Volume 104, Issue 12

The Disrespectator

“The 2048 of the student The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper body“

Volume CIV No. 2048

• The recently-opened school store has been suddenly replaced by a UNIQLO in order to earn the school more monetary profit.

• A study on April 1, 2014 showed that the Stuyvesant student body had averaged eight hours of sleep that day.

• The Polar Bear physical education class was reported to have been catching fish in the Hudson River with bear hands.

• The Stuyvesant Environmental Club has issued a new recycling initiative recycling used toilet paper.

• English teacher Kerry Garfinkel is starting to grow hair in order to donate to his favorite charity, Locks of Love.

• Last week, sophomore Ben Gaebler was able to sneak a cup of iced coffee past the Stuyvesant security guards by hiding it in his stomach.

• A few days ago, Shahruz Ghaemi stared at Ms. Hall in the eye for 1.3 seconds, then suddenly disappeared.

• Sophomore Tina Jiang was thrown out of the school library for making noise as she scratched her mosquito bite.

• In a recent email interview, it was revealed that the two-to-four escalator has yet to decide whether it wants to go up or down for the remainder of the year.

“I just want to go up when I’m in a good mood, down when I’m feeling kind of sad, or not work at all when I’m having a really horrible day,” it said.

Drug Abuse Soaring at Day in the Life of a Rat New York Post: Insiders

By Dennis Nenov The journalists at New York’s most prestigious newspaper use paper often, but not for writing—drug use at the offices of The New York Post is soaring, whistleblowers say.

And it’s not just pot. Statistics given to The Spectator by anonymous entities show that police have visited the offices of The New York Post 437 times in the last two years; 420 of those visits were drug-related.

Anonymous sources have supported these statistics.

“People used to brag that they could hammer out an entire story, with fabricated quotes and all, in just ten minutes while high on weed” said an anonymous person we found on the street, who may or may not work at The New York Post. “But today, you have to punch out a story in less than five minutes while high on shrooms in order to get any sort of respect.”

“Oh yea, drug use is totally rampant over at the New York Post’s offices,” an anonymous police officer said.

“Actually, I think it might be even worse there than at Stuyvesant High School.”

The Spectator has also uncovered that this drug use has been going on undetected for years. “When I was a senior, I used to go to their offices every day during the summer

because I had an internship there,” said an anonymous alumnus of some educational institution. “I remember what I saw the first time I walked in: clouds of smoke above every cubicle, an editor using an old newspaper as rolling paper, and a dog trying to light up a crack pipe in one of the corners of the room. I was then immediately told to keep quiet if I wanted to keep my position.”

The Editor-in-Chief of The New York Post, Allan Colin, has been blamed for being a “Tiger Editor” who disdains therapy, creating this hazy atmosphere—an atmosphere that makes even executing simple Google searches to check the name of a high school principal difficult. “The guys over at the Copy department, which is the department responsible for fact-checking, are known for having the best weed. When I was interning, I spent a lot of time satisfying the requests of the department for which I was interning by buying pot from Copy,” the same anonymous alumnus said.

Colin could not be reached for comment, but others at the newspaper did come on the record. “I don’t think... there’s [anything wrong with using drugs or modifying quotes.

How else are we supposed to come up with our creative headlines?]” education correspondent Buisso Gerry said.

Courtesy of Shane Lorenzen / The Spectator

After Close Scrutiny, Selfie Caption Deemed Inaccurate

Lml, our friendship in a nutshell!!1!!

By Shane Lorenzen At 11:45 p.m. on the night of Friday, March 14, 2014, junior Coby Goldberg posted a photo on the Internet featuring himself and fellow junior Emma McIntosh. The photo depicts them with their arms around one another making

stuyspec.com (no, seriously, it works now)

duck faces at the iPhone in Mr. Goldberg’s hand in traditional “selfie” fashion. Mr. Goldberg then went on to caption this photo with the sentence, “Lml, our friendship in a nutshell!!1 !!” before posting it to Facebook and Instagram and making it his Tinder profile picture.

However, upon closer scrutiny, the validity of Mr. Goldberg’s vague and essentially meaningless statement found in the caption has been drawn into question. No doubt written as a sad and drunken attempt to make Mr. Goldberg’s relationship with Ms. McIntosh appear more substantial than it is, critics have said that this photo is, in fact, indicative of nothing whatsoever, and according to esteemed art critic Holland Cotter, “to attempt to levy meaning on any photo of this caliber through a silly caption is a testament to how shallow Mr. Goldberg and those who post similar photos with similar captions really are.”

Expert photographers are equally outraged. “I mean,

seriously. Professionals practice photography their whole lives, go to school for it, eat, sleep, and breath cameras, and even they can only even hope to be able to say one day that they’ve done something like capture the subtle and elusive nature of a human relationship in one photo!” junior and passionate photography fan Justin Strauss said.

“This clown takes five seconds out of a party to snap a selfie on a stupid iPhone and claims he’s done just that! It wasn’t even in focus, damn it!”

The idea that a photo of such vapid subject matter resulting from such poor technical skill could be appraised by anyone, especially its creator, as more than merely “embarrassing to behold,” has shocked western civilization to its very core. Mr. Goldberg, however, seems aloof to such criticism, simply remarking, “The photo got 50 likes in a week!

That’s, like, 10 a day almost!”

Jennifer Leung and Courtesy of Warren Photographic

Newsbeat

March 32, 2048

By Daniel Goynatsky The day starts early for the high school rat. After four hours of making sweet love to 43 separate mates, the rat goes on a quick run to replenish his energy. He quickly scurries to the cafeteria where he indulges in twoweek-old bagels and cheesy cardboard, also known as “Today’s Students’ Breakfast and Lunch.” After his snack he tries to get in a few hours of sleep before he is awoken by the janitors, the rat’s natural enemies, entering the Stuyvesant building at 6:15 sharp. As the school day starts for the students, the workday starts for the rat. Unlike most of the student body, the rat does not procrastinate and is able to maintain basic hygiene.

His first task is to make some friends. The rat runs into Mr.

Waxman’s room and slowly crawls next to freshman Connyr Lu’s leg. As he approaches with a smile, Lu screams at the top of her lungs. The rat is confused because he doesn’t speak her language, but it sounds very flattering. The girl probably noticed his new haircut. “No one notices my haircuts anymore,” sighed the rat, glaring at Clarice, one of his more ratchet girlfriends.

Next the rat needs to get some exercise in; after all he does want to get some at the Sewer After Party. The rat dares to go to the janitor’s closet. The rat enters the shadowy room and expertly maneuvers around the pesticides, traps, a tranquilizer gun, a wig labeled “BM,” and a Chancellor Fariña voodoo doll. continued on page 15

Freshman Caucus Enacts Sweeping Reforms

By Andrew “Ballerina” Wallace and Coby Goldberg “The day Matthew So and Zuhra Tukhtamisheva were elected as Freshman Caucus President and Vice President was the day my life changed forever,” said freshman Zachary Ginsberg, echoing the sentiments of almost everyone else in his grade.

“I knew my voice counted for something in this world.”

Inspired by President Barack Obama and by League of Legends Warrior-Crocodile Renekton, Matthew set out to completely overhaul the Freshman Caucus, and has done just So. Within the first week of being elected, the two young leaders implemented policies not seen at Stuyvesant in years. A toll for Stuyvesant students crossing the Tribeca Bridge was the first enactment of a direct and compulsory student tax since the turn of the century, according to Principal Jie Zhang.

“I was confused at first when I wasn’t allowed onto the bridge during a hailstorm,” Assistant Principal of Security, Safety, and Student Affairs Brian Moran said. “But when I realized that my $2.25 would be going towards the Freshman Caucus Jacuzzi fund, I was

happy to pay up.” Describing the tax as “Change We Can Believe In,” So emphasized that the taxes must always be paid in change and never in cash.

Other dramatic changes include a new policy regarding the escalators. “I felt that having one going up and one going down on each floor was boring and disorienting,” Tukhtamisheva said. “That’s why, from now on, both escalators on each floor will run in the same direction. It’s much more symmetrical that way.”

Finally, So and Tukhtamisheva took on their most daunting and idealistic campaign goal, the reduction of stress and homework levels, with full force. According to many sources, this has been a roaring success. “Ya the other night I didn’t have too much homework I guess,” freshman Jeremy Karson said.

“Four more years, four more years,” he proceeded to chant.

The dynamic political duo has drummed up so much support that they may run for Student Union President and Vice President as sophomores next year. “I’m jealous of those two,” titan Jack Cahn said. “I wish they would share their tips.”

Looking forward, So hopes to end The Spectator’s practice of leaving out parts of quotes at the end of articles. “It’s really important that,” So said.

Page 2

The Spectator ● March 32, 2048

News

By Jacob Faber-Rico Last week, Stuyvesant scientists discovered that electron obesity rates have risen drastically in the last century.

“Shockingly, we found that the rest mass of an electron is about 10-31 kilograms larger than it used to be,” sophomore Yicheng Wang told the Spectator.

The scientists were first alerted to the possibility of electron obesity when Wang noticed a dim lightbulb in the laboratory. “I walked into the lab room for Science Olympiad, and I noticed that the lights were dimmer than usual,” Wang said. “And then I was like, let me try turning on a few more lights, but those light bulbs were dim too! And then a light bulb went off in my head, and it hit me: ‘what if these electrons are just fat as hell?’”

After in-depth investigation using precise tools such as a spark timer and a triple beam balance, the scientists were able to discern that electrons are indeed gaining weight.

“We are uncertain of the cause of this, but we suspect that the rise in popularity of television and the Internet has played a major role. Electrons are living more relaxed and lazy lifestyles,” said sophomore Kevin Yan. “At the same time, they are consuming more and more high-cholesterol photons.”

Wang, however, is not buying it. “On second thought,

they might just be lazy as hell.

I think we should do a little more research before we put the entire sub-atomic world on Weight Watchers,” he said.

Nevertheless, this discovery may explain countless baffling physics phenomena at Stuyvesant, such as malfunctioning bells, the shutdown of the Spectator website, and the 1780% error in junior Eamon Woods’ last lab.

However, the issue extends beyond Stuyvesant: “Ladies and Gentlemen, due to fat electrons in the tracks at Fulton Street, Manhattan-bound A trains are running with delays,” an anonymous MTA conductor reported.

Electronics manufacturers are quickly responding to the crisis. Toshiba has banned the sale of soft drinks in factories, Samsung is beginning a program to educate electrons on the risks of obesity, and Apple has announced that the iPhone 6 will include a builtin treadmill and salad bar.

Even big-name celebrities such as Miley Cyrus have something to say about the finding.

“So they weigh 10-34 kilograms now? Wow, I wish I could be that skinny,” Cyrus told the Spectator in an email interview last week.

“Sucks for Miley, I’m already that skinny,” responded rapper Wiz Khalifa on Twitter.

Unfortunately, notable physicists such as J.J. Thompson and Albert Einstein could not be reached for interview.

School Store to Serve Drinks

By Laszlo Sandler

Throughout the day, students who have free periods or are going to their lockers congregate around what is arguably the most popular hangout location at Stuyvesant: the Senior Bar. Soon, students will have more reason to loiter, as a new bar will be opening up right next to the Senior Bar at the school store. The bar, creatively named ‘The Bar at the School Store,’ is the brainchild of senior Aaron Coppa. It is expected to serve alcoholic beverages. “Most of these kids are over 14, and I’m sure that’s the drinking age somewhere,” said Coppa when asked to explain the reasoning behind serving alcohol. “Besides, most of them have been to the SING! After Party.”

Despite Coppa’s claims, some questions have been raised over the morality and legality of serving alcohol in a school building. However, Assistant Principal of Safety, Security, and Student Affairs Brian Moran has assured students that there’s no problem. “As long as these students don’t use their cell phones while drinking, nothing is wrong,” Moran said.

“Though you really should stop quoting me in every article.”

The bar is going to be staffed by freshmen, who will be hired through the “Buying and Selling Freshies 2017” Facebook group. Freshmen Noah Fichter, one of the soon-to-be bartenders, is excited to start

Nancy Cao / The Spectator

Each year, math nerds and pie enthusiasts alike rejoice when March 14th rolls around. Cherished as the ultimate day of mathematics, students often celebrate by baking pi-shaped pies and wearing shirts with the notorious number endlessly inscribed in the fabric.

However, junior and biology fanatic James Lu, whilst engaging in his usual Saturday night “internet pleasuring session,” discovered that March 14th is also Learn About Butterflies Day. “This revelation is the greatest news I’ve heard since the research that

proved the interdisciplinary approach combining computer modeling with structural studies and biological validation can challenge the drugs that inhibit endonuclease,” Assistant Principal of Biology Elizabeth Fong said. The Biology Department immediately created a petition on change.org to officially celebtrate the new holiday. The petition was a huge success, exceeding the expected 31 signatures in as few as 13 hours.

Mayor Bill de Blasio was informed about the popular petition and decided to take action. With the assistance of his trusted friend and fellow butterfly fanatic Brian Moran, De Blasio organized a parade for the new holiday and officially declared March 14th to

cited about the opening of the bar. “It’s tiring to have to deal with these kids all day,” social studies teacher Michael Waxman said. “So it’s great to know that I’ll be able to relax and have a beer between classes.” Rumors are circling that extra credit will be given out to students who buy drinks for their teachers.

If the bar is successful, the store may start expanding the number of items on offer, venturing into areas such as firearms and drugs. “It’s all about the consumers and what they want,” principal Jie Zhang said. “If students want to open their minds by lighting up a doobie during their frees, as an institution of ‘higher learning’ we need to provide them with the materials to do so.”

Pledge of Allegiance Recited Without a Hitch

By Dennis Nenov The recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance last Friday during Social Studies teacher Robert Sandler’s third period history class was flawless. “I think for whatever reason, either because they wanted to demonstrate their love of America or because they wanted to avoid taking my test, my students really gave it their all that period,” Sandler said.

“It was a great rendition.

No one forgot the parts about

Masses Sweep the Streets to Celebrate Learn About Butterflies Day

By David Cahn, with additional reporting by Coby Goldberg and Daniel Goynatsky

working. “This’ll be great,” said Fichter when asked about his new job. “I’m very happy to be able to complete my community service requirement during my free periods. Besides, I’ve heard that all the hot seniors are going to hang out there.”

The general consensus regarding the bar is positive, although some of the more miserly students are worried about how much drinks will cost. Students are hoping that the drinks sold at the bar will be of a better value than the snacks sold at the cafeteria vending machines, where $1 can buy a total of five Doritos. “I better get at least a spoonful of beverage for my dollar,” senior Zane Birenbaum said, when asked what a fair price for beverages would be.

Many teachers are also ex-

Hayoung Ahn and Courtesy of Monster Marketplace

Alisa Su / The Spectator

Electrons Too Obese to Generate Electricity

be Learn About Butterflies Day. Masses charged the streets in excitement. Spongebob fans with butterfly nets, biology students with their “I wish I was adenine, so I could get paired with U” tshirts, and excited Park Slope moms who want their kids to learn about biology in order to farm organics better all rushed onto the sidewalks to watch the parade, which actually released 10,000 butterflies onto the streets of Manhattan. “Not only are these butterflies going to help the aesthetics of the city, but these kids don’t get out of the city often,” de Blasio said. “They probably have not seen butterflies just like they haven’t seen cows!” At press time he was patting himself on his shoulder for a job well done.

“It’s not always easy to find a way to convey my love for butterflies,” Moran said. “Those beautiful little creatures always warm my heart.” Moran, who co-founded the butterfly appreciation club at his air-force base back in ‘Namghanistan, confiscated his first ID on the same day that he first saw a butterfly die. “Confiscating IDs is the only thing that fills the void in my heart when I don’t have a scrumptious little butterfly in my hand,” Moran said.

Following a rousing speech

by De Blasio, the masses began their procession down Broadway, discussing butterflies and rejoicing as they went.

justice for God and one nation under liberty,” junior Brian Heo said. “And my vocal chords were at their peak. I just felt pure and uncut patriotism racing through my veins as I recited the pledge with my classmates.”

Students attributed much of the success to the invigorating tone of senior and student announcer Clay Walsh. “Clay’s voice is so deep and strong—I even stopped drinking coffee because his voice was powerful enough to wake me up,” junior Scott Ma said. “The way he

paused before the word ‘indivisible’ nearly moved me to tears.”

The recital caught the ear of Chorus Director Holly Hall, who almost considered recruiting the entire class for chorus.

“I was walking by and, for a brief five seconds, it sounded like Beethoven’s ninth—if it were written by an American.

But then I realized that it was just a bunch of kids saying the Pledge. It wasn’t anything special, but it wasn’t bad,” Hall said.

Students Receive Brochures on How to Handle Their Parents

By Sumaita Mahmood and Winton Yee

Throughout the past few weeks, a large number of Stuyvesant students have been seen making their way to the doors of P.S. 89 instead of the Tribeca Bridge in the mornings. This can be explained by the fact that, this year, the New York City Public School Disciplinary Code was altered slightly to add a new level of disciplinary measures.

While there had previously been five levels of disciplinary action, a sixth one has been instituted for the specific offense of peeing on the toilet seat, the punishment for which is expulsion.

Junior Adam Yu was flushed with terror when he was called to the guidance office over the intercom. “I had no idea what was going on. But reality sprayed all over me when I walked into guidance, and there was Mr. Moran and Ms. Zhang. I was absolutely terrified. There was this FBI agent there who specifically told me, ‘You’re in trouble.’”

Although many students were shocked to be sent to guidance, others had different reactions. “I was really pissed off,” junior Eric Wong said. “I was never told what I had done. I’ve been attending P.S. 89 for two weeks, but I didn’t know why until now. At least I can now excel at basketball

because I play against kids who are two feet shorter than I am.”

Finally, on March 18, The Urine Crisis escalated to the point where over 85 students and teachers had been caught urinating on the seats. An anonymous janitor proclaimed his joy at the change.

“This is the happiest day of my life. To be honest, I always say that I enjoyed my wedding, but in reality I didn’t,” the janitor said.

“It’s been a long time, and I’ve finally pinpointed which individuals have been peeing on the damn toilet seats. It was simple, really.

I replaced the flush buttons in the bathroom with one way mirrors, but then I put cameras behind them. Every night I’ve been watching the previous day’s recordings.

I used facial recognition software linked to the Stuyvesant database to determine just who the guilty parties were. Every day I can send more and more kids to our neighboring school, until the only people left are those smart enough to not use the bathroom. Those are the ones who will be the leaders of tomorrow. I simply do my part.”

There has been a rash of complaints against the disciplinary action taken for students caught urinating on the seat. “I wasn’t peeing on the seat,” senior Sean Toodle said. “I was simply marking my territory. I literally own the toilets seats of the third-floor bathroom, and everyone must respect that.”

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume CIV No. 12

April 1, 2014

Newsbeat • Sophomore Jong Kim will be one of 1,000 students taking the National Examination of the Chemistry Olympiad in late April. The 20 top scorers will compete for spots on the American Chemistry Olympiad team.

• The Robotics Team made it to the quarterfinals of the Buckeye Regional FIRST Robotics Competition in Cleveland. Though this does not qualify the team for the World Championships, the team will get another chance at the New York City regional tournament.

• Social Studies and Economics teacher Catherine McRoy-Mandell was awarded a Gilder-Lehrman summer seminar fellowship, assisting her in her research into financial markets and economics using the archival holdings of various New York City public institutions.

• Ten Stuyvesant students made it to the semifinalist round of the Biology Olympiad. The top 20 semifinalists will compete for the four spots on the American Biology Olympiad team.

• Forty Stuyvesant students competed in the annual New York City Science and Engineering Fair (NYCSEF). Many of these students continued to win high distinctions and honors. Seniors Soham Daga, Libby Ho, Waqarul Islam, Lily Lee, and junior Mika Jain qualified for the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).

stuyspec.com

Changes Planned for AP STC Spring Comedy Runs Early Due to Scheduling US History and AP Conflict European History Exams

By Julia Ingram

By Hyun Jin Kim and David Mascio

The College Board is planning sweeping changes to the AP US History and European History courses. The new AP US History exam will be released in May 2015 and the new AP European History exam will be released in May 2016.

According to the College Board website, the redesigns maintain “strong alignment with the knowledge and skills taught in introductory courses at the college level, and also offer teachers the flexibility to focus on specific historical topics, events, and issues in depth.”

The changes are part of a broader attempt to realign the American education system and its assessments to meet the Common Core standards, which are meant to better prepare students for college by emphasizing critical thinking over memorization. The standards, adopted by 45 states including New York, were developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association.

Currently, the AP US History and AP European History exams consist of 80 multiple-choice questions, a document-based question, and two long-essay questions.

Based on the new changes, the number of multiple-choice questions on the exams will decrease to 55. The new questions will focus less on testing knowledge and more on interpreting historical documents. A sample new question for AP European History asks students to analyze a short passage by a historian about the French Revolution.

The future exams will include a new short-answer section with four questions. The short-answer questions are meant to “focus on students’ use of particular historical thinking skills,” according to a College Board presentation. A sample question for AP US History

asks students to choose which one of the listed events best represents the start of an American identity.

The question also asks students to explain how another listed event is a worse answer. Through the short-answer questions and other question types, the new exams will now directly assess specified general themes, such as identity and the physical environment.

There are no major changes planned to the document-based question or the long-essay questions. However, to compensate for the added section, the exams will have only one thematic essay instead of two. Despite the omitted questions, the new exams will be 10 minutes longer, bringing the total length of each exam to 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Reaction to the changes among staff was mixed. “It’s good to see the College Board moving towards what the International Baccalaureate offers,” history teacher David Hanna said. “Multiple-choice questions don’t give students a chance to substantially develop their skills.”

With a less exact AP curriculum, “I would love to devote more class time to historiography [the study of the writing of the history],” he said.

History teacher Josina Dunkel was less optimistic. “I’m old-school about knowledge. I like how students are expected to know a range of material for the current test,” she said.

Some prospective AP US History students like the idea of the modified exams. “It’s good they’re changing it, because history is not a subject that can be learned just by memorizing a million people and events,” said a sophomore who wished to remain anonymous. “If teachers focus more on the reasons and motives behind historical events and help us think why something happened, a lot more kids are going to get 5’s and 4’s.”

Big Sib Chairs 14-15

The new Big Sib chairs are (from left to right) Sydney Caputo, Franco Caputo, Jasmine Thomas, Harmehar Kohli, and Chris Kim.

Features

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

Article on page 8.

The “Good” School Conundrum In response to the C that Stuyvesant High School received for Environment on this year’s school report card, the Features Departments sets out to investigate, with an all-encompassing article analyzing the atmospheres of different public high schools around the city.

In the wake of yet another hectic SING! season, many actors were looking forward to a much-needed period of relaxation before their next theatrical production, the Stuyvesant Theater Community’s (STC) Spring Comedy. However, they were surprised to find that preparations for the Spring Comedy were already up and running only a week after the SING! performances due to a scheduling conflict with the theater. Pressed for time, the directors had to organize, recruit a cast, and rehearse in under three weeks.

The performances for the STC’s Spring Comedy usually takes place in late May, with the show’s rehearsals starting in mid-April. This year, music instructor Holly Hall reserved the theater for chorus sectionals for the majority of April. This sandwiched the STC’s performance in a three-week block between SING! and the first performance of the Spring Comedy, scheduled for Thursday, April 3.

The Spring Comedy this year will be based off of the play “Pygmalion,” a public domain production, which means no payment is needed for the rights to perform it. The choice to per-

form the play was partially influenced by the time crunch, as the STC Slate, the three members who manage the organization (seniors Israt Hossain and Rose Mintzer-Sweeney, and junior Claire Burghard), did not have time to go through the process of purchasing the rights to use a privately owned play.

However, “Pygmalion” was being considered before they found out about the scheduling conflict. “We love the show; it’s not like we did this because we felt we had to. It’s something we were thinking about, but it definitely narrowed down our options,” Burghard said. Many other aspects of the production were handled in a rushed fashion, as well. Director auditions were only one day before cast auditions, allowing little time for the directors to think about their visions for the play as they normally would.

Additionally, the STC faced some issues with casting.

Some students didn’t try out or dropped out of the show because they feared that there would not be enough time to create a good performance.

“There was so little time, so I felt continued on page 2

Project Ink Participants Aim to Write Novel

by Ariel Levy and Henry Walker

Project Ink was born on the ninth floor of Stuyvesant during what started as a typical February day, filled with the usual routine of classes, homework, and exams.

Juniors Frankie Li and Adam Aharoni were discussing their English classes and shared passion for writing, when a unique and exciting idea came upon them. As Project Ink began to take shape in their minds, Li grew increasingly enthusiastic. By the end of the conversation, “I was screaming pretty loudly,” Li said. They wanted to spread their enthusiasm for writing, and they believed that there were others who had the same energy for it. “We wanted a way to connect with others who share our passion and we knew that at a school with so many creative minds we could definitely pull something like this off collectively,” Aharoni said.

The aim of Project Ink is to create an original novel by stringing together stories contributed by multiple Stuyvesant students, who collaborate to create a single story told from different perspectives.

The cofounders specifically chose to have multiple writers because each team member would contribute different creative possibilities. “A group writing a novel, that was the allure and the challenge,” Li said. Currently, anyone who is Article on page 18.

willing to dedicate some time is able to join Project Ink. However, if the cofounders find that their group of writers becomes too large, they will create a selection process. Li, however, is not very concerned about the quality of writing contributed. “If you’re going to go out of your way to go join a writing club, then chances are your writing is pretty good,” Li said.

Many people who joined Project Ink are very passionate about writing, and see Project Ink as a way to develop as a writer as well as an opportunity to write more formally. This includes participating freshman Namra Zulfiqar.

“I love to write and want to one day publish a novel of my own.

Working with others will lessen the burden on any one person and promote create a wider range of ideas to be incorporated into the novel,” she said.

In searching for a novel subject, Li and Aharoni discussed ideas that would allow the intersection of many separate views. While Project Ink writers are still working on the core plotline, the general topic at the moment is a satire of a utopian or dystopian society. Once the overall story is established, each of the project members will contribute a different chapter, written from the perspective of continued on page 2

Arts and Entertainment

Brian Yorkey Discusses “If/Then,” Idina Menzel, and the Writing Process Can’t get enough of “Frozen”? Idina Menzel makes an appearance once again in her upcoming Broadway show “If/Then”. In addition to a review of this powerful new show, Editor-in-Chief Lev Akabas scores an interview with Tony-Award-winning writer and lyricist Brian Yorkey.

Page 4

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

News Project Ink Participants Aim to Write Novel continued from page 1

a unique character. Most of the writing is completed at home, and during weekly meetings the writers peer edit work and fit it together.

Li cited his English classes at Stuyvesant as a major part of his inspiration for Project Ink. “[Stuyvesant] is usually associated with being amazing at math and science,” Li said. “Not many people know that we have the strongest English department in the city with some of the most inspirational people you’ll ever meet.” In particular, English teacher Holly Schechter has contributed greatly to Li’s love of writing. Additionally, Li is in contact with poet Jason Koo, who read at Stuyvesant last month.

“Even though all our ideas, voices, and perceptions are so different, I believe it can be done.” — Frankie Li, junior and cofounder of Project Ink

In fact, Project Ink has received significant support from the Stuyvesant English department faculty, including Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman.

“While I know they wanted to do something distinct from Caliper and other writing organizations, I hope that it will contribute to and foster the Stuyvesant writing community,” Grossman said.

He hopes participants will foster connections with other students enthusiastic about writing.

The cofounders are hoping to finish the project by May 31, 2014.

Upon completion, Li and Aharoni plan on submitting the novel to publishers. Principal Jie Zhang offered to publish the novel herself for Stuyvesant if the writers are unable to find any other publishers.

After finishing this project, Li and Aharoni plan on continuing to create novels with Project Ink. In November, they anticipate on writing another book for the National Novel Writing Month competition.

Otherwise known as NaNoWriMo, this competition requires that participants write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Last year, more than 440,000 people submitted their work to the competition.

Over 250 NaNoWriMo submissions have been traditionally published since its foundation in 1991.

Though the goals for Project Ink seem extremely ambitious, Li is optimistic about it. “As long as we have a framework it all flows together,” Li said. “Even though all our ideas, voices, and perceptions are so different, I believe it can be done.”

STC Spring Comedy Runs Early Due to Scheduling Conflict continued from page 1

like it wouldn’t be prepared,” senior Michael Sugarman said.

Sugarman dropped out of the play after two days of rehearsals.

Many students also chose not to try out because the show was so soon after SING!. “A lot of people kind of just need that recovery for themselves and also for academic reasons. Staying until 8:00 every day for four months is a little bit too much for people.” Burghard said. The STC also had a limited time to advertise the show by putting posters up throughout the school, but they were still able to attract people to auditions using Facebook advertising.

Furthermore, six actors, including those playing the three male leads and the female lead, had to drop the play because of failing grades, as it is the STC’s policy to not accept any actors with either one U or two N’s. “It’s really sad that the original actors can’t perform in the play because of their grades,” junior and cast director Harmehar Kohli said.

This set the STC back even further, as it forced the directors to recruit new cast members and re-block scenes. “We got pretty talented new actors, and they’ve helped us out by learning their lines quickly,” sophomore and cast director Nicole Rosengurt said. “But we basically just lost rehearsal days, because we had

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“It’s really sad that the original actors can’t perform in the play because of their grades.”

— Harmehar Kohli, junior and cast director to find the new actors really fast and then work with them.”

In order to compensate for the lack of time, STC rehearsals have to run until around 7-8:00 PM every night. “In the beginning, there isn’t any reason to stay until 8 because you need to build up to it, but for this show, since we had such limited time, we’re starting to go into, like, 7 or 8:00.” Burghard said.

Beyond the casting problems, the STC found they would not have enough time to create new costumes for the show. “This

is the first time we’ve had to use all old costumes from previous shows,” junior and costumes director Eliza Hripcsak said.

Additionally, they will not be able to build the set they had previously mapped out. “We definitely had to move much quicker, and we can’t have as an elaborate set as we thought we could,” Rosengurt said.

However, some members of the STC think that the difference in time may not be as great as others believe. “STC [shows] never really have long periods of time for shows. In my freshman year we did ‘Cisco’ in only about three weeks,” junior and actress Nadia Saleh said. “So I think it’s the same kind of rushed schedule that we’re used to at this point.”

Despite the challenges the STC faced, the directors, cast, and crew are working hard to make “Pygmalion” as successful as they can in the limited amount of time. “It’s actually coming along really well. Our cast is working really, really hard; some of our actors are already off-book, so I think that the fact that there’s less time makes it harder, but it’s not going to affect the quality of the show,” Rosengurt said.

Kohli agreed. “When there’re problems, we just get around to it, so I’m really thankful to the cast and producers we’ve really pulled through even though there has been so many obstacles for this show.”

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

Page 5

Features

By Kachun Leung and Lisa Shi, with additional reporting by Huwon Kim A Stuyvesant student comes home on Wednesday evening, quickly runs to the computer, and starts playing his favorite game. He takes a quick glance at the clock and it’s around six o’clock. “I’ll just play for an hour,” he tells himself. The next thing he knows, it’s 10 o’clock.

He’s been playing for hours, and the student starts to panic at the fact that he hasn’t done his homework yet and he has a history test the next day. This student is just one of the many Stuyvesant students obsessed with the game League of Legends. League of Legends, which is also, called League or LoL, is a massively multiplayer online role playing game that has taken Stuyvesant by storm. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to go down a Stuyvesant hallway without passing at least one student who plays. It’s a game that’s become incredibly popular, from its interesting fiveon-five battles to its ranked competition and its amazing artwork for character skins, but it’s also known for pulling students away from class.

In League of Legends, players are matched up together into two teams. Each team is placed on opposite side of the playing field near an object referred to as a “Nexus”. The objective of the game is to capture the opposing team’s “Nexus.”

Players also control characters known as “Champions,” which gain experience by killing minions (non-playable characters that attack the team) or by killing other “Champions.”

For serious players, gaming is no joke. Several Stuyvesant students are willing to play League for hours on end, playing for up to four continuous hours per day. This is not surprising, however, seeing as how each round of the game lasts at least 30 minutes. “Games are very distracting, you say ‘I’ll just play for one more hour’, but you end up playing three hours,” stated an anonymous player.

Some play several rounds a day, every day of the week, and often spend their weekends playing “hardcore,” which refers to them playing several hours a day and playing harder levels and ranks. “I play 3-4 hours a day,” sophomore Oscar Ngan explained. “But really it depends on how busy I am. On

weekends, I’m on all day.”

These students have trouble managing their time between playing, doing school work, and studying. “I remember I had a math quiz the other month, but I never studied for it. Needless to say I didn’t do so well on it,” said one player who wished to be anonymous due to his discomfort at telling others about his negative experience. He admits that he regrets the amount of time he spent playing and wishes he devoted more time to his studies. “Although I never failed any of my classes...I wish I could [have done] better or I could have spent more time doing other things,” he explained.

Many students use the game as a way of pretending to be someone else for a while. “It is easy to express yourself in League. An outlet for self expression is much appreciated in games, even if the players are unaware. You can easily form your own identity in League and have everyone know it, just by how you play.

The fantasy champions provide are very cool too, and I know many people love settling into the roles they play,” said senior and president of the Stuyvesant League Circuit Alan Jiang. Other students play League because it’s an outlet for their frustration. “Kids can vent out their anger [in League of Legends] and there are parts when its fun to win a game, you just feel accomplished,” said sophomore Diana Yuan. She plays as a way to get out her frustration from the day.

Some students relate League of Legends to their lives in other ways. “Stuyvesant students are competitive, and they fit right into League because it is similarly competitive,” junior Bonny Truong said.

Some students are attracted to League as a way of socializing with other individuals within their community of gamers.

Truong explains, “[League]’s very conducive to playing with friends and comparing abilities, and it generates so much to talk about.” The game has become so popular that there are two groups on Facebook where students can discuss game tactics and share ideas. One of these groups, the Stuyvesant League Circuit, which is also a club in Stuyvesant, meets to discuss matters involving the game. Jiang, the president of the club, explained, “a lot of the players in Stuy[vesant] didn’t play before coming to Stuy[vesant].

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Stuy Leaguers: Inside the World of Gamers

Also, despite the pervasiveness of League in Stuy[vesant], players often only talk to a few other players. I wanted to make a club where they could talk to each other without having to be apprehensive, because the non players can still be condescending or disapproving of it.”

But, despite the idea of a club where League players can interact, several people find the idea of attending a club annoying. “Why would I stick around after school when I could go home and start playing League instead?” asked Ngan, which is an opinion that several other Stuyvesant League players share. Although he appreciates the community, Ngan and several other League players would rather play League than discuss it.

Not only is there a growing community of male League players, but the game has also garnered a large following with female fans, and the acknowledgement of the existence of female gamers is on the rise today. It might be surprising to some that girls are playing League of Legends, given the rather unpopular opinion of them amongst some gamers and the stereotype that most gamers are male. “They don’t actually give us any credit. They say, ‘oh you’re a girl gamer, you’re going to lose,’” an anonymous female player stated.

She confesses to having been harassed over the internet by other gamers before, but she refuses to give up. “Some girls aren’t used to violence,” she explained when listing reasons why certain girls might choose not to play League. Despite its unsavory community towards females, in Stuyvesant there are just as many serious “girl gamers” as there are boy gamers.

One of these “girl gamers” is

biology teacher Jessica Quenzer. She first started playing when she went to Penny Arcade Expo East, a festival held yearly in Boston that celebrates gaming culture, where she met with representatives from the game and decided to try it out. Quenzer, like a lot of student gamers, finds it tough to balance gaming and work. “I don’t get to play as much as I’d like nowadays.

During the academic year, my gaming time diminishes substantially. League battles take too long, and I have lessons to plan and work to grade!” said Quenzer in an email interview.

However, when she does play, she sets limits to the amount of time she spends playing. “I had a specific block of time for playing, and when that ended, I logged out. If my teammates didn’t log on when they were supposed to, I logged out,” she said.

However, Quenzer brought up an important point about the balance between gaming and school. It’s hard not to play, especially when each round can last for an hour. “I’ve had students who played [World of Warcraft] or League heavily - it’s not an excuse for not completing homework, or doing poorly on an exam. Academics come first!” Quenzer explained.

But most Stuyvesant students admit that it’s hard to keep from playing for long hours. “There are some times on the weekends where I’m like, I’ll play one game, and I end up playing the entire day, so that doesn’t help [my studies] a lot.

I try to stay away from playing on school days. Some people play on school days, though,” Truong said.

Most players face problems with their families about how long they play games. For some students it’s pressure about not

studying when they are playing, while for others, it’s about parents being uncomfortable about the number of hours their children spend on games.

“I can only play two [to] three games a week because of workload, and Stuy[vesant], and my mom. She puts a lot of pressure on my studies, so I tend to stay away from playing on weekdays,” explained Yuan. For her, her mom’s presence is a way to keep her focus on schoolwork.

Sometimes parent interactions aren’t the best experiences either. “If they see me- if they hear me screaming from my room, they know I’m playing League. And then they’ll come in and start yelling at me,” Truong said.

Even though playing may be troublesome for some individuals and could be time consuming, the game has not been without its benefits for some players. “Playing with a team in League honed my strategy sense and taught me a lot about leading teams. It also trained me in fast decision making and taught me the art of remaining calm when everything is flying your way,” Jiang said. Truong agreed, adding that, “in general, people always say that video games help improve your reaction times and risk analysis. You have to think, is it worth it to do this or is it too much of a risk?”

Yet, even when there are so many positive and negative aspects affecting the lives of League players, the time spent on the game is worth it to the players. As long as the game still stays fun and entertaining to them, League players will keep playing. As one player puts it, “when I have a game that I want, I just keep playing until I get bored. And up until now, I haven’t gotten bored.”

Page 6

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

Features

Senior Eun Oh was awarded a New York Times scholarship for overcoming personal hardships.

By Ariella Kahan When life gave senior Eun Oh lemons, she made lemonade.

The “lemons” came in the form of a “unique experience in [South] Korea as a disabled person,” as Oh put it. Oh has cerebral palsy, a condition that impairs muscle coordination, and was bullied by her peers and teachers throughout elementary school because of it. In one instance, Oh remembers her homeroom teacher in her South Korean school hitting all of the lefties in the class. “It is an Asian mentality that being a righty is being better than a lefty so she tried to correct this,” Oh explained. Oh, who is a lefty because of her disability, had her mother send in a note explaining to the teacher that it is not Oh’s fault she is a lefty. The teacher “stopped punishing me but she continued with other kids who were also lefties so they were like ‘oh you’re different from us.’ And a kid asked my teacher why is it so different and she just said ‘well she is disabled so it’s different,’” Oh recounted.

Oh’s troubles were not limited to narrow-minded homeroom teachers. In fact, they arose everywhere, as the South Korean emphasis on conformity did not leave much room for the disabled. “In Korea it is hard to live with a disability,” Oh said matterof-factly. “On the streets they stared at me like crazy. It always hurt me in some way.”

Throughout elementary school, Oh reminisced about a trip she had taken to America during her winter break when she was six. During this monthlong vacation, she attended an English language school, an experience that was radically different from Oh’s school in Korea. “[The English school] was on the second floor. The teacher had to escort me so I wouldn’t get hurt.

But that wasn’t the case in Korea.

In my kindergarten I had to cling for my life on the railing, kids ran over me sometimes,” Oh explained.

The sharp contrast between school in South Korea and in America stuck with Oh for a long time. When she was in fourth grade Oh decided to take another trip to America. She flew alone, and the intended vacation ended up being extended to a four-year stay. Any doubts Oh had about the fourteen-hour flight were outweighed by her need to get out of Korea and to escape the unjust treatment she received from her classmates. “I had suffered for a year, with kids calling me turtle, slow. At that time you do tag and I wouldn’t be able to participate...

It was a hard thing,” she said.

Oh deeply enjoyed living with her aunt in Queens, and though she did not speak to her parents often, she felt at home in the United States. “My aunt and I have a special relationship—it’s not an ordinary aunt-and-niece relationship. I feel more protected under her,” Oh said. While Oh’s parents turned their heads

away when Oh was being treated badly, her aunt cared for her.

Her aunt has paid for all of Oh’s education and living expenses throughout her time living with her in America, while her parents have not contributed anything.

While Oh was happy with life in America with her aunt, Oh’s parents did not approve of her living in the United States away from them. “They had stable jobs in Korea so they couldn’t move here. First of all, they don’t speak English. They were like, ‘I can’t leave the country for you,’” Oh explained without a trace of bitterness in her voice. Though Oh understood her parents’ situation, she resented the fact that she had to return to Korea. “I had to make the decision of leaving here, though against my will,” she said.

“I went back and lived [in Korea] for three and a half years but there was a gap I couldn’t possibly close. I’m too Americanized,” Oh explained. Oh’s “Americanization” arose from her expectation to be treated fairly in Korea, as she had been in America. However, the lack of accommodations available to those with disabilities left her expectations unfulfilled.

Though Oh thrived academically, she felt separated from her classmates. One situation that emphasized how unaccepted Oh was arose in Physical Education.

“There weren’t any guidelines for disabled children. I couldn’t do soccer or badminton [so] teachers decided to give a new guideline to score me, but other kids had problems with that,” Oh said. “I was once dragged into the bathroom, saying that I didn’t deserve the grade.”

Oh did not remain in Korea for long. In April of 2011, Oh’s dad suddenly told her she was going to return to Queens. Boarding a flight ten days after this announcement, Oh quickly transitioned back into life in America.

She attended a Jewish school in Long Island for the remainder of the year, and upon hearing she could transfer to Stuyvesant, she spent a month studying for the SHSAT. Oh was accepted, and she enrolled in Stuyvesant as an incoming sophomore.

“It is fascinating that I could be respected for my intellectual ability rather that my physical ability [at Stuyvesant]. This school is like a treasure box,” Oh said. Rather than being alienated for her differences, Oh is very respected among her friends and teachers at Stuyvesant. “Eun [Oh] is one of the strongest and most inspirational people I’ve ever met. In my opinion, family support is crucial to a child’s growth and development, and she never really had that. But instead of crying about it, she picked herself up to start anew here in America,” Oh’s friend and senior Julia Eng said.

This respect is not limited to the Stuyvesant community. Oh has gained wide recognition for her successes. She is a recipient of the New York Times College Scholarship, an award given to kids who managed to power through rough situations in life.

English teacher Katherine Fletcher, who taught Oh’s Science Writing class, knew Oh’s background and was very impressed by her work ethic. She recommended that Oh apply for this scholarship, and Oh was delighted when she heard she received it.

In addition to a free laptop and a six week mentoring program in the Times office, the scholarship provides its recipients with up to $7,500 per year in college aid. This last component is especially important to Oh as her parents are not planning on financing her college education.

“They have the ability to support me but they don’t want to, because of my disability,” Oh said.

“When I got this I was like ‘oh my

god, I got it! At least I think I can go to college.’ And a lot of people were telling me I don’t need to go to college. So I was like ‘yeah, in your face!’”

In college, Oh hopes to study political science, which she laughingly defined as “government stuff.” This choice of major is due to both Oh’s natural love of history, enhanced by her history teachers Robert Sandler and Kerry Trainor, and her wish to understand, and maybe change, the situation in South Korea. Oh explained that while South Korea is hugely successful economically, it is behind other countries in its social welfare programs.

Minorities such as disabled kids and foreign brides have little protection under the law. “There are incidences of sexual assault to disabled kids in facilities. We know it and they don’t know how to fix it. I’m very angry about the situation and I want to understand to be less angry, to be more comprehensive about how to alleviate this situation. I don’t mean to learn about a big thing, I don’t think I could do such a big thing, but maybe I can contribute something to that society,” she said.

Oh’s lack of resentment towards South Korea, despite the difficulties that she encountered there makes her an especially remarkable person. Noting that she seemed like the type of person one might read about on Humans of New York, I concluded our interview with one of Brandon Stanton’s trademark questions: if you were to give a piece of advice to a large group of people, what would it be? Unsurprisingly, Oh responded quite wisely: “There is always a loss and a gain in life.

There isn’t one side to it. For me, it was a rollercoaster. There were ups and downs and twists and turns but if you feel like you are going to give up, don’t give up. It’s cliché but true,” she said.

The F Word

By Alexia Bacigalupi With 60,000 followers on Twitter, five books, two Wikipedia pages, and one major website, Jessica Valenti, Stuyvesant alumna (’96), has made a name for herself as a major feminist speaker and writer, with work published in The Nation, Guardian US, Ms. and The Washington Post.

From a young age, Valenti was involved in the feminist movement, attending a pro-choice march, against her mother’s wishes, when she was just 13.

The feeling of solidarity among the women there and the cruel insults of those (mostly male, she remembered) who were protesting the march, made it very clear to Valenti that “this is the correct side for [her] to be on,” she said.

Valenti channeled this passion and drive through writing, although she spent more time hanging out in the hallways and writing teenage musings in her journal than going to class in Stuyvesant. “It was very dramatic and not behavior I would recommend,” she said. However, one of the classes she did attend was English. “I was obsessed with Shakespeare class […] there is a lot of feminist undercurrents in what Shakespeare wrote. That also got me thinking about that sort of stuff,” she said.

In the ‘90s, Stuyvesant was surrounded by a maelstrom of accusations of inappropriate behavior on the part of male teachers toward female students, resulting in the suspension of at least three teachers. “It definitely shaped who I was as a person, when teachers who are the people who are supposed to be interested in your moral development and intellectual stuff are being not appropriate,” said Valenti, who experienced inappropriate advances from a teacher firsthand, as a teacher called several days after graduation to ask her out.

She was 17, he in his late 30s.

Despite several uncomfortable situations, Stuyvesant was an enjoyable experience, compared to her college pursuits.

New Orleans, where Valenti attended Tulane for a year, proved to be culture shock for a girl who was born and raised in New York City. “Sexism still existed there and racism still existed there […]

I had always thought of those things as remnants of an older generation,” she said. Neither Tulane nor SUNY Albany, which she transferred to afterwards, was “as good as Stuyvesant.” “Even if I was not particularly interested in going to class, all Stuyvesant students are passionate about something […] I always thought communities would be like that and I would always be around other smart people,” she said.

However, it was in her junior year at SUNY Albany that Valenti was finally able to identify her feelings as feminist, after taking a Women’s Studies class. “I think I always had a feminist bend to me,” she said, but it wasn’t until that class that she finally had the words to voice what she had always felt. “I was such an opinionated, loud girl and that wasn’t necessarily seen as positive when I was growing up,” Valenti said.

“To have a school of thought that said ‘You know, there’s nothing wrong with you, there’s something wrong with a society that doesn’t like smart, opinionated women’ resonated with me personally.”

Armed with a master’s in Women and Gender Studies from Rutgers University and plenty of enthusiasm, Valenti went to go work for a feminist organization, only to feel jaded and disillusioned. “There was a lot of rhetoric about how important younger women were to the movement but the reality didn’t necessarily match the rhetoric. Younger women weren’t really being listened to very much,” Valenti said.

She was also bothered by the elit-

ist nature of the feminist movement, feeling as though the same two or three women were being quoted in every article surrounding women’s issues.

Following her boss’s advice, Valenti, with her sister and two friends, created a blog as a “platform for younger feminist voices that weren’t being heard elsewhere, [where] anyone with any level of activist engagement or any level of education could go to and feel like they could find something there,” Valenti said.

What started off as a pet project grew into the influential feminist website Feministing.com, whose slogan is “Young Feminists Blogging, Organizing, Kicking A**.” Educated but cheeky—the logo is a Mudflap girl holding up her middle finger—the site has attracted thousands of young feminists and has won the Sidney Hillman Prize for social and economic justice in blog journalism. It covers daily news involving women’s rights and equality in a “Daily Feministing Cheat Sheet,” which recently has included headlines on a girls’ soccer team wearing a hijab in solidarity with a Muslim teammate, how 70 percent of Americans believe insurance companies should fully cover the cost of birth control, as well as middle school girls contesting a ban on leggings. The website combines the serious, including tweets with the tag #Rapecultureiswhen, with the more lighthearted, explaining the reversal of sexist double standards in Jennifer Lopez’s new music video.

The success of the blog led Valenti to work with a book agent on her first of five books called “Full Frontal Feminism,” which summarizes modern feminism and why it should be a major part of young women’s lives, all in a chatty, conversational tone. “The idea behind “Full Frontal” was to get more young women to identify as feminists or to recognize that they had feminist values, even if

they didn’t call them that,” said Valenti, who went on to pen four other books: “He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut”; “Yes Means Yes”; The Purity Myth”; and “Why Have Kids.”

As a college guest speaker who has spoken at Duke, Princeton and Georgetown, one thing Valenti has noticed on college campuses is that girls are afraid of being labeled as feminists because of all the negative connotations of the “f-word.” “Anti-feminism has been very successful in negatively labeling feminists and that’s been a big problem,” said Valenti, adding that “there is a lot of acceptance of anti-feminist stereotypes out there, like people think of the word ‘feminist’ and they think of ugly, hairy, man-hating,” which leads many to shy away from embracing the label.

The Internet has allowed the feminist movement to combat this stereotype and expand its reach. Now when she asks how many people in her audience identify as feminists, most raise their hands. “The Internet has impacted people in that they are finding feminism younger and younger […] it offers them answers they aren’t getting anywhere else,” Valenti said.

Social media in particular has played an important role in the spread of feminism. Valenti is an active user of Twitter, and her tweets are just as darkly humorous and sarcastic as she is. Like Feministing, they are a comfortable mix of the ordinary—“That awkward moment before the train moves when you know the tourist not holding on is gonna fall”—to the fiercely activist: “Discussing rape culture isn’t about shifting focus from the rapist, but critiquing the ways we make their lives easier.” Through her personal blog and copious tweets, Valenti reaches thousands of people every day, sharing (and often ridiculing) news headlines centered on women’s rights.

As the parent of a young

Courtesy of Amazon / The Spectator

Alice Oh / The Spectator

Oh, For Real

daughter, Valenti faces the challenges of being a mother in a society where “women are doing the lion’s share of parenting work,” she said. She is frustrated by how “people sort of accept the idea that women just naturally want to parent more—they don’t want to work as much.” Ironically, Valenti works from home, taking care of her three-year-old daughter after school. Yet she is clear-eyed about the strains of parenting—being less productive working at home, even turning down evening appearances from lack of childcare.

“I certainly see the challenges of and I have a feminist husband!” she said.

While Valenti admits that there is “a culture-wide problem, not just with the word feminism […] there is still some resistance to the idea that women are people and should not be attacked,” she continues to push forward, using her caustic humor to draw attention to the glaring inequalities that still exist today. “Davis was wearing a fitted black dress & high heels. I long for the day a reporter writes that a male politician wears clothing THAT FITS,” she tweeted. She’s not alone.

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

Page 7

Features

Jennifer Dikler / The Spectator

Electric Minds

Nick Romanoff (top) and Rick Melucci (bottom) are both aspiring DJ’s at Stuyvesant.

By Rose Cytryn Plato once declared, “Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.” Music, however, has changed considerably since Plato’s time. Some of us simply listen to the top ten songs on iTunes and the tracks on Billboards Hot 100 list as we

do our homework. For others, enjoying the music is not enough— they want to produce their own.

For sophomore Rick Melucci and junior Nick Romanoff, producing music is a passion and an important part of their lives. Melucci is quick to explain the difference between DJing and producing: “DJing is like mixing songs at a

party providing music, but it’s not necessarily your music. Producing is making your own music. […]

You make your own rhythms.”

For Romanoff, Electronic dance music (EDM) and the art of producing music became a part of his life in seventh grade through the “electronic music blogosphere,” blogs completely dedicated to the newest electronic sounds. Following daily posts and keeping up with news in this “blogosphere,” Romanoff was pulled into this culture of EDM that is now almost purely Internet based. Romanoff learned to notice how drum patterns would change and “start[ed] to realize how rich it is.” He insisted, “It’s so different from other music in that, instead of sending a message like rap, […] it’s built around climaxes and building [up].” Romanoff began to experiment with creating his own sound, and he realized just how time-consuming producing a good song was. “It takes me a good two weeks to make up a good structured song. […] Even the basic build […] can take hours to make,” Romanoff explained.

And as a member of the lacrosse team, the investment club, and Model UN, Romanoff works late into the night on his schoolwork as well as his own music.

Melucci also began listening to EDM in seventh grade. “I started off DJing with the smallest little thing,” he said. He held out his hands a few inches apart to demonstrate. “It was like a Hercules controller.” With requests pouring in to DJ at parties and around school, Melucci was able to get a larger controller, and after a while, his once hobby grew into something much bigger.

One of his first experiences playing music for people happened only last year. Working

with a group of producers from LaGuardia, known as Voyager, Melucci experienced his “first real gig.” “It was a great experience for me,” he shared. “It made me truly glad to hear that they enjoyed my music.” Melucci will often remix a song that he likes, “a song that has a hook, melody or a sound that appeals to [him],” he said. After this, it’s a matter of adding similar sounds from different sources.

It was after realizing people enjoyed listening to his remixes that Melucci transitioned into producing EDM. According to him, it starts with a melody or a specific harmonic structure.

“When you love music you tend to have it in your head all day. […]

Occasionally a new melody starts forming and you start being able to hum it, and it makes the harmony structure more concrete,” Melucci said. Once he’s got the original sound, Melucci sets to work, synthesizing and adding effects to the melody. This is the part of the process that takes the most time. “There are so many possibilities for timbres and effects to add on to the sound wave,” Melucci explicated.

As current high school students, Melucci and Romanoff have yet to experience DJing and producing in larger scenes. Mohammed Islam (’08), however, has had a taste of such experiences.

Islam began listening to EDM in his freshman year at Stuyvesant, and though he has a full time job now, he still finds ways to do what he loves. “EDM was slowly appearing in the U.S. when I was a freshman, so it was really cool to DJ in school alongside the rapid expansion in popularity the genre had,” Islam recalled. Islam, now a full-time employee at JP Morgan, originally had a hard time finding time to DJ, much like Romanoff

and Melucci do now. With a fellow Stuy alumnus, Islam was able to begin DJing again at “YachtClub,” a DJ duo project in New York City.

Islam described how exhilarating it is to DJ in front of large crowds: “I couldn’t get away from music and performing, so we figured out a way to make it work.”

To avid listeners like Melucci, Islam, or Romanoff, EDM is more than a broad genre of music; it’s an entire culture. This culture reaches very far beyond controllers in rooms and people deciding where each sound would play better. A common example is an EDM concert, which Romanoff describes as “unlike anything else. You’re just surrounded by a sea of like 100,000 people, maybe more, and all of them are just so happy. […] The concerts make me feel most at peace. I’m surrounded by happiness and people most positive and optimistic about the world.”

Melucci, Islam, and Romanoff all strongly believe that EDM is beyond a type of music. Along with being an incredibly happy lifestyle, it deeply hits one’s emotions. Romanoff said, “They’ve done studies that bass awakens whole new emotions that other sounds don’t. It hits your ears in a specific way and it fills the air.”

Commenting on what he plans to make out of his hobby, Romanoff said that “all [he] know[s] is [he’d] really like to be involved in the music industry [because] everyone there is so passionate. Everyone there loves what they do—it’s more like a dream job.” Melucci agreed, following up with saying, “A lot of people think EDM isn’t real music,” even though it takes producers countless hours to create it. Nonetheless, it is obvious that, for these three DJs, all that hard work is worth it in the end.

By Lon Yin Chan Most people are excited to go to Comic Con and get pictures with Chewbacca or collect signatures of pop celebrities. For history teacher Robert Sandler, who teaches AP U.S. History, New York City History (a class he created!), and Jewish Heritage classes at Stuyvesant, the same excitement is felt getting pictures with scholarly historians or with the direct family members of huge historic figures. This is how Sandler defines his love for history, as he ecstatically shows his AP U.S. History classes a picture of himself with Karen Korematsu, the daughter of the iconic Japanese American, Fred Korematsu.

Anyone who walks into room 233 can immediately see the passion Sandler has for history: the walls are completely decked with posters and pictures of historical figures, events (like the Armory Show, an international contemporary and modern art fair), movies (like “Resist”), and a timeline of New York City mayors that span across the walls. Additionally, his t-shirts further define his love for the subject, with shirts that say, for example, “Hamilton is my homeboy.”

Sandler’s enthusiasm is perhaps even more evident when he teaches a class: he never wastes a second of time trying to get in more than enough information in students’ minds. “As soon as the bell rings and everyone is in their seats, the PowerPoint is opened and we begin to talk,” said junior Karen Marks as she described her daily history class. “Our lesson usually [ends] with him shouting last thoughts at us as we exit the classroom.”

Sandler’s passion for history started when he was just a child— perhaps even when he was a toddler. “I have this pic[ture] of my dad holding me on his shoulders when I was three years old, and I’m wearing an old school straw hat (Tammany Hall looking hat) with a Ted Kennedy for president button,” he said. It was his father who always helped shape his growing passion for history, as it seems to run in the family. “My father (a Lieutenant Colonel in Army Reserves) always told me stories about famous generals—Robert

E. Lee, Grant, and Patton, a WWII tank commander,” he said. “My dad and mom both loved the Kennedys (John F. Kennedy and Bobby especially). My dad also did hilarious JFK imitations.” Even more so, his father made him memorize all the flags in the world, “which sparked in me an interest in world geography,” he said.

Although he teaches at Stuyvesant, Sandler himself was a student at Bronx Science. Although the school may be known for its math and sciences, Mr. Sandler’s time there contributed to his burgeoning love for culture and history. “The really significant experience [...] was participating in four art history tours with Mr. Schlussel (later my AP Art History teacher),” he said. On these tours, he and a group of students traveled to Europe and “visited famous museums in the great cities: Madrid (El Prado), Paris (Louvre), Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Venice, Rome (Sistine Chapel), [and] Florence (Uffizzi),” he said.

This incredible experience influenced him to major in Art History (and later history, as well) when he attended the University of Texas, a school he chose to go to partially because the American frontier and its history fascinated him. It was at the University of Texas where Sandler’s decision to teach history took shape. “Between [my sophomore and junior year] I was selected for a prestigious summer internship at The Cloisters,” Mr. Sandler recalled. “I gave daily tours to school children and did research, which culminated in a gallery talk on Medieval Tapestries.” This internship first exposed him to speaking as well as interacting with the public—a crucial skill teachers need.

The next year, he was then selected for a summer internship at the education department of the Museum of Modern Arts. Here, he first experienced what teaching was like as he developed curriculum for kids. During his junior year, he had the opportunity to be part of the Normandy Scholars program “in which I studied WWII [...] and then traveled [...] to France to visit WWII battlefields, museums, and meet members of the French Resistance, Army Ranger vets,” said Sandler as he described

the highlight of his academic experience. Through these experiences, he discovered how much he enjoyed teaching others not only some of his vast knowledge about art and history, but also to love them almost as much as he does.

Even now, it’s obvious that Sandler is extremely erudite, as anyone can ask him any history question, no matter how unrelated to the learning material it may be. “[Mr. Sandler] offers more insight than just a textbook can offer,” said junior Mitchell Teper, one of Sandler’s AP U.S. History students.

“Whenever you ask him a question, he always answers. And when he doesn’t know, he tells you that he doesn’t know, and then looks it up and tells you the next day rather than make up an answer.”

Marks agreed saying, “Mr. Sandler goes far beyond our textbook. His homework almost always includes links to other history sources, and his powerpoints include artwork, photography, clips from movies, and recommendations for historical books for us to read on our own time. Our spring term project was a five-minute video about an aspect of the Gilded Age. When our group told Mr. Sandler we were focusing on President Taft [for a project], he not only recommended a book for us to use, but also loaned us a personal copy to use.” Marks also commented on how Sandler tries to incorporate all perspectives and teaches “from bottom up.” For instance, “while he does the revisionist style of [the textbook], [Mr. Sandler] still shows [the] WASP [White Anglo-Saxon Protestant] part of history, as well as that of the labor unions and the common soldiers of wars,” Marks described.

After he graduated college, Sandler continued on the educational path and worked in the AmeriCorps VISTA program, supervising a domestic literacy program that taught young children in the Bronx how to read. Later, he also worked at the Mad Science Institute—which is no longer existent—tutoring underprivileged kids for the SHSAT. “Through these experiences, I developed a passion for teach[ing], developing curriculum, and integrating the arts into education,” Sandler explained. As a result, in

2000, he began working as a substitute teacher for Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, and Stuyvesant.

Sandler joined the Stuyvesant community in 2001, when he was offered a position as an AP U.S. History teacher. Ever since then, he has been teaching the same classes every year with unrelenting enthusiasm. One can’t help but wonder: how does he retain his gusto year after year after year?

His confession? He spends whatever time he can participating in seminars and lectures in order to keep the material fresh in his mind. He said, “[This] past summer, [I] did a Gilder Lerhman seminar at [the] Metropolitan Museum of Art on [the] Civil War Through Art with two wonderful Lincoln scholars: Harold Holzer and Matt Pinsker.” Sandler explained that, “by participating in these types of programs [he] keep[s] things fresh [and] learn[s] about new angles, resources, and teaching strategies.”

Aside from teaching, Mr. Sandler continues to spend enormous amounts of time during the summer traveling. As of today, he has already traveled to over 30 countries. Sometimes he gets teacher fellowships to places like Japan, China, and Germany, and sometimes he spends several weeks backpack-trekking by himself in places like India, Turkey (Cappadocia), Bolivia, Haiti, Brazil (Iguaza Falls), and the Southeastern Asian countries. “Every class has an anecdote about the vacations he’s taken, like visiting the Alamo and visiting a bar—entirely for history purposes, of course—with Teddy Roosevelt’s real uniform on display,” Marks said.

Everywhere Sandler goes, he always takes the opportunity to experience the culture inside and out. “[The] most exotic places were: the camel trek in Morocco, [where I] wore djellabas and visited the medieval city of Fez, the hot air balloon ride in Capadoccia, Turkey, hiking through Negev Desert in Israel, floating in the Dead Sea, the ancient city of Varnasi, India […] and the Angor Wat ruins in Cambodia,” Sandler reminisced excitedly, pulling an invisible triangular hat over his head.

His wife became so jealous of his numerous exciting trips that she

Stephanie Chen / The Spectator

The History Guru: Robert Sandler

Robert Sandler’s passion for history extends beyond the classroom.

left her job in the business sector to become an elementary school teacher. This way, they could travel together everywhere.

However, ever since his children came into the picture, Sandler has been spending time visiting various cultural places around New York City. When he has the time, he frequents a music house like The Stone, where Klezmar music (the traditional music of Ashkenazi Jews) is played, or the Otto Shrunken Head to hear surf rock. If not that, Sandler heads over to restaurants where traditional food is served. Among his favorite places include Nom Wah on Doyers Street and Dim Sum Go Go, where they serve his favorite Chinese dishes: har kow and shumai. When he’s not busy teaching or trying something new, Sandler plays handball, a sport he picked up in college. In fact, he’s been the coach of the boys’ handball team, the Dragons, ever since he started teaching at Stuyvesant.

Whether he’s teaching history, playing handball, or simply spending time somewhere brimming with culture, anyone can see how much he loves history. “He puts so much work into making sure we grow as students—you can definitely see how excited he is to teach us,” Marks said.

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

Page 8

Features

By Scott Ma A 2013 Twitter study named Hunter College High School the most depressing place in Manhattan, and other elite high schools seem to be following this trend. “School isn’t very enjoyable for me,” said Anthony Li, a freshman at the Bronx High School of Science. “It’s basically like a jail with friends that you have inside.”

When the Department of Education (DOE) released high school progress reports in November 2013, Stuyvesant’s results followed suit. Stuyvesant earned an A in every category except for that of the environment, in which it received a C. This blemish on Stuyvesant’s progress report prompted many different reactions, ranging from disbelief to ratification of the problem.

The DOE’s environment grade is based on various school characteristics, such as communications, student engagement, safety, and respect. Out of the 369 schools whose environments were rated this year, approximately 25 percent received an A, 35 percent received a B, and the remaining 40 percent received a C or below. Stuyvesant, however, was far from the only “top” school to receive such low scores. Neither Bronx Science nor LaGuardia High School managed to get an A in environment any time within the past five years.

How Genius Breeds Unhappiness Sophomore Amanda Chiu, who transferred from Bronx Science to Stuyvesant after her freshman year, attributes the problems with Stuyvesant’s environment to the school’s reputation. “Stuyvesant kids have this aura of superiority or pride of attending the best high school in the city,” she said. “That’s what makes the environment at Stuyvesant really competitive.”

According to Chiu, Stuyvesant’s competition (and poor environment) is a result of the pressure each student faces to become the best in the city. Lesser-known schools, Chiu said, would have less competition and thus a better environment.

This competition, however, is what junior Deanna Taylor calls “the one, and maybe, the only thing that binds us,” citing the school’s academic success as one of its few unifying aspects.

Taylor attributes Stuyvesant’s poor environment to the lack of school spirit. “The most obvious example of that is the extreme lack of people at sports games,” Taylor said. “There’s not much sense of a community, there’s not much spirit.”

Other students think that Stuyvesant’s environment is cold and closed to others. Students often form groups based on similar interests or shared clubs; however, these circles of students tend to be as much of a hindrance as they are helpful. “I feel like it’s a bit difficult to join a circle,” senior Johnny Chen said.

“I don’t talk to anyone I normally don’t talk to, and that trend kind of repeats itself.”

These social circles are also common in other high schools.

Anthony Li, a current freshman at Bronx Science, believes that interpersonal relationships are hurt by his school’s stress on grades. Those who struggle are afraid to interact with other students. “You feel like everyone else is better than you,” he said.

“You don’t really go for their help because you feel like you’re going to be their joke, like ‘this kid has an 85 average.’”

Li attributes this fear to the significant amount of academic pressure that students attending Bronx Science are under, and believes that the pressure is largely due to his peers. “Adults tell you what to do, but they don’t really force it. It’s all the students.”

The “Perfect” School This year, a number of school-wide events took place at Staten Island Technical High School (SIT), which is one of the few specialized high schools that received an A in environment.

What is SIT doing differently?

The answer may be all the guest speakers. Dr. Michael Fowlin, a Rutgers University psychologist, visited the school to speak about sensitive subjects such as racism and homophobia, a cultural group from Puerto Rico performed ethnic dances, and a

magician named Daniel Bauer visited to speak about tolerance and HIV. All were brought in by the school’s administration, and many of these speakers had visited SIT before.

Unlike those of other high schools, the administration at SIT takes an extremely active role in promoting acceptance and school spirit among the student body, and according to senior Ben Reytblat, it is effective.

“There are standing ovations,” Reytblat said. “People realize how much value there is in these assemblies and they come out more tolerant and respectful.”

Because of this school spirit and camaraderie, students are caring and helpful to one another. “There never is a moment when someone is disappointed he or she got a lower grade than anyone else,” Reytblat said.

“Whenever I had trouble with any subject, people were there to help me or tutor me at lunch.

That kind of reciprocated, and I helped other students at subjects that I excelled at.”

SIT, however, is still looking to improve. Its new principal, Mark Erlenwein, is planning to diversify the courses available to students. This move could improve opportunities to students less inclined towards science and mathematics, and it is a change Reytblat is in full support of. “[Erlenwein] knows that every student in the student body is different,” Reytblat said. “In the past, the school was really math and science driven and that definitely did detract from the happiness of the student body.”

Happiness in Freedom Only three-quarters of students in James Madison High School in Brooklyn graduate in four years. Despite that, the school has maintained a history of success in student environment and is the alma mater of four Nobel Prize winners, several celebrities, a United States Justice, and, on top of that, received an A in environment. Contrary to one’s expectations, the school’s success might just lie in its nonchalant attitude towards academics.

Luna Oiwa / The Spectator

Roving Reporter: “Good” School Conundrum

For example, students at James Madison are given a lot of freedom when choosing their courses. While the school offers a wide array of Advanced Placement and Honors courses, James Madison has lax graduation requirements, which allows students to decide how to spend their four years of high school.

As a result, students attending James Madison vary in their commitment towards academics. Senior Peizhu Yuan spent her first three years at the school with a full schedule every term.

“There are a lot of dedicated students who want to take nine classes,” she explained. Students are able to take whichever classes interest them, and many respond by filling their schedules with advanced courses.

However, there are also many students who, as a result of the few graduation requirements, end up taking the bare minimum.

“If we have enough credits with enough classes [the administration] won’t force us to continue taking them,” Yuan said. “Many of the students in the school aren’t really affected by how the school pushes them. They just do whatever they want.” Yuan believes that a significant factor in James Madison’s environmental success is its flexibility in terms of student schedules.

Solving the Problem Six out of nine Specialized High Schools received below an A in their environment grade this year. Four of the six received a C or below, placing them under more than half of the other schools in the city. Although the existence of issues with each school’s environment is clear, the solution to each problem is not. At Stuyvesant, Taylor is giving it a shot with a newly formed Spirit Committee.

“We’ve had three or four hours with [Principal Jie] Zhang, just throwing ideas off of one another,” she said. “It goes back and forth until we hit something that we think will really change the school.” Some ideas that were considered include school-wide spirit days, grade colors, and a second Club Pub Fair.

These measures, coupled by frequent meetings with Principal Jie Zhang, aim to reform Stuyvesant’s environment. Hopefully, the Spirit Committee will be able to stimulate school spirit while dampening the competitive atmosphere and, thus, make Stuyvesant a more accepting and enjoyable school.

Special thank-you to the following students for their help: Tanzib Razzaki, Yaseen Islam, Shatila Quader, and Terrell Merritt

Spring

By The Art Department

The Spectator â—? April 1, 2014

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The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

Opinions

Carol Deng / The Spectator

Stopping The Transaction of Human Life

By Daniel Kim “Sometimes, I was so hungry I went into the mountains and ate grass. I dreamed of one, just one dumpling to eat, and then I told myself I would die happy.”

These words were spoken to my father by a 17-year-old youth, who is one of the few to have successfully defected from North Korea. My father, who works to safely secure these youth in China and South Korea, repeated these words las year during an awareness conference at which he had been invited to speak. Tears poured steadily from every single listener.

North Korea seeks to sequester itself religiously from the outside world, and it’s not hard to understand why: the tragic findings that media leakages have unearthed are so shocking that it’s hard to grasp the scale of the crimes committed in the country. The figures that follow are undisputable facts that describe tragedy.

In March, the World Food Programme (WFP) estimated that of 25 million North Koreans, two out of three suffer from chronic food shortages and one out of three are severely malnourished. Nearly a third of children under age five show signs of stunting, and a lack of clean water and sanitation has contributed to a chronic diarrhea epidemic that is now the leading cause of death among North Korean children. About 16 million North Koreans—two-

thirds of the country—depend on bimonthly government rations, which consist of yellowed rice, corn, or barley, and barely fill a cup a meal. Many children grow up eating meat only once a year on their birthdays.

With such conditions, it is no wonder that there is a constant stream of refugees trying to exit the country daily. Most opt to traverse the China-bound Yalu River—the 38th parallel bordering the two Koreas is so heavily guarded that there is no chance for escape. However, the journey to and across the Yalu is perilous and taxing; it is a 24hour trek across rocky, bunkered roads undertaken by weak, malnourished, and desperate people, and most of them die.

Those who successfully enter China face two very dangerous choices: stay in China, where the Communist Party has established a reputation for sending defectors back to North Korea to face certain death, or embark upon the Asian Underground

Of 25 million North Koreans, two out of three suffer from chronic food shortages and one out of three are severely malnourished.

Railroad, a perilous gauntlet of checkpoints, informants, and rough terrain spanning across China and Southeast Asia. Survival is rare.

Yet, despite the starvation, despite the torment, despite the skeletal children lining North Korean sidewalks by the hundreds who were abandoned by parents without the means to take care of them, and de-

spite the periodic famines that have caused around 605,000 to 1,000,000 North Korean casualties (the latest in 2013), we are confronted by a figure buried in paragraph 664 of the United Nations Commissions of Inquiry Report: $645,800,000. That is what the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un, is said to have spent on luxury goods in 2012, including cosmetics, handbags, watches, cars, and top-shelf alcohol. Considering that North Korea could close its food gap by importing $100 to $200 million worth of food every year, the sheer audacity of these transactions is jaw-dropping.

When weighed against the fact that the United Nations World Food Programme asked donor nations to give $150 million in humanitarian aid to North Koreans in 2013, Kim’s extravagant lifestyle points to a terrifying conclusion: the North Korean government does not care about its people.

In fact, the government actively seeks to control and punish its people. An intricate network of prison camps, designed to covertly dispense the many forms of torture that the government uses to keep its people in check, overlays North Korean society like an omnipresent specter. It is easy to see why these camps are necessary—for the sizable minority who have not bought into government propaganda extolling the Kim family as deific benefactors in a world full of “murderous capitalists” and “baby-beheading Americans,” prison time is used for control. The prisons make American penitentiaries look like five-star hotels; my father once described the leg of a defector who had spent four months in a prison camp lying on the filthy, unmopped floor: it was white with disease.

Amidst this crisis, Kim has spent $1.3 billion on ballistic missile programs and stocked airfields, reactors, and palaces instead of food stores. In 1995, his father, Kim Jong-Il, spent $790 million on a mausoleum for North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-Sung—enough money to close North Korea’s food gap for four years. An increasingly expen-

sive nuclear program tops the list of expenses. It is a saddening reminder of the destructive pathology North Korea follows: one that values military prowess over human life.

North Koreans have no hope, no possible recourse to a happier life from inside. Their hope comes entirely from outside: from people like my father, who work tirelessly to find defectors secure lodgings and food amidst a China where discovery is certain death. But, politically, there is more that the United States can do.

The Kim regime’s transactions are executed in dollars; they move through accounts in American banks regulated by the U.S. Treasury Department, rather than directly between two non-American countries (like Japan and China, where Kim gets his watches, cars, and musical instruments). These banks are the hub of the world’s financial system both because of the historical strength of the U.S. economy and the standardization of the U.S. dollar worldwide—and are entirely regulated by the U.S. Treasury.

Under existing laws and regulations, we can block these funds and prevent them from entering or leaving this hub. We can then pass legislation authorizing the Treasury to use existing procedures to release blocked funds for limited purposes, such as food, medicine, and humanitarian supplies, instead of armaments and luxuries. However, for this to work internationally, the WFP would have to be the distributor, and it and donor countries would have to pressure Kim into distributing the aid to those who need it the most.

The heinously decadent Kim would have little leverage because he is dependent on the international finance system to access the billions he keeps in China and Europe. Because most of Europe is allied with the United States, we can easily apply similar restrictions to Eurodenominated North Korean funds. Even China, North Korea’s biggest ally and our greatest stumbling block, has been unwilling to help North Korea

circumvent sanctions in the past due to its own dependency on the international, Americandominated trading system.

Already, our nation’s House Foreign Affairs Committee is forcing changes in Kim JongUn’s financial priorities through the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act: a crippling series of financial sanctions on international institutions that do dirty work for North Korea. This act would enable the President of the United States to (indirectly, yet powerfully) deny the regime funds for serious human rights abuses, as well as sex trafficking, luxury imports, nuclear proliferation, and other acts of moral sabotage. We would confront banks with a choice: stop doing business with North Korea, or be cut off from the American market.

We know this works, because we have tried it before: in 2005, we imposed Treasury regulations like the ones described above on Banco Delta Asia, a Macau-based bank, due to “primary money laundering concerns,” and cut it off from the U.S. financial system. The result was devastating for the North Korean regime: banking authorities in Macau hurried to freeze North Korean accounts worth $24 million, severely impairing the North Korean government’s ability to access and cash in on goods. Foreign banks and businesses immediately neutralized all business ventures with North Korea—even legal ones. The effect was so debilitating that in 2008, North Korea agreed to destroy some of its nuclear weapons and return to international talks. Unfortunately, our most intelligent president, George W. Bush, lifted the sanctions as a reward, and North Korea has since then effectively reversed all of these changes. However, these sanctions work, and renewing them should be a top priority for our foreign policymakers.

That is the hopeful note on which this story may end.

Although the tragedy is overwhelming, we can take hope in the fact that Kim’s tragic profligacy may be his very undoing and, most importantly, a port of salvation for North Koreans.

Hayoung Ahn / The Spectator

The Responsibility of Paying for College

By Giselle Garcia Rachel Canning, the New Jersey teenager who has gained media attention for suing her parents for refusing to pay her college tuition, has met with supporters and opponents alike.

Although Canning’s questionable past actions and unstable relationship with her parents has fueled much of the controversy, beneath the dispute lies an important question: whether or not parents should

have to pay for their children’s college education.

The federal government considers a student’s education a family’s primary financial responsibility. However, in most states, un-divorced parents have no legal obligation to completely cover their child’s college tuition. These two statements may seem contradictory, but financial support should not mean fully paying the tens of thousands of dollars a child’s college tuition may cost.

Rather, financial support should involve the creation of a foundation that will allow students to support themselves in the future. Parents should teach budgeting skills, as well as the importance of saving money, to their children from the moment they receive their first allowance. Deciding whether or not it would be wise to splurge on five candy bars eventually evolves into evaluating the wisdom of purchasing a $300 dress or suit, a much larger dent in one’s wallet. Learning to abstain from impulsive purchases and save money for future use is crucial to surviving on one’s own funding, but a concept like this is

best learned through a parent’s teachings and example.

Financial support does mean fully paying the tens of thousands of dollars a child’s college tuition may cost.

Parents should also encourage their children to start saving for college on their own, if possible. What is saved from allowances can be added to a college fund that would be started by a parent but contributed to by the child. Parents can also assist their children in finding a parttime job, particularly during ex-

tended vacations from school.

Doing this helps students visualize the amount of work that is put into earning money, along with having more to put into their self-earned college fund.

Unfortunately, not all students have access to their own income or substantial savings.

However, many of them have access to financial aid, which may be the most viable way for students to pay their own college tuition. According to the 2013 edition of Sallie Mae’s annual report, How America Pays for College, financial aid, whether from grants, scholarships, or other forms of student borrowing, makes up nearly half of the total cost of attending college.

The factors surrounding financial aid can seem complicated to new students, which is where parents must once again support their children. They should inform their children about the several opportunities for financial aid that are available, including grants from the schools themselves, large corporations, and free scholarship searches. They should also educate their children about student loans. Loans, while more

restrictive than scholarships, are still readily available depending on financial need.

Less reliance on parental aid does not only save the parents’ bank accounts; it may prove beneficial to students as well.

Deciding to pay a large portion of one’s own college tuition requires a great amount of responsibility and work ethic, and both traits can greatly help a student during and after college. There is also a greater reluctance to waste college funding if it is, or will be, coming from a student’s own savings.

Providing a child with proper instruction and advice can be less reliable than merely giving them free funding. Instead of an investment of money, it is one of time and trust, and the success of this investment depends mainly on the student’s responsibility. If successful, however, this could be something much more useful. It is a parent’s duty to support their children’s education in the best way possible, and giving them the foundation it takes to properly support themselves in college accomplishes that.

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

Page 11

Opinions

By Oliver Lipton The musical comedy band Axis of Awesome is best known for its song “4 chords,” in which it demonstrates the sheer number of popular songs that all use the same chords. Their list includes 36 songs by artists such as U2, Journey, MGMT, The Smashing Pumpkins, and The Offspring. Furthering the point this song seems to be making, more and more scientific articles are starting to be published that analyze song structure, melody, and other tropes and reach one common conclusion: music seems to be getting more homogeneous. Whenever a study like this comes out, there is a fresh wave of people using the study

to confirm that they are right in harboring an intense hatred for pop music. “It’s manufactured garbage,” “the riffs are designed to get stuck in your head,” “all the singers use autotune,” and the list goes on. In truth, there are plenty of reasons to criticize modern popular music, or really any artist ever, but sweeping generalizations and forced interpretations of scientific studies are not valid ways to do so.

These observations about homogeneity raise a simple question: if the world’s most popular songs follow the same guidelines for songwriting, does that necessarily make them poorly written? Before you answer, keep in mind that this question is not asking for your personal opinion about the songs that currently make up the popular music charts: you are entitled to that opinion, but it is not actually relevant right now, so set it aside. Asking again, does it make someone a bad songwriter to follow the same guide to songwriting as hundreds of other artists? Asked another way, can a song be good even if it wasn’t hard to write?

The typical negative answer to this is that following an easy guide to songwriting implies a lack of creativity when it comes to music theory. While you probably would not say that directly to the faces of the five artists I mentioned above, this argu-

ment is not entirely wrong, but still flawed. There may be no difference between “With or Without You” by U2 and “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey in terms of chords, but they are still very distinct songs. The former resonates as a slow plait of hopelessness, while the latter is an optimistic look at life in general. This is clear when listening to these works because we as listeners put relatively little thought into a song’s actual chord progression. We think much more about vocal melodies, lyrics, riffs, and rhythm (all of which are very different between those two songs). It’s reasonable to assume that songs written with an “instant hit” chord progression are written with a similar set of priorities. For example, imagine a poet who wants to write a song without having any experience in writing melodies: they wouldn’t create a great work with regards to the actual music, but a listener might still enjoy their music for the lyrics. Would they be a better songwriter if they could invent their own instrumental melody? Absolutely, but it seems unfair to insist that they focus on an aspect of songwriting they don’t want to or know how to focus on.

There are still plenty of reasons to criticize modern pop music, although you should be careful when criticizing an entire era of music at a time. Even

if following a colloquial guide to songwriting doesn’t make you a bad songwriter, a listener who has grown sick of that guide would be perfectly justified in criticizing your song. I’m not saying that musical innovation has become unnecessary, because it definitely has not.

Rather, just as music resonates differently with different listeners, different songwriters think differently about writing it. Criticizing a songwriter for copying a common trend just because he or she thinks it sounds good is unreasonable; what matters is that people enjoy listening to it.

When we learn that these trends exist, we can be quick to make assumptions about the intentions of those who use them, and while creativity may be a paramount principle in art, creativity can come in many forms, even within a single artistic medium. There are many ways to write a good song. Originality should be encouraged, absolutely, but more than that songwriters should write the songs they want to hear and the songs they want to write, even if those songs are less musically original than we’d like.

Alisa Su / The Spectator

Anne Duncan / The Spectator

The Same Old Chords

By Alex Hirsch and Evan Lieberman On report card day, many students at Stuyvesant come home to an onslaught of prying questions and harsh criticisms. Their houses ring with shouts of “Why didn’t you do better?” “Why isn’t your average higher?” and “Why aren’t you better at math?” Tiger parents, who force their children to be extremely successful academically, often at the cost of their social lives, subject their children to an immense amount of pressure by demanding educational success and forcing an academic-heavy lifestyle on their children. When combined with the natural sources of high school stress (tons of work, extracurriculars, tests, and college admissions), their treatment, which ranges from extreme scrutiny to mandating high test scores, often leaves students crushed.

Parents who accept nothing less than success only achieve the opposite. Childhood should, ideally, be a comfortable period of academic growth, not a stressful and rigorous focus on constant academic success. Not

only is experiencing academic pressure and heavy criticism a harsh treatment in the most joyful years of a child’s life, but it also proves unnecessary and leaves kids ill-prepared for the realities of academics they will experience in college years and as adults.

Dr. Vicki Zakrezewskian, an expert on education, explains that the pressure placed on students to succeed makes them work hard not with the intent of learning, but purely for the purpose of feeling superior, or worthy of praise. Therefore, when these students fail, they do not use failure as a learning experience. Instead, they feel worthless. As a result, the intense pressure to succeed nurtures an inferiority complex in teens, who are still at a psychologically vulnerable age. This even hurts their capacity to learn. Thus, doing everything possible to foster success, including shouting, groundidsfdsfsdfsdafdsng, and enforcing a strict devotion to academics, doesn’t work; on the contrary, it interferes with the stepping stones of a child’s education. This harsh practice not only distorts a child’s view of the learning process, but also substitutes feelings of superiority and imagined fulfilment for the reward of increased knowledge.

Disrupting the crucial educational process is bad enough, but the damage doesn’t stop there. When we consider the health triangle, which consists of physical, mental, and social health, more problems emerge.

When nonstop academics are emphasized, a child is often left with inadequate friendships and fitness, due to a requirement of extensive studying. Restricting the time children can spend with their friends or enjoying a hobby and instead spending it on math problems and literature creates

both a major gap in their life and a dent in their health. Beyond a lack of good friendships, a lack of social experience can be costly later in life. It’s painful to imagine someone without strong social skills entering a job interview, and approaching one’s “soul mate” could prove to be an insurmountable task.

The health risks, however, cause even further concerns; in fact, studies have found that loneliness can cause heart disease and even diabetes. In other words, socialization is an essential element of anyone’s life, and a lack thereof early on is incredibly harmful years down the road.

Tiger parents need to ease up on academics and instead recognize the importance of a strong social life.

Similar problems develop from the inadequate exercise that often accompanies this lifestyle. The health risks and insufficient everyday energy that result from this dormant lifestyle are deeply harmful, yet many tiger parents discourage their children from playing sports and sign them up for SAT prep courses as a substitute. Ironically, a parenting style which encourages their children’s success is simultaneously causing the failure of their health.

Though tiger parents relentlessly push for their children’s success, they fail to recognize that learning from failure is essential, too. Encouraging constant success in school leaves a child without the ability to accept the natural, inevitable experience of failure. The resulting, unforeseen consequence is a lack of preparation when failure arises. Tiger parents who expect no failure whatsoever are expecting the impossible and sacrificing later struggles for short-term success. The lack of an ability to cope with failure

and get back on one’s feet makes recovery notably harder in adult life. With no known path to recovery or guiding figure, a small hitch, such as not being accepted for a job, could easily turn into a major problem.

But this aversion to failure unexpectedly creates a fear of creativity, as well. At a time when children find their classmates experiencing a diverse mix of their academics, friends, sports, and favorite activities, tigerparented kids will only be interested in a single overlying goal: the next academic achievement.

Acing a test or receiving praise from a teacher is the only type of success they can recognize. As tiger parents shape a strict view of success, it negatively shapes a child’s aspirations into underwhelming, tunnel-visioned goals which fail to propel a student into becoming a great thinker or entrepreneur. Creativity and critical thought are essential to success, and the fear of going outside the bounds of academics because of strict parenting is a major obstacle to students’ long-term success.

When rare failure does arise during the childhood of tigerparented kids, things go downhill quickly within a family. Parents placing great pressure on their children can also severely damage their relationship, which is essential in the development of a healthy child. Being constantly berated for bringing home low test scores can cause resentment and hostility. Given that tiger parenting naturally forces a student to be closer to home than to their friends, relationships in these families are ever more important. But when these relationships are defined by relentless criticism, shouting, punishment, and demeaning remarks, the emotional scars can become too much to handle. No

Jessica Lei / The Spectator

Nicole Rosengurt / The Spectator

Let Kids Be Kids

touting of “success” can justify turning a youthful life into one of social isolation and resentment of those closest to them.

Tiger parents need to preserve this essential relationship rather than shouting at or disrespecting their kids.

Without a doubt, youth is the most special time of life, fostering fun and exploration while providing an easy-going preparation period for the future. But turning this period into a stressful, isolated time of constant academics only harms a child’s enjoyment of life, health, and future success. Kids need to roam free and discover their strengths, weaknesses, passions, talents, and tastes. Interfering with this natural process is unnecessary and detrimental. Tiger parents need to abandon their strict demeanour for the kind and caring behavior of a parent who supports their child growing and preparing for the future on his/ her own terms. In the joy and freedom of youth, children need the right parental support. Turning youth into academic hell is the point of no return.

Page 12

The Spectator ●March 32, 2048

Editorials The Petty Grievances of Stuyvesant Why do the windows only open four inches (if at all)?

And why are there teenytiny doors in the center of the hallways to slow traffic?

Also, why does the building shrink as you get to the higher floors, making the stairs impossible to navigate?

Why does our ventilation system work absolutely flawlessly? Oh… wait.

Why do some teachers yell at us when we ask questions?

All students want is clarification on something that’s hard to understand, so they can learn and maybe actually do well on your tests.

Furthermore, why can’t physical education teachers keep the locker room open for 30 more seconds when they see a crowd of kids running from a test that went overtime? Why should we have to run for our lives down the stairs shoving people out of the way so we can have 30 more seconds of class to use on skill tests?

What is the point of having escalators if they do not work?

Escalators have a function: to ease the creaky bones of Stuyvesant students that have been crushed by the expectations of their parents. Now we have to use the motionless escalators, or what some students call “the stairs.”

Speaking of stairs, why is the Hudson staircase the equivalent of an XL T-shirt when other staircases are barely mediums? There are traffic jams between tens of teenagers, even though many of us don’t even have drivers licenses yet. It is very frightening to have your cheek pressed up against the shoulder of someone who you’ve never seen before in your entire life, or even worse, someone who you’ve seen before many times in your life.

Also, why aren’t the stairs split into up and down lanes?

Even when the staircases aren’t clogged, we all walk up and down the stairs at different paces: ranging from kids on the track team who run 24/7 or those who carry backpacks that are heavier than baby elephants. We need to get to drafting class, and a hoard of kids who can only go as fast as their skinny jeans allow are in our way.

Why are there always so many middle-school kids at Ferry’s? You can be standing behind one middle-schooler in line, and suddenly that one middleschooler will become two, and then three, four, five, six. How do they multiply so quickly? And they don’t say “please excuse me” when they brush past you, step on your toes, or whack you with their fat book bags.

We also have to tone down the cell phone policy. Sure, confiscate our phones while we’re making calls in school. But please spare the kids who simply move their phones from their pockets to their bags… being barked at by safety agents makes us feel almost upset enough to consult our guidance counselors.

We appreciate the outreach by the wonderful people in the guidance office, because God only knows we need it. But really?

Those guidance posters on the second floor are the second most terrifying artistic installations on that floor, behind “The Hole Left By Missing Urinal, #2.”

And while we’re on the topic of urinals…After waiting on that super long line of kids using stalls to change into their sports uniforms... low and behold--there’s no toilet paper at all--not even in one stall. Do we have to keep rolls of toilet paper our lockers?

If toilet paper runs out every day, then obviously somebody

needs to put in more toilet paper at the start of the day to avoid this highly awkward problem, where we have to run through the floors just trying to find a bathroom with toilet paper!

Why do girls find it necessary to leave their feminine products on the toilets in bathroom? Is it really that hard to wrap your used whatever in toilet paper, walk out, and dunk it in the trash? Sure, you’re bleeding from places blood should never come from, but the whole world doesn’t need to see your tampons unless you’re like Paris Hilton and you think everything you do should be broadcasted.

Girls will be girls and leave tampons on the floor. But guys have it easy; you don’t even need to sit to take a piss! Step up, unzip, aim, do your thing, and flush.

Easy, right? Apparently not. Guys need to learn to step up to the plate. Those urinals are pretty big targets — they’re hard to miss. Somehow, though, there still manages to be reservoirs of urine beneath the urinals.

Why are we required to hand-write homework? Our homeworks look like tornadoes of graphite even though we spend hours on them. We all know that with the invention of email, cheating became a huge problem.

Luckily, the teachers of Stuyvesant invented a fool-proof way to dispel copying homework: handwriting absolutely everything.

Thank God no one has invented a machine that can duplicate paper, or create digital copies that you can email!

And when we desperately need to finish our homework in school, the line to get into the library is way too long. The line stretching from the library door all the way to the debate room would make you think there’s a D-list celebrity in our midst.

How much harm could be done by letting a few people into the library before the period starts, instead of having us clogging the hallways, getting reminded every three seconds that it’s a silent study period, and getting yelled at for being quiet when we’re being quiet.

And why can’t we go to the library during gym frees? Will the library overflow? We just want to do our homework in a quiet place instead of causing a ruckus somewhere else in the building. Honestly, what is the difference between a free, a gym free, and having lunch? Equality, people, equality.

Why do departments administer final exams if none of the teachers are going to count them because everybody failed?

If a teacher doesn’t cover what’s on the final, what’s the point in spending the time to study for it? Or worse, what if a teacher ends up being the only teacher that does count it? Teachers should make a group decision on whether or not they want to torture us during one of those meetings they killed half of our conference days for.

And to the teachers who talk during exams: we understand that this is your class, but could you please let us take your test in silence? We do not need to hear how you thought it was going to be a lot colder today so you decided to wear a considerable amount of clothing. Also, giving back that test four weeks after administering it helps nobody.

Who remembers what the exam was even about at that point?

How difficult can it be to run some paper through a machine?

It’s even worse when teachers give back multiple choice tests and then neglect to go over them, because there’s no time.

The reason we get things wrong

is because we didn’t understand the material the first time. Being given a sheet of paper that confirms our inability to comprehend the subject doesn’t really help.

After all, we’re supposed to be learning something.

Why are our gym lockers always in a four foot radius with seven other people who all have the same phys-ed class?

Do you know how difficult it is to put on pants while trying to dodge limbs flying out of shirts in a narrow isle? Maybe the packed locker room is supposed to facilitate discussion between students but the only things that we talk about is how disgustingly hot and humid the locker rooms are, how we failed the physics test that we just took, and how cramped it is in the locker room because the people are all invading each other’s personal spaces, and slamming in front of people’s faces, and clothes are all over the benches. We don’t even have time for deep conversations because there’s always the physical education teachers screaming at us to get out of the locker room two minutes after we go into the locker room when it took us the whole two minutes just to climb through everyone to get to our own lockers.

And furthermore, why are we expected to push ourselves in phys-ed class until sweat soaks through our t-shirts, and then not allowed to shower afterwards? Sometimes people after gym excrete some odors that are so bad that afterwards half of the class shifts over to one side of the room while the teacher doesn’t comment because they know exactly why and you know that offensive stenches are really disturbing to learning because if the scent of boy funk is invading your nose it is quite difficult to concentrate on the twelve redox equations that you have to go over by the end of the period... so isn’t that just as disruptive as the dress code? We need a smell code.

Why do we have band and chorus lunches? Lunch is the most cherished time of the day other than sleeping. Look, we get it -- if we could, we would take 12 classes a day. But we need to eat. A lot. And it’s really hard to sustain a 4,000-calorie diet while playing the tuba. In fact, it shouldn’t be called band-lunch. It’s more like band-try-to-sneak-eatingin-between-playing-scales-soyou-don’t-get-caught-and-get -in-trouble-because-you-arenot-supposed-to-eat-lunch-during-band-lunch. Whoever plays the instruments in the afternoon probably find three half-chewed goldfish in the tuba every day.

Chorus lunch might be worse have you tried singing Handel’s Messiah with day-old PB&J in your mouth? Sounds awful, tastes awful, and the soprano in front of you gets a nice spitty-crumb shower throughout the second movement.

Speaking of crumbs, why is the school so concerned with kids bringing food into school?

As the safety agents are confiscating popcorn chicken, they could be handcuffing the person vandalizing the school with Portuguese! We just want to be able to bring cups of coffee into school peacefully -- why do we have to act like spies and hide drinks in our backpacks or under our coats just to get the caffeine we need, and then end up having homework and notebooks soaked in and bearing the scent of coffee? And then, if we do get caught, why do we have to go outside and chug a piping hot drink that will burn our throats, or dump a whopping five dollars of our meager budgets into the trashcan?

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

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Alisa Su / The Spectator

Staff Editorial

The Spectator ● March 32, 2048

Page 13

The Disrespectator

Courtesy of The Indicator and BizBash

Moran’s New Album: An Inside Look

Mr. Moran works as a Disc Jockey in his free time, playing the latest jams for parties like SAP and the Soph-Frosh Semi-Formal.

By Elvin Shoyfer Coming off the heels of 2012’s critically acclaimed album “Put That Cigarette Away, Young Man,” Assistant Principal of Security, Safety, and Student Affairs Brian Moran is back at it again with the far more experimental “Suspended & Confiscated” (2014). Described as a “nuanced blend of post-avant folk rock, lo-fi industrial hip hop, and post-dubstep,” the record seeks to evoke the same quintessential feelings of humility and respect that he inspires in the student body every day. “Every track on this LP album is either atonal or in minor scale and is characterized by syncopated rhythms and heavily distorted, reversed voices,” Moran said. “Even the dry cleaners won’t be able to remove the stains your clothes will have after listening to this.”

Junior Dennis Nenov was in agreement. “I would definitely suggest listening to this near a bathroom,” he said.

The album opens with

“Take Your Hood Off,” a track that pays homage to the hearty morning greeting that has become a mainstay of the daily Stuyvesant experience.

“Stuyvesant may have gotten a C for atmosphere and environment on the latest New York City Department of Education report card, but with this trademark phrase as our slogan and this track as our anthem, I think we can definitely raise that grade,” Moran said. A rousing minimalist piece with a sound so radical that it can’t be classified into any discrete genre, the track delivers a compelling message about submission to authority.

Guaranteed to be this year’s summer anthem, “Straight Outta Room 215” is an electrifying hip hop banger featuring vocals by artists Chief Keef and Pusha T. In the hook, Moran’s raspy falsetto glides seamlessly over the cacophonous mess of recycled drum beats in the background.

Invoking religious themes and imagery, the subtly dark lyrics are used by Moran to liken

Ken Ken

By Lev Akabas Fill in the grid with numbers 1 through 6. 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.

1.9 E 14 ×

≠ 2048

≥1

≤6

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investigations conducted in his office to the biblical Last Judgment.

“I Can See It All” is simultaneously a shot at the summertime clothing preferences of the Stuyvesant student body and a reminder of the administrator’s omniscient nature and the inescapability of confiscation. With this track’s heavy sampling of hip hop artist Kanye West’s album “Yeezus,” the intent was to “connect to the young crowd,” Moran said.

Album closer “Barnes & Noble (Invasion) Part III” features symphonic elements produced by a full orchestra to commemorate Moran’s legendary taming of rowdy Stuyvesant students during a particularly hectic finals week. “The title of the track alludes to the existence of a ‘Part I’ and ‘Part II’, but I can’t find them anywhere,” an anonymous freshman said.

Despite his pride in his latest achievement, Moran claims that balancing his role as an administrator with the demands of his musical career has been a challenge. “I’ve already had to confiscate over two dozen phones that students were using to listen to my album,” Moran said. “I die a little inside each time, but rules are rules.”

Student reactions to “Suspended & Confiscated” have been mixed, but some claim to see the potential in a sound often described as “alienating” and “abrasive.”

“Initially, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be exposed to this side of Mr. Moran,” junior Benjamin Lanier said. “But I am now able to tell you this: it’s here, it’s happening, and I’m hungry for more.”

Bach: Unveiled

By Anne Duncan In an underground concert venue on Friday, March 28, a crowd of teenagers was abuzz with excitement and chatter about the performance that was about to occur. Until a few weeks ago, very few had heard of teen sensation Johann Sebastian Bach, but in the time since Bach uploaded his first popular performance to YouTube, he has become all the rage among artsy hipster teenagers and college students. “I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about him before!” junior Lev Akabas said. “Bach is my life now!”

Due to his mainly online presence, few know much about Bach’s personal life and background. In an exclusive interview with The Spectator, Bach explained his past. “I was born in Germany, but, like, I felt trapped there, man. I came to New York to show the Americans my funky style,” Bach said.

Bach has single-handedly created a new musical style, called “Baroque-Funk” by his followers.

The basic melodies of his songs are played by an organ and violin.

Over those, he adds techno beats and keyboard riffs. This creates a more modern sound layered

over classic Baroque. Some of his compositions, such as Mass in B Minor, feature large choruses singing Latin over the instrumental, making for an interesting and unique choice of lyrics. “I don’t understand a word he’s saying, but it speaks to me, man,” senior Emre Tetik said. ”I think it’s safe to say that after hearing it, you never feel the same way again.”

Part of Bach’s appeal is his one-of-a-kind look. Many musicians, such as Lady Gaga and DeadMau5, have been using extreme get-ups to draw attention and express a visual side to their music. Bach has followed this trend by wearing a formal powdered wig with a suit and coat when he performs behind the keyboard and computer. “I hear that Urban Outfitters is selling wigs and tailed coats now!” sophomore Jonathan Aung said.

This new look makes a statement about Bach: he’s not afraid to stand out.

It is difficult to say what will become of Bach, but so far his following in the past few weeks has been astounding. With millions of hits on each of his YouTube videos, and every one of his shows selling out, Bach may go down as one of the most innovative composers in music history.

Constant Badminton Announcement Startles Multiple Students

By Fish Milnikiewicz

Junior David Dvorkin was minding his business in the third floor atrium Tuesday morning when, around 7:46 a.m., he was greatly startled by a special announcement over the loudspeakers by Assistant Principal of Physical Education Lawrence Barth.

Barth reportedly cleared his throat and said, “This is Mr. Barth,” then made the peculiar announcement. “If any boys are interested in [...] BADMINTON, please visit the third floor gymnasium.”

According to Dvorkin, the announcement lasted all of twenty-one seconds, including the several seconds of complete silence at the beginning and end of the announcement. However, its effect was massive. After hearing the announcement, Dvorkin’s entire body shook, and he broke into a profuse sweat.

“I was filled with anxiety,” he said. “I had a physics test next period, and I had not studied at all. Wait, what are you interviewing me for again?”

These sudden announce-

ments continued throughout the school day, as well as after the school day, at various, apparently random times.

Sophomore Caucus President Krzysztof Hochlewicz provided details of his experience.

Hochlewicz was reportedly sitting in AP Global History at 1:27 p.m. when the announcement sounded. “The only sound resonating in the entire room for seconds on end was Barth,” Hochlewicz said. “Some kid dropped a pencil and he didn’t pick it up until after the announcement was over. He didn’t even try to move the pencil closer to him with his foot. Instead, he left it, on the ground, for a good twenty-one seconds.”

Immediately following the announcement, approximately one of Hochlewicz’s peers stood up and left the classroom, presumably to go to the third floor gymnasium. However, when the student returned a minute later, it was made evident that it was just to use the restroom, or maybe to get a drink of water.

According to fellow Physical Education Teacher Rhonda Rosenthal, the repetitive na-

ture of the announcements was necessary. “If a kid hears about a sports team opening up, and they are not interested the first time, if you tell them about it many more times they are likely to become exponentially more interested,” she said. “This is regardless of whether they play the sport in question or not. These announcements were about informing all Stuyvesant students of the Boy’s Badminton Team, regardless of whether they are a boy or they like badminton.”

Barth himself shared a strikingly similar viewpoint on the announcements, which were meant to inform students about Stuyvesant’s newest member of the PSAL family: Boy’s Badminton. Badminton has long been ignored in Stuyvesant sports history because it is regarded as being more of a “mind game” than an exercise. In an interview earlier this week, Barth said, “This is Mr. Barth. If any Boys are interested in [...] BADMINTON, please visit the third floor gymnasium.”

Anne Duncan / The Spectator

Arts and Entertainment

The Spectator ●March 32,2048

Page 14

The Disrespecator Arts and Entertainment Crossword Puzzle: Haha 1

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By ANNE DUNCAN Thank you to those who sent in their answers for last issue’s crossword. Here’s an even bigger challenge! If you can solve this one, feel free to apply for the position of crosswordist. All submissions, as always, go to speccrosswords@gmail.com.

Across: 1. π.

7.

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Dark Souls 2 Overshadowed

By Original

Down: 1.

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The original “Dark Souls” video game was so nightmarishly difficult that many players “ragequit” during the first boss battle. How does the game’s sequel, “Dark Souls 2,” compare? I, your intrepid video game expert, volunteered to test my skills in an epic battle to beat the game, a battle that would lead to tears of frustration, shrieks of triumph, and a whole lot of awkward victory dancing.

After many long hours with a controller in my hand, I was forced to admit that “Dark Souls 2” was a brutal challenge. By the third level, the game was nightmarishly difficult… okay, yeah, we’re at the second paragraph by now. Who am I kidding? I’m going to let you ungrateful vagrants in on a little secret: I KNOW THAT NONE OF YOU ARE READING THIS. Yeah, that’s right. I know. I figured it out when I asked one of my friends what she thought about my writing and she told me, “Arts and Entertainment? What is that, the place where the Spectator editors used to store Shake Shack coupons?”

That’s all this department means to you, huh? That’s all Arts and Entertainment means to you: Shake Shack coupons? All my long hours researching art exhibitions

and playing video games until my fingers hurt, and for what: so I can be upstaged

by Shake Shack coupons?

Well, two can play at that game, buckaroo. I’m going to level with you here: I didn’t play “Dark Souls 2.” I don’t even know anything about it except that the promotional pictures seem pretty cool.

Did you see them? Armored guy, swirling mist? Pretty neat stuff.

But let’s not forget the main point that I’m trying to make here: I’m onto you, folks. And you’ll probably never even realize it, because I know that none of you even read this far. Five paragraphs in? That’s practically virgin territory. I could probably say anything I want down here and no one would ever know about it. It could be, like, a therapeutic experience for me.

Yeah, I’m going for it. I, Caroline Bredthauer, do not really get the hype about “Frozen.” I’m sorry, I just don’t think it was that good.

I liked “The Lego Movie” better. There’s an opinion I could never confess to real people because they’d probably scream “Let It Go” at me until I died.

Wow, that actually really helped! I feel so much better now! So thanks a bunch for not reading this, guys. (And that was only partially sarcastic.)

Playlist

“Never Gonna Give You Up”

By Rick Astley Dance-pop

Opinions Let’s Be Real: Cocaine is Trill

by Daniel Kodsi and Dennis Nenov Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and Whitney Houston were all big fans of the white powder—they chewed

it, smoked it, injected it, and snorted it. But they’re not the only ones who fell in love with cocaine: the Aztecs used it successfully to cure syphilis, the Mayans used it as diaper powder, and the Chinese filled their opium pipes with it. Though cocaine has been around for a long time (like, at least a hundred years), America’s teenagers seem to have only discovered the power of cocaine in recent weeks, following our collective depression over Justin Bieber’s heartbreaking arrest. The latest numbers from the Center for Disease Control show that cocaine usage is skyrocketing: approximately 30.2419% of high schoolers report having used cocaine in the last week. This rise in popularity presents a great opportunity for our na-

tion that we should embrace with love rather than reject out of shaky fear.

Rising cocaine usage means that fewer of our precious and innocent teenagers will be exposed to the “gateway” drugs that are responsible for ruining lives and creating lifelong addictions to hard drugs. And that’s because cocaine simply isn’t a gateway drug--it isn’t defined as one by the Food and Drug Administration, which is the agency responsible for regulating the sale, manufacture, and use of illegal substances. A detailed meta-meta-analysis published by the Facebook page ‘DONT TOKE IF U W4NT TO LIVE’ found that teenagers who use gateway drugs such as marijuana, pot, weed, and wacky tabaccky are 30% more likely to start using other, more

lethal drugs than teenagers who weren’t exposed to those gateway drugs. Clearly, cocaine is a-okay.

Even more importantly, cocaine is a Schedule II drug, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency. This means that it’s only as dangerous as Adderall and Ritalin and infinitely less so than Schedule I narcotics like ganja. This makes perfect sense, as, after all, coke basically looks just like powdered sugar. Arts and Entertainment Editor Shahruz Ghaemi, a frequent user of both substances, confirmed our suspicions that cocaine is totally fine for you by pointing us to “Wolf of Wall Street,” the 100% accurate biopic starring Leonardo DiCaprio as himself.

“I mean, just look at that guy,” Ghaemi said. “He gets

his best ideas, like screwing over the poor, while he’s all high up on blow. If he were to do weed, he’d just sit around all day and eat Doritos (that’s what I do). Oh, on that note, you need some cocaine to help you finish your article? I find it’s the only thing that helps my writers stay on task while writing A&E reviews.”

It is the dawning of a new age. An age in which we must open our hearts to all men, women and children, regardless of how jittery they are.

If we fail to do so, then who knows what will happen next?

Fascism, probably. That’s our guess. So unless you want the fascists to come back and take over the homeland, stand with us in firm support of nose candy. After all, it’s totally way less harmful than marijuana.

The Spectator ● March 32, 2048

Page 15

The Disrespectator Features Day in the Life of a Rat continued from page 1

A large man wearing powerful Timberland boots finally notices him and the race begins. The rat runs down the 5th floor hallway and the janitor follows. The rat is almost crushed by a stu-

dent with a rolling backpack.

“Wow, I really hate those traps on wheels,” thinks the rat, but ultimately he forgives them, and instead pities rolly-backpack students for being the only things lower than himself on the food chain. The rat finally runs back into a hole by the women’s restroom, ending

the cat-and-mouse chase.

After a series of tunnels, the rat gets back to his home and puts on his Peglegs shirt.

No matter when, no matter to whom, the rat always displays school spirit. The rat runs down to the first floor where he joins the lacrosse team in getting on the bus.

As the team gets off at Ran-

dall’s Island, he gets off too.

It’s Stuyvesant vs. Bronx Science. The rat sees Bronx Science’s rat: Larry. God, he hates Larry. Larry is wearing a foam finger and is cheering at the top of his lungs, but the Stuyvesant rat always wins, unlike the lacrosse team.

The rat gets back home

and he is pretty tired. He goes to sleep for the next couple hours and then engages in coitus for another six hours. His new day begins.

The rat is a lover, a winner, a champion, a friend, and, most of all, a proud member of the Stuyvesant community.

What I Would Do To Get Into Harvard

bY Justin Weltz •Stand on my head and mop the boy’s bathroom with my hair •Eat green eggs and ham (in a car, on a boat, or on a train) •Forsake all of my friends and live in the Amazon Rainforest with only a Harvard sweater (to truly become one with the sweater) •Start a company that allows you to share photos, add friends and...oops, already done •Commute to Stuyvesant daily from Florida (actually not much longer than my regular commute) •Persuade a family with a Harvard legacy to adopt me •Write a fictional college essay about my journey from the sewage of the city (literally, my home in the drainage pipes of Manhattan) to Stuyvesant •Eat is-it-really-meat? meat from the school cafeteria for the rest of my life

•Dodge firewalls, guess 20-digit passwords, and hack into the government’s most secretive files in order to raise my grade point average by 0.2333 points •Rid myself of all possessions...so I can receive a full scholarship to college •Become a superhero...so I can add more community service hours to my college application •Throw my garbage into the local lake...so I can pioneer the organization that makes the water drinkable •Stop Global Warming •End World Hunger (this is going to be hard) •Stop procrastinating (this is going to be even harder) •Live without an electric device for 30 seconds •Stop complaining about being tired •Write a satirical article about getting into Harvard in my school newspaper so Harvard would notice me

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Page 16

The Spectator â—?March 32, 2048

Zhang Dynasty

By The Photo Department

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

Page 17

Arts and Entertainment Calendar

Looking Forward : April SUNDAY

MONDAY

1

TUESDAY

2

WEDNESDAY

Lecture Staring at Drying Paint Park Slope Co-op Bookstore and Bistro, 4:30 p.m.

Basketball NY Knicks vs Brooklyn Nets Madison Square Garden, 7 p.m.

Movie “A Honeyed Voice: The Morgan Freeman Story”

Dance Ailey II Ailey Citigroup Theater, April 2 13

3

THURSDAY

4

FRIDAY

5

SATURDAY

STC Spring Comedy “Pygmalion”

STC Spring Comedy “Pygmalion”

STC Spring Comedy “Pygmalion”

Theatre “A Raisin in the Sun” (opening) Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 8 p.m.

Movie “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (Action) Starring: Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan

Parade Tartan Day Parade West 45th St, 2 p.m.

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

TV “Game of Thrones” season premiere (Fantasy) HBO, 9 p.m.

Concert Lady Gaga Roseland Ballroom, 8 p.m.

Comedy Comedy Juice (all ages) Gotham Comedy Club, 9:30 p.m.

Concert Mitsuko Uchida Carnegie Hall, 8 p.m.

Concert Carolina Chocolate Drops BAM, 8 p.m.

Movie Rio 2 (Adventure) Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway

Parks Greenmarket Grand Army Plaza, all-day

TV “Turn” season premiere (Drama) AMC, 9:00 p.m.

Concert The Wanted Beacon Theatre, 7:30 p.m.

Parks Nature Exploration Hike High Rock Park, Staten Island, 11 a.m.

13 TV “Mad Men” season premiere (Drama) AMC, 10 p.m.

Festival Palm Sunday Concert The Drop of Dawn: The Music of Christopher Tin Carnegie Hall, 8:30 p.m.

Playlist

Won’t You Come Soon, Spring?

It may be 35 degrees outside, it may have snowed in D.C. last week, but March 21 has come and gone and it’s officially SPRING! As we freeze for yet another month, here are some of the songs that transport us to bright meadows, peaceful riverbanks, or thereabouts:

“In the Flowers”

By Animal Collective Neo-psychedelia / Synthpop

“San Francisco”

By The Mowglis Indie Pop

“La Vie en Rose”

By Edith Piaf Pop Standard

“a tout a L’heure”

By Bibio Experimental

“Only Heather”

By Wild Nothing Indie Pop

“Mas Que Nada”

By Sergio Mendes Bossa Nova

“Worse Things Have Happened”

By James Wallace and the Naked Light Indie Folk

“Troublemaker”

By Olly Murs (feat. Flo Rida) Pop

“The Lark Ascending”

By Ralph Vaughan Williams Classical

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

Page 18

Arts and Entertainment Broadway

By Lev Akabas Have you ever found yourself looking back on important decisions you’ve made, wondering how your life could have been different? What if you had gone to Bronx Science, instead of Stuyvesant? What if you had asked out that someone you had a crush on in middle school?

The new Broadway musical “If / Then,” which opened on March 30, 2014, plays on this idea. Idina Menzel, recently lauded for her vocal performance in Disney’s “Frozen,” plays Elizabeth, a 39-year-old urban planner who moves to New York City to start her life anew. In the opening scene, she meets her friends Kate, a lesbian kindergarten teacher, and Lucas, a bisexual community organizer, for lunch. Kate pushes Elizabeth to be adventurous and explore new experiences, while Lucas urges her to make professional contacts in the city. In one reality, Eliza-

beth stops to listen to a musician in the park with Kate; in the other, she leaves with Lucas to attend a protest against a development project, setting up the two paths that are followed throughout the show.

Writer and lyricist Brian Yorkey teams up once again with music composer Tom Kitt, just as they did to write the 2008 musical “Next to Normal,” for which they won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. Their story explores destiny and choice, with underlying themes of love, regret, and fresh starts. Characters like Lucas, who is socially awkward, yet a trustworthy friend, are dynamic and relatable, evoking sympathy from the audience. The songs feature elaborate harmonies, as well as witty lyrics, and showcase Menzel’s powerful vocals that we all remember from her previous musicals, ”Rent” and “Wicked.”

Menzel’s final solo, “Starting Over,” was incredibly emotional in both its lyrics and delivery on stage, moving the majority

of the audience to tears as she held the final note of the song the way that only she can.

Though Menzel stands out, another unique element of the show is the constantly changing set, complete with a retractable fire escape, mirrors that reveal reflected lights on the floor of the stage, and a circle in the center of the stage that rotates during some scenes. Movable blocks are used to create every setting imaginable, from a subway train to a studio apartment.

“If / Then” is not only a roller-coaster ride full of twists and turns, but is also deeply thought-provoking, capped off with a clever and surprising ending. After seeing a preview of the show, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brian Yorkey about the messages he hopes to convey with his story, the process of writing and developing it, and the experience of writing songs for Idina Menzel.

LA: Where did you get the idea to do the show and how were you inspired to write it?

BY: It was Tom Kitt’s idea originally. He wanted to write something about the way lives unfold, and the way we make choices, but we don’t always know which choices are going to end up having have a huge effect on our lives. And we don’t always know how little things and big things that happen to us are going to play out [or] the role of choice and chance in any life if you stop and think about the “what-ifs.” What if I had just done this instead of that?

What if I had just met this person instead of that person? What if I had gone to a different school? With the “what-ifs,” big and small, you can imagine a lot of different paths for yourself. Starting from that idea, we came up with this notion of a show that followed several possible lives of one character. We know it’s been done before in movies or books, but it had never been seen on stage, and we thought putting that story on stage would have some unique challenges and that might be fun.

But at first I wasn’t sure how it was a musical, because I think a musical has to have something that wants to be told in music. I wasn’t sure how it was a musical until I realized that there’s this whole question of whether or not we’re destined to meet the person we fall in love with or whether it’s just chance, and once I knew that that question could be at the heart of it, I knew that it could be a romantic show, and that said musical to me.

LA: Once you had that idea, how did it go from just an idea to becoming a Broadway show?

BY: We started with the character, and we knew from a pretty early point that we’d be working with Idina, so we started with a woman in her late thirties.

Then we came up with this idea of her already having lived her life and made some choices she regretted, having wasted some years doing things she didn’t want to do, and then moving back to New York City to start over. After that, we came up with the notion that in one strand, she would meet this man right away and in one strand, she wouldn’t. That was how we started to flesh out the story: looking at different turns that her life might take upon returning to New York City.

LA: How did working with Idina Menzel influence the experience of writing this show?

BY: Everyone knows she’s a spectacular singer, but she’s also a really great and deep actress, and a beautiful person. It was that humanity in her that was so inspiring all the way through, because I always knew we were writing for someone with great gifts as a performer, but also someone who was going to respond to the things that were human in the story, and to the things that were emotional and honest.

But it’s an amazing thing to write a song for Idina. That’s an experience like no other. You can do certain things that you can’t necessarily do with a song for your average mortal. Another part of it is that she really keeps us honest. The things that really make sense for her to perform are the things that are right for the show, and if they don’t feel right, they’re probably not right, and that’s been our guide all the way through.

LA: Once you had the show, how did it develop further and what kind of changes did you have to make?

BY: We did five workshops where you spend two weeks with the material and the cast and you go through the songs, and during the last workshop, you perform them standing in place with music stands. In each workshop, we learned more about the characters, what parts of the story were compelling, and what parts we didn’t really believe.

The biggest challenge throughout has been to make the whole thing clear to the audience. There’s a tremendous potential for confusion, and that was our project for those five workshops. Then we did an out-of-town production in Washington D.C. at the end of the year and learned even more about how we could clarify things. I feel like we’ve got it to a point now where it’s all there, but you still have to lean forward and pay attention a little bit, or else you could be lost pretty easily.

Along the way, songs that you had written for one storyline go away when that storyline changes and then you write a new song, so I think along the way we’ve written maybe 30 songs that aren’t even in the show.

LA: What were some specific changes that you made to make it a little clearer for audiences?

BY: The biggest change is in the opening. In Washington D.C., we did this cool switcheroo so it looked like you were seeing two of Idina at the same time, and we recorded her voice so it looked like she was in two different places. And people had no clue what we were doing. They were absolutely befuddled.

So we really cleared up the opening and tried to say, “Here’s what we’re doing. There’s a woman making this choice, and from this choice, we’re going to follow two branches of her life, and see what happens.” So that’s the biggest difference, because right from the top of the show, I feel like the opening number does a pretty good job of letting people know the ride they’re getting on and hopefully getting them on it.

LA: Why do you think this show is so appealing to an audience?

BY: Idina’s a big part of it for sure. But I hope people identify with this question of looking back at your life and the “what-ifs” that we all think about. Because I don’t think anyone’s path is a straight line. We all bend and weave and turn, and along the way you don’t always know when your life is making a big turn. Sometimes you do, but sometimes you don’t, and it’s only years later that you look back and see your life in an entirely new direction. And I think the show really dramatizes that and shows how so much of what’s joyful and painful in life can come out of the way that fate and small choices interact, and I hope that’s a compelling thing for people to walk out of the theatre thinking about.

LA: During the show I definitely found myself thinking, “If I was in her position, what would I have done?”

BY: Exactly. You think you’re rooting for one side, but then you realize that you’re actually rooting for her to go and do something else.

LA: And it definitely made me think about my own life a little bit on the way home.

BY: Good! That’s what we hope. I love dumb musicals as much as anybody, but I’m not really interested in writing them. I’d rather write something that’s a little bit more of a meal, where you walk away with something to chew on—something to argue about with your friends and family. That’s the kind of experience I hope to give people.

Lydia Wu / The Spectator

Brian Yorkey Discusses “If / Then,” Idina Menzel, and the Writing Process

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

Page 19

Arts and Entertainment Here are some of the coolest events and cultural news coming out of the Empire City: • Bryant Park — “The Kelpies” Scottish sculptor Andy Scott’s depictions of these mythical water horses are on display in Bryant Park as part of Tartan Week (a celebration of all things Scottish). Scott himself will give a talk on Sunday, April 6. Runs through 4/22/14.

• Battle Over Picasso Theatre Curtain A fight over an almost-100 -year-old curtain painted

by Pablo Picasso returns to the New York State Supreme Court. The owner of the building where the curtain hangs wants to take it down to make repairs to the walls behind it and to the curtain itself. The New York Landmarks Conservancy contests that it is too fragile to move and that he just wants to get rid of an acknowledged cultural landmark.

• Brooks Atkinson Theater— “After Midnight” This musical revue pays tribute to the Harlem jazz scene of the 20’s and 30’s with 25 songs and a special focus on the music of Duke Ellington.

“After Midnight” features dancing, singing, and live music from the hand-picked Jazz at Lincoln Center All-Stars.

End date not announced.

• Ethel Barrymore Theater— “Raisin In The Sun” Denzel Washington and Latanya Richardson Jackson star in this revival of the 1959 play about an African-American family that suddenly comes into a large sum of money. The original starred Sidney Poitier and was one of the first Broadway shows to take an in-depth look at the experiences of AfricanAmerican families in pre-civil rights America. Runs through 6/15/14.

Exhibition A Center for All Things Feminist

By Claire Burghard Why haven’t there been any “great” female artists in history?

How has the role of women in art changed through time? What does it mean to have a female identity, and how have women expressed their definitions of femininity through art? These are some of the many questions that the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum attempts to answer through its programs and exhibits. The center is dedicated to all things feminist—its mission: to raise awareness of feminism’s cultural contributions and to educate visitors on gender studies.

Among the various activities provided by the Sackler Center is its most prominent and most popular, Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party.” The large installation is composed of an opentriangle-shaped table—a symbol of equality—along with 39 table settings, each specifically designed for a historical female figure, and a floor below the table engraved with the names of hundreds of other notable women. Each setting for the “guests of honor” includes a beautifully embroidered runner, gold ceramic chalices and utensils, embroidered napkins, and a unique china-painted plate with a central motif based on butterfly and vulvar forms. The table settings illustrate where a specific inspirational female figure was from, what she was like, and what her accomplishments were. Take Sojouner Truth’s table setting for example: crying and cheering African figures dominate the plate, with traditional African quilt patterns on the runner. Together, these qualities describe Truth’s character as an African American abolitionist and suffragist who played a role in identifying the similarities between the struggles of black slaves and the struggles of women. The table is set chronologically, beginning at the entrance of the exhibit space with the Primordial Goddess, moving onto figures such as Hypatia, Cleopatra, Anne Hutchinson, Mary Wollstonecraft, and

Jensen Henry Foerster / The Spectator

CultureBeat

The Brooklyn Museum’s 4th Floor Center for Feminist Art contains multiple works by the Brooklyn based artist Wangechi Mutu.

ending with Georgia O’Keefe.

The installation can be viewed in two different ways. Circling the exhibit, surrounded by slightly reflective walls and dim lighting, feels like walking through time, tracing the history of feminism and meeting historical icons along the way. But when the viewer steps back and observes the installation as a whole, he or she can imagine the group of women sitting down for an impossible, fantastical dinner, how they would interact, and all the engrossing topics they would discuss.

Other exhibits of the Sackler foundation are temporary, such as the largely successful “Wangetchi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey,” which was on display this past winter. Mutu’s mixed-media pieces, done with alien-like subjects and otherworldly settings, make unexpectedly powerful comments on feminism and hierarchy in society. In her piece “Misguided Little Unforgivable Hierarchies,” three female figures are stacked so that the biggest rests under the other two, alluding to how larger social classes are lower than, but support, smaller ones. It intends to represent fabricated racial and ethnic categories and hier-

archies in society through these figures, along with splatters of paint and a collage of mechanical parts that create a conflicted, violent atmosphere. As Mutu’s artwork makes subtle discussion of topics like war, sex, and gender based on her own experiences as an African American female artist, the viewer can just as easily stroll through the exhibit and admire her aesthetic talent as he or she can debate the deeper connotations of each work. An upcoming exhibit in the Sackler foundation galleries, “Chicago in LA: Judy Chicago’s Early Work, 1963-74,” will open on April 4 this spring. This exhibit will survey the artist’s less-familiar but significant work from her early years, which responds primarily to the rapid industrialization of the West Coast through highgloss minimalism.

The Sackler Center, however, is much more than an exhibition space. Weekly events are held by the Center, including exhibit talks, panel discussions, and conferences on feminist topics and current events, which are available for the public to attend.

In addition, the center has a teen internship program, which intends to make feminist art and discussion more accessible to

teenagers. The group’s activities have included planning a recent and tremendously successful Teen Night at the museum focused around “Wangetchi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey.” Teen Night involved designing scavenger hunts and tours concerning this specific exhibit, reading and dissecting essays on feminist art and women in the art world, and creating opportunities for interaction with and discussion of the artwork of the Sackler Center for other teens. This is just one way that the center makes its resources available to anyone interested in its area of focus. The center also created the Women in the Arts award, which praises specific women who have made an impact in the art world. The most recent winners were Lena Dunham and Laurie Simmons, a mother-daughter duo famous for their work in art, photography, and film (Dunham is most notably known for her creation of the hit HBO series “Girls”).

The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center is a blossoming community of people passionate about feminist art and its role in our modern world, but even an individual indifferent on the subject can appreciate its collections and opportunities.

Movie

Justin Chan / The Spectator

Robocop Reboot: A Bad Patch

By Michael Gao “Robocop” (2014), directed

by José Padilha, is a sci-fi action film that tracks the effects of future advances in capitalism, crime, and technology on the general public. Its focus is the transformation of multiple amputee and injured cop Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) into a billion dollar cyborg integrated with sleek software and fighting capabilities. Dubbed Robocop, Murphy stops crime while unwittingly building up PR support for the malevolent corporation Omnicorp. The premise may sound

familiar—and for a good reason.

Padilha’s movie is a reboot of Paul Verhoven’s 1987 original, and it pays its due respects to Verhoven in robot design and plot. However, the two films remain quite different; the souvenir resemblances of the reboot are superficial, and there exists major differences in the styles of each director and the messages of each movie.

Verhoven’s 1987 predecessor has a snappy feel—social satire, nostalgia, and even gore are at his beck and call. Satiric ads pepper the original, with one even announcing a familiarly-titled game based on thermonuclear warfare: “Nukem: Nuke them before you nuke you.” In addition, Verhoven’s use of carnage both revolts and fascinates the audience: Murphy’s injury scene is horrendous and hard to tear away from. At times, wounds and blood are aptly symbolic; one scene shows a corpse sullying the architectural model for Delta City, foretelling the failure of a law enforcement machine and future violence.

Furthermore, character portrayal is done very well. Verhoeven indulges the audience with a classic villain, Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith), who does not show a single trace of charity or humanity. Robocop (Peter

Welly) himself is also memorable: he is the unstoppable force that clears Detroit of crime, and he suffers poignantly from being unable to return to his life as a human.

On the other hand, the 2014 reboot exudes a sterile and realistic ambience because it relies on distant characters and unfeeling technology for its plot. Padilha seeks to show technology as becoming overarching and dominant over humanity—as Omnicorp’s very name suggests—but his own movie loses its humanity in the process. He would have done well to learn from Verhoeven’s satire and exploration of the human spirit.

Each movie’s style is inextricably linked to its messages and moral criticism. Each uses its style to emphasize its moral messages. However, there are certain questions both films should attempt to answer. What makes a human different from a machine? What does being human even mean? Do humans have free will, and does technology impact free will?

The reboot, unfortunately, has a muddled take on these issues. The human element is poorly explored; the human characters are mostly one-dimensional. After scientists play with Alex’s brain using hormones

and programming chips, the audience receives Alex in only three flavors: distant, robotic, or angry.

Many characters are worse, portraying simple stereotypes: the loving wife, the nonchalant scientists, and the evil boss all make appearances.

Padilha’s film takes an equivocal and hesitant stance on the differences between humanity and machines. Essential parts of Alex’s brain are substituted with technological equivalents. Norton (played by Gary Oldman), the chief scientist, assures Alex that he is “in control” and that he retains his intelligence, memory, and emotion. Norton’s claim that the technological substitutions are equivalent to the originals for such important aspects brings up philosophical questions that the film immediately drops in favor of flashy special effects.

Furthermore, Alex’s ability to override his “programming” is rather vague. At one point, Norton lowers Alex’s dopamine levels, which causes him to ignore his family. But later, in spite of low dopamine levels and programming, Alex’s humanity successfully breaks free from this restriction, and he returns home after his depressed wife speaks to him. Scenes like these create a strong message that Verhoeven’s version lacks.

Robocop (1987) is self-assured in the messages it wants to deliver about the differences between humans and machines.

Verhoeven’s Murphy loses his memory when he is made into Robocop, but a shadowy, residual sense of self remains. From this shaky ground, he regains his memories and this personal rediscovery lends poignancy and humanity to his character. Over the course of the movie, he progressively shifts from being an impressive robot simply fulfilling its tasks to an ideal human cyborg, more consciously deciding his fate. Verhoeven doesn’t try to portray humans as perfect but as having the strength to overcome all obstacles, even those that seem much stronger and more powerful than them. He supports that personality and identity exist, even when separated from most of our body (although perhaps not most of our brain).

In the end, Robocop (1987) easily overshadows Robocop (2014) through its better style, better acting, and better take on its themes. However, the newer version does have some merits, such as the cinematography. The Darth Vader-like unveiling of Alex’s true body, a throat and damaged brain, will stick with the audience long after they leave, although little else will.

Page 20

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

Arts and Entertainment Food

Sabrina Chan / The Spectator

S’MAC to the Face

S’MAC is an East Village restaurant specializing in variations of macaroni and cheese.

By Rocky Lam S’MAC, short for Sarita’s Macaroni and Cheese, is a well-known emporium for its various unique twists on classic macaroni and cheese, from high-end renditions to allAmerican comfort food. The alleged mac-n-cheese heaven is conveniently located on East 12th Street near various subway stations (N, F, L, and 4 are among the few) that are within a 10-minute walking distance.

Although the yellow-orange exterior of the restaurant definitely stands out from the monotonous string of apartment buildings that are on the same block, the outside is actually rather run-down with paint peels and rusty patches plaguing its metal frames. However, this does not keep curious customers from trying S’MAC’s

gimmick: handcrafted mac-ncheese known for being “simple yet delicious.”

Through the giant glass windows, the interior appears to be surprisingly cozy compared to its shabby exterior: red brick walls decorated with mac-n-cheese paintings surround several sets of square tables, each accessorized with its own yellow and orange stools.

The yellow-orange layout of the restaurant reflects an aesthetically pleasing integration of the mac-n-cheese theme. However, a hinged metal-framed glass door is the only entrance and exit to the restaurant, making it extremely difficult for customers to enter and exit during busier hours; waiting customers are forced to line up in single file due to the narrow space. From first glance, it is easy to tell that the entirety is

no bigger than an average high school classroom. Eating with a group would be inconvenient because the largest table can only accommodate a party of six; any party greater than that would have to break up and move to other tables that usually seat two each. The ordering area tends to get jammed up because there just isn’t enough room to fit all the customers.

For this reason, the cashier politely declines orders if there are simply no tables available (no one wants to stand up to eat a whole pan of mac-n-cheese).

S’MAC’s mac-n-cheese comes in four different sizes: Nosh, Major Munch, Mongo, and Partay!. If you are planning on relishing the mac-ncheese by yourself, a Nosh is recommended because a Major Munch definitely exceeds one serving (it simply gets too cheesy after a while). The menu choices not only include classics like “All-American,” but also include exotic-sounding dishes like “La Mancha,” all tacked with their own short, silly descriptions (like “Don’t let the ‘Lite’ fool you – this baby is as satisfying as any of the other MACs!” for the Garden Lite). If you happen to stop by S’MAC during the right time of the year, you might even have the limited edition “Philly Cheese Steak” as an option. And if you are the indecisive customer who just can’t pick an item on the menu, S’MAC generously offers a sampler platter, which allows you to try eight different options of mac-n-cheese and

decide on your favorite for the future.

Once you have placed your order (which will probably take a while because they take a noticeably long time to process the orders), you are handed a metal holder with a numbered panshaped card in it. This serves as a beacon for the “waitress,” the cashier who has just processed your orders, so she knows which table to bring your food to. The preparation and actual baking of the mac-n-cheese— unsurprisingly—also take a considerably long time. The reward for that arduous wait is an adorable black pan, with its handle slipped inside a mitt, filled to the top with steaming mac-n-cheese. Although the uniqueness of the idea is commendable, the taste of the food itself is just barely above mediocre. The mac-n-cheese tends to taste a little bit too flavorful because the procedure of preparing the mac-n-cheese is essentially just throwing a bunch of ingredients into the mix, so there’s almost no way to exact the flavor. For example, the Cajun, at first, is enticing with just the right balance of salty and spicy. However, as you dig further into the dish, you realize how uneven the flavor is: one spot would be rather bland with little pepper, while another would be jam-packed with spice and sausage. Unlike the flavor, the texture of the mac-n-cheese lives up to its expectations. The macaroni is so richly melded with the cheese, creating a creamy, smooth mix

that melts tastefully inside your mouth. The velvety mac-ncheese is topped off with a perfect crust that is not too burnt or too watery. Therefore, when it is prepared just right, the mac-n-cheese is easily a gourmet food that will make many of S’MAC’s customers come to visit again.

When it is prepared just right, the mac-ncheese is easily a gourmet food that will make many of S’MAC’s customers come to visit again.

S’MAC is a gourmet mac-ncheese restaurant, among the many other wonders of East Village, that is a must-go for mac-n-cheese lovers. However, for those who might not be too fond of the dish, try to find somewhere else to spend lunch or dinner, because it is simply not worth the wait.

COMIC

By The Art Department

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

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Page 21

The Spectator ●April 1, 2014

Page 22

Sports Girls’ Lacrosse

Huskies Look to Move Up in the Pack

By Jeffrey Zheng “Alright, girls, hustle up and bring it in,” the Huskies’ coach said at the end of practice.

The order was not from the familiar voice of the girls’ lacrosse team’s previous coach, David Park. This year, the Huskies will be listening to the voice of Coach Brad Gitlin, the Huskies’ fourth coach in five years. Gitlin has coached lacrosse at the middle school and high school levels in Long Island, where lacrosse is very competitive. However, this will be his first year coaching girls’ lacrosse. Having a new coach every year “is in a way like being adopted over and over again. I don’t think one year is truly enough to connect with them,” junior and third year team member Angela Lin said.

Different coaches every year mean different plays, coaching styles, and personalities, which certainly affects the play of the team.

For the Huskies, winning is a rare occurrence, as they finished the last three seasons with records of 2-12, 2-12 and 3-10, respectively. Along with having to adapt to yet another new coach, the team has a mammoth gap to fill this year with the departure of previous captain Sarah Duncan (’13).

As the leading scorer of all of PSAL varsity girls’ lacrosse last year, Sarah Duncan scored over seventy percent of the Huskies’ goals, making 55 of 95 attempts.

“Last year Sarah and me

took pretty much all of the shots throughout last season,” senior and captain Priya Aggarwal said. “This year, I’m

“This year, I’m positive that five or six other girls will step up and take more shots.”

—Priya Aggarwal, senior and captain

positive that five or six other girls will step up and take more shots.”

Her view seems a bit optimistic, however. Besides Sarah Duncan, Aggarwal was the only other player on the team last year to score more than five goals, having scored 18 out of 54 attempts. None of the other players had a significant impact offensively. Even with Sarah Duncan leading the PSAL in scoring last year, the Huskies still finished with a poor record of 3-10, which

really questions what the quality of the team will be without her.

Aggarwal is not the only Huskie with an optimistic view on Sarah Duncan’s departure.

Junior and co-captain Anne Duncan, experienced goalie and younger sister of Sarah Duncan, also accepts the challenge of replacing her sister with confidence. “Sarah kind of did the team a favor by leaving. Her departure has given us more opportunities to develop our own skills,” Anne Duncan said.

In addition, Gitlin has a plan to change their streak of inferior records. “One of the things we’re going to focus on is fundamentals. I know that this team has had some ups and downs throughout the years but I think this year we have a great group of girls that are already bonding really well,” Gitlin said. “Having good chemistry is going to be the key to our team.”

There’s no doubt about the good relationships that the Huskies have developed. Many of the girls were having fun and getting along well at practice, while also productively working on their fundamentals.

Maintaining strong relationships may be a big reason why Gitlin made a questionable decision to not cut any players this year. The team currently carries an extremely large roster of 44 players, 17 more than last year’s roster, which can lead to crowded practice areas, especially with the high

demand of field space at Pier 40. It can also lead to difficulty traveling to games as well as less specific player attention from Coach Gitlin. However, some members of the Huskies believe in the benefits. “A large roster will allow them to develop their skills and, in a couple of years,” Anne Duncan said, “those freshman or sophomores or even juniors can be the captains and the star players.”

“In a couple of years, those freshman or sophomores or even juniors can be the captains and the star players.” — Anne Duncan, junior

No matter how well the Huskies get along and how much they work on fundamentals, replacing the leading scorer of all of PSAL is without a doubt a difficult task; many players will have to step up their game. Perhaps it will be Aggarwal, who showed the most potential last season, or maybe the younger Duncan, who may play outside of the goalie position this year.

Anne Duncan has experience outside of the goalie position, having played as a defensive wing from 4th to 7th grade before switching to goalkeeper.

“I’m really excited to have the opportunity to step out of goal and try defensive wing again because we have other wonderful players who have offered to step into goal and have done a wonderful job,” Anne Duncan said.

Sophomore Chiara Baker, who proved her athleticism last season, and junior Rebecca Yuste-Golob, who has been on the team since freshman year and shows flashes of leadership, could step up as well, but they will have to step up big. There is little chance that the Huskies will be able to turn into a playoff contender in one season due to the impactful departure of Sarah Duncan and the lack of potential shown last year. However, with an immense roster and a surplus of developing new players, this season may be the first step in bringing the Huskies to the front of the pack in a couple of years.

ADVERTISEMENT

Freaking Out about SATs/ACTs? Here’s what you need to know:

By SCOTT FARBER, founder, A-List Education Before we begin, you might want to know why on Earth you should take the advice of some company that decided to advertise in your newspaper. At this point we know that many of you are desperate—if we said that the secret to a higher score on the SAT or ACT was a diet of tarantulas and Red Bull, some of you might just try it. But before you run out in search of killer spiders or try to sprout a set of wings, take a deep breath. Trust us. We’ve worked with thousands of students, we train teachers how to teach the SAT and ACT, and (because we’re huge nerds) we tend to take the test every year just to make sure we’re still getting perfect scores. (It’s okay: most of us are over 30 and have master’s degrees; we should be getting perfect scores).

So let’s get to it. Sophomores, we’ll get to you in a moment. For now, we’re talking to you, juniors. You guys have spent your entire high school careers studying, taking tests, and writing essays all in the hopes of getting into that dream school. And yet, there are still SATs/ACTs to take and scores to improve. Before you throw up your hands in frustration, break down and cry, or decide that you’re dropping out and working a minimum wage job instead of going to college, let’s talk about what your next few months should look like: 5 COMMANDMENTS FOR THE FINAL COUNTDOWN 1. Keep Studying. Hope alone will not raise your SAT/ACT score any more than it will win you the lottery. (If you’ve already won the lottery, why are you applying to college?) You can’t change your score without changing your habits. Students who take practice tests, study vocabulary, and refine their techniques are much more likely to see higher scores than those who are simply hoping to sit next to the smart kid and cheat.

2. Don’t Cheat. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CHEAT ON THE SAT OR ACT. As the pressure builds, students sometimes feel the urge to find any advantage they can, even if it’s dishonest. It’s just not worth it. Stealing a few answers from your neighbor to pick up a couple of points will not be the difference between acceptance and rejection—colleges see your scores as a range anyway. But if you get caught, you aren’t getting in anywhere. You have spent years building an academic profile. You don’t want to live in your parents’ basement for the next few years.

3. Don’t Give Up. Many students think they have little chance of scoring higher on a 2nd or 3rd attempt at a test. There is still plenty of time to study, and plenty of opportunities for improvement. Even just the confidence that comes with experience can have a positive impact

on your score.

4. Don’t Stress. Adding pressure to a test only hurts your problem solving abilities. If you’re stressed with AP Exams and finals right now, consider taking a test in the fall. Fall tests can be less stressful, particularly when you already have scores from the spring. If you do better in the fall, great. If not, you don’t have to submit those scores at all—you’ve already submitted your spring scores. In fact, many of our students have hit their top scores in October, November, or December precisely because they went in stress-free. (Score Choice for the SAT works differently for different colleges. Check on collegeboard.com for details or contact us at A-List for advice.)

5. Get a Grip on Reality. Taking the SAT or ACT may seem overwhelming at times, but it’s just a test. It’s just a bunch of English and math questions with some bubbling thrown in.

True, bubbling can be hard and the reading passages may not be your idea of a good time, but it’s only one piece of your college application. Colleges look at the whole picture, and you should too.

Now sophomores: let’s talk. You might be wondering why we’re talking to you now when it seems like you have a million years until your exams. Well, you don’t. Your exams are closer than you think, and if you’re smart, you’ll start preparing now.

Here are the top 5 things we tell our sophomores: 1. It’s NEVER too early to start prepping. The skills you build for the SAT or ACT are the same skills you need for school. Pick up books by the test-makers (The College Board and ACT, Inc.) and take a practice exam. Find out what your weakness are early and start doing things to strengthen them.

2. Read a book—ANY book. But actually read it. We don’t particularly care what you’re reading, as long as you engage yourself with words. Read blogs, read newspapers, read magazines. There’s no more essential skill on these exams than becoming a better reader. This will not only help your reading and writing scores, but can also help improve your comprehension of math problems.

3. Study one SAT word a day. SURELY you can find the time for this. If you can do this and do it well, you will have 365 new SAT words before you even need them. If you do two words a day, well, we hope you can do that math. Vocab is worth up to 160 points on any given SAT. It’s time to get to work.

4. Start thinking about a tutoring program. We suggest ours, obviously. But whatever direction you go in, make sure they’re using real exams and that full-length tests are part of their program. You also want someone who covers not only the exam content but also the strategies that help you get through the test quickly and effectively. The most highly regarded programs will start filling up by the end of your sophomore year, so plan early and do your research.

5. Don’t lie to yourself. If you don’t know the material at this point, don’t pretend that you do. Not in school, not with your tutors, not anyone. It’s ALWAYS better to find out that you’re missing essential pieces sooner rather than later. The sooner you find your weaknesses, the sooner you can attack them head on with practice.

Questions? Looking for a tutor? Engage us through all the things— www.facebook.com/alisteducation, Twitter @alisteduny, and our website www.alisteducation.com.

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

Page 23

Sports Boys’ Lacrosse

Girls’ Tennis

Peglegs Wobble in Season Opener

Lady Peglegs Reload the Cannon

Jake Brimberg / The Spectator

By Zhe Lee

Sophomore Andrew Kratsios (18) dodges past a defenseman.

By Jeffrey Zheng Perhaps the Peglegs were not ready. Perhaps they underestimated the Eagles, who just established their varsity lacrosse team this year. No matter what the cause was, the Eagles came out striking and the Peglegs left the game limping: on Friday, March 21, the Peglegs dropped their season opener to the Eagle Academy of Young Men II by a final score of 13-8. The Eagles, who only had a JV lacrosse team last year, jumped out to an early 4-0 lead in the first quarter with two goals each by Eagles’ juniors Claude McCamon and Kernell Warner. “[Our] defense needed some time to adjust to the game situation and [the Eagles’] quick offense,” senior Aron Lam said.

The Eagles dominated the possession of the ball and kept it on their side for most of the first quarter. They were quick but still managed to take their time passing the ball and looking for the best shot. On one of the possessions, the Eagles passed the ball around for close to two minutes as the Peglegs’ offense idly stood at midfield and watched. Defensively, the Peglegs were always one step behind.

The Peglegs picked up their intensity in the second quarter and, as a result, got their offense moving and scored more goals.

“They really jumped at us in the

“A lot of the time we were too bunched up in the middle which made it easy to defend us” — Noah Kramer, senior

first quarter but after that we played them pretty evenly,” senior Matthew Dalton said.

However, the stifling Eagles’ defense made it difficult for the Peglegs to attempt easy shots. Throughout the game, Eagles coach Frederic Raphael screamed “Double number nine!”, referring to senior and captain Noah Kramer of the Peglegs, who was third in the PSAL in goals scored last year.

The Eagles sent two players to defend Kramer throughout the game, forcing him to either pass the ball off or take a difficult shot.

“Every team we play usually double teams me right away. There is always going to be an open man so the offense has [to] spread out and move the ball around quickly. A lot of the times we were too bunched up in the middle which made it easy to defend us,” Kramer said.

A couple of Kramer’s shots were blocked by Eagles junior Victor Godette, but Kramer was able to muscle through the Eagles’ defense and score the Peglegs’ first two goals. The rest of the game went more smoothly as the Peglegs began to adapt to the Eagles’ quick play style.

The team got out into the open field and moved the ball much more quickly and attempted far more shots than they did in the first half. However, they still had trouble stopping the Eagles on defense. “We weren’t aggressive enough at all. Going forward we have to start playing a lot more aggressively and make sure that when the other team puts the ball in the net on us they’re going to look at us laying on the ground,” coach Anthony Bascone said.

Although the Peglegs played with more energy in the second half, they were at times outhustled and out-muscled on 50-50 balls and, as a result, lost many potential possessions. Once, a Peglegs defenseman looked like he had an easy ground ball, but an Eagles player ran in and simply checked him out of the way and picked the ball up.

Last year, the Peglegs’ biggest concern was balanced scoring. The Peglegs depended on

Kramer to the point where they could not score points without him. He scored more than 50 percent of the Peglegs’ goals in all 10 games before his shoulder injury. Though Kramer did take nine shots, the most shots in this game, senior Clay Walsh

“There are so many players with talent and potential!” junior Julia Gokhberg said.

Though a rather enthusiastic statement by Gokhberg, the Lady Peglegs do actually have much to look forward to this season. After a 10-2 regular season record last season and an appearance in the second round of playoffs, the Lady Peglegs are poised to make another splash in their division this year. They have a plethora of potential in their first-year player influx and a strong junior and senior core that led the Lady Peglegs to the Mayor’s Cup last season.

The Lady Peglegs have been consistent Mayor’s Cup entrants for a decade so far and were one of the top four PSAL teams in the 2012-2013 season. Anything less than that would be disappointing for the 2013-2014 season, since their outgoing seniors did not make an especially large impact last season.

During the off-season, the Lady Peglegs lost their former coach Jeffrey Menaker, who left to coach the Bronx Science girls’ tennis team after nearly five seasons of coaching. Menaker was unable to cope with the travel difficulties involving the commute to Stuyvesant.

Nevertheless, the Lady Peglegs have a new coach, Kevin Claesgens, who has no experience coaching but has experience with the game. “I feel like our new coach is a fresh start for all of us,” Gokhberg said.

Claesgens will also have the aid of seniors and captains Aleksandra Stainsavljevic and Victoria Chung, who were both on the

team for four years, in leading.

Menaker described Stainasavljevic as being a “natural leader” and Chung as being a “critical player for Stuy.”

Besides being role models for the Lady Peglegs, Stainsavljevic and Chung are also together playing first doubles for a second season after going 4-0 last year. According to Gokhberg, the duo is formidable because of “[Stainsavljevic]’s great tennis mind and [Chung]’s powerful serve, forehand, and backhand.”

Speaking of formidable, Gokhberg, the best player on the team and first singles player since her freshman year, is also a force to be reckoned with. She is a major reason the Lady Peglegs were able to defeat Brooklyn Tech during the Mayor’s Cup last year with a 3-2 win, and she also had a 9-3 regular season record.

Despite a similar core to last season’s, the seasonally competitive Beacon, who went 12-0 last season, may serve as a roadblock in the Lady Peglegs’ path to winning the Mayor’s Cup or the city championship.

Bronx Science may also be another roadblock, as the Wolverines’ new coach, Menaker, knows the weaknesses and strengths of his former players and could use that to the Wolverines’ advantage. Small challenges like those, as well as adjusting to a new coach, are issues that the Lady Peglegs will inevitably have to adapt to, but there are high projections for a team with a plethora of talent and an established winning culture.

“The good news is that we’ll see these guys again in a couple of Girls’ Handball weeks and hopefully redeem Furies Enter the Season as ourselves” — Anthony Bascone, One Unit and Hopeful for coach Success took eight and sophomore Andrew Kratsios, sophomore Laolu Ogunnaike, and rookie senior Matthew Dalton scored one goal apiece. At the beginning of the game, some of the Peglegs’ players seemed hesitant to take shots. Early in the game, Dalton had a good opportunity to score a goal but hesitated and passed the ball to Kramer instead. As the game progressed, however, the Peglegs’ players started looking to shoot more.

“I think this year’s scoring will be more balanced than others. Most of the kids on the field are a threat to score. The talent is more balanced across the team, so while I figure I’ll still be the leading scorer, there will definitely be a more balanced score sheet than before,” Kramer said.

While this was a tough loss for the Peglegs, they see this loss as a challenge and feel that “this team, Eagle Academy, will probably be the best team in the league,” Bascone said. “The good news is that we’ll see these guys again in a couple of weeks and hopefully redeem ourselves.”

By Rayyan Jokhai

The girls’ handball team heads into the season with high hopes and aspirations, looking to outdo its previous performances. Following three straight years of second-round playoff exits, the team hopes that this will be the year to bring home the PSAL banner to Stuyvesant.

The team is starting the season undermanned, as four seniors left the team, three of whom were second singles and first doubles players. This means that there is already a big gap in the talent of the team. However, to cope with this, the team has an entirely new first doubles team of senior and co-captain Ada Chen and sophomore Eliza Tang. The other new senior and co-captain, Ida Huang, has also filled the role of the third singles position. “Four seniors left the team. With the loss of their talent, skills, and leadership, it will be a big change for our team.

However, we do have new captains who are doing their best.

Although we do miss those who have graduated, we can definitely make up for it with the new talent we’ve received and the new leadership we have,”

junior Lisha Han said.

Because team unity translates to cooperative play on the court, the girls hopes to continue their bonding traditions off the court. “I really enjoyed how we bonded last year with our team. Our team had good sportsmanship, and was like a family in a sense. I’d really like to see that again this year,” Han said.

Although they do not meet as a team during the fall or winter, the players have a tradition of Secret Santa, and get each other gifts, which they then exchange during the winter vacation before the season begins.

In addition, the team meets up during parent-teacher conferences in a combined effort to raise money with their bake sales, as well as to promote team bonding.

Although the team has an uphill battle in front of them with a wide gap in talent, and a tradition of doing well in the regular season but losing early in the playoffs, the current players are confident that they can step up and end the pattern of playoff failure that has plagued them in recent years.

The Spectator ●April 1, 2014

Page 24

Sports Boys’ Handball

Basketball Humor

Letter From Former NBA Commissioner David Stern Uncovered Dear Adam Silver,

Dragons Ready to Take Flight

By LEV AKABAS

So you’ve taken over as NBA commissioner, and you need to know a few things as you’re getting started. Here’s the rundown: Before the season starts, send a mass email to the referees using bringontheboos@gmail.com telling them who you want in The Finals, the winner, and the number of games. The referees take care of the rest. I can’t wait to find out which team you’re going to pick. Surprise me!

All the best, David Stern

P.P.S. Fine Gregg Popovich and Mark Cuban at least once a season – try to get it out of the way early in the year (those guys are SO ANNOYING, right?). To determine the amount of money, I generally roll dice and multiply whatever number I land on by $5000, but if a coin or a wheel of fortune works better for you, go for it.

P.P.P.S When the draft lottery rolls around, just pick a team that you feel sorry for to get the #1 pick. Maybe a team that just lost an important player to free-agency (I felt so bad for the Cavaliers after they lost LeBron!), or a team that had a trade arbitrarily vetoed by you (remember when we totally screwed over the Pelicans by vetoing their trade for no reason LOL). Or you could just choose a hopeless city like Cleveland and have fun watching them completely blow the draft pick. If anyone wonders how we actually choose the winning team, give them the old tale that we randomly select ping-pong balls from a machine. People always believe that story.

P.P.P.P.S The only way people will talk about the Slam Dunk Contest is if it’s boring, so make sure you change the format to something really stupid every few years, and occasionally put some random white guys in the competition to make the actual dunkers look better.

P.P.P.P.P.S If anyone from the FBI shows up asking about fixing games, take ‘em out.

Girls’ Softball

Renegades’ Season Opener a Success

By Louis Susser The Renegades opened their season with a victory on Tuesday, March 18 at East River Park, taking a critical win over the Manhattan Center for Science and Math Lady Rams.

Going into the opener, the Renegades were “unsure but hopeful,” junior Deanna Taylor said.

This uncertainty was due to four new starters in the lineup who were new to their positions.

The Renegades struck first and scored the game’s opening runs in the first inning, when sophomore Georgia Kamm blasted a double into the outfield gap.

Even though the Renegades started the game strong, their middle innings were unproductive offensively, as they failed to score runs. The Lady Rams, however, were able to tie up the game at 2-2 going into the fourth inning. During the fifth and sixth innings, the Renegades once again found their groove, scoring six unanswered runs, amounting to an 8-2 victory.

The victory can be attributed, in part, to senior and captain Marie Frolich, who pitched an excellent game on the mound, allowing only three hits and one run. In addition, the Renegades

took advantage of the Rams’ catcher’s weak arm with smart base-running. “We were able to steal a lot of bases because the other team had a catcher with a weak arm,” coach Vincent Miller said. At a certain point in the game, sophomore Alexis Kushner pinch ran for her captain and was able to steal two bases, which led to a run after a deep hit from junior Megan Mullaney.

The Renegades did display some weakness on the defensive end. “Our defense needs some improvement. Defense is so important, since different situations arise at each at-bat,” Frolich said. While defense can always be improved, the Renegades made some incredible plays in the infield, including a play at first base when junior Sophie Gershon dove at the base to get the out. Also, both Mullaney, at second base, and teammate Lauren Sobota, at shortstop, were able to consistently field ground balls and make safe throws to first base to get runners out.

Overall, Miller was very impressed with his team’s performance. Even though there were four new starters playing in unfamiliar positions, they were still able to capitalize in pressure situations with clutch hits and steals.

Yi Zhu/ The Spectator

P.S Only impose fines on players earning less than $10 million so we can keep our superstars happy. So when you told LeBron a few weeks ago that he couldn’t wear a black mask during games, that’s the kind of thing you want to stay away from. I know he’s sort of a jerk (I’ve emailed not5not6not7@gmail.com over 3000 times asking him to compete in the dunk contest and he still hasn’t responded!), but he’s also the only reason anyone watches this pitiful league, so let him do what he wants.

Junior Wilson Luo serves in the Stuyvesant Dragons’ match against the HS of Economics and Finance Panthers.

By Jason Lee The Dragons had their championship hopes crushed last year, blown out in the semifinals by Bayside High School, the same team they lost to the previous year in the finals. The Dragons, however, aren’t letting this get to them.

“Last year is last year,” junior and co-captain Young Kim said. This season, the Dragons are set to embark on another journey for the championship, but this time, achieving their goals seems to be far more difficult than ever before.

All of the Dragons’ singles starters from last year graduated, so there are a lot of holes to be filled. Nevertheless, the Dragons have reasons to be optimistic. They have gone undefeated for the past ten years in the regular season, and the Dragons are confident that they will continue to dominate in their relatively weak division. Moreover, the three new co-captains, Kim, junior Marco Liu, and senior Long

“We want to go all the way and win it all, especially after many painstaking losses in the finals and semifinals.”

—Long Yip, senior and co-captain

Yip, have the ability to replace last season’s three singles starters. As strong doubles starters last year, they look to not only meet, but also surpass the expectations that previous captains Alexander Bu and Cody Tong (’13) set forth.

“We have three really dedicated captains. They are responsible, mature, and I think they will really help get the team psychologically ready,” coach Robert Sandler said.

While Liu has a dominant serve, comparable to that of Tong’s, and looks to kill the ball, Yip is good with both hands and consistently performs at a high level. Kim is also able to overpower his opponents and kills the ball frequently. With these attributes, the current captains undoubtedly have the potential to fill in the gaps left by the previous captains.

In addition, the Dragons have acquired promising new players to help fill in the missing pieces. In particular, junior Daniel Wu and freshman Eddie Wang gave Sandler much to think about with their strong performances throughout the tryouts. Wang showed off his strong left hand, and both dominated their opponents during the tryouts.

Wu and Wang, however, have areas on which to improve. “My strengths are my power and agility, [but] my weakness is my accuracy,” Wu said.

“Eddie [Wang] has a really nice left, but he needs to work on his right, and the fact that we’re having a lefty and righty work together is going to need some serious teamwork,” junior Wilson Luo said.

Instead of focusing on the teams in their division, the Dragons are preparing for much stronger teams like Bayside High School and Francis Lewis, schools from Queens, which have stopped the Dragons post-season run multiple times. In preparation for these high-caliber teams, the Dragons plan to organize more scrimmages against better teams so that they can experience the level of play they’ll need to face to be serious

contenders for the championships. The lack of scrimmages has been a problem in past years, as the inexperience of playing better teams caused many of their quarter and semifinal losses.

“Our biggest flaw is that the division we play in is not as competitive as the other divisions, and because of this, we lose out on a lot of experiences and learning opportunities that a lot of other top teams get from their divisions,” Yip said.

Though the Dragons will

“Last year is last year.” – Young Kim, junior and co-captain

not be playing Bayside, Cardozo, or Francis Lewis until playoff time, the Dragons are optimistic about their chances against the powerhouses from Queens, primarily because of the losses experienced by the top tier teams as well. “Bayside, Cardozo, and Francis Lewis lost most of their starters, so we have a pretty good chance this year,” Luo said.

The season is underway, and the Dragons are ready. Although Sandler called this year a “rebuilding year,” the players are still determined to win it all. In his final year, Yip makes his objectives clear: “We want to go all the way and win it all, especially after many painstaking losses in the finals and semifinals,” he said.

The Spectator ● April 1, 2014

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April 1, 2014

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The Spectator SpoRts Girls’ Lacrosse

By tahmid Khandaker “The loss to Hunter was definitely disappointing. We had a lot of room for improvement,” junior and goalkeeper Anne Duncan said after the 16-3 blowout to Hunter’s Hawks. The Huskies looked to bounce back quickly against Abraham Lincoln High School by addressing their major problems during practice.

The Huskies looked much improved on Friday’s game at Abraham Lincoln, at least for the first half. Although the Huskies displayed a potent offense and solid defense, they were overtaken during the second half and forced into a triple overtime battle that ended in a 7-7 tie, unveiling some glaring issues, such as experience and consistency.

The Huskies arrived on Friday expecting a win against their opponents, who had a 2-11 record last season. “We practiced shooting drills and doubling on defense during practice because coach was

disappointed in our shot taking [after the loss to Hunter],” junior Sehee Ko said.

The results of intensive practice were apparent when the Huskies took a 6-2 lead in the first half. “We got a lot of ground balls and took more shots on goal,” junior Weng Kei Heng said.

On defense the Huskies “did a much better job getting marked up on Abraham Lincoln’s attack,” Duncan said, and “improved draw control,” which is gaining possession of the ball after a draw. A major tactic of the Huskies’ offense was time of possession, which was palpable on Friday’s game as they held the ball for most of the first half, passing around to open players for a clear shot on goal.

Unfortunately for the Huskies, the match was a tale of two halves. Their offensive cohesion and their defense dissipated as Abraham Lincoln used a frenetic pace to to dominate the game. Abraham Lincoln responded to

the halftime deficit by roaring back and scoring five goals while holding the Huskies to only one. On defense “we let them possess the ball way too much,” Duncan said.

The Huskies, who passed off good shots for better ones during the first half, consistently settled for unreasonable shots during the second one.

“We just kept forcing the ball into the goal when we should have settled it around eight meters and [waited] for an open girl,” Heng said.

Another problem for the Huskies was the lack of experience for some players. “A lot of our starters were subbed out for some players who never played before. [The] game was a little hectic, so I think it was hard to jump into, but those who went into the game tried their best to learn on the fly,” Duncan said.

These rookies were forced to deal with some controversial no calls from the referees.

“Lincoln is a very violent team, and the referees weren’t seeing

Gideon Leeper/ The Spectator

Second Place no More, Hopefully

Junior Genji Noguchi gets ready to hit the ball in a match against Bronx Science.

In order to be the best, you have to beat the best. But there is no such thing as an undefeatable team. What often labels a team undefeatable, however, is the appearance of being so. The Smoking Aces have been stuck in second place in the Manhattan A division for the past three years. The number one team, Beacon High School, has gone undefeated in that stretch, absolutely torching the rest of the schools in its division. The question is can they be beaten, and if so, how?

The answer is not very simple. The Smoking Aces come into the 2013-14 season losing three rotation players, including first singles player Peter Becht (’13), who was 9-3 last season. In a tennis match that consists of three singles matches and two doubles matches, having three seniors leave, all playing different matches, essentially means losing three of your strongest five matches.

For some players on the team, the season is over. “I’m going to be completely honest.

There is no way we can beat [Beacon]. Beacon’s starters

Junior captain Anne Duncan controls the ball on attack in the game against Lincoln High School on March 21.

everything we were experiencing. They were tripping us and checking to the head,” Duncan said. While Abraham Lincoln High School was getting away with some no calls, the Huskies were on the wrong end of some bad calls of their own, such as covering the ball and obstruction of shooting space.

During the first half, the Huskies ran wild, utilizing a team effort involving five or

six passes to score their goals.

However, the tide turned during the second half as Abraham Lincoln intensified the pace and constantly broke down the defense, forcing the game into an exciting triple overtime that tested both teams’ willingness to win. With a grind-out finish that resulted in a tie, the Huskies showed flashes of exceptional play, but also demonstrated their inconsistency.

Girls’ Tennis

Boys’ Tennis

By Anthony Cheang

Yi Zhu / The Spectator

A Tale of Two Halves

are all nationally ranked and they are all capable of playing Division One tennis,” junior and co-captain Leonard Margolis said. Considering Margolis’ point and the loss of last year’s seniors, overtaking Beacon seems like all but a pipe dream.

However, if the Smoking Aces can do one thing, it’s changing the mindset of the team, starting with its goals.

“Our goal this season is to be second in the division. In terms of record, 8-4,” Margolis said. Such as record would merely tie the record the Aces had last year. If the Aces want to improve, they can’t settle for second place.

Vince Lombardi, former coach of the Green Bay Packers once said, “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” It’s up to the Aces’ current seniors to shake the younger members of the team out of this mindset.

Thankfully, senior Evan Tao is ready to take that responsibility. “I hate when people make Beacon out to be an unbeatable team when we have enough good players to win every match against them. I

want to see a lot of attention to detail. It’s always just the little adjustments [that will make all the difference],” Tao said. “This year’s plan is to overachieve.”

The Aces also plan on surprising Beacon by starting two new freshmen: Sebastian Cain and Brandon Huang. Although they are split apart in first and second doubles, respectively, hopefully they can infuse some energy into the team. “Our two doubles teams are also always key, since a lot of teams in the PSAL don’t have great doubles players,” Tao said. New coach Marvin Autry’s placement of two freshmen in the line-up shows his faith in his rookies.

However, the responsibilities that come with starting will put pressure on the duo to perform.

Speaking of Autry, over the last few years, there have been multiple coaching changes for the Aces, most recently with Philip Fisher’s stepping down this year after replacing Timothy Pon last year. How the team meshes together in the upcoming weeks with the coach, who does not have a lot of experience coaching tennis, will be one of many factors for the team this year.

With Beacon looming over the division with its star players, Stuyvesant is intimidated by a team that seems undefeatable. It is only the Aces themselves who make Beacon undefeatable. Being second place for so long can take its toll, and the talent difference is evident, but overcoming the losing attitude is what can launch the Aces to first place. “We’re competing to go all the way every season,” Tao said. Saying so is one thing, but at the end of the day, if the Aces don’t believe that they can win, chances are, they won’t.

Lady Peglegs Redeem their Opening Loss

By Zhe Lee with additional reporting by Annique Wong It was a drab, dreary day at the Brian Watkins Tennis Center on Wednesday, March 19; the dark clouds threatened to rain on everyone’s parade, and the clay courts were wet from the accumulating drizzle. “It was hard to move around the court. I think everyone on the team had to stay consistent and stay positive,” junior Julia Gokhberg said. Players had annoyed expressions plastered on their faces, and some struggled to even walk, much less run, on the court without the fear of slipping.

Despite the 32-degree weather and rain, the Lady Peglegs were still focused and determined to win, especially after a heartbreaking, not to mention embarrassing, 3-2 loss to the Bronx Science Wolverines two days earlier. The loss was the first time the Lady Peglegs had lost to the Wolverines since 2010. Perhaps the loss was due to the fact that Jeffrey Menaker, the former Stuyvesant girls’ tennis coach, now wears a forest green sweater with the Bronx Science emblem on it. “Part of the reason we lost was because [Menaker] knew all of [our] strong and weak points,” senior Alicia Ng said.

Hungry for redemption and for their first win of the 2014 season, the Lady Peglegs’ demolished the Bard Lady Raptors, winning 4-1.

The meet started off with Gokhberg taking charge in the first singles match, in which she served three aces, defeating her opponent 8-2.

The other singles matches

were equally successful. Sophomore Amanda Chiu defeated her opponent 8-4 and sealed the victory with an impressive backhand volley. Sophomore Kimberly Chow, a first-year player who transferred from Brooklyn Tech, also dominated her opponent, 8-1.

Unfortunately, the doubles matches did not go as smoothly. Although first doubles, seniors and co-captains Aleksandra Stanisavljevic and Victoria Chung won their match 8-2, Ng and senior Elizabeth Kim lost the Lady Peglegs’ only match.

The Lady Peglegs still managed to pick up a victory, and have been pleased with their new coach, Kevin Claesgens.

Although Claesgens has no prior experience coaching tennis, he still seems capable of running the varsity team.

“I think he does a really good job of motivating the team, keeping us positive, and getting us to practice. During matches, he checks on everyone between games and makes sure we have a goal in mind, and he lets us know about any technical things we should fix,” Gokhberg said.

In addition, Ng said that Claesgens “runs regular practices,” something that Menaker didn’t do consistently.

At the moment, the Lady Peglegs are ranked third in the A3 League, behind Bronx Science and Beacon, with a 3-1 record. These schools are Stuyvesant’s biggest competition, and if the Lady Peglegs want to continue finishing in second in the division, they need to have a strong lineup across the board, which means the second doubles team needs to keep their eyes on the ball.

The Spectator ● March 32,2048

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Teacher Look-alikes

Ms. Hill & Zooey Deschanel

Mr. Garfinkel & Junot Diaz

Mr. Brown & Jesus

Dr. Markova & Ellen Degeneres

Mr. Choubaralian & Robert Downey Jr.

Mr. Moran & Rob Corddry

Mr. Barbin & Bruce Willis

Mr. Brooks & Santa

Ms. Shamazov & “Edna”

Dr. Li & “Tran”

Ms. Sharaf & Peter Pan

Ms. Dehn-Knight & Dora

By The Photo Department, and Courtesy of The Indicator, Cartoon Characters, Town News, Top News, The Art of Writing, ProProfs, National Public Radio, Zimbio, Turn Back to God, Off the Blue Mat, SF Sketchfest, “http://catherine9king.wordpress.com”, and Flavorwire.

March 32,2048

Page 28

The DISRESPECTATOR sports New “Jim” Class in High Demand among Incoming Freshmen

by Emma Bernstein

For decades, students at Stuyvesant High School have been denied the right to take the most coveted class in New York City: gym. The reason for this prohibition is highly disputed amongst current Physical Education instructors (i.e. gym teachers).

Opinions on the issue range from “it’s-a-touchy-issue” to “you’ll-fail-my-class-if-youever-utter-those-words.” One popular argument against the title “gym class” is that gym is simply an abbreviation for gymnasium, which isn’t a class but a location. More obscure opinions on the subject exist as well, as expressed by Ms. Rosenthal, who “does not only teach students named Jim”— but that’s about to change.

To accommodate an exceedingly small incoming class of 500 students, of which 342 are named Jim, the programming office has decided to create four periods of “Jim”

class (pronounced “gym”).

The new class will include all of students’ old favorites from Physical Education, such as square dancing and basketball, along with new units on speed changing, as well as a semester long smell-a-thon. And Stuyvesant is already reaping the benefits. The junior Physical Education attendance rate has skyrocketed in a last-ditch effort on the parts of the juniors to boost their P.E. averages to gain a coveted spot in the new course. In addition, seven incoming Jims have enrolled at Stuyvesant based solely on the newly revamped Jim program. Unfortunately, twice as many non-Jims have refused enrollment in search of a more serious gym program. One 8th grader, Kyle Smith, said, “I hear Staten Island Tech has an excellent gym program. It’s really a huge game changer for me.”

During an emergency meeting last Tuesday in response to the new course, teachers

expressed their concerns for the coming year. Many were worried that the homophones “Jim” and “gym” would confuse students, leading them to believe that gym was indeed a class offered at Stuyvesant.

To combat this possible rumor, Dr. Markova proposed an idea currently gaining popular support among the administration: that the Stuyvesant community reject the common pronunciation of Jim in favor of “Mij.” However, regardless of pronunciation, Mr. Barbin noted that he’ll need to get more creative in order to generate 342 nicknames for the same three letter title: “I’ll need to spend all next summer brainstorming.”

The classes are in high demand, but are unfortunately restricted only to students by the name of Jim. As a result, the school’s high population of Kevins has started a change. org petition to create a Kevin class.

Lydia Wu / The Spectator

Athlete’s Foot Bad, Although Probably Not as Bad as Athlete’s Face

By Christopher Kim and Shane Lorenzen For decades, students atHigh school athletes—along with Jesus, Nelson Mandela, and Brian Scalabrine—are the most widely worshipped people in America. On the surface they have it all: charisma, killer abs, and the attention of the nation’s top colleges.

But underneath that façade of confidence and ease, these brave boys and girls carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Most people cannot tell, but the life of a high school athlete is one of struggle and perseverance.

Perhaps if the football teams of America would stop shoving students’ heads in the toilet, more people would realize this.

Of the trials that high school athletes face on a daily basis, none is worse than the scourge upon our youth that is athlete’s foot—an epidemic that has recently infected Stuyvesant’s very own basketball team, the Peglegs.

The team placed most of the blame for the infection on their co-captains, who implemented a mandatory sockssharing system throughout

the season. Intended to foster team spirit, the program required players to switch socks every 30 minutes during practice. However, some of the players questioned the new policy, and for good reason. Junior Jeffrey Zheng, usually a strong advocate for his team’s bonding techniques, expressed some concerns about the new system. “I actually enjoyed sharing toilet paper with my team, and I even supplied the team with loose-leaf when we ran out of toilet paper, but I knew we crossed the line when we started this new funky socks system,” Zheng said.

With the sharing of sweaty socks, the spread of athlete’s foot throughout the team was inevitable. Interestingly, many of the Peglegs quickly pointed to junior Lev Akabas as the source of the outbreak.

“The first time I saw signs of sock discoloration was right when Lev took off my favorite socks and hurled them at me,” junior Kyler Chase said.

Junior Brian Quang, the team’s appointed daily sock inspector, also noticed a clear change in his socks’ normally pleasant fragrance. “After Lev used my socks, they definitely lost their usual straw-

berry smell,” Quang said. But the athlete’s foot outbreak wasn’t the only reason that the team was upset at Akabas. In recent confessions from the majority of the Peglegs, the players admitted that their fungal infections were not nearly as appalling as Akabas’s face.

“When coach [Philip] Fisher chose his players, he never thought about their looks.

But after what happened this year, I may actually suggest that he consider those factors in the selections for next season’s roster,” assistant coach Will Geiger said.

Although Akabas evidently brought a fantastic three point shot, making 666 out of 1666 shots, and a high level of basketball I.Q. to the table, the team has yet to decide whether or not dealing with Akabas’s face was worth it.

“I didn’t even have the luxury of spending a single minute on the bench,” senior and captain Matthew Dalton said. “Having to look at Lev’s face on the court the whole game was past the limit.”

But after spending two years on the same team as Akabas, junior Roman Szul can’t help but acknowledge the advantages of having Akabas on the team. “I’ll never forget the game we won against Hunter,” Szul said. “When Lev completely frightened Hunter’s best player with his smile, I knew that [Lev] was a special asset to the team.”

Despite numerous complaints from his teammates, and even his assistant coach, Akabas believes that they’re all just jealous. “Haters gonna hate. I just do what I do best.

Ball is life, over and out!” Akabas said.

Sports Wrap-Up

By LEV “I don’t need no f***ing nickname” AKABAS and ERIC MORGENSTERN ●After breaking his leg during the Peglegs’ football season, star junior Cooper Weaver will need to get a pegleg as the injury failed to heal properly. ●The boys’ basketball team could not decide whether to be named the Runnin’ Rebels or the Peglegs, so they compromised on the Runnin’ Peglegs, hoping to confuse opposing teams. ●The Stuyvesant boys’ fencing team, the Untouchables, did not win the city championship. ●Stuyvesant has tightened its athletic eligibility requirements.

As opposed to the PSAL’s “4+1 Rule,” requiring athletes to pass four academic subjects and one physical education class, Stuyvesant’s new version of the rule will require athletes to get at least a 90 in four Advanced Placement courses and one computer science class. ●According to survey administered by The Spectator, 95% of students claim to study for physical education tests, and 35% admit to taking performance-enhancing drugs to try and improve their first marking period physical education grades. ●For the Fall 2014 semester, the Physical Education Department will offer a Flopping elective taught by veteran Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Derek Fisher. “He’s been one of the top floppers in the NBA for a number of years now, so I think he’s the perfect guy to help us get back to the fundamentals of the sport: manipulating referees into making biased calls,” physical education teacher Vincent Miller said.

“I heard that Mr. Fisher was teaching the class, so I signed up for it, but then I found out it was Derek Fisher and I immediately tried to transfer out,” junior Chris Kim said. “But my guidance counselor told me that I would have to wait on line at Mr. Barth’s office for two hours, wait on line in the auditorium for five hours, and then wait on line for three more hours in the programming office, so I decided that learning how to flop wouldn’t be so bad after all.”

“An experienced flopper such as myself is always looking for opportunities to improve my textbook form,” senior Nick Kalantzopolous said. “But honestly, I should be teaching the class.” ●New York Knicks coach Mike Woodson said, “The main things we need to improve on are our offense, defense, outside shooting, inside shooting, passing, ball-movement, dunking, hustle, offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding, ball-movement again, pick-androll defense, interior defense, perimeter defense, attitude, smarts, ball-movement a third time, and basketball. Other than that, we’re completely fine, so I’m going to continue to stare blankly at random players on the court during games instead of coaching.”

Aiming for New Heights

bY Wasif Zaman and Nathan Mannes Throughout the past few weeks, a large number of Stuyvesant students have been seen making their way to the doors of P.S. 89 instead of the Tribeca Bridge in the mornings. This can be explained by the fact that, this year, the New York City Public School Disciplinary Code was altered slightly to add a new level of disciplinary measures.

While there had previously been five levels of disciplinary action, a sixth one has been instituted for the specific offense of peeing on the toilet seat, the punishment for which is expulsion.

Junior Adam Yu was flushed with terror when he was called to the guidance office over the intercom. “I had no idea what was going on. But reality sprayed all over me when I walked into guidance, and there was Mr. Moran and Ms. Zhang. I was absolutely terrified. There was this FBI agent there who specifically told me, ‘You’re in trouble.’”

Although many students were shocked to be sent to guidance, others had different reactions. “I was really pissed off,” junior Eric Wong said. “I was never told what I had done. I’ve been attending P.S. 89 for two weeks, but I didn’t know why until now. At least I can now excel at basketball because I play against kids who are two feet shorter

than I am.”

Finally, on March 18, The Urine Crisis escalated to the point where over 85 students and teachers had been caught urinating on the seats. An anonymous janitor proclaimed his joy at the change. “This is the happiest day of my life. To be honest, I always say that I enjoyed my wedding, but in reality I didn’t,” the janitor said.

“It’s been a long time, and I’ve finally pinpointed which individuals have been peeing on the damn toilet seats. It was simple, really. I replaced the flush buttons in the bathroom with one way mirrors, but then I put cameras behind them.

Every night I’ve been watching the previous day’s recordings.

I used facial recognition software linked to the Stuyvesant database to determine just who the guilty parties were.

Every day I can send more and more kids to our neighboring school, until the only people left are those smart enough to not use the bathroom. Those are the ones who will be the leaders of tomorrow. I simply do my part.”

There has been a rash of complaints against the disciplinary action taken for students caught urinating on the seat. “I wasn’t peeing on the seat,” senior Sean Toodle said.

“I was simply marking my territory. I literally own the toilets seats of the third-floor bathroom, and everyone must respect that.”