasn’t actually drawn up any plans to carry it out. In fact, the co-leaders are being given the task of developing timetables, milestones, and cost estimates. Essentially, this means that the Obama administration is making room in its budget for a brain-related science project without knowing what that project will entail.

President Obama has compared the potential success of the BRAIN initiative to the success of the Human Genome Project (HGP), which mapped out the human genomic sequence in 13 years with a $3 billion total expenditure. This parallel is absurd. For one, the HGP’s acronym was not, unlike the BRAIN acronym, a forced attempt to appeal to the public. But, on a more serious level, we already had an agenda, or at least a basic plan of action, going into the HGP. All we know about the BRAIN initiative is that we’re putting together money for a federally funded group effort to develop a neural map.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad that the scientific community is getting this money. If there is anything we should be funding, it’s science research.

Maggie Wu / The Spectator

Obama’s BRAIN Initiative: The Ultimate PR Splash

But at the same time, it seems as if Obama is making a pay for votes by throwing money at scientific intuitions with words like “hope” and “America’s Next Great Challenge.” Obama’s rhetoric—his insistence that “this enormous mystery waiting to be unlocked” can be and will be solved—is, as David Hovda from the Brain Injury Center puts it, too much to promise. “It sounds more like a public relations splash […]

I think we’re promising too much. I don’t think it’s going to be the big breakthrough that people will think it will be,” Hovda said.

Instead of trying to win the public’s approval through grand and ambitious programs with little substance behind them, Obama should instead increase funding for the behind-the-scenes research that occurs every day in labs across America.

Instead of trying to win

the public’s approval through grand and ambitious programs with little substance behind them, Obama should increase funding for the behind-thescenes research that occurs every day in labs across America.

And right now, as the scientific research field deals with the effects of the recent sequestration, as labs all over the country turn out empty pockets to a deaf federal government, and as research at the small scale is threatened, perhaps we should reconsider our priorities.

Individualized laboratory efforts are producing pieces of the neurobiological puzzle daily. Instead of ambitiously proclaiming that we’re going to spend $100 million on an undefined effort that will hopefully give us the cure to diseases like autism, we should give these small labs the money they needs to help insure that these pieces fall into place.

Courtesy of Shannon Daniels

From the Parents’ Perspective: Stuyvesant as an Environmental Leader

By JOHN DANIELS (Father of Shannon Daniels ‘14) Last week my family attended College Night. All in all, we visited about 20 different colleges, each of which had interesting reasons as to why students should attend their college. The Colby College Admissions representative, however, told us something that the others could not match: they have just achieved carbon neutral status. It is clear that sustainability is more than a “fad” and has spurred technological innovations in a way that is similar to the space race and the race for computer performance in the past. As a result, the price of solar panels and batteries have dropped considerably, and commercial systems are available for harvesting energy from tidal flows and wind. The incentives for sustainability-related innovation is still strong as most large corporations, governments and other large organizations have established sustain-

ability programs.

Unlike most high schools, Stuyvesant has all of the elements for a sustainability program that goes beyond basic conservation and education. With a little help from the Stuyvesant Administration and PTA, Stuyvesant can make its sustainability program an active educational experience. Over 20 years ago, scientists associated with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued their first report, calling on governments around the world to take quick, decisive action to limit the impact and cost of climate change. They hoped to limit the change to +2 degrees Centigrade. Unfortunately, while annual carbon dioxide emissions in the US have declined slightly, global greenhouse gases have increased every year and are now something on the order of 50 percent greater than they were in 1990 (considered to be the benchmark year).

Consequently, in December 2012, the World Bank raised the expected increase in global temperature by 2100 from 2 degrees to 4 degrees Centigrade. Many believe that this estimate is conservative due to domino effects such as reduced reflection of sunlight due to shrinking polar ice caps. Some predict increasingly dire climate-related difficulties in the years to come.

This is a cause that young people are very motivated to help solve. The NYC Department of Education has a Sustainability Initiative and is a member of the Green Schools Alliance which offers The Green Cup Challenge. Such initiatives are a good starting point for schools because they provide resources, benchmarking and recognition that can help start and sustain sustainability efforts.

From a quick perusal through various websites, it appears that most schools are at beginning stages, initiating basic conservation and climate awareness programs. Most schools seem likely to passively implement more advanced

measures only as they are developed by school systems and associated corporate and nonprofit partners. Thus, Stuyvesant has the ability to stand out among other schools by setting a higher goal and attaining it. In addition to school pride, such a program could provide many Stuyvesant students with a real advantage. Many of the colleges that Stuyvesant students hope to attend in the future are well acquainted with the challenges of sustainability from their experience. In fact, only four colleges, including Colby College, have achieved the commendable status of being “carbon neutral.” Many others are working toward this goal but few high

With a little help from the Stuyvesant Administration and PTA, Stuyvesant can make its sustainability program an active educational experience. schools have attempted this achievement. Probably the most well-known of these is Okemos High School in Michigan, which pledged to become the first carbon neutral high school in the world.

The innovative Okemos High School Carbon Neutral Volunteers program enables volunteers to purchase solar ovens for deployment in countries such

as Tanzania, Peru, and India, reducing deforestation rates, the burning of fossil fuels, and soil degradation. Individuals also have the choice of making personal commitments to reduce their carbon footprint by conserving energy at home, carpooling and planting trees while providing a quantitative estimate of the impact of individual choices on reducing the global carbon footprint.

The Volunteer Carbon Credits© earned through these actions are then credited to Okemos High School.

A serious Stuyvesant effort to be carbon neutral could energize the student body by offering it a chance to work on an important project with real world impact. It would bring together disparate student groups that generally don’t work together and inspire all students to learn and participate. Examples of the types of contributions some groups can make are: the robotics club: automation, tech evaluation; the environmental club: research, grant writing; student government: coordination among groups, liaison to colleges and other organizations; writing, arts, and media groups: posters, communications, etc.; computer/web groups: website; language and culture groups: reports of what other countries are doing; ARISTA: community outreach; etc. Lastly, in two years, nations around the world will meet to enact tough measures to combat climate change. Stuyvesant would probably have ample opportunities to showcase its efforts before, during, and after this meeting. In addition, various grants and funding may be available before or soon after world governments sign a climate agreement.

These could provide or complete funding for costly parts of Stuyvesant’s carbon neutral goal, such as obtaining and storing tidal, wind, and solar energy.

A well-established sustainable Stuyvesant initiative could be the first of its kind in New York City and contribute to a an all-encompassing global cause.

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

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Opinions

Sam Kim/The Spectator

The Trillion Dollar Success

By JACK CAHN “STOP THE TRILLION DOLLAR FAILURE!” read signs protesters hold up in major cities across the country. Media critics point fingers at politicians. Demagogues give long eloquent speeches. The country crusades against US antidrug policies in Latin America.

Southerners point to increased violence on the US-Mexico border and cry “FAILURE!” Educators point to increased drug consumption in the US and cry “FAILURE!” But while the American people decry the inadequacies of their leaders, anti-drug policies continue to miraculously succeed at stemming drug flow from Latin America, weakening drug cartels and reducing border and Latin American violence and instability. Today, we ought to thank the government for successfully protecting its citizens instead of protesting and critiquing the policies that

have saved thousands of civilian lives.

According to the Center for Foreign Relations, US antidrug policies have resulted in the arrest or death of more than 68 percent of Latin America’s most-wanted drug traffickers through bilateral intelligence and operational cooperation.

Last year, the U.S. disrupted or dismantled 612 cartels, including Latin America’s most powerful ones: Cali, Medellin, Pablo Escobar, and Super Cartel, responsible for 50 percent of all cocaine on US streets, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Even Los Zetas, considered the “reigning narco-trafficking operation of our time” by the Washington Office on Latin America, is slipping. Foreign Affairs reports that by fragmenting large cartels into smaller gangs, the US has debilitated them; while they may still traffic drugs, they are less powerful, less violent, and no longer threaten the State or the US. Before current anti-drug policies, violence was skyrocketing. US efforts curbed this violence. Violence growth fell from 142 percent in 2008, to 60 percent in 2010, to 11 percent in 2011, and for the first time in over a decade, violence actually decreased by 28 percent in 2012. To put this in perspective, in 2011, if violence had increased at past rates, 20,000 to 30,000 drug-related homicides would have occurred, according to the Justice for Mexico Report. Instead, 16,000 did. That’s a tangible 4 to 14 thousand lives saved in just one year.

The number of municipalities

free from violence increased by 16 percent and the number of organized-crime style homicides has decreased by 28 percent. Reforma reported a roughly 21 percent reduction in human rights abuses such as executions. According to KPBS, drug-related killings in

Increased patrols have seized 31 percent more drugs, 75 percent more cash and 64 percent more weapons between 2008 and 2010. northern Border States fell by 12 percent and in border cities by 44 percent. That means less people in Latin America and a safer, more stable border.

Ginger Thompson of The New York Times explains a few of the reasons for declining violence: “the US has trained nearly 4,500 new federal police agents” and “has provided sophisticated equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters” to the military to assist in the defeat of cartels. As of September 2012, 4,400 federal police investigators and 5,000 penitentiary staff had completed US-funded courses; 7,500 federal and 19,000 state

justice sector personnel had received training on their roles in Mexico’s new justice system, which has resulted in reduced governmental and police corruption. Furthermore, according to the GAO, the US has built 134 schools, health facilities and water systems, 205 kilometers of road, and 12 bridges and irrigation projects. The result has been decreased violence and narco-terrorism and increased stability.

Plan Colombia, which sought to stabilize Colombia, has succeeded as well. A decade ago, experts agonized over the possibility that Colombia hovered on the verge of becoming a failed narco-state. Ten years later, Colombia, with the active assistance of the US, has successfully reduced homicides by 15 percent, massacre events by 52 percent, kidnappings by 34 percent, and massacre victims by 48 percent. More than 1,300 of Colombia’s top crime bosses and their most dangerous enforcers have been arrested, according to CNN, and Colombia’s primary paramilitary organization responsible for violence and narco-terrorism, FARC, has been set back by more than a decade.

Beyond reducing violence, US drug policies have reduced drug flow into the US. The United States USAID program provides Latin American families with Alternate Development programs which give farmers the opportunity to replace their illicit crops with legal ones. Alternate Development programs reduced the percent of households in Latin America growing coca (from

which cocaine is made) as their primary crop from 40 percent to five percent. There has been a 22 percent reduction in Latin America’s coca production and a 67 percent reduction in opium poppy crop cultivation (from which heroine is made), according to the Congressional Research Service. These US anti-drug policies, in addition to eradication policies, have significantly reduced the supply of drugs.

Drugs are being eliminated during transit as well.

Increased patrols have seized 31 percent more drugs, 75 percent more cash and 64 percent more weapons between 2008 and 2010. The Defense Department estimates that only 850 metric tons of cocaine departed South America last year toward the US, down 20 percent in just a year. The Christian Science Monitor reported that over 75 tunnels have been discovered and shut down by US authorities in recent years, cutting off roots of transit.

Critics are wrong. They claim that violence is rising, but in reality, violence growth fell from 2006-2011 and in 2012, violence itself fell for the first time in a decade. They claim that drug use is rising but ignore the fact that because of US policies, 1/3 fewer illicit drugs are able to enter the US across the Mexican border. Critics are right that US policies aren’t perfect; we don’t have a magic wand to make everything perfect. But the US is flattening the slope of increased violence and of increased drug US, and that in and of itself is a huge success.

Sam Kim/The Spectator

The Second Civil Rights Movement

By NICOLE SANCHEZ “11 million immigrants work hard and demand reform.”

This was the sign I carried during an April 10th rally in Washington D.C. It was one in a series urging the government to support a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Millions of all backgrounds – Asians, whites, Hispanics, blacks, the kid next to you in physics class – are deported yearly. In the fiscal year 2012, the Obama administration deported a record-breaking 400,000 people. 400,000 families ripped apart; 400,000 dreams smothered; 400,000 lives changed forever. Multiply that by at least four to get the real picture – after all, these “numbers” on the page have

children, parents, siblings and more that depended on them for everything from a good night kiss to bread on the table.

Despite immigration being an urgent issue, there is no clear legislation addressing it.

Instead, a discriminatory system continues to wreak havoc on the lives of undocumented immigrants. Everyone knows an undocumented family who has lived here for five, ten, or fifteen years. They pay taxes.

They work hard daily. They contribute to America’s economy. But because they lack social security numbers, they aren’t allowed to travel internationally, join unions, further their educations, or even drive cars. Social attacks and stigmas have come into play at alarming levels – this population is undeservingly viewed through deriding stereotypes.

Most disturbing about current immigration law is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can deport whoever they want, whenever the want, and however they want. It’s arbitrary and racist – ICE can do walk-ins, lock down workplaces, detain and deport people who “look suspicious.”

What if a deportee is a single dad? No one comes to pick his daughter up from school, and she becomes a ward of the state, an orphan. From a strictly economical point of view, she’s a government cost.

That aside, how do you explain

that Dad, Baba, or Papi’s not coming back? That she’s been abandoned against her parent’s will?

A common question posed is if immigrants came illegally, why should we support breaking the law? Why stop deportations? Well, I ask you: why do people immigrate? Why do they leave what little or much they have - their homes, communities, way of life - and move to a new country where they don’t know the people, the customs, or even the language?

To work.

And wouldn’t you do the same if you were living in poverty? Isn’t this the morally upright decision – to sacrifice for the sake of your children and giving them a better life?

People immigrate to work, get paid, send the money back to starving families, and achieve higher standards of living. It’s not a conspiracy to steal American jobs, threaten border security, or deal drugs.

Would you let your daughter, mother, or cousin to work as a dishwasher 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, for only $300 a week? These are the types of jobs immigrants are “stealing” - undesirable ones that no educated American wants to take but relies on. Who harvests your carrots? Who builds your coffee shop? Who takes care of your elderly grandma and children?

America is built on immigration. It is indeed the “prom-

ised land” for those seeking a better life. If we let the government close that door, we let them lock out important sources of income and people’s entitlement to basic human rights – food, water, shelter. Since when is it a crime to pursue self-betterment? If immigrants provide so much for this country, it’s only fair to acknowledge their existence: let them vote, hold jobs officially, and drive.

We’ve heard this before.

Having grown up with this blasted into our senses, our generation especially has alienated itself from illegal immigration – it’s just a sensationalized reality. We can’t see past the words on paper or the headlines. It’s time to actually hear it. Have you considered what it’s like to live in fear of persecution? Because that’s what the reality is – outright persecution just to work for bread. Do you deny that the division of families by a law is inhumane? Question instead how our government can lose itself in politicking instead of facing the issue directly.

And try as we might, no amount of flowery language or opinions articles from different angles can change that immigrants live “in the shadows” – constantly fearful that today will be their last in America, that the ICE will walk in, that someone will stop them and ask “papers?” It’s not just sad to see that this topic is per-

ceived as cliché – it is disturbing. We’ve become so dehumanized and alienated that it’s “normal” for a citizen without the mental faculties to protest to be deported or a student to be beaten on the streets for looking “illegal.”

I was surprised at the sheer number of diverse groups – Jewish, Indian, Asian, and LGBT alike – protesting in D.C. for comprehensive reform. It’s a powerful feeling. In Benjamin Jealous’, the NAACP President, words, this is “the second part of the civil rights movement.”

A bipartisan group of senators, the “Gang of Eight,” is finalizing an agreement to overhaul the country’s immigration law for the first time since the Reagan era. The comprehensive proposal has recently been publicized and will reach the Senate floor this summer.

The biggest challenge will be to pass a Republican-controlled House.

The nation cannot continue postponing this discussion.

Thinking back to the day of the Washington protests, I hear 11 million voices agreeing.

“What do we want?” leaders ask.

“IMMIGRATION REFORM!” we roar.

“When do we want it?”

“NOW!” Now, America. Let’s do this now.

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The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Opinions

Hayoung Ahn / The Spectator

A Lack of Scientists Isn’t the Problem

By DANIEL KODSI Describe the state of American science in one word. You’d be in the growing majority if you said something along the lines of abysmal, pathetic, or simply bad. These qualifications are usually justified with the claim that we lack a pragmatic approach to education and are consequently facing a growing deficit of qualified professionals. To quote senator John Cornyn, a ranking member of a committee with a focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, “as we all know, there is a scarcity of qualified people for many jobs, particularly those in high technology.”

And isn’t the US falling even further behind in education?

We’ve been passed by countries all over the world in areas of technological innovation and scientific research. In fact, study after study reveals alarming statistics: we’re ranked 17th

internationally in overall education, and only seven percent of American students have reached an advanced level in eighth grade math. We’re even doing worse than Croatia… right?

Not really. According to foremost experts in the field, such as Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the problem in the United States isn’t with the supply of STEM-related majors, but with the job opportunities that await them. That is to say, we should be focusing on a different batch of numbers, specifically statistics from the National Science Board’s “Science and Engineering Indicators,” that state that we turn out three times as many STEM graduates as the economy can absorb.

According to the website of the National Science Foundation, almost one-third of bachelor’s degrees and two-thirds of doctoral degrees went to students in science and en-

gineering. That’s hundreds of thousands of highly qualified students graduating from the most prestigious universities in the world, only to enter a job market with no openings for them.

The crux of the matter is that the very perception that Americans aren’t qualified, based on the inaccurate studies mentioned earlier, has made politicians consider policies that cause the US science and engineering job market to be flooded with foreign workers willing to do more work for less money. This has caused a self-perpetuating spiral of American mediocrity. First, we have the perception that there are no American scientists.

Next, policy is considered—see STAPLE, STEM, STAR, BRAINS, and SMART—seeking to create a fast track that allows foreign students to come work in the US. And that policy, in turn, can lead to fewer jobs for domestic STEM graduates.

Furthermore, as Rochester Institute of Technology’s Ronil Hara testified in front of a committee of US senators, unemployment rates are almost three times higher than they would be at full employment. Additionally, a study by Harvard showed that every time the labor supply is increased by 10 percent through immigration, wages fall another four percent.

So finally, without any hope for a solid career, the cycle is complete when fewer students choose to pursue STEM majors and instead opt to enter more lucrative fields, such as finance

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and law.

Yet, returning to the beginning of the cycle, no one chooses to identify that that outlook is the primary obstacle in preventing a straightforward solution. And our politicians in particular pursue the same policies over and over again, in spite of a success rate of about zero, seemingly based only on public perception and on the statistics reported by inaccurate studies.

Luckily, what we need is just a shift of focus. First, the United States government ought to recognize that there’s not actually a deficit of students interested in science and mathematics. Our low ranks result partially from schools having different standards across the globe—which, amazingly enough, are not accounted for—and partially from the reality that not all of our students are equal. While we have the students who will go on to be the world’s best, we also have a large segment of the population struggling academically, thus bringing down the nation’s average test score.

Similarly, in China, a large majority of people is poorly educated, and they place dead last amongst the world’s thirty-six richest nations in the percentage of the populace that receives a secondary or tertiary education. However, while only 20 percent of 25 to 34 year olds have graduated high school (compared to almost 90 percent of Americans), they have enough stellar students to be able to lead in innovation as well as a government that hires those students the

second they graduate, In fact, even though there are 70 million adults who still can’t read, they’re being branded a world leader in more and more fields, with clean energy and transportation infrastructure being the most recent. So, while these studies certainly reveal holes in American public education, including that minorities tend to do exceedingly worse than their Caucasian counterparts, they should be discounted when deciding national policy for their apples to oranges international comparisons and misrepresentation of data.

Providing jobs for STEM majors needs to be one of our highest priorities. There should be no more legislation considered in the Senate and House, no matter how cleverly named, that seeks to encourage foreign applicants to come to American shores; instead we must focus on incentivizing businesses to hire their American counterparts. We need to make it clear that there is no domestic undersupply, and that any business hiring non-American citizens to keep their wage expenditures artificially low are simply harming the long-term future of the United States.

Next, we ought to offer incentives, such as tax deductions, to those corporations that do draw their workforce from the domestic supply.

It’s time for the government to start encouraging businesses to invest in our domestic STEM graduates and ensure that we remain at the top of the academic world.

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 17

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

Sam Kim / The Spectator

Senior Dazzles Audiences with ‘Promtacular’ ‘Promposal’

By TIMMY LEVIN In the midst of dozens of ‘promposals’ this prom season, one man has clearly strayed from the pack to create what some are calling the defining promposal of this generation.

Last Friday, senior Timmy Levin awed students and faculty alike with his elaborate and charming display for Bebe LeGardeur.

The promposal commenced at the beginning of sixth period and lasted throughout the school day, not ending until 6 p.m. the following Monday.

Levin rode in atop a white Arabian thoroughbred, bareback, while strumming Bruno Mars on his lyre.

“You know, it’s thoughtful, muscular guys like that who make the rest of us feel inadequate,” senior Adam Lieber said.

After completing a medley of LeGardeur’s favorite songs,

“Bebe, will you go to prom with me?”

—Timmy Levin, senior

Levin dismounted his steed and proceeded to spend an entire

period reciting original poetry featured on his blog. He then produced a dove, which guided the audience and his date-tobe to the first floor pool. Levin, donning a skintight gold bodysuit, was waiting with a team of synchronized swimmers, including Olympic superstars Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte.

As a finale to the first act, the group interpretively swam the word “prom,” giving the audience its first hint at the true nature of Levin’s production.

The remaining three acts were spectacular, providing an audiovisual experience like no other and including gymnastics routines, skywriting, ritual sacrifice, teleportation, intergalactic travel, and even twerking. Levin revealed the purpose of the show in his final speech.

“Bebe, will you go to prom with me?” he said, barely audible over hordes of squealing females and Andrew Reilly.

Reactions were overwhelmingly positive, especially that of promposee LeGardeur. “I guess I have to say yes,” LeGardeur said, who privately declined the promposal twenty minutes later.

For his work, Levin has become the most decorated Stuyvesant alumnus of all time.

So far, he has been awarded three Grammys, six Oscars, and the Nobel Peace Prize, not to mention this years BET Man of the Year.

Junior Prom to be Held on Staten Island Ferry

By EVAN SCHECHTER The Junior Caucus (JC), citing massive budget shortfalls, has decided that this year’s Junior Prom will be held aboard the Staten Island Ferry. Michael Sugarman, a member of the Junior Advisory Council, assured reporters that the Ferry represents the best venue available for the event. “We were about to settle on the A train or that construction site in Redhook with the short fence when we thought of the Ferry,” Sugarman said. “Just remember, what makes Junior Prom special is our wonderful grade, not private space, legality, or a lack of vermin.”

The JC, which last month came under fire for betting the entirety of its funding on a March Madness bracket with

University of Wisconsin winning it all, plans to have promgoers meet at the Whitehall Terminal, where they will enjoy music provided by local street performers. They will then board the Ferry at 6:30 p.m, along with many other juniors whom they may not have met before. Once on the Ferry, the JC will provide additional entertainment such as the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and grimy corners in which to make out.

After a 25-minute cruise to Staten Island, the promgoers will be escorted off the boat into St. George Terminal by Junior Prom ushers wearing distinctive reflective vests. There, they will be able to purchase their prom meals at Nathan’s Restaurant and board the Ferry again at 7:15 p.m. for the return cruise.

Despite the JC’s obvious enthusiasm for the event, some students expressed doubts about the current plan. “Staten Island? I hope the grizzlies aren’t acting up this time of year,” junior Andy Zhang said when informed of the council’s decision. Although a few were concerned at the prospect of disembarking in an uncharted Republican wilderness, most juniors approved of the plan’s efficiency and thrift.

Tickets are currently on sale for $55.00, and the JC urges students to purchase them soon.

While the cost of the event might appear negligible, Sugarman assured reporters that the money is badly needed. “On the off chance that the Mets don’t actually win the East, we’re going to need a lot of cash come October,” Sugarman said.

SU Charter The Student Union (SU) has been created and given the power to do the following things: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Federal Government Lowers National Debt by $6.57

By ETHAN SCHWAB

Washington DC—Last Thursday, after over four years of partisan gridlock, Republicans and Democrats came together in the House of Representatives and decided on six dollars and 57 cents they all agreed could be taken out of the national budget. The agreement marked the first piece of legislation passed since LeBron James last went to see his barber.

According to reports, Democratic representative Clay Aiken was in the process of filibustering a bill to cut national spending on Access-A-Rides when he had a revelation. He stopped speaking and announced that one disabled person would have to go on foot for the sake of his country. In a matter of days, the bill was passed and $6.57 was slashed off the national debt.

The spending cut came just in time. A federal government shutdown was scheduled to take place on Wednesday, May 15 at 12:00 a.m. if the House of Representatives could not reach an agreement on a cut.

Now, the shutdown will not occur until 12:01 a.m.

“It feels great to settle our differences like adults and get work done. We are well on our

way to solving our debt crisis,” Republican representative Oprah Winfrey said.

Although the representatives all went home last weekend with a sense of accomplishment, there is still worry over which part of the national debt the United States will begin to pay off with its newfound cash.

With the fiscal cliff averted for now, speculation on what to do with the money has been rampant.

Montana Democrat Curtis Jackson weighed in on the matter, suggesting the money be spent on a combination of deli goods. “I did the math. With six dollars and 50 cents, we can buy three packs of Skittles, one bag of chips, three little Junior Mints, a plastic fork, and put the rest in the take a penny, leave a penny.”

Jackson’s plan is gaining acclaim throughout the country, as it is something Democrats and Republicans alike can agree on. Despite this breakthrough in partisan issues, the future still looks bleak. The national debt is over 13 trillion dollars, and it rises by two billion every day. Despite the brilliant work of Curtis Jackson, Congress may need to sacrifice multiple packs of Skittles to get this country back in shape.

Chaos Ensues at Soph-Frosh Semiformal

By WILLIAM CHANG Tensions ran high Friday night when a freshman, who has asked to remain anonymous, entered the infamous Soph-Frosh Semiformal wearing attire that witnesses estimated to be about three-quarters formal. Chaos ensued, as authorities had not been trained to handle such an infraction. A first-response team took action by giving the im-

properly dressed attendee a large gray t-shirt to wear for the night, and the freshman was seen being ushered out of the school by law enforcement after midnight.

“Now, we’re not sure about the circumstances or the exact details,” freshman Caucus President Henry Takizawa said. “But what we do know is that the suspect arrived at the school between 7:30 and 8:00 dressed in what looked like a

vest and actual shoes. Depending on a few factors, including whether his tie was a clip-on or not and if he carried a handkerchief, we could be dealing with a serious violation of code here.”

The event, which made its unexceptional but triumphant return last week, has not been held for three years as part of Stuyvesant’s five-year plan to curb students’ general enjoyment. However, due to a recent

U.S. News report that placed Stuyvesant as the top-ranking school in such categories as “Hell on Earth” and “Where Creativity Goes to Die,” the administration was coerced into once again offering the city’s foremost awkward social gathering for teenagers. Many were prepared for a sweaty and uneventful night of less-than-fun, but the dance turned out to be anything but.

“I actually expected such

treatment from these plebeians,” the anonymous freshman said, stopping to take a sip of Earl Grey tea. “The ball was quite droll, anyhow; there was only minimal twerking to be seen that night.”

According to several sources, the ill-clad intruder faces up to fourteen years of voided lunch, plus a term of fashion rehabilitation taught by social studies teacher Avram Jezer.

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The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Arts and Entertainment

Michele Lin / The Spectator

Tribeca

A Story about Fathers, Sons, and Corn: Nothing More At Any Price Program: Spotlight 2012 | 105 minutes | Narrative Feature Directed by: Ramin Bahrani Language: English Country: USA Premiere: New York It couldn’t possibly be a whole film about corn, right? And if you’re being generous, you could say that it isn’t: it’s also a film about the understanding between fathers and sons and the responsibilities that the two share. Anything beyond that, however, would be a stretch.

“At Any Price,” directed by Ramin Bahrani, tells the story of Henry Whipple (Dennis Quaid), an ambitious farmer who oversees the Whipple Farm and struggles to come out on top in the modern agriculture industry. With every other farmer sticking to the aggressive mantra “Expand or Die,” Henry must ensure that his family holds onto their 3,000 acres in prime Iowa corn country, resorting even to unscrupulous tactics if he must. To protect his farming empire, Henry looks to the help of his two sons, who he hopes will one day inherit the farm and his own drive for success.

Grant Whipple (Patrick Stevens), the eldest of the two and an Iowa State football star, has always been a source of pride for Henry. With Grant gone, however, escaping Iowa’s monotonous lifestyle for the mountains of South America, Dean Whipple (Zac Efron) is forced to shoulder the burdens and live up to the expectations of his father.

Typical of most father-son films, Dean has dreams of his own and expresses no interest in following in his father’s footsteps; Dean finds his own escape in the local stock car racing circuit, hoping to one day make it to ARCA and then NASCAR. Of course, any man with such ambitious dreams needs a girl to offer her unwavering support. Enter Cadence (Maika Monroe), a girl who seemingly has nothing better to do than take rides with Dean in his car in the middle of the night and lie on his front lawn in a purple bikini.

And like in any small town, there’s a scandal. While his wife Irene (Kim Dickens) dutifully attends to all of the household chores, Henry sneaks off with his lover Meredith Crown (Heather Graham). However, when Meredith finds him with his wife, perfectly content and showing no signs of recognition, she decides to make a move on his son. Dean, who has recently lost a big race and his final chance at NASCAR, gives in to her advances and all but forgets about Cadence. Though jealousy and disappointment are justifiable motives, they do not make the situation any more realistic. Meredith is too young for Henry and too old for Dean, so why is she with either? And after all the years Cadence has stood behind Dean, how could he now betray her when he needs her support the most?

And there is only one word for having sex in a corn silo, rolling around in corn grain: ew.

Suspense quickly builds up as Cadence surreptitiously catches Meredith with her boyfriend, but their story never comes to any satisfying conclusion. The tension slowly diffuses without ever addressing who Meredith is or what she has to gain from ever involving herself with the Whipple men. Cadence also shows an uncharacteristic amount of independence when she boldly decides to leave Dean in her past and start a new life for herself in a different state altogether. Monroe flawlessly depicts the hurt of betrayal, but her abrupt decision to leave is difficult to understand.

Although the characters suffer from personal problems that are unfortunately left to guesswork and never truly develop into any coherent storyline, the underlying struggle for dominance in the competitive high-tech agribusiness comes across clearly. With the farm having been in the family for three generations, Henry is pressured by his own father, Cliff Whipple (Red West), to not only hold on to what he has started, but also build upon it. To do so, Henry becomes a distributor of Liberty Seeds whose GMO (genetically modified) corn is quickly making conventional seed suppliers obsolete. However, his reputation and survival are on the line as the Whipple farm is caught in an investigation after accusations of reusing Liberty’s patented GMO corn seed. “At Any Price” is surprisingly un-didactic, clearly explaining the illegal practices associated with GMO corn seeds while also delving into both the pressures to engage in such aggressive tactics and the emotional weight that comes with beating out the competitors.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film is the juxtaposition between old-fashioned cinematography (evoking nostalgia for a simpler way of life before advanced technology and the knowledge of genetically modified “life” even existed) and the modern concern of sacrificing morals and family for an ultra-competitive business. However, it is difficult to answer which way of life is better when distracted by so many other unresolved plot lines.

The film ultimately attempts to tackle too many societal concerns. Bahrani tries to address father-and-son pressures, loyalty to family, betrayal, moral responsibilities, and the ethics of genetically modified corn. Although they bring to light important problems in America’s agricultural industry, the digressions into various affairs only confuse the plot and our understanding of the true extent of the consequences of GMO patenting. In the end, the film only successfully addresses the acceptance and understanding that can be found between fathers and sons, and the results of competitive modern industrial farming.

Family and corn, sex and corn, legal investigations and corn…the 105 minutes spent watching this movie are minutes poorly spent.

By Joyce Koltisko

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 21

Arts and Entertainment Film Festival

Lily Program: World Narrative Competition 2013 | 87 minutes | Narrative Feature Directed by: Matt Creed Language: English Country: USA Premiere: World Not much happens in “Lily,” the cinematic debut of New York artist Matt Creed. A young artist who has just finished treatment for her breast cancer is trying to get back on her feet by looking for a job. She makes collages, cooks for her stepchildren, spends time with her husband, talks with friends, and goes to a few parties. She also takes up a few hobbies, such as tap dancing and eavesdropping on strangers to record their ramblings.

Despite the subtlety of its plot, “Lily” is one of the most exciting films I’ve ever seen. It centers on a character whose demoralizing illness has left her health in jeopardy, but who manages to carry on and find happiness in small things. Every shot of the film sings an ode to life itself, with all its simple joys and its hardships.

Creed sets his camera to things that evoke a very innate sense of admiration and wonder, like a man on a street blowing gargantuan bubbles with some string, or the protagonist in a bubble bath, her face in close-up inundated with lumps of bubbles on all sides. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Creed has been influenced by the films of the French New Wave, which similarly use fascinating visuals to capture the innocent, carefree perspective of their protagonists, who are often children or childlike people.

Also like French New Wave films, there is an incessant spontaneity throughout all of “Lily.” One scene starts out quietly, with Lily and her husband eating dinner. In the space of about a minute, Creed has them briefly flirt, dance, and make love, using a bustling handheld camera, short shots and a booming rock n’ roll tune to capture the excitement. I couldn’t help but think of Jean-Luc Goddard’s “Band of Outsiders,” a New Wave classic which, in one scene, famously has the characters interrupt their drink in a café to get up and dance with each other.

A film can’t achieve the lyrical spontaneity that “Lily” does without strong performances. Amy Grantham is irresistible in her portrayal of Lily, a character who, much like the film itself, is full of life. Perfectly cast, she reminds us of the French and Swedish movie actresses of the 60s and 70s with her simple but alluring features and her short hair (when she’s not wearing her stylish wig).

Creed employs a clear and effective visual style. The film mostly consists of medium-length shots, but occasionally there will be longer shots that last a minute or even more that carefully act as pensive points of respite to interrupt the film’s light-hearted flow. Creed reserves these long shots for moments when Lily is at her most vulnerable, such as when she’s getting a CAT scan.

The purpose of these shots is immediately apparent as you watch the film, but their obviousness never detracts from their power. One particularly moving shot follows Lily as she climbs several flights of stairs and gets noticeably more tired as the shot drags on. Creed’s message is clear: life, at the end of the day, is a lot of suffering and hardship, but we just have to keep trudging on.

By Emre Tetik

Six Acts Program: World Narrative Competition 2012 | 96 minutes | Narrative Feature Directed by: Jonathan Gurfinkel Language: Hebrew (with subtitles) Country: Israel Premiere: North American As a senior in high school, this film was difficult to watch. It’s easy to impose its characters onto people we may know—for some, the phrase “hits too close to home” may be appropriate.

The film’s protagonist is an Israeli girl named Gili (Sivan Levy) in her senior year of high school. She has just transferred to a rich suburban Israeli high school, where students party, surf, and relax on the beach and casually hookup with each other. The opening scene establishes that Gili is just another teenage girl, preoccupied with fitting in and being noticed by the men around her. Lying on her bed in the darkness of her room, she takes pictures of herself with her Macbook’s Photobooth and uploads them to Facebook.

It doesn’t take long for Gili to make an impression. Tomer (Roy Nik), a handsome and popular guy at her school, suggests that his buddy Omri (Eviatar Mor) make a move on her. Gili meets them in the parking lot of the large mall where the guys have been spending their evening. Within minutes of her arrival, she is giving Omri a handjob.

If that was the first of six increasingly misogynistic acts, then Act II snaps into place with sickening appropriateness. After a day at the beach, Tomer, Omri, and Gili have snuck into a pool of a fancy hotel. Omri, realizing that he doesn’t really like Gili that much, plays it cool, smoking a joint on a lounger. Tomer fools around with Gili in the pool and would have had sex with her if she were not on her period.

This is how the film begins. As it progresses, Gili finds herself embroiled further and further into a series of less-than-fortunate decisions, establishing her as “loose” but keeping the edges blurry. Direction Jonathan Gurfinkel’s uses vignettes effectively, never allowing us to see the gradients in Gili’s development, so that we are given her in brief alienating snapshots, suggesting that we are hidden bystanders. Each subsequent exposure shows her receding deeper into a sexually driven deprivation of self and dignity.

In one of the acts, we finally see Gili in the context of other girls. With them, she rejects the notions of being “played,” instead painting herself as the “player,” who—with a firm grasp on asserting her sexuality—has been hooking up with various guys of her choice, rather than the other way around. In this moment, we have hope. Maybe she is the puppeteer running the show. Gurfinkel doesn’t take long to shatter the illusion, however. Gili is shown running back to Tomer and trying to fellate him in the bathroom of a discotheque, though he wants none of it. His agenda is to translate the sexual favor onto the owner of the club, an Arabic teen who seems the most gracious and understanding character in the movie (noting Gili’s intoxicated state, he realizes that she’s just not into it).

Gurfinkel does an excellent job of reexamining the notions attached to words like “slut.” When Gili goes on to have sex with Shabat, Tomer’s pudgy and less popular chum, her consent is not explicit; what begins as a massage quickly becomes something else, and we are taken aback at her passivity. By the end of the scene, we feel betrayed, as she never makes any attempt to control the situation.

Shabat, who was interested in Gili ever since he fingered her while she fellated Tomer, occupies the most interesting role in Gili’s relationships— he drives her home when she is drunk and buys her the morning-after pill when he forgets to pull out. He is helpful, but also underlines the odd ease with which Gili sexually engages others. Through their entire encounter, we can’t be certain of what it is we see. We find ourselves asking whether or not we’ve witnessed rape, and we are frustrated with Gili for not being able to say no.

Six Acts is a peculiar kind of film, one that isn’t expressly enjoyable but poses a lot of hard questions. In its cold but elegant way, it forces us to recalculate our opinions of sexuality and the role it is allowed to play in our lives. For 96 difficult minutes, we watch Gili degrade herself and don’t know whether to sympathize or to condemn.

By James Kogan

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 22

Arts and Entertainment Dark Touch Program: Midnight 2012 | 90 min | Narrative Feature Directed by: Marina de Van Language: English Country: France, Ireland Premiere: World Horror movies always walk a fine line. Because the genre functions by playing on our innate fears and desires, the risk of devolving into pure exploitation looms heavy over filmmakers’ heads. I can always appreciate a horror movie that tries to transcend the genre’s fleshy premises and make beautiful and profound statements, which is what Marina de Van’s “Dark Touch” tried to do. Unfortunately, it failed.

To begin with, the film’s plot was fairly contrived. It tells the story of Neve, the sole survivor of a fire in her home that claimed the lives of her family. No one will believe her when she says that the furniture was moving, attacking her parents and causing the fire. At this point there are many ambiguities, but it’s soon clear that Neve possesses telekinetic abilities that caused the furniture (and various sharp objects) to kill her parents, who are revealed to have abused her.

We are given a few visual clues of their abuse: shots of them shutting the door of her room and her father removing his belt and shoes. These shots, repeated throughout the entire film, give the plot the forced feel that it so suffers from. From this point on, any time a door shuts, or somebody takes off their shoes, or puts their hand on Neve, she breaks into sobs and goes into a telekinetic frenzy, threatening the lives of those around her.

These situations initially come off as tragic, but as the film progresses, they become so silly that they’re impossible to take seriously (as I think de Van intended).

The film continues with Neve’s adoption by foster parents who try to show her their love and integrate her into their family and society. But all these attempts are in vain; mundane things, such as bathing, become triggers for Neve’s abuse-repellent powers. In one (unintentionally) funny scene, Neve attends a birthday party of one of her schoolmates. The girls are playing with dolls, aggressively removing their body parts and squeezing their heads, creating indents. Reminding Neve of her abuse, her abuse-repellent is once again activated! She bursts into tears and starts a fire.

The plot, however, becomes truly outrageous when Neve finds that two siblings in her class are abused by their mother at home. And so, one night, Neve escapes from her foster home to go the siblings’ home and rescue them from their abusive mother, killing her with her powers. She frees them from their broken home and the three children wander off into the night in solidarity (the Coalition of Abused Children with Telekinetic Powers, as it were).

On top of the artificial plot, the writing is downright bad. To de Van, who also wrote the screenplay, there’s apparently no such thing as subtext; all emotions and situations, no matter how obvious, must be spoon-fed to the audience. After Neve tells her therapist (Charlotte Flyvholm) that it was the furniture that killed her parents and leaves the room, she says to her husband, both looking puzzled, “Well, that leaves a lot of unanswered questions.” Well, that line leaves her looking like a ditz, and this is certainly not the fault of Flyvholm, whose acting is leagues ahead of the shallow script. In fact, the whole cast is talented, but their talent is wasted on de Van’s poor writing.

The film’s most redeeming quality is its score, written by Christophe Chassol. It includes a good mix of jumpy and kinetic textures that call to mind the eerie score to “The Exorcist,” and subtle melodies that haunt you with their quiet dissonances. The music could also be warm and grieving, as if the music itself was nostalgically regretting Neve’s dark past.

Such was the case in a particularly moving scene, in which Neve puts her hand to her pregnant therapist’s stomach to feel the life within. A sorrowful cello line, combined with close-ups of Neve’s hand and face, gives us a hope that maybe Neve can reconnect with the world after her trauma through the recognition of an innocent life entering the world.

De Van, however, forgoes this interesting path and instead leads us down one of pointless violence. The film culminates with Neve and the two abused siblings trapping her foster parents in the home of the original murder and torturing them to death. De Van employs a striking role reversal, with the kids as tormentors and adults as the tormented, even though these adults were never once abusive throughout the film. I excitedly thought that De Van was exploring the idea of original sin, and I hoped she would take this idea further. But whatever thought-provoking ramifications the situation might have had were laid to rest - the scene devolves into an in-your-face bloody revenge with the kids begrudgingly telling the parents to “keep still” and give them “a good night kiss,” as they were so often told.

And speaking of blood, this movie is really, really violent. De Van writes of the film, “There is none of the gratuitous violence of a slasher film.”

Well, Ms. De Van, I beg to differ. In the film, we see knives, pencils, box cutters, scissors and shards of glass that pierce throats, heads, and chests. The film would not have suffered at all if this meaningless gore had been taken out; in fact, watching it would have been a much less frustrating experience had I not been subjected to watch so much pointless violence.

By Emre Tetik

Mr. Jones Program: Midnight 2013 | 83 min | Narrative Feature Directed by: Karl Mueller Language: English Country: USA Premiere: World Every filmmaker is looking for his or her next big break, but at what cost are they willing to do it? In “Mr. Jones,” directed by newcomer and horror aficionado Karl Mueller, the line between the filmmaker and his audience is blurred in a psychologically disturbing yet thrilling way as a filmmaker and his girlfriend stumble upon their century’s best kept artistic secret. Scott (Jon Foster) drags his girlfriend Penny (Sarah Jones) to live in isolation as he films a nature documentary. However, the days turn dull, and Scott comes to a standstill in his work. Suddenly, the couple discovers that they are not alone in their vast getaway when Scott’s backpack and car keys are mysteriously stolen. They trace the items to a hidden lair close by, which turns out to be the workshop of a disturbed artist.

Scott keeps his camera positioned over his shoulder the entire time, with the audience viewing the subjects through its lens. As he shakily pokes around through the workshop with Penny keeping watch, he discovers statues upon statues of deformed figures, twisted scarecrows, and crosses between oversized voodoo dolls and cow-skull totem poles. The couple runs out terrified, but Penny soon realizes that they had just discovered the workshop of the famous but unknown 1970s artist Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones was an anonymous figure who sent his disturbing pieces to random people all over the country. His identity was a mystery, and his motives were unknown. His pieces, however, were worth millions.

Scott thinks he has found his muse, and the couple decides to make a documentary about who this hidden artist truly is. The film uses a mix of Scott’s camerawork for the documentary, consisting of interviews and snapshots of his pieces, recordings of their sleuthing, and outside shots of the couple hatching their plan. Thus, the audience’s position as viewers is uncomfortable and ever-changing, a cinematographic off-balance that makes the viewer switch between Scott’s point of view and the perspective of an outsider looking in.

Mr. Jones is everywhere and nowhere—a force the couple is not ready for. The hooded figure is responsible for mind distortions that the two soon begin to have: a mix of paranoia, surrealism, and an unending nightmare all packed in one. Reality becomes skewed as camera views begin to show Scott’s entire filmmaking process from an outside perspective—a sign that someone or something has been watching them the whole time. The statues themselves begin to change, causing the two to get lost in mazes of dark forests, basement lairs, and their own minds. Soon the two are stuck in a literal endless night as they battle between the psychological purgatory the artist has put upon them.

Mr. Jones is delightfully shot and masterfully chilling. Though the intentions of the actors were often careless and frustrating to watch, what really is a great horror film if the actors are logical thinkers? A dark scary basement of a psycho artist? Of course we should explore it! The suspense and panic that builds in the viewers is just the right amount of fear that constitutes a successful thriller. Psychological terror is often hard to capture through film, and is often flexible in its portrayal. Famous films of the same genre, such as “The Shining” and “1408,” capture the deterioration of the mind by forces one cannot explain. “Mr. Jones” tries to mimic delirium through distorted visions, replays, quick moving shots, and, of course, eerie and confusing sounds; it does so quite successfully. The indie horror film leaves the audience thoroughly freaked out, secretly wondering if such an artist truly existed and hoping they won’t be Mr. Jones’s next victim.

By Emmalina Glinskis

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 23

Arts and Entertainment Heavy Issues, Weightless Execution Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow Program: World Narrative Competition 2013 | 101 minutes | Narrative Feature Directed by: Arvin Chen Language: Mandarin Country: Taiwan Premiere: North American When the manager of the eyeglass store where Weichung (Richie Ren) works informs him that he’s retiring and promoting Weichung to manager, the old man departs for his retirement in the most stylish way possible: he opens his umbrella and floats Mary Poppins-style into the cloudless sky above. This moment is the first of many sudden dream sequences that pepper Taiwanese director Arvin Chen’s film “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.”

The film is billed as a romantic comedy, but in spite of the cheesy, cheerful string music constantly swelling in the background and the multiple scenes in which characters float blissfully off the ground, dark family drama is at the core of its plot. Weichung has been married for nine years to his wife Feng (Mavis Fan), with whom he is raising their young son. But before they’d gotten married, Weichung had pursued relationships with other men. Dissatisfied with his marriage, he begins to seek out affairs. Meanwhile, fearing the monotony of married life, Weichung’s sister Mandy (Kimi Hsia) dumps her fiancé San-San (Stone), who plots to win her back to no avail. Although just about everyone in this movie is in a state of emotional crisis and the movie’s themes dictate its whole tone, the film never feels somber or lethargic. Instead, Arvin Chen has crafted a film that grapples with complicated human characters, while being an absolute joy to watch.

Weichung is a likeable, sympathetic character, even when he’s seeking gay relationships behind his wife’s back. He’s a quiet, kind man with a timid smile; he cooks for his son and is kind to his wife. The tenderness in scenes between him and his son is particularly evident; as he helps him with his homework and they chat over meals, it is clear that he’s firmly attached to his family. When he falls for a man named Thomas (Wong Ka-Lok), he’s as giggly and smitten as someone half his age falling in love for the first time. After they have their first kiss, just a quick peck from Thomas before he gets in a cab, Weichung turns to walk away and begins to float upward, closing his eyes in bliss as the city falls away. It’s an absurd and obvious bit of symbolism about the “weightlessness” he feels in his new relationship, but it’s appropriate, and almost believable. He’s come to terms with his sexuality but hasn’t yet faced the consequences—that is, itself, a kind of weightlessness for him.

Weichung and Feng’s relationship isn’t a war zone, and raised voices in their household are rare. Fan expresses Feng’s heartbreak with pursed lips, eyes drawn to the ground, and smiles that disappear whenever Weichung draws away from her. When she sees her husband kissing Thomas from across the street, there is finally open conflict between them, and one of the few truly fraught moments in the film follows when she screams at him through tears that she knows about his affairs. But that’s immediately followed by her performance of the title song “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” by The Shirelles at karaoke with her co-workers. Motown dancers and a glitzy retro backdrop appear in the background and Feng belts the song with increasing confidence. Viewers get a breather without forgetting the relevance of the song to Feng’s own troubles. The song is a fitting namesake for the film. Though seemingly catchy and lighthearted, it’s a song about heartbreak, and it aims straight for the listener’s heart—much like this movie.

Mandy faces the end of her own relationship without Feng’s quiet facade. Instead, Hsia’s high, bubbly voice, and alternately wide-eyed and pouty expressions convey Mandy’s immaturity. She self-medicates by watching episodes of a romantic Korean drama and eating ramen until the wee hours of the morning. As the nights pass, Mandy begins to imagine the drama’s handsome male lead as a companion sitting next to her on the couch. It’s a deliciously hilarious and insightful moment when he points to a melodramatic scene between himself and his terminally ill love interest onscreen and declares “now that’s true love.” Mandy nods. It takes a heart-to-heart with Feng for her to realize that she still loves San-San. Feng tells her about her problems with Weichung, and how nine years ago their relationship’s permanence seemed so certain.

Mandy’s girlish dreams of a TV romance divorced from the unpredictability and pain of reality are broken.

It’s true that “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” lacks truly tear-jerking moments, but in place of that, Arvin Chen has given audiences something a bit more complicated and smart than a straight drama could. There’s a kind of beauty in seeing the adorable, romantic side of an extramarital affair, and being able to dance with a broken heart. This beauty would have been erased had Chen decided to bury the film’s tone in depression and malaise. Instead the film floats, Mary Poppins-style, into the cloudless sky above.

Laura Eng / The Spectator

By Jane Argodale

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 24

Arts and Entertainment Looking Forward SUNDAY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

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Movie release “The Great Gatsby” Director: Baz Luhrmann Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher Genre: Drama, romance

12

Broadway Festival Broadway from 14th to 8th Streets Expected to start at 10 a.m. ●Come for music, food, arts & crafts, and more!

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The Fabulous Fifth Avenue Fair 12 p.m.-5 p.m.

12 Street to Sterling Place on Fifth Ave Free

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Album release Gabrielle Aplin’s “English Rain” Genre: Indie pop, folk Label: Parlophone

20

Album release The National’s “Trouble Will Find Me” Genre: Alternative Rock Label: 4AD

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15

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Album release MS MR’s “Second Hand Rapture” Genre: Pop Label: IAMSOUND Columbia Records

Baseball Game Stuyvesant vs. Beacon High School Pier 40 @ 4:00

Baseball Game Stuyvesant vs. Beacon High School Central Park North Meadow #3 @ 4:00

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22

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Album release Vampire Weekend’s “Modern Vampires of the City” Genre: Indie rock, pop Label: XL Records

Album release Jay Sean’s “Neon” Genre: Pop, R&B, urban Label: Cash Money Records

Concert MS MR The Bowery Ballroom 6 Delancey St. Doors open at 8 p.m.

Tickets starting at $16

Museum exhibition “PUNK: Chaos to Couture” Metropolitan Museum of Art Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall Available through August 14, 2013 This exhibit examines the growth and impact of punk on high fashion, from the movement’s start in the 1970s to its continuing role in the fashion industry and society today.

Concert Paramore Hammerstein Ballroom 311 W 34th St 6:30 p.m.

Concert Sara Bareilles: The Brave Enough Tour Highline Ballroom 431 W 16th St Doors open at 7 p.m.

Movie release “Star Trek Into Darkness” Director: J. J. Abrams Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Alice Eve Genre: Action, adventure, sci-fi

Museum exhibition “Face to Face” Children’s Museum of the Arts 103 Charlton St Available through June 9, 2013 ●“Face to Face” explores the self-identity of children all around the world and across time, with featured work dating back as early as the 1930s and originating from over fifty different countries.

The Great GoogaMooga Food and music festival Brooklyn’s Prospect Park ●Free shows though May 19, featuring Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Matt & Kim, De La Soul, Cults, and Sharon Van Etten ●Free General AdmisUkrainian Festival sion tickets for SaturEast 7th St between 2nd day, May 18 and Sunand 3rd Avenues day, May 19 available 4 p.m.-11 p.m. in an online giveaway ●Enjoy traditional running Monday, April Ukrainian foods, dance 1 through Wednesday, performances, and April 3. All tickets music! available at www. googamooga.com

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Movie release “The Hangover Part III” Director: Todd Phillips Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong Genre: Comedy Movie release “Fast and Furious 6” Director: Justin Lin Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese, Ludacris, Michelle Rodriguez Genre: Adventure, comedy, fantasy

By Wonyoung Seo If the person you like is crushing on someone else, how would you deal with the inevitable jealousy? HoneyWorks provides the answers as it realistically portrays the complex struggle of emotions when faced with such a situation in its newest illustrated music video “Yakimochi no Kotae,” or “A Solution for Jealousy.”

HoneyWorks, a Japanese trio comprised of composer Fernando-P, guitarist Choris-P, and illustrator Yamako, uses artificial voice computer programs known as Vocaloids to create a variety of songs. Known for their cute confessions songs, including “Suki Kirai” (“Like Dislike”) and “Kokuhaku Yokou Renshuu” (“Confession Rehearsal”), HoneyWorks doesn’t disappoint

with its newest song.

Although sung by Gumi, a female Vocaloid, “Yakimochi no Kotae” is from a boy’s point of view. The main character talks about his unrequited love for a classmate and his jealousy upon hearing about her crush on someone else. He doesn’t know how to react to his emotions, saying that he has neither the courage to confess

quick tempo, the beautiful melody is catchy and easy to hum, and the video itself can be considered one of Yamako’s masterpieces. The art is very similar to that of Japanese manga, making the story seem more like a short one chapter manga than a simple music video. Since the story revolves around two classmates, Yamako includes various scenes of school life, such

nor the kindness to support her love for someone else. However, when he sees her pain upon getting rejected, he musters the courage to confess to her. While there is no official ending to the story, the video ends with a snapshot of the two having fun with their friends, implying that they become at least good friends, if not something more.

Although the song is hard to sing because of the

as physical education class, in which he gets a bloody nose from getting hit with a speeding ball and is manhandled to the nurse’s office by his friends.

Yamako also includes color to great effect: the opening shot of the sky and the two protagonists are in color, but the majority of the video is in black and white. When he finally finds the courage to confess, his evolution from dull cowardice to

strength and relief is complete, and color dominates.

More than just a cute confession song about a guy summoning up the courage to ask out a girl, “Yakimochi no Kotae” gives us a character who is deeply frustrated with him-

Bonny Truong / The Spectator

Confessing Is...

self; it shows how difficult it is for the boy to communicate his emotions. In the end, this deep exploration of a boy’s desires and how they might coincide with others’ saves the song from being run-of-the-mill pop fare.

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

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Page 25

The Spectator ● May, 10, 2013

Page 26

Sports A Matter of the Mind

By Jing Lin The score was tied at one to one. The Hitmen had won the first singles match, while Bronx Science had won the second.

Having come back from a 4-1 deficit, senior Ryan El Naggar, the third singles player, stood precariously at the line, waiting for his opponent to serve.

The score was 7-6, no advantages, no deuces. If El Naggar lost the next point, he would have lost the match, but he held onto his composure and confidence, knowing that he could turn it around. His opponent threw the ball into the air, kick-served it and ran to the net, hoping that he could catch El Naggar off guard, but El Naggar smoothly lobbed the ball over his head, tying the score at 7. In the end, El Naggar came around and won 9-7.

Previously, in their third game of the season, the Hitmen lost to the Wolverines 5-0 on the Wolverines’ home court.

Despite the tough blowout, the Hitmen remained optimistic toward the April 23 rematch, as they were at their own Hudson River Courts this time.

After El Naggar’s victory, the Hitmen ended with crushing 8-4 defeats in first and second doubles. “We were leading the match 2-1, we only needed one of our doubles to clinch the match, but both of them lost,” senior and captain Peter Becht said.

According to El Naggar, the deciding factor in the doubles games was neither technical skill nor stamina. “I think we lost confidence at the end. The doubles team started off decently but slipped,” El Naggar said.

The Hitmen believe that they can win if they have confidence. Coach Philip Fisher could not attend the matches, but he, too, was positive. “Fisher said it seemed like you guys were the better team and could have beaten them,” junior Evan Tao said.

Although the Hitmen lost, they remain upbeat about the rest of the season. El Naggar and Becht are driven to carry the team in matches down the road, but the main reason for their optimism is that their players already know what to improve.

“I need to get back my con-

fidence in my backspin,” said sophomore Leonard Margolis, who also lost the second singles game of a score of 8-4.

After the loss to the Wolverines, the Hitmen are now 7-3

“We were leading the match 2-1, we only needed one of our doubles to clinch the match, but both of them lost.”

—Peter Becht, senior and captain

and have a slim advantage over Bronx Science and Hunter, who are both tied at 6-3. With two games left in the season, the Hitmen need a strong finish to capture the second-place spot, especially because the Wolverines have the season tiebreaker.

The Okay, the Bad, and the Worst

By Samuel Fuchs As Radio City lit up and the red carpet rolled out, the 2013 NFL Draft arrived. For some teams, this draft was of utmost importance; for others, it would serve to provide them meager reinforcements at best. There were winners and losers in this year’s draft, but as a whole, the dynamics of the NFL did not change substantially.

After the 2012 draft produced some spectacular quarterbacks, a different approach was taken this year. The first round was dominated by linemen; specifically, eight offensive linemen and eight defensive linemen, as well as Dion Jordan (OLB), who would play defensive end as announced by the Dolphins.

What was least expected of this draft was the way in which the quarterbacks were chosen; namely, the fact that most of them weren’t, until the fourth round that is. EJ Manuel, the only quarterback chosen in the first round, wasn’t even considered the top quarterback on the board. With the 16th pick, the Bills selected Manuel worrying that their dire needs at the quarterback position might not be filled after the first round. To the surprise of most, the next quarterback taken, Geno Smith, was taken in the second round by the New York Jets. And then the QB’s kept falling — ironically, too. Though not a strong quarterback draft, considering the problems some teams have, any quarterback will do. To name a few: the Jaguars, Browns, Bills, Titans, Chiefs, and Raiders. And who could forget the Jets, now with five quarterbacks — none of whom any Jets fans would trust to catch a single snap during any game other than the preseason?

It was not until the first pick of the fourth round that the highly esteemed Matt Barkley was chosen by the Philadelphia Eagles. It came as a surprise to all that a potential top five pick in the 2012 draft dropped to the 98th pick in the 2013 draft. What is most confusing is why none of the aforementioned struggling teams chose a quarterback in Barkley whose only weakness was an injured shoulder that has fully healed. Of course it’s a risk, but isn’t everything? The only teams with a good reason not to take Barkley was the Jets. After all, look at their most recent history with USC quarterbacks (Mark Sanchez).

This draft didn’t provide many NFL-ready quarterbacks, but the one who ranked highest in NFL preparedness, Ryan Nassib, fell to the fourth round and was picked up by the New York Giants, who held the 110th pick in the draft, and already

Philip Shin / The Spectator

Boys’ Tennis

have an elite QB. Syracuse’s offensive giant (pun intended) is the only QB in the draft with no health issues, a good attitude, and the proper size and skillset to adjust to the professional level. Nassib may not be best at ball placement, but with NFL coaches, that can be easily fixed.

With Nassib now backing up the great Eli Manning, the Giants are set for a good season, at least as far as QBs go. Whether Nassib will take the reins after Manning, or whether he will be developed and traded, the Giants got a steal with the best quarterback in this year’s draft.

The closing of the draft has left one of New York’s teams with a somewhat improved roster and the other with roster that might not make the playoffs if they were in the Canadian Football League. See for yourself: New York Giants: The G-Men entered the draft in the middle of the pack and came out still in the middle. Their needs were a younger o-line and a better secondary. By drafting Justin Pugh in the first round, they acquired an offensive lineman that can be adjusted to any position on the line. Most notably however, the Giants picked up another defensive end, Damontre Moore, who may soon take the place of Justin Tuck and join Pierre-Paul on the unstoppable Giant defensive line. The Giants had no standout players coming out of the draft — no one who would immediately impact their team — and they need to realize that relying on a 9-7 or 8-8 record every year to make the playoffs is not always going to work out in their favor. The Eagles are reborn with a new offensive playbook and a new, talented coach. The Redskins made the playoffs last year, but their thrilling quarterback RGIII will no longer be a rookie. The Cowboys... well, the Cowboys don’t have a shot at the playoffs as long as Romo is their quarterback, but the Giants are still going to need to step up

their game.

New York Jets Many may disagree, but the New York Jets are still the worst.

Well, maybe off the paper they’re not, but they seem to be the only ones making the front page of the paper. If the Jets spent half the time they spend getting negative publicity on trying to draft or develop a quarterback, they might actually be a competitive team in the NFL. Perhaps they need to focus more on winning some games rather than the controversy between Tim Tebow and Mark Sanchez. Furthermore, this draft failed to provide them with the talent that wins games. They drafted a new o-line allowing for their old one to be replaced — that’s a plus. But a problem the Jets failed to address was their depth at receiver. Santonia Holmes is unreliable coming off his Lisfranc injury, and it seems like the only person on the team that can catch passes is Antonio Cromartie, who plays defense.

The Jets did draft quarterback Geno Smith to replace the infamous Mark Sanchez. Some say this is what they need, but in an already bad QB draft, why Geno Smith? Smith has shown many weaknesses in college especially when facing defenses like Syracuse. With an attitude that can easily turn from happy to angry, a poor work ethic, and positive results only coming out of easy games, Smith was not a gamble the Jets could afford. Still, with his wild attitude and arrogant personality, Smith will fit in very well amongst the other Jets. He is taking on a disgruntled, badly run team that has an old runningback, receivers who keep getting injured, and a defense with a weakness at every position. Of course, their first-round pick, Dee Milliner, might be the savior of the secondary, but with only one safety left, the Jets need a lot more than Geno Smith and a new offensive line to win them games.

Boys’ Handball

Dragons Stay Undefeated

By Jason Lee After winning a close game against the High School of Economics and Finance on April 19, the Dragons, Stuyvesant’s handball team, continued their success by dominating the Chelsea Career and Technical Education Lions on Monday, April 23. Both teams had squared off earlier in the season, and this match was no different from their previous meeting.

In the first singles match, senior and co-captain Cody Tong started off slowly, allowing

the Lions’ sophomore David Li to come within two points of Tong’s lead. However, after winning the serve, Tong scored 13 unanswered points in a routing stretch. Li attempted to come back, but the deficit was too great to overcome. Tong won the match 21-9.

In the second singles match, senior and co-captain Alexander Bu worked quickly to dominate. The score was 8-3 when Bu began his own 13-0 run to win the match 21-3.

In the last singles match, senior John Hu defeated the Lions’ Chandon Reese 21-10, re-

cording three aces in the game.

“The team played great today, as they usually do, although most of the schools we play are not at the same skill level nor do they take handball as seriously as Stuyvesant does,” Bu said.

The doubles’ matches were just as decisive as the singles’ were. Sophomore Marco Liu and junior Wilson Li defeated their opponents quickly with a score of 21-2, scoring the last 15 points. In the second doubles match, junior Long Yip and sophomore Young Kim defeated their opponents similarly,

21-6. This closed the match, and the Dragons came out winning 5-0.

“I think the team played a very solid game today,” Yip said. “Of course, we as a team have areas that we need to improve in, such as consistency, but generally speaking, today was a good representation of our skill and potential.”

The Dragons had played the Lions earlier this season; in both matchups the Dragons crushed their opponents.

“They were very businesslike in their approach. It wasn’t a difficult game to win,” Coach

Robert Sandler said. “They don’t joke around, and they were serious, made good shots, and moved around.”

The Dragons have improved to a 10-0 record and continue to strive for a perfect record. The playoffs are around the corner, and they anticipate an exciting and competitive atmosphere.

“Teams [that] we play are not on the level that we compete against in the playoffs,” Bu said. “Hopefully, we will be able to make it far in the playoffs again this year and take the championship home to Stuyvesant.”

The Spectator ● May 10, 2013

Page 27

Sports Both Sides of the Fence continued from page 28

ber, he managed to achieve an A rating after making the top eight at a Cadet U-17 North American Cup. “I was really proud when I made top eight since it was my first major placement,” Shin said. “I got my first national medal, and my first video replay.”

A second goal, which Shin achieved, was to compete in the World Cup, a competition in which Team USA takes only the top 20 fencers in the country to compete in stifling international tournaments. In February 2013, Shin traveled to Italy in order to compete in the Cadet U-17 World Cup, one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world.

“Although the divisions in the tournament are smaller than some of the national tournaments, the fencers are much

better and the competition is more challenging overall.” Finishing an impressive 54th out of 138 top-notch competitors, Shin made a prominent debut at this international competition.

Shin began this impressive nine-year run with the same coach he has now—coach Michael Petin of the Fencers Club.

After many years of collaborative work and instruction, Petin and Shin have formed a student-instructor battery that goes beyond that of instruction and into genuine care. With an impressive training regimen of three hours every day after school except on Wednesdays and five hours on Saturday, Shin is hungry for high-level competition.

“My life revolves around schoolwork and fencing,” Shin said. “My goal is to continue to fence in college and pursue the

sport I love.”

Somewhat similarly to Shin’s introduction to the sport, Josef Omar began his fencing career due to his older brother and sister, who both fenced in college.

Starting at the age of 12, Omar found a new passion and began competing in impressive tournaments almost immediately after beginning the sport.

In 2010, Omar competed in the National Championships for U-14, achieving a B10 rating and placing third overall in his event. Continuing down the road that his first notable placement suggested, Omar competed in many national tournaments across the nation, including one in Virginia Beach in which he received eighth place and an overall ranking of fifth in the nation for all U-14 competitors.

As Omar progressed in the sport, he continued to post

striking numbers, including 24th place at the National Championships 2012 for the U19 division and 14th place in another national tournament in 2013, thus renewing his B rating.

Hungry for an A rating, Omar continued to compete in larger-scale tournaments until he achieved his A rating in a local tournament in Rocky Point.

He then moved on to his first international tournament in Austria.

“Going to Europe was difficult because that’s where the concentration of the very best fencers are. They have a different style: quick and very intense,” Omar said. “I didn’t do so well my first time, but it was fun being a member of Team USA, and I may end up competing internationally again.”

In order to attain such high accolades, Omar maintained

a rigorous training schedule, practicing every other day during the week and both days of the weekend. “In preparation for tournaments, I go to the track to run sprints and run the bleachers,” Omar said. “Fencing takes a lot of cardio and leg work. To be ready to compete against strong competitors you need to have both of these.”

Omar has an impressive resumé, and, like Shin, hopes to continue adding to this resumé in a Division 1 college on a fencing scholarship.

Both Shin and Omar display incredible aptitude athletically, academically, and socially.

They maintain good grades and a social life while fencing at the national and even international level. How Shin and Omar manage to find time for everything they do remains a mystery.

Boys’ Baseball

Playoff Hopes Dwindling For Hitmen continued from page 28

Max Litvack-Winkler, who gave up six runs in the first two innings. Litvack-Winkler’s struggles cut Stuyvesant’s lead to 10-6 at the end of the second, which wasn’t as much a cushion as the Hitmen would have liked. Hellerman settled the team down, and kept the Hitmen in the lead with his pitching. “We struggled defensively early in the game, but after that we focused and Lab didn’t score again,” senior and co-captain Kevin Moy said.

Juniors Mike Mazzeo and Ben Sydel, two breakout stars this year, both also had big days.

Sydel went 2-3 with two doubles and two RBIs, and Mazzeo continued his recent hot streak by going 3-4 with two RBIs. All in all, the game was a team effort, and the Hitmen proved why they deserve to be in the postseason for the 18th straight year. But completing this goal won’t be easy. “In baseball, anything is possible, [but] we have

to play flawless baseball,” coach John Carlesi said. If the Hitmen play as consistently as they did in this game, they may just land themselves a place in the playoffs.

Norman Thomas Tigers 7, Stuyvesant Hitmen 4

By Louis Susser With every loss, the chances that the Hitmen, who have a 2-5 record for the season, will take a playoff spot slip lower and lower.

In the Manhattan “A” league, the Hitmen will have to improve their hitting to remain a highly-regarded team around the league.

In a preseason interview, coach John Carlesi expressed his high expectations and foreshadowed the Hitmen’s major roadblock for this season. “We have a good pitching and a great defense. All that has to come together is our hitting,” Carlesi said.

When the Hitmen faced the highly talented Norman Thomas team on Thursday, April 18,

it marked their second loss in a

“Our chances were slim at best, and a few fielding mistakes as well as inconsistent pitching didn’t help us out” —Peter Lucido, junior

row. They weren’t able to capi-

talize in certain situations and failed to drive runners in and to close their deficit.

“We need to improve on everything,” coach John Carlesi said. “Every day we improve on one thing and get worse on another.” The Hitmen are having trouble piecing everything together, and in this game the problem was their ability to hit.

They had a total of 10 strikeouts but only three hits.

During the sixth inning with no outs, the Hitmen worked the bases loaded while trailing 2-7.

However, the next two batters both struck out in a clutch situation, killing the Hitmen’s momentum. Though they managed to score two runs off of walks with the bases loaded, cutting the deficit to 4-7, they failed to score again. “We left too many people on base,” senior and cocaptain Noah Hellermann said.

Defensively, the Hitmen strengthened their pitching and managed to let only a couple of errors sneak past them. One er-

ror in right field occurred when a pop-up was blown in by the wind, resulting in two runs scoring. Besides that error, their fielding remained up to standards, as did pitching by starter Jack Haggerty and the three other relief pitchers, senior Nathaniel Biggs and juniors Aaron Coppa and Max Litvack-Winkler.

“Our pitching kept us in the game,” senior and co-captain Kevin Moy said. “During the fourth inning, Jack Haggerty was able to get out of a jam, with no outs and men on second and third base. Also, [Biggs] threw a 1-2-3 inning in the sixth, but at that point there was no sign of a comeback for the Hitmen because they weren’t getting anything done at the plate.”

The Hitmen are 2-5 for the season and need to be above .500 to make the playoffs. The Hitmen’s struggles are continuing, and, as coach John Carlesi said, they “have to put everything together” before it’s too late.

Boys’ Volleyball

On to the Playoffs Stuyvesant Beasts 2, School Of The Future Bulldogs 0

By Chris Kim The Beasts, having recently suffered their first divisional loss in over three years, knew that they had many problems to fix on the court if they wanted to be a strong competitor in the playoffs.

When they took on the School of the Future Bulldogs on Tuesday, April 16th, they looked to communicate as an experienced team and pass the ball accurately and consistently.

However, despite winning both sets with scores of 25-13 and 25-20, the Beasts still demonstrated poor passing and communication. “We weren’t passing the ball well, mostly because we weren’t talking enough on the court,” sophomore Eric Lee said.

The Beasts took control of the first set, capitalizing on the inconsistent receiving of the Bulldogs while displaying some cases of excellent serving and accurate passing. The Beasts quick-

ly broke away with a 6-0 run led by junior Connor Pfister, during which Pfister scored four service points. Despite two desperate time-outs called by the Bulldogs, the demoralized team was unable to close the large gap, and the Beasts took the first set with relative ease.

At first, the second set appeared like another blowout for the Beasts, who took a quick 4-0 lead against the discouraged Bulldogs. However, the Bulldogs responded with a 4-0 run of their own, and the seemingly no-sweat Stuyvesant victory devolved into a sloppy mess. The Beasts began giving away free points because of bad serves—a rarity for such an experienced team.

Miscommunication, a problem that was evident throughout the season, plagued the Beasts in this match, preventing effective service reception. The Bulldogs went on an effortless 3-0 run due to a series of short serves that could have been easily played. Because no one called out whether the serves were short, the Beasts were unable to

respond. “There were some easy opportunities that we missed because we weren’t communicating enough with each other,” sophomore Vincent Huang said.

With the team down 11-15, Coach Vasken Choubaralian called a time-out and reassembled his disorderedly Beasts.

They were able to regroup and, with a series of strong serves, took advantage of the Bulldogs’ poor receiving ability to close out the game on a 14-5 run.

If the Beasts want to identify themselves as a valid contender in the playoffs, they will have to focus on better communication and accurate passing.

“We couldn’t pass the ball well at all, and we were also missing serves. We also needed to talk to each other more on the court,” Choubaralian said. “We can’t afford to give easy points to [the other team] because of small mistakes.”

Stuyvesant Beasts 2, LaGuardia Athletics 0

By Samantha Lau

The Stuyvesant Beasts sought revenge in their game on Tuesday, April 30. This game marked both the closing of regular season and a last chance to get back at the LaGuardia Athletics, who upset the Beasts in the early season.

“We were not overconfident because we know how LaGuardia plays by now. They beat us the first time because we were still getting used to the season and our teammates,” senior William Huang said. “Now that we have a firmer lineup, we were able to make them ‘LaG’ behind us.”

The Beasts jumped off to a good start in the first set, pulling ahead to a four-point lead.

Many times throughout the first set, Huang saw that the Athletics’ blockers were too far off the net.

He took advantage of this, hitting between the blocker and the net for easy points and helping the team with the first set 25-21.

In second set, the Beasts were continuously communicating and giving each other feedback.

The chemistry between the players was evident in the back-toback passes between junior Con-

nor Pfister and senior and captain Calvin He, the control in defense, and the perfect sets from senior Darien Lam. The second set finished with a score of 25-16.

“I was pleased with today’s performance overall. There were some moments where I wasn’t pleased, such as the misserves and miscommunication during service reception,” Coach Vasken Choubaralian said.

Besides these mistakes, the team needs to make other improvements in order to meet their goal of making it to the second round of playoffs. “We still have to improve on our passing because we tend to overpass or underpass. We also have to work on covering and not solely depend on Darien [Lam],” He said.

The victory against LaGuardia helped prepare the team for the upcoming playoffs. “We did what we had to do today and I’m proud to call this a victory,” Choubaralian said.

May 10, 2013

Page 28

The Spectator SpoRts Girls’ Softball

Renegades Don’t Quite Turn Beacon into Bacon

By Grace Lu After two tough losses, one of which was a 15-0 blowout handed by the division-leading George Washington Trojans, the Renegades bounced back with three straight wins. In an aggressive, high-scoring game on Monday, April 29, the red-hot Renegades extended their winstreak against the Beacon Blue Demons. Although they are still second in the division, another win in their pocket leaves the team in good shape heading into the upcoming playoff season.

In the beginning of the game, both pitchers, Marie Frolich of the Renegades and Ashley Librera of the Blue Demons, started out rocky, but soon settled down.

By the end of the first inning, the Renegades stood in the lead 4-2; neither team would score until the top of the fourth. The Blue Demons seemed to be catching up after a solo homerun, but the Renegades countered back with a strong five-point bottom of the inning, highlighted by freshman catcher Georgia Kamm’s 2-RBI triple to right field. “I’ve been working on my swing a lot, and this game I really started getting the ball where I wanted to go,” Kamm said.

Along with her offense, Kamm’s defense was excellent as well. Earlier in the game, Kamm threw someone out at second base; it was the third time Kamm did so this season, which earned praise from many of her older teammates. After being hit in the face during her first game, Kamm has matured both at the plate and on the field. She attributes her success to her teammates, who were “really supportive and I feel like that’s helped me a lot,” Kamm said, “My team is behind me no matter what.”

The game seemed to be in the bag for the Renegades, as they were up by nine by the end of the sixth. In the next inning, the Blue Demons began to show some life, but their five points were not enough to come back, and the Renegades won with a final score of 12-8.

“I had expected them to hit the ball that hard all day,” junior pitcher Marie Frolich said, “We had a secure enough lead and I wanted to end the game with them scoring less runs than they did but I was still super happy with the way we played.”

Despite the win, the Renegades were not quite satisfied with their performance. “The score was a lot closer than it

Both Sides of the Fence

should have been,” senior and co-captain Gabrielle Gillow said, “We left a lot of base-runners stranded at the end of innings.

For the rest of the season, our biggest issue is communication.

We aren’t always able to talk to each other while on the field.”

Often, the players would forget to stay vocal on the field, even if a ball between two fielders needed to be called for or a fielder needed to be directed.

Notwithstanding the outburst in the five-run inning, senior and co-captain Kathleen Mullaney said, “We’re not a very powerful team hitting-wise so we need to work on playing small ball and getting on base and taking advantage of base runners.”

Heading into Wednesday’s game against Environmental Studies, the Renegades feel optimistic about their success.

Coach Vincent Miller said, “We beat them the first time around.

They’re a lot stronger this time around, but I’m confident that we can go in there and win another game.” Hopefully, this confidence can carry them through the next four games and into the playoffs. continued on page 27

Sports Wrap-Up After losing five of its first seven games, Stuyvesant’s boys’ varsity baseball team, the Hitmen, is 3-1 in its last four games, but still need to win two of its last three to avoid missing the postseason for the first time in 17 seasons.

After making the city championship match last season, Stuyvesant’s boys’ handball team, the Dragons, did not lose a match all season and is headed to the playoffs hoping to replicate their success from a year ago.

Although they struggled against Bronx Science and Beacon, going 0-4 against those two teams, the Hitmen, Stuyvesant’s boys’ tennis team, won all of their other games to finish the season at 8-4.

Stuyvesant’s boys’ lacrosse team, the Peglegs, finished with a mediocre 5-8 record and struggled to find consistency throughout the season.

Despite an 11-1 record to end the regular season, Stuyvesant’s boys’ volleyball team, the Beasts, disappointingly lost in the first round of the playoffs in two sets.

The Lady Peglegs, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity tennis team, lost two of their last three games following a nine-game winning streak to begin the season, but are still going to the playoffs.

With help from a four-game winning streak, Stuyvesant’s girls’ fencing team, the Vipers, is 7-2 with just one game remaining in the regular season.

With a 10-2 record on the season, Stuyvesant’s girls’ handball team, the Furies, is advancing to the postseason.

When the Huskies, Stuyvesant’s girls’ lacrosse team, started off the year with six consecutive losses, they didn’t give up. They finished the season on a strong note by emerging victorious in three games near the end of the season, including the season finale.

Boys’ Baseball

Playoff Hopes Dwindling For Hitmen George Washington Trojans 15, Stuyvesant Hitmen 0

Philip Shin (left foreground) fences during the 2011 PSAL playoffs.

By Luke Morales Due to the focus on and rigor of work that Stuyvesant tends to have, many non-academic talents, such as athletics and the arts, seem to go unnoticed. You might not realize that two of the best fencers in the nation, junior Phillip Shin and junior Josef Omar, are the very students that you might have English with, go out to lunch with, or even play ball with after school.

Both Omar and Shin frequent national and even international tournaments for topnotch fencers, through which both have attained the highest rating possible in fencing: A. While Shin is adept in foil fencing, in which the target areas are the torso and back, Omar’s area of expertise lies in the other famous style of fencing: épée, in which the target area is the whole body.

Both are excellent students.

Both have incredible talent.

What’s interesting is the different paths each of them took to arrive at the skill levels they

have currently reached.

“I began fencing in the second grade to hang out with one my good friends more often,” Shin said. “But after a year he quit fencing, yet I continued even though I didn’t want to. I never quit because I didn’t want to be a quitter.”

At first, Shin only trained once a week due to other extracurricular activities such as chess and soccer, but as time went on, he honed in on his true passion for the sport.

Shin began fencing competitively in the sixth grade. After his first taste of a Y-12 tournament in 2008, he began taking fencing more seriously, increasing the numbers of days per week that he trained from one to three.

Shin achieved his first rating of D10 (in 2010) in a local senior Open. He began to train five times a week as he traveled up the rankings.

Throughout his time as a fencer, Shin has set up goals for which to strive. Last Octocontinued on page 27

Against most teams, losing 15-0 with only two hits is unacceptable, but against the George Washington Trojans’ 80 mph pitching, an exception may be made. In fact, the Hitmen’s disappointing performance against the Trojans on Thursday, May 2 was expected by many.

Junior starting pitcher Peter Lucido was not very pleased with the team’s performance, but neither was he shocked.

“Our chances were slim at best, and a few fielding mistakes as well as inconsistent pitching didn’t help us out,” Lucido said.

Junior outfielder Michael Mazzeo, who struck out in both of his plate appearances, was in agreement with Lucido. “That team is a top five team in the city,” Mazzeo said.

The team’s struggles were spread across their performance. The Hitmen failed to get runners on base, had five fielding errors, and walked a total of nine batters. “It was a combination of everything today. We only got two hits, the outfield made three crucial errors, and [the pitchers] had a total of three wild pitches that cost runs,” Carlesi said.

The team has much room for improvement, and it starts with making routine plays.

“The issue throughout this season has been that we haven’t been playing clean baseball. We made a lot of errors in the field and we couldn’t support our

Mehak Ijaz/ The Spectator

Richard Maldonado / The Spectator

By Eric Morgenstern

Nicholas Kalantzopoulos runs to first base during the Hitmen’s game against West 50th Street Campus on April 24.

pitchers,” senior catcher and co-captain Kevin Moy said. “We have to focus for the next two weeks. We always have bright spots, but everything needs to come together.”

The Hitmen have four games left in the season: two against the High School for Environmental Studies, who have not had much success this season, and two tougher ones against Beacon High School, the top team in the division. With the Hitmen now 5-7, they will almost definitely have to take a game from Beacon to make the playoffs. “For the next game, we just need to go out there and do what we can, and what we are able to do at our best,” Lucido said.

Stuyvesant Hitmen 19, Lab Museum United Gators 6

By Ari Hatzimemos Going

into

their

game

against the Lab Museum United Gators, the Hitmen were 4-6 with only six games remaining, putting them in an almost must-win situation for every upcoming game to enter the playoffs. With the pressure mounting, the Hitmen came up with an exciting win on Tuesday, April 30, beating Lab Museum United 19-6.

The Hitmen didn’t need much time to get started, scoring 10 runs in the first inning.

They were effective at the plate and took advantage when they got the right pitches, totaling 13 hits and drawing 11 walks in the game. “We hit well today.

We were also more aggressive at the plate than usual,” senior and co-captain Noah Hellerman said.

Hellerman also did his part on the mound, pitching 3.1 innings in relief with no runs allowed. He came in after a rough start by junior starting pitcher continued on page 27