INDEPTH//
COMMUNITY REACTS TO TRAGEDY Responses to MV death BY DHIRAJ NALLAPOTHULA, MICHELLE SU & SHIVATEJA VEMIREDDY
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n Monday, Oct. 27, teachers at Monta Vista High School (MVHS) were asked to take attendance in their third period classes, not as a routine attendance check, but as a part of an investigation into the identity of a student in the area who had died in a collision with a big rig truck while biking to school. Initially, Monta Vista students did not find out many of the details about the accident. For many, fear and shock dominated their emotions upon hearing that a student in the area had been involved in a fatal crash. “Everyone was worried because they didn’t know who this person was,”said Monta Vista ASB President senior Anna Tedijanto. “No one was sure how to react because of this. I think the hardest part was worrying that you knew that person and how you would react if you knew that person.” On Oct. 29, the boy’s name was officially released to the public. In a joint statement, Monta Vista Class of 2017 officers
expressed their shock and sorrow over the loss of a fellow class member. They said, “The whole school was shocked and couldn’t accept the fact that a Matador had lost his life that day. Throughout the day, though we didn’t know the identity of the victim, many people were concerned for his family and how they would feel. As a class, we were all mourning and somber, and even the people who didn’t know him well felt sad.” Although many students did not know the student personally, the notion of losing a fellow Matador left a hole in the hearts of those in the Monta Vista community. “Everything at school felt different,” said Monta Vista senior Bardia Ohadi. “We had lost a part of our family and we’ll never be able to look past it. Even though we were one person fewer it felt like we had lost 1,000.” “It was so tragic because he was so young and he didn’t even have a chance to finish high school and go to college,” said Tedijanto. “It really impacts me because I’m older than him and still here. It’s crazy to think that there are people younger than me that will never have the chance to be where I am and that makes me feel undeserving of this life.” That morning, various parent volunteers stood at the intersection of Bubb Road and McClellan Road with signs reminding people to drive safely. Later that evening, a candleKASTURI PANTVAIDYA - EPIC
light vigil was held for the student. While most prominent in the Monta Vista community, these emotions are also among many Lynbrook students. Current Lynbrook sophomores who attended Miller Middle School with the student remember him from the time they were classmates. “He was really nice but quiet,” said Lynbrook sophomore Vibhav Parimi. “I think that’s why lots of people [from Lynbrook] didn’t know him that well. One of my memories with him was when we were in Yosemite together, how he always beat everyone in a game of cards in our cabin.” Even for students who didn’t know the sophomore boy personally, the tragedy has affected them in some way. For some Lynbrook students who bike to school, the accident serves as a harsh reminder of the potential dangers in traveling to Lynbrook. “I am fearful for my safety because I have to be more aware while biking now,” said sophomore Ameya Jumde. The tragedy also raised concern from parents whose children bike to school often. “Kids should be more cautious on their way to school to so they don’t get hit by reckless drivers,” said Liqin Xu, mother of Lynbrook sophomore Raymond Xu. “You have to put effort into your academic and extracurricular activities, but please remember that safety has an even higher priority than them.” see TRAGEDY page 10
NEWS//
Behind the scenes of Winter Beats BY MICHELLE SU
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he Winter Beats Mixer, privately hosted by a group of Lynbrook and Monta Vista High School seniors, will take place on Nov. 15 at the Camden Community Center from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Like many others before it, this mixer will be a casual dance open to all students in the area while also incorporating a charity aspect. Near the end of the 2013-2014 school year, current seniors Ashwin Ravi and Numair Baseer decided to continue Class of 2014 alumnus Vidur Sanandan’s work planning mixers for students in the area. After some initial meetings, they added
senior Adam Zhang, as well as Monta Vista High School senior Anirudh Shridar, to the team. With guidance from Sanandan, this group of seniors, self-titled “Team Trance,” has been planning the mixer throughout the past few months. “At the end of my senior year, I decided not to host anymore mixers, but I made it known to people that I would be open to being a resource for anyone who wanted to plan mixers,” said Sanandan. “[Ravi] asked me about my experiences, and I gave him an overview of the steps to planning a mixer. For the most part, he and the rest of the team were able to plan a lot of the mixer by themselves, but I
answered some of their questions and gave them suggestions throughout the process.” Since then, the team has been planning the Winter Beats Mixer, with each person taking on a different role. Baseer, Ravi, Zhang and Shridar are in charge of marketing, sales, operations and advertising, respectively. Because this is the first time the team is working together, each person ended up assuming additional responsibilities as needed. For instance, Ravi and Baseer took care of finding the venue, while Shridar has mostly been managing ticket sales in his school area. see WINTER BEATS page 2
Penner diagnosed with cancer BY ALLISON YUAN
my face,” said Penner. As a result, he visits a dermatologist to have the spots checked. Shortly before his diagnosis, Penner had bout a month ago, science teacher Jon Penner was diagnosed with basal noticed three new spots on his face, includcell carcinoma, a benign type of skin ing one unusual growth next to his ear. “The one on my ear just felt different,” cancer. On the morning of Nov. 12, he will unsaid Penner. “It looked different, [and] it dergo surgery to remove the tumor. Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is a cancer of would bleed… I knew there was a possibility the outermost layer of the skin. Caused by that it was basal cell carcinoma.” To receive a confirmation, Penner vismutations in the skin’s basal cells, it often manifests itself as open red sores on the skin. ited the dermatologist, who took biopsies “As I’ve gotten older, I get all sorts of skin of the three growths on his face. Two weeks tags, like later, the results came in. The growth next to a mole Penner’s ear was indeed cancer; Penner was o n not surprised by his diagnosis. “I knew going in that [BCC] was probably what would come out of it,” said Penner. After receiving his diagnosis, Penner casually told his classes about his cancer. “He just announced it at the end of class,” said sophomore Horace Cheng. “He basically said, ‘Oh, by the way, do you guys remember about this test I had to do? It turned out to be cancer; I have to get surgery.’” Penner’s operation, Mohs surgery, progressively removes layers of cancerous skin until normal tissue remains. “They’re basically going to dig a hole right here in my head, which is nerve-wracking,” said Penner. Although Penner views the upcoming surgery with some apprehension, he is not the first of his friends to experience it. “My close friends know about it, and they literally all have said, ‘Oh yeah, I had that same procedure done last year’,” said Penner. These shared experiences make Penner feel more at ease about his situation. In fact, Penner is more concerned about the side effects of the sur-
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gery. The procedure will leave a scar, and may affect his hearing. One positive note is BCC rarely metastasizes, or spreads to other parts of the body. As a result, it is usually not lethal. “It’s the least invasive type of skin cancer,” said Penner about BCC. “[BCC] is the good cancer, if you can call it that.” Students were somewhat unsettled, but they believe that Penner will be okay. “I was concerned,” said Cheng, “But I have faith that he’ll get through it.” The faith that students have in Penner may arise partially from his disposition in class. “He was very frank about it, and he didn’t make us feel awkward,” said sophomore Jessica Shu. “I was surprised, but I didn’t feel too sorry because he made it seem like it wasn’t really anything.” Despite the diagnosis, Penner remains his cheerful, sarcastic self. His two day absence will be felt by his students. “Mr. Penner is a teacher that knows what it’s like to be a student,” said junior Ethan Lai, a student in one of Penner’s Chemistry Honors classes last year. “He knows it’s tough on us and tries to lighten up the day.” While students marvel at Penner’s nonchalance, Penner means to impart a more important lesson to his students. “As you get older--as you get to be my age-lots of stuff starts happening, physically, that is just not fun,” said Penner. “You kind of just take it with a grain of salt, you know? It’s like, okay, I’m older, and the stuff is gonna happen, and you just deal with it.” Students appreciate Penner’s kindness in trying to prepare them for events that will happen later in their lives. “[Some teachers] don’t realize they’re not supposed to teach just facts, but they’re also supposed to help students grow,” said Cheng. Penner’s surgery is in less than a week, and he remains optimistic about its outcome. “It isn’t always a life or death situation,” he said. “We’re at a point now in medicine where a lot of stuff, which back in the old days we couldn’t get fixed or cured, is no big deal anymore.”
GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY AMANDA CHANG AND JESSICA LUO
WINTER BEATS| Behind the Scenes continued from WINTER BEATS page 1
Letter from the Editors Dear Readers,
We welcome you to our second issue of the year. Inside you will find articles on the impact Challenge Day has had on our classmates (pg. 3), as well as features on standouts from our diverse student body: campaign fellows and volunteers (pg. 7), gamers (pg. 11), and fencers (pg. 13). For an opinionated extension of the Monta Vista tragedy, flip to our staff editorial (pg. 6) to see what our writers have to say about mourning the tragedy of our peer. Our resident features columnist offers his opinion on the greatness of the nowfamous pumpkin spice latte (pg. 8), while other staffers share their opinions on being mistaken for a teen mom (pg. 5), watching the legendary reality TV show Keeping Up With The Kardashians, (pg. 4) and the problematic stigma against strong women (pg. 14). Whether your tastes swing toward hard news or feature pieces, columns or articles, we’re sure you’ll find something of your literary liking. Happy Reading, James Wilhelmi and Khaya Bhatia
From adding counts of initial ticket sales, Facebook event attendees and in-person polling, the hosts predict an attendance of around 600 people. Compared to other mixers in the past, which typically attracted around 300 people, the amount of people attending Winter Beats is enormous. One main factor to which they attribute this large amount of attendees is their unique choice in location. “To be able to get anything else started, we needed to find a venue,” said Ravi. “I did some research online and saw that Camden Community Center was a good potential location. [Baseer] and I visited it and found that it had a lot of the characteristics we were looking for.” Unlike the relatively small Chinese Performing Arts of America Center, which was a commonly used location for previous mixers, the Camden Community Center has a 630-person maximum occupancy. This allows the hosts to accommodate more attendees while maintaining a comfortable atmosphere and good acoustics. Another aspect of Winter Beats’ popularity is the advertising tactics the hosts used. The team invited over 4.600 people in their Facebook event page. They also had ticket sellers from various schools advertise for the mixer. “When we were looking for ticket-sellers, we specifically looked for people who we thought would be effective in spreading
the word, and a lot of these people happen to be in ASB or are very active at their schools. We also had them invite all of their friends on Facebook and post promotional Facebook statuses,” said Baseer. Since they are expecting more people to buy tickets at the door, the number of potential attendees may be even higher than what the hosts expect. For this mixer specifically, the team is working through a non-profit organization called the Catch A Z Foundation. The Catch A Z Foundation, along with other humanitarian organizations like the Pales-
tine Children’s Relief Fund, will be receiving a portion of the mixer’s profits, as the team wants to contribute part of their earnings to causes and organizations they support. For these seniors, hosting such a large mixer is an exciting process. While mixers have generally had a questionable image regarding safety, Team Trance hopes to change
that by better preparing for possible issues. Taking advice from Sanandan, the team is focusing on maintaining a safe environment through hiring more security guards, utilizing a coat check system and finding a larger, more suitable venue. Along with the Takoz Mod Mex food truck, the team also has an idea to make the mixer themed so it becomes more of a social event than just a casual dance. “[Sanandan] definitely helped us a lot in dealing with a lot of the potential issues,” said Ravi. “Since he had a lot of previous experience planning events, he was able to give us a lot of advice about how we should go about planning the event and who we should contact for what.” From Sanandan’s perspective, the biggest advice he gave them was reminding the hosts to “remember where [they] came from” and stay focused while overseeing the actual event instead of hanging out and dancing. He said, “I’m definitely very proud of and confident in these guys, and I think they’ve definitely taken what I sort of started last year and made it even better. I actually even asked them to Skype me during the mixer so I can see how everything is going as the event is taking place.” With their experience planning Winter Beats, the team plans to host other mixers later on in January, April and June. Eventually, this group of seniors also hopes to expand to private event managing to host more intimate events for specific clients or attendees.
News in Brief Valkyrie’s Winter Show This year’s Valkyries Winter Dance Showcase will take place on Saturday, Nov. 15 in the gym at 7 p.m. Tickets are $6 and come with a raffle ticket free of charge. The tickets can be purchased from any member of the Valkyries. LIMB Craft Fair The 34th annual Lynbrook Instrumental Music Boosters (LIMB) Craft Fair will be held on Saturday, Nov 22 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Gym and the Cove. Admission is free, and anyone can purchase handcrafted items, baked goods and hot food from over 100 vendors accompanied by live music performed by Lynbrook students.
Drama Performance This fall’s drama production will take place from Thursday, Nov. 20 to Saturday, Nov. 22, with all showtimes at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $8 presale for students with ASB cards and $10 for those without, as well as $10 at the door. Only one ticket per ASB card is allowed. Tickets will be on sale soon. Interact Wanderlust Dance Interact clubs from FUHSD schools will be holding their annual dance on Friday, Nov. 21 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Quinlan Community Center. This casual dance is open to all high school students and tickets can be purchased from any Interact officer for $12 prior to the dance or for $15 at the door.
Club Food Day The first Club Food Day of the school year will be tomorrow, Nov. 7 during lunch in the Quad. 30 different clubs will be selling food, and tickets are sold at the top of the quad during brunch and lunch. Food can only be bought with tickets, and each ticket is worth 50 cents.
By Sabrina Jen
Challenged to care and share BY KASTURI PANTVAIDYA
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n Thursday, Oct. 30, Lynbrook hosted its first ever “Challenge Day,” inviting approximately 50 students and staffers to participate in a nationally recognized program dedicated to celebrating diversity, truth and the freedom of expression in American high schools. Founded by a group of educators and counselors, the Challenge Day program aims to address common issues that arise among teenagers, including bullying, stereotyping, negative judgements, and peer pressure. Through a “three-step formula” devised by its founders, the program hopes to provide students with the tools necessary for healthy self-expression while also challenging them to let go of self-limiting thoughts and oppressive behavior. After teachers, students, and parents expressed concerns about academic integrity and bullying through various mediums in the previous school year, administration grew concerned. “We have such a high-achieving school that there are bound to be issues related to pressure and academic criticism,” said Principal John Dwyer. “I proposed Challenge Day as a potential solution to these problems.” After experiencing Challenge Day at his previous school, Foothill High, and speaking with other FUHSD principals who indicated that it was a successful program, Dwyer and the Lynbrook administration decided to move forward with bringing the event to campus. The planning for the program began midway through last year. After receiving funding from the Cupertino Rotary and the FUHS Foundation, it was finalized. Challenge Day began at 9:30 a.m. and ended at 3:05 p.m. For the approximately six hours that students, staff and parent facilitators were there, Challenge Day leaders guided them through a variety of activities and games, all with the ultimate goal of inspiring attendees to “...be the change that they wish to see in the world.” Students were encouraged to be themselves through a variety of ways. “We started out with a couple of trust building activities, talked about what it meant to be 100 percent you, learned about the struggles and hard times we each have
STEPHANIE LU—EPIC
survived through, and finished off with how we’re going to make change at Lynbrook,” said junior Kayla Bonser. After six hours worth of dancing, hugging and sharing their innermost feelings, the group felt as if they had bonded to become a family. “Challenge Day helped me realize that I want to be more open with people about my life, and allow myself to know that it’s okay to share parts of myself I may not show too often,” said senior Natasha Chan. By giving students the opportunity to open themselves up to friends as well as strangers, the program acted as a way for many to release pent-up feelings and to find support in the Lynbrook community. Attendees had the chance to talk about events that had happened to them or things that they consider important in their life which they may not typically confront others about. By sharing in small groups and playing activities like “Crossing the Line,” which involved players crossing sides whenever a topic applied to their life, attendees saw that they are not alone in facing difficulties. “If everyone at school opened up the way all of us did during this program, then the amount of good we would spread and the amount of change we would make would be staggeringly high,” said Chan. Challenge Day helped some Lynbrook parents learn more about the community that their children are being brought up in. “The program demonstrated to me that Lynbrook students really want to connect to each other on a deep level; it’s just the culture of competition, assumptions, and lack of trust that hold us back,” said Lynbrook parent Margot Robison. Challenge Day showed Robison that once the community gets past certain divides, it is not difficult for students and staff alike to open up, respect each other’s differences and ultimately accept one another. The program was started as a pilot for administration to see what kind of feedback they receive after the event. The positive responses have encouraged administration to hold a second Challenge Day by the end of this school year. “We felt that it was beneficial to the Lynbrook community,” said Dwyer. “If all goes as planned, we plan to have another Challenge Day sometime in second semester.”
SABRINA JEN//IN MY OPINION
Respect the Kardashians
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WHAT IS SCHOOL PRIDE?
BY FRINA REDOLOZA & IRIS ZHAO
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rom the musty memories of kindergarten classrooms filled with the hooligans known as children, three weapons of mass destruction stand out from among the rest: the whiteboard markers used to deface the board, the felt tip pens that often decorated the two-foot tables and the face paint that kids smeared on their faces in ways and colors reminiscent of Jack in “Lord of the Flies.” Thankfully, all of these were washable. Tragically, little has changed since then.
not doing pre-calculus homework during Homecoming skits either.
School pride is– or should be– more than just showing up to a rally, only to talk about how much we dislike Lynbrook as soon as it’s over. It’s more than simply valiantly sacrificing our vocal cords to the Homecoming effort, or spamming our friends with somewhat coordinated “CLASS OF 2015/16/17/18 WHOOO” posts on Facebook. It’s not showing up to every sports game and rally, but it’s
School pride is not showing up to every sports game and rally, but it’s not doing pre-calculus homework during Homecoming skits either. It’s the intangibles. It’s when 100 students win a STEM competition again and you strangely feel older-sibling-admiration and genuine happiness for people you never met. It’s when the water polo team loses after a hard fought match and you feel an enduring desire to hug everyone you see because of and not in spite of this. It’s, according to Mr. Lee, “those eighty kids who willingly showed up at 6 a.m.” to set up for Homecoming.” It’s about being proud to be a Lynbrook Viking, or as senior Marcellus Tseng puts it, “going out and supporting your class and the school, not the class alone.” And much like the hunger of children who have yet to discover the world, that feeling should never go away. Not even when the face paint comes off.
“School pride is not necessarily about getting in fisticuffs to defend Lynbrook’s honor, but it’s about liking Lynbrook.”
“School spirit is going to extreme measures to represent your school [like] spending long hours setting up for Homecoming.”
ALL PHOTOS TAKEN BY STEPHANIE LU
We still hijack the whiteboard markers in literature class, albeit to write quotes from “Macbeth.” From time to time, we still write on classroom tables, though not with the cursive we so painstakingly developed back then. And every couple of months, we still put on our face paint to cheer on our classes at rallies and during Homecoming. Unfortunately, just like those washable paints used in kindergarten, the face paint used for those rallies came off eventually. And when it did, so did our school spirit.
The stereotypical American high school is all plaid and prep, the three-dimensional version of a J. Crew Instagram post, complete with crunching l. The center of the cafeteria is tantamount to holy ground, and the altar to the deities/table of the popular students is littered with the stolen communion wafers (Nilla, to be exact) of the “nerds.” Thankfully, notes sophomore William Wong, Lynbrook is nothing like that. “Other schools might have bullies or just a bad community, but Lynbrook has a nice and safe campus, and I think that that’s important,” said Wong. But for all its differences, school pride means the same in a high school straight out of Mean Girls as in Lynbrook.
“When put in perspective, I’m very proud of the environment Lynbrook creates for its students, parents, and community.”
//SHRITAMA RAY ALUMNAE
//KYLE HOWDEN TEACHER
//GAURAV ASHOK SENIOR
ast Sunday night, more than 1.3 million Americans laughed along with Khloé Kardashian as Scott Disick tried to load her 500-ton luggage into her car in the season premiere of Kourtney and Khloé take the Hamptons. I was one of those people. Hopefully, you have more of a life than I do and are utterly confused right now, so here is a quick guide that will help you understand the rest of this column: once upon a time, a woman named Kris married wealthy lawyer Robert Kardashian. They had four children: Kourtney, Kimberly, Khloé and Robert Jr. After her divorce with Robert Sr., Kris married Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner. They had two daughters: Kendall and Kylie. This is me telling you about why you should respect the Kardashians. (What?!- cue the sarcastic comments about Kim’s infamous sex tape.) Yes, I do agree that Kim comes off as superficial, materialistic and spoiled. But I’m sure you can agree with me that one family member does not define an entire family, let alone an empire. So hear me out. The Kardashians are amazing parents In the spin-off Kourtney and Khloé take Miami in 2009 when Kourtney was pregnant with Mason, she fixed her deteriorating relationship with her boyfriend Scott, an abusive alcoholic at the time, so that her children could grow up with love from a father. Not only did she trade in her favorite sports cars for child-friendly SUVs, Kourtney also spends time making her own baby food out of fresh fruits and vegetables, proving that it is entirely possible for a celebrity mother to pay more attention to her children than her Twitter followers. Khloé Kardashian is perfect Hannah Montana once said that “Nobody’s perfect,” but Khloé is pretty close. Not only is she hilarious (I dare you to watch a 10 minute clip of her on the show and try telling me that she isn’t funny), but there is no way her down-to-earth, caring and inspiring personality seen in the show is fake. In more than one episode, Khloé spent weekends in Skid Row, Los Angeles talking to people in shelters and eating lunch with them in a t-shirt and jeans while Kim was sipping white wine and pushing her daughter’s stroller around in 10-inch heels. Khloé also avidly shows her love for her family even if it means going to rehabilitation sessions for hitting people who were mean to her siblings. But Kim’s sex tape!!? If you still can’t get over the fact that I’m asking you to consider respecting a family that won its way to fame with a sex tape, chill out. That was made in 2003. To put things into perspective, 2003 was more than 10 years ago... before Facebook was a thing and Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston still were. Besides, members of the Kardashian empire have done things that prove that they deserve what they have. Kendall’s recent breakthrough in the modeling industry at New York, Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks this year also proves that the Kardashians are not simply content to sit on their fortunes. So the next time you overhear a group of girls freaking out about the Kardashians, don’t roll your eyes too quickly. And don’t worry, no one will ever know if you secretly watch the next episode of Kourtney and Khloé take The Hamptons on Sunday night-just don’t crack your jaw when you laugh too hard at something absolutely hilarious that Khloé will say.
Don’t believe the Apple Hype
JJ IGNATSECU//AS I SEE IT
I am not a teen mom
Every single year, the same thing happens. Every single year, the hype over buying a new iPhone gets so over the top that everybody suddenly drops their brand-new $400 phones to go crawling to buy practically the same $400 phone. There is are solutions to the Apple hype problem. People can either buy phones from a different company or only upgrade when the phone breaks down. These solutions, however, will not fully fix this problem. The problem does not just lie with Apple. The problem is us, and our mentality when buying these overhyped phones. Apple hype is unjustified, and upgrading year after year is unbeneficial. Apple phones are lackluster as compared to their competitors, and also the difference between generations when Apple upgrades is miniscule. Comparing the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 5, it is clear that the socalled major changes are only increased battery life and better graphics. Other features, such as storage space and network capacity, are lacking against other products. Junior Dara Jovkar agrees that, while upgrading may increase some facets of a phone, repeatedly buying a phone year after year is not in the best interests of the public. “From year to year there is not enough of a difference that [one] should go out and buy a phone every year,” said Jovkar. “It becomes really expensive after a certain point.” To solve this problem, however, one must look to the mentality of Apple-obsessed consumers. Apple diehards have been lampooned for their seemingly insatiable appetite for Apple devices and, according to Time,
roughly 400 million consumers worldwide are repeat buyers of Apple products. Sophomore Matthew Sotudeh believes that the culture Apple fosters is to blame for this buying. “Apple creates the culture where you need to have the latest IPhone, but you actually don’t,” said Sotoudeh. “Also, as they upgrade their operating system, they don’t think about their older phone, so when you upgrade to your newest version of the iOS your old phone slows down.” Sotoudeh’s comment about Apple “forgetting” to think about their old phones when releasing new operating systems might not be just a mistake, but rather a sly marketing ploy. When users don’t upgrade to the newest edition of the iOS, the operating system leaves them behind, forcing users to buy new phones to keep up with Apple. Apple’s growth also stems from the public’s notion of what is considered acceptable in today’s society. “The public likes to go with what’s cool, and they see that the high prices may be a sign of something good even though it’s not,” said Sotoudeh. An easy way for consumers to sidestep issues would be to buy from another company; however, Apple has become so popular that one can’t just expect Apple users to stop buying Apple products. So is there a legitimate solution to this problem? As of now, there is no surefire way to buck this trend, but whatever the case may be it is time for the public to refuse to be drawn into Apple’s million-dollar cycle year after year.
GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY ALLISON YUAN
BY SHREYAS IYER
Teen pregnancy is a modern problem, discussed everywhere from high school biology to TV shows. Yet even with so much knowledge of the subject, the public still makes superficial judgments and holds young girls fully responsible for their situations. As a teenage girl who is often out with my baby sisters, I am a prime target for people’s condemning stares. Instead of exercising an unnecessary disgust toward teen moms, the public should put more effort into aiding fellow members of their society. In our sheltered “Lynbrook bubble,” we never truly face this issue like other areas, so I never understood the stigma attached to teen moms until I was 14 years old. That was when my mother announced she was pregnant and all of a sudden, diapers and toys were scattered all over the house. Gabriela Maria was born, and when my mom was not around, I was her guardian. In public, I’d push the stroller, hold her hand or play with her. She was a baby, I was a teen, and the public was our judgmental audience. Adults would use me as an example of “who not to be” to their children, and others would glare, point and whisper. The unjust shame I felt built up to the point where I refused to go out in public with my baby sister. A new sibling meant a lot of work, but this was just too much. I was already balancing enough high school problems. As a child, one is taught to not judge others for the obstacles in their lives, and instead, cooperate to make the world a better place. Yet having a baby sister changed my perspective of those I was supposed to look up to. I began to understand the strange oppression the world places on the shoulders of young moms who are already weighed down with a baby to carry. People surrounding a teen mom hardly give her an opportunity to thrive, and instead place derogatory labels on her. The consequences of sex are taught to high school students in a harsh, negative light. Instead of investigating possible solutions to these situations, we learn to stay away from those participating in such scandalous activities. “Stare and walk away” is ingrained in our brains. Supporting a discriminated person rarely crosses our mind. Examples of this offensive attitude are across the country. In a Louisiana high school, pregnant students can’t attend classes on campus. Ads in New York claim that teen moms will end up alone and poor. There was even a campaign which publicized the message “You’re supposed to be changing the world, not changing diapers.” All these incidents only solidify negativity and the idea that teen moms can’t be successful in life. Our government has spent millions of dollars providing services and support for teen moms, trying to reduce the problem in the U.S., which has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world. Sadly, this has failed to truly end the problem because it cannot stop the sexist attitudes in our society. It is right to target the core of the problem (stopping teens from having sex in the first place), but this simultaneously increases the amount of stigma and shame toward young moms. Teen moms do not deserve to suffer from degrading glances and society’s ignorance, regardless of how problematic and undesirable society views teen pregnancy. Even though I’m not an actual teen mom, I still suffer the same unjust shame that teen moms face all around them. This issue is not something to take lightly, since no one deserves to suffer at the hands of a stubbornly ignorant society. I do not ask the nation to promote teen pregnancy, but condemning it is not a solution, either. It’s time to change, people. It’s time to do what we’ve been taught to do since we were babies ourselves. It’s time to help.
Thinking inside the box Creative thinking is the gateway to success -- no major company could have succeeded without a spark of ingenuity. The emphasis placed on discovering new and different ideas has forced companies to attempt to understand and cultivate what fosters creativity. While the initial idea can be thought of in any environment, nothing can result from that idea unless it is developed in a structured environment. Innovation management, the management that helps an organization take one idea and create new processes or products, is the only way to turn ideas into tangible results. Innovation management can be seen in the real world as the bridge between management and engineers -- engineers come up with the idea and are helped by managers to create a product. One of the reasons that innovation management is successful is that it allows more experienced people to serve as mentors, so that
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t Lynbrook, most of us will never know the Monta Vista sophomore who was tragically killed on Oct. 27. We might know his name, how the accident happened, maybe even what he looked like. But we don’t know everything. That, however, didn’t stop us. We started to consider what steps we could take to prevent future accidents. The list extended on and on, leaving no stone unturned: we should ban big rig trucks during school hours, we should put up signs warning cars of possible bikers in the area, we should expand the bike lane. Sometimes, the questions turned into blame. Other times, we just sat and wondered. But there are certain things we choose not to think about. We don’t attempt to imagine the grief that his family continues to feel. We don’t ponder the pain of his friends’ heartbreak. We don’t spend time mulling over the intense guilt forevermore eating away at the big rig driver’s conscience. Those things scare us. We view them as the frontier best left unexplored. But the bits and pieces we do know should be enough; not enough for any of the aforementioned things, but enough for us to take a step back and reflect on who the young man really was. We know that on a Monday morning, he rode his bike to school, taking the same lane that
the inexperienced have an easier time turning their ideas into tangible products. Several Lynbrook students have experienced the positive effects of a mentor-like program. One aspect that leads to the success of the literary magazine Vertigo is the mixture of new and veteran writers. Vertigo holds frequent workshops, where new writers are able to receive feedback from those who have gone through the motions several times before, which improves their writing. “Through workshops, people get a variety of critiques from more experienced writers,” said senior Marian Park, Vertigo Editor-inChief. “At workshops, they are able to see their work through the lens of a reader.” Art is another area in which mentorship and structure can be a huge asset. Before becoming familiar with the art process, senior Stephanie Xu struggled with turning her ideas into works of art. Xu is more equipped to do so now due guidance from art teachers, including Lee Akamichi. “Akamichi’s studio and art classes helped me polish my conceptual thinking,” said Xu. “Just last week, I wanted to create an oil wash piece about the stresses I was feeling. I had this crazy idea that included painting my entire face and attaching my hair to wooden installations, but Akamichi challenged me to simplify my idea.” Xu and Akamichi worked on the idea together, and ended up creating a short video clip, in which Xu would try to draw an outline of her face on a painted canvas, only to give up and erase her lines. “Akamichi himself is a genius at coming up with ideas for just about anything, and he’s really showed me that conveying the meaning in as simple a way as possible can have the most impact,” said Xu. Mentorship, in this instance, was critical to Xu’s success. Her original idea was too elaborate, but through guidance from Akamichi, Xu was able to create something simplistic and meaningful. Another reason Xu succeeded was because
GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY CLAIRE SHEIH
she was taught to think a certain way: that simplicity is important. Besides mentorship, another management technique that can be employed is teaching people to think a certain way to avoid problems that crop up. This is utilized by the STEM program. Science teacher Jason Lee, coordinator of the STEM program, believes that much of the interest in the STEM program originates from its structured environment, which teaches budding scientists how to think a certain way. “Everyone starts at different points, in how much they know about science fair, and what exactly they want to do with their experiments,” said Lee. “Another difficulty is that everyone has different projects they want to do. The class tries to have everyone thinking the same way, in terms of a scientist, so that when they go into their respective fields, even though there is different content, they still have the same mindset.” While it seems intuitive that innovation
stems from people who think differently, original ideas often results from people thinking a structured, process-based way. This general mindset allows STEM students to predict possible problems while coming up with innovative experiments. “The mindset is how you’re going to set up your projects, and that you thought through every possible factor that may derail your experiment,” said Lee. “If people conducting experiments have a certain mindset going into their experiments, when they hit a wall, they should know how to overcome it.” All major companies today started as innovative ideas. The structure and management in which current CEOs fostered those ideas, however, was responsible for turning those ideas into successful products. Creative thought may spark great ideas, but innovation management is truly what brings those ideas to fruition.
Staff Editorial
The Voice of the Epic
The Monta Vista tragedy: focus on empathy, not policy hundreds of Monta Vista students do every day. We know he sported a helmet and a backpack. He wasn’t a Lynbrook student, but he could have been. Our school rightfully held a moment of silence in his honor, but much of its meaning was lost in the ensuing shuffle. Discussing what changes to implement without truly addressing the tragedy, as many here are doing, dehumanizes the victim, reducing him to just another statistic to be used as a launching pad for enacting legislation. No sooner did the news break than did petitions for a ban on big rigs around heavy school commute hours and for an adjustment in the area’s bike lanes begin circulating, gathering signatures at a torrid pace. We want to show we care, but such spontaneous activism demonstrates a basic lack of respect. It implies that who the victim is bears little significance, that the face of the matter lies only in what happened. We should look back to last May, when Lynbrook alumnus James Hong was fatally
shot during the UC Santa Barbara killings. We came together as a community to grieve, to pay our respects to a fallen soul. The collective outpouring of support eased the cloud of pain that had set in, and ensured that Hong’s memory would live on. And though the tragedy at hand has resulted in a flood of human compassion, the empathy has been diminished by the rushed focus on change. None of this is to say that the change that follows is bad. It remains a fact that tragedies frequently catalyze changes that positively impact society--seat belts and airbags in cars, dams near turbulent rivers. Change is progress and change will come. In this case, however, change can wait. Maybe big rigs really should be kept far away from school grounds during times of high congestion, and maybe local bike lanes really should be expanded in the near future. But until the dust settles, one sophomore from Monta Vista should be on our minds--who he was, not the consequences of his passing.
GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY CLAIRE SHEIH
BY MEERA KRISHNAMOORTHY
Starting this past summer, junior Ken Yanagisawa and senior Caleb Britton were actively involved in Congressman Honda’s re-election campaign to continue representing the 17th District. Britton’s primary duty was canvassing while Yanagisawa’s was answering calls in the campaign office. Yanagisawa applied to a youth leadership summer program earlier this year, and upon being accepted was placed in Honda’s district office as a program completion requirement. It was through this internship that Yanagisawa
was able to get involved in politics by working for Honda’s campaign. “Looking at politics from an outside perspective makes it hard to dive into,” said Yanagisawa. “Politics is something that you really have to experience first hand and working with people who are involved in it.” By working in the district office, Yanagisawa was able to add another element to his education. Yanagisawa’s experience really opened his eyes to how important the humanities and social sciences are. As a result, he wants to pursue the social sciences and take up a more active role in politics. Like Yanagisawa, Britton supports Honda’s re-election bid due to his involvement in issues that rank highly on Britton’s political
Since June, brothers junior Atrey Khoche and freshman Athrv Khoche have participated in Khanna’s campaign through a variety of methods, including making calls and canvassing as a part of Khanna’s attempt to gather votes to represent Silicon Valley. Athrv admits that he initially got involved with the campaign to have “something constructive to do” but he quickly shed that mentality after doing some research into the race and realizing the extent of the problems facing the country. “I became more aware of our nation’s current state and realized that each person has a duty to change Congress and that your voice really matters,” said Athrv. Athrv rose quickly through the campaign ranks and became a phone bank captain. In this role, Athrv oversaw all voter contact
over the phones. Atrey joined the campaign after seeing the passion that Athrv had on the campaign trail. “Athrv told me about how great the experience was, so I gave it a shot and liked it,” said Atrey. Khanna’s emphasis on education is important to him personally as Khanna’s education plan focuses on better integrating STEM into classrooms, an area Atrey wants to pursue in college. Overall, he found his experiences on the campaign to be nothing but beneficial to his education and political awareness. He said, “You learn a lot more about politics in general, how some extraneous factors play a big role in the campaign, and you get to meet tons of new people.”
agenda. For example, Honda supports the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would provide important benefits to young people who have entered the United States illegally. The campaign has been both and informative and eye-opening experience for Britton as he has gained an appreciation for the political process. And although he was already planning on pursuing political science in college, his experiences made him passionate about local and community politics. He said, “The greatest thing I learned was the impact that the community has on choosing its representative and the great things that can come when a community comes together for a common cause.”
BY DHIRAJ NALLAPOTHULA
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n the weeks preceding the Nov. 4 midterm elections, California’s 17th Congressional District House of Representatives race heated up as Congressman Mike Honda and challenger Ro Khanna went on the offensive to get the votes they needed. Behind the scenes of these two campaigns were hundreds of volunteers who sacrificed their time and put in a great deal of effort to inform voters of these candidates, some of which currently attend Lynbrook.
To read the full version of this story go to lhsepic.com.
Keeping up with the new tech clubs on campus Mobile Application Club (MAC) Hasan looks up excitedly from his computer. His Android app, designed over the summer, was created to give UCSC students real-time tracking of the bus system. As president of MAC, he hopes to bring his innovative mindset about computers to Lynbrook and start a mobile app generation The focus on smartphone apps sets MAC apart from other similar clubs because it gives students who are only interested in app designing an avenue to do so. “I’ve noticed that the focus lies on computers rather than mobile applications,” he said. To Hasan, mobile applications are the future. “The mobile apps we hope to design are meant to show off skills like graphic design and creative gameplay, not just complex data structures,” said treasurer Patrick Shih. “Working at UCSC, I learned about the power of mobile application tools and utilizing this club, I want to bring that power to Lynbrook,” said Hasan. A couple of the plans they have for their club members include: creating apps to assist clubs and developing strategy games similar to Lead Wars. This club meets Fridays at lunch in Room 108.
BY ANAND CHUKKA
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his summer seniors Sahil Hasan and Prachi Laud worked on developing two new initiatives in computer science. Hasan, a mobile application summer intern at University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), was inspired to develop an app-developing prowess among students as part of his new club, Mobile Application Club. On the other end, senior Prachi Laud, after attending the Girls Who Code program, was motivated to open a chapter of this organization here at Lynbrook. These clubs hope to shine light on two holes in the technology culture at Lynbrook: mobile app designing and women in computer science.
Girls Who Code (GWC) If one were to walk into Computer Science club on any given Monday, a problem he or she would notice is the lack of female representation. For that reason, Laud started Girls Who Code, a collaboration between WiSTEM and the Girls Who Code organization, to improve female presence in high school computer science courses. Inspired by a summer camp she attended, Laud hopes that this program will give women on campus an opportunity to express their interest in computer science in a safe, non-competitive environment. This program empowers women in computer science by exposing them at a young age and showing girls the practical applications of computer science. This collaboration will be a class-based lecture taught by professional computer scientists from the Girls Who Code held after school with project assignments and assessments to make sure that students are keeping up with computer science and maintaining interest. This collaboration does not have an official meeting time yet, but will start in January.
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hanksgiving break falls in the middle of one of the busiest times of the school year, and you and your friends are likely in search of some fun ways to enjoy your few days of freedom. So what are your options? You could always go to the Safeway on Bollinger Road! Or, you could dive into some enthralling SAT/ACT literature from dawn until dusk. Personally, I recommend taking the road less traveled by exploring some of these other options.
Picnic at Oak-Meadow Park Your Thanksgiving festivities do not need to end Thursday evening. The Friday after a heavy Thanksgiving feast, pack some of your family’s leftover food into a basket and have a picnic at Oak Meadow Park in Los Gatos. Eating outside is a nice change in scenery after a stuffy family meal the night before, and it does not hurt that Oak Meadow Park has a carousel and train that are fun for all ages. With its open grassy expanses, it is a perfect place to bring out a frisbee or a football for some classic All-American sporting events. A picnic in the park is the ultimate Thanksgiving weekend bonding event.
BY IZABELLA KIPNIS
Black Friday Shopping The Friday after Thanksgiving is nationally recognized as one of the best shopping days of the year. Make sure to get to the stores early because there is a low supply and a high demand for most products on Black Friday. Valley Fair does not have the best bargains, but outlet malls such as the Great Mall are full of quality finds if you arrive early enough. If you want to save the most money, familiarize yourself with the deals and store policies ahead of time. Also, make sure to purchase your items with the right credit card as some credit cards offer valuable benefits.
Turkey Trot This year is the 10th anniversary of the Turkey Trot race, a 5K/10K run that takes place annually on Thanksgiving morning in downtown San Jose. The event is a great way of getting that last workout in before your family’s evening feast. If you’re not athletically inclined, you can still participate by being a volunteer. There is no better time to give back to the community than on a day that is about being thankful. Register for the race at http://svturkeytrot.com.
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College admissions resource AdmitSee assists in application process BY FREYA LIU
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nce a week, senior Jessica Pai goes to a private consultant to work on her college applications. To finish all of them, it will cost a total of $9,000. “I go because I’m not really sure about the whole college application process,” said Pai. “I think I need some help to guide me through it.” Pai is one of many seniors who feels apprehensive without about applying to college. On average, students apply to 13 schools, the majority of which require a detailed and comprehensive application. With the arrival of every August comes a flurry of seniors hoping to put together the best possible work and in turn, spending large sums of money on private college counselors.
Students unwilling to spend so much can now turn to a cheaper alternative: AdmitSee. In Aug. 2013, Stephanie Shyu and Lydia Pierce Fayal, now University of Pennsylvania alumni, launched admitsee.com, a website for high school students to access current college students’ application essays. AdmitSee lets students access a database of profiles of current college students across the country, which include varying levels of information about the student’s college applications. The website hopes to achieve its goal to “bring transparency to the college admissions offices” by providing a complete picture of past applicants. Every college student who shares content, the “Admit,” can go into detail about their personal application to help students currently applying. In this way, the website
has arguably become an online personalized counselor. “The current market offers fragmented application guidance,” said Fayal in an online interview. “College entrance guidebooks and compilations of essays don’t provide the full picture of a successful candidate’s application history.” The website is essentially a combination of social media and an online store--students who use it can read what they need while getting live advice through the mentoring program from the “Admit.” For example, an applicant can chat online with an Admit for advice on all aspects of preparation for college. In the midst of college application season, AdmitSee is another option for seniors looking for help with the process.
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On my experiences with pumpkin spice
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efore I start the column: it has been brought to my attention that somehow a horse ended up in my profile photo for the last column. I have talked to the editors about this, and the situation should now be resolved. So it’s starting to seem more like fall every day: the weather’s getting colder, and the leaves are turning into colors that just want me to pull out my phone and make Instagram posts. And of course, the “#PSL” posters are starting to appear in the windows of Starbucks stores. I’m here to answer some questions that I myself have had for the longest time: What exactly is pumpkin spice? What could it possibly taste like? What part of a pumpkin would even be spicy in the first place? Why was the McDouble taken off the dollar menu? So I decided to stifle my great fear of Starbucks employees spelling my name incorrectly and go to a coffee shop and find out. It wasn’t until I was sitting at a table with the pumpkin spice latte in front of me that I realized there was something awfully wrong with my life, and that I had just spent five dollars for a drink. But it was too late for second thoughts. I picked up the latte and took in the sweet, exotic aroma of--well, coffee--and had a sip. And honestly, it was pretty good. The drink had a bitter, almost basic, taste at first, like taking down a mouthful of cinnamon, but then settled into a dull, milky consistency with just a hint of that pumpkin pie flavor. I finished the drink, and I was sold on pumpkin spice. But I’m that naturally curious kind of person, so just a single drink wasn’t enough for me. I had to get to the core of the pumpkin spice experience. So after the latte, I moved on to the pumpkin spice biscuit, which I also found quite to my liking--it had the same exquisite taste as the pumpkin spice latte and yet varied pleasantly in texture, and for just three dollars a box at Trader Joe’s, the value was quite exemplary. I also tried Trader Joe’s pumpkin spice fruit bar, which I would also recommend to anyone--each bar was apparently made of one-eighth of an authentic pumpkin, according to the text on the wrappers, which is great--any true foodie knows that fake pumpkin simply won’t make the cut. Another favorite of mine was the pumpkin spice cornbread crouton, which is a great topping to scatter on salads for the sole purpose of Snapchatting photos of them to your friends. When I found myself shoveling cans of pumpkin spice soup into my shopping cart I realized that something very strange had occurred; I found that I could not refrain from purchasing every single pumpkin spice product in the grocery store. My cart was filled with heaps of orange seasonal packaging: pumpkin spice pancake mix, pumpkin spice scones, pumpkin spice hand soap, pumpkin spice-scented deodorant, pumpkin spiceinfused dog toys, pumpkin spice floppy discs, and (wow!) pumpkin spice cream cheese muffins. At the close of my little adventure, on the way back, I looked down and noticed that a pair of vintage Uggs were growing over my feet. I have to say, the look was pretty good, so I took them home and added them to my collection of footwear. Fun fact: I still don’t know what actual pumpkins taste like.
“Perfect” Procrastination
Exploring the unexpected link between perfection and procrastination BY KRISTEN WONG AND CLAIRE SHEIH
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t’s not good enough.” The catchall phrase for perfectionists has since been transformed into an excuse for procrastination. When sophomore Jennie Zhang received her art assignment, she walked out of the art classroom motivated and full of ideas. At the time, she had a clear plan and the project seemed to be in the bag. But something changed as the due date approached. Zhang needed the project to be perfect, and for that to happen, she needed to gather inspiration and be in the right mindset. Everything had to be just right. Though her plan was solid, she continued to delay the project. Every tiny detail became an excuse not to start. The due date drew closer and Zhang’s excitement turned to dread. She had encountered the duo that often ruins students’ plans: perfectionism and procrastination. The link between perfectionism and procrastination has troubled many since the beginning of the human race. Civil War general George McClellan was a classic case. McClellan was in an ideal situation--his army outnumbered the opposing general’s and was ready -but McClellan refused to issue the command. He argued that the army wasn’t ready, that there were still details to mesh out, and that he had to “...prepare the proper routes of retreat.” Ultimately, his failure to act lost the Union the opportunity quickly, causing it to drag on for several more years. McClellan was declared “...an infernal, unmitigated coward,” but he may have been better described as a perfectionistic procrastinator. Out of the two, perfectionism seems to be the lesser evil. Procrastination is known to be detrimental while perfectionism is usually associated with ambition and excellence. Despite common misconceptions, however, perfectionism is in fact harmful and often referred to as “the highest form of self-abuse.” “I think of perfectionism as wanting everything to be as correct as possible, with no sense of satisfaction of completing a task unless you’ve completed it absolutely perfectly with zero errors,” said Brittany Stevens, Lynbrook’s School Psychologist. Unsurprisingly, perfectionists tend to have extremely high standards. They believe the product is most important, not the process, and the product must be flawless. “I get ticked off when things aren’t done exactly the way I envisioned,”said Zhang. “I become irrationally angry and feel like I’ve somehow failed.”
But perhaps the most destructive symptom of perfectionism is the tendency to procrastinate. Procrastination is not laziness; rather, it is misguided sense of activity based on low tolerance for frustration and failure. When people perceive a higher challenge than they feel capable of, they sidestep the discomfort and end up procrastinating. “There are people who do beautiful work when they do it but they’ll procrastinate on getting started almost because they’re aware of the effort they’ll have to put in,” said Stevens. “The cognitive calories they’ll have to burn seem so extreme that they just don’t get started.” For General McClellan, overanalysis was the root of procrastination. He claimed that his army could not attack without all retreat routes planned out even though defeat was highly unlikely. In some ways, then, the pedantic nature of
perfectionists can impel them to use details as excuses to put off a task. “Once, I procrastinated on a picture for three days because I didn’t have a certain colored pencil,” said Zhang. “I told myself that without the color, the picture would be impossible to draw. The thing was, I ended up hardly using that color at all.” Both Zhang and McClellan suffered from analysis paralysis. Analysis paralysis prevents many perfectionists from making decisions because they are bogged down by excessive brainstorming. A fictional example of analysis paralysis is Aesop’s fable, The Fox and the Cat. The fox boasts that it has “a hundred ways” of escaping hunters while the cat only has one. But its excessive strategization proves to be its downfall when confronted with an actual hunter. Rather than scamper up a tree as the cat does, the fox becomes paralyzed with indecision and is shot.
Other times, what drives perfectionists to procrastinate is their fear of failure. “People who are concerned with making mistakes tend to see some assignments as particularly challenging, and instead of working hard on them to make sure they do a great job, they instead put [these assignments] off so that they are not faced with their own failure if their work isn’t up to par,” said Daniel Gustavson, a researcher in cognitive psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Again, due to their high expectations, perfectionists are particularly susceptible to this fear. They embody the “do or die” mindset, where a task must be completed flawlessly, or not completed at all. “Especially regarding college [applications] and essays, I feel compelled to wait for the perfect “aha” moment that will give me some inspirational non-cliche idea to write about,” said senior Anjali Pemmaraju. In other scenarios, perfectionists get feedback for being right, which builds a feeling of pressure. Through past experiences, they have set a standard for themselves and drive themselves to maintain that standard. “Sometimes I even procrastinate for tasks that I know I’ll be good at, because I won’t accept anything less than my best, which is also very threatening,” said sophomore Sharon Dang. Almost all perfectionists also believe their work reflects their personal worth, leading them to feary that failure will evoke judgement among their peers. Thus, they are unable to complete a task. This is a failure in itself and may further damage perfectionists’ self-esteem, giving way to the negative cycle of perfectionism and procrastination. In recent years, the competitive culture at Lynbrook has created a breeding ground for perfectionists. Students often equate being average with failure, and the expectation is nothing short of excellence. “It’s hard for me to share my ideas in classes that are more open-ended, like literature, because I feel that if what I say is wrong, the teacher or classmates will have the wrong impression of me,” said Dang. Perfectionists reach for the stars, but more often find themselves grabbing at air. While high standards are healthy to a certain extent, they have helped create an infinite loop between perfectionism and procrastination; in the long run, students may be better off without them. Stevens said,“When students learn that it is okay to try their best, instead of being the best, they are generally much happier.”
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY KASTRUI PANTVAIDYA
MOOCs: Pioneering education
BY PRASANN RANADE
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enior Abhiram Kothapalli has spent the last two hours watching videos. He’s not watching cat videos. Instead, he’s learning how to create a business model and find commercial opportunities with 40,000 other students in an online class titled Technology Entrepreneurship. Hosted by NovoEd, the class is one of a growing number of massive online open courses (MOOCs) that present an alternative to traditional classroom education. Kothapalli is one of many students at Lynbrook and millions worldwide who use MOOCs as a way to delve into their interests and supplement their high school education. Through partnerships with universities around the world, MOOC providers offer online higher education courses for free. By opening up new opportunities for students to expand their knowledge, MOOCs are democratizing education and changing the future of online learning. After taking AP Computer Science, the most advanced computer science class offered at Lynbrook, Kothapalli wanted to expand on his learning and turned to MOOCs. Specifically, he took the courses Startup Engineering by Stanford University and Law and the Entrepreneur by Northwestern University to supplement his
knowledge in those areas. “This school has a lot of great courses overall, but it doesn’t have detailed courses in areas I’m interested in,” said Kothapalli. “MOOCs were able to help me diversify that one area of Computer Science into multiple subjects, [such as] web development.” In general, MOOC classes resemble lowerdivision coursework at most universities with few if any prerequisites. Most of them are six to eight weeks long, but some can go up to 15 weeks. Traditional MOOC classes consist of lecture videos and problem sets. To support student learning, many courses have community forums and live chat windows moderated by course managers where students can ask for help. Other courses, however, utilize the greater community interaction to support the subject material. For example, Assistant Professor Chuck Eesley of Stanford University, who taught Kothapalli’s two-part Technology Entrepreneurship course, promoted group interaction with five or six other students in order to create their own start-up company. “Interacting with others helps us learn better and is also what people naturally want to do online,” said Eesley. “For any class, but particularly an entrepreneurship class, the best learning occurs through hands-on team projects.” MOOCs, however, present a unique challenge for professors in adapting the course to fit a different class structure. While some online courses simply mirror the actual classroom courses in curriculum, others include more web-friendly changes to reflect the medium of the course. For example, the relatively easy access to teaching materials online allows professors to draw from other sources of curriculum instruction. “A lot of traditional courses will go by the book and emphasize book learning itself, but with online courses, it’s a more generalized learning environment,” said senior Rishabh Bhasin, who took a twopart course titled Algorithms at Stanford
University. “It’s more of a topic that you can explore on your own.” Another characteristic of MOOCs is their lack of formal certification. Unlike traditional classes, MOOCs do not have a regulatory body overseeing the quality of each class. Moreover, while students are given a certificate of completion with a grade as proof of having taken a class, not all employers accept such certificates. Yet, Bhasin views certificates as unimportant. “The certificate itself, I’m sure has some worth, but most of the value [of the course] came from learning the material so that I could use it in a future setting,” said Bhasin. “If I fail, I fail, but it’s an online course, so I want to learn.” Coursera is currently pioneering a change in certification standards. Certain courses on Coursera allow you to earn a verified certificate, through its Signature Track. By tying your identity to your participation in a class, Signature Track allows students to earn official recognition for the class. Moreover, students doing Signature Track have an overall lower dropout rate than students not doing it. The primary issue with free courses accessible to all is the high dropout rate associated with them, about 90 percent for the most popular courses. Unlike traditional classes, however, even if a large majority of students drops out a few weeks into a particular online class, the class will still continue. Some see this dropout rate as testament to the value of MOOCs. In the end, students praise the freedom that MOOCs offer as their most valuable feature. By letting students drop in and out of classes, MOOCs allow students to delve deeply into only those classes most important to them. “If I’m forced to complete a course I sign up for, like at Lynbrook, where I can’t really drop a class, MOOCs solve that because you have the freedom to explore without being penalized for disliking your course,” said Kothapalli. In a speech last year regarding higher education, President Barack Obama commended MOOCs, saying that innovation in education could “...shake up the current system, create better incentives for colleges to do more with less and deliver better value for students and their families.” By making courses free and accessible to all, MOOCs will definitely change the future of education. “I believe that the internet and technology/ software will disrupt nearly every industry,” said Eesley. “Education is no exception.”
Lynbrook’s League of Legends Scene BY JEFFREY YANG AND JESSICA LUO
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t’s taken the world by surprise. 27 million players each day. Worldwide competitions. The most played game in the world. This is not a sport. It is a computer game. League of Legends, or LoL, is an online game that allows players to interact with other players in an imaginary world. The game pits two teams, usually of five players each, against each other. Players on the winning team will gain points toward their total, increasing their standings on the game’s ladder ranking system. In 2013, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services recognized professional LoL players as professional athletes, and foreign players are now allowed to stay in the United States for up to five years. LoL is also recognized as one of the most played games in professional electronic sport com-
petitions. “It’s exciting to watch the pros and how skilled they are,” said senior Winston Lan. “Just seeing at how high of a level the game can be played: [the professionals] have incredibly high reaction times and the ability to make snap decisions under pressure.” But the fact that LoL is exciting to watch is not the only reason why so many are drawn to the game. According to Dr. John Steward, a Yale medical school graduate and a trained psychologist, there are two main reasons why people choose to play games such as LoL. “You can basically divide them up into what we call ‘interpersonal’ and ‘intrapsychic,” said Steward. “Interpersonal has to do with relationships inside the game, whereas intrapsychic has to do with the player’s personality.” In LoL, communities are formed around teams, five-player teams that battle against
other teams. Sometimes players who do not know each other are placed in a team by the game’s system. Other times, however, teams consist of close-knit friends that play together regularly and contribute as much to the game’s social aspect as its competitive aspect, according to Lan. “I personally compete with my friends, and try to make better plays than them and one-up them, even if we’re on the same team,” said Lan. “That’s what makes the game enjoyable to me.” Intrapsychically, people feel safer and more confident behind a screen than they do in real life. MMOs such as LoL allow individuals to strictly moderate their actions, which gives users a sense of power and the feeling that they are in full control over their lives. “Frustration, lack of achievement in their own lives, low self-esteem, loneliness, and a need or longing - these are factors that motivate people to get involved in [games such as
LoL],” said Steward. Lynbrook therapist Dawn Bridges’ main concern is the issue of addiction: the stereotype of players poring hours at a time each day into their respective games, leaving little time for other activities such as schoolwork. Sophomore Sahlik Khan, a former LoL player, said that he was so immersed in LoL he would play for up to six hours at a time. Students like Khan, however, maintain that LoL can be a stress reliever, especially in the fast-paced environment of high school. “It takes me to another world,” said Khan. “It was pretty powerful, especially when I had a lot of homework.” Bridges added that students seemed to work more efficiently after taking breaks from studying. Although she mentioned that playing LoL was not the most practical way to reduce stress, any activity that distracted the brain from schoolwork was effective enough to increase productivity.
TRAGEDY| The community mourns their tragic loss continued from TRAGEDY page 1 In the past week, all five schools in FUHSD have shown their respect and support for the Monta Vista community, and the student’s family especially. Throughout the district, students wore purple and gold to show support for the Monta Vista community on Oct. 30. The IDC Representatives collectively worked on a photo series of FUHSD students wearing purple and gold as a sign of the schools’ bonding together in a time of grief and sorrow. “The collage was of students from around the district, holding a sign that said ‘We are 1 District,’” said IDC President senior Christian Choy from Monta Vista. “The objective of the photo was to not only thank the other schools of the district for their support, but to also show that we as a district are unified in hard times like this.” The FUHSD District Office has also been at MVHS providing assistance to the student’s family and the overall community. District officials have worked with the MVHS administration in dealing with the media
and law enforcement. “[The student’s] tragic passing has affected every corner of the Fremont Union High School District. Students, staff members, parents, and our extended community — both those that knew [him] and those that didn’t — have been so saddened and touched by this horrific accident,” said Sue Larson, FUHSD Communications Coordinator. Beyond the district level, there have also been calls for legislative action regarding big rig trucks and traffic safety in the City of Cupertino. Two different petitions resulting from the tragic death of the Monta Vista student were created through change.org by community members Sharana Math and Revathy Narasimhan. “When I first heard about the news, I realized all the things that could happen when I dropped my daughter off at Kennedy Middle School. It’s a tri-school area with lots of traffic, but in this particular instance, I believe that there is one thing that caused that accident, which is that the big truck was on
that road at that particular time,” said Math. “It’s one of the things we can do as citizens to make sure there is a city-wide ordinance limiting trucks during the school commute hours.” Math’s petition, which currently has more than 6,700 signatures, was written to prevent big rig trucks from being on Cupertino roads during school commute hours, namely from 7:30 to 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Currently, the City of Cupertino limits big rig trucks to commuting on certain routes, but to Math, this is not enough. He said, “In this instance, the truck was not allowed on McClellan Road, but there were no signs, and the enforcement was lacking in this particular aspect. For me, the first aspect is reiterating this through police enforcement and also putting appropriate sign boards.” Similarly, Narasimhan’s petition is a call to the Cupertino City Council for safer roads for bikers and pedestrians. In this petition, Narasimhan specifically addresses the issues of narrow bike lanes, McClellan Road’s traffic congestion due to the four schools in the
area, namely Lincoln Elementary, Kennedy Middle, Monta Vista High and De Anza College, and the lack of a light at the intersection of Rose Blossom Drive on McClellan Road. In general, traffic safety and traffic congestion is always a source of concern for students, parents, community members and school and district administrators. Throughout the district, traffic safety is regulated through partnerships with city governments, nearby school districts and in the case of Fremont High School, the Valley Transportation Authority. While the calls for policy changes have been prominent in the community, some students believe that these actions should be done in honor of the Monta Vista student who passed away. To them, jumping into political action may minimize the significant impact of losing a peer, and simply taking the time to remember and celebrate his life is best for the time being. For the extended version of this story with additional information about the petitions, visit www.lhs.epic.com.
PHOTOS TAKEN BY SENIOR ERIC WONG, USED WITH PERMISSION OF FUHSD IDC
WE ARE ONE| Lynbrook students smile while wearing Monta Vista High School’s colors. From left to right: senior Shruthi Thatikunta, junior Kavya Nambiar, junior Joshua Otani and freshman Misaki Otani.
To the victor go the foils
KASTURI PANTVAIDYA — EPIC
BY KATHLEEN CUI
With his right arm outstretched, sophomore Brady Alexander lunged toward his masked opponent. The point of his épée, a type of fencing sword, hit the competitor’s torso; the green light beeped, and the round was over--Alexander had just earned himself second place at the September Epée-A-Thon Tournament, a regional competition with seasoned participants. The goal of fencing is to hit the opponent in the target area with the sword. Every “touch” within the target area gains the fencer a point, and the first player to reach a certain point quota wins. The categories in fencing are saber, épée, and foil; these three types are differentiated by sword design, target area, and the parts of the weapon that are used to score points. Within and outside Lynbrook, fencing is a well-publicized but poorly understood sport. “Fencing seems like an intense sport, given that players are fighting with swords,” said sophomore John Um. “But there’s really not much that I know about it because it’s not a very popular sport. I’m pretty sure only a few people in every grade do it, especially compared to the number of players in other sports such as football and basketball.” The lack of popularity associated with fencing causes many students, like Um, to be unaware of the sport’s numerous mechanics and benefits. While team sports often have previously determined plays that athletes are instructed to execute, fencing is an individual sport, allowing every athlete to create and execute actions on the spot. This independence promotes autonomy and proficient decision-making skills, brought upon by the heightened pressure that fencers feel due to an absence of teammates. “In fencing, there is nobody to carry or weigh down the team,” said Alexander. “All the effort is put out by you and you alone.” The individual nature of fencing allows players to develop an independence and resourcefulness that is harder to cultivate and master in team sports such as football or basketball. In order to keep up with the rapid pace of a fencing game, fencers must consistently maintain their health and physique. As a result, according to the informational fencing website Swordsmen 101, out of all Olympic athletes, fencers have the greatest leg strength relative to muscle size. The necessity of agility, balance, and speed makes fencing one of the most advantageous sports to play.
Yet fencing is not only physically beneficial--studies have proven that the sport helps improve math and logic skills of players. “Smart people are natural fencers,” said Olympic fencer and medalist Jason Rogers in an interview with Swordsmen 101. “It is an activity that not only requires learning a completely new set of skills, but also a strategic intelligence that many liken to chess.” “The entire game is about outsmarting your opponent,” said Alexander’s fencing coach Igor Chirashnya. “Fencing sharpens your mind, because the most important component of the game is mind strategy. It’s one of the fastest sports, and the ability to think, act, and execute moves quickly is key.” Yet Chirashnya revealed that fencing does more than sharpen the mind. In fact, it improves the confidence of many individuals. “Once people start fencing, they gain self-awareness and confidence from the disciplined nature of the sport. In our club Academy of Fencing Masters, every day we see the maturity and self-esteem of our students grow.” Another unique aspect of fencing is its versatility. “This sport can be played at any age,” said Chirashnya. “One of our club’s ranked fencers is 63 years old. With the elaborate equipment, fencing is also one of the safest sports in the world; based on the number of injuries, it can be compared to golf.” In addition to holistic intelligence, sports psychologists all over the world have noted that regularly practicing fencing can actually improve math skills. This improvement stems from the fact that in fencing, the player develops an acute sense for geometry, along with sharper logic from the cause and effect situations that fencers are put in. “Fencing in particular teaches students about center of gravity, force, motion and other mathematical principles by experiencing them physically,” said Dr. Hammrich, founder of Sisters/Brothers in Sports Science, to Swordsmen 101. Instead of simply memorizing formulas taught in classes, fencers are able to experience and execute these concepts in real life. Accompanying spatial skills, actual arithmetic is vital during games. Frank Mustilli, head of a fencing clinic in Orange, N.J., told Sportsmen 101 that he teaches fencers to “...count the seconds of an attack in their heads, form letters and numbers with their weapons to defend and attack, and mentally divide the remaining match time on the clock to strategize.” From health benefits to mental stimulation, fencing is both a physical and cerebral sport that exercises all domains of an individual. In the stressful, academically-oriented atmosphere at Lynbrook, fencing is an ideal sport that allows students to be physically and mentally healthy.
Girls’ water polo has successful season in new league BY JULIA PARK
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enior Hannah Chambers treads past two defenders, intercepts the pass and shoots the ball for an easy score. They’ve done it again; another goal for the team. The girls’ varsity water polo team, with an 11-1 record, has excelled under the watch of new coach Alex Hsueh. “We bonded together better as a team this year than last year. We got a lot closer...we’ve been playing and training together for about a year,” said junior Phoebe Winters. Their outstanding teamwork is visible in their league record. Out of all six teams in the El Camino division, they view themselves as the most competent and, by far, the most wellrounded team. “We all have our strengths, we all have our weaknesses, but when we’re put together, we can dominate,” said Winters. One major change within the team is the new coach. Coach Hsueh, a Lynbrook Class of 2000 alumnus, played on the boys’ water polo team with current boys’ varsity water polo coach Jerome Chung.
Hsueh has been an assistant coach at Lynbrook before, but this is his first year as a head coach. “He’s very quiet and relaxed--he’s hushed,” said sophomore Amber Masse, making a pun of the coach’s last name. Many team members agree that Hsueh is a relatively quiet coach who has a hard time controlling the team; however, he is making his best effort. “He’s good at calming people down and he’s very motherly when someone gets hurt. But he needs more experience, like learning how to be louder, or learning how to take control of the team,” said junior Enisha Sehgal, on Hsueh’s coaching methods. Hsueh, however, thinks that the girls are the reason he fails to take control. When asked about his challenges in coaching this particular team, he answered without hesitation, “Getting them to listen to what I say.”
Although he finds his team rather talkative, Hseuh appreciates that his team is hardworking and has abilities rarely found in a high school sports team. He said, “I like the skills they use on a daily basis, but they’ve got to work on their focus.” One idea the team keeps in mind when playing games is a phrase Chung told them before their first league game: “Demand greatness from each other.” The girls expect nothing but the absolute best from each other, and these high expectations have led to the impressive record in league play. “I think it’s clear we’re the best team in our league but we can’t use that [self-assurance] to blow off hard work,” said sophomore Anna Lund. “We need to still work together as a team and pull through.”
STEPHANIE LU — EPIC
KATSURI PANTVAIDYA — EPIC
New basketball coaches take the court
NEW COACHES | New boys’ basketball coach Jeremey Kitchen (pictured left) and new girls’ coach Lynley Takaki (pictured right) instruct their athletes during tryouts.
BY AMANDA CHANG
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ing field hockey at Westmont High School. Takaki is excited for the upcoming season with the girls’ basketball team, which has been highly successful for the past few years. “My goal is for the girls to not only have a successful season but also to have fun at the same time,” said Takaki. “Since we are in a different division this year, I hope to end in the top half of our division and hopefully make playoffs.” Coming off of playoff runs in the last two seasons, the team is hoping to quickly absorb Takaki’s strategies and get back to its winning ways. “We’ll have to adjust to a new playing style,” said senior Dolly Yuan, one of the team captains. “But everyone on our team is really close to each other, so we should mesh really well and still have teamwork.” One of the major changes that the players have noticed is that Takaki focuses more on conditioning and weight training. Takaki acknowledges that although the transition between coaches might be challenging at first, she has high hopes for the team. “Since the team has had a successful run the past few years, the expectations are high,” said Takaki. “However, they graduated some strong seniors, so the girls on the team will now have shoes to fill. But I think they’ll be able to take on that role.”
ILLUSTRATION BY URMILA VENKATARAMANI
ith a new sports season comes changes. This year, both girls’ and boys’ basketball have to adjust to new coaches, as well as the new philosophies that will be implemented. Boys’ basketball- Jeremy Kitchen Jeremy Kitchen, also one of Lynbrook’s athletic directors, is the varsity boys’ basketball coach. Kitchen decided to take a two-year hiatus from coaching basketball after coaching for the previous 15 years. He has previously coached Hamilton Central School’s boys’ basketball team in upstate New York for three years right after college, then basketball teams in Japan for three years, Downtown College Prep’s basketball team for two years and, from 2006-2012, the Lynbrook varsity girls’ basketball team. After the position for the boys’ varsity basketball coach became available, Kitchen thought it would be a good opportunity. “I really missed being part of the basketball program,” said Kitchen. “I was excited about coaching the boys. They have a lot of potential to do some good things.” Coming into the season, Kitchen has a set of goals for the team. “As a coach, I hope that we’re going to work harder than other teams and be defen-
sively competitive and effective at putting on ball pressure during games,” said Kitchen. Some of the players have already noticed a change in coaching style. “Coach Kitchen focuses on things such as defense, rebounding, and offensive execution,” said senior Varun Parthasarathy. “Last year, most of the focus was directed toward perimeter shooting. We play more like a team under Coach Kitchen.” Although the team is experiencing change, Kitchen does not anticipate a difficult transition. Since the boys’ basketball team has a large senior class and Kitchen was able to work with them over summer, he does not think that there will be a huge learning curve. With all this in mind, Kitchen is looking forward to the upcoming season. “I’m excited for the guys to play some really exciting games this year,” said Kitchen. “Hopefully, they can get the school excited about basketball.” Girls’ basketball-Lynley Takaki Lynley Takaki, the new coach for the girls’ varsity basketball team, has played and coached a variety of youth sports. During high school, she participated in basketball, field hockey and badminton; during college, she played club field hockey. In addition to having coached the JV girls’ basketball team at Leland High School, she is currently coach-
Stop the stigmitizing against female strength BY URMILA VENKATARAMANI
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am the first to admit that I am weak. I can barely do one push-up-modified. That’s why it’s hard to understand why I was so annoyed when I saw an article in the New York Times titled “Why Women Can’t Do Pull-Ups.” Sure, the article provided pretty substantial evidence as to why, biologically, it’s more difficult for females than males: men have more muscle mass, whereas women have a higher percentage of body fat. The article was based on medical fact, but there was one little part that made it so incendiary. It’s the absolute title that declares that women, as a group, cannot do pull-ups. Why is there such a stigma against girls becoming stronger? Whenever I’ve expressed my (obviously yet unfulfilled)
desire to go to the weight room and work out, there’s always at least one girl who cries, “Ew! I don’t want to get buff!” In seventh grade, when we had to do skills testing for P.E., most of the guys would line up at the pull-up bars, waiting their turn to show off how manly they were by how many times they could lift their chins over the bar. Most of the girls, on the other hand, would crowd over by the parallel bars, talking and giggling and attempting modified pull-ups. I always felt somewhat degraded that we were relegated to quasi pull-ups. Sometimes, it’s the pressure society places on women to be feminine that discourages them from doing anything that would be considered unfeminine. Several years ago, Caster Semenya, a South African middistance runner, sparked controversy about her gender, since
she had naturally high testosterone levels. Dutee Chand, an Indian sprinter, was banned from the sport due to high levels of testosterone. Both of these women were considered more masculine than feminine, despite having been brought up as girls, all because of their physical aptitude. The idea that men are naturally stronger than women manifests itself clearly in our lives, and society is harsh towards those who don’t fill their assigned gender roles, such as Semenya and Chand. Women are often empowered to be mentally strong, but what does that mean if they can’t be physically strong if they want to be? We don’t need gender roles to define our strength. I’m not going to be told how strong I can or can’t be. It’s harder for tall, long-armed people to do pull-ups as well, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And the same goes for girls.
STEPHANIE LU — EPIC
STEPHANIE LU — EPIC
KATSURI PANTVAIDYA — EPIC
STEPHANIE LU — EPIC
BY STEPHANIE LU
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ynbrook students show us the many facets of an everyday beverage: tea. No matter the variant--Indian chai, Turkish tea, or good old herbal tea--the warmth of community underscores the act of drinking tea. Top left: sophomore Mihir Pandaya adds sugar to freshly brewed masala chai, made by brewing black tea leaves in hot water and milk with a mixture of Indian spices. “Whenever you see two Indian people talking it’s always over coffee or tea. It puts a friendly feel on everything,” said Pandaya. “But you don’t really see the current generation of Indians sitting down and drinking tea.” Middle left: junior Ted Leung sips berry tea in his garden while reading Grapes of Wrath. Leung has been drinking caffeinated tea since his Hong Kong childhood—
”force-fed tea,” in his own words. (Thankfully this has not stunted his height.) “Tea is something I usually always have with someone else,” said Leung. “For me, it’s not something to drink alone.” Bottom and bottom left: junior Meryem Guler adds milk to a glass of Turkish tea. Turkish tea is not traditionally drunk with milk, but plain tea is too strong for Guler. The tea is brewed in a çaydanlık (bottom left); the upper part is used to make the concentrated tea while water boils in the lower part. To prepare the tea, one pours hot water and tea concentrate at once. ”Tea is a huge part of Turkish culture,” said Guler. “If you go to, say, a barbershop in Turkey, someone from across the street will come over with a tray of tea.”