Volume 105, Issue 1

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume XVI No. 1

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

September 19, 2014

stuyspec.com

Mr. Galano(left) is the new Athletic Director at Stuyvesant High School, and Mr.Moran(right) has benn named Assistant Principal of Health and Physical Education, filling a gap left by Mr. Barth.

By Sharon Lin and Sonia Epstein After former Assistant Principal of Health and Physical Education Lawrence Barth retired, two new people have assumed leadership positions in the Health and Physical Education Department: Assistant Principal of Security, Safety, and Student Affairs Brian Moran has been named Assistant Principal of Health and Physical Education, and Chris Galano, a new Athletic Director, has been hired.

“I was really interested in taking on this job because my back-

ground is in health and physical education,” Moran said.

Moran’s new position requires work in three areas: supervision, monitoring the curriculum, and responding to students. Supervision involves observing and meeting with teachers to give suggestions for improvement, and giving the teachers a rating at the end of the term. Furthermore, the Assistant Principal must ensure that the curriculum for each class is on par with state standards. The last area involves ensuring students are placed in their required or requested classes. Through observing which classes are in demand, the As-

Weinwurm Temporarily Retires from COSA Position

By Ridwan Meah, Sharon Lee, and Jenny Yang On Tuesday, September 2nd, the first day of work for all school faculty, former Coordinator of Student Affairs (COSA) Lisa Weinwurm walked up the spiral staircase of the Tribeca Bridge on her first day back to Stuyvesant after about half a year.

Weinwurm was injured after slipping from the same staircase in the snowy winter of the previous 2013-14 school year. She has returned to Stuyvesant as a Health teacher, but the question of whether she will return as COSA remains.

A COSA is typically a school faculty member who plays a decisive role in enabling various student events, including Student Union (SU)-sponsored dances, such as SophFrosh Semi-Formal and Junior-Prom.

Moreover, a COSA plays a crucial role in SING!.

Among the COSA’s many responsibilities, serving as faculty advisor to the Student Union (SU) is one of the most promi-

Features

nent. As an advisor, a COSA works consistently with the SU in coordinating various activities that affect the student body.

One responsibility is the organization of clubs and pubs.

Since this is a job tasked to the SU, the COSA must work with club and pub faculty advisors to coordinate in-and-out of school activities. This cooperation includes the allocation of funds and out-of-school trips.

Weinwurm has taken on the role of COSA for seven and a half years, and many students believe that Weinwurm has acted as an efficient COSA. “Ms. Weinwurm has been a great resource.

She is one of my role models, and I love and respect her,” former SU President Eddie Zilberbrand (‘14) said.

Yet Weinwurm is currently unable to continue serving as COSA, as she continues to recover from her injury. “No, I can’t return as COSA, because I physically can’t give the time for it. It’s not fair for the students,” Weincontinued on page 2

Article on page 6.

A Glimpse at the Class os 2018 In the first of a series of articles, the Features Department hopes to follow selected members of Stuyvesant’s freshman class in the hopes of revealing the key behind the high school journey.

sistant Principal must decide if more or fewer sections of a particular class should be taught, or if more teachers should be hired to teach a class.

The position of Athletic Director, given to Galano, involves overseeing all the activities associated with the Public School Athletic League (PSAL). The responsibilities for this position include scheduling and monitoring PSAL games, ensuring that students have submitted the required paperwork, and checking to make sure that athletes have obtained grades, according to PSAL standards, that qualify them to participate in sports.

The positions of Assistant Principal of Health and Physical Education and Athletic Director were previously both held by the now-retired Larry Barth. This system, in which one person holds both positions, is commonplace in other schools. “However, it’s not defined in the description of the Assistant Principal job that he or she has to be the Athletic Director too,” Principal Jie Zhang said. “They are two separate jobs.”

The responsibilities of the Assistant Principal are carried out during the school day. In contrast, the Athletic Director position is held “per session,” meaning it is an after-school job similar to volunteering to work overtime.

Managing time will be es-

sential for Moran, who already works as Assistant Principal of Security, Safety, Student Affairs, and Administration. The role of Assistant Principal of Physical Education will be an additional position.

Moran did not want to take on the Athletic Director job because he felt having three positions would take up too much time and would be ineffective. “I felt my additional responsibilities as the supervisor for Health and Physical Education would make it difficult to do [the Athletic Director job],” Moran said in an e-mail interview. “[Moran] did ask teachers in the department [to apply for Athletic Director], but there was no answer,” Zhang said.

“Most [Physical Education] teachers just didn’t want the extra work of being [an Athletic Director],” an anonymous Physical Education teacher said. “They either had their own sports teams or other commitments to attend to.”

Thus the search for an Athletic Director continued. A notice was sent out to other schools regarding the job.

After a series of interviews with various candidates for the position, Galano, previously an Athletic Director for Long Island City High School, was chosen.

“We wanted someone who had previous experience with the Athletic Director position from

a large high school,” Zhang said.

“Also, [Galano] had all the qualifications for a [Physical Education] teacher. That was a plus, so he really stood out to us.”

“I decided to leave my old job because I was […] trying to find a new job at a better school, and obviously Stuyvesant was a great choice,” Galano said. “I knew what a great school it was, the high standards it holds, so I was very excited.”

Hiring a separate Athletic Director, which has not been done at Stuyvesant in many years, has brought a variety of changes.

One area affected by this change is the budget. None of Stuyvesant’s resources are used for paying the Athletic Director, because the job is completely funded by the PSAL. “Whoever does it, it doesn’t cost me a penny,” Zhang said. “We saved a position by hiring [Moran] because he was already the [Assistant Principal] of Security, and now he’s just taking on another job. So the intent was to save money.”

Additionally, communication between the Health and Physical Education Department and Athletics may be altered now that the departments are operated by different people. Despite the possibility for inefficiency, things have been running smoothly. “At my previous school, we had different guys handling [the Assistant continued on page 2

StuyPulse’s Trip to China

By Sharon Chao

10 students from Stuyvesant’s FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics team, Team 694 ‘StuyPulse,’ traveled to China during the summer for a nineday trip to mentor the newly created China Urban Youth Robotics League (CUYRA) at the China Robotics Challenge (CRC). They were supervised by technology teacher Rafael Colon, Technology Department Coordinator James Lonardo, mentor Dan Lavin, and four parents. The team first went to Shenzen, China from August 16 to August 22 for the CRC, and later to Hong Kong for three days of sightseeing.

Earlier in February, StuyPulse was contacted by Katie Yang, a student at Columbia University from another FIRST team, Team 525 ‘Swartdogs,’ in Iowa. Yang was working with CUYRA to prepare for the CRC, and she wanted a few highly-ranked FIRST teams from the East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast to be mentors for the newly established rookie teams in China.

StuyPulse’s own members understood the difficulties in establishing a team and answered CUYRA’s calls for help. “Starting a robotics team takes a lot of effort both logistically and technically. It is even more difficult when teams

Courtesy of Danny Qiu

Alice Oh / The Spectator

The New Faces of the Health and Physical Education Department

start outside of the U.S. because they usually don’t have access to the technological and logistic resources that are available to us,” senior and Stuypulse President of Marketing Sungwoo Park said in an e-mail interview.

Yang was able to coordinate the trip with Stuyvesant’s administration. By June, the members who volunteered to go to China, mostly those who had already made plans for vacationing nearby, were notified of all the trips’ details. CUYRA and Stuyvesant’s PTA were able to cover some of the expenses, but individual members had to pay for everything else.

Yang contacted three other nationally-ranked FIRST teams in the U.S. to participate in the CRC: Spread on page 13.

Team 525 ‘Swartdogs’ from Iowa, Team 987 ‘High Rollers’ from Las Vegas, and Team 1595 ‘Dragons’ from Washington D.C. The team numbers were assigned to each FIRST team at the start of the season based on the order of team registration.

Although StuyPulse participated in the CRC, its main goal was to give technological and logistic advice to the Chinese groups. For instance, they helped the Chinese teams fix issues concerning how the robot mechanically operated on the field. An introductory workshop was also held on computer-aided design (CAD), which continued on page 2

A&E Summer Movies

Check out our guide to this summer’s hottest movies!

Be sure to check these films out during a free weekend before they leave theaters.

The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Page 2

News The New Faces of the Health and Physical Education Department continued from page 1

Principal and Athletic Director jobs],” Galano said. “I don’t think it’s too hard for Mr. Moran and [I] to work together. He handles his jobs well, and I can understand that he has a pretty big workload.

I’m glad that I’m able to work alongside him.”

Settling into his newest position, Moran has not expressed concern regarding his ability to

conduct all his jobs proficiently.

He plans to manage his time by moving between his current office on the second floor and the health and physical education offices on the fifth floor. “It will be an extra responsibility, but it is something I’m willing to take on,” Moran said. “I want to be able to contribute in this way to the school.”

Alongside Moran, Galano is

also adjusting well. “[Galano] is really taking on the weight of the job well,” Health and Physical Education teacher Howard Barbin said. “He’s really a breath of fresh air. He’s receptive. I really appreciate how he introduces new perspectives to the department.”

“As athletics director, I would like to increase the awareness of athletics, obviously [by increas-

Weinwurm Temporarily Retires from COSA Position continued from page 1

wurm said.

Weinwurm is currently going through intense physical therapy for her injuries. She goes through 3 hours of physical therapy every other day, a process that is helping her learn how to walk again. Weinwurm often has capricious doctor appointments that require her to leave at times like 3:30 p.m., a time which would also be essential for a COSA. Hence, she simply cannot offer the time required to serve as a COSA. Weinwurm, however, remains hopeful. For the time being, she will continue to serve as a Health teacher, as she has for about ten years. As she continues her healing process, Weinwurm looks forward to the day she may serve as COSA once more, though it may be years until she does so. “I lie in bed, missing this job, but the doctor says no,” Weinwurm said.

The question of Weinwurm’s replacement as COSA still remains. As of early September, the recruiting process is still taking place. “We are currently revising the job description [for COSA] so we can post it,” Assistant Principal of Organization

Saida Rodriguez Tabone said.

The time it will take to find a COSA is also uncertain. “We are still not sure when the COSA will be replaced, but it may not be until February, when there may be an available teacher willing to fill the position” Principal Jie Zhang said. A Stuyvesant teacher usually takes on the role as COSA, but as of first term this year, no teachers were available to do so.

Though it is optional for a high school to have a COSA, larger schools tend to have one.

However, the search for a replacement COSA has proven to be a difficult one. The job requires a vast amount of time and effort, so teachers have been unable to step up to fill Weinwurm’s seat due to scheduling interferences. Most Stuyvesant teachers are already responsible for many classes and thus have a full schedule. The COSA is also often needed during after-school hours, so the replacement must be available at that time as well.

Despite the absence of a COSA, the SU continued to accomplish its many tasks in the second half of the 2013-14 school year. “It was very difficult; we had to do everything ourselves,” former SU President

Eddie Zilberbrand said.

For the current school year, the SU continues to stay confident in functioning without a COSA. “Keiran and I are fully confident in our ability to manage without a COSA for the time being. However COSA-less we are, this year’s SU is confident that we will be able to function at the same, and hopefully higher, standards as last year’s SU did” current SU Vice President and junior Jonathan Aung said.

During Weinwurm’s leave of absence, Assistant Principal of Guidance Casey Pedrick, Assistant Principal of Security, Safety, & Student Affairs Brian Moran, and Assistant Principal of Organization Saida Rodriguez Tabone have shared the responsibilities of COSA amongst themselves and will continue to do so until the position is filled.

As the process to recruit a replacement continues, the administration and the SU are putting in extra effort to ensure that student affairs are taken care of. Surely, the recruitment of a COSA will lift a lot of their burdens. For the time being, however, the SU and the administration are confident in their ability to accomplish what needs to be done for the student body.

ing] student achievement and [making] a bigger athletics program,” Galano said. “I want to work on getting people involved and raising school spirit.”

In supporting athletics, Galano hopes to organize a pep rally among students and coaches and to attend every team’s games. “I feel that it is very important for me to be able to show my support equally for every team,” he

said.

“There’s a lot to be done, and a lot of paperwork to keep in order,” said Galano, admitting to having been overwhelmed upon first taking the position. “But I’m more eager than anything; I want to go watch the games and talk to the students about athletics, because I believe it’s an important part of a student’s life; it’s a good balance for academics.”

StuyPulse’s Trip to China continued from page 1

regarded the design of the robot using computer software.

There was a slight language barrier between the students of two different countries, but everyone was able to overcome the issue by resorting to alternative means.

In fact, most of the Chinese robotics members understood at least some English. Parents and students also worked as translators to facilitate the exchange, which was especially important as Chinese and American teams needed to discuss strategy and work together during competition. “After I utilized both Mandarin and English, a variety of hand motions, and asked their team member with the best English to relay the information to the rest of their Drive Team, we were able to proceed smoothly,” sophomore Sophia Wu said.

Despite the trip’s success, it did not come without challenges.

Shipping the robot that would be used to compete caused it to become mechanically damaged, and the pre-programmed code that dictated the robot’s motions for the first 15 seconds wasn’t functioning as it should have. “We faced a lot of issues: the shooter not being calibrated properly threw us off the high goal, some faulty wiring led to issues with the drive-train and acquirer mid-

game, the laptop we used to operate the robot had a faulty Ethernet port…” senior and StuyPulse Assistant Director of Strategy Max Su said in an online interview. Despite these setbacks, everything was under control in time for the competition, and members of the team gained invaluable knowledge about fixing their own robot along the way.

Not only did StuyPulse act as a guide to novice teams, but its members also made new connections with students from across the world. “I made a lot of new friends on other teams and got to know the members on my team who went on the trip a lot better,” Su said. Ziquian Wu, a member of the Chinese robotics team of Shenzhen Secondary Senior High School, gained insight into a new aspect of robotics from StuyPulse’s presentation. “I want to go into marketing now because of [sophomores] Susan [Wu] and Yubin [Kim]’s speech,” Ziquian Wu said.

The CRC was an off-season challenge instead of an actual FIRST competition, but CUYRA hopes to instill a regional competition in the coming years. “The eventual goal of [CUYRA] is for China to become self-sufficient in resources and knowledge for this competition... I am certain that, given a couple years, they will flourish and fly free on their own,” junior Jion Fairchild said.

School Schedule Extended: Why Five Minutes Matters

By Sonia Epstein

Returning students noticed a slight change when school began this year: the schedule had been extended to 3:35 p.m., five minutes longer than past years. From periods three to eight, one minute was added to the passing time between classes. Though barely noticeable, this change was the outcome of several discussions aiming to increase instructional times for students and teaching time for teachers, in an effort to meet the requirements of the Department of Education (DOE).

The first issue addressed was the amount of time teachers were required to work. According to the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) DOE teacher contract, teachers are required to teach five classes out of an eight-period day.

However, Stuyvesant has historically had teachers teach five periods out of a nine-period day, with shorter periods than what is typical in other schools with eight-period days. Teachers at Stuyvesant thus teach for a slightly shorter amount of time than what is mandated by the teacher contract.

Last year, Stuyvesant was audited by the DOE on teacher time. “[The DOE] calculated every teacher’s hours, which are short by about 20 minutes every day, and then added this all together,” Principal Jie Zhang said. “They did a very detailed, person-byperson calculation and gave us a report that cited us for misusing more than one million dollars because teachers got a few extra minutes that weren’t assigned.”

The simplest solution would be to switch to a standard, eight-

period schedule for teachers. But several factors, like the unique scheduling of Stuyvesant’s science program, have prohibited this from being carried through.

Science teachers teach in “triplets,” meaning they teach for three consecutive periods shared between two class sections. For example, if a science teacher teaches Class A for periods one and two on Monday, and Class B during period 3, then next day, Tuesday, the teacher would teach Class B for two periods and Class A for one.

In a nine-period day, it is possible to have these triplets scattered throughout the day, allowing the programming office to accommodate for different schedules. But in an eight-period day, it would not be possible to have a scattered triplet schedule. Only a triplet block periods three, four, and five would be possible, because after a mandatory lunch break, there would not be enough periods left (only two periods instead of the required three) to teach another required triplet.

The triplet structure during a nine-period day enables teachers to conduct labs with their students.

“In an eight-period day we would be unable to have students doing labs with their classroom teacher, which is considered not such a good practice,” Zhang said. “So bottom line is, in order for us to keep the science instruction in the way it is, which we really prefer, we have to have a nine-period day for the teachers.”

The administration looked for other schools as an example. Staten Island Technical High School, for example, also runs on a nineperiod day for teachers. It complies with the teacher contract by assign-

ing teachers to one period of “intervention.” During this time, they can be assigned to a room to tutor students, or monitor a computer lab. By working with students, this counts as a teaching period, and meets the DOE’s standards. Stuyvesant thought about this model, but there were not enough physical classrooms for teachers to occupy during their non-teaching periods.

Then the teacher contract changed. The new contract stated that extra minutes could count towards teaching time by being used for “professional development,” rather than working with students.

“You don’t need a classroom and you don’t need to be with students [during professional development],” Zhang said. “You can be in your office, updating the curriculum, for example, because that’s considered professional development.

It’s something that’s much easier to manage in this building because we don’t have to have a physical location for the kids and teachers to go, like they have in Staten Island Tech.”

Now, teachers could be assigned one period of professional development, allowing them to fulfill the mandated teaching time within the same structure of a nine-period day. This resolved the teaching time conflict.

But this was not the only problem. The state mandates that students have 330 minutes (five and a half hours) of instruction every day, including physical education and excluding a lunch period. At Stuyvesant, it is possible to have a lunch and two free periods, or seven 45- minute instructional periods. This schedule, common for many freshmen and seniors,

adds up to 315 minutes of instruction per day, 15 minutes short of the required time. The DOE ran an official report that revealed that nearly 1,400 Stuyvesant students were missing instructional time.

Many suggestions were made for how to easily add 15 minutes. It was suggested that time be added to each period or passing time. This suggestion was struck down because then teachers would surpass a teaching limit of six hours and 50 minutes.

To adjust this extended schedule to comply with the teachers’ time limit, three teacher cycles, instead of two, would have to be instigated. According to Zhang, periods would have to be 46 minutes long in order to comply with the teachers’ required teaching times for an eight-period day.

This alternative would fulfill both teacher and student requirements. However, other issues immediately arose. “If the periods were 46 minutes, and you want to keep a ten-period day, it will go over to four thirty, five o’ clock.

Or you could go back to a nineperiod day, but many students want ten periods,” Zhang said.

Objections to a significantly longer school day were immediately expressed. The minutes from an April 29, 2014, Student Leadership Team (SLT) meeting report that Parent and SLT member Julie Brown said, “Parents are concerned about Public School Athletic League (PSAL) and after school programs.” With extracurricular activities already extending into the late afternoon, parents worried that a longer school day would further limit students’ time

for homework, rest, and sleep.

Therefore the school day was extended by only five minutes. The morning teacher shift, which was originally from 7:55 a.m. to 2:45 p.m., was moved five minutes ahead to 8:00 a.m. to 2:50 p.m., allowing the administration to squeeze an extra five minutes into the school day while maintaining the teacher times of six hours and 50 minutes.

“So the problem with the students’ instruction time has not been completely resolved,” Zhang said.

Students with a seven period schedule (excluding lunch) are still short of DOE requirements by about ten minutes, although the time shortage is actually reported as eight minutes according to the school’s computer system.

Though these students are technically not in compliance with DOE standards, Zhang feels it would have done more harm to uproot the established structures of Stuyvesant’s schedule—the ten-period day, two shifts for teachers, and “triplet” classes for science teachers. “We didn’t want to go crazy with that [changing the schedule] because we wanted to keep what’s good for the kids,” she said. “If this conversation is going to open up again next year about the eight minutes I’m confident because I don’t think any school in the city is completely [in] compliance. I think somewhere here and there every school has a little bit of shortage.”

“It was just a slight change,” Zhang said. “But the problem with the teachers’ time has been resolved by professional development, and we maximized within our own structure the instruction time for students.”

The Spectator ●September 19, 2014

Page 3

News

Justin Strauss / The Spectator

An Interview with Principal Zhang: Goals for the New School Year

By Namra Zulfiqar, and Julia Ingram Q: What changes are you hoping to implement this school year?

A: I think number one is, I want to improve the technology in the building.

Q: How do you plan on improving it?

A: [We received] technology grants from the Department of Education [DOE], so we’ll use that to up our technology.

We also have donations from the Alumni Association. We’re always making technology a priority. We are working on getting Smart Boards, I think in 10 more classrooms this year.

Also, I think room 351 was renovated. We are also going to [improve] two computer labs

[and] purchase new computers. Also, last June, we switched internet providers; this one is better, you might have noticed. [...] I think [this is] going to better instruct and help you guys learn and ready you for college and career.

Q: How else will you use the money to benefit the student body?

A: We’re always struggling to maximize the money put into the classrooms for students to take courses. So that’s another effort: to save money not just technology-wise, but also for instruction, to always put money into the classrooms.

Q: A lot of students want there to be a greater level of communication between the staff and students. Are you going to implement any changes regarding that?

A: I also want to work on building a sense of community. You know there [are] the freshman, the sophomores, the juniors, the seniors, [and] the alumni, [all] separate…We need to have a community.

Q: What steps are you planning to take to establish this community?

A: We want to establish more emotional support for the students, so we have a new head of the guidance department, so we’re going to put a lot of things in place. We’re also hoping to provide more professional development for the guidance counselors who will provide the services. Parent contact is another aspect of it,

and hopefully we will provide incoming students even stronger support. Teachers have a new contract, which requires teachers to spend more time [80 minutes per week] engaging in parent contact, through the existing channels in the school, and definitely face-toface. I always encourage it. And if students have suggestions [for this], such as a website, or class pages, I would be happy to take advice from the students. I do always promote communication.

Q: Are there any other issues you were hoping to resolve this year?

Last year, with research, there were some problems with the research coordinator position. This year, Mr. [Jason] Econome is in charge of the research for the Biology Department. Maybe it will help some [with] organization. Many kids do research, not just Intel… so you know it’s very important.

Q: How long do you think it will take to implement all these changes?

A: These are annual goals, so I think we will assess how many we have achieved at the end of the school year. Throughout the school year we will strive to implement all the planned goals.

Q: Do you have anything else to add?

A: You’re such a talented student body, so whatever advice should come from the students, you [should not be] shy to contact me, to give your input.

Polls

By The Spectator News Department In tandem with our staff editorial, we wanted to investigate the general opinion of the student body on the role of guidance counselors and teachers in the school environment. The following poll was conducted through an online survey, consisting of the questions below, sent to the senior class of Stuyvesant High School. 210 students responded. Participants answered the questions on a 1-5 scale in which 1 meant not helpful/not well, and 5 meant very helpful/very well.

On a scale of 1-5, how much help have you received from the school in regards to your college applications?

Econome to Fill Research Coordinator Position

By Sonia Epstein

Ever since physics teacher Rebecca Gorla resigned from the position of research coordinator in January, the vacancy has not gone unnoticed. “It was really hard to find a lab without someone else’s guidance,” senior and Intel Research Biology student Fauna Mahootian said. “I worked with [Assistant Principal of Chemistry and Physics Scott Thomas] over the summer, and he really helped me out. If there had been someone like that for me last year, it would have been a lot better for me.” This year, biology teacher Jason Econome will assume the position of research coordinator.

The research coordinator position entails a number of responsibilities, including visiting labs, keeping up with mentors in the city, providing guidance for individual students, helping them prepare for competitions, and inviting speakers into the classrooms. In addition to this, the research coordinator must also teach classes.

In the absence of a research coordinator, many students have had to work without the guidance of a more experienced staff member.

“I wasn’t aware that a person was supposed to be helping me,” senior and Intel Research Biology student Grace Lu wrote in an e-mail interview. “I contacted the lab heads myself and got into a lab.”

Having worked in commercial labs for a number of years and, recently, with an Intel student from Townsend Harris, Econome feels qualified for the position. “They needed someone with a little background in a laboratory,” Econome said. “I’m familiar with research and helping students get positions in the lab.”

Past research coordinators have been deterred by the amount of compensation time given to the research coordinator. Comp time exempts these teachers from some of their classes in order to fulfill the demands of the position.

A compensation time of 0.2 relieves a teacher of one of five classes he or she would normally have to teach, and a 0.4 compensation time relieves a teacher of two of his or her five classes. After the compensation time for the research co-

On a scale of 1-5, how helpful has your guidance counselor been emotionally?

On a scale of 1-5, how helpful has your guidance counselor been administratively?

1 (54)

1 (29)

ordinator was raised to 0.4 last year, Gorla expressed that more compensation time would be needed in order to conduct the role to its fullest. “I was insanely busy, and very stressed out. Then I was told that there was a very good possibility that I would have to teach four classes this upcoming fall, while I was doing the [research coordinator] job. That really went in the opposite direction of what I was hoping for,” Gorla said in a May 2014 interview with The Spectator. “I was trying to lay a lot of ground work for the program itself. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to continue if I had to teach too much.” However, the school had to review the budget in May and ensure that it had the resources before it could increase the compensation time.

“Now we have the resources,” Principal Jie Zhang said. “We felt that this is an important issue and raised the compensation time to 0.6.” This compensation time requires that the research coordinator only teach two classes.

Even after raising the compensation time, there were few applicants for the position. “We had to go out and talk to people,” Zhang said. “Gorla didn’t reapply for the position.” Gorla declined to comment.

“At the moment the compensation time seems to be adequate,” Econome said. “But I will probably be worried as deadlines start approaching.” In addition to being the research coordinator, Econome is teaching two Forensics classes.

Econome’s former students have noted characteristics they feel qualify him for the position.

“He’s really nice, which makes him very approachable. He takes the students’ concerns with a lot of consideration,” senior and former Forensics student Maliha Hoque said.

In addition to fulfilling the duties of a research coordinator, Econome hopes to inspire students to pursue research. “To me, being the research coordinator isn’t necessarily about helping students win scholarship money,” Econome said.

“It’s to ensure a positive experience at the lab. I hope I can teach students something about lab work….

I hope I can increase their interest level.”

1 (26)

2 (66)

2 (33)

2 (36)

3 (71)

3 (36)

3 (50)

4 (34)

4 (35)

4 (45)

5 (10)

5 (52)

5 (53)

On a scale of 1-5, how helpful have your teachers been outside of the classroom?

1 (20) 2 (38) 3 (63)

On a scale of 1-5, how well have teachers and administrators been doing in terms of communication?

1 (13) 2 (45) 3 (70)

4 (64)

4 (61)

5 (25)

5 (21)

The Spectator â—? September 19, 2014

Page 4

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Practice in a closely simulated test taking environment to let your body and brain adjust to the rhythm and psychology of the actual test day.

The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Page 5

Features It’s a Bird...It’s a Plane...It’s a Paul Levitz

By Julia Ingram If you are a book lover, imagine being hired for a fulltime job in which you are paid to read books. Or, if you spend all of your free time bird watching in the park, imagine finding a job that requires you to do nothing but stare endlessly at birds in the sky. Sound like paradise? Probably. But for most, finding a career that coincides so perfectly with your interests is impossible.

Stuyvesant alumnus Paul Levitz (’73) is one of the lucky people who managed to turn his childhood passion into a career.

Starting off as one of the many children obsessed with comics, Levitz held on to this predilection and eventually became the President of DC Comics. Along the way, he co-authored 159 different comics and edited the Batman series.

It all started when Levitz discovered he had a taste for science fiction and fantasy, a preference that quickly morphed into a love for comics. “Comics, when I was a kid, were pretty much a universal children’s reading experience in America,” he said. “[But] I didn’t grow out of it.” As he grew older, Levitz came to appreciate comics on a deeper level. “I love the creative power of the [comic] medium,” he explained.

Levitz was particularly interested in creating a fanzine, or a magazine for fans of a specific phenomenon, to spur his love for comics. And when he entered Stuyvesant, he realized that living in New York City would give him the opportunity to do just that. “[Stuyvesant] got me out of my neighborhood and the small closed world that that represented, empowering

me and freeing me because I was traveling by train and sort of had the whole city at my disposal,” he said. “Being interested in the [comics] field, being a New York kid, in particular being in Manhattan, where something like 95 percent of all the comics in America were being produced in the 1970s, gave me an opportunity to start doing the fanzine and start becoming more involved in the business.”

As a result, Levitz published his dream fanzine, “Etcetera,” as a sophomore in 1971, which soon absorbed an older comics fanzine, “The Comic Reader.”

“Etcetera” was the first monthlyaz comics news fanzine, and it went on to win two Best Fanzine

time was not the only reason for his success; the environment within Stuyvesant also greatly inspired him. “[Stuyvesant] was full of kids who were doing incredible things in many, many fields, and that raised the ante for everybody. I think that’s really been the school’s secret.” he said.

Along with the student body, Levitz was motivated by his teachers. “I was lucky enough to be one of [former English teacher] Frank McCourt’s kids. That was really at the beginning of his career, but he was already an incredible teacher for those of us who loved the language and loved writing. He was very good to me and very encouraging to

“As long as you were doing something with passion and energy, everything was acceptable at Stuyvesant. The school was full of kids who were doing incredible things in many, many fields, and that raised the ante for everybody. I think that’s really been the school’s secret.”

— Paul Levitz (’73), former president of DC Comics.

Comic Art Fan awards before it was sold in 1973, after Levitz graduated from high school.

Levitz’s proximity to the leading comic producers of the

me while I was doing the fanzine,” he said. Frank McCourt was so impressed with Levitz’s fanzine that he arranged for Levitz to appear on his brother

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Malachy McCourt’s radio show.

Levitz also recalls his time spent not in a classroom, explaining that he was part of an informal Frisbee team. “I think that was the closest I had to a sports team,” he said. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Levitz worked on the Program Committee. “In those days before the computers became easily programmable, we used to program student’s schedules by hand,” he explained. “We’d be sitting there with cards in our hands, assigning kid after kid’s class, kind of putting all of our friends together, choosing which teachers we’d have, and that was just enormous fun.

Now your fates are handled impartially and technologically.”

During his senior year at Stuyvesant, Levitz’s fanzine caught the eye of DC Comics editor Joe Orlando, who asked him to do freelance work in the letter columns, or the section of a comic book where readers’ letters to the publisher are printed. When Orlando’s assistant editor took off for the summer, Levitz was asked to fill in. “Then I started on staff, the Monday after I graduated Stuy. [But] the assistant editor never came back and I never left,” Levitz said. At the time he was working as assistant editor, he was also attending New York University, but dropped out after his junior year as the opportunities for him at DC Comics improved. Levitz found himself editing and writing a number of comics—his dream job was now becoming a reality.

After five years of editing, Levitz’s prominence in DC Comics started to increase. “We were really at an inflection point of change, between comics being sold at newsstands and comic

shops, and there was a lot of change in the business. So I moved over to the business side of the company, and for the next 30 years under a number of different titles, I basically ran the business side of DC [Comics],” he said. “I think that [happened] because the parent company didn’t think the business opportunities for DC [Comics] were enormous enough to be worth going outside for a search.”

Switching to the business side of the company eventually allowed Levitz to assume the titles of Vice President, Executive Vice President, and finally President of the company in 2002.

Being the President of DC Comics was what Levitz described as “one of the best jobs on the planet.” He said, “I got to be involved in everything from the comics to the movies, cartoons, making the toys. I never knew what interesting person would be on the call sheet, and what project I’d be involved in on any given day.”

Levitz stepped down from the position as President in 2009 at age 53. Though no longer President, Levitz still writes and edits comics and serves as a consultant for DC Warner Brothers. Additionally, he teaches Creative Writing and the American Graphic Novel in colleges, and graduate school Publishing programs, continuing to pursue his love of the English language and the publishing industry.

Looking back on the impact that Stuyvesant has had on his life, Levitz agrees that it has shaped who he is today. “Had I not gone to Stuyvesant, my life would have been entirely different. I don’t know what it would have been, but I could never have achieved what I did,” he said.

Page 6

The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Features A Glimpse at the Class of 2018

By Ariella Kahan and Johnathan Rafailov Admit it: you’ve believed (even for a second) in the eleventh floor pool, or maybe you’ve gotten lost trying to find a classroom and sat in the wrong class for a whole period, and it’s possible that you’ve struggled to open your eighth, ninth, or tenth floor locker during Camp Stuy Part Two. That was freshman year, and now you look at the new wave of students entering the school for the first time, remembering how you felt in Stuyvesant when you first came.

To get a glimpse at the way students change under Stuyvesant’s watchful eyes, The Spectator has begun a unique project.

Over the next four years, The Spectator will be interviewing five freshmen and one incoming sophomore throughout their high school experiences to fully capture their journey. Every three to four months, we will check in with these students and publish a new article update, documenting the ups and downs of high school: the roller coaster ride that is Stuyvesant.

Michelle Efthimiou Stuyvesant had always been Michelle Efthimiou’s first choice, so she did not hesitate to retake the Specialized High Schools Admission Test (SHSAT). Efthimiou spent her freshman year at Bronx Science and loved the fact that there was a family-like nature to the school, despite there being around 750 students in each grade. She was a member of math team, took Honors Biology, and was planning on taking AP European History in her following year when April rolled around and she found out that she had been accepted into Stuyvesant, effectively changing her plans permanently.

Though Stuyvesant’s reputation as the school for the brightest students in the city had always attracted Efthimiou and provoked her to try her chances at gaining admission as an incoming sophomore, by April, Efthimiou was not as excited as she thought she would be. “I had already settled in at Bronx [Science]; I liked the teachers, I knew what classes I would have the next year. Part of me really wanted to come to Stuy[vesant] but part of me was unsure if I would be able to fit in or if courses for me would work here,” Efthimiou explained.

Despite her doubts, Efthimiou eventually decided to transfer schools. “I still don’t know for certain why I accepted the offer.

Perhaps it was the adrenaline rush from the news, the pressure my parents put on me, the easier commute, or the guilt I would have for taking a spot another student could’ve had,” she said in an e-mail interview.

Since making that decision, Efthimiou has not looked back and instead has set high expectations for her time at Stuyvesant. “I expect Stuy to be everything B[ronx] Sci[ence] was, but better. Simply put, I want an opportunity to participate a wide range of honors and AP courses, clubs, and sports teams,” she said. “But more importantly, I want to feel at home in Stuyvesant.”

Efthimiou is already proud of her new “family,” impressed

by Stuyvesant’s recycling initiatives. “At [Bronx Science] we have different bins for recycling but I doubt half the people are actually paying attention to it.

So I think [it’s] cool how much the school focuses on that,” she said.

She was also astounded by the size of Stuyvesant’s building. When asked what her first impression of the school was, she simply said, “Stuy[vesant] is very big,” and later confessed

that she is worried about having to travel from the top floor of the building to the bottom floor in just five minutes.

Efthimiou’s cheerful and confident personality was apparent throughout her interview, as she smiled easily and did not hold back when asked to describe her passions. Though she has a wide range of interests including a wish to join the volleyball team, Efthimiou primarily defines herself as an avid reader and writer.

She even participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a contest in which participants try to write a novel in a month. On the day of the interview, Efthimiou had two weeks left to complete her novel, which was “a sci-fi story about artificial intelligence,” she said.

Though Efthimiou will miss certain aspects of going to Bronx Science, including the fact that there she would have been able to keep the same locker for four years, she is very excited for the upcoming school year. “I think switching schools is a great way for me to meet new people, experience new things and learn new study habits,” she concluded.

Khrystyna Andriychuk When freshman Khrystyna Andriychuk found out she had been accepted into Stuyvesant, she burst into tears. “I know that it was a little overdramatic, but it was very important for me to get in. That was my dream and I worked pretty hard for it,” she said. That night, Andriychuk celebrated with her parents. To them, it seemed like a step in the right direction in creating a better life for their daughter. In fact, it was that goal that compelled them to move from Ukraine to New York City when Andriychuk was eight years old.

With this mentality, Andriychuk has always been a dedicated student who tries her best not only for personal satisfaction, but also to avoid a pair of angry parents. She remarked that her parents are not very strict but still take academics very seriously. “For my parents a bad grade is a 98,” Andriychuk said, laughing. “I get scared, but that’s because they yell at me.

They don’t ground me—they just yell at me and make me feel bad.” Once she got home from Camp Stuy, Andriychuk said that she planned on studying for her upcoming science Regents.

Andriychuk, however, does not spend all of her time studying, and she has a rather full schedule. She is athletic, and enjoys playing volleyball, playing basketball, and swimming; she hopes to join the junior varsity volleyball team. She also tutored a first grader in reading, math, and writing, doing so not for the salary, which is five dollars an hour, but because she “has free time that [she] really doesn’t have any better way to spend than helping some other boy,” Andriychuk explained.

In her free time, Andriychuk likes to write diary-like stories.

Most recently she wrote about the teenage tendency to conform. “A lot of people try to be the same person; they look at an idol and they want to be like them even though they’re not, and they act fake because they see that the idol is happy. But I don’t think that’s right, so I was just writing about [how] teenagers should just look at themselves and do what they want to do,” she said.

Andriychuk has definitely followed her own advice, as she is going on a very different path than most of her friends from middle school: she is the only person from her grade that is coming to Stuyvesant. Still, she is more excited than nervous for the upcoming school year because she thinks she will be happier in high school than in mid-

dle school. Andriychuk believes, “You go through a lot of ups and downs in middle school, and high school is more of a straight path because you have to focus on one thing rather than on so many things.”

Eliana Kavouriadis While most teenage girls spent the early days of last June gushing over the upcoming release of the movie adaption of “The Fault In Our Stars,” freshman Eliana Kavouriadis was indifferent about the popular novel’s movie. “I have a little bit of a problem with young adult fiction,” Kavouriadis said, going on to explain that she has trouble relating to the protagonists in most young adult novels.

Indeed, Kavouriadis is far from an average teenage girl as she places no emphasis on her appearance, often mocking her former classmates from Horace Mann, a private school in Riverdale. “The guys all acted really macho and sort of like irrationally loud. They had to be the best whether it was about sports or academics and the girls all had to look basically the same. They straightened their hair, they wore a lot of makeup, and had to have a certain body type,” she said. At Stuyvesant, Kavouriadis hopes that the large student body will enable her to find people that would rather read a book than stare at their reflection in the mirror.

Feeling distant from her classmates, Kavouriadis prefers to be alone. She admits to spending a lot of time on social media, as she has a Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. The time on Facebook, however, is not spent scrolling through her newsfeed or flipping through her classmates’ latest photo albums. “Everyone in my grade is so boring,” she said. Instead, Kavouriadis enjoys stalking celebrities such as Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence, and Emma Watson.

In her free time outside of the Internet, Kavouriadis likes to experience nature. She loves to hike, but doesn’t get to do so very often because her parents are “very lazy, not outdoorsy people,” and her ten-year-old sister is “very, very scared of bugs,” Kavouriadis said. In her childhood dreams, Kavouriadis said that her five-year-old self dreamed of being an entomologist, or a person that studies insects. By now her career pursuits have shifted, and Kavouriadis said that her dream job is, “to go to extreme areas sort of like Antarctica or arctic Canada or the Sahara or jungles and do research there.”

Kavouriadis, however, does not have any specific plans on how she will achieve this goal.

Rather, for the time being, she is simply focusing on growing intellectually and as a person in high school. “But most of all, I just want to have a good time,” she said.

And, so far, she has managed to do just that. Kavouriadis was delighted by both her acceptance into math team and her locker, which she has all to herself. Though Kavouriadis will miss out on the “locker buddy” experience, hopefully her wide range of interests and enthusiasm will more than make up for it.

Kevin Li With the classic “Stuyvesant name,” freshman Kevin Li already fits in with the Stuyvesant lifestyle.

Li comes from NEST+m, a competitive middle school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He took five Regents exams during his middle school career, including Physics, Geometry, and Living Environment, courses that are usually taken by Stuyvesant freshmen. His academic success is not a result of

pressure put on by his parents, though; in fact, it was the exact opposite. He is very self-motivated, and his parents constantly tell him that “grades are not the end of the world,” Li explained.

Coming into Stuyvesant from NEST+m, Li will be no stranger to late night studying and heavy workloads: “I care about school.

I stay up until 12 or 1 studying.

Most of the time it’s procrastination though,” he confessed.

Li also remarked jokingly that he tries surpass his brother academically, who is 10 years older than him.

Li has an extroverted personality as we noticed in our interview with him. Only a couple minutes after meeting him for the first time, he was able to open up and joke with us comfortably.

Not to mention, his homeroommates and Big Sibs had already taken a liking for him, as they cheered when he volunteered to be an interviewee. Unsurprisingly, when we asked him to choose two from a list of grades, sleep, and friends, Li was quick to answer “grades and friends.”

As for his plans for Stuyvesant, Li has plenty of ideas in mind. Outside of school, he plays in tennis tournaments and runs track recreationally. That said, he is considering joining the tennis team, the track team, or both.

Though it is non-athletic in nature, another team he considers joining is the math team.

From just a quick glance, Li will be able to keep his head above water at Stuyvesant. He hopes to fit in, already knowing the ins and outs of competitive schooling and the sports and activities he would like to participate in. Not to mention his extremely common name, which will (hopefully) be one that people remember.

Adam Abbas This past summer must have been a hard one for freshman Adam Abbas and his family. Not because of any events in his personal life—more so due to the unfortunate events surrounding Brazil’s national soccer team and the World Cup. Abbas identifies as a Brazilian-Lebanese second-generation immigrant, an interesting and definitely unique mix of nationalities; his mother is Brazilian while his father is Lebanese. Even though he has close ties with his Arabic side living in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge and he admits that he “eat[s] a lot of Arabic food,” Abbas acknowledges that he is “more in touch with his Brazilian side.” “Up until four years ago, I would go to Brazil every year; I have a lot of family there. I also speak Portuguese,” he told us.

Going to Stuyvesant holds an emotional value that traces back to before Abbas was born.

“It’s sort of a cheesy story,” he said. His father used to work in New Jersey and would travel past Stuyvesant every morning while commuting to work. He commuted with a fellow worker who once pointed out that Stuyvesant was “where all the smart people [went] to school.”

His father made a promise that if he ever had a son, he would send him to Stuyvesant. “So it’s sort of a sentimental thing to go here,” said Abbas.

Abbas is a versatile person who enjoys taking on challenges. In middle school he taught himself Python, a computer programming language commonly taught to sophomores at Stuyvesant, and a different language—called C#—through online courseware.

Though Abbas is short statured, this is no representation of the leadership roles he had once held. At his middle school, Mark Twain I.S. 239 in Brooklyn, Abbas was voted class vice president. “I do a lot of the stuff,

probably more than the president,” Abbas said when we interviewed him last May. He is also responsible for taking care of the school’s electronics, hardware, and software. Abbas hopes that his knowledge of software and hardware may allow him to join Stuyvesant’s robotics team and, eventually, lead it.

With his experience as middle school vice president, Abbas may run for freshman class president. He is already well ahead of others in knowing how to strategically campaign. “I put posters above the water fountains and wrote ‘Here’s some free water.

Vote for me,’” explained Abbas while describing his campaign last year. Embarrassingly cheesy campaign posters like Abbas’ will definitely be no stranger to Stuyvesant’s hallways come election season.

Stefan Engquist Having a twin at Stuyvesant can only be helpful in dozens of ways. Twins have someone to talk to late at night, they have each other to seek help from, and they have someone they knew all their life to endure four years of Stuyvesant with. Freshman Stefan Engquist and his brother are one of the few twin sets of the class of 2018, let alone of the school as a whole. “We’re fraternal, but everyone thinks we’re identical,” said Engquist.

Though they are together all the time, he described their relationship as one very similar to a typical sibling relationship: “We usually get along, argue a lot, fight.”

Engquist and his twin are of an increasingly common ethnicity: Korean-American. His mother is Korean and his father is described as a “Protestant American” whose ancestry stays in America for several generations. Engquist only speaks English at home and at school, but has traveled to numerous places where English is not the primary language. For example, he visits Italy often to visit his cousins from his mother’s side. “It’s kind of weird. My mom’s sister—she’s also Korean—married an Italian guy,” Engquist explained. He has also been to Costa Rica and Mexico on vacation. Just this summer, he and his family went on a National Geographic cruise in Southeast Alaska, where he saw a lot of wildlife and scenery.

“It was nice. Probably wouldn’t [do it again]. You only need to do it once,” Engquist said.

In his free time, Engquist enjoys playing sports such as basketball, tennis, and flag football.

“I’m not a serious player—it’s just a Youth Council League,” he said. Otherwise, he plays video games on his PlayStation 4 or socializes with friends, usually at someone’s house or in Prospect Park. He is a fan of music, namely rap and rock. “Kanye [West] and Kendrick Lamar are my favorites,” Engquist explained.

Engquist acknowledges that Stuyvesant will be different from his middle school, in which he had very little homework. “Probably the workload will be hard.

You have to be amazing at managing time which I don’t know how to do because I never needed to,” Engquist said. Workloads may be different to him, but he believes social lives and friends will be similar to what he experienced in middle school: “I’m not worried about [my social life]. It really just comes to you.” Even though Engquist had similar friends with his twin in middle school, he says that he “probably won’t communicate” with his twin and they will “mind their own business” during the day.

Near the end of the interview with Engquist, he said, “I’d rather have a brother that’s not my age.” In these four years, it will be interesting to see if his opinion changes.

The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Page 7

Features A Beginner’s Guide to the City’s Most Scenic Bike Paths

By Justin Strauss The scope of my bicycle rides used to be confined to my immediate neighborhood of Forest Hills, until I discovered the multitude of unique paths and trails spread across the boroughs. After biking along the entirety of the Hudson River Greenway for the first time, I came to realize the sense of freedom associated with exploring the city on two wheels. These trails bring you to different neighborhoods that you may have never been exposed to before. Bicycle infrastructure has significantly improved during the past decade, and as a result, New York City is consistently named one of the country’s most bike-friendly cities. I encourage everyone to get outdoors and enjoy the fall foliage and moderate weather, which makes this time of year arguably the best for riding.

Manhattan The Hudson River Greenway is the most heavily travelled bikeway in the country, used by bike commuters and recreational riders alike. It is a flat 11-mile path that lies parallel to the West Side Highway, stretching from Battery Park to Inwood.

Take a study break by renting a Citi Bike from under the TriBeCa Bridge to ride on the greenway. A $10 pass gets you unlimited 30-minute trips within a 24-hour period, meaning that you must dock your bike at a Citi Bike station after 30 minutes of riding in order to avoid additional fees. If you’d like to continue your ride, simply check out a new bike from any station within the 24-hour timeframe.

Central Park is arguably the most famous urban park in the world, and what better way is there to explore its 800-acre expanse than by bike? The park drive, which has numerous access points, is a spacious six-mile loop along rolling terrain. To avoid the largest climb in the park, the 70-foot tall Harlem Hill, turn left at the 102nd Street cutoff. Likewise, to avoid the crowds of Midtown, turn left at the 72nd Street transverse. Using both shortcuts reduces the loop to four miles. Keep in mind that the flow of traffic travels in the counterclockwise direction, and you must avoid riding on pedestrian paths.

2014 NYC Bike Map Courtesy of NYC DOT

If you are looking for a long-distance adventure, head over the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey. The bridge’s south walkway starts at the corner of 178th Street and Cabrini Boulevard in Washington Heights and is accessible from points south via the Hudson River Greenway or Riverside Drive.

Once over the bridge, turn right and follow signs to head north on Route 9W, which has a wide shoulder for biking and is a designated NY State Bicycle Route. Popular destinations along the route include Bunbury’s bakery in Piermont, and the Runcible Spoon cafe in Nyack, both serving excellent muffins.

For a hillier, more scenic ride, make your way to the nearby Palisades Interstate Park. The aptly named River Road starts here and is carved into the cliffs, stretching eight miles north along the Hudson River. Although this route is open to traffic as well, it remains sparse, and cyclists tend to outnumber cars. It ends with a challenging, mile-long ascent out of the park, back onto the 9W. At the top, you will find a police station with bathrooms and water fountains.

Brooklyn

Queens

Prospect Park, Brooklyn’s smaller version of Central Park, is home to a wide park drive with rolling terrain, counterclockwise traffic flow, and a 70foot hill to climb. Especially during summer weekends, when park use is at its peak, Prospect Park tends to be less crowded than Central Park due to its lack of tourists. Additionally, you will not find any horse-drawn carriages in Prospect Park, and will thus avoid some unwelcome smells while biking.

If you get hungry during your ride, a wide variety of food vendors can be found in Grand Army Plaza at the northern edge of the park.

Remnants of the Long Island Motor Parkway, also known as the Vanderbilt Parkway, now serve as a 3.5-mile bikeway in eastern Queens. The parkway opened in 1908 as the first toll road designed for the sole use of automobiles. With that in mind, intersections were eliminated through the use of bridges and underpasses, and therefore, there are no street crossings along the entirety of the path, allowing for an uninterrupted ride.

The tree-lined Ocean Parkway was inspired by the grand avenues of Europe and became home to the country’s first bike path when it was erected in 1894. The flat, five-mile route lies on the west median of the parkway and runs between Church Ave near Prospect Park and Coney Island. Enjoy a hot dog at Nathan’s, a visit to the New York Aquarium, or a ride on the Wonder Wheel and Cyclone once you reach Coney Island. If you intend to ride on the boardwalk, keep in mind that you can only do so between 5:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.

The Shore Parkway Greenway is a flat path that parallels Shore Parkway, beginning in Owl’s Head Park in Bay Ridge, a great vantage point to soak in the sunset on the New York Harbor. The route stretches for five miles along the waterfront, snaking its way under the Verrazano Bridge and offering sweeping views of The Narrows tidal strait. The path ends at Bensonhurst Park in Bath Beach, which is home to a picturesque promenade on Gravesend Bay.

The Cross Island Parkway Trail runs nestled between its namesake thoroughfare and the Little Neck Bay in Bayside. The southern end of the trail begins at Northern Boulevard, across the street from the Alley Pond Park. As you ride along the three-mile path, stop at the halfway mark and walk your bike out onto the Bayside Marina dock, which offers sweeping views of sailboats on the bay and the Great Neck peninsula. At the northernmost point of the trail lies Fort Totten, a retired U.S. Army installation with a pristine Civil War-era castle on the grounds.

The Kissena Velodrome, located on Booth Memorial Ave at Parsons Blvd in Flushing, is a 400-meter race track with 15-degree bankings that allow riders to maintain their speed through turns. As the only venue in the city built specifically for bikes, it gives you the opportunity to ride entirely uninterrupted, without having to worry about cars or pedestrians. You must ride counterclockwise, and if others are using the track, be sure to ride above (to the right of ) the painted blue “stayer’s line.” For a chance to see racers compete on track bikes with no gears and no brakes, stop by between 6:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday nights from May through August. Races take on different formats, all of which involve sprinting to the finish line at speeds exceeding 30 miles per hour.

Page 8

The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Features

Courtesy of Google Images

Endless Summer

By Philipp Steinmann Picture Mr. Bemis, a bank clerk with thick glasses from “The Twilight Zone” who loves to read but can never find the time; whenever he opens a book, his boss or wife snatches away his precious literature and suggests something better for him to do. One day, a hydrogen bomb hits their city and everything changes—he is the lone survivor, and he walks around the smoldering rubble in shock. Then he comes upon the spilled innards of the public library—dozens and dozens of books. Suddenly animated, he jumps up to read their wonderful titles—“Dickens!”—, arranges the good ones in tall piles, and, delighted, sits down and decides that he is going to have a very good time. “And the best thing, the very best thing of all, is there’s time now. There’s time enough at last,” he says. (“Time Enough At Last” is the name of the episode).

Lucky Mr. Bemis—one could say that he is about to embark on a veritable endless summer. Freeze the episode right there and what you see is anybody who has ever had to put off simple delights (like reading) for an awfully long time.

With all the mental weightlifting at school and commutes that eat away our time, the odd hobby can’t quite get our attention and is entirely forgotten. Look at Mr. Bemis, and what do you see but anybody who feels the treadmill slowing down in June, who finally sees the summer approaching fast and can hardly contain his giddiness about all the time that now lays around everywhere, like idle quarters in his pocket?

With the return of the everyday routine, it’s hard to imagine that such leisure was possible except as a speck of paradise you see through the back window as it recedes. But it was! And so at the closing of this summer, I became interested in hearing how others had spent their time; Stuyvesant students usually have some surprise or another in store for us journalists. After reading dozens of accounts, collected both anonymously over a Google Form and through online interviews, I have been able to draw some interesting conclusions.

What became obvious from my survey was that working at a camp rocks. “I got so close with the kids and they came to really like me which was really reward-

ing,” said somebody who had worked at a sleep-away camp; “Probably one of the most meaningful things [I’ve] done,” said another. It was heartwarming to see so much positivity, and my own experience evokes similar feelings in me.

But when you don’t feel like camp, there’s always the SAT to prepare for. They’re going to make it fair and balanced in two years, and here we sit studying for the dusty version! I’m sorry to say that people were not too enthusiastic about their prep experience: “Well I didn’t hate it, but it was pretty tiring,” one student said. Interestingly, though, most tried to make it sound more upbeat: the same person also said, “It was also really rewarding to see my test grades improve”; another, “Most kids wouldn’t like SAT prep courses… but I’ve gotten used to the schedule”; and one quite pragmatic person, “Obviously I did not enjoy SAT prep, but you do what you gotta do for that 2400.”

An overwhelming number of students partook in some internship or another, even though interns are supposedly the butt of the industry. The sheer variety of employers was quite impressive: JP Morgan, an architecture firm, an interior design magazine, an advertising agency, a server company, the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and so on. One person even worked as an intern at the New York Blood Center, and casually mentioned that he or she “helped out the employee and the lab head with various duties, such as performing PCRs, qPCRs, DNA isolation, etc.” and was now working on a project “to see if fetal hemoglobin can be replaced with adult hemoglobin in mice as a way to avoid the effects of sickle cell anemia and thalassemia.”

I also can’t help but give mention of the Leaders in Environmental Action for the Future

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(LEAF) program, because the two participants who wrote me were effusive about their experiences.

One student “got sent to Virginia, and did SO MUCH AMAZING WORK!!!” removing invasive species and studying “macro invertebrates in the Cowpasture River.”

In a particularly touching moment, she wrote, “In doing this internship, I realized that… we all are ever expanding, and that we have no bounds, in terms of what we can do and who we are.”

The other student went to upstate New York and did “a lot of physical labor” like bridge-building, trailblazing, and removing invasive species—all while “basically living in the boondocks” with no radio signal or cell phones. The person also had plenty of free time—filled with soccer, river tubing, and card games—and enjoyed the lifestyle, which was “very different from living in the city.” The person thought it was an “incredible experience,” and said that, “I feel like I really grew as a person after I finished it.”

Then there is vacation—remember that?

The vacations that people took were mostly clustered around Europe: Amsterdam, Florence, Milan, Brussels. Some descriptions made the vacations sound like paradise. Senior Anna Gugeshashvili wrote about her summer in Georgia: “Georgia may not offer the elation of Broadway or Times Square but it’s my home... I enjoy the simplicity and escape I get from the fast life of NY. I mean, in NY, I would have to make plans to see my friends days in advance because everyone is so busy and lives too far away, but in Georgia, I would get up every morning and just waltz into my friend’s house, pour myself a cup of tea and set up cards to play.”

Some were hedonistic: “We would go to the beach ... every day and stay there for about 4 hours. Then we would go to a

traditional Greek restaurant, usually which specialized in seafood, and then go back home. As most people do in Greece, when we got back home, we took an afternoon nap for 3 hours. Then when we woke up, we would go to the town square … and go to a restaurant or lounge. We stayed there pretty much all night, and once we were done eating and talking and laughing at stories, we would go back home.”

Was your summer what you expected it to be? What would you do in your perfect summer?

On a whim, I asked people similar questions, and the responses were greatly varied. Some said that their summer had been perfect, others sounded regretful, and others got creative. Some said they would… “Probably just read all day.” “Travel and live somewhere else for a while.” “Go do crazy things, like sky diving or white water rafting.” “Go to a foreign country with my friends or my cousins and live my own life.” “ Go back to China for vacation and visit family.” “Volunteer at a third world country and help build schools and assist the communities there.” “Spend every day with the girl I love.” “Get a life and a girlfriend.” “Travel to Asia and live on a mountain.”

I hope that at this point you’ve gathered the nerve for another year of school. I realize, though, that I forgot to tell you how the “Twilight Zone” episode with Mr. Bemis ends. Still sitting happily with his books around him, he reaches down to grab another book—and, in his excitement, lets his glasses slide off his nose. He picks them up; the lenses are broken. “That’s not fair. That’s not fair at all. There was time now. There was all the time I wanted...!” he says, but it’s too late. There goes the endless summer of Mr. Bemis, and there goes ours.

The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

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The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Page 10

Editorials Staff Editorial

Stuy Should be an Open Door For a school of 3,000 students, Stuyvesant usually seems to be associated with the top-performing fraction of the student body: the students who skip to trigonometry in freshman year and seem to glide through their four years with perfect test grades in every subject. Yet students at Stuyvesant know that those precocious few are the minority; most of us have confronted classes in which we weren’t able to comprehend a particularly challenging unit on the first, second, or even third day of lecture. For such an academically oriented school, Stuyvesant lacks the academic support it could offer its students. For those who are struggling in a subject, the prospects can be dimmed by seemingly uncooperative teachers and an invisible wall between student and faculty outside of the classroom.

In any class at Stuyvesant, the first day of the term can make a big impression on students by setting the tone for the entire year. While there are some teachers who will hand out syllabi that include their free periods, office hours, and e-mail addresses, there are equally as many, if not more, who do not. During the first few weeks of easing students into the coursework, students’ concerns are kept at bay, and there is usually little more tension than the teacher’s inability to remember every student’s name. However, the honeymoon phase doesn’t last for long. If the material proves to be elusive, the fraction of students who seek help are often confronted with a wild goose chase: the list of each teacher’s free periods are posted exclusively on the door of their respective departments, offices can be difficult to locate, and some teachers cannot be found in their offices in times of need.

Even when the office is supposedly accessible, students are often met with passivity or even hostility upon approaching the daunting “No Students Allowed” camp. Teachers have been known to ignore e-mails or even withhold their e-mail addresses entirely. Meanwhile, AIS tutoring is often taught by a different teacher and is only held once a week.

We understand teachers have a number of responsibili-

ties to complete during school hours, and some students have full schedules that cannot accommodate student-teacher meetings. As a compromise, we would like teachers to be accessible outside of school hours via e-mail, the same way students are expected to receive homework assignments and other urgent announcements. The school currently has an e-mail system set up through the Department of Education, though most teachers do not check this email regularly. We appreciate those teachers who give out their personal emails so they may be easily contacted, but this is not technically allowed.

Checking DOE emails regularly should not be such a hassle for teachers, and would ease the stress of strenuous homework assignments and urgent concerns regarding class. It is the responsibility of students to reach out to their teachers when they need help, but when we do, we only ask for a timely and professional response.

We acknowledge the teachers who sit in their department offices, eager to answer any call for help, and we are very grateful to those who keep open doors and regular office hours.

Because teachers are given two periods free each day (not including their lunch period), we do not think it is unreasonable to ask that teachers offer office hours to students in need of extra academic or administrative help. We ask that all teachers include their room number and free periods on a syllabus at the beginning of the year, as some teachers graciously do.

Guidance Guidance counselors have one of the most all-encompassing jobs in the school: on the administrative side, their responsibilities range from program changes to helping seniors with their college applications, while they are also expected to serve as a support system for students. Not only is time a concern, but often the first experiences students have with their guidance counselors, usually discussions about programming, can be abrasive and unpleasant. Counselors, getting dozens of requests throughout the day, often behave in a frustrated manner that can discourage students from later ap-

proaching them.

Not only is the first encounter often a bad experience, but students who have the confidence and trust to approach their guidance counselors and strike up a conversation are few. Although the various posters about guidance are a good initiative to openly encourage and welcome students to talk to their counselors if they have problems, many students still find it intimidating to talk to a complete stranger about their personal issues. This especially applies to incoming students, who are still adjusting to the new school environment. It is imperative that students start a healthy relationship with their counselors in their freshman or sophomore years so that, come junior year, the counselors will have a much better understanding of them and, subsequently, will be able to write more detailed and personal SSR’s.

A potential solution to the issue of hesitant and shy students is for guidance counselors to approach students at least once during the school year. Some guidance counselors have taken on this initiative independently by arranging for small groups of students to come in during a free period for a casual conversation. In this way, a positive relationship can be built and used as a foundation for students to go to them if they run into issues in the future.

While students at Stuyvesant may act like they’ve already figured out their entire lives or know the secret formula to any question thrown at them, they are still high school students learning how to perceive and analyze the world.

The negative manner in which Stuyvesant students have been treated when asking for help can affect how they treat learning throughout college and onward: reinforcing passivity and associating interaction with faculty as unpleasant and exhausting.

We understand that students must be willing to ask teachers for help, but we ask the faculty to meet us halfway by making the process less discouraging and creating a more comfortable environment for all students.

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Page 11

Opinions

By Claire Jin By the time you finish reading this sentence, another animal will be a victim of abuse.

Each year, around the world, millions of domestic and wild animals are subjected to a wide variety of tortures. As experiments in the name of science, a majority of these animals end up dead or left to slowly suffer.

Consequently, countless innocent lives are lost. Although animal testing can sometimes aid in finding cures for deadly diseases, what gives us the right to put our own benefit over that

mice is a widely publicized example of the waste of millions of dollars on fruitless animal testing experiments. Dr. Richard Klausner, former director of the National Cancer Institute, stated, “The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn’t work on humans.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the pharmaceutical industry also acknowledge that testing the drug on a nonhu-

“The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn’t work on humans.” — Dr. Richard Klausner, former director of the National Cancer Institute. of another species?

First, however, animal testing is unreliable. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration reports that 92 out of every 100 drugs that pass on animals fail on humans. This is mainly because humans and animals have different physiologies, and therefore react to chemicals in different manners. The attempt to replicate and cure cancer in

man animal is no more accurate than flipping a coin when it comes to predicting how a human will respond to a certain drug. In the course of animal testing, there have even been incidences in which drugs that passed animal tests disabled, harmed, and even killed millions of people. Therefore animal testing has resulted in both animal and human casualties.

Animal treatment is not only ineffective, but also unethical. A PETA (People For Ethical Treatment of Animals) investigation revealed that baboons were experiencing tremendous amounts of abuse in laboratories. These animals were subject to invasive surgery and left to suffer and die in cages. Monkeys were forced to endure surgical procedures in which metal pipes were implanted into their skulls for the sole purpose of studying the connection between induced stress and women’s menstrual cycles. Experiments like these are very common in the animal testing field, where animals are treated like nothing more than laboratory equipment.

Although animals can’t talk and fight back, they shouldn’t be harmed for fruitless purposes.

They are living beings with feelings, emotions, and thoughts.

Their purpose is not for us to be taking them into labs and torturing them with experiments that may or may not benefit us.

If racial and gender discrimination is wrong, then so is speciesism.

Additionally, animal testing is an antiquated science that requires hundreds of millions of dollars of research development costs imbedded in prescription prices. The taxes that our families pay are also being used to fund cruel animal testing. In the year of 2010, research facilities in across the nation received over 20 million in taxpayer dollars used on experiments that exposed animals to drugs. One example is in the research facility in North Carolina, where cocaine was

Jennifer Dikler / The Spectator

It’s Time to Ban Animal Testing

fed to primates to observe the effects. This money is wasted when it is needed to support our nation during tough economic times.

Unreliability, wastefulness, and costly price of animal testing can hinder our progress towards finding necessary cures and drugs for deadly diseases.

Fortunately, development in technology has allowed the scientific community to discover new replacement methods for animal testing that are far more efficient, cheaper, and less complicated. These include adult stem research, which is very useful and far more effective than animal testing because there are no complications or failures. It has even shown success in treating cardiac infarction, Chrohn’s disease, and thalassemia. Invitro screening is also more effective because it is toxin free and therefore poses less danger to living beings. These alterna-

tives are among many others that are cheaper and more effective than animal testing because they utilize less outdated and more modern means of experimentation. Unfortunately, animal testing is still fiercely defended through profit commercials despite its being ethically, scientifically, and financially unsound. There has been a recent increase in the number of animal testing bans around the world, in areas such as the European Union, Israel, and India. An even greater recent victory was the first complete ban in 2013 of cosmetic testing on animals in Europe. The medical progress of the past century is the result of technology, public health improvements, human clinical research, and mathematical modeling, not cutting up animals. Even Ghandi has stated, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

Stephanie Chen / The Spectator

Hands Off My Internet

By Ioana Solomon Let’s fast-forward ten years into the future. You’re driving to your first major job interview and you’re late. You’re on the left lane of a two-lane highway, and you face a grueling speed limit of 30mph. On the right, you see Kim Kardashian gliding by at lightning speed, heading to LA for her weekly beauty treatment. The difference? She paid half a grand to be on the fast lane. You, fresh out of college, with a hundred thousand dollars worth of student debt, have no choice but to swallow your pain and drive on.

A few months from now, this scenario could materialize—in the Internet world, of course.

On May 15th of this year, the Federal Communications Commission decided to consider two options regarding Internet services; either permit fast and slow broadband lanes (you vs.

Kim K), or reclassify broadband Internet as a telecommunica-

tion service (you and Kim share the same lane, and are each allowed to drive at 60 mph).

Network Neutrality is, at its core, the basic belief that every byte of data on the Internet should be equally accessible.

The same way phone companies can’t selectively block or degrade the service of their callers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) shouldn’t be able to slow down services, block legal content, or permit companies to pay for their data to reach their customers faster than a competitor’s.

The problem is they can, and they’ve begun to realize that.

It all started with a critical mistake in 2002. Instead of stating that internet is a common utility, just like phone service, the FCC classified internet giants, for instance Verizon and Comcast, as “telecommunications services.” Unlike common carriers, which can only legally operate under a license and are subject to the authority of the regulatory body that grants that license, telecommunications services are generally exempt from government control. Though this was initially a result of the 1996 Telecom Act, an effort to encourage innovation and investment in private infrastructure, the act currently serves as a convenient loophole for ISPs. The consequences of the Telecom Act materialized in 2007, when Comcast began drastically slowing BitTorrent speeds for its customers. The FCC ordered Comcast to terminate its policy regarding BitTorrent and increase transparency.

Comcast challenged the FCC in court, and despite President Barack Obama’s support, the former succeeded in 2010. The judge, David Tatel, explained that the FCC lacked the authority to enforce open internet principles because Comcast was an information service provider, and not a common carrier.

The person formerly responsible for upholding the interests of the nation’s internet titans is now tasked with regulating them.

These simple words could change the way we access the web. In January 2013, Comcast considerably slowed download speeds for Netflix users, after protracted debates over whether the company had the right to penalize Netflix for circulating its broadband-sucking content.

Only once Netflix agreed to pay did things go back to normal.

The ramifications extend far beyond a sluggish episode of House of Cards; Comcast is the second-highest spending company on lobbying in the United States (almost $19 million in 2013 alone). In the absence of Net Neutrality, spending will only increase—after all, they’ll get paid twice (by contract users paying their monthly charges AND by internet services/ applications bidding for the faster lane).

What makes the fight for byte-equality even harder is oversight. On May 2, 2013, Obama chose Tom Wheeler, a former top lobbyist for telecommunications companies to lead the FCC — the person formerly responsible for upholding the interests of the nation’s internet titans is now tasked with regulating them.

On August 19, the FCC announced that it would allow the public more time to express its concerns regarding Net Neutrality and extended the comment deadline to September 15.

So far, Netflix, Reddit, and more than 10,000 other websites organized an Internet Slowdown protest against Chairman Wheeler’s plan to allow fast and slow lanes on the Internet. As of September 10, Congress received more than two million phone calls and emails and the FCC received more than 722,000 comments.

This is our time to speak up.

Net Neutrality is the key to Internet freedom – unobstructed forums where the one side with millions to spend won’t shout louder in the public’s ear. It’s

not just about your movies, emails or social networks. If Net Neutrality becomes a thing of the past, the news outlets, political organizations, and popular blogs receiving more funding could get priority access to viewers and thus begin to dictate future elections, political victories, or important domestic or foreign policy decisions. So tell a friend, make a Facebook status, and express your opinion as loudly as you can. One comment won’t tip the balance bearing the heavy weight of Comcast lobbying in Washington—but a million can probably do some good.

Net Neutrality is the key to internet freedom— unobstructed forums where the one side with millions to spend won’t shout louder in the public’s ear.

The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Page 12

Opinions Racist Elmo and Pedo-Woody, Oh My! shoved her son in revenge. Buskers such as Lopez trap tourists into paying them, even though tourists should be allowed to tip as much as they please, as tips are tokens of gratitude. Buskers need to make it clear if they charge a fixed fee for taking a picture or willingly accept any dollar amount. If they do make payment mandatory, then it should be considered commercial enterprise. And, as with all service providers, they must be licensed.

Licensing these costumed performers is imperative because it allows city officials to

These frequent misdemeanors have gotten so out of hand that Mayor de Blasio has declared that the situation “has gone too far” and that “it needs to be regulated.”

Jessica Wu / The Spectator

Success: $775/hr

By Nadia Filanovsky Our lives are filled with standardized testing: the ACT, SAT, SAT IIs, AP exams, Regents.

We prepare for weeks, even months, to earn top scores, so much so that it’s hard to imagine high school without them.

A century ago, the testing industry was in its infancy, and the College Board we all know and love had only been around 15 years. Its first exam, the SAT, was written in 1901, and testing options were expanded to include subject tests in 1937, with AP exams following in 1955. Today, they are more relevant than ever; no competitive high school résumé is complete without high marks on a plethora of these exams.

Standardized testing wasn’t always such a big deal. In the first half of the 20th century, students would walk in, take the exam, and walk out, with their scores sent to their high school and prospective colleges. End of story. However, the simplicity of it all vanished in 1958 when score reports enlightened students of their results. The resultant competitiveness—previously students were unaware of having done poorly and hence didn’t prepare as well for the exam—changed the nature of standardized exams. They stopped telling schools how

much you knew, and started telling them how hard you had studied and how much your parents earned: a student with a family income of greater than $200,000 per year will have, on average, scores in each section more than 120 points higher than those of a student with a family income less than $20,000 per year. We need to find a way to equalize the playing field so

While there may be financial aid available for the actual cost of the tests, there aren’t many free test prep opportunities.

that standardized tests are not just a way for those with money to further doll up their college resumes.

As scores have become key to college applications, the test prep business has boomed. At premier agencies, like Advantage Test Prep, tutors charge up to $775 per 50-minute session.

And while there may be financial aid available for the actual cost of the tests, there aren’t many free test prep opportunities. But there must be. One of my best friends in middle school got a “Dream” scholarship to a Kaplan SHSAT prep program, a program her family couldn’t normally afford, because she did well in school.

If such programs exist for the SHSAT, they should for the SAT as well.

High schools should also offer programs to prepare for these crucial exams, as Stuyvesant does. Before my Biology SAT II Subject Test, group tutoring sessions were held after school where everyone could get help from my biology teacher and were advised on which books were best for studying. The tests can be adjusted as well. The new SAT is being modified to be less based on memorization and more on analysis. This helps to re-level the playing field. My parents didn’t take any SAT IIs, and very few APs, and both went to great colleges. The testing experience has changed in the past 25 years. We can work to change it again.

The testing industry still needs considerable reform to achieve the goal of being fair for everyone. We can get there by taking steps like offering tutoring in schools or scholarships to programs and modifying the tests themselves. We are growing into a test-centric society, and we need to address any and all problems with the testing that plays such an important role in the college process. There are few who can afford success if its cost is $775 an hour.

Jennifer Dikler / The Spectator

On a late July afternoon, trouble was brewing in Times Square. A very loud and heated verbal dispute attracted the attention of a police officer. The officer then got into an argument with the man involved. In a sudden burst of rage, the man punched the police officer. He had drawn blood, giving the cop the perfect opportunity to retaliate. In the worst-case scenario, there could even be a shootout.

In a typical superhero comic, the hero would come swooping down and teach the bad guy his lesson. But of course, nobody came to save the day because the aggressor was none other than Spiderman himself.

The man behind the mask, Junior Bishop, is anything but an anomaly. Times Square, the image of New York, is infested with violent costumed characters. In April 2013, Cookie Monster was accused of insulting and pushing a two year old boy.

Later, in October, Elmo, who we all know and love, was arrested for shouting anti-Semitic slurs.

Three months later, Woody was convicted of sexually harassing two women who posed for a picture with him. Fast forward two seasons later to July, and you have Spiderman swearing at and slugging a police officer.

Then, in August, four of those costumed miscreants were arrested on the same day. According to Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, “In

the last 10 days alone [prior to the Spiderman incident], we’ve seen two Statues of Liberty arrested, a Spider-Man convicted of harassing a tourist, and now a third character arrested for groping a woman in Times Square... The situation is out of control, and a licensing and regulatory scheme must be put in place.” Tompkins couldn’t be more correct.

Only a few costumed characters get reported as having criminal records, but it is quite likely that more have managed to stay under the radar.

The costumed characters give Times Square, an iconic New York City site, a bad image, which may deter tourists from coming. These frequent misdemeanors have gotten so out of hand that Mayor de Blasio has declared that the situation “has gone too far” and that “it needs to be regulated.” The fact that the city is attempting to put an end to this is proof of the issue’s severity.

Most skirmishes involving these costumed performers, who are also called buskers, happen because of tip disputes. The Cookie Monster who was arrested last April, Osvaldo Quiroz-Lopez, picked up famous Bollywood actress Parmita Kurada’s toddler son without her consent and pressured her into letting him take a picture with the boy. Lopez quickly went into a tirade when he found out Kurada didn’t have any money on her for a tip and

keep track of each performer, something that can’t be done when the multiple Elmos in Times Square are all unofficial and undocumented. It would also provide the perfect opportunity to implement a screening system. Applicants with strong criminal records should not be allowed to receive licenses, as it is dangerous for them to physically interact with dozens of people each day.

The next step would be to heavily punish buskers caught mistreating tourists. Those found guilty should be given crushing tickets of up to $1,000 to scare surly Marios and Mickey Mouses from showing their violent side to tourists. Many of these costumed characters do not make much money from

these jobs, and such a devastating fine would likely wipe out many days’ worth of profit. The risk outweighs the reward, and that is how it should be.

Dressing up as a superhero and asking people for tips is okay, but grabbing onto them and not letting go when they don’t give you enough money is not. It is shameful and embarrassing that tourists have had to deal with such an immature grievance for so long.

By screening and licensing costumed characters and dealing harsher punishments, we could prevent toddlers from getting hurt. Times Square is one of New York City’s landmark attractions, and the least we can do is try to make it a pleasurable experience for all.

Promises

Hayoung Ahn / The Spectator

By Brian Dong

By Emma Bernstein “Change!” they said. “Yes we Cahn!” they said. Over the past two years the SU has promised me so many things, and the rate of return has been astonishingly low: no one bothered to battle the beast that is apathy, not enough small Stuyvesant sweatshirts were ordered, I still can’t spend my lunch period on the fifth floor, and above all, I still have to smuggle Starbucks into my bag. (But on the bright side, SophFrosh got a chocolate fountain last year!) I’m realistic; I usually doubt that any of the SU’s unkept promises will materialize within a year’s time. But this year is different.

I haven’t been promised anything momentous. I don’t feel particularly empowered, and I can’t see any revolutions on the horizon. But what I do believe is that this year, the SU might actually follow through on their promises.

What I’ve been promised this year is an improvement in student life and that, in some way, after my coffee spills all over my history notebook at 7:54 a.m., I will be a little less sad than I was last year. The idea is that at 7:55 a.m., when the impending doom of my ninth period history quiz hits me, I’ll

hear some classical music instead of the god-awful bell. And because it’s Friday, there will be a movie night at 7 p.m. (though I’m not sure how this will ever be successful, since Stuyvesant lacks much of the community atmosphere that enables events like these to thrive). I might also be cautiously optimistic that at next week’s town-hall meeting, I’ll give a moving speech that once and for all opens the floodgates, a.k.a. the scanners, to my morning cup of joe.

After meeting with our new SU President, senior Keiran Carpen, it was clear to me that he has reevaluated the Student Union’s role at Stuyvesant.

Quick to admit last year’s failures, Carpen displays his experience through pragmatism— he knows what’s attainable, despite what little power he has been given. Consequently, his goal is simple: unionize the student body through community. It’s a goal so simple that it’s quite possible, but as a result, failure to achieve it will solidify the SU’s current reputation as an unnecessary and inefficient means of representation.

We’ve been given one promise this year. My sole request is it’s kept.

The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Page 13

Arts and Entertainment Summer Movies Summer is done and we’re back in school. But don’t you remember those glorious days of freedom, carelessness, and earnest moviegoing? We’ll help you remember some of that last one, because in addition to being blockbuster season (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Lucy”), summer 2014 also saw the release of several thoughtful movies (“Boyhood,” “Snowpiercer”), as well as the US release of Daniel Radcliife’s first rom-com (“What If”).

Guardians of the Galaxy

By Eda Tse After a year packed with superhero movies (Captain America, X-Men, and Spider-Man), “Guardians of the Galaxy” was the underdog of the season. It overcame a number of potential obstacles to success: “Guardians” was the first Marvel movie to be written by a woman and starred a cast of characters that had a considerably smaller comic following than previous movie heroes. And yet, the guardians (the underdogs in the movie) and “Guardians” (the movie itself ) both prevailed in their respective struggles.

“Guardians” is the story of the underdogs and the outcasts, from the very beginning. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt)—or, as he likes to be called, Starlord—is kidnapped promptly after the death of his mother by the Ravagers, who scout the galaxy for items of value to sell. Now, the grown up Quill is on his own, and steals a mysterious orb, hoping to exchange it for cash. Gamora (Zoe Saldana) is sent by Ronan (Lee Pace) to capture the orb from Quill. Coincidentally, Groot (Vin Diesel), a treelike humanoid, and Rocket the Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) run into Quill, and identify him as a wanted man. In the ensuing fight scene, all four are captured and sent to prison, where they meet Drax the Destroyer (Dave Batista), a hulking figure who seeks revenge on Ronan for killing his family.

The rest of the story tells how these five become the Guardians of the Galaxy.

This movie is an introduction for a possible franchise, and it’s incredibly fun. All five main characters play their parts with great enthusiasm, and Pratt, the true star of the movie, nails the physical comedy he brings to his role, as seen when he dances to “Hooked on a Feeling” while stealing the orb. On the other hand, some of the acting of smaller parts was underwhelming, such as Karen Gillian’s performance as Nebula, Gamora’s adopted sister, which was made up of imperceptible scowls.

The visuals, from the space fights to the beauty of Knowhere, a city created in the middle of an alien head, are all stunning. An especially beautiful moment is when Groot manages to light up the Dark Aster as the guardians try to take down Ronan, setting sparkling lights floating through the darkness. “Guardians”’ main strength, however, is that it doesn’t try too hard. Instead, the movie is self-aware and the characters are those loveable jerks who point out the obvious, the same way sarcastic people in movie theaters do. In fact, at the culminating point when the guardians decide to give their lives to fighting against Ronan, what you’d expect to be an emotionally uplifting scene of the heroes standing together is instead broken by Rocket’s weary sigh as he stands up, saying, “Well, now I’m standing. Happy?

We’re all standing now. Bunch of jackasses, standing in a circle.”

While “Guardians” never tries to expand its boundaries beyond the standard superhero movie outline, it plays very well within them. “Guardians” settles comfortably into its surprising but well-deserved spot as the best movie released this summer for providing a fun, light-hearted romp through the galaxy.

Boyhood

By Anne Duncan and Danielle Eisenman Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” follows six-year-old Mason Evans’ journey to adulthood, and was filmed over the span of twelve years. Instead of having a different actor for each stage of the boy’s life, Ellar Coltrane portrays Mason at every stage of his childhood – the chubby and stout kid being scolded by his elementary school teacher, the gangly teenager carrying a Vonnegut novel under his arm, and finally the scruffy college student setting up his dorm. Each character is portrayed by only one actor throughout the movie, so we can watch them all age gently and naturally, making this twelve year project stand out from any other film.

Linklater is notorious for his frequent use of cinematic realism, in which he recreates the subtle beauty of real life for view on the big screen. Set in small town Texas, the lives of the characters seem to reflect those of any typical American. The film doesn’t have a strict plot, so there isn’t a story being forced on the viewer. Instead, the viewer is a witness of Mason’s life, experiencing the pleasant moments and the tumultuous moments along the way, just as he does. The character development that occurs over the course of the movie is very natural, and well portrayed by the actors.

Each actor seems to age with his/her character, giving some of his/her own personality to the character. This begs the question of how much of an influence the actors’ personal lives had on their characters’ developments, because there was no distinct separation between actor and character on the screen.

The exception to the overall impressive acting was Lorelei Linklater’s portrayal of Mason’s older sister, Samantha. The character itself was very two dimensional, with few lines, all of which were not particularly unique to her and generically characteristic of any American girl. Samantha did not display a clear character development, but rather jumpier transitions between seemingly unconnected stages of her life. She started as the stereotypical older sister, in trivial conflicts with Mason, had a quick, awkward pre-teen phase, and went on to become a generic college student at a party.

While her character might be relatable in its broad nature, it was not as nuanced as the others.

Despite the one character’s choppiness, the movie’s transitions were overall very smooth, largely due to the soundtrack. At the start of any scene in a new year, the soundtrack reflected not just the songs that we now associate with that time, but also the songs that we have since forgotten, throwing viewers back into that exact year. These tracks include snippets of High School Musical, “Do You Realize??” by the Flaming Lips, “Crank That” by Soulja Boy, and other iconic hits. Time-sensitive props such as iPods and Gameboys, along with mentions of the 2008 Obama/McCain presidential election also helped the audience step into the time period.

Because the movie is set during the years current teenagers were growing up, watching Mason’s journey to adulthood is much like watching our own. Mason not only goes through relatable conflicts with his family and friends, but also struggles to define himself and push himself to reach his personal and professional goals. Watching “Boyhood” was as close as many of us will come to watching a movie of our own lives. The realism of this twelve year project has set a new standard for film making.

Snowpiercer

By Lev Akabas How about this for an absurd movie premise? In a post-apocalyptic world, after a global warming experiment gone wrong causes a global ice age that nearly wipes out man-kind, what is left of humanity lives on a train, with the rich in front and the poor in back.

No matter how hard “Snowpiercer” tries to explain how such a situation is plausible and no matter how much you try to reason with it, the premise remains ridiculous. If you simply accept it before starting the movie, however, you will enjoy the wild, suspenseful ride that follows.

The inhabitants of the tail of the train are given barely enough food to survive, have no luxuries, and are confined to only the cars in the back. In response, Curtis Everett leads his fellow second-class citizens in a revolt against the people controlling the train in an effort to reach the engine at the front.

Curtis is played by Chris Evans, who is best known for his role as Captain America and widely considered no more than a comic book actor. Evans, however, delivers an emotional performance that makes an utterly bizarre, futuristic world feel completely real. He draws you in and gets you on his side from the opening credits, and has the natural “coolness” that you’d want from an action hero.

As action movies are becoming increasingly predictable and formulaic, “Snowpiercer” truly keeps you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. There are unexpected twists and turns, and as the rebels travel from car to car through the train, one can’t help but wonder what surprises the next car holds. The train setting is also used creatively to produce original and thrilling action scenes, such as a shootout between people in two different cars as the train curves around a bend.

If you’re the type who is always nitpicking at plot holes and inconsistencies in movies, “Snowpiercer” will drive you insane. For example, the explanation for how enough food and water is procured for everyone on the train is weak at best. But when taken on a metaphorical level without focusing on minor details that don’t make sense, the movie is extremely thought-provoking. It is a social commentary, addressing dark themes of human nature, the lengths a society will go to survive, and class warfare that will leave the film lingering in the back of your mind long after you watch it.

“Snowpiercer” was originally released in South Korea and went under the radar in the United States because it was only released in select theaters, hoping to profit from on-demand purchases and then follow up with a wider release. Despite its flaws (excessive gore, unreconciled elements of the plot, and certain scenes that drag on too long), the movie has enough memorable qualities to make it worth viewing. The cinematography and editing of an entire movie confined in train cars is an impressive feat, the plot is engrossing, and, most importantly, there’s Captain America wielding an axe and wreaking havoc on a train for 126 minutes.

With its enticing trailer and star-studded cast, including Morgan Freeman and Scarlett Johansson, “Lucy” had potential. The movie, which came out on July 25th, tells the story of Lucy (Johansson), a college student in Taiwan who becomes an accidental drug mule when bags of blue synthetic drugs called C4 are concealed inside of her and many others, each of whom is sent to various countries. Lucy’s tendency to resist and fight back brings her physical abuse, which causes the bag of drugs inside of her to leak, allowing her access to more of her brain’s capacity.

Most characters with superpowers exploit their powers and use them for good, and every protagonist should have some sort of clearly defined goal. Lucy unexpectedly uses her newfound “powers” to interact with Professor Norman (Freeman), who researches the brain. She also orders the police to find the others who have the drugs and bring them to her. There is never a reason for her to do any of this, and the movie becomes more confusing toward the end. The non-cliché plot is poorly executed, because the only understandable part is that there is a chase in which the drug smugglers pursue Lucy insistently while she enjoys throwing people around with her telekinesis.

Lucy is portrayed as innocent and terrified in the beginning, but later as perpetually calm and controlled, because she can manipulate her own emotions. However, the fact that Lucy doesn’t show even a single moment of emotion is an unrealistic character development at best. It is confusing and unreasonable that a character could suddenly kill others so easily without a single look of shock, surprise, or excitement. No matter how well done the effects are, like when Lucy is able to see the electricity running through the buildings or when she “travels” through time, the convoluted plotline is enough to make a person wonder why he or she watched the movie in the first place.

Justin Chan / The Spectator

Yuchen Jin / The Spectator

Lucy

By Jenny Jiang

What If

By Rocky Lam What if you met someone who was exactly like you? What if that person became your best friend and you fell in love? But what if they already had someone else? So goes the plot of this romantic comedy when the amiable, geeky Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe) meets the awkward, quirky Chantry (Zoe Kazan). “What If” was interestingly released as “The F Word” (“Friends,” not that other one) outside of the U.S., which makes sense because the entire plot revolves around an unfortunate couple getting stuck as friends because, unlike in most rom-coms, the world doesn’t exactly fall into place around their love.

Upgraded from his cupboard under the staircase to an attic in “What If,” Radcliffe plays a medical school dropout who becomes antisocial following a bad breakup. Fortunately for the movie, he gets coaxed into going to his roommate’s party where he meets Chantry, and the rom-com delightfully unravels from there. The film is packed with typical romantic scenes, such as the main characters unexpectedly running into each other at a movie theater, but almost everything about this movie is fresh and adorable. Although the plot is exactly what you would expect from a romantic comedy, the chemistry between Radcliffe and Kazan leaves the audience squealing in their seats and thinking “Why can’t I be one of them?” Their dialogue flows naturally, as if the audience were watching two attractive, slightly wittier than average, but ultimately real people fall in love. Apart from the acting, the film also has an amazing fantasy-like soundtrack of indie music (my favorite being “The Ballad of Wallace and Chantry”), an artistic element that suits the dreamy plot perfectly. “What If” was definitely one of the must-sees of the summer for anyone who enjoys romantic comedy at its pinnacle (and a skinny-dipping scene that features Radcliffe’s bum).

The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Page 14

Arts and Entertainment Technology

iOS 8: Glitz, Glamor, and Productivity

By Joseph Han and Shahruz Ghaemi At the World Wide Developer Conference in June, Apple announced its new operating systems, iOS 8 and OS Yosemite. However, iOS 8 was only available to app developers during the summer, and Yosemite to desperate users who wanted to get a glimpse of it during beta testing. Apple has finally released these updated operating systems to the public, along with its long-awaited iPhone 6. So, is it worth it to get the update? iOS 8 has a number of special features that will help the lives of everyday users.

(Note: iOS 8 is only supported for the iPhone 4s and newer models, the iPad mini, the iPad 2 and newer models, and the

fifth-generation iPod Touch).

Apple has built iOS 8 around the principles of continuity and interconnectivity, drawing its family of products ever tighter.

Now you can open an email or webpage on one device and continue working on another. iPhone owners can even answer calls on their Mac or iPad and send SMS messages from any of them.

In order to compete with other cloud storage systems such as Google Drive and Dropbox, Apple has revamped iCloud into iCloud Drive, which will help users store files and pictures, as well as edit documents from any device. iCloud Drive will also have a file manager to make it easy for users to look through and share their files with others, making organiza-

tion significantly easier. However, after the recent release of nude photos flagrantly stolen from female celebrities’ iCloud accounts, Apple will have to convince users that their data will be completely secure.

Indeed, many of the features of iOS 8 show a company responding to the competitive nature of the communications market right now, mostly thanks to Google’s Android OS. Apple is introducing the QuickType keyboard, which will display several suggestions for what word you intend to use next, based on an evolving evaluation of your typing style.

(Notably, QuickType will differentiate between the language of your texts and what words you’re more likely to use in a professional email). Android,

meanwhile, has boasted the similar Swype keyboard system for several years, while SMS forwarding tools have existed for some time now, including the Google Chrome extension MightyText.

Apple has also included a number of smaller but still useful features. iOS 8 comes with a Health app that will track the user’s fitness data, such as heart rate and calories burned while walking or jogging, using builtin gyroscopes and accelerometers. For photography and filter enthusiasts, the Photos app includes a new time-lapse mode and an array of detailed editing tools, such as fine-tuned color and light adjusters. For social people out there, Apple has expanded ways of communication by allowing users to send

audio and video clips in a text message.

Overall, the update, designed around the theme of “convergence,” will bring a massive load of new features that enhance functionality, plain and simple. Meanwhile, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which is clearly a challenge to larger Android devices, will be on sale starting September 19. They will come with all of these shiny features, plus the durable and energy-efficient A8 processor, which will hopefully resolve the power issues that came with the rollout of iOS 7. It sure doesn’t seem like Apple will stop evolving at any point in the foreseeable future, especially in the face of competition as successful as Google’s Android OS.

Music

By Shahruz Ghaemi Street performance is a time-honored art form in New York; buskers, mariachis, bucket drummers, and established bands surround everyday life.

In the summer, the city even licenses dozens of artists to play on streets and subway platforms. Though City of the Sun has performed at Rockwood Music Hall and the 2013 TEDxNYIT conference, the band still prefers to do most of its daily practice where it all started, on the streets (their favorite location for their unauthorized concerts remains in Union Square).

I first saw City of the Sun playing on a crowded Williamsburg street corner: three skinny Vneck-clad hipsters, two guitars, one dead ringer for Jake Gyllenhall playing a makeshift drum, and all of them creating absolutely arresting music.

The open air is a fitting place for their unique blend of flamenco and minimalist indie rock, with a dash of electronic distortion, creating a rippling effect with each note. The band consists of John Pita and Avi Snow on amplified acoustic guitars with Zach Para (the Jake Gyllenhall look-alike) using a hollow wooden box and an anklet of bells as a full drum set.

But the band’s music is a transcendental blend of these three

simple instruments, floating out into the sky, and at the same time, seeming not to emanate from one source.

Their music is a transcendental blend of these three simple instruments.

Pita and Snow “slay the hell” out of their guitars, in the words of one YouTube commentator.

They harmonize in a unique way, as one plays simple but intense chords, while the other flies up and down the frets of his guitar on a melodic line that runs as a deer does, leaping and bounding with astonishing speed and grace. All of this sound is fed through amplifiers that give an echoing quality to the music, turning just two acoustic guitars into an ethereal sound that warrants the use of “all this.”

Para’s box-drum, which he sits on, complements the guitars with a deep acoustic

resonance that a conventional drum kit simply can’t achieve.

The flamenco influence, though buried, shows itself in these driving, but lightly dancing, rhythms and melodies. (Pita grew up in Ecuador, and Snow learned from a Venezuelan guitarist in the Israeli army).

It is during City of the Sun’s live performances that you begin to understand why the verb “slay” is so appropriate. Pita, Snow, and Para all tap into the raw expression that feeds their music, banging their heads to the rhythms and stomping their feet with such fervor that their floppy hipster hair begins to look silly. At one point, Pita’s fedora flew into the air (because of course he was wearing a fedora).

You can’t help but feel the flow of the music the way they do. As Nicola Lyon of the Willow Wood blog said, it “makes me momentarily believe I’ve been whisked away down an alleyway in Granada, through an unmarked red door, into a dimly lit room with a secret flamenco show.”

City of the Sun’s pieces eschew the verse-chorus structure of songs (which would be hard to do without a vocalist anyway) and instead develop musical themes in compositions that are long by pop standards. The soundscape

Courtesy of City of the Sun

Ethereal Music Brought Down to an Earthly City

develops in a seemingly improvisational style over around six minutes, occasionally stopping for a breather to allow a melodic line to develop in a more open space, and then jumping right back into an ebbing and flowing river of music.

In this sense, all of their compositions are only manifestations of the same artistic impulse and sensibility. If we’re going to talk about individual pieces on their five-track EP “Live at the Factory” though, it is ironic that “Explosions” floats like a feather, a slow-motion explosion of light and upward momentum. “Razon” is the most obviously flamenco-like song in its clipped rhythms,

while “Second Sun” unfolds over a glorious seven minutes and 33 seconds of rolling and rising sound.

That “Live at the Factory” displays such a high level of polish amid incredibly sophisticated music is a testament to their expertise. It is hard to imagine what their sheet music must look like, if they have any, not least because City of the Sun sounds like so much more than two guitars and a hollow box (Snow intentionally plays a guitar that has a small hole punched in it). They take you on an aural journey that feels more native to an ethereal world of slow-moving clouds and dazzling sunlight.

KenKen 5+

1-

3-

2-

By Lev Akabas Fill in the grid with numbers 1 through 5. Do not repeat a number in any row or column. In each heavily outlined set of squares, the numbers must combine, in any order, to produce the target number in the top left corner using the operation indicated.

If you finish the puzzle, send a picture of your completed grid to stuyspeckenken@gmail.com, and if you are the first student to complete the puzzle, you’ll get your name mentioned in the next issue of The Spectator.

10×

9+

6+

8×

3-

9+

Issue 16 Winner: Eric Liao 7+

The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Page 15

Arts and Entertainment Movie

Courtney Chiu / The Spectator

What Happened When I Stayed for the Whole Movie

By Anne Duncan I am not the type to see a chick flick in the theater. Instead, I’m more the type to stay home and watch it online at 1 a.m. But my friend asked me if I would go with her, and I figured it might be a good, cleansing experience.

In fact, the end of my summer was kind of defined by seeing “If I Stay” (based on the book

by Gayle Forman and adapted to the screen by Shauna Cross).

Usually, when I watch a movie of similar style and genre, I am very aware that I am watching a film, but “If I Stay” was one of the rare experiences when the space between my seat and the screen shrank as the movie played out.

I was expecting a simple romantic drama, and almost laughed at my friend when she told me she had brought tissues. She was prepared. I was not.

“If I Stay” features Chloe Grace Moretz as teenage Mia Hall, and Jamie Blackley as her high school sweetheart, Adam. After an accident, Mia enters a coma and the rest of the movie alternates between her current out-of-body experience and flashbacks to her old life and love story with Adam.

Throughout the movie, Mia faces the recurring decision: live or die.

The first thing that drew me in was the film’s music. Mia is a promising young cellist applying to Julliard School of Music and Adam is a rocker guitarist whose band is about to make it big. Obviously, music plays a key role in the plot. The soundtrack showcases both Mia and Adam’s personalities, shifting between concertos, upbeat Rock ballads, and Indie songs that fit somewhere in the middle. Before the filming began, each actor was given an

MP3 player with songs that his or her character would listen to.

Music is a huge part of both chararacters’ lives, so it is essential that the music reflects the style of the characters and tone of the scene. This adds to the realism of the movie as the actors portray a realistic connection to and passion for the film’s soundtrack.

Beyond the widely appealing soundtrack, the movie score is instrumental in separating the past from the present. Recurring musical lines play during transitions between romantic flashbacks and scenes of out-of-body distress. This makes the movie easier to follow, despite its many plot twists.

Mia also narrates the flashbacks in the first person. The narration is accurate to her tone, not only as a character, but also from the perspective of her current ghostly being—shaken but still emphatic and emotional. As Mia looks back at her past with her family and with Adam, she evaluates the worth of her life.

This is sometimes cold, almost numb, and sometimes it is bursting with pain and passion. The narration continues throughout the film and draws in the viewer.

As the plot progresses, each event becomes more and more tragic.

Each time Mia loses someone close to her, common anxieties become a reality. Mia is forced to face loneliness, abandonment, rejection, and purposelessness.

Because her character is so easy to step into through the first person narration and characterization through music, the audience finds themselves in Mia’s shoes, met with heartbreaking tragedy.

Unlike most romance mov-

ies, “If I Stay” also acknowledges the world outside of romance.

Mia faces not only the threat of distance from Adam, but also from her family, and she has the impending decision from Julliard to worry about. While Adam is a large part of the movie, he is not the “end all be all” of Mia’s life.

This realism both makes it easier for the viewer to relate to Mia and also opens up avenues to more suspense throughout the movie.

“If I Stay” breaks away from the stereotypical chick flick suggestion that love solves all problems.

Adam cannot fix everything for Mia. As she faces the choice between life and death, Mia sees more than love in her future.

She also can see friendship and the passionate pursuit of classical music. Although the movie was advertised in trailers and on posters featuring the choice to “live for love,” Mia faces something much larger than that, and ultimately, I would argue that she does not make her decision based on Adam’s love, but rather on the possibility of a life playing music.

By the end of the movie, I was unsure if I was crying because of the love story, the music story, the family story, or Mia’s struggle for independence and a sense of self. The movie seemed to speak directly to me. Every other song was one of my favorites, and I could easily relate to Mia’s stress surrounding college and artistic success. Because the plot was so multifaceted and realistic, it also perfectly resonated with me as a teenage girl, similar to Mia in circumstances of similar emotional weight.

Despite the end result of the

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film, there are moments so cliché that I was thrown out of the film, back into my seat at the theater, thinking to myself, “I’m watching a movie that is so disgustingly Hollywood.” When Mia sees death as an option, did a bright white light really have to appear? (Hint: No.) What threw me off most was how archetypically perfect Adam is. A guitar-playing, independent, loving teenage boy, adored by parents and siblings alike? Impossible. Or, rather, unlikely. Adam’s character flaws include being too attractive and his fear of losing Mia, but no one in the movie theater seemed to mind. Mia’s romance with Adam was the one aspect I could not easily relate to, because they are both such unique characters. We fantasize of being in their shoes, but ultimately fail to identify with them.

This is the common appeal of a chick flick. Sure, the protagonist faces a very serious problem that both tears him/her from his/her true love and also forces him/her to face his/her personal problems, but ultimately the two are destined to end up together, right? The point in watching those movies is not to really be influenced by the originality of the characters and plot, but rather to superimpose yourself onto one, or maybe even both of them. While this is the type of movie I expected “If I Stay” to be, it ended up being more. There are so many truly well-done artistic aspects that I did not see it as a really good chick flick, but rather a really good movie that fell short by adhering to chick flick clichés that give romance movies a bad name.

“Colette helped guide me through the admissions process while also advising me on what would help and hurt my chances.

As a first-generation Asian-American I was at an extreme disadvantage during the college application process.

Neither of my parents attended college so everything I learned came from school.

In the end, her advice and aid helped me attain a full scholarship, something I wouldn’t have dreamed possible.”

Stanley Chen, Class of 2013

Colette Brown taught in the English Department of Stuyvesant High School for over a decade and in that time she advised thousands of her Stuyvesant students through the college admissions process. She recently left Stuyvesant to begin independently advising students full time.

Call or email Colette Brown for an appointment to begin personalized individual college admissions advisement. Her strong belief is that it is not enough to get it into the right school, but also fit into the right school for you.

646 467-0265 thecollegeadmissionsmaven@gmail.com THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS MAVEN is on Facebook

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The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

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The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Page 17

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

Ashley Lin/The Spectator

What is Wrong With You People?

(The Ice Bucket Challenge)

By Shane Lorenzen

Anna Kheyfets/The Spectator

At the beginning of August 2014, a social media phenomenon known as the ALS Ice Bucket challenge broke onto the scene in a big way. The challenge went viral over Facebook and social media, as participants were required to challenge other friends in order to get the word out. Those challenged were given a choice; they could donate $100 to any ALS devoted charity or endure a few seconds of mild discomfort by pouring ice water all over their bodies while filming it and posting it on the internet for the world to see. Many chose the latter option, after realizing they didn’t

actually know what ALS was and might accidentally end up donating to the wrong charity. Even those who did know and chose the bucket anyway argued that simply raising awareness would be enough, the same way awareness was enough to cure breast cancer, solve world hunger, and catch Joseph Kony. But there’s one thing those self-righteous hashtag activists forgot, and that was to nominate me, Shane Lorenzen, for the challenge.

I’ve been working out all summer long and when the challenge first appeared, I, Shane Lorenzen, thought, “Perfect! An opportunity to immortalize my beautifully sculpted beach body on camera!”

Yet, as the days went by, none of you who took the challenge bothered to mention my name, Shane Lorenzen, when doling out nominations. Let me reiterate that for greater emphasis: over a million people in the world have taken the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and not a single one has called me out and provided me with an excuse to show off my Mr. Universe caliber physique. I, Shane Lorenzen, know that statistic is shocking, but don’t let that fool you. It is the truth.

If I, Shane Lorenzen, were to take the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, it would be an invaluable opportunity to show off my altruistic nature, herculean body, natural good looks, overwhelming charisma, superior intelligence, bucket

lifting abilities, concern for those less fortunate than I, and many more key attributes that make me the model citizen that I, Shane Lorenzen, am. I’ve often thought to myself, “Do not wait for the challenge! Rise to the challenge on your own accord and record an Ice Bucket video unprompted!” But then I stop myself and remember that these kinds of things must be done through the proper channels.

Often I subtly call attention to the fact I have yet to be nominated. Why just last week at a funeral for a distant relative of mine I approached my cousin Margaret, the wife of the deceased, with the knowledge that she had been nominated that morning, and unbuttoned my shirt exposing my abs. I then said, “Now don’t these belong on camera for the world to see? I think you might be able to help with that.” I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting to be slapped in the face, but after a lot of thought, I’ve decided to forgive her. Emotions were running high that day and it looked like she might have been under a lot of stress.

Please somebody, anybody, even someone not as cool as I am, nominate me, Shane Lorenzen, for the ALS Ice Bucket challenge.

I, nay, the world needs to see this body on camera! Oh and also I guess I want to help cure Annoying Leg Syndrome or whatever too.

What extracurricular should YOU join?

By Anne Duncan 1. Are you always right?

YES -> #2 NO-> #3 2. Do you know who Obama is?

YES -> Model UN NO -> Speech & Debate 3. Do you like people staring at you?

YES -> STC NO -> #4 4. Do you use Pinterest?

YES -> backstage STC NO -> #5 5. Do you have anything to say?

YES -> #6 NO -> Math Team 6. Are you a hipster?

YES -> Caliper NO -> Spectator 7. Do you have nothing else to offer? -> SU

Allegations of Adderall Embarrassing Human Being Thrilled to Abuse Reportedly Untrue Live Vicariously Through Child’s College Search

By Randolph Higgins In a recent rebuttal to widespread allegations of Adderall abuse in Stuyvesant, many students turned out this week to protest, calling the allegations “ridiculous,” “fictitious,” and 1,300 other synonymous adjectives the students had learned the previous night in cram study sessions.

Since its introduction in 1996, Adderall, an amphetamine and psychostimulant commonly used to treat ADHD, has allegedly been used as a “study drug” to help students concentrate on difficult material.

However, Stuyvesant students report that abuse of the drug is non-existent in the school. Rather, their natural ability to concentrate, work hard, and go days without eating food allows them to memorize the entire genealogy of the Austrian Habsburgs just hours before their second period AP Euro test.

A 5’10”, 90-pound senior confirmed that his academic success is solely due to a natural ability to study effectively until 2 a.m. Another senior, who will be referred to as Caelan Rowley to protect his identity, said, “Many people look at our performance and assume

we must be gaming the system with artificial psychostimulants, but the truth is, I haven’t slept in six days simply because of my genuine love for drafting class.”

A few students appear to be particularly upset by the allegations. One anonymous senior with a “legitimate” Adderall prescription for ADHD said, “Now I feel like I’m some sort of criminal every time I bring my prescription to school, take a test, deal 50 milligrams in the bathroom, or steal someone else’s stash in order to keep prices high. It’s degrading.”

Although many outside the school are concerned, attitudes within the school’s administration appear to be much more lax. “Although the extent of the problem is not thoroughly known, it is not pressing.

As long as the New York Post doesn’t run a story on it, we don’t care,” Athletic Director and Viceroy of Student Conformation and Discipline Brian Moran said. “Also, without this stuff we’d never get program corrections done on time.”

This opinion seems to reflect the general sentiments of the student body on the issue. Although stress and massive workloads are common at Stuyvesant, most students find other ways to stay on top of things. Junior Bryan Kay said, “I’ve heard that some kids take Adderall to help them study, but I don’t know any. What keeps me going is simply the fear that my parents will stop feeding me if my average dips below a 90.”

By Daniel Goynatsky When senior Jeffrey Yan’s mother told her son that they would begin touring colleges starting freshman year, he was taken aback. “We came to this country without knowing English. We worked 17 hours a day, and the time we could sleep was spent attending the Borough of Staten Island Community College,” Jeffrey’s mother, Xia Lin Yan, said, as she teared up at the thought of her baby boy growing up and taking college tours with her.

As soon as Jeffrey agreed to tour all sorts of academic institutions, his mother pulled out a map with only 237 pins in it. “These are the schools we MUST visit,” Mrs. Yan said. She pointed out a cluster of nine pins in the same area and exclaimed, “We will visit Harvard three times every single year!”

College tours were always the best part of Mrs. Yan’s weekend. While Jeffrey was sending snapchats on his phone during the Yale information session, Mrs. Yan was diligently taking notes. She grabbed his phone away and put it in her pocket.

“If I were in your shoes, I would be a bit more attentive. You might go to this school one day.

Well, with your grades you’re definitely going to apply here. I think if you write an ‘out-of-thebox’ essay, you have a good shot of getting in. Every single book that I’ve read on this topic says that you should write about

your experience volunteering in Africa. I know where we’re going this summer honey!” said Mrs. Yan as she took a picture of an inspirational quote by a Yale alumnus on the wall of the cafeteria.

Jeffrey zoned out as he wondered whether or not to purchase the most recent skin for his favorite League champion.

“You know, I can really see myself going here. They even have kosher food! If I were kosher, this would be perfect! If only I were 25 years younger,” Mrs. Yan said.

When Phillip Stevens, a junior at Yale studying Aeronautics, began talking about his experience on the campus, Mrs. Yan raised her hand because she realized she had a pressing and topical question.

“Yes, Miss?” asked Mr. Stevens politely.

“You mentioned the campus before. When we visited Princeton’s campus, we were told that it was excellent for wheelchair-bound students because all the ramps are precisely at a 17-degree angle. I didn’t notice any ramps in the two buildings we saw, so I was just wondering whether the campus is wheelchair-accessible,” Mrs. Yan said.

“Oh, is it a personal issue?”

Mr. Stevens inquired.

“No,” Mrs. Yan replied.

“Well I’m not exactly sure, but I’ve seen people in wheelchairs on the campus, so I guess it is,” Mr. Stevens said.

“But you’re not sure?” Mrs. Yan asked.

“No,” Mr. Stevens answered.

He hadn’t been pressured this hard since his Linear Algebra Applications in Aeronautical Engineering class project.

Mrs. Yan sighed and checked the ‘Not Wheelchair Accessible’ box on her clipboard. She took out her phone and sent a text message to Jeffrey, who was sitting right next to her. It read “Maybe we will have better luck in Brown :D <333.”

“What did you say your major was?” shouted Mrs. Yan as another lady was beginning her question on the other side of the cafeteria.

“Aeronautical engineering,” Mr. Stevens said proudly.

He was the third generation of Stevens to be en route to work at NASA. Mrs. Yan leaned to Jeffrey and whispered, “Not a doctor,” and closed her notebook. She silently crossed off Yale from her list and decided that if things did not change in the next two years, her son might not apply early decision there.

At the end of the information session, right before the tour was about to start, Mrs. Yan approached Mr. Stevens and asked him, just out of curiosity, if he could, in 650 words or less, “Reflect on a time when [he] challenged a belief or idea.

What prompted [him] to act?

Would he make the same decision again?”

The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Page 18

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

College Essays vs. Human Feces

By EMMA LOH

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Page 19

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The Spectator â&#x2014;?September 19, 2014

Classroom Doodles

By The Art Department

The Spectator â&#x2014;? September 19, 2014

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New York City

By The Art Department

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The Spectator ●September 19, 2014

Sports Boys’ Fencing

Boys’ Football

Untouchables Look To Three-Peat

By Joshua Zhu When discussing fencing powerhouses in the city, Stuyvesant is bound to be mentioned. The Untouchables have won 33 city championships, including six within the past seven years. With such a successful record, Stuyvesant will be under pressure to maintain its standard of excellence this upcoming season.

It is, however, difficult to predict the results of the season when it is unclear how roster changes will impact the team’s performance. In particular, the loss of former cocaptains Josef Omar and Philip Shin, the latter of whom won the individual championships last year, will be an obstacle to overcome.

“Usually we’ve had at least two very strong fencers each year that have helped us maintain a steady lead, but this year […] we have a much more balanced group of fencers,” senior and co-captain Kyle Oleksiuk said. “In epee, it’s more important to have a group of solid fencers than it is to have one outstanding one, and over the last year, everyone on our epee team has improved substantially.

In foil, we’ve actually retained a surprisingly strong lineup.

Philip and Josef were definitely the headliners for a reason,

but we’re very capable of making the season work in their absence.” In a sport where fatigue and injury are all too common, it may be good for the team not to rely too heavily on star players. Nevertheless, the losses of Omar and Shin will definitely have some impact, as they led the team with 116 and 188 touches, respectively.

“Both Philip and Josef [were] great fencers, each ‘A’ rated, so it’s going to be a bit difficult to fill in that gap. But in foil, [sophomore] Shuya [Ishizuka] is also ‘A’ rated,” junior Nicholas Yang said.

“We have a very strong team overall, so I feel that we’re in a good position [to win another championship].”

Both Yang and Ishizuka will play major roles going into this season. Yang was the Untouchables’ fourth leading scorer last season, with 70 touches in eight appearances.

Ishizuka surpassed expectations and took advantage of his limited playing time as a rookie last year, scoring 32 touches in only three games.

Junior Aaron Choi will also be another important player going into this season. Choi scored 50 touches in seven appearances last season and is expected to be a leader in this upcoming season. When asked who he has big expectations for this season, he

mentioned sophomore Lowell Weisbord and co-captains Oleksiuk and senior Malcolm Wells. Weisbord was another rookie who achieved much in his limited playing time, scoring 20 touches in four games.

“Malcolm and I are confident we can lead the team; since fencing isn’t about collective strategy, we’ll really just need to make sure everyone works hard at improving on an individual level. We’re already a close group of friends, so it should be a fun season,” Oleksiuk said. Wells and Oleksuik will be expected to improve upon their solid performances of 31 and 43 touches, respectively, last year.

“I think we stand maybe the best chance of any team in the PSAL, mostly because almost every other school is weak in [either foil or epee].

Complacency is absolutely not what we should be feeling if we want to win, but that’s how I feel,” Oleksiuk said.

The Untouchables should not feel too certain of victory, but after recognizing that the team boasts strong teams in both the epee and foil events and a large group of returning players, as well as being the two-time defending champions, the Untouchables should be allowed a sliver of satisfaction going into this season.

Peglegs Confident Despite Changes continued from page 24

son and will probably be our starting safety and get a lot of reps at running back. He should be a key part of our team,” Morgenstern said.

Despite not receiving a lot of playing time last year, senior Henry Luo is also looking to a big part of the team this year. “During the offseason, I put on some weight and got stronger. It will definitely help me being a better receiver and corner. Hopefully, I will be a lockdown defender and catch more passes,” Luo said.

With all these changes, Stuyvesant’s playing style will be very different from last year’s. “The difference this year will be the grind. I think this year’s team has a little more grit than last year’s team and you’ll see it in the way the play. This year’s team will be more about the run game and more about the defense and not like the high flying offense we had last year,” Strasser said.

The Peglegs finished fourth in the cup conference division last year. Weaver is now healthy and although Morgenstern may be inexperienced, the team has a lot of talent at wide receiver, includ-

ing Chase, who caught for 501 yards and a team-leading five touchdowns in the regular season.

“The goal this year is simple. Championship or nothing. I think everyone in the team knows that anything less would be a disappointment,” Weaver said.

Although it may seem difficult to believe that the Peglegs can compete with the best amidst their roster changes, they looked awfully good in their 35-8 pummeling of East Harlem Pride on Saturday, September 6. Morgenstern completely ripped through the Pride defense, completing 21 of 30 passes and throwing for 324 yards and two touchdowns. Morgenstern lead all passers in the division in total yards for the first week.

While they did easily beat an East Harlem Pride team that was second in their division last year, the Peglegs’ biggest challenge will be George Washington, who defeated Stuyvesant in the regular season last year by a score of 24-6 and ended up winning the championship. With the same core group of players, there is no doubt that they will be the most difficult obstacle standing in the Peglegs’ way.

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The Spectator ● September 19, 2014

Page 23

Sports Boys’ Soccer

Penguins Dive in For Another Season

continued from page 24

By Erica Chio and May Chen The beginning of the Penguins’ season is generally filled with excitement and optimism as they bond with new team members and look forward to another year of division domination. This season, however, the Penguins expect slightly rougher waters ahead.

Although they won their fourth consecutive PSAL championship in 2013, the Penguins know that their toughest competition will come from the Francis Lewis Lady Patriots. The Lady Patriots tied with the Penguins for the championship and were undefeated with a record of 12-0 in the 2013 season.

Another obstacle that the Penguins will have to overcome is their lack of divers on the team. This is a clear disadvantage as their opponents with divers will accumulate six points by default in each meet. Last year, in a match against Brooklyn Tech, the Penguins almost lost 50-48 because their opponents had a diver. Fortunately, coach Peter Bologna is recruiting junior gymnast Jenn Dikler to be the diver for the team. Bologna reached out to the girls’ gymnastics team, and since then, Bologna has been working with Dikler on different diving techniques. “There’s also definitely technical skill, like flexibility, in both diving and gymnastics

that’s really helped me,” Dikler said.

Besides recruiting a diver, the team has been targeting specific problems to improve on, such as “diving and flip turns,” according to junior Sabrina Huang.

The Penguins are also planning on engaging in more dry-land workouts and more intense sets that focus on kicking in under a set amount of time to push the girls’ stamina. Additionally, Bologna gave out a worksheet to the team that listed healthy foods and foods to avoid so that his swimmers could be their fittest and strongest.

Another change in the 2014 season is the newly renovated Stuyvesant pool. This gives the Penguins the advantage of a more convenient place to practice and the advantage during home meets. The Penguins are excited to be back in their pool because they don’t have to travel to train at the Seward Park High School pool, as they did last year.

The Penguins look to continue their reign as city champions under the leadership of their newest captains, seniors Kimberly Wong and Sappha O’Meara. With new swimmers and a new diver, the girls hope to beat Francis Lewis outright this time, and they now know which team to look out for. “Overall, I expect the team to work just as hard, if not harder than last season to maintain our title as city champions,” Wong said.

Centaurs Looking to Bounce Back

By Louis Susser As summer break came to a close, the Centaurs hit the fields of Pier 40 more ready than ever to improve on the previous season, considering they only won one game last year. The Centaurs are focused on making sure that they have a successful season under the captainship of seniors Sean Fitzgerald and Isaac Gluck, center back and right back, respectively.

“The captains have been some of the best I have ever had. Sean Fitzgerald and Isaac Gluck have been impact players and starters since they were freshmen. Both lead by example and have been very vocal during practices. Sean and Isaac have made my job as a coach so much easier because they provide their peers with constructive feedback,” coach Vincent Miller said. Fitzgerald spent the summer playing for his club team and helped his team win nationals.

Fitzgerald and Gluck are concentrating on maximizing team performance through organized practices with high attendance rates and hard effort. “There was a lack of motivation last year,” Gluck said. “Players were not consistently showing up to practices or putting in the effort needed.”

The Centaurs have implemented more technical and tactical drills in practice. “We’ve been working on crosses and headers, for example, to better our soccer fundamentals, rather than just running and doing cardio workouts,” junior Pranav Lowe said.

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Christopher Liang/ The Spectator

Girls’ Swimming

Practices have not changed in frequency since last year, but the intensity of the players’ mindsets has improved drastically resulting in a better display of teamwork and pride.

This is a great mindset for the incoming freshmen to learn and build off of. “I see a huge amount of talent from the incoming freshman. There were many more talented players than we expected at tryouts,” Gluck said. Even though the freshmen have proven to show a lot of talent, it will be difficult for the five freshmen on the team to receive playing time since the team has so many seniors.

“We have 10 seniors on the team this year, and it seems like most of them will be starting players,” Miller said. The seniors will be playing a large role to keep the team’s morale high off the field, as well as performing well on the field. All but two of the Centaurs’

last seasons were scored by current seniors, including four by Fitzgerald, so this year’s lineup has experience leading the offensive attack.

The Centaurs’ two most competitive opponents this season are the Martin Luther King Jr. Knights and the Beacon Blue Demons. “We have to play tough and aggressively against both teams. They are both [top-notch] teams, and it takes an almostperfect game to defeat them,” Miller said. The Centaurs did not beat either team last year, so a victory this year would show improvement.

“We have a very strong team, and I am confident in Sean and Isaac to lead the way,” junior Pranav Lowe said. Their success will all depend on how well Fitzgerald and Gluck can stimulate the team into a competitive mentality to match the aggressive and talented teams in their division.

September 19, 2014

Page 24

The Spectator SpoRts Girls’ Swimming

During a game against The Evanderchild Tigers of Evanderchild High School, the ball is passed to Senior Henry Luo.

By Jeffrey Zheng Following a first round playoff exit last year, the Peglegs are hungrier than ever this season. However, one of the biggest holes they will have to fill is the one left by Solomon Quinn, last year’s star quarterback. Quinn had strong season, racking up 13 touchdowns in nine games and finishing with an impressive completion percentage close to 64 percent.

“It’s always hard to replace a quarterback as good as Solomon. He was really the main part of our offense and had a great passing year last year.

The next person in line really has to step up and that will be [senior] Eric Morgenstern,” coach Mark Strasser said.

Standing at a mere 5’8” compared to Quinn at 6’1” and having not received any playing time at the quarterback position last year, people may question whether or not

Morgenstern will be able to thrive in the role. “Obviously filling in Solomon’s shoes will be very challenging since he was such a great quarterback and had such an outstanding season last year, but I definitely think I’m up for the challenge.

I have experience running the offense and I know what to do.

I’ve been a quarterback since I was eight when I played flag football, so I’m used to being a quarterback,” Morgenstern said.

The return of senior running back Cooper Weaver after breaking his ankle in the middle of season will definitely take some pressure off of Morgenstern. Weaver recorded an astounding 14 touchdowns in only seven games.

The Peglegs suffered without their running back in the lineup, as they went 5-1 with him but only 1-3 without him.

“My recovery was slow and difficult. It took all of the summer but I’m 100 percent

cleared and ready to go for football,” Weaver said.

While the Peglegs regain one of the most important pieces of their team, they will also lose senior and starting center Mark Norwich for the season. Norwich had to undergo surgery for a blood clot that was non-football related.

“Mark not only snapped almost perfectly as our starting center but was [also] possibly our best offensive lineman.

Losing him means there’s a huge hole in our offensive line.

Our other lineman are going to really have to step it up and make up for this,” senior wide receiver Kyler Chase said.

The current offensive line consists of seniors Andreas Wang and Akira Taniguchi, as well as juniors Randolph Higgins, Paul Lim and Dillon Zhang. Wang and Taniguchi played nine and seven games, respectably, so experience will not be a problem for them. Of the juniors however, only Higgins played in more than one game on the JV team.

The Peglegs also lost former co-captain Michael Mazzeo, who was one of their best wide receivers, and co-captain Kevin Chen, who played linebacker and running back last year, to graduation. Mazzeo received for 715 yards and five total touchdowns while recording 24 tackles on the defensive end. Chen amassed a team-leading 30 tackles. The Peglegs, however, are confident that they have the talent to step up and deliver. “[Junior] Henry Takizawa was on junior varsity last seacontinued on page 22

Two Minutes with Mr. Moran The Spectator Sports department would like to welcome Brian Moran as the new AP of Physical Education. The following is the transcript of a two-minute conversation we had with Mr. Moran while walking from his fifth floor office to the second floor programming office.

See what he thinks about whales, dolphins, and going head to head with Lev Akabas on the basketball court.

A: Annique Wong (Sports Editor) M: Mr. Moran L: Lev Akabas (Editor-in-chief) A: What’s your favorite color?

M: That’s all you want to know?

A: No, we have four other questions!

L: We just want to learn some things about you.

M: Like what?

A: Like, if you were an animal what would you be and why?

M: Oh my goodness! Okay, my favorite color is… blue.

A: Why? M: Because I’m a Giants fan.

A: Oh. Is that your favorite sports team?

M: Yes. A: So, if you were an animal what would you be and why?

M: An animal, huh? A dolphin.

A: Why? M: I don’t know, because they’re fun.

A: What about whales?

M: Whales? Eh, dolphins are faster.

A: Are they? What about sharks?

M: What else?

A: Do you have a hidden talent?

M: I can juggle.

A: Really? How many? Juggle what?

M: Balls.

A: How many balls?

M: Three.

A: Really?

M: I’m not that good.

A: What phone games do you like to play, if any?

M: Phone games? I don’t have a smartphone.

A: So what do you like to do on the train when you come here, or however you come here?

M: Uh, let’s see. Word mole.

A: You have a Blackberry.

M: Yes I do.

A: Secrets about Mr. Moran! What’s your middle name — you don’t need to answer that.

M: Joseph.

A: Oh my god! He answered that!

L: What’s your favorite sport to play?

M: My favorite sport to play? Hmm. At this stage of my life, it’s probably golf. But it used to be baseball.

A: Do you think you can beat Lev at the next three-point contest? (Lev was the winner of the 2013 BuildOn three-point contest; Mr. Moran came in third place) M: Yes, absolutely.

A: Challenge accepted!

The girls’ swim team has their first official practice as a team at the newly renovated Stuyvesant swimming pool.

continued on page 23

Girls’ Soccer

New Team, Same Goal for Mimbas

Julie Chan / The Spectator

Yi Zhu / The Spectator

Peglegs Confident Despite Changes

Penguins Dive in For Another Season

Paulina Ruta / The Spectator

Boys’ Football

Stuyvesant’s girls’ soccer team practicing at Pier 40.

By Jeffrey Su The Mimbas may have found new life last season after reaching the playoffs for the first time in five years. Their successful season consisted of surprise after surprise, garnering newfound excellence. “Our best win was our first playoff game against Long Island City High School. That was the first game where each player helped set the upbeat tone and fought from the starting whistle,” senior center-midfielder and co-captain Madison Truemner said. The Mimbas defeated Long Island City High School in the first round of the playoffs, capping off a 6-8 season that caught everyone off guard.

Now, the Mimbas must look to fill the holes left by college bound players such as former co-captains Rosalie Campbell and Raquel Brau-Diaz, whom coach Hugh Francis said will “be missed for their readiness and attitude.”

With a new team taking the field this season, the Mimbas will have to work on adjusting their game plan. “This year, our strategy is to focus more on defense, as most of the seniors we lost were defenders,” junior striker Emily Hirtle said.

The Mimbas will also look to improve their technical skills.

“We are focusing a lot more on trapping and dribbling in practice than we were last year, as we have a lot of new players.

This year our strongest players are in midfield, with a lot of fast players on the wings, and I would say we play using that to our advantage,” Hirtle said.

Senior co-captains Madison Truemner and Sophie Gershon will also look to find the right mix of players in order to build a strong lineup. “We’re making adjustments by experimenting with everyone’s positions.

There seems to be a lot of talent in the incoming players, and everyone is adapting really well and working together,” Truemner said.

As for their outlook towards the upcoming season, the Mimbas hope to achieve the same level of success as last season.

Gershon, who saved 36 of 40 shots during last year’s playoffs, said, “Some goals for next season are increased dedication to the team and better fitness, and to again make it to the playoffs.”

The Mimbas are underdogs; there is no doubt about that. After making the playoffs for the first time in five years, however, they have a glimmer of hope and are prepared to continue their recent upward trend.