Winged Post Vol 14 No 5

Winged Post FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

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THE HARKER UPPER SCHOOL STUDENT NEWSPAPER, VOL. 14, NO.5

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AP Studio Art exhibits student creations

Pres. Scholar candidates announced emily chu

JUHI GUPTA - THE WINGED POST

news editor

CREATIVE CONCENTRATIONS Debuting the work of numberous students, the AP Studio Art exhibition featured both 2-D and 3-D art and attracted the appreciation of students and faculty alike on Wednesday, February 27.

copy editor & business editor A group of students stood in awe before a three-foot-long sculpture of a Colgate toothpaste tube. At the annual AP Studio Art exhibition during this week’s long lunch, students and faculty perceived the creativity that went into the art adorning the Atrium walls.

The exhibition provided several art students the opportunity to showcase the culmination of three months of work. Depicting both 2-D and 3-D displays, pieces ranged from sculptures to portraits. Unlike past exhibitions, many pieces this year utilized mixed media methods, incorporating both visual and sonic elements.

AP Studio Art 2-D is instructed by Pilar Agüero-Esparza and Josh Martinez, and the 3-D class by Jaap Bongers.

Students each selected a theme on which to focus their art concentrations, including a brief written description of the theme’s personal significance. For many students, the medium they chose also had individualized importance.

Some seniors, for whom this will be their last art exhibition, shared emotional connections with their artistic creations.

“Having everyone’s artwork together shows how cohesive we are as a unit.

With each new piece we make, we receive more support and advice from [our] peers and teachers,” said Neeli Gadagottu (12), whose concentration concerned her perception of song lyrics. “This experience is very special because I was able to incorporate my passion for music into my own artwork.”

Agüero-Esparza also believes that

this exhibition is a peak of the students’ artistic careers.

“

Having everyone’s artwork together shows how cohesive we are as a unit.

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kacey fang & sindhu ravuri

Neeli Gadagottu (12) “To me, this is the reason we do work as visual artists. It is such an isolating and private type of activity, so when you show it to the world, people can start

interacting with you and it puts you in the public realm,” she said. “When you see all the smiles of students, it just shows how much they have worked. It’s a defining moment for them.”

For those students who had never thought about pursuing art, some began to see it as a potential part of their academic future.

“I have never really been an artist, but when I walked into the exhibit, I became immediately inspired to pursue it,” Sahiti Avula (10) said. “I was really motivated.”

The exhibition signifies a major milestone for these artists, demonstrating their progression since the beginning of their artistic careers. The multitude of students who arrived on Wednesday to see their work served as proof of their success.

Seniors Albert Chen and Sierra Lincoln summed up their initial reactions with the same word: “confused.”

They were not alone. Most of the 12 seniors shared similar reactions when they found out that they were candidates for the prestigious Presidential Scholars Program in early January since a majority of them did not know much about the program before their nomination.

“I was kind of surprised and curious. I vaguely remembered Katie Siegel (’12) was named a Presidential Scholar last year, so I thought, ‘Oh, how cool, why not give it a shot?’” said Michelle Zhang, one of the twelve candidates.

Besides Michelle, Albert, and Sierra, the other candidates include seniors Victoria Lin, Preeya Mehta, Robert Yeats, Ashvin Swaminathan, Christopher Sund, Joshua Bollar, Kiran Arimilli, Kyle Roter, and Lorraine Wong, who were among the 2,600 high school seniors nominated this year.

Candidates are chosen based on their scores in either the SAT Critical Reading and Math sections or the ACT; however, if they hope to proceed to the next round of selection, they will have to complete an application with requirements ranging from essays to secondary school reports.

“Because the Presidential Scholars program is nationwide and looks amongst all high school seniors, I understand that the program uses SAT scores to qualify their candidates,” LorContinued page 3

CCS playoffs: Varsity basketball teams conclude season editor-in-chief & managing editor Led by team captains Daniza Rodriguez (12), Priscilla Auyueng (12), and Nithya Vemireddy (11), the girls Varsity basketball team concluded its season in the second round of Central Coast Section (CCS) playoffs on Thursday, February 21.

Seeded 14th in the CCS playoff bracket, the team won their first round against Oceana High School with a score of 51-40 on Tuesday, February 19, allowing them to proceed to the second round against Monte Vista Christian School. Daniza hyperextended her knee during the first game, however, preventing her from playing for the rest of the season.

Cheered on by Harker fans at Monte Vista Christian School, the girls suffered a 35-53 defeat, leaving them

IN BRIEF AIME math qualifications Students who attained a qualifying score on the American Mathematics Contest (AMC) 10 or 12 will try their hand at the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) on Thursday, March 14. Administered on February 5, the AMC 10 and 12 were taken by a total of nearly 200 Upper School students.

The AIME serves as the intermediate examination between the AMC tests and the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad, which is restricted to an approximate 500 qualifying participants each year.

with a 7-3 league record. Their performance earned them third place in the West Bay Athletic League (WBAL).

“Of course I was disappointed that we lost because we really thought this was the year we’d be able to go even further than we had before, but I’m proud that we were able to be consistent and at least win our first game and make it past the first round,” Priscilla said.

Reflecting on her first CCS experience, Lekha Chirala (10) shared her thoughts on how the team can go further in the playoffs next season.

“As a team I want to be able to trust each other a lot more and play together as one unit,” she said. “We did this year, but I want it to be even better next year.”

After receiving a bye for the first round, the sixth-seeded Varsity boys faced the 11-seeded Pacific Grove Breakers on Thursday, February 21 in the second round of CCS playoffs in front of a large crowd full of fans from

both teams.

While the Eagles maintained the lead for the majority of the game, the Breakers pulled ahead midway through the fourth quarter, shifting the momentum and heightening the tension of the game. Eventually, through a series of fouls and free throws, Harker regained the lead to beat the Breakers 64-56.

“We came out kind of slow, but I think we won this game with heart,” Assistant Coach Mark Collins said.

“We didn’t play discipline ball the whole game, but we won it with our will tonight and sometimes you’ve got to play games like that.”

That Saturday, the Eagles traveled to league rival and third seed Menlo School for their CCS quarterfinal match. Having lost to the Knights once earlier in the season, the boys hoped to redeem themselves through this game.

Continued page 18

“DENG,” LOOK AT THAT SHOT

SAMANTHA HOFFMAN - THE WINGED POST

samantha hoffman & meena chetty

WHERE THERE’S A WILL... Will Deng (11) shoots a layup in their CCS game against Pacific Grove. The Eagles went on to win the game 64-56.

New dance policy enforced

Expect more sheriffs at not-so-Wild West Sadies dance apoorva rangan & priscilla pan

opinion editor & reporter The Wild West Sadies dance next Saturday may not be that wild after all.

Currently, the administration is discussing a policy to strengthen the police presence at school dances.

“We’ve had some rumors that students have been coming to dances under the influence,” said Dean of Students Kevin Williamson. “There’s enough justification for us to increase our security presence, as well as our chaperone presence.”

At previous dances, security generally remained in the vicinity of the parking lot. According to Williamson, the new policy would bring police closer to the dance itself, so that when “students enter the dance there’s a feeling of security there.” The administration will most likely refrain from using breathalyzers, a portable tester for blood-alcohol content.

Junior Anna Levine believes that the new policy is an overreaction to a minor problem, and that the move is uncharacteristic of the Upper School community.

“One of the reasons we haven’t

needed a policy is because the teachers can trust the students,” Anna said.

“Even if people do come intoxicated, I feel like the percentage of those people isn’t significant, and we should be proud of the fact that it’s so low.”

The new policy is another step toward tighter security on all three campuses.

“A lot of this is because of the work with our security department. Now we realized that we might want to review how we handle dances,” Williamson said.

In the state of California, the legal drinking age is 21, and it is illegal

Exclusive interview with Alexander Wang MISSION POSSIBLE, 10-11

FASHION SPREAD, 10 - 11

to have any measurable blood-alcohol content. If arrested for underage possession of alcohol, a minor will be sent to juvenile court and fined $250 if convicted.

“Since a lot of people can afford the fine, I think the social backlash is really what makes people make the right choices,“ Honor Council representative Sahana Rangarajan (10) said.

Activities Director Kerry Enzensperger also expressed her displeasure at the rumor.

“We’re at school! There’s a time and a place, and it’s not here.”

INSIDE: NEWS, 2 OPINION, 5 FEATURES, 8 GLOBAL, 12

LIFESTYLE, 14 TECH, 17 SPORTS, 18 BACK PAGE, 20

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News

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

Speaker Series:

HBC members prepare for upcoming DECA event

Record number of students to attend state conference

Authors share poetry and war experiences

priscilla pan

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The membership phase has expanded from just an upperclassmen activity to an all-encompassing one.

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Emily Wang (12) In order to increase the number of participants, the membership committee distributed DECA fliers and pencils to every eighth grader prior to the end of last year. This campaign was

STUDY SESSIONS Senior HBC officers Andre Jia and Tiphaine Delepine help out two younger club members during one of their meetings to prepare for the DECA state conference in Manzanita Hall. These meetings are conducted in order to help members get ready for the competition by holding mock trials as well as group study sessions for tests.

intended to increase awareness of the club. Recruitment for the club began before club fair and has continued through the year to gather a dedicated group of members.

Since DECA has a variety of events ranging from “Apparel and Accessories Marketing” to “Business Finance,” there is an event that appeals to every person’s interest. This facet of DECA has allowed it to become more widespread.

Officer of Membership Simran Singh (10) believes that the number of participants has expanded because business is an important skill to learn.

“Especially in the Bay Area, a lot of parents and the people who are role models are successful in business, so it’s important for us to encourage education in that area,” she said.

HBC has held several practice sessions each week this school year, including two mock conferences where upperclassmen and parent judges read over plans and listen to presentations, providing feedback. The club also has practice booklets of past prompts as well as former winning presentations.

“You can see samples of the winners’ written events, use them as a guide, and improve on your own

things,” Victoria Ding (9) said.

In a roleplay event, the participant is given ten minutes to prepare a case study response to a situation and present it to a judge. In a written event, participants present a five to 30 page business plan.

Vice President Andre Jia (12) believes that the written event is the most significant because it is more comprehensive.

“I think the written plan is a lot more helpful because it encompasses the roleplay elements of the presentation, but it also has you write the 30-page business plan,” he said.

Throughout the conference, students have plenty of time to network, as well as to go on a trip to Great America.

“My favorite part is just meeting new people,” Chirag Aswani (10) said. “[At] the last practice conference we went to, we heard this great speaker and I heard that there will be more speakers like him. I’m looking forward to that.”

The top four contestants of the roleplay events and the top three of the written events in the DECA state conference qualify for the international competition in Anaheim this April.

ALLISON SUN - THE WINGED POST

Almost 100 Harker Business Club (HBC) students have signed up to attend the DECA State Career Development Conference (SCDC) at the Santa Clara Marriott this weekend from March 1 to March 3.

Not only has HBC seen unprecedented growth, but so has the entire state conference, totaling about 2000 participants.

Students believe that HBC has grown in popularity because upperclassmen have fostered a good relationship with the underclassmen who have found a place in the club.

“I think that HBC has put a lot of emphasis in welcoming new members from lower grades and that the membership phase has expanded from just an upperclassmen activity to an all-encompassing one,” Emily Wang (12) said.

PRISCILLA PAN - THE WINGED POST

reporter

POETRY READING Interviewer Parthenia Hicks asks authors Brian Turner and David Sullivan about their war poetry.

allison sun & monica thukral TalonWP features editor & reporter As an installment of the Harker Speaker Series, the event on the evening of February 26 in the Nichols Auditorium featured poets Brian Turner and David Sullivan who spoke about their work and experiences.

Organized by Silicon Valley Reads, a foundation that presents books based on a specific topic, the event delved into the 2013 theme, “Invisible Wounds of War.” After an introduction by senior Emily Wang, who was also recognized for her California Scholastic Writing and Arts Competition Gold Key award, moderator Parthenia Hicks asked Turner and Sullivan about their careers and poetry. The poets took a few moments during the two-hour event to share some of their poems aloud.

Turner, also known as the “Soldier Poet,” is an Iraq War veteran who first became interested in poetry after his experiences as a bass guitarist in a band.

Turner described how he came from an “odd duck” family since they had all served in the military since the Civil War. During his time in Iraq, he kept a journal of poems that he sent to his parents.

“It felt like an access point where I could go into the dream landscape,” he said.

After serving in the military for over seven years, he decided to return home because “‘Sergeant Turner [was]

too small a place for a person to live in.” He then explored war-related themes in his poems such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and compiled them into a book titled “Here, Bullet.”

“Could we be bleeding as a country and not even know it?” he read from his poem “At Lowe’s Home Improvement Center,” which details the sensations he experienced upon returning.

Sullivan, on the other hand, worked to give a voice to everyone, including those who did not serve in the military.

“I saw my [veteran] students struggling to reintegrate into a story that the community honors them for but does not really want to hear stories about,” he said.

Since Sullivan did not fight in the war, he sought to learn more by investigating the stories of soldiers from the United States and Iraq, their families, and other civilians.

For one of his poems, Sullivan based the story on a photo of a charred Iraqi soldier. “[There is a] painful gap [created because] Iraqi books are not sold in the U.S.,” he said.

After the interview, Turner and Sullivan held a book signing session in the Nichols rotunda. Sullivan’s “Every Seed of the Pomegranate” and “Strong-Armed Angels” were for sale in addition to Turner’s “Here, Bullet.”

Sullivan is currently working on a novel about his father’s dementia called “Black Ice,” and Turner is collaborating with other poets on a book titled “Fire.”

Creative writing awards

Driver safety awareness week

Students unlock talent to receive Key Awards

SAMAR MALIK - THE WINGED POST

managing copy editor & TalonWP online editor

DRUNK DRIVING SIMULATION Naomi Molin (9) is guided by a volunteer while walking between cones wearing “drunk goggles.”

darian edvalson TalonWP EIT Last week, Gwen Howard (9) and the Living with Intent Focus and Enthusiasm (L.I.F.E.) board partnered up to create the Upper School’s first Driving Safety Week in order to bring attention to the importance of safe driving.

Gwen, whose relatives passed away in 2011 in a car accident, has since been holding fundraisers in the community to bring awareness to the dangers of unsafe or drunk driving. So far, she has spoken at conventions and has raised money for her cause by singing, playing the guitar, and selling wristbands.

Earlier this year, Gwen approached Ms. Keller and the L.I.F.E. board in hopes of creating a Driving Safety Week and brainstormed possible activities and fundraisers with them.

“Road safety is an issue that affects every person’s daily L.I.F.E., especially at a high school where students are just learning how to drive,” Gwen said.

“Everyone should know the dangers of the road are present every time you set foot in a car. I really want students to understand that their actions in cars have an impact on their lives and the lives around them and hopefully our student body can

become safer drivers altogether.”

The week began with a video during school meeting about Gwen and her previous efforts to raise money. An announcement was then made regarding the importance of safe driving and a bracelet- and decal-selling fundraiser going on during lunch and after school all week. Both the bracelets and decals have the phrase “Think. See. Be.” written on them.

“You can tell she’s putting a lot of effort into this, and she’s doing a great job with having everyone take part in raising awareness about drinking and driving,” Alisa Wakita (9) said.

On Thursday, a police officer encouraged students and teachers to participate in a drunk driving simulation using goggles.

“I thought that it was a good way to emphasize the negative things drunk driving can cause and I hope other people were able to see that as well,” Srikar Pyda (11) said. “Also, it was really funny to see kids running around tripping over cones.”

To end the week, a car driving video game was held to provide a fun way to raise awareness for this serious issue.

Eight students received recognition for their writing in various categories including short story, flash fiction, and personal essay/memoir at the California Scholastic Writing and Art Competition.

Dr. Pauline Paskali announced the winners and the titles of their pieces at school meeting the Tuesday following break. Lori Berenberg (12) was one of the winners announced.

“I was actually entirely shocked!” she said. “I knew that I had submitted my poems to this competition but I had no expectation of actually winning an award.

When my name was announced, I thought it was either a joke or that I had misheard the name. It was only when my friends turned to me to congratulate me that I realized that my poems were being recognized. I was thrilled and proud that my work had won an honorable mention.”

Similarly, Dr. Paskali was excited about the results of the competition.

“It was spectacular,” she said. “I love to see all these Harker names.

We have a hugely talented student body. We hear so much about the successes in math and science, it’s just nice to see how talented our students are across the board in the humanities and in the arts.”

There were two golden key, four silver key, and four honorable mention awards received this year.

This is the fourth year that Emily Wang (12) has submitted her work to the competition. In the past, she has placed at both the regional

and national levels. This year, she received a Gold Key for her personal essay/memoir, “Missed Connections and the Secret of Mattering.”

“It was really incredible to receive that level of recognition for something I wrote,” she said. “I think one of the issues with creative writing is you never really know how

“

I don’t think I was writing specifically towards the competition because I like to write for myself.

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meena chetty & alyssa amick

Stephanie Chen (11)

to judge work objectively, so to hear that someone else read something that I wrote and liked it, that’s the ultimate compliment.”

One of the greatest similarities between all of the winners is their love for creative writing. Stephanie Chen (11) won a Gold Key award for her short story “Sundial.”

“I just wrote something in

the months before so I decided to submit,” she said. “I don’t think I was writing specifically towards the competition because I like to write for myself.”

Similarly, Emily enjoys writing in her free time as well.

“I’ve been writing a poem a day for a new year’s resolution,” she said.

“I think that I’ll continue to write as a hobby for the rest of my life. It’s something that I love.”

Dr. Paskali believes that the competition is a great way to get started for students who love to write.

“I think that a bunch of additional students also submitted to the contest, which is great too, because having a deadline and a contest to submit too will often encourage people to produce a piece of work which without it wouldn’t have existed,” she said.

Vineet Kosaraju (9) was the only student who won an award not for creative writing, but for a journalism article he submitted. He hopes to continue submitting his works in future competitions as well.

“My criteria for submission was very simple - I wanted to pick an article that was personal and a life experience, and I wanted to share across a larger audience,” he said. “I saw an announcement in the Harker Daily Bulletin inviting articles for submission to the Art and Writing contest and figured it would be a great forum to share.”

The Silver Key awards went to Albert Chu (11), Kacey Fang (10), Emily, and Leo Yu (10). Honorable Mention awards were given to Lori Berenberg (12), Vineet Kosaraju (9), Cindy Liu (10), and Leo.

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

News -raine said. “But really, in the current goal-driven society that values grades and test scores above many other important qualities, perhaps the depart ment could look into other ways of determining their candidates. It seems unfair to me that someone’s entire chance is based upon one test sitting, not on other attributes, even though the next step in the application process considers the more holistic student.”

Kyle shares a similar opinion, as he felt “pretty honored” about being selected as a candidate until he realized that the selection process was based

entirely on his SAT scores. Because he believes that his chances of being chosen to become a Presidential Scholar are small, he decided not to continue with the application process.

“Becoming a Presidential Scholar is an incredible achievement and is extremely prestigious because the selection process for that award is holistic and very comprehensive,” Kyle said.

“Nonetheless, this nomination process is solely based on SAT scores, so I don’t find my nomination particularly notable.”

On the other hand, Ashvin will

be continuing the application and especially looks forward to filling out the essay portion.

“I am continuing with the application mainly because writing essays for the nomination forces me to go through introspection and ask myself questions like what my identity is, what my true passion is, and how I should live my life,” he said.

This year’s Presidential Scholars will be announced in early May. Of the 2,600 nominees, only 141 of them will be selected to become Presidential Scholars.

Japan week: Students send hope and letters of encouragement

APURVA GORTI - THE WINGED POST

Cont’d Presidential Scholars nominees

3

Cambridge conference creates connections

FRIENDLY FLOWERS Sahithya Prakash (11) writes a message on a construction paper flower for students affected by the 2011 tsunami in Fukushima, Japan. The messages will be stuck on a poster board and is planned to be sent to the kids in time for the two-year anniversary.

apurva gorti

VISITING HISTORY Students who attended the Triple Helix Science Convention at Cambridge University pose in front of the Easter Island Statue at the Natural History Museum. Aside from debating over and presenting scientific works, attendees were able to sightsee London.

shannon su & anokhi saklecha TalonWP news editor & reporter

Over the February break, six members of the Triple Helix Club attended a scientific conference at Cambridge University in London.

Sophomores Vivek Sriram, Kacey Fang, Sindhu Ravuri, and Vasudha Rengarajan, and juniors Brandon Yang and Krishan Kumar attended this event, along with chaperones Anita Chetty and Dr. Eric Nelson. Upper School students began this tradition last year and decided to continue with it due to its tremendous success.

Triple Helix is a student- run organization that is centered around issues relating to science in society.

Each year, the students publish online articles along with magazines that are distributed at the annual Research Symposium.

“Students had a responsibility to share their own ideas, learn from the high school students in England, but at the same time to show them what it’s like to present a poster, to maybe inspire them to write articles,” said Anita Chetty, advisor of the trip.

The trip, including a two day conference and general tourism, lasted one week. During the conference portion of the trip, British and American students came together to discuss and ponder over matters of science in society. Throughout the course of the event, students not only increased their academic knowledge, but also received experience with scientific investigation, peer-to-peer communication, and organized teamwork.

The overall purpose of the trip was to increase students’ perception and scope of the scientific world.

“I think it just offers a great perspective of science in general,

especially with the Triple Helix, the whole purpose of it is so much about integrating science with society,” said Apurva Tandon (12), Editor in Chief of the Triple Helix.

Aside from participating in the conference, attendees also had the chance to tour and sightsee around the area. From watching the musical “Wicked” to exploring the Natural History Museum, students and chaperones were able to enjoy and appreciate the marvels of London.

“My favorite part of the entire trip was honestly just getting lost [...] but the reason it was so fun was just because I think it really gave us a different experience of London rather than just being tourists who followed other people around [and] that made the trip more realistic,” said Vivek Sriram (10).

Triple Helix will continue the tradition of this trip next February.

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Earthquake. Tsunami. Nuclear disaster. Those are the words most commonly associated with Fukushima, Japan. Many people rarely think about the kids, the perseverance, and the spirit that has resonated in its communities for the past two years.

This week, Japanese National Honor Society ( JNHS) hosted “Japan Week” to raise awareness of the postdisaster situation in Fukushima and to rid the student body of apparent negative stereotypes.

During Monday’s school meeting, members of JNHS showed a video about kids in Japan returning to school, playing outside, and attempting to return to their “normal” lives.

“Fukushima is a beautiful place and we want to teach people what it really is, that there’s more to it than just radiation,” JNHS co-president Indica Sur (12) said.

In addition to the video, JNHS set up tables outside of Manzanita with little cards that students and faculty could write messages on for kids at a lower school and middle school in Fukushima. Japanese students would then translate the English messages into Japanese so the kids could have both versions of the message to read.

In previous years, “Japan Week” had been a fundraiser to send money to the Onagawa Night School. Students sold tote bags, pins, candy, and wristbands to raise money for a more

immediate need of supplies in Japan.

Now, almost two years later, people in the impacted cities have the supplies they need, but they still have the psychological repercussions.

Therefore, instead of selling items this year, JNHS hopes to simply touch the hearts of the people with the written messages.

“They still remember what happened and they see it. Half the towns are still abandoned and the people who have moved back have to see the abandoned houses every day,” Indica said.

“So we changed our focus to mirror what’s happening in Japan.”

Kids from Fukushima are discriminated against because other kids fear “catching radiation” from them.

Members of JNHS hope that the messages from Harker showing that people across the world are thinking of them will put smiles on the children’s faces.

“I think this week has been going so wonderfully,” JNHS advisor Masako Onakado said. “I’m just amazed at how many students and teachers have contributed such warm messages. This is definitely going to brighten the day for kids in Fukushima.”

JNHS will put the messages on a poster modeled after a tree, with the colorful cards that contain the messages as the leaves and flowers of the tree. They plan to send the posters off to Japan before March 11 so the kids can have the kind messages on the two-year anniversary of the disaster.

Laser tag hangout

Sophomores organize class bonding event mariam salukian & manthra panchapakesan

to plan alone, in an atmosphere away from school,” said sophomore Vice reporters President Nikita Mittal.

“Bowling?” A couple hands rose in As a means of further encourthe air. “Laser tag?” A sea of hands shot agement, the council has arranged to up. The class’s decision was clear. provide food for the entire party that Student council has been preparshows up to the outing, hoping that the ing a class of 2015 outing as a means to trip will allow students to interact with provide students a chance to slip away not just their own friend groups, but from schoolwork other students as well. and chores and relax Although many while spending time students are looking with classmates. forward to the event, Though still dissome are still hesicussing preparations tant about the outing for the laser tag outplan. An individual ing, student council vote was taken during currently anticipates the weekly advisory the date of the trip, period, in which some which was originally advisories had only planned for the first a small portion of week of March, to students interested in take place the third actually going out to week of March. the event.

After discussion, “I don’t really the council narrowed like laser tag,” Navsher the outing choices Singh (10) said. “I to bowling and laser prefer to stay at home tag, leaving the final Suraya Shivji (10) and just chill.” decision to the class.

Other students During class meeting expressed interest on January 29, the in the idea of a class idea was introduced to the sophomores, bonding experience, but will not be able and an open vote showed laser tag to be to attend due to timing conflicts. the more popular outing choice.

Despite conflicting opinions on “I prefer laser tag because it gets the status of the trip, student council more competitive, and you can stratestimates that a total of 30 students will egize and team up with random people participate in the bonding activity. to conquer,” Sidhart Krishnamurthi “I think it’s important because it (10) said. “And there are leaderboards may give us a chance to tag people in with the highest scores so you feel exour class that we don’t hang out with tremely accomplished when you make everyday and also just strengthen the top five for the day.” bond of our class,” Suraya Shivji (10) Evites are expected to be sent out said. soon to the students’ school emails.

At the moment, the council is still “I really hope that this increases encouraging students to join and get class bonding because it’s just an pumped up about the trip next month, opportunity to hang out with a large hoping that if the first class jaunt goes group of friends, which is usually hard well, more can be planned in the future.

“

I think it’s important because it may give us a chance to tag people in our class that we don’t hang out with everyday and also just strengthen the bond of our class.

“

VASUDHA RENGARAJAN - THE WINGED POST

reporter

news

Speaker Series: Nikoloff concludes talks on leadership

New Business and Entrepreneurship Program

More opportunities for future entrepreneurs

karen tu & vivek bharadwaj

meena chetty & darian edvalson

reporters

managing copy editor & TalonWP EIT

VIVEK BHARADWAJ - THE WINGED POST

“Keep behind and you shall be put in front; keep out, and you shall be kept in.” Students and faculty members explored this seemingly contradictory quote and other Taoist scriptures during Head of School Christopher Nikoloff ’s Lecture Series on leadership.

The four part lecture series, entitled “The Other Side of Leadership,” was based on readings from the Dao De Jing. The lectures, held January through March, focus on unconventional styles of leadership discouraging over-involvement and promoting a more instinctive and natural style of leadership.

Major themes in the first two lectures involved release and selflessness, with an emphasis on the difference between leading and controlling.

According to Nikoloff, leaders do not always need to control the actions of the people they are leading. The first lecture explored what a leader should or should not control, while other topics included “no mind”, which encouraged students to ignore conventional leading habits and become more instinctive in their actions.

“I learned that in leadership you have to find the proverbial balance between how much you want to affect someone and how much you want to stay behind the board,” said Shannon Hong (9), an attendee of the lectures.

“It was an interesting experience because we watched Mr. Nikoloff, who is a leader himself, talk.”

Despite the lessons it offers, Nikoloff stressed that the Dao was not meant to be taken literally in all cases.

“Daoism doesn’t say, like many Eastern religions, that conventional knowledge is bad. If we had no memory and no conventional knowledge, we wouldn’t be able to get home,” Nikoloff said. We’re just trying to point out its limitations.”

LEADING THE DAO WAY Head of School Christopher Nikoloff speaks to attending students and faculty about “the other side of leadership.” His lecture examined excerpts from Dao De Jing that explores the unconventional styles of being a leader. This speech concludes his four part lecture series.

He explained that the Dao was meant to provide an extreme counterbalance to the over-involved style of leadership that pervaded China during the period of the Warring States.

Rather than delivering a traditional one-way speech, Nikoloff structured his lectures as interactive discussions with the staff and students, a style his attendees appreciated.

“I enjoyed the structure of the lectures, specifically how they are oriented more towards discussion rather than lectures, especially because the lecture series focuses on philosophy,” Zina Jawadi (11) said.

Students who attended all four lectures in the series will receive a certificate signed by Nikoloff.

Nikoloff appreciated the audience input for the discussions it stimulated.

“I would much rather have a dia-

logue than talk for forty-five minutes on this topic would much rather have a dialogue than talk for forty-five minutes on this topic,” Nikoloff said, “I have a rule that I don’t call on anybody [….] and students still raised their hands and I think mostly everybody said at least one thing.”

He expressed his gratitude towards the students who sacrificed their lunch and attended his lectures Nikoloff ’s annual lecture series began in 2009, and has continued ever since. Previous topics include Six Great Ideas and Who Are You. Since the previous two topics have been focused on eastern thought, next year’s topic will be more western-centric.

The last part of the Lectures Series, “Non Doing”, will take place on March 27th in the Nichols Auditorium.

A Business and Entrepreneurship program is currently in developmental stages to supplement the existing DECA at the Upper School.

The curriculum will provide additional business related electives and activities due to an increased interest in the club this past year.

Current DECA coordinator Mary Mortlock will be stepping down after this year, opening up a position for a new director to be hired not only to advise the DECA club but also to run the future Business and Entrepreneurship program.

Head of School Christopher Nikoloff hopes that the new coordinator will be able to utilize business connections inherent to the Silicon Valley to “create a nationally recognized business and entrepreneurial program for our students.” He added that a potential challenge to installing the program would be finding a director who has strong connections in addition to an educational background.

Once a new advisor is found, the program will implement new businessrelated courses, run TEDx conferences, and help organize career panels and mentorships.

“We’ve had students who have received venture capital to build [businesses] for instance, so why not work on creating more of those kinds of experiences for our kids? The class of 2013 really blazed the trail for this,” Nikoloff said. “This is the reason why we want to take it to the next level.

You’re graduating, but you’re going to leave this legacy of this program that we want to take to the next level.”

Although the extra period class will be a significant component of the program, it will not be a requirement for participation in the programs and vice versa. Students will be able to

have more flexibility in their participation in business.

“I think it would help students develop a lot of business skills that will help them in the real world and will help them prepare if they want to do an internship or go into business

“

I think it would help students develop a lot of business skills that will help them in the real world...

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March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

Mabel Luo (11)

in college or get an MBA,” DECA officer Mabel Luo (11) said. “It could also help you think on your feet and answer questions quickly.”

While some students appreciate the additional opportunities given by the program, others believe that it is unnecessary.

“It’s better as a club because there’s more freedom and flexibility,” third-year DECA member Arvind Ramgopal (12) said. “As an elective, you’ll have to do this and that and there’ll be restrictions and parameters and whatnot.”

Despite conference chaperone problems that have arisen in the past due to the large number of attendees, the program will not limit student involvement.

Ultimately, the program would increase the number of business and leadership opportunities for students to become more familiar with the world of entrepreneurship.

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You’re driving down the deserted highway. The speedometer races to 75, then 85, but you’re too busy with your phone to notice. It’s not like anything dangerous could happen with nothing around you, right?

With all the safety, guidance, and warmheartedness at the Upper School, we tend to overestimate ourselves in potentially dangerous situations like this one. Armed with a false sense of security, we’re often overconfident in the face of consequences.

With the onset of March and the smell of summer around the corner, the longer days and even longer homework hours have their consequences.

It’s around this time that we begin cutting corners: skipping homework assignments, forgetting to buckle up in the car, and the like.

And that’s a serious problem. It’s easy to get lost in the stress and craziness of high school, but that’s no excuse to neglect our community or ourselves.

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, we’re pretty sure the force from its fall still causes the air molecules around it to vibrate and, therefore, make a sound. More specifically, a thundering crash.

While the tree often falls because of natural causes - a gust of wind or a lightning bolt - sometimes we intentionally cut it down, believing ourselves to be above the law.

In one such moment, some anonymous students switched the ribbons on the spirit board in Main, pulling a seriously unfunny prank because, well, they thought they could get away with it. There were no authorities around to directly reprimand them, but the fallen tree was in plain sight. The sound, the

ramifications of their actions, was loud and clear at last week’s school meeting. At Harker, we’re supposed to look out for each other even when nobody is looking.

And many of us refuse to clean up after ourselves in the Edge because the consequences aren’t that bad, and anyway, nobody else seems to think a little trash is a big deal.

But trust is earned, and our complacency is biting us in the butt.

That’s what our tuition goes to: the Harker community. And when the trust on campus is compromised, it is a big deal.

Because we believe ourselves to be above the laws of school, nature, and luck, our community suffers, and so do we.

As drivers’ safety week winds down on campus, let’s take away the lesson that we’re not immortal. We don’t mean to chide your ride, but “mindful minutes” shouldn’t just be restricted to testing periods: we should try to look out for ourselves and our surroundings at all times.

The sound of sirens snaps you out of your dream of complacent obliviousness. And in this case, you got off easy. Think about how much worse the consequences could have been: your own life, or even worse, the crushing guilt of causing the death of another.

Hopefully, the Impact Teen Drivers assembly forced you to think about how that would have felt.

Teenagers are reckless. That’s what we do. It’s our nature to be impulsive and irrational, but it’s imperative that we’re aware of the consequences of our actions.

Our adversities don’t come from the dangers we can watch out for, but the dangers we cannot predict. But that doesn’t excuse us from being mindful and aware of ourselves and our community.

elisabeth siegel

EDITORIAL THE OFFICIAL OPINION OF THE WINGED POST

reporter First, the announcement that had all of us glued to our TV or computer screens in utter shock arrived.

Next came the collectively appalled torrent of articles and videos covering the calamity.

After a week or two of initial fright, of course, the conspiracy theories started. Life went on.

In the wake of the horrific Newtown tragedy, the number of violent gun-related incidents has increased sharply. Many news sources have even labeled the rising death count the result of a “gun epidemic.” As we all look for a viable fix to turn the statistics back, the true resolution still remains just as multifaceted and complex, though there are several clear steps to take that can help eliminate future shootings.

The solution to curbing the gun violence count is simple but somewhat counterintuitive: stop immortalizing the perpetrators of violent acts through sensationalized journalism and concentrate instead on the victims.

When word of what happened at Newtown finally spread across the country—and it really only took an hour or so for everyone to start talking—the aspect of the tragedy that people focused on the most was Adam Lanza, his background, and his motives. Meanwhile, debates about gun control and mental culpability raged, plunging the political world into an irreconcilable divide.

Lanza’s was the name that was passed between family members over the dinner table, friends through a phone, schoolmates during class, or coworkers during a coffee break.

By making the killer’s name so well known through provocative

press, other psychopaths or sociopaths are encouraged to follow the same example in order to go down in history. Though morbid, this point rings true as seen in the increase of gun incidents since midDecember 2012.

Lanza’s motives and mental history are very much important information needed to avert similar disasters in the future, but inquiries should certainly not be on a nationally broadcasted scale, for such actions would be counterproductive to their intended purpose: stopping future acts of gun violence.

With this sort of news presence, other shooters will be encouraged to follow Lanza’s example in the future, something that the nation most definitely does not want. Avoiding needless publicity is a simple step that will yield better short term results than the debates currently raging at the moment, for it is impossible to alter a past event through arguing alone.

This intense attention paid to the perpetrator’s background also detracts from the grief due to the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. How is it that so much of Lanza’s backstory, his education, and his family life are public knowledge, yet little to no regard is given to children like Daniel Barden and Olivia Engel, two of the twenty grade schoolers who were gunned down on that fateful day?

How many civilians, if stopped on the street, would nod their heads in recognition of Lanza’s name, yet look on with bewilderment if greeted by any of the victims’?

I concede that I am hardly the example to follow, but I continue hold the saddening events at Newtown as a horrible tragedy. Any measures that can be taken to avoid something similar in the future should certainly be welcome to a government looking for solutions.

Colored lens: lights, camera, affirmative action tiara bhatacharya reporter “Affirmative action, huh? What do you think of it?”

I fumbled for about a minute.

How was I supposed to explain how I felt about the system to a Latino man who would have benefitted from it? I mumbled some words about how I thought it wasn’t really effective, and to my surprise, his face lit up with approval.

He explained proudly that his son had recently been accepted to UC Berkeley, and that he didn’t want his Latino son’s success to be dismissed as a product of affirmative action. Beaming, he said that it was his son’s merit and determination that earned him a place on that campus. His accomplishments were his and only his – not something he owed to a college admissions board.

Particularly within the world of university-level education, affirmative action is an industrialized hypocrisy. Essentially, institutions are giving preferential treatment to certain ethnic groups in a distorted attempt to construct a racially blind society.

It was invoked under the Kennedy administration, fueling the 1960s civil rights movement that swept across the United States.

But American society was a lot different in the 1960s than it is now – people who weren’t allowed to drink from the same water fountain can now sit alongside each other in classrooms, buses, and Congress. It’s unreasonable to say that racial prejudices have completely dissipated within the U.S., but the fires of blatant racial bias have mostly been extinguished except within the realm of affirmative action.

There is no doubt that affirmative action was implemented with the very best of intentions – to facilitate the rise of those who would have otherwise lacked access to opportunities within the world of higher education and business. But rather than promulgating the progress of all economically depressed people,

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Newtown: Righting the media wrongs

No place for complacency

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March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

it’s specifically geared towards the advancement of a few specific minorities, and the system mostly assists members of the Latino and African American communities.

The problem is that it operates under the assumptions that only Latinos and African Americans are at a disadvantage when it comes to advancing educationally, and often doesn’t take economic standing into consideration at all.

What’s even more disconcerting is that affirmative action has actually grown to significantly hinder the progression of several other minorities. Although vehemently denied by universities, statistics clearly reveal the existence of “Asian American quotas,” notoriously prominent among Ivy-League schools.

According to the New York Times, examples of this include Harvard, where the percentage of Asian Americans declined from 20.6% in 1993 to a relatively consistent 16.5%

throughout the last decade, despite America’s college-age population having doubled within that time period.

And colleges can justify these practices by saying that even though Asian applicants may have had better test scores, other applicants presented themselves with the potential to grow comprehensively. But that’s another stereotype in and of itself.

I am not defined by my test scores, or by just my Indian heritage.

My ability to “grow comprehensively” should have nothing to do with my ethnicity.

I mean, in a lot of ways, I’ve dedicated most of my life to college.

I had a Stanford poster in my room before I even got my cursive license.

College somehow seeps into most of the things I do, and I don’t want those things to be judged by where my parents were born or the origins of my last name.

“Asian” is such an expansive

term, encompassing ethnicities from Bangladeshi to Filipino. It accounts for more than half of the world’s population, yet affirmative action allows for the classification of such a diverse group of people as a single ethnicity in applications.

Bracketing certain Asian groups that are socioeconomically disadvantaged just as often as Latinos and African Americans into the same category as Japanese, Chinese, or Indian applicants is honestly unreasonable. Don’t they deserve the same benefits from affirmative action? Using racial bias in order to eliminate it from society leaves gaping holes that defy logic.

Furthermore, the policies of affirmative action severely cloud the lens minority races are viewed through. The accomplishments of minorities are completely undermined, and their successes are often just attributed to the privileges they received from affirmative action.

Affirmative action was established with the most honorable of intentions; I just don’t believe that it’s being executed in a manner that’s beneficial to society as a whole, or even to many it ostensibly serves.

Institutions should employ a classbased affirmative action if they really want to diversify their communities and erase the stigma associated with certain races.

Maybe my perceptions of affirmative action are just a product of a hyper-competitive academic environment, where everyone has relatively easy access to state of the art research labs, esteemed conservatories, and distinguished club programs. I know what it’s like to be a minority, but I can’t say that I’m disadvantaged at all.

But Martin Luther King Jr. said that he dreamed of a world where “children…will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” and I think that’s a world we should never stop working towards.

Opinion

the Winged Post

apoorva rangan opinion editor A year ago, I was walking the red carpet.

It was the day of the Hoscars, and I was as neurotically on edge as any Hollywood starlet on the night of an awards show. Granted, the carpet on the gym floor was more maroon than red, but my nerves still cranked my heart rate up to a thundering beat. I played Greg Pattillo’s “Three Beats for Beatbox Flute.”

My motives for learning how to beatbox were probably not as august as you think. Pattillo’s piece was a commissioned work for the National Flute Association, which required it for its High School Soloist Competition. I learned the music, sent in my audition CD with the requisite beatbox piece, and waited for the results. In the interim, I decided to sign up for the Hoscars.

I was terrified, but performing was exhilarating. For weeks after the show, I would wake up in the morning feeling completely confident in myself.

And then I found out that I didn’t make it to the competition’s final round.

Was I disappointed? Sure. But the competition’s windfall was worth the experience of failure. I learned an interesting skill that I was able to share with my peers. I got an opportunity to face my fears of performing in public.

And I readily admit that my main motivation for learning that new skill

FREAKS&GEEKS juhi gupta TalonWP video/photo editor What would you do with your life if money were no object?

Success is subjective. Is it a synonym for happiness? Wealth? Prestige? The former is almost unheard of. I’m obviously not an expert, but I find myself periodically having to remind people to take a step back and reevaluate their lives. Granted, my surrogacy isn’t always welcome in a world where we are defined by the money we make.

Picture this: two young, carefree (you would think) sophomores walking back from a nearby 7-11. One is pondering the possible outcomes of his life. What does he want to be when he grows up? Well, let’s see. Listing the various paths he could follow in finance, business, and management, he realizes that the only thing he really wants is to settle down and support his family with enough money to live in luxury.

I ask: “Wouldn’t you rather do what you love?”

And he says: “What if that is what I love?”

I didn’t know how to respond.

Was this the average American dream? We work from elementary school to succeed in middle school to get into a good high school to be accepted into a prestigious university and after that, all we can do is get a stable, well-paying job to raise a family. Don’t get me wrong – there are definitely motives for early retirement, living in extravagance, and providing for your heirs, but is that what we’re supposed to be passionate about?

Is it possible to be passionate about that? I had never considered it.

Our world is ranked by wealth, whether it be on a large, worldwide scale or our more intimate, local environment. When I was younger, I was raised on maxims like “bigger and better” and Shakespeare’s “some are born great”, repeated to me ad nauseum. Ready to beat out everyone for the position of world’s greatest, my childhood was littered with dreams of becoming a lawyer and living in a palatial pink mansion. Only by the time I was a preteen did I actually start to realize the growing discomfort I had with the decisions I was making – that the real proverbs I should have been adhering to were “money isn’t everything” and “the best things in life are free.”

samantha hoffman editor in chief This past Sunday, after polishing off my final draft of my AP Psychology literature review, I popped downstairs to the kitchen grab a snack with which to sustain me through the next stretch of homework. As I walked to the fridge, I passed the rest of my family settled on the couch watching the 85th Annual Academy Awards show.

Having been invited to go join them, I perched myself on the arm of the nearest chair, just in time to catch host Seth MacFarlane’s synopsis of some of the “Best Picture” nominees.

MacFarlane: And how wonderful was Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty, everyone? (audience applauds)

was, indeed, a contest. Does that devalue my work?

At our school, we view contests and rivalries as unjust, oppressive stressors that place an additional load on our textbook-laden backs.

The problem with our perception of competition is that it has grown to have such a negative connotation among students that it colors an individual’s efforts in an unfavorable light.

“She only did that for her college app,” we snark. “She didn’t actually care about what she was researching.”

Why should we devalue the efforts of someone just because they are motivated by competition? That’s ideally the point of competing: to motivate talented individuals to find their passion and inner strength.

The true problem, the unfortunate reality, is that there’s peer pressure to think of life as a chain reaction of contests and accolades. I’m “supposed to”

As cloying and overdone as it is, I was overcompensating for being on the other end of the spectrum: the ‘DANGER! DO NOT CROSS’ area on the scale of how much importance to place on your income. When someone stops caring about what job they have and only focuses on how much they’ll make, it seems to me that they have a much higher risk of becoming apathetic about life in general. Digging through the archives of my mind, I’ve been perpetually haunted that one day, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night in college and realize I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. That, or worse: I don’t like what I’m doing with my life.

“

So many students I know shy away from their dreams because they’re scared of making them a reality.

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March 1, 2013

By the time I fully understood my fears, it was already too late – once you’re on the track to the Silicon Valley definition of ‘success’, there’s no turning back.

So many students I know shy away from their dreams because they’re scared of making them a reality. It’s taboo to speak of any profession outside the conventional doctor-lawyer-CEO framework at the dinner table, and enjoyable pastimes are set aside from an early age as strictly hobbies. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a doctor, lawyer, or CEO – the only caution I have is to evaluate whether being one is a desire or a necessity. That your choice will be a cause of long-lasting happiness and fulfillment, or that the end result (riches, splendor, and so much more!) is your absolute desired end goal in life. Just because I don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not valid. That being said, don’t let yourself get stuck in the prototypical high-pressure blending machine, churning out perfect shiny replicas with the same ambitions. In the words of the band Say Anything, don’t become a “slave to the competitive capitalist dogma” because you may very well find yourself “spend[ing] every moment of your waking life bitching about” unfulfilled desires. And if that is your desire, make sure that the only thing you’re serving is yourself.

My idea of following your dreams might seem naïve and idealistic, but there are a lot of people that manage to get by. The only thing that really matters is what your priorities are. Hey, if Max Bemis of Say Anything is doing just fine with his car and his guitar, I’m sure I can do what I want and still make ends meet.

She plays a woman who spends over 12 years tracking Osama Bin Laden.

12 years! The film was a triumph and also a celebration of every woman’s innate ability to....

Me (thinking hopefully naively): Lead? Undertake and succeed in incredibly difficult endeavors? Fearlessly apply her intellect to anything she wants to?

MacFarlane: ...never, ever let anything go. (audience laughs) I stopped watching and headed back upstairs, only to find out courtesy of Tumblr that the sexist theme pervaded the entire show. From the tasteless opening song “We Saw Your Boobs” to the sexualization of nineyear-old Quvenzhané Wallis to a joke comparing the violence of Django Unchained to Rihanna and Chris Brown’s relationship, to name only a few, the entire audience was soon drowning in the misogyny spewing from MacFarlane’s mouth.

Later that night, I realized that the entire Oscars spectacle encapsulated why I never watch the pre-awards show broadcasts; even today, women

use sophomore-junior summer for junior-senior summer applications for college applications for job interviews for fame and glory.

And it seems like if I just take a step back and breathe and attempt normalcy and destress, everyone else races past me, which doesn’t feel so hot.

So I feel bad if I attempt competitions that I’m interested in but don’t sit in the top percentile, because I feel like I’m inadequate amongst the future Fields Medal awardees. And I feel equally as bad if I don’t agree to try them, because I feel like I’m slacking off and not working to my fullest capacity. And that’s unhealthy.

But maybe a balanced diet of competition isn’t so bad. We fail to see the positive consequences that come with pushing ourselves to learn new things.

You get to put your talents to the test, whether you’re facing another school’s point guard or a panel of judges. You

build a thick skin. You face rejection.

You learn how to deal with the risk that somebody hates the way you approach your art.

You make friends, find a community of people who think about the same things in the same way you do. You build a support system to get you through the rough patches; you keep the supports there to lift you higher during smooth sailing.

Competitions offer a platform to expose your deepest potential. Whether you’re an athlete, a musician, or a scholar, competing makes you turn inwards to find a kernel of energy or information or passion that you didn’t know you possessed. You give every ounce of energy to your performance, because it’s your face and your reputation on the line.

And that’s why I enjoy competing.

If we get stronger through competition, shouldn’t we embrace it instead of running away?

’ ‘ ‘ ’

“describe your talk around personal style in three words.” campus vasudha rengarajan TalonWP sports editor

SIMPLE, ELEGANT, PRACTICAL GABRIELE STAHL, MATH TEACHER

PRACTICAL, COMFORTABLE, CASUAL SERENA WANG (10) AND NITYA MANI (10)

SWEATERS, JEANS, HAND-ME-DOWNS SHREYAS PARTHASARATHY (11)

PINK, UNIQUE, HELLO KITTY EESHA CHONA (9)

in the media are continually distilled to ridiculous, superficial stereotypes.

I guess I shouldn’t have expected too much; after all, the humor MacFarlane presented Sunday night echoed that of his weekly T.V. shows - crass and hackneyed. That said, it’s 2013 when will we as a society learn that women’s rights, or lack thereof, are serious issues, not frivolous matters to be joked about?

Many people believe that the gender gap has been satisfactorily ameliorated or that women’s rights have progressed to the point where they no longer merit discussion; if that were truly the case, sexism would no longer abound as it does in today’s popular media. Take these award shows, for instance. One of, if not the most common questions female celebrities must endure on while walking the red carpet is the terribly inane, “Who are you wearing?” which reminds us that instead of valuing the person before us as a talented master of their craft, we worship their bodies as platforms for brand advertising and trend setting.

For those of you who think that

LEFTIST, NON-CONFORMIST... oh, fashion?

NON-CONFORMIST, COLLEGIATE, er, HIPSTER ERIC ZHANG (12)

such vacuous questions end with the red carpet, I regret to inform you that you are sorely mistaken. Even from the media room at this year’s Emmy Awards, many of the reporters around me fell back on that exact same fashion query when they had the chance to address the actresses who passed through, whereas the male celebrities often tackled more interesting questions about their directing choices and acting styles. Comparisons of said dresses, jewelry, and makeup abound in the next-day issues of People and US Weekly, further perpetuating this unbelievably pointless, materialistic focus.

Admittedly, women are not the only objects of such media sexualization; countless fans worship male celebrities like Channing Tatum or Taylor Lautner specifically for their sculpted physique, and gossip magazines also hound actors for their sex and dating tips. Nor do all women disapprove of MacFarlane-esque humor; clearly, different types of comedy appeal to different people, each of whom is no more “correct” in their taste than

the other.

Where the real detriment lies in this situation, however, is in the “Learn to take a joke!” type comments that dismiss the completely valid observation that the subjects of these one-liners stem from serious gender disparities that exist even up to today.

Obviously, we are not yet advanced to the point where we can address the problems facing the modern woman in a tasteful way that is not meant to elicit some cheap laughter. That is not to say that our future leaders aren’t taking action to remedy this problem, however; this issue features Ria Desai (12), a pro-feminist blogger for Spark, as one of thousands actively campaigning for equal treatment of women and the dissolution of such stereotypes and misogyny as exhibited in the Oscars.

This movement cannot exact the full scope of its missions without a collective societal mindset change, however; only when we start realizing that those sexist jokes are not funny can we begin remedying the underlying issues and thus truly move towards establishing equality for all genders.

Opinion

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

7

Honor on campus: We’re better than we think we are monica thukral reporter With my small frame and an even smaller personality, I felt lost in a sea of over one thousand students all trying to get through the tumultuous years of my old middle school.

To put it mildly, like most people during those awkward years, I had my ups and downs as I learned who I was as a person. I came to realize that what I aspired to did not fit in with the environment around me or with people at my school.

When I joined Harker in the ninth

It’s a peaceful morning. The sun is beginning to rise, and people are waking up to another normal day. The children are, perhaps, walking to school.

Without warning, the eerie noise of a jet pervades the air, much too loud to be your standard passenger aircraft. A split second later, an enormous missile slams into the ground and explodes with a deafening, ear-splitting BANG, erasing most traces of the families who were just about to start their day.

This situation is a reality in the remote areas of Northwestern Pakistan, where United States-commissioned unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, pummel the soil with missiles on a regular basis. Today, this issue has been brought into the spotlight by the Senate confirmation hearings concerning the nomination of the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John Brennan, who is regarded as the chief architect behind the government’s notorious drone policy.

What bothers me, however, is that the current uproar is solely because the victims of one attack two years ago were American, not because of the loss of life. Maybe if those victims

grade, I was brought into a new world, a tiny microcosm of the universe that I did not think could possibly exist and that still surprises people when they enter it.

Now, after being at Harker for the past three years, going through my daily routine without really paying much attention, I tend to forget what really drew me to this school and what gave me a true shock when I began to attend in ninth grade. People trust each other.

My first few days here, I was shocked to be able to leave my laptop on the ground in the morning and re-

turn to find it untouched after school.

The fact of the matter is that this trust is not replicated in many other places in the world.

I think that this phenomenon stems from a deeply ingrained set of values that Harker students and faculty respect and want to uphold.

Take a step back and put Harker into perspective.

In my opinion, the reaction to the Honor and Ethics Survey, which indicated an increase in dishonest acts and thoughts, has been blown out of proportion.

The honor of Harker is quite commendable. We should make an effort to continue to celebrate these values and embrace the character of our school.

Of course, we are not perfect, and things will always need to be done to improve. Thinking back to when I was shadowing at the Upper School, I remember being absolutely intrigued by the incredibly strange culture.

“Students here sometimes try to tell you that tests are easy when they are actually really difficult, just to do better than you,” I recall my shadow host warning me. “Watch out for those peo-

weren’t U.S. citizens, drones wouldn’t have surfaced in the news this past month.

As expected, once this topic spread through the mainstream media, debate ensued. Many organizations, such as Amnesty International and the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism have released reports with the number of alleged civilians who were killed by the strikes during the Obama administration.

The United States government argues the numbers to be far lower.

There’s always debate in the media about the exact number of civilian casualties, but why does it matter anymore? Isn’t the killing of any number, even one, of innocent bystanders, American or Pakistani, not only a tragic occurrence but also a moral issue? Is wiping out about ten harmless people justified when it kills one insignificant militant (The Guardian, July 2011)? It has been nine years, but these attacks continue unabated.

The U.S. is now setting a dangerous precedent by carrying out these strikes. Currently, both the U.K. and Israel have deployed drone technology, and Iran is surely not far behind

as one of our drones crash-landed in their desert. President Obama “asked for it back,” but, er, that didn’t really work. If multiple nations put overseas drone attacks into effect, what would happen then? Right now, what we’re doing is conveying to other nations the message that we have no qualms about carrying out drone attacks upon foreign soil.

Let’s say (for example) Russia decided they have identified an enemy on U.S. soil as an “imminent threat” and fire upon their target. In the process, twenty civilians are wiped out as well, but it is merely excused as “collateral damage.” I don’t think our government would fail to act or at least denounce the action. Yet we still wonder why Pakistanis don’t approve of the strikes.

Needless to say, attacks like these fuel major anti-American sentiments in the region of northwest Pakistan, which is completely understandable considering the devastation the strikes wreak upon their victims. Many of the survivors even join militant groups after the events occur.

In fact, these deaths are exploited by extremist groups as reasons to join.

It is entirely possible that in these attacks, less terrorists are killed than people who join terrorist groups after the occurrence, rendering the strikes counterproductive. Let’s face it, who would side with a country that sends missile-firing aircraft over your home?

Even Pakistani citizens of elite socioeconomic backgrounds who were educated in the U.S. are now as horrified with Washington’s policy of clandestine warfare as they are with the deeds of extremist organizations.

Many Pakistanis of privileged backgrounds are even counteracting the force of terrorism by helping alleviate poverty in these remote areas.

For instance, my grandmother, the first woman architect in Pakistan, has come out of retirement to design and fund houses for underprivileged people in remote areas that are lowcost and economical to construct.

Other humanitarian organizations are establishing schools and improving the quality of medical care in poorer regions. This educates residents of the area, reducing, if not eliminating, the chance of them joining militant groups. Drone strikes merely undermine these efforts.

ple.”

Sure, we do have incidents of cheating and lying, but that shouldn’t devalue the close-knit, trustworthy community that our school has built. The other greatest surprises that I encountered upon joining Harker were the school meetings that brought the community together each week, and the fact that we even had an honor code.

Instead of focusing on the negative, I believe that we need to take time to acknowledge the success that we have had in fostering such a unique and honorable environment.

I visit Pakistan every year; it isn’t the terrorist-harboring wasteland where militants run amok that the Western media depicts it as. Washington needs to realize that firing missiles upon congregations of people ends weddings or funeral processions (held for the last civilian killed by a strike), not plots to breach our national security. Children and their families should not have to pay with their lives for the death of one low-level militant who is probably not an international threat. Pakistanis despise violence and terrorism as much as we do, but they know that drones aren’t paving the way for peace.

Any solution to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East is not going to include the word “drone” in it. If both Pakistan and the United States really want to eradicate terrorism in the world, then the billions of dollars spent annually on military equipment could be better served setting up schools that improve the life of the locals there. The reason we’re against terrorists in the first place is because they kill civilians; yet we have been doing exactly that for almost a decade.

shay lari-hosain reporter

THE FIGHT DRONES ON vivek bharadwaj reporter Speaker Emily Thomas finished her speech on Planned Parenthood at the freshman L.I.F.E. assembly, and an uncomfortable silence fell upon 200 blank, staring faces as she opened the floor for questions. One student raised his hand, stood up, and asked his question.

“What happens if a guy takes the birth control pill?”

And with that, several in the crowd of freshmen present “ooh”ed and broke into laughter as Thomas responded to his query.

This is not the first time the student body has tried to embarrass guest speakers, and the problem is not restricted to the freshman class. After Dr. Anna Parnes and Bridget Stolee’s comment during an assembly that depression could arise spontaneously, a student demanded to know how “nothing” could cause a concrete rise in serotonin levels. The audience reaction to the comment was similar to the previous situation.

In a talk on stress and mindfulness

by Gina Biegel, several students’ first reactions as they exited the gym were to throw their mindfulness stickers in the trash.

The often-touted solution is that “we need to be a better audience,” and to a certain extent, it is true. For a speaker, walking into the Upper School gym is similar to walking into a room of Saturday Night Live comedians

who will record your every word and action. After this, they proceed to play back the most awkward bits to make the speaker sound stupid. Perhaps some of us want entertainment; maybe we just want some attention. Either way, we have shown our hostility as an audience on more than one occasion.

We have not, however, been discourteous to all speakers. Students met Vint Cerf ’s speech about the Internet with not only a standing ovation, but also well-thought-out questions that probed Cerf ’s views on different aspects of the Internet. And no one present could forget Senior Eric Swenson’s powerful speech about his experiences as a gay youth. The audience remained completely silent throughout his speech, and like Cerf, Eric received a standing ovation from the community.

Clearly, audience discourtesy is a result of a larger problem: a speaker’s inadequate or uninteresting presentation of material.

But what is the difference that makes us respect speakers like Cerf, but spurn Parnes and Stolee? All three were equally qualified in their professions, and the subject matters of their speeches were equally complex.

The difference between them is audience engagement and relation. Cerf kept his audience engaged with jokes about internet-connected surfboards and foiled attempts to rig his wine cellar with a security system. In doing so, he managed to make a one-hour talk on a weighty topic fun and exciting.

Eric’s more serious speech was similar; we could relate to his experience as

KAITY GEE - TALONWP

Speakers should leave an impact or leave the stage

BENEATH THE CERF-ACE Students and faculty listen to Vint Cerf’s presentation on hearing loss and the Internet’s birth.

a student more poignantly than any adult could have explained it to us. As a corollary effect, we showed much more respect than we normally do during their assemblies. By contrast, Parnes and Stolee connected very little with us; the closest they came was showing us a video of four depressed teens, still prompting a sea of glazed eyes, whispers, and restless movements through the gym. Gina Biegel fared no better; her poorly organized slides and monotonous tone had us looking at

the clock and praying for the familiar descending bell.

To inform us of their subject and urge us to take action, speakers need to engage and personally relate us to their material. I acknowledge that this task can be awkward and challenging with topics such as sex education, but a speaker who leaves no lasting impact other than “That L.I.F.E. assembly was so boring!” may as well not give a speech at all. Instead, our teachers in class could use the valuable time that

they take up more fruitfully.

An engaging speaker automatically creates a respectful audience, and a speech is successful when an interesting presenter conveys his or her message to receptive listeners. The engagement of the audience and respect of the speaker are both essential components. After all, the goal is to educate and inform us as an audience to take action, and when this goal is achieved, a speaker has truly accomplished their mission.

8

Features

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

copy editor When Ria Desai (12) engaged in a Facebook debate last year on the objectification of women in American society, she rebutted her opponent, reflected on her experience, and related it to a global audience as one of her monthly blog posts with SPARK, a “girl-fueled activist movement,” according to the organization’s website.

After watching the documentary Miss Representation last year, which confronts stereotypes and unfair portrayals of women in the media, Ria became enraged by the issues the movie exposed. Since she was also searching for internships, she narrowed her focus to organizations allowing opportunities for teenage girls to provide a voice on issues related to feminism.

That is when Ria struck upon SPARK. Writing a couple of essays and a sample blog post, she applied to SPARK during the finals week of her junior year. Within a couple of weeks, she had secured a job as a monthly blogger.

“We mainly like to write about sexualization, but we pretty much can write about anything as long as it relates to our personal experiences with women’s rights or feminism,” Ria said.

“So I’ve written blogs about how to have an online debate on Facebook because I’ve had those before. I’ve written blogs about asking a girl to prom and how I think if a girl says no, the reaction is always really negative without understanding her perspective.”

Ria’s article about how to conduct an online debate is both her favorite and most recent blog post. The fun, tongue-in-cheek tone of voice repre-

sents her favored style of writing.

“I prefer more of a humorous style,” she said. “I think people relate to that better, and our blogs aren’t super formal.”

Ria draws inspiration for her posts from the environment around her. Through observing her friends or reflecting on herself, she takes note of habits or responses specific to the female gender that she can respond to.

Currently, she is working on an article about girls’ tendency to apologize on reflex.

“We all say ‘sorry’ automatically even if we don’t mean it, and [we should] work against that kind of conditioning and not say sorry so much when we don’t actually feel sorry,” she said.

Drafting insightful, working ideas does not always come easily. Ria identifies it as one of the hardest challenges of maintaining a regular blog.

“Once a month doesn’t sound so hard, but it’s hard to come up with good ideas consistently and then find the time to write the blogs,” she said. “Sometimes, they’re really personal, and it’s hard to express what you want to say without getting emotional.”

A f t e r Ria and other SPARK bloggers complete their first draft of an article, they submit it to an editor, who is a graduated SPARK girl, meaning that she is now older than 22. The editor provides feedback and identifies grammatical errors. After the writer makes adjustments, the editor approves the post and adds supporting images. The range of acceptable posts is broad, incorporating many styles of writing, as long as the quality is up to par.

Cookie Confidential

SPECIAL TO THE WINGED POST

Alan Soetikno (12) waited impatiently in the kitchen and kept sniffing the sweet aroma that pervaded the room, never taking his eyes off the oven. Only five more minutes until he could taste the sweet, gooey, and chocolatey goodness in his mouth once again.

The senior’s famous “Alancookies” were born in 2006 when he was in sixth grade. He visited his uncle and aunt, who had baked chocolate chip cookies for a party they held the previous night.

“I secretly took a cookie because I love cookies,” Alan said. “It was really good, so I told my mom, and she went and asked them for the recipe.”

Alan had never baked anything from scratch before, so he baked his first batch with the help of his mother.

One batch was too much for both of them to eat alone, so Alan decided to share it with his friends and family.

Eventually, he brought some to school to share with his advisory.

“They loved them,” Alan said.

“Within the first day, people I never even knew walked up to me asking for one of those cookies.”

Laura Pedrotti (12), who is in Alan’s advisory, was surprised that he could make cookies so well.

“When I tried one, I completely didn’t believe he made them,” she said.

“I was blown away by how good they were.”

Alan’s chocolate chip cookies became more popular, Laura dubbed

disagree with you, and they’re going to have views that they don’t want to have attacked or disproven or they don’t want to hear anything negative about what they think, so they’re going to call you names and write really long comments about how you suck, but that’s just part of life.”

What Ria expresses in words also translates to her real-life interactions with other people. While at first Ria seldom confronted people when they made offensive remarks, she is trying more and more to call such comments out and prevent them from spreading.

“Sometimes, I’m kind of like ‘Oh that really hurt my feelings’ or ‘That’s not really appropriate to say in this situation because...’ Sometimes people intentionally try to annoy me because they know I’m a feminist, and it’s easy to push my buttons in a sense, but I’ve never flipped out at someone,” she said.

“A lot of people expect feminists to be really angry and really aggressive, but I think that you can sway people to your side by being calm and using reason.”

Ria believes firmly in the power of correcting even casual comments to cut the expansion of offensive stereotypes in its tracks.

“[People] need to think about sexism as a negative thing and not something to be brushed away and say, ‘whatever, he made a joke about me being in the kitchen, that doesn’t mean anything.’ It actually means something, and it’s important because that’s the way pervasive stereotypes spread, by people brushing off off-hand remarks,” she said.

Through her journey, Ria has gained familiarity with putting her voice out for judgment, viewed new perspectives on herself and the world around her, and acquired various life skills that helped her along the way.

“I think this has really helped me with my confidence and thinking about myself introspectively,” she said.

“I think it’s helped me understand myself better, which helped with the college process because it’s easier to write about yourself if you’ve always been writing about yourself.”

Ria plans to continue writing for SPARK throughout college, until she reaches the organization’s maximum age of 22. Ria and others’ articles can be found on SPARK’s website: http:// www.sparksummit.com/.

Zoe Bates joins Upper School as psychology teacher

COOKIE CONNOISSEUR Alan brought cookies for his advisory in freshman year, and the Alancookies became popular soon after. Despite receiving some criticism, the senior still continues to bake and strives to perfect his recipe.

reporter

FIGHT ON Senior Ria Desai, after months of blogging with the feminist organization SPARK, drew inspiration for this article about the techniques of debating online from her real-life experiences. Ria has since become accustomed to having her views regularly published on a worldwide forum.

New Faculty Member

The story of Alancookies

dora tzeng

“You can say basically anything you want to say in any kind of way you want to [You can] use images or post a video you made yourself,” Ria said.

In addition to writing monthly posts, Ria is also collaborating with other SPARK bloggers to compile a book about their experience with the organization. Over the past summer, SPARK petitioned against Seventeen Magazine to have them include more racial and body type diversity and collected 8,000 signatures on a petition.

“The media portrayed it as the act of Julia, one of our members, but in all actuality, we all worked to help to get the magazine to pass the body peace treaty, where they agreed to include more diversity in their magazine,” Ria said.

The book will focus mainly on the authors’ experiences dealing with gender stereotypes in their own lives and what they think is “important for young girls to know about feminism.”

Ria is writing a section about her experience growing up as an Indian American and the issue of feminism as it pertains to race.

Having now had her voice published on the Internet, Ria has become accustomed to a readership including both close friends and total strangers. At first, she felt self-conscious expounding on personal experiences when it involved the people around her.

“I feel like people I know might read my blogs, and think ‘Oh, she’s talking about me or certain aspects of our school.’ I don’t usually talk about specific people, and if I do, I change their names,” Ria said. “But all my friends are very positive, and they say they enjoy reading it.”

Published on a globally accessible forum, Ria’s posts do not garner solely positive feedback from readers.

“Anyone can comment on the blog, so you can get Internet hate, and the moderator deletes it. That’s part of having your voice out there on the Internet,” she said. “People are going to

them “Alancookies” and even created a Facebook page for them.

More people outside of our advisory got to try them and found out how incredible they were,” she said.

“They became a coveted item, hence the fan page.”

As of February 25, the page has 111 likes and posts bake sale updates.

Club presidents and student council members have asked Alan to make his cookies for their bake sales. He has helped out the current senior, junior, and sophomore classes as well as Key Club, Red Cross Club, and WiSTEM. However, Alan has received negative feedback from some members of the student body, including from several whom he has helped. They have told him that his cookies are bad and overrated.

“Eventually, I stopped baking cookies for these clubs and classes,” he said. “If they weren’t going to appreciate my cookies, which I donated to them for free, they didn’t deserve them.”

As a result, Alan will only be baking cookies for his clubs, friends, and advisory in the future.

The process of baking a batch of Alancookies spans over a few days.

Despite the amount of work necessary to make cookies, he still likes baking for his friends and family.

“It seems that most people enjoy what I give out for free and often tell me they are godly or some crazy good cookie,” Alan said. “I can’t say I really have an inspiration for baking cookies other than making other people happy.”

trisha jani features editor This week, Zoe Bates officially joined the Upper School to take over for psychology teacher Kelly Horan, who is on maternity leave for the remainder of the school year. Bates shares a little bit about herself in this exclusive interview with The Winged Post.

The Winged Post: How long have you been teaching? What did you do before coming to Harker?

Zoe Bates: I taught two years before I came here in San Diego. I grew up in Cupertino and went to San Diego for school and taught there and then moved back up.

ZB: I think psychology is just really interesting. There’s a lot of things you wonder about. [There is] the unexplained, like “why does that happen?”

Psychology tends to explain a lot of that, and it’s just innately interesting for both me, and I think the students.

It’s just always changing and there’s always something new so it’s always really fun to learn about that.

WP: Can you describe some of your pastimes?

ZB: I like to cook, baking in particular.

I also like going out to try new foods.

I used to oil paint but I haven’t had time to recently. And I play tennis when I can.

WP: How does it feel to begin a new job at a new school?

ZB: Coming mid-year is different because you don’t get to start off and meet everybody. [The students] already had a teacher who was there with them, and then they have to adjust to a new teacher. It’s different, but it has been pretty good so far.

WP: What is your favorite childhood memory?

ZB: I had a pet rabbit. I loved my pet rabbit, so I think it’d probably be something about my rabbit. It was named Ding Dong. We put a bell around its neck, and he would walk around with it.

WP: What made you decide to come to Harker, instead of another school?

ZB: I actually knew about Harker, since I grew up in the area and have always heard about how great it is. It’s also really different. I had friends who went here who really liked it, so I thought it would be an interesting place to actually teach.

WP: What is an interesting fact about you that most people do not know?

ZB: I shared interesting facts with my class yesterday. I told them that I’m actually half Chinese and half British.

WP: Are you still in contact with Ms. Horan?

ZB: Yes, I am in contact with Ms.Horan. She’s still grading papers and essays, and [we are] still emailing back and forth. I think she will be back to visit with her baby.

ZB: Hopefully, I can get [the students] prepared for the AP exam but also have fun doing it. I want to try to enjoy the subject of psychology and really explore and learn. I hope they do well.

I’ll watch them all graduate, because they are a l l seniors.

WP: Have you ever met anybody famous?

ZB: I saw Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi [tennis players] in San Diego, but I wasn’t allowed to go say hello.

WP: In your opinion what is the most rewarding aspect of being a teacher?

ZB: When you see a student who didn’t understand something, and then you see that moment when they’re actually like “Oh! I get it!” That’s the most rewarding part.

WP: What are the top five things on your bucket list?

ZB: I don’t know the exact order, but it would include quite a few traveling places. I have always wanted to go to Angkor Wat. I’ve always to go to some sort of tropical island, but I haven’t decided which one. Maybe try a really famous restaurant and see what all the hype is about. Probably mostly eating and traveling.

WP: What is it about psychology in particular that interests you?

WP: What are your goals for the upcoming year?

TRISHA JANI - THE WINGED POST

kacey fang

SPARKSUMMIT.COM

Ria Desai (12) sparks gender equality with blog, upcoming book

Features

reporter Webster’s Dictionary identifies “Fashion” as “a popular trend, esp. in styles of dress and ornament or manners of behavior.”

That does little to describe the magnitude of an effect that the idea of being fashionable has. Recently, New York celebrated the city’s Fall/ Winter 2013 fashion week (February 9 – 12), which generates around $865 million for the city each year, according to mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Harker had its very own Fashion Show on February 22, 2013 with a Mission Possible theme and 40 Upper School models participating.

In the day-to-day life of a student, however, the idea of “fashion” may have very little relevance or import.

“I don’t view the clothing I wear as important to my daily life,” senior Richard Fan said. “As long as I am comfortable.”

Others, while they do not totally eschew the practice, still take a more relaxed approach to new trends and styles. Many students find that fashion is the easiest way to express themselves through a creative medium belonging entirely to themselves. Some even wish to get involved in the fashion industry as a

possible profession.

“I don’t look for trends. I just wear what I like,” Jessica Yang (10) said. “Fashion is important for me,

“

Fashion is important for me though because I want to do something later in life with it.

“

elisabeth siegel

Jessica Yang (10)

though, because I want to do something later in life with it.”

Others simply do not agree, letting trends and styles fall to the wayside because of impracticalities.

Most students “don’t really think fashion is important in the

first place,” Shivali Minocha (9) said. “People try to care, but then it takes too much effort. The priority at Harker is not really fashion.”

The various disadvantages students face, such as being dependent on their parents for clothes shopping and not having enough time for trends, severely reduce their capacity for keeping in style.

“I believe fashion is a way for students to express themselves, and the ability to dress freely is one of Harker’s many privileges,” freshman Janet Lee said. “For many students, fashion may not be as accessible because they do not have the time or money to shop for new clothes, or simply lack interest.”

The amount of emphasis placed on a fashion is certainly at contrast with the way it is at other schools, as students here find themselves neutral on the matter.

“I’m slightly aware about my fashion sense, but I’m not really into it,” Kathir Sundarraj (12) said. “Perhaps not to the degree as in other schools I’ve been at, but [fashion is still] a priority.”

Ultimately, the amount of influence fashion has on the student body as a whole is, while not negligible, still at a sharp contrast in comparison to the nation’s fixation on styles and trends each year.

Hugely Successful or Outdated Ideology?

9

ELISABETH SIEGEL - THE WINGED POST

STUDENT FASHION:

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

CASUAL OR FORMAL Yasemin Narin (9) opted for a comfortable and efficient sweatshirt and jeans combination. Dressed up, Janet Lee (9) decided to wear a carefully selected dress, cardigan, and pair of flats.

Bizarre holidays serve as excuses for fun kacey fang & elizabeth edwards copy editor & reporter

In the midst of the school and work grind, an occasional holiday or break is a welcome relief. But when it starts seeming like breaks are way too few and far-between, consider the more fun, less-official days that commemorate something strange or special and provide an amusing respite from everyday monotony. Here are just a few remaining in the school year that students and teachers alike could seize the opportunity to observe.

March 3 is.....Old Stuff Day and If Pets Had Thumbs Day March 3 is a double whammy of weirdness, with just a bit of nostalgia mixed in. Dig up your abandoned stuffed animal or sweep out that two-week old pizza taking over the corner of your room. Old Stuff Day can also be interpreted as a chance to call up the New Year’s mantra of “out with the old and in with the new.” If you are tired of your same old lifestyle, welcome a new experience by having an adventure, whether it be in the form of trying an exotic dish or adopting a little-known hobby.

The second part of this day is just strange. Imagine your cat standing up and pouring himself a glass of milk with the two newly acquired protrusions on his paws. We will leave the accompanying festivities to your imagination.

February 28 is.....Public Sleeping Day Despite having just missed this, we can all take a moment to appreciate the fact that there is an entire day set aside to honor the weary or bored who just cannot help falling asleep in public. Celebrate by napping on the car, lying prostrate with other exhausted juniors in Shah Hall, or mastering the art of sleeping while standing.

“I would appreciate [Public Sleeping Day] because it would give me more time to sleep,” Edward Sheu (9) said. “I love sleeping because it is restful and relaxing in comparison to school days.”

Be forewarned, however: choose your sites wisely, as the premise of observing Public Sleeping Day might not pass as an excuse for dozing off in class.

March 14 is.....National Pi Day How many digits of pi do you know? For Sierra Lincoln (12), it is 30.

“The current junior class did pies for Pi day last year. We made and brought in pies to sell on Pi day. We celebrated with the class of 2014!” Mathematics teacher Dr. Victor Adler said.

“By the way, I believe in Tau Day more than I believe in Pi Day,” he added.

The first record of Pi day being celebrated was in 1988 at the San Francisco Exploratorium. The event continues to this day, with party-goers marching around a circular space and devouring fruit pies afterward. Feel free to engage in this day in your own way by asking your local math guru to divulge all his stored digits of pi, listening to the Youtube parody of American Pie, or indulging in the sweet, baked treat of the same name. At the same time, wish Albert Einstein a happy birthday.

March 20 is.....Festival Of Extraterrestrial Abductions Day Whether or not you have ever been swept up by a UFO or even sighted one, this is the day you hold onto your convictions of alien life with an undying grip. Although it is unclear exactly what such a “festival” would entail, you can be on the lookout in case alien civilizations catch wind of such a celebration. In addition, enjoy a packed day of sci-fi books, movies, and TV shows.

March 26 is.....Make Up Your Own Holiday Day In light of all these wacky and ambiguous holidays, it is your turn to impose some of your own insanity or imagination on the rest of the world. Or maybe just start with your friends and family, Nikkan Ghosh (11) likes the idea of such a holiday.

“It is creative,” she said. “I don’t know if I will participate, but it still is funny.”

March 27 is.....National “Joe” Day So maybe not everyone has desired to change their name to Joe at some point in time. But if you happen to not like your name or just crave a change in atmosphere, National “Joe” Day is when everyone can require all of their friends to address them as “Joe” for the day without seeming strange.

“It’s kind of weird,” freshman Janet Lee said, “But it sounds like fun. It’s really unusual.”

March 9 is.....Panic Day Have a project due and a test and quiz you forgot to study for? For most people, that would be an indication to quickly engage into panic mode. If on this day, you are feeling a sudden urge to not keep calm by any means, rest assured that whoever created this day is on your side. Let the world know of your impending doom with no small level of hysterics. On the flip side, panic has also been known to encourage higher levels of productivity and results.

“I think panic is eu-stress because if I wasn’t panicked, then I wouldn’t do anything at all, so I need to panic,” Archana Podury (10) said. “It feels good when other people are panicking with you because you panic together and get lots of work done.”

March 15 is.....Everything You Think Is Wrong Day and March 16 is.....Everything You Do Is Right Day Just to lower your morale and then promptly boost it again, here is this split duo of attitudes to consider over a two-day span.

March 15 is akin to a 24 hour moment of silence for everyone who has ever experienced a day where absolutely nothing went right, and the day after is a welcomed, if slightly self-delusional, guaranteed confidence raise.

March 28 is.....Something on a Stick Day Step 1. Obtain a stick. Step 2. Put something on it. Options for the second step range from your standard lollipop or popsicle to the unsettling deepfried butter on a stick. Maybe for dinner, you can consider serving each item on toothpicks or spearing and roasting a couple marshmallows in honor of this special day.

ALL GRAPHICS KACEY FANG - THE WINGED POST

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: TERÉ ACEVES

MISSION ACCOMPLIS

stephanie chen reporter

natalie simonian reporter

MEGAN PRAKASH - TALON

With a theme as bold as Mission Possible: Dare to Try, this year’s Fashion Show has set itself up to be bigger and better than ever before. Hoping to fulfill those expectations is new Fashion Show Liasion Teré Aceves.

Aceves, current Director of K-8 Volunteer Programs and Event Fundraising, replaces previous Fashion Show Liaison Sue Prutton, who directed the show for nine years.

“After the position was vacant, [the administration] offered it to me because I have the background in events and it makes sense that I’d be able to oversee the preparations,” Aceves said.

In her three years working here, Aceves has been responsible for organizing many community and fundraising events at the Lower School, such as Breakfast with Santa and the annual Spaghetti Dinner.

“The experience of every event is different, but the objective—building community—is always the same,” she said. “With our busy lives, it’s important to not lose human contact, to actually pause our activities and listen and talk to other individuals.”

With the Fashion Show this year, Aceves hopes to continue fostering that sense of unity.

One of her main goals is to increase student participation by making the event more accessible to those who are usually busy with extracurriculars.

“We were able to include more kids in the show that haven’t been able to attend before: more students with performing arts, different clubs, sports,” she said. “We’ve really worked together with the directors and coaches to make sure they can participate.”

As this year is the tenth anniversary of the Fashion Show, everything has been about reaching milestones in sponsorship and attendance. According to Aceves, this year’s number of sponsors is the second highest in the event’s history, and she plans on seeing it break the record as the show date approaches.

She has also tried to create a more modern,

MANY THANKS Fashion Show Liaison Teré Aceves holds a bouquet of flowers presented to her during the fashion show. This is the first year Aceves has held this role.

edgy feel for this year’s show, from the decorations to the dance performances. One minor but important change has been a shift toward using technology for communication.

“For the first time, we haven’t sent a paper invitation. We’ve sent an email invitation.

We’ve also been using [the new TV screens at the Upper School] to increase publicity,” Aceves said. “We’re trying to be smarter with what resources we’re using and how we use them.”

As director, Aceves’s primary goal for this year’s Fashion Show is that it successfully fulfills its dual purposes of fundraising and entertainment. But her personal wish is to see the show bring the school together.

“I want to see the satisfaction of the hundreds of volunteers that have worked together to make this possible,” she said. “I want to see kids enjoying the show, and I want to see people coming back.”

Though she does not currently know if she will direct the show next year, Aceves looks forward to having the opportunity again.

As the pulsating beat of Gangnam Style reverberates through the glamorously decorated ballroom, Mathematics teacher Misael Fisico, in the guise of Psy, energetically performs the notorious dance moves while Upper School models strutted down the runway.

On February 22, the 10th Annual Fashion Show, Mission: Possible took place at the San Jose Convention Center. Over 1,400 people joined together to participate in the fundraiser, whose funds would primarily be used to provide financial aid to students and fund a new gym and performing arts center for the Saratoga Campus. All in all, sponsors donated over $139,000 to help benefit the cause.

“I thought the best part of the fashion show was dressing up and going to [the] event with the school and knowing that while we are having fun

we are also benefiting the com Gross (9) said.

This year, fashion show organ prove the guest’s experience by i new elements.

“Everything was new. The dé concept of the show was very, ver centerpieces to raffle items, the ap community-building driven,” sa Director of K-8 Volunteer Prog Fundraising, who also served as Fashion Show Liasion.

One of the more obvious fashion show was a Vegas-style the lobby of the San Jose Con Guests could purchase chips, an their winnings for raffle tickets, the chance to win such prizes as to drive exotic cars at Club Spo $18,000 was raised from the raffl

THE

PHOTOS: MERCEDES CHIEN AND MEGAN PRAKASH DESIGN BY SAMANTHA HOFFMAN - WINGED POST

10 YEARS OF FASHION allison sun TalonWP webmaster Did you enjoy this year’s Fashion Show? Here’s a look back at some memorable moments from the past 10 years.

“Lights...Camera...Passion” (2004)

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The very first benefit fashion show, “Lights…Camera…Passion,” was held in 2004 at The Fairmont in San Jose. The fundraiser event was first brought up by three parents who were involved in the Junior League Fashion Show and Cattle Baron’s Fashion Show.

“Rock the Runway” (2005)

“Cruisinʼ California” (2006) The 2006 fashion show, “Cruisin’ California,” at San Jose Convention Center revolved around California’s vibrant culture as well as the school’s own spirit. Channeling the style from popular cities such as San Francisco and Palm Springs, students, faculty, and parents modeled various clothing from beach clothes to snow gear.

“Cinéfest” (2007)

HED: FASHION FUNDS FUTURE

nizers tried to imintroducing many

écor was new. The ry different. From pproach was more aid Teré Aceves, grams and Event s this year’s new

additions to the casino set up in nvention Center. nd then exchange which gave them s the opportunity ortiva. More than ffle and casino.

“It was an idea that could appeal to kids and adults. Something that doesn’t cost us a lot of money that can produce a high revenue. We were trying to bring something different that people show an interest in. So bringing something that is very close to the experience you get in Las Vegas was attractive,” Aceves said.

Another exciting aspect of the Fashion Show was the live auction, hosted by Damon Casatico.

This year, for the first time, the live auction was also included in the lunch show; in previous years, it was exclusive to the guests who attended dinner.

Auction items included a chance to walk the red carpet at the annual Emmy Awards, an internship, and a chocolate Labrador puppy. Proceeds from both the lunch and dinner auctions totaled over $129,000.

The Fashion Show itself was centered around two “spies” from the Middle School Showstoppers and High Voltage dance groups who were on a

mission to duplicate the Harker experience. Various groups performed at the event, including the Upper School Varsity Dance Troupe, Downbeat, the Fifth Grade Choir, and Dance Fusion.

“I love interacting with the performers and models from other grades and campuses. It’s also a highlight of our year as a Varsity team because it’s a major bonding experience for us with our long rehearsals and sleepover the night before!” said Molly Wolfe (12), who participated in the fashion show for the seventh time this year.

In between mission updates and performances, models from all grades strutted down the runway in fashions sponsored by designers such as Azadeh, Eli Thomas, and Furla.

The Fashion Show was an opportunity for all members of the Harker community to come together to support their school and showcase their inner supermodel.

STEVEN KLEIN

mmunity,” Isabelle

Q&A

ALEXANDER WANG (MS ʻ98) apoorva rangan opinion editor The sleek white runway. The five-inch heels. The thumping beat. While the glitz of the annual Harker Fashion Show may seem like a once in a lifetime night of glamour for most of us, for Harker alumnus Alexander Wang, the runway is a part of life.

Wang, a graduate of the Middle School, made headlines in the fashion world this November for his recent appointment as creative director for Balenciaga, where he officially started work yesterday.

His debut with the fashion house was one of the most anticipated shows at New York Fashion Week.

The Winged Post: When did you know you wanted to go into fashion? How supportive was your community?

Alexander Wang: I don’t know if there was ever a moment I considered anything. Even before I knew the meaning of being a fashion designer, I was sketching shoes and playing dress up. My family and friends were always very supportive, although it wasn’t something they were familiar with or could relate to at times.

WP: Did you have a big break? How hard was it to make it in the fashion world?

AW: I learn something new everyday, and in that, I feel that I am growing and evolving; so there never really is a big break, because it always seems to get better. That being said, it is a very competitive and difficult industry to make it in. You have to be very determined and know what you want out of it, while being realistic.

WP: You said in an interview that “mistakes are an inspiration,” which we thought was a beautiful quote. What’s your thought process in dealing with and embracing mistakes?

AW: I love the feeling of a challenge, because when you find the solution, it is all that more rewarding. How boring would it be if everything went as planned?

WP: What are your memories of Harker? Is there anything from those experiences that you still carry with you today?

AW: When I went to Harker, I was in the boarding program. It made me be very self dependent and know that if I wanted something, I had to do it myself. So in a way, I have a lot to thank for my years spent there.

WP: Describe the feeling you get when you see someone on the street wearing your clothes.

AW: It’s the best feeling in the world. That is when you know you’ve done something right; the customer is the only person I need to satisfy along with myself.

PAGE “Outside the Box” (2010) “Freeze Frame - That Was Then, This is Now” (2008) As the sixth fashion show, the 2008 event was titled “Freeze Frame – That Was Then, This is Now,” celebrating the history as well as the present of the school. The Middle School dance troupes, Showstoppers and High Voltage, famously dressed up as zombies and performed to “Thriller” by Michael Jackson.

“When I Grow Up...Dream Big” (2011)

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GLOBAL

SWISS BUDDIES The Swiss exchange students and their Upper School buddies pose in front of Manzanita Hall. The Swiss visitors stayed with their host family for a week at the beginning of February.

alyssa amick

TalonWP online editor Although the Swiss and U.S. Educational systems differ substantially, when it comes to personal connections, the nine visiting Swiss exchange students bonded with their Harker buddies during their stay in the Bay Area.

“Fabienne and I clicked right away.

We became really close and still talk every day,” said Zoe Woehrmann (10) about her Swiss buddy. “Even though she was only here for ten days, we made amazing memories, and I’m sure we’ll make more when I go to Switzerland.”

Throughout the week, the girls visited both their buddies’ classes and special classes designed for them such as cooking, building a dream catcher, acting, and learning about Hispanic culture.

They also traveled to Monterey Bay and San Francisco for day trips, and once break started, some had the opportunity to visit Disneyland and Lake Tahoe with

pages so for some people this is the hardest part about all of this.”

After college, students can choose to go to University. Unlike the U.S., however, the system in Switzerland is mostly public, making university much more affordable: about 600 Euros per semester.

In recent years, the college system in the United States has become increasingly competitive. That is not the case in Switzerland.

“Since everyone has a chance to do it, there’s not this rivalry between students,” said Philipp Baechler, the other chaperone from Switzerland. “Because it’s a public school, not a private school, some of them don’t know what else to do, so they are just lingering, but others really want to do their best.”

The American students will travel to Switzerland this June to experience Swiss culture and see for themselves what a Swiss school is like.

CALIFORNIA ADVENTURES Three of the Swiss exchange students pose for a photo while exploring Monterey Bay

BANTER BETWEEN BUDDIES Tamagawa students Ayako Nagashima and Akari Ito are all smiles as they converse with their Upper School hosts Maya Madhavan (11) and Monika Lee (11).

emily lin reporter

They may be over five thousand miles away from their home in Tamagawa, Japan, but they are not alone. Exchange students Ayako Nagashima and Akari Ito are given a warm youkoso (welcome) to the Upper School by junior hosts Maya Madhavan and Monika Lee. The exchange program at the Upper School was initiated by Tamagawa about five years ago, a result of the close relationship between Harker and Tamagawa fostered by Diana Nichols over two decades ago.

According to Director of Global Education Jennifer Walrod, this Tamagawa-Harker correspondence begins with kindergarten videoconferences, continues through lower and middle school with various projects, and culminates in a few programs at the Upper School.

“It truly is a K through Life exchange,” Walrod said.

During their month-long stay with Upper School hosts that began on February 7, the Tamagawa exchange students have the opportunity to witness first-hand what daily life is like for their American peers.

“When students stay in home stays they become immersed in the culture of a San Jose family. [They] get to see what an American family is like, literally from sun-up until sundown,” Walrod said.

Both Monika and Maya had to make some adjustments to accommodate their new guests.

“It was a little hard at first to be aware that there was someone there, literally all the time. It takes time to get used to that feeling,” Maya said.

The exchange students accompany their buddies to class, where they are able to personally experience what American school is like.

Monika’s buddy Akari found that several aspects of American culture greatly differ from what she is used to in Japan.

“You have a lot of freedom [in America], and you can pretty much do whatever you want. It’s very strict and there are a lot of rules in Japan. It can be boring in Japan, but at [the Upper School] it’s interesting

and fun,” she said.

She also noticed that while social groups were often segregated by gender in Tamagawa, this was not the case at the Upper School.

“It’s interesting that the girls and guys [at the Upper School] mix together. It’s fresh,” Akari said.

To expose the exchange students to American life outside of a school setting, the host families also took them sightseeing around the Bay Area.

Akari, who visited Pier 39 in San Francisco and museums in Downtown San Jose, particularly enjoys the scenery in America.

“America is much wider and much prettier, and the air is much cleaner in comparison to Japan,” she said.

Sightseeing proved to be a rewarding experience not only for the exchange students, but also for the Upper School hosts.

“I don’t spend much time outside and I usually stay at home, so going sightseeing forced me out of my comfort zone. I really had no idea what was in San Francisco until this weekend,” said Monika.

While interacting with her buddy was somewhat difficult in the beginning, Monika says that their relationship has improved since then; she has even discovered that they have similar interests.

“She likes sleeping a lot, and I like sleeping a lot. She watches Japanese animations and I’m interested in that too,” Monika said.

Maya and her buddy have also been able to find common ground as they began to communicate more freely.

“I introduced her to lacrosse, which isn’t common in Japan, and she liked it.

She was definitely excited about going to practice, and I hope that it’ll be a memory that she’ll keep,” Maya said.

Ayako, in return, has exposed her buddy to elements of Japanese culture that Maya was previously unaware of.

“I learned that Japanese people are extremely polite and respectful, and that there’s an emphasis on keeping the culture there.”

On March 2, the Tamagawa exchange students will leave the Bay Area and return to their homeland.

Since the New Year, the Upper School has been host to various groups of foreign students, including one from Australia and one from Switzerland, sparking conversations all around campus.

A group of Australian boys, who attend Canberra Boys Grammar School, came to the Upper School to attend computer science classes for a single day on January 28, while nine Swiss students, from the Collége de Gambach, visited in early February and left just before Winter Break.

The Australian students came to the Upper School as part of a more extensive trip in which they toured technology-related sites throughout the Bay Area. Because of this, they were able to stay only for a single day and had much less contact with the students outside of the classroom.

“Unfortunately, although I saw them in passing quite a few times, I didn’t take any of the classes that they attended, so wasn’t able to talk to them about life in Australia,” Arjun Goyal (11) said.

Students that were able to meet them appreciated that the Australian visitors were able to show off iOS applications that they had created in preparation for a later conference.

They thought that seeing all of the different ideas that the foreign exchange students came up with and created was intriguing.

The Swiss students came as part of an exchange program and stayed with Upper School buddies, who became close friends with them extremely quickly.

“Well, at the end of the exchange we were really good friends. Her English was really good, so I think that helped a little,” Delaney Martin (10) said. “By the end, I felt like we’d

known each other for more than just 10 days.”

The Swiss students did not exclusively spend time with their buddies, though; plenty of other students were able to meet and hang out with them.

“I learned that Swiss culture is a lot closer of a community, but the kids have a lot more independence,” Molly Wolfe (12) said, who spent time getting to know Sophie Raniolo, an exchange student, while at

“

By the end, I felt like we had known each other for more than just 10 days.

Delaney Martin (10)

school.

Although there are no more exchange students coming to visit in the near future, the Swiss students’ Upper School buddies will be traveling to Switzerland for their home stay on June 6.

ARDEN HU - TALON

EMILY LIN - THE WINGED POST

TalonWP EIT

SPANISH STARS Kevin Moss (11) and Sumit Minocha (12) dance to an upbeat Spanish song during their audition to perform at Spanish Cultural Night.

global editor

Campus welcomes two Students from around the world Student reactions to international visitors on campus Tamagawa students darian edvalson

Preparations for Spanish Cultural Night

sheridan tobin

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KONICHIWA:

their host families.

The Swiss educational system, including the Collége de Gambach, our sister school, differs from Harker and the American educational system in many ways.

Since third grade, Harker students have changed classes each period creating a larger portion of the student body that they have classes with. At Collége de Gambach, instead of students changing classrooms, teachers do.

“In Switzerland you don’t see most of the people at the school because you spend the whole day in one class,” said exchange student Lena Kolly. “I would prefer to move around because then we can see all the people.”

Another major difference is in the teaching style. While Harker offers varying ways to learn including both lectures and hands-on participation, our sister school features lecture-based classes in order to better prepare students for university study.

“If you don’t do your homework there is no one who cares, like, ‘You didn’t do your homework?... That’s your problem,’” said Fabienne Ghirardin. “Here, they care if you haven’t done it.”

The Swiss educational system begins in a fashion similar to the American one with students enrolling in primary school.

But following primary school, the Swiss students take a test, which splits them into three categories for secondary school, depending on Academic level and intensity.

Following secondary school, students have the option of choosing an apprenticeship to learn crafts such as plumbing, mechanics, or carpentry, or continuing with academic schooling in college.

“You get different decision points that are pretty well spread out, so there is always a way of deciding and choosing your future and it’s never too late to go back,” said Sabine Marro, a visiting teacher.

In order to prepare for university, all students are required to write a large research paper on a topic of their choice, during their third year of college.

“Students will do research on it and write a paper.

Some people really struggle with this, but you go to seminars and you have to be responsible for this and you have to manage your time,” Marro said. “No one is going to tell you tonight you have to type two

SPECIAL TO THE WINGED POST

KYLE CAVALLARO

Education Systems: comparing the US and Switzerland

SHERIDAN TOBIN - THE WINGED POST

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March 1, 2013

FOREIGN FRIENDS The Code Cadets, a technology focused group of boys from Australia, walk to one of the computer science classes that they visited while on campus.

The savory smell of warm paella and a lively salsa dancing vibe will fill the gym air on Friday March 8 for the annual Spanish Cultural Night.

The night includes a Spanish meal, a salsa dancing competition, and a talent show featuring a compilation of student acts.

In the weeks leading up to the event, the Spanish National Honors Society (SNHS) is working hard to prepare a night that celebrates many aspects of Hispanic culture. It is open to all students who are currently taking Spanish or have taken it in the past.

“The society puts it on for the rest of the community,” Spanish teacher Abel Olivas said. “We just hope that everyone can relish all the richness of the Hispanic culture.”

Members of the society have been divided into committees to focus on various aspects of the production, including publicity, decorations, and food preparations.

“It’s always fun because everyone in the society is involved, so they all are on different committees,” SNHS president Nina Sabharwal (12) said. “It’s really fun to see them getting excited in their different committees.”

The main course that will be served is paella, a traditional Hispanic dish made of rice, vegetables, and meat. Four different varieties of this dish will be prepared: vegetarian, meat, chicken only, and chicken and seafood.

Spanish teacher Diana Moss is traditionally in charge of cooking the paella. It is made in a wide, shallow pan by sautéing the different meats, then adding vegetables, followed by adding raw rice and broth on top to soak up all of the liquids.

The show portion of the evening will feature poems, songs, dances, and other acts related to Spanish culture. Auditions to perform in the show took place last Wednesday during long lunch in front of a panel of Spanish teachers.

Sumit Minocha (12), along with a group of friends, will be performing an interpretive dance for the talent show. Although he is no longer taking Spanish, he decided to audition because he enjoyed studying the language.

“I really like the Spanish culture and the Spanish language,” he said. “I find that this is the best way for me to express my love for that.”

According to Moss, her favorite part of the evening is getting to experience the Spanish culture outside of the classroom.

“What I love is that all my students get to see how much fun Spanish is. It’s hard to make Spanish fun when you’re doing grammar and vocabulary and learning the language,” she said. “In order to get to have fun with the language, you’ve got to learn it first” For all who plan on attending, Spanish Cultural Night promises to be an enjoyable evening filled with traditional food, entertaining performances, and an amusing salsa dancing competition.

GLOBAL

The articles below are a part of a continuing collaboration between The Winged Post and several other international schools in which an article topic is agreed upon and written about.

Each school writes and edits their own article, which is then published as received in our publication. Stories and views expressed below are those from contributing schools and are not neces-

Presidents’ Break

the Blue & Gold

global editor

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Rachel Yanovsky (12)

memorated George Washington’s birthday, it now celebrates all United States Presidents.

SPECIAL TO THE WINGED POST

Whether traveling or simply having some low-key time off, students used Presidents’ break to relax and take a break from the sometimes stressful school atmosphere.

The break is planned around Presidents’ Day, which occurs on the third Monday of February. Although the holiday originally com-

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SKI WEEK Many students used Presidents’ break to travel to the snow. A popular location to visit was Lake Tahoe because of its beautiful scenery and multitude of opportunities for skiing, snowboarding, and other popular winter time activities

Commonly referred to as ‘ski week,’ many students headed to the snow to partake in their favorite winter time activities, such as skiing, snowboarding, or ice skating.

Vishal Vaidya (10) spent his break visiting Bear Valley with one of his friends’ family. His favorite part of break was the lack of stress.

Similarly, Rachel Yanovsky (12) spent part of her break skiing at Squaw Valley, a ski resort in Tahoe.

She noted the convenience of the break’s timing.

“I think it comes at a really good time. A lot of people start getting worn out,” she said. “It’s good to have a break kind of in the middle; just something to look forward to in February.”

In an entirely different climate, Arman Mortazavi (11) visited Ho-

nolulu, Hawaii for a week and spent time with friends upon returning.

“It’s a chance to let my mind relax and catch up on my sleep,” he said. “And being able to indulge in other activities I don’t have time to do when I’m at school.”

While traveling to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Selin Ekici (9) and her family were able to use the week to relax and recuperate.

“We get to have a break from all the school work and all the stress goes away,” she said. “We don’t have to do anything. That’s a really nice change.”

For students looking for a change of scenery, or even just a change of pace, Presidents’ Break gave them an opportunity to relax and enjoy 10 days off.

SPECIAL TO THE WINGED POST

Warmer winter weather

SNOW MELT In Kazakhstan, the new year marks the start of the end of the freezing cold winter season. Kazakhastan New Year is officially celebrated on March 22.

Hey everyone! We, the representatives of Nazarbayev Intellectual School of Astana are from Kazakhstan and we are glad to contribute with you, the Harker School, and to keep in touch with California, the USA. We would like to tell you about our school, but of course we aren’t able to fit everything in this article. Our main goal is not just studying, but socializing, doing sports.

Our every day is fulfilled with laughter, happiness and enjoyment. We spend almost our whole day at school from 8.30am until 5-6pm.

Kazakhstan is divided into 5 parts according to the economics and climate of the regions. During the winter southern part of Kazakhstan is very warm like Florida, but the northern part is much colder like Washington DC. The East is the coldest part of Kazakhstan unlike West, and the Central region neutralizes it all. The Nazarbayev Intellectual School is located

in the capital Astana, which is north. Consequently this year we had very rough winter season (the temperature scale went down till -40 degrees Celsius) and a lot of snow.

Our correspondents interviewed students of our school in order to find out how they spend their winter break: “I was utterly getting prepared for the National Olympiad, but of course I went out and had some fun with my classmates too, because I missed them so much.” Serik Baimukhan, 11 A, said.

“I loved my winter break, because I went to the National Ski Resort Shymbulak, where I spent about a week with my family,” Beksultan Turtkarin, 9 B, said.

“My family and I visited the country side, and relaxed from the frustrating city life. I played snowballs, made snowmen with my brother. The second week my twin brother and I couldn’t handle it without our friends, so we went back to the city and met up with classmates and had some fun,” Yermek Dostayev, 9 A,

the many festivities around this time of year, we have chosen to write about the various holidays and breaks that are celebrated at our respective schools.

said.

“I love skating, therefore during the winter break my friend and I signed up for skating classes outside. We spent the time very useful by doing sports and simultaneously enjoying it,” Aisha Moraly, 11 A, said.

As you can see, our students got back to school with new energy and new perspectives, ready for the 3rd term. ..but hello here comes the spring with its break! Snow is melting, birds are recovering, and weather is getting warmer. After very cold winter and its winds in Kazakhstan the spring is the symbol of new hopes, when everyone falls in love and is affected by spring fever. We have a special Kazakh New Year on the 22nd March, which is called “Nauryz”.

Celebrating Nauryz is Kazakh traditional, cultural, historical event which is repeated every year on the special date.

The day becomes longer than night on the 22nd of March, which is a symbol of recreation.

My mother sets down the final bowl, filled with eggs braised in soy sauce, on the lazy susan of my grandmother’s dining table. She looks down at the food she has laid out, silently nodding to herself in concealed approval. We all sit around; me, my younger cousins, and even my grandmother, hold chopsticks at the ready, waiting to plunge into a nearby bowl of dumplings.

Chinese New Year is an annual Chinese holiday, celebrated on during the first month of the lunar calendar. The local Taiwanese get around a week off from school and work, using this time to host family dinners, meet with friends, or simply to relax or travel.

Red is a notable theme around Taipei City during this time of the year. The color, a symbol of good luck and fortune, is splashed on all nooks of my neighborhood in the form of gilded lanterns and strings of firecrackers. Everyone is constantly reminded to wear red at all family gatherings in order to evoke a sense of cheer throughout the week.

My family tends to spend New Year’s Day at my grandmother’s house, where my mother usually assists in preparing food that will be used as food offerings to departed loved ones.

On New Year’s eve, there is a familial feeling in the air; my bevy of aunts and uncles tote along their children, all eagerly awaiting what they suppose is the most important part of the holiday: red envelopes brimming with money.

My grandma and mother are busy in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the plates of food that they had begun to prepare in the early hours of the morning.

We gather around a squat wooden

table, surrounded by four regal chairs.

In the center, dishes of my deceased grandfather’s favorite foods are wafts a scent that mixes with the smoke from the sticks of incense my grandmother is holding. She says a silent prayer to our family members who have moved onto the next life.

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Chinese New Year is simply a time to be with the people you love the most, and to be surrounded with family.

Adrienne Shih, Taipei American School

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adrienne shih

sheridan tobin

I think it comes at a really good time. A lot of people start getting worn out.

sarily those of The Winged Post.

For this issue, we have collaborated with the Taipei American School in Taiwan and the Nazarbayev Intellectual school in Kazakhstan. Due to

Chinese New Year celebrations

An opportunity for traveling, relaxing, and de-stressing

NISA Press

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Winter Holidays: celebrations around the world

global journalism project

assiya utzhanova

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

The next morning, we head to my mother’s childhood home in the central part of Taiwan. Abiding by Chinese tradition, all married women must return to their hometown on the second day of the week.

As we drive on the monotonous highway, I reminisce on the previous night, and I suddenly realize that aside from all the splendor of the holiday, when all the traditions and ostentation are stripped away, Chinese New Year is simply a time to be with the people you love the most, and to be surrounded with family.

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Lifestyle

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

Music heads in a new direction

Old school styles and punk rock meet to generate new tunes juhi gupta

The rapidly expanding world of music has led to the creation of hundreds of different genres, many of which frequently escape the public eye. Check out the innovative and fresh music of the following artists quickly emerging from the underground alternative scene.

TalonWP video/photo editor

Shy Kids Toronto, Canada

Dot Dash Washington D.C., USA Four-piece alternative-pop outfit Dot Dash formed in 2010, emerging from the Washington, D.C. indie rock scene. After the breakup of their former band Julie Ocean, guitarist/vocalist Terry Banks and bassist Hunter Bennett began their hunt for band members -- a need that was soon filled by drummer Danny Ingram and guitarist Bill Crandal.

The group took their name from 80’s English rock band Wire, and put out their first album, Spark>Flame>Ember>Ash, in 2011.

The record compiled 14 songs that they had recorded in three afternoons, and was followed by Winter Garden Light in September of 2012.

Both albums, released through Canadian label The Beautiful Music, employ distortion-affected yet in-

tricate instrumentals, and tracks hinting at mellow prog-rock and britpop origins—bringing to mind bands like R.E.M. or The Verve.

Banks’ songwriting and vocal prowess shine through every single one of its tracks, mimicking a higher fidelity Lou Reed or a less angst-ridden Robert Smith. With a nu-gaze and post-punk feel, the albums are easy to get lost in with their praiseworthy execution (possibly due to the fact that they’re all established, experienced musicians) and are perhaps the epitome of 21st century feel good alternative music.

The track “Live To Tell” from their second album is available for free download from their Bandcamp site, along with both of their albums for $7 each.

With steadily growing press attention and only three officially released songs, Shy Kids is a Toronto-based band that has recently been on the underground alternative radar. The band’s lyrics, veiled under upbeat percussive anthems and layered chorus singing, resonate with and cover popular topics of adolescent contemplation.

The band’s debut EP Field Trips (2012) has amassed popularity by means of social media website Tumblr: many have expressed their thoughts on the potentially controversial music via their blogs. Shy Kids’ dreamy Animal-Collectivemeets-MGMT vibe is produced by members Patrick Cederberg, Matthew Hornick, and Walter Woodman.

Despite their few tracks, many blogs and news sites have done interviews with the good-natured and honest members. Ironically, the band’s music is anything but shy, with intricate instrumental patterns and a spacey psychedelic atmosphere, the tracks have received multiple rave reviews complimenting their self-production expertise and lyrical mastery. The iconic line “Now they’re teens and sayin’, ‘Where’s our Kurt Cobain? Who do we pray to?’” from “Raise ‘em Right,” the first track off their EP, has been a subject of much appreciation from various critics across the web.

Field Trips is available on Shy Kids’ website for free download or for a “name your price.”

Hailing from England, Summer Camp is the retro lo-fi indie project of Elizabeth Sankey and Jeremy Warmsley, managed by the Londonbased Moshi Moshi Records. The quirky duo was formed in October 2009 and gained popularity quickly via their Myspace page, producing music reminiscent of 60’s bubblegum pop and 80’s New Wave electronica.

Anonymity was Summer Camp’s strong point in the beginning of their career, as they created videos for their singles by rearranging footage from old movies, attracting much online attention. Their cur-

rent discography includes two EPs, Young (2010) and Always (2012), and itsfull-length debut album, Welcome to Condale, which was released in late 2011.

The real style of Summer Camp’s music is hard to place, with fans categorizing them as avid participants of shoegaze, chillwave, dream pop, and more; the band’s music videos further prove their associations with these throwback genres, utilizing Warhol-esque split screen methods and intentional color correction.

Their first single “‘Ghost Train,” complete with stadium echoes and

Summer Camp London, England

stereo quality fuzz, was paired with a video that could possibly best describe their style: a hazy, nostalgic selection of clips from the 1969 movie Last Summer, featuring a set of three ephemerally carefree teenagers at the beach.

Through their music, videos, and their name, even Summer Camp is convinced that they’re unparalleled in music for the rapidly-approaching sun spell - with just enough foundation in modern indie pop to make one feel at home while exploring the wonders of previous decades.

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Page turners: 5 must-read novels samar malik copy editor

Embrace your inner bookworm and rejoice in the splendor of running your fingers through the pages of a new book, savoring each delicious morsel of every page. Discover your passion for reading with these five teen novels from a variety of genres.

classic

is, as the title suggests, a wallflower: he is an observer and is largely impacted by the experiences of those around him.

Readers rejoice and delight in Charlie’s happiness, and are shattered as he is overwhelmed by depression.

Charlie’s honesty and genuine writing truly strike a chord, forcing readers to empathize with each of his emotions, applauding his ability to express him-

self. Additionally, his realizations are eye opening, intuitive, and largely relatable.

Truly an inspiration and a mustsee for every teenager who has felt some form of misery, lost in their own murky vision, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a gorgeous story that encourages readers to reconsider their own subjective reality.

Romance

As a Caster, Lena and her incredible powers will be claimed by either Light or Dark once she turns 16.

Ethan, who finds himself constantly drawn to Lena, tries everything in his power to support Lena and stop her from falling victim to the Darkness.

Beautiful Creatures places a unique spin on typical fantasy romances, and serves as an anomaly from the genre’s previous dominators. The

romance aspect of the novel doesn’t come across as being cliché or corny, and the plot truly draws readers in as the story progresses. The large-scale character development is truly key to the novel’s success, luring readers in from page one.

The novel will certainly appeal to those looking for an exciting romance read; Beautiful Creatures is a solid choice for a fantasy love story.

horror

Sure, the interview-style format provides for a scarcely linear, episodic read. That being said, the first-person point of view puts readers in the moment, force-feeding them the same fear and dread instilled in each interviewee. The array of personalities depicted throughout the story provides for a full and complete understanding of the fictional war, truly bringing the story to life.

World War Z illustrates the flaws and faults of humanity and how our own detrimental behavior almost led to our extinction, but also tells a thrilling tale of each individual’s unwavering desire to survive and unite in the face of total annihilation. The book is truly a quality read with a curious suggestion to both the power and inabilities of mankind.

Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of

Being a Wallflower is truly a beautiful, coming-of-age piece of literature that pulls the reader’s deepest emotions to the surface, tugging at every possible heartstring.

The plot follows Charlie, a boy facing his freshman year of high school, in a letter-style format. Charlie

Beautiful Creatures, a young adult romance novel, caters to readers looking for a quality fantasy love story. Narrated from the perspective of protagonist Ethan Wate, the novel follows his life as a junior in high school.

Ethan befriends Lena Duchannes, a girl with magical powers who moves to Ethan’s hometown, Gatlin.

Playing on the increasing popularity of the zombie subgenre, Max Brooks’ World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War provides an impressive take on a zombie apocalypse storyline. The book is formatted in an interview-style format: each chapter is a first-person account of individuals who witnessed the Zombie War.

science fiction Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion features Matteo Alacrán and tells his inspirational tale as he strives to define himself as an individual in a group of clones.

Matt struggles to understand his existence, and the moving storyline prompts readers to contemplate today’s society. Farmer speculates on is-

mystery John Green’s Paper Towns is a surprising, witty, and genuine book the truly exhilarating and captivating writing style flows seamlessly, pointing out the distinguishing properties that set us each apart.

The mystery of Paper Towns is brilliant and witty, leaving readers contemplating the plot and fully engrossed

sues of immigration, human and labor rights, slavery, drug policy, and much more.

The novel is rather dark and very well-written; despite the far out setting, readers are still enthralled and hold a very close connection to Matt and his conflicting emotions. Deemed a science fiction novel, The House of the Scorpion has a powerful mystery and suspense appeal. Although it was writin the book. Bouts of frustration are alleviated with generous humor, and the suspenseful, quirky aspects of the novel become evident rather quickly.

The book is divided into three sections, all of which are jam-packed with literary references, insights into individual perception, and a quality understanding of senior year in high school. Each character within the text is relatable and down-to-earth.

ten for a younger audience, the novel carries heavy significance and themes for all ages.

Slightly terrifying and encouraging constant contemplation and reassessment, The House of the Scorpion can be classified as a quality young adult science fiction novel. An easy read with a powerful message, the novel serves as a great pleasure read for fans and newcomers alike.

Green manages to throw readers into each moment, as they feel and experience the lives of each character throughout the plot. The book is rather intricate and beautifully written, and Green encourages readers to piece together the plot for themselves. Wellread teenagers looking for a challenge to solve will appreciate Green’s writing style and brilliant planning in Paper Towns.

trisha jani features editor Hosted by Seth McFarlane, the 85th annual Academy Awards were held on February 24 at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.

Argo, directed by Ben Affleck, took the highest honor, winning the Oscar for Best Motion Picture. In the film, Affleck depicts a CIA agent who heads the rescue of six diplomats out of Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis. The honor was awarded

by First Lady Michelle Obama via satellite from Washington D.C. She also paid tribute to the other nine films nominated for the category.

Director Ang Lee stole the spotlight from anticipated winner Steven Spielberg as he was named Best Director for his movie Life of Pi, based on the novel of the same name written by Yann Martel. The film marked Lee’s third Oscar nomination for Best Director and second victory, following his 2005 film Brokeback Mountain.

Jennifer Lawrence received the Oscar for best actress in a leading

role for her portrayal of a troubled but hopeful dancer in the film Silver Linings Playbook. The nominees for this award included 9-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis, who stars in Beasts of the Southern Wild, and 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva, who starts in Amour.

Daniel Day-Lewis pulled out a best actor in a leading role victory for his portrayal of President Lincoln in the film Lincoln, directed by Spielberg. Day-Lewis became the first male to win three awards for the same category: his other wins were for There Will be Blood in 2007 and My Left Foot in 1989.

The award for best supporting actor was given to Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained, and the award for best supporting actress was given to Anne Hathaway for her role in Les Misérables.

McFarlane and pre-show host Kristen Chenoweth ended the Oscar ceremony with a personal, comical song, Here’s to the Losers, as a consolation to “the disappointed actors wondering what they dressed up for.”

“Here’s to the losers, bless them all!” they said, ending the ceremony.

Complete list of winners: Best Motion Picture: Argo Achievement in Directing: Ang Lee, Life of Pi Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables Adapted Screenplay: Argo, Chris Terrio Original Screenplay: Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino Original Score: Life of Pi, Mychael Danna Original Song: “Skyfall,” Adele Adkins & Paul Epworth; Skyfall Best Animated Feature Film: Brave Best Animated Short Film: Paperman Achievement in Cinematography: Life of Pi, Claudio Miranda Achievement in Visual Effects: Life of Pi Achievement in Costume Design: Anna Karenina, Jacqueline Durran Achievement in Makeup & Hairstyling: Les Misérables Best Live-Action Short Film: Curfew Best Documentary Short Subject: Inocente Best Documentary Feature: Searching for a Sugar Man Best Foreign-Language Film: Amour (Austria) Achievement in Sound Mixing: Les Misérables Achievement in Sound Editing: Zero Dark Thirty & Skyfall Achievement in Film Editing: Argo Achievement in Production Design: Lincoln

Lifestyle

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

15

The middle way is the best way Find a healthy balance between academic, extracurricular, and social activities that accommodates your lifestyle.

“So maybe take a Saturday night to go to a friend’s birthday party instead of writing that essay, or maybe pass on seeing a movie with friends to start studying for a test in advance,” ’11 alum Daniel Cho said. “Relaxing is just as important as studying, and both are essential to survive junior year.”

Keep an open mind Sometimes, a situation that seems bleak on the surface can reveal a blessing in disguise.

“Remember that it is not the end of the world if you fail a test or don’t get into your top school. I got rejected from my first choice school, but I ended up being at a school that I love so much and fits me way better than my first choice would,” ’10 alum Esther Belogolovsky said.

5

Embrace the “now” Instead of chasing visions of the future, focus on the present.

emily lin

tips to get through

junior year

reporter The recipe of junior year “success” begins with the crushing burden of 25-pound backpacks and thousand page textbooks, compounded by the teetering stacks of SAT prep books and college counseling handouts. Add to the dish a sport, rehearsals, and community service, simmer for ten minutes, and voila! Served: a chunky stew of pressure, stress, and anxiety (garnished with a part time job for maximum effect). While the outlook may seem grim now, here are some tips from alumni to help you keep your head above water during this chaotic stage of high school.

“ You’ll get so much less out of your life if you waste too much time worrying about what else needs to be done,” ’12 alum Michelle Lo said. “ You’ll miss out on all the moments that are happening right in front of you.”

Grades aren’t the end all be all

Take advantage of your resources

You are not defined by your Grade Point Average.

The faculty and counselors are eager to help you achieve your best.

“Build a personality outside the number [that] your transcript shows,” ‘11 alum Ziad Jawadi said. ’10 alum Suhas Thalapaneni shares a similar sentiment, advising juniors to “try to stand out in a way that’s unconventional - everyone has a talent even if many might not think that.”

“I firmly believe Harker has the best college counseling department in the country. Nobody I know has had the college counseling opportunities Harker provided me,” ‘11 alum Ziad Jawadi said .

Types of musical media expand horizons

Students listen to hits using free-of-charge technology reporters The large role of music in the average student’s life often falls under the radar as it becomes part of a daily routine.

As technology advances, accessibility to music has substantially increased. Methods of listening to music have expanded from CDs and tapes to phones, laptops, and more.

With the development of such devices, students can utilize numerous media to listen to music, including Spotify, iTunes, YouTube or Pandora.

“Spotify has put music streaming on the map by emphasizing the social aspect of music.” said Isabelle Morse-Dias, a member of the Outcast Agency at Spotify. “Spotify allows a user to share what they are listening to with friends, but social sharing isn’t obligatory for using the service.”

Although some people have stuck to listening to the radio, others find it useful to use MP3 players such as iPods. Others find their iPhones and Androids more accessible to catch the latest releases of their favorite artists.

Smartphones are popular choices for accessing songs because people take them wherever they go and they are easily accessible. Other

services such as Spotify and Pandora offer apps for iOS and Android devices. Spotify’s primary audience is smartphone users. Based on a survey, however, a majority of students use their laptops as a source of music.

“I listen to music all the time, because

Others, like Philip Krause (9), have contrasting viewpoints.

“I listen to music when I have free time on the Internet. I don’t do it when I work because it does not help me focus. It is more of a source of entertainment,” he said.

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anishka agarwal & stanley zhao

SURVEY Students satiate their thirsts for the latest jams with different modes of access to music, as indicated by this survey conducted among the Upper School.

58.59% of the student body responded with laptop, 33.24% with Ipod/Iphone/Itouch, and 8.17% with Radio.

it both calms me down and expands over all genres,” Ashir Bansal (10) said. “I can listen to it whenever; I feel like I can listen to it when I’m doing homework, hanging out with friends, or when I’m just alone.”

In addition, students have various sources from which they find new music. Instead of buying media from the iTunes store, students usually listen to songs via YouTube. The site has been able to popularize videos like “Gangnam Style” and “Friday,” which went viral due to the corpo-

rate juggernaut.

A large percentage of students illegally download songs from websites instead of spending money to buy them from online music stores such as iTunes or the Windows Music Store.

Spotify has managed to find a way to provide music legally.

“The illegal database of music offered access for anyone with Internet access, and now Spotify has done the same as a legal service by offering ad support,” Morse-Dias said. “This idea has revolutionized the digital music industry.”

Some students believe that legally buying the songs helps support musicians they like and supplies them with money so the artist can continue the good work.

“For the artists that I support, the kind of underdog ones, whenever they put out albums that I want to listen to I always buy it from them so I can support them,” Ashir said.

While online sources like Pandora, Grooveshark and Spotify are commonly used among many people, radio stations usually supply music for car rides, a popular time among students to listen to music. Also, the radio helps rising artists gain popularity and spread recognition of their name.

Accessibility to music through various devices and sites has increased the role of music in the daily lives of students.

ALL LOGOS COPYRIGHT THEIR RESPECTIVE COMPANIES

reporter Before starting this review, I have a confession to make. When I watched Insidious, I took all the sheets off my bed, swathed myself in them, and proceeded to cover my eyes and ears whenever a horrifying scene turned up. These types of precautions are unnecessary for the latest horror movie to hit theatres, Dark Skies. It’s simply not that scary.

The film starts normally enough, with a stereotypical American family of four living in suburbia; the dad is out of a job, and the mom is a struggling real estate agent whose prospective buyers are spooked by her actions (a direct result of the paranormal force). The force can’t really be labeled as “paranormal” – it’s actually aliens known as the “Grays” who are haunting the family. Where could a plotline like this go wrong?

It goes wrong when a middleschool student goes through an awkward romance, birds pelt the windows of the family’s house, and crescendoing, ominous orchestras

are the only music heard throughout the movie.

As the movie progresses from these opening scenes, it takes on the well-traversed path known to those who have watched all the movies in

“

Silence would have been a much better tool to bring a feeling of suspense.

“

rahul jayaraman

the Paranormal Activity series; in fact, any horror movie buff would recognize this plot as stale and over-

used. Strange things begin happening; when the local police force and other experts are unable to help, a member of the family does an Internet search (cue Paranormal Activity 2) to convince the remaining skeptics in the family. Physical harm to the children occurs to assure these skeptics that it is a truly “paranormal” force, at which point they turn to an expert. Same old, same old.

The movie also seems to portray teenagers in a negative light.

The teenagers in the movie, ranging in age from 13 to 16, are drug addicts and portrayed as hungering for sex, when this is not true of all teenagers.

Some portions of the movie leave much to be desired; the first precipitating event, the “impact of the birds,” seems terribly unrealistic, and the mangled dead bodies of the birds did not seem like birds at all, more like oddly-shaped lumps of clay. Likewise, the loud, clichéd sound effects typical of a horror film detracted from the experience.

Silence would have been a much better tool to bring a feeling of sus-

pense; punctuating this with a loud sound from the Grays or a scream from one of the family would have genuinely scared the viewers.

The director, Scott Stewart, deserves credit for the ending, an unexpected twist that nobody could have predicted. The end leaves the viewer hanging, and perhaps there will be a sequel (not that it merits one). By pulling the audience along one path and suddenly diverting them to another, Stewart has ensured that this film will leave a lasting impression in viewers’ minds.

Credit must also be given where it is due. I particularly liked Keri Russell’s acting. She manages to pull off the role of a concerned wife extremely well, and she seems dedicated solely to the well-being of the family. Her husband, portrayed

by Josh Hamilton, seems to be a very shallow character compared to her. The children also managed to pull off innocence and nervousness rather well, especially Kadan Rockett, who portrayed the 5-year-old Sammy.

Masterful editing helped el-

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Director’s vision does not look bright for Dark Skies

DARK SKIES Dark Skies, written and directed by Scott Stewart, was released February 22, 2013. Over the opening weekend, the film grossed $8 million.

evate this film in my eyes – the cuts from one angle to the next were amazing, and the feeling of suspense created by flashing the lights to reveal the Grays was well-executed, despite its overuse in other films of the genre.

Despite the decent parts of this movie, until a horror film as novel and scary as Insidious is released, I’ll just stick to action and drama movies.

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Lifestyle

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

arts

rms he a w s e i d o B Warm

for e i d o t e r a e d movi

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ing eyes. As ues to devel R continop feelings for Julie, he gins to tran besform; the life his body an d drowns his of R reenters unbeating h After they eart. realize that ing more an d more hum R is becoman each day and Julie ve ,R nture out to prove to so that zombie ciety s are, in fact , capable of ing restore bed. But Juli e’ s regimented father’s stri ct, mindset pro ves to be an stacle in the obyoung coup le’s debut of groundbreak their ing discove ry .

W ith such a brilliant an ryline, it is d solid stodifficult to go wrong in of the plotl terms ine. As imag in itself is go rgeous in ex ed, the novel ecution. A stantial am subount of tim e is spent o daydreams n R’s as he nibble s on saved b Perry ’s brain its of . This time spent in Per mind, narra ry ted by R’s b eautiful elocu ’s gives the no tion, vel a surrea l quality. Rea are wrapped ders in a flurr y o f perception reality, as ta an ken aback

by Perry ’s li d R is. fe as W ith the constant sw tween brain itching be-fueled day dreams and harsh, grote the squ Marion’s bo e appeal of zombie li fe, ok engulfs readers in a eting, emo rivtional whir lwind. Stu metaphorica nning l and poetic words grace pages, mak the ing the bo ok as a wh much more ole so than what w ould be exp from a you ecte ng romance . It ’s hard to d lieve that R be, an absentminded zom is able to sp bie, ark such em otion and p within a read assion er.

Also splend idly execute Bodies film d, the Warm hold principles, th s some similar unearth ly ough it does not divulge inner work the ings of R’s mind in th that the bo e w ok does. Th e movie defi ay has a much nitely more domin ant lighthea ed touch, rtwith plenty o f

attention p aid to the awkward zombie/hum an flirting scen es. Though it deviates the plot qu from ite a bit, th e movie stil steadfast to l h olds key momen ts and quo found in th e novel; R’s tes first dream, ing Julie bey meetond the city gates, and m of the dayd ost reams that were so dea pressed in th rly exe text.

Still, the m ovie does the more insightful an lack some of d rich imag found in M er arion’s piece , sacrificed fo y comedic to r the uch. Despit e missing heartstring-t a few ugging mom ents, the co dic romance mestill pulls th rough as a se rate work o paf its own en tity ; the inco ence betwee ngrun the plotl ines provid different per es for spectives on one linear p So what ’s lot. the proble it ’s the sap m? Maybe piness revo lving aroun novel’s cen d the tral focus on the pow true love, o er of r the zomb ie-shuffle p R’s narratio ac e of n through h is st seem plausi ble, but truth ruggle. Both be told, the problem is th real at the end o f the novel is ally just tru ly disappoin reting. A love delightfully ly and written sto ry crashes burns near and its ending, w hich seems abrupt and to be poorly plan ned in natu The movie, re. on the other a generally h an d , does decent job at wrapping u plot. There p the is a much m ore graceful sition betwee tr ann the wrap-u p action scen and the quie es t, peaceful en ding. The fi rendition o lm’s f the story ’s close is more logical simply an perfect Disn d is less of a miraculo us, ey ending th an the text. being said, That kudos to M arion, as the brilliance o plot’s vershadows its minor b ders, leaving lunlittle to be d esired.

Despite th ei r different to vibes, both nes and Warm Bodie s the novel the film are and worth a go.

Marion’s cr ity calls for eativan influx of confused em that translat otion es into a bea utifully com and touchin edic g story. You ’ll never un stand how an deryone can m anage to ca passionately re so for a zombie .

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Tech

Facebook introduces Graph Search tool

FACEBOOK

ing social material only inside Facebook. Eventually, Microsoft Bing search results may be incorporated to also include some relevant web search information.

Facebook stressed that this new technology is completely different than Google’s and is in no way similar to the standard web search.

“In web search, if you do a search for Apple and I do a search for Apple, we will basically get the same results,” said Kari Lee, an Engineering Manager at Facebook in a promotional video.

“Whereas on Facebook, when you do the same searches we get completely different results because of the depth of personalization that we give.”

Graph search also greatly differs from Facebook’s previous search tool because it highly depends on a semantic search in order to guess what the user is hoping to discover. This new technology is similar to a direct interaction between Graph Search and the user to provide LOCATION-BASED SEARCH This screenshot shows sample results for the search “Pictures taken in national parks.” Graph Search is especially useful when better results. browsing for photos, people, places, and interests.

The search focuses on four main ideas and questions: people, photos, terests across its social graph of friends. vineet kosaraju places, and interests. Several graph “This is one of the coolest things searches include “friends,” “posts by reporter we have done in a while,” Mark Zuckmy friends,” “my friends who like,” and Imagine a world where people can erberg, CEO of Facebook said in a pro“photos of.”

However, the tool is less ask dining questions such as “what res- motional video. “Graph Search is the helpful when trying to find local restautaurants do my friends like?” and receive kind of product that we love to build at rants or places to eat. personalized results to make the tedious Facebook – it’s a big technology probAs the tool is in beta, several hutask of choosing a restaurant much eas- lem, and it’s also a big social problem.” morous searches have been discovered, Currently, Graph Search is availier. and only a week after the release of the Facebook has expanded on that able in a limited beta program for Engtool, an entire Tumblr blog was comidea and has announced its latest tool lish users only. Users on the waiting list piled with Graph Search jokes.

Here are at a mystery press event on January 15, are slowly gaining access to the program some of the more humorous ones: a new “Graph Search” that lets users as Facebook tries to fix bugs and pos• Mothers of Jewish people who search for people, photos, places, and in- sible privacy issues. like bacon This search tool will allow search-

Office 2013

satellite and street view. Users who wish to download apps may be disappointed by reporter the lack of several mainstream apps: for BlackBerry Limited, formerly Re- example, Netflix was not available as of search In Motion (RIM), released the the launch date.

BlackBerry Z10 on January 30. The Z10 Students like Jetha Tallapaneni (9) comes with a new operating system, indicated that the missing apps would not touch controls, and a 1.5 GHz processor. be too much of an issue.

The Z10 runs on BlackBerry’s latest “If I was considering buying a operating system, BlackBerry 10. Unlike BlackBerry [the lack of apps] would previous incarnations of the BlackBerry throw me off a little bit, but if I really OS, BlackBerry 10 is almost completely wanted to buy it I would,” he said. reliant on touch gestures. These gestures One last notable aspect of most can be made on a 4.2-inch touchBlackBerry phones is the keyboard. screen, which has more pixels While many other smartphones per inch and is larger diagonalcome with touchscreen keyboards, ly than the screen of the iPhone most BlackBerry phones are still 5. For example, users can swipe equipped with physical keyupwards from the bottom of the boards. The Z10 has broken screen to view currently running this trend, but the touchscreen apps. They can also scroll through a keyboard still holds an advangrid of apps using touch controls. Fitage: its wide keys facilitate typing nally, swiping up and to the right opens for users with large fingers. If a user does the BlackBerry Hub, the main new fea- make a mistake, the Z10 makes an effort ture of BlackBerry 10. to correct it: the phone can search users’ BlackBerry Hub condenses all of email and social media to determine what the user’s notifications, including those words are typed the most. Once it finds from email, social media, missed calls, these words, it displays them in between and voicemails, into a single location ac- the rows of keys on the touch keyboard cessible with a simple touch gesture. This as correction options, and users can insert allows the user to check all of their notifi- the words with a single swipe. cations at once on this new OS. While most mainstream United “I think it’s good to have everything States carriers have not made the Z10 in one space. That’s something a lot of available. However, some United Kingpeople want; they want to be able to see dom carriers have started offering the everything and not have to look through Z10 for a price comparable to that of the everything,” Drew Goldstein (12) said. iPhone 5. For example, UK out“The only problem is, sometimes let Carphone Warehouse offers you don’t want to be overboth the iPhone 5 and the Z10 whelmed with everyfree for £33 (approximately thing in one spot; you $50.33) per month. Some want to be able to mix students indicated that the D it up.”

ITE Z10’s price would have to M I L Y Besides the OS, be lower than that of comRR E KB the Z10 has other useful peting phones like the iPhone AC L B features in many categoin order to be competitive. ries. It runs on a dual-core “If the price is better than the 1.5 GHz chip and comes with 2 GB of iPhone I might get it,” Jackelyn Shen (10) RAM and 16 GB of flash memory. Us- said. “Other than that, the iPhone is still a ers can also augment memory space using better option.” the microSD card slot. Finally, the battery The Z10 is BlackBerry’s latest atis removable, so users could possibly carry tempt to regain users lost to iOS and Antwo and switch them when one runs out. droid. Users eager to buy one can begin There are several preloaded apps on preregistration; BlackBerry has said that the Z10. For example, the Remember app that they “expect availability with most is featured as a note taker which can sync carriers for the BlackBerry Z10 to be in with Evernote. The preloaded Maps app, March.” however, did not have some features like

jonathan ma

ED

Microsoft released Office 2013, the latest version of its productivity software, for consumers on January 29.

This version includes features like new start screens and Excel’s data recognition tool “Flash Fill,” fundamentally altering the way it is used.

Word has increased its capabilities, especially in multimedia. Word 2013 users can now view video from within a Word document. If users need to insert video or images from online, they can do so within the program, without saving the media to their computers first.

However, some students doubted the utility of these additions.

“I wouldn’t buy it for just those features, because right now I don’t really have to do anything like that,” Vincent Lin (11) said.

PowerPoint has changed in appearance and usability. It has been optimized for wide-screen users: its slides have a default aspect ratio of 16:9; the previous ratio being 4:3. Because 16:9 is the aspect ratio for most computer screens, the new ratio allows users to better view slides. The program has some additional unique breakthroughs, such as a new formatting pane. Users can also insert background music spanning the entire presentation instead of

Phone has new OS

IMIT

reporter

BlackBerry’s new Z10

YL ERR

jonathan ma

Current Tesco employees who like horses (Tesco is a company that was found to put horse meat in its hamburgers.)

• People who like Focus on the Family and Neil Patrick Harris (Focus on the Family is an anti-gay show whereas Neil Patrick Harris is gay and will soon be married with kids.)

As privacy questions are always a concern, Facebook is worried with the privacy settings for minors aged 1317 and has different settings for them.

Search results relating to minors are only available to friends who are minors or friends of friends who are also minors. In the case of adults, results are available depending on privacy settings.

Some users are not concerned with the possible privacy lapses with the new tool because they have set their privacy settings.

“I have reviewed my privacy settings and customized them, but not recently,” Neil Khemani (11) said.

Others are worried about people searching for them using the new Graph Search tool.

“I regularly check my privacy settings. I think it is not safe because random people could search you up if you haven’t updated your settings,” Annie Zhou (9) said.

Because Graph Search is still in beta, there are some kinks to be ironed out, especially in the case of privacy.

If you want to start using the new Graph Search tool, you can sign up for the beta at https://www.facebook.com/ about/graphsearch.

CKB

ONLINE PURCHASE Microsoft Office 2013 was released for consumers on January 29. Many different versions, such as Office Professional, are now available in the online Microsoft Store.

simply using short audio clips for each slide. In addition, “Presenter View” allows users to look at upcoming slides while the audience sees the current slide.

Excel 2013 added features in data processing and analysis. The new “Flash Fill,” senses patterns in data to fill in blank cells. For example, it can analyze email addresses and complete a list of names based on patterns.

Besides the innovations in individual programs, Office 2013 boasts improvements in online connectivity.

Users can save to SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage service. Office 2013 also allows users to collaborate using Office Web Apps synced to their SkyDrive account; however, in contrast to Google Docs, users cannot see edits appear on the screen as they are being made.

Using SkyDrive, users can access data saved via other computers. However, SkyDrive only offers 7 GB of free storage.

Students like Omar Hamade (9) complimented Office 2013’s increased connectivity.

“If you save something on your home computer, then you can open it on your laptop or tablet,” said Omar, who uses Office 2013.

Finally, Office 2013 has changed its pricing. It now requires one license per computer. In comparison, Office 2010 offered installation on up to three computers with the purchase of a single product. Those who want to use Office 2013 on multiple computers but buy one package must use Office 365, a subscription service allowing installation on up to five computers. Office 365 subscribers are entitled to an additional 20 GB of SkyDrive storage space as well as the latest versions of Office.

However, users must pay $99.99 a year or $9.99 a month.

“I would buy it unless I already have Office, in which case I don’t think the additional capabilities would be enough to make me buy the new version,” Suzy Lou (10) said. “If I don’t have Office at all I would buy it.”

Office 2013 is on sale now starting from $139.99 for Office Home and Student and costs up to $399.99 for Office 2013 Professional.

•

BLA

USED WITH PERMISSION FROM MICROSOFT

Microsoft’s software enters the modern era

17

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

Robotics team finishes Build season ashwini iyer & roshni pankhaniya reporters

The screech of cutting metal, the sound of hammers pounding, the roar of cutting bandsaws, and sparks flying from fusing wires make up a typical day in the robotics lab.

The climax of the Robotics season hits immediately after the FIRST Robotics Competition Committee holds KickOff, an event where the FIRST committee unveils the year’s challenge.

After six intensive weeks of work, known to Robotics team members as Build season, members of Robotics Team 1072 gushed over their pride and joy.

“This year’s robot is sexy and effective. We kept design in mind throughout the Build process,” said Chief Technical Assistant Glenn Reddy (10).

Members were able to reduce the size of their electrical plate to one-half of that of last year’s and incorporate four wheels in their design instead of six, reducing the bulkiness of the robot.

Red, green, and blue lights were also installed on the robot, which indicate readiness to shoot and add an unique effect.

Members spent hours in the Robotics lab after school and even on weekends designing and building the robot, working under the supervision of parent volunteers and their mentor,Dr. Eric Nelson. During this time, new and old members alike learned what it meant to be a member of the Robotics Team.

“Build itself is an amazing experience: you work with others on physical or virtual products and create something really cool and incredible,” said Sophia Shatas (10), Vice President of Operations. “I certainly made many friends. Everyone is working toward a common goal, and accomplishing it together is a great feeling.”

With so many people working on different projects simultaneously, the leadership faced significant struggles maintaining order and completing projects on time.

“Every year there is something different within the team that needs a particular amount of attention. This year it happened to be management, and that was probably the biggest issue we saw in the team this year,” Dr. Nelson said.

Chief Technical Advisor (CTA) Michael Lin (10) agreed on importance of having good leadership during Build.

“The Build process is very confusing, as we need a large amount of organization because safety is a fundamental aspect that all must practice with heavy machinery,” Michael said.

“Decision-making may become chaotic, unproductive, and frustrating, but once you actually convince people to have faith in your idea you can build something beautiful. I can say it is definitely worth it.”

For seniors, Build can also be a very sentimental experience and hope that underclassmen will continue to help Robotics grow in popularity.

“I’ve delegated myself the job of creating bumpers for the robot since freshman year. Overall, making the bumpers is a time-consuming job and frustrating job. However, a feeling of happiness overwhelms me when I see them fit onto the robot perfectly like puzzle pieces. I certainly will miss the job since I’m graduating this year. I hope an underclassmen will enjoy the job as much as I did,” said Operational President Leslie Chan (12).

Team 1072 will travel twice to compete. The University of California at Davis Regional will be held from March 21 to 23, and the Silicon Valley Regional will be held from April 4 to 6. If the team is successful, they will travel on to national competitions.

18

Sports

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

Wendy Shwe (12) Soccer LIFETOUCH

LIFETOUCH

Robert Deng (12) Soccer

ATHLETES

anishka agarwal reporter

“

Her energy inspires her teammates...

“

Co-captain of the Varsity girls soccer team, center back Wendy Shwe (12) is one of the Athletes of the Month.

According to teammates and Varsity Head Coach Jason Berry, she is not only always willing to fight for her teammates but also courageous and willing to take risks. “[Wendy] is really enthusiastic about everything,” co-captain Adrienne Mendel (12) said. “She is always working her hardest, and she is always trying to give 110 percent.”

Although she only started playing soccer during her sophomore year, over time Wendy has become more outgoing and talk-

Jason Berry, Head Coach ative on the field and became captain this past season.

“Wendy, as one of the captains of the team, leads by example.

Her enthusiasm, her energy in-

spires her teammates around her,” Berry said. “She is always ready to close things down whether it be defensively or by stepping up and taking a chance or risk and, out of that defensive situation, creating an offensive situation for the rest of the team.”

In a close game against Mercy San Francisco, Wendy made the winning goal with a header in the last minute, bringing the final score to 5-4. Berry believes that it was a communal decision to have Wendy as Athlete of the Month as the entire team feeds off her energy and she them. According to Berry, “next year’s team has a lot to live up to.”

of the

Despite being new to the Varsity soccer team this year, senior Robert Deng earned recognition as Athlete of the Month.

Robert contributed a goal to the 6 - 1 victory in a home game against Woodside Priory. However, Robert is known among teammates more for his personality and athleticism on the field than his statistics or number of goals.

Coming into the season after being a Varsity football captain, Robert was able to bring a physical, aggressive style to the field. Many of his teammates believe his athleticism gave the team an advan-

MONTH

tage.

“He’s extremely athletic.

Coming off of football, he has got that physical mentality, that aggressiveness, and that speed which characterizes him as a wide receiver,” Varsity boys soccer co-captain Simar Mangat (12) said. “I think he carried that over into soccer season; just kind of going after the ball and making sure he puts in all the work he has.”

Robert’s teammates agree that his infectious energy can really pump up or motivate the squad and keep everyone working hard.

“I do think he adds to the dynamic of the team in that

him alone, his effort, and his perseverance kind of allows us to achieve at new levels because he is just such a force to reckon with,” teammate David Lindars (12) said.

Robert was able to make a smooth transition and fit right into the team chemistry. Many on the team who knew him off the field enjoyed finishing their last high school season with Robert’s enthusiastic personality.

Sporty second semester seniors

Eager seniors take advantage of lighter workload to experience new sports and make memories before graduation

SUCCESSFUL SPRINT Tara Rezvani (12) runs with the ball during the first home lacrosse game of the season.

The team won 18-6.

Droplets of sweat glided down her cheeks as she maneuvered through opponents, bypassing them one by one.

Her muscles ached, and her eyes could hardly withstand the sun’s glare, but there was a team to think about. She sank one foot into the ground, aimed, and kicked the ball. It sailed past the goalie, only to hit the post and bounce off. She squinted her eyes, cheeks rising as she let out a hearty laugh and shrugged. “Next time!”

With the weight of academia, the stress of competition, and the anxiety of college applications, a number of seniors felt the pressure of a full workload and their looming college results. In an effort to relieve this stress, a group of seniors introduced themselves to new sports for pure enjoyment rather than competition.

natalie simonian & vedant thyagaraj reporters Athletes will be following the direction of new coaches in three spring sports: track, tennis and swimming.

Scott Chisam, who will be coaching sprints, was an award-winning athlete himself. Starting his running career in middle school, Chisam ran as the top cross-country and track performer throughout highschool and then on a collegiate level as a part of the crosscountry and track teams at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).

In addition to being a successful athlete, he has also won two national titles training local middle school students and has trained many collegiate Olympic trial athletes during his coaching career at UCLA and Stanford University.

“If people come to practice, if people do what they’re supposed to do, if they listen and follow directions, which I’m sure they’ll do, then everybody’s going to improve,” Chisam said in regard to the team.

“We want to create one of the best track teams we’ve had in this league,” he added.

The other running coach, Brent Woodcock, who was the assistant coach of the cross-country team, will be handling the distance runners. He is a versatile athlete in that he does more than just run : he finished his first triathlon in the summer of 2012.

The members of the track team will now be competing in hurdles as well.

Josh Cusac, a hurdler fresh out of Cornell University, will be working with students interested in hurdling.

NATALIE SIMONIAN - WINGED POST

Athletes spring into sports with new coaches

JUST KEEP SWIMMING Swim head coach Ronni Gautschi believes in firm committment from swimmers and hopes to build the team.

All the coaches are very keen on training their athletes to compete at the Central Coast Section (CCS) meet later this season.

More than that, they are hoping to build their students into stronger and higher-performing athletes, while making it a fun and enjoyable season at the same time.

“I think the coaches are very impartial in that they believe that we can all achieve greatness,” Rahul Balakrishnan said (10).

All the runners this year have set high goals and, with the knowledge and support of the new coaches, they are hoping to achieve them.

Tennis John Huebner, Tennis Director at the Decathlon Club, joined the Harker community as the Upper School’s Varsity Tennis Team’s Coach.

Huebner was drawn to the

Upper School by Harker’s reputation as being a high-achieving academic institution.

“I know about the reputation of the school. It’s well-known for being a high academic and high achieving school. I would love to participate and try to help the team,” Huebner said.

Huebner and his father have won the National Championships five times in the father-son division and were ranked #1 nationally.

Not only has Huebner himself won much acclaim in the tennis world, he has also worked with some of the biggest names in tennis history.

“I’ve been on the court with just about every old player. Recently I was on the court with Andre Agassi. I helped Pete Sampras and Roger Federer practice and play,” Huebner said.

Huebner has been coaching tennis for 25 years. He has also coached players at Wimbledon and the US Open.

“I really love to coach tennis [and] share my passion,” Huebner said.

Huebner’s biggest goal for the Varsity Team extends beyond honing the team’s skills to building a reputable tennis program at the Upper School.

Swimming Ronni Gautschi, the new swim head coach, was a nationally ranked swimmer, and played water polo at San Diego State Universtiy as well as in Italy as a professional player.

Her mother won a silver medal in the women’s 400-meter individual medley in the 1968 Olympic Games.

She said that she “wanted to teach teenagers how to love swimming.”

“

I’ve had to work a lot harder to pick it up, but it’s a lot more worth it.

Tara Rezvani (12) “Normally, seniors have four years under their belt or at least a year, so going into the sport fresh, I’ve had to work a lot harder to pick it up, but my homework load is a lot less too, so I think it’s a good use of my time.”

As late starters, seniors found it easier to budget their time with a light second-semester schedule.

Yet, the students sometimes did not join teams with their classmates and found themselves surrounded by new faces. Several lowerclassmen felt the participation of these upperclassmen at the same skill level provided support and encouragement was beneficial.

“The upperclassmen were able to inspire us and made the team more fun,” junior varsity soccer player Rishabh Jain (10) said. “We were all able to practice and improve together as a team, and we all became a family.

In a school where a majority of students strive for excellence, a group of seniors found a way to relax and control stress. To them, starting a sport was not a way to compete, but rather an activity they are chalking up to their array of new experiences before they head off to college and beyond.

Cont’d Basketball CCS run SAMANTHA HOFFMAN - WINGED POST

SONIA SIDHU - WINGED POST

TalonWP sports editor & reporter

I graduate,” Tara Rezvani (12) said, going on to name the advantages and disadvantages of starting late.

“

Senior Nikhil Agarwal began playing tennis for the first time on the Upper School Junior Varsity tennis team this year, stating that he joined the team to open himself to a new experience.

“I thought that because I am now a second-semester senior, playing on the tennis team would be a good way to relieve stress and just have fun,” he said.

“It is important to me that I played on junior varsity because even though I am an upperclassman, [because] I didn’t want this to turn into something that would cause me stress.”

Some seniors chose to begin playing their sports during second semester particularly because of the reduced course-work and extra free time, enjoying them as simply exciting pastimes.

“I signed up for lacrosse because it’s something I always wanted to do to spend time with my friends before

vasudha rengarajan & ashwini iyer

DRIBBLE, SHOOT, SWISH Spenser Quash (12) leads the team down the court, setting up offense during the team’s 64-56 win over Pacific Grove.

They never received that chance; according to Keller, the team’s poor shooting prevented them from gaining a definitive edge over Menlo, and resulting in a final losing score of 53-46.

With that loss, both the Varsity boys’ CCS run and the Upper School basketball seasons came to a close. The boys ended the season with an 18-8 overall record.

Looking forward to next season,

Keller expressed excitement for “for everybody that’s on the team” and “the five new members” who will be joining Varsity next season, but noted that he will miss his graduating players.

“I’m excited, but I have to be honest, we’re going to miss Nikhil’s leadership, so we’ll see who’s going to step up and take his place next season,” he said, adding that the skill of his returning players made “the future look very bright.”

Sports

Brains and brawn: Student athletes overcome stereotypes

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

e a gl e events

mercedes chien & sonia sidhu lifestyle & sports editor

JUHI GUPTA - TALONWP

SONIA SIDHU - WINGED POST

Golf:

BALANCING THE SCALE Sophomores Leon Chin (left) and Jai Ahuja (right) share opposing views of athletics and academics.

“

If [overachievers] set their mind to something, there is no stopping them.

“

The grunt of the lineman pushing his way to the front, the scratch of the grass against the lacrosse stick, the victory yell at the end of the game and the picking up of the pencil to start homework.

While the last action may seem out of place, recent studies have shown that sweat and the study table are anything but incompatible: high school and college athletes are learning time management and tend to have just as high if not higher grade point averages (GPAs) compared to their non-athletic counterparts.

In a study published by the Brookings Institution, college athletes at University of Texas were shown to have an average GPA of 3.0 while the average college student has a 2.8. As many athletes have to balance two practices a day with the increased schoolwork and social lives, some consider such findings surprising.

Others, however, do not. According to teen psychologist, Dr. Susan Willis “the dumb jock stereotype just isn’t as true anymore. Kids are becoming more comfortable with trying new things.”

The primary reason for the higher GPAs seems to be the better time management found among athletes.

Knowing that they have to do more work, athletes may start working during a free period in school or during any spare time instead using Facebook.

“During season, I’m in the library doing homework during free periods and I organize my time around practice so I can get more work done,” water polo and swim team captain Keri Clifford (12) said.

Athletics can also help “exercise” the brain from a scientific standpoint.

Dr. Susan Willis, teen psychologist According to a study by the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, physical activity helps improve brain functioning and cognitive processing. Physical activity has been shown to prevent brain shrinkage more than mental activity. Practice can either improve the brain or provide a break before schoolwork.

“You get a break from academics with the sport and you also get better time management,” Jai Ahuja (10), a Varsity soccer player who uses his free period to do his homework during season, said.

Another potential reason for the link between higher GPA and sports is the changing image of athletes. More

than before, academically oriented people are expanding their realms and participating in athletics. A competitive focus on the field and a desire to be the best can be equated to focus when studying and the desire to get a good grade.

“You have those certain kids who will want to be overachievers in whatever they do,” Dr. Willis said. “If they set their mind to something, there is no stopping them.”

For athletes who aspire to play on the collegiate level, keeping their grades up is a route to their dream school. If two athletes have the same skill level and athletic prowess, the one with the higher grades is usually admitted to the university.

“For me, I knew I couldn’t just slack off in school. I had to balance squash with schoolwork,” Arhum Siddiqui (12), set to play squash in college, said.

On the other hand, some students believe that college athletes have higher GPAs because of the special resources available to them.

At the University of California universities, athletes have priority over tutors at the tutoring center or access to a “team tutor.” The purpose of the

19

tutor is to keep athletes on track, but access to the tutor could place athletes at an advantage.

Some classes in colleges are known for being more difficult than others.

Athletes may opt to take easier classes so the GPA is not representative of the true difference between grades.

Some athletes may come home after a grueling practice or game and will take time to relax, feeling too tired to do homework.

Leon Chin (10) thinks that balancing all his activities during season can be overwhelming. He sometimes takes a nap when he comes home and opts to do homework when he has more energy.

Additionally, athletes may have a higher GPA but that also comes with higher levels of stress and the pressure to perform academically and athletically. Due to the increased stress, some students believe that it is not possible to achieve a very high GPA while playing sports.

“If you want to be valedictorian or something, you’ll probably have to dedicate more time to studying.,” Lisa Tseng (11) said.

In general, more students athletes are getting higher GPAs now.

3/1: Bellarmine College Prep (home) 3/5: Gunn HS (home)

Swimming:

3/20: Sacred Heart Prep(away) 3/27: 3 school meet (home)

Softball:

3/1: Cupertino High (home) 3/6: Menlo Atherton HS (away)

Tennis:

3/5: Pinewood School (home) 3/7: Priory High School (away)

Baseball:

3/1: Terra Nova HS(home) 3/4: Pescadero High School (home)

Volleyball:

3/6: Leigh High School (home) 3/8: Willow Glen HS (away)

Track and Field:

3/2: Willow Glen Invitational (away) 3/14: WBAL Meet 1 (away)

Lacrosse:

3/1: SHP JV (away) 3/7: Santa Catalina School (away)

Spring sports teams set upcoming season goals March Madness track & field lacrosse juhi gupta

TalonWP video/photo editor

shannon su

TalonWP news editor For the two weeks in March known as “March Madness,” both students and faculty will be participating in and creating brackets for the NCAA Men’s Division I basketball Championship.

68 college teams will be competing game after game to determine the best teams and players.

Since there is no cash prize for the winner, the players are competing for a sense of accomplishment.

“I like the excitement of college basketball because they are not playing for money, they are playing for school pride,” said Dan Molin, Athletics Director. “To me, that is more genuine and gets more of the root of sport and competition.”

Students as well were interested in rooting for specific teams.

“There are some teams that traditionally I just like and how they are built,” Sean Pan (11) said.

“Sometimes the more I watch over the year, I’ll find some teams that I like because they have some players that do some stuff that interest me.”

Some students have been participating in the March Madness as an annual tradition.

“I do it every year because it’s always more fun to watch a match when you feel like you have some stake in it,” Timothy Luong (12) said.

Others, however, have not always been fully invested in following all the basketball games in the previous years.

“I’m deciding to make a bracket this year because I’ve been following college basketball very closely over this season, and I’d really like to see where my predictions come and hopefully the teams that I pick go far in this tournament,” Laura Thacker (11) said.

AP US History teacher Julie Wheeler and AP Environmental Studies teacher Jeff Sutton plan on participating in March Madness with their students once again this year.

“The main goal now, besides having fun and incorporating a little competition and camaraderie into the class, is to teach students about how to make a bracket,” Sutton said.

The Final Four championship will officially begin on March 19.

Head Coach: Andrew Irvine Senior Players: Samantha Hoffman, Michelle Douglas, Wendy Shwe, Adrienne Mendel, Jessica Son, Tiphaine Delepine, Amy Gendotti, Tara Rezvani, Apricot Tang Most Anticipated Game: Mercy Burlingame The initial number of interested participants for the 2013 lacrosse season was significantly larger than previous years, with the official roster reaching almost 30 students. 16 returning players and 13 new players will be playing on the team.

“If we continue to get these members in future years, [a JV team] is definitely something we’re considering. Right now we’re going to manage both levels at the same time,” said Andrew Irvine, Varsity Girls Lacrosse head coach.

Head Coach: Scott Chisam (co-head), Brent Woodcock (co-head) Senior Players: Ragini Bhattacharya, Sumit Minocha, Izzy Connell, Robert Deng, Neel Bhoopalam, Varun Gudapati, Matthew Giammona, Raghav Sethia, Michael Chen, Curran Shah, Amanda Kalb, Richard Fan, Robert Yeats Throwers and runners from Varsity Track & Field have begun practicing at the Blackford campus since . Throwers attend Forbes workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Upper School alternating with regular practice while runners focuses on laps and drills.

Players do not attest to having any strong rivalries with other schools, yet instead hope that everyone qualifies for CCS. As of now, the team has not announced their captains.

baseball

volleyball Head Coach: Dan Molin Senior Players: Rohit Agarwal, Vladimir Feinberg, Sartajdeep Kahlon, David Lindars, Ryan Mui, Raghav Selvaraj, Joshua Tien, Andre Tran, Chau Nguyen (manager) Most Anticipated Game: senior night against Monta Vista Both the Varsity and JV Boys Volleyball teams are relatively smaller this year, and team members are encouraging others who might potentially be interested to join. Players hope that the team will make it to CCS this season and do well within their league. Head coach Dan Molin believes that the athletes on the team have a great attitude: “We hope to be competitive in every match,” said Dan Molin, head coach.

“Everyone’s working very hard, it’s a very enjoyable group to coach.”

Head Coach: CJ Cali Senior Players: Jacob Hoffman, Kevin Cali, Drew Goldstein Most Anticipated Game: Menlo High School The 2013 team for Varsity Baseball, many of whom are first-time players, has been practicing for about a month since January. Practices have been held at the new baseball field at the Blackford campus, with increased safety and aesthetics.

“We have a really young team,” said Jacob Hoffman (12), one of the captains. Despite the new additions, Hoffman hopes to have an equal amount of wins and losses throughout the season. “Right now we’re just working on the basic fundamentals. Hopefully we’ll have a .500 league record.”

They play today against Terra Nova High School at Blackford.

tennis Head Coach: John Huebner Senior Players: Timothy Luong, Josh Bollar, Rahul Desirazu, Justin Yang, Pranav Bheda Most Anticipated Game: Sacred Heart Prep Varsity Boys Tennis picks up this spring as well with practices at the Blackford Campus, consisting of a relatively similar number of athletes to previous years. Practices have revolved around assigning positions and getting familiar with the players, especially with the addition of new coach John Huebner.

For the first time in a few years, tryouts were held for JV Boys Tennis, and the Varsity team has been cut down with only a few players in reserve. With these changes, many students believe that this year’s season could be an opportunity to set up a foundation for following years.

softball Head Coach: Raul Rios Senior Players: Alison Rugar, Ashley Del Alto, Daniza Rodriguez, Sonia Gupta Most Anticipated Game: Castilleja/Mercy Burlingame January 28 marked the first day of practice for the Varsity Girls Softball team, starting off slow with defensive/offensive drills and moving to hitting balls off the pitching machine. 18 students have signed up to play Varsity Girls Softball this year.

The team will be aiming high this season for the league title and also hope to make CCS for the second time in school history. Coach Raul Rios believes that both goals are “reachable”.

The team’s first game of the season is against Cupertino High School today.

swimming Head Coach: Ronni Gautschi Senior Players: Keri Clifford, Amie Chien, Rachel Yanovsky Most Anticipated Meet: Sacred Heart Prep The swim team’s preseason Forbes workouts were followed by the beginning of their official practice, which started on January 28. This season, the team is led by new coach Ronni Gautschi.

“We’ve always gotten top three [in our league] so hopefully we can do that, beat some teams, and start doing some team bonding stuff because our team is smaller now,” said Keri Clifford (12).

Many water polo members participate in swimming in the spring in order to keep in shape for the upcoming fall season, but the team numbers still saw a slight drop.

golf Head Coach: Ie Chen Cheng Senior Players: Maverick McNealy, Christopher Chang, Karan Das-Grande, Kyle Roter, Andre Jia Most Anticipated Game: Sacred Heart Prep Varsity Boys Golf, also with an unexpectedly large team for this season, will be splitting into JV and Varsity. Tryouts began before the President’s Week Break, with around 20 students participating, yet many athletes are eager to start the season regardless of where they may be placed.

“We hope to [make it to CCS] again this year, and maybe even second round of CCS,” said Maverick McNealy (12), team captain. “We have a really good team this year, even better than it has been in the last three years.”

ALL GRAPHICS KACEY FANG - WINGED POST

The Back Page

March 1, 2013 the Winged Post

20

I think that it is a good cause to be aware of because I know that drunk driving kills a lot of people.

- Sanil Rajput (9)

As a driver in training myself I really appreciate safety on the road and being aware of your surroundings.

- Caroline Howells (10)

I thought it was a good way to use a hands on experience to get that point across.

- Joshua Tien (12) UNDER THE INFLUENCE Donning a pair of goggles that mimics the perceptions of a drunk driver, Serena Wang (10) navigates the zig-zag array of cones. As a part of Driver Safety Awareness Week, this simulation alerted students to the reality of reckless driving.

VASUDHA RENGARAJAN- THE WINGED POST

I thought they educated students on the importance of driving above the influence.

- Camille Piazza (11)