The Spectator“The Pulse

of the Student Body”

The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

stuyspec.comMarch 4, 2014Volume CIV No. 10

From corsets to manskirts, iconic fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier exhibits his interpretation of fashion in the world around us.

Features Article on page 6

Check out our spread of writers on pages (6-8), and enjoy some excerpts of their award-winning work!

A&EArticle on page 18.

And the Winners Are... A Revolutionary Designer Visits Brooklyn

Stuyvesant alumnus Richard •Buery was appointed Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initia-tives. Buery will focus on mak-ing citywide universal pre-K a reality and will oversee the “Children’s Cabinet,” which is tasked with improving the city’s children’s services agencies.

The Stuyvesant Model Unit-•ed Nations team won Best Large Delegation at the Johns Hopkins Model United Na-tions Conference. Eleven Stuyvesant students won individual awards for their work at the conference, which had nearly 2,000 attendees.

The attendance rate for all •New York City public school students was 45 percent on Thursday, February 13. The at-tendance rate for Stuyvesant students was 80 percent on that day. Though several schools opted to dismiss students early due to the inclement weather, Stuyvesant did not.

Eight Stuyvesant students in the •Junior Statesmen of America club won Best Speaker Awards at their annual Winter Congress.

The three Stuyvesant Science •Olympiad teams each placed in the top ten at a competi-tion at Grover Cleveland High School, qualifying them for the New York State finals.

Sixteen Stuyvesant stu-•dents were nominated as candidates in the Presi-dential Scholars Program.

Manhattan Assistant District •Attorney Duane Henson vis-ited the Criminal Law class of social studies teacher Linda Weissman. Henson spoke to the students about hate crimes and their relationship with free speech.

NewsbeatBy TiNa JiaNg

with additional reporting by ariel levy

For sophomore Rahul Deb-nath, getting to school the morning after the winter storm the week of February 10-14 was quite a hassle. Trekking through the slushy and dirty snow with a pair of soaked shoes, Deb-nath was met with a set of icy stairs that led to the Tribeca Bridge. Debnath would end up nearly tripping twice due to the dangerous conditions near the bridge. The Tribeca Bridge is the pedestrian foot bridge that lies on top of West Street, inter-secting Chambers Street where it connects Stuyvesant High School with the rest of Tribeca.

Though the Tribeca Bridge is primarily used by Stuyvesant students, it was built by the Bat-tery Park City Authority (BPCA). Thus, maintenance is in the hands of BPCA, not Stuyvesant.

Abiding by this fact, As-sistant Principal of Security, Safety, and Student Affairs Brian Moran states that the school’s responsibilities go as far as contacting those who are obligated to maintain it. “Every time it snows, we make sure that we inform BMCC [Borough of Manhattan Com-munity College], Battery Park, and the Parks Department. Whoever it is that is in charge of removing that snow, we make sure we call them if there is an unsafe condition. If they do not handle it properly, there are other ways we can deal with the situation. We ask the custodians to chip in, even though it is not their responsi-bility. Sometimes, staff mem-bers chip in too,” Moran said.

Sophomore Sophia Zheng agreed. “I feel as if Stuyvesant should not be responsible for the snow on the Tribeca Bridge. The bridge is not exclu-sively for Stuy and is for pub-lic use; therefore the lack of care on the bridge should not be blamed on Stuy,” she said.

However, the 10 million dollar bridge was built in or-der to allow students to enter Stuyvesant without having to cross the busy West Street be-low. Thus, many argue that the school itself should do main-tenance work more aggres-sively. “The bridge was built specifically with student safety in mind, so the fact that it be-comes a hazard for students is pretty embarrassing. The school is supposed to keep kids safe, and even though they don’t own the bridge, it wouldn’t be that hard for them to help clear the steps in the morning and keep kids safer,” senior Becca Sanford said.

In addition to problems associated with snow on the bridge, the Stuyvesant admin-istration struggles with other student safety problems, such as trespassers on the bridge.

A few days earlier, sopho-more Young Kim reported walking out of the Chambers Street train station when a man grabbed him outside of Mc-Donalds and said “go home” while pointing to Stuyvesant. Kim kept walking but the per-son continued to follow him, pushed him, and walked with him into the school. When Kim entered Stuyvesant, he immediately ran to Moran who called the security guards to take the man outside.

Even though the events

transpired on the bridge, in this situation, Moran, along with several security guards, took it into their own hands to bring the man out of the school. Mo-ran cited Nexus as the reason that the school dealt with this situation in a different manner than they did with the snow. “Nexus is a term that means we are to be held accountable for our students during transpor-tation. If a student gets hurt on the way to school or going home from school, the school still has a responsibility to that student. I work along with the deans and school safety to make sure that the people coming into this building be-long in this building,” he said.

In addition to this, the oc-casional build-up of students has created a situation that Moran believes equates to ac-tion by the school. The most notable occasion on which this occurred was the last day of the 2012-2013 school year, when masses of students stood on the bridge after dismissal. Moran and several security guards took it upon them-

selves to remove the students. Even so, many believe that

because the bridge is not exclu-sively Stuyvesant’s, school se-curity cannot kick students off the bridge. “It’s a public bridge, there are no ‘no loitering’ signs, and even if there were, it would have to be NYPD kick-ing us off the bridge, not the Stuyvesant security guards,” freshman Jason Lanzman said.

In general, however, al-though Battery Park owns the bridge, Stuyvesant often takes large steps to maintain it. As of now, according to Moran, the relationship between Battery Park and Stuyvesant is work-ing well enough and should not be a cause of worry. “We take action any time there is something going on that is in-appropriate or causes a safety risk. If our students are en-gaged in something danger-ous or their safety is at risk, it’s the school’s responsibility to make sure we do everything we can to maintain the safety of our students,” Moran said.

A Look Inside the Tribeca Bridge

Uncertainties Revolved Around Lockdown Drills

By HyuN JiN Kim and JeNNifer lee

Sophomore Chris Cheon was playing viola in Stuyvesant’s sym-phonic orchestra during fifth period when the lockdown drill began. The orchestra, however, completely occupied with one of Tchaikovsky’s pieces, was unaware that the lockdown drill had even started. The timbre and volume of the music had masked the an-nouncements and only those clos-est to the loudspeakers caught it. But when no one else moved to follow the lockdown procedure, they focused back on playing.

A lockdown drill is intended to prepare students to act in case an infiltrator, such as a terrorist or an armed student, enters the school.

This drill enlists all individu-als in the building to follow a spe-cific procedure: teachers must look down the hallway for wandering students and bring them into their classrooms. Afterwards, the doors must be locked, the lights must be turned off, and the door win-

dows must be covered with a sheet of paper to obscure the intruder’s view of the classroom’s interior.

In addition, students and staff must stay out of sight from all windows in case the infiltrator is armed. Students have termed this “huddling,” since they often huddle in a corner together away from the door and window. Stu-dents can assist their teacher with the procedure by taking the initia-tive to move away from sight at the beginning of the drill instead of waiting for their teacher to ask them. Faculty and administration members in their lunch period are also supposed to turn the lights off, lock the door, and stay quiet for the entire duration of the drill.

Principal Jie Zhang herself has dragged students from the hallway into her office for the duration of the drill. “Every single individual in the building has to follow, even if you’re in the bathroom. You’re supposed to stay where you are,” Zhang said.

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Stuyvesant Pool Officially Reopens for Normal Use

By Julia iNgram

On Wednesday, February 12, when an announcement was made over the loudspeaker

during 9th period that the boy’s swim teams practice would be at Stuyvesant, the members of the team were ecstatic. Ever since the pool closed down for renovations in June 2012, the

team has practiced at Seward Park High School. However, their last practice before the team finals was at the Stuyve-sant High School pool. “We had no idea we were going to prac-tice at Stuy beforehand,” senior and swim team captain Kevin Lee said. “Every day, we would just assume that we would be practicing at Seward Park. But then he made an announce-ment we would be practicing at Stuy, and it was just really great.”

“When I heard the an-nouncement, I squealed in the middle of silent reading, so I guess you could say I was really, really excited,” senior and swim team member Grace Sun said.

The pool previously had to close down due to issues with the pool deck and tiles. The

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News

Page 2 The Spectator ● march 4, 2014

The Programs They Are a Changin’By SoNia ePSTeiN

As usual, the start of the new term brought an audito-rium flooded with students waiting for program changes, which were held for juniors and seniors on Tuesday, Feb-ruary 4, and for freshmen and sophomores one day later. Although crowds of students still sought schedule changes, the process ran more smooth-ly than it had in the past.

Freshman Pardeep Singh shared his experience with the program correction process. “It took me twenty minutes to get my schedule changed and then I was able to leave,” he said.

This was because a new system was implemented this semester to improve the ef-ficiency of program changes. First, as students entered the auditorium, they received a large purple ticket with a num-ber that corresponded to the time at which they arrived. This larger ticket served as a way of ensuring that students were helped according to when they entered. Later, smaller slips were distributed. These also had a number as well as a spe-cific color according to subject the student needed to address. “We’ve been trying to make this more organized since the fall…. The idea is to help peo-ple in a safer, fairer fashion,” Assistant Principal of Admin-istration Brian Moran said.

When the subject and ticket numbers were an-nounced—such as “English

and Social Studies, 1-10”—the students could walk up to the stage. There, they were able to share their concerns with guidance counselors and assistant principals.

In past years, students had to stand on lines to change their schedules. People would cut the indistinct lines in an attempt to reach assistant principals or guidance coun-selors. Many students were pleased with the changes that were introduced. Junior

Alex Chung noted some of the new changes as he waited for his ticket number to be

called. “This year the faculty sits separately on the stage, away from the chaos,” he said.

The new system allowed the administration to conclude the period for program chang-es earlier than it was able to in the past. According to Princi-pal Jie Zhang, most schedules were settled by Friday, Febru-ary 7. Students and teachers were also able leave school on time, unlike in previous years.

In an e-mail sent on Feb-ruary 3, which contained in-formation regarding program changes, Assistant Principal of Guidance Casey Pedrick dis-tinguished between two types of schedule changes. “Needs,” such as requesting a missing lunch period or a class required to graduate, could be attended to at any time in the guidance suite. “Wants,” changes desired simply to make students happy (such as switching teachers or adding electives), could only be addressed in the audito-rium at the designated times.

Students were pleased that the faculty acknowledged that they had “wants,” and were hopeful that they would be ad-dressed. In some cases, they were. “I got all of my ‘wants’ because I was one of the first people up on the stage,” said Singh, whose program was adjusted almost immediately.

However, those who were further back on the same line weren’t as pleased. “I waited a long time to get up to the stage, only to be told by the assistant principal that they were not

accepting teacher changes, which was what I had wanted. I felt that they didn’t even lis-ten to me, and that I was shut off,” freshman Han Oo said.

Zhang is aware that there were many requests for teach-er changes. “While we must re-spond to the emotional needs of our students, we cannot complete program changes on as much of a personal a level as we would like,” she said.

One complication for many students was that the Ameri-can Mathematics Competi-tions (AMC) examination was held on the same day as pro-gram changes for juniors and

seniors. This conflict, however, seems to have been inevitable. The AMC always requires a shortened school day, and the period of time allotted for the test this semester was the same period of time during which juniors and seniors were able to get program changes. As Zhang explained, Stuyvesant needs to receive approval for shortened days. Each of these opportunities is too valuable to waste, and Stuyvesant could not afford to shorten extra days by administering the AMC exam and offering program changes on different days.

But the sheer number of students seeking to adjust their schedules indicates that the problems underlying students’ schedules must still be ad-dressed. “The electives selec-tion process must be reviewed, and there are not enough sec-tions of some classes,” Zhang said. Unfortunately, however, the programming office has found that there are not enough physical classrooms to accom-modate many new classes.

Presently, solutions to over-flow in some classes are be-ing discussed. Zhang hopes to make program changes more efficient in coming years by conducting them online. Additionally, Zhang welcomes feedback from all students, hoping to improve the process. “Ultimately, the goal is to make each term as smooth as possible,” she said.

Stuyvesant Pool Officially Reopens for Normal Use

initial design allowed water to get under the floor, caus-ing corrosion in the pipes.

Various administrators took the time to see the boys take their first splash in the pool, including Principal Jie Zhang, Assistant Principal of Organi-zation Rodriguez-Tabone, and Assistant Principal of Heath and Physical Education Larry Barth. Some members of the girls swim team were at the practice as well, eager to take part in the event. “It was re-ally great to see them be able to experience the pool for the last time. The girls team didn’t get to do it, but we know how much fun we can have in the pool,” senior and swim team member Felicia How said.

The reopening of the pool is especially exciting to seniors, who get one last practice at Stuyvesant before they gradu-ate. At the end of the practice, the seniors on the team had a moment of silence by the pool.

“It was an introspective moment, to say the least, and it made it quite emotional and meaningful,” senior and swim team member Glib Do-lotov said. “I’m really glad that I got one last practice in the pool before leaving.”

Practicing at a different school had previously affected the confidence of the team. “The morale definitely shot up after that one day at the pool,” Dolotov said. “I felt the

difference between last year’s finals and this year’s finals.”

Regular swimming classes will continue in addition to the swim team’s practicing at Stuyvesant. This semester, there are five freshman swim-ming classes and one junior lifeguarding class. Due to the unavailability of the pool last semester, the swimming class-es this semester will be more focused on teaching freshman how to swim, so there will be no advanced swimming class-es. Since the Heath and Physi-cal Education Department was not able to administer the swim test for incoming fresh-man at the beginning of the year, they conducted a phone survey this year asking students about their swimming abili-ties. Next year, the swim test for entering freshman will be administered as usual. Teach-ers and students alike are eager to continue with the normal course of swimming classes.

“Having the pool back opens up different doors for us now that we can utilize the pool in a way after school and dur-ing school, and it’s nice to have that available to us,” Physical Education teacher and swim team coach Peter Bologna said.

“It’s just good to have the pool back. The teachers were anxious to get back to teach-ing their classes,” Assistant Principle of Physical Educa-tion Larry Barth said. “Swim-ming is one of the best class-es the school has to offer.”

Uncertainties Revolved Around Lockdown Drills

Stuyvesant had its first lock-down drill of the year on Monday, February 3rd, 2014. This one was a soft lockdown drill, which is per-formed when there is no identified imminent danger to the students and staff in the building. During the drill, administrators, the Build-ing Response Team, and School Safety Agents are responsible for being at their designated positions where they await further directions.

Hard lockdowns, which Stuyve-sant has yet to experience, occur when there is an imminent danger to the people in the school build-ing. In these scenarios, the New York Police Department becomes involved in detaining the intruder. In both soft and hard lockdown drills, teachers and students are to follow the same procedure.

Some students who have fol-lowed the drill enjoy the small break from work that the lock-down provides. “I see why people find them important because of school safety, but I like them be-cause they waste class time,” soph-omore Constantin Flocos said.

An anonymous junior ex-pressed a contrasting opinion. “I find [the drills] irritating [because] you have to stop a class, huddle in a corner, turn off all lights, and stop learning. If you have AP’s in that class, you have to work—you can’t be huddling in a corner,” she said.

Aside from controversy on the usefulness of lockdowns, many students are also unaware of what lockdowns are. Junior Kevin Yip was clueless when asked for his opinion regarding the drills. “What are lockdown drills?” he said. Most, like Yip, did not under-stand the term “lockdown drill” but recalled school experiences of lockdowns where teachers locked the door and turned off the light.

A large number of faculty members stressed the importance

of following safety regulation pro-cedures, especially after multiple classes disregarded the drill on Monday. “These drills are impor-tant, and we have seen schools go into real lockdowns due to a neighborhood event…we con-ceptually want to make [these drills] very serious,” said Zhang.

The Department of Educa-tion (DOE) has recently increased the number of drills to be execut-ed. After they are completed, the drills must be logged into a very rigorous online system. Every drill that’s logged in is then confirmed by the DOE to see if it satisfied the set requirements. These require-ments include the identifying the person conducting the drill, iden-tifying the date/time of the drill, explaining how the drill was no-tified, identifying staff members on duty, reporting any problems encountered, and stating the time required to accomplish the drill.

A few faculty members are not in support of the lockdowns. Senior Marlena Lui reported that many of the teachers she had af-ter the lockdown drill completely bashed the drill and complained about how it took up class time.

Other teachers expressed reluc-tance towards following the proce-dure but understood the necessity of these drills. “I think that it is a sad reality that lockdown drills are important and essential… it’s re-ally unfortunate that gun violence in schools is so prevalent that stu-dents and teachers need to prac-tice what to do in the event of an intruder in the building,” English teacher Katherine Fletcher said.

While some faculty members have not been completing lock-down drills, the others, and the DOE, take lockdown drills seriously and complete the procedure rigor-ously to prepare for unexpected events that may happen any day. “There’s a lot going on in the world and in the city, and you never know what could happen. So we shouldn’t

take drills lightly,” Physical Educa-tion teacher Peter Bologna said.

Multiple students were doubt-ful that the lockdown drill was ef-ficient at all, even if students and teachers alike practiced the drills rigorously. “My friend, who’s in chorus, along with about a hun-dred other students, said they just turned off the lights and stayed quiet. If a predator was in our school, how does that protect us?” sophomore Kristen Chang said.

Freshman Nicole Kafarova shared a similar opinion. “l think [lockdowns] are very pointless be-cause saying that there is a lock-down drill defeats the purpose of hiding since an intruder will now know that everyone is hiding. In my old school the code was, ‘Please send Form A to the principal’s of-fice,’ which we all knew meant [it was a] lockdown drill and could be used in a real situation… the current lockdown drills teach nothing to the students about what do during an actual lockdown and just waste time and effort,” Kafarova said.

However, Lui believes that the drills should be practiced regard-less of the efficiency. She said, “I un-derstand it takes class time, but it’s only like, five minutes. It’s not that much anyway… Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to practice them. It wouldn’t make us any less prepared.”

The administration is planning to take action soon to increase the effectiveness of lockdowns. “Just think[ing] about the history of Stuyvesant and the recent incidents or tragedies in New York City, we will try to make an effort to better educate students and teachers. We certainly want to make it more se-rious,” Zhang said. She is planning on making changes to the drills to make them more efficient, and be-lieves student cooperation would help. “We wish to let the students know they should not talk, at least, and also [follow] the directions.”

continued from page 1

continued from page 1

“The idea is to help people in a

safer, fairer fashion.” —

Brian moran, assistant

Principal of administration

accordingto Principal Jie

Zhang, most schedules were

settled by friday, february 7.

Students and teachers were also able leave school on time,

unlike in previousyears.

Page 3The Spectator ●march 4, 2014

The Unsung Heroes of StuyvesantBy gaBriel roSeN

and ariel levy

Assistant Principal of Guid-ance Casey Pedrick arrived at Stuyvesant High School on Monday, February 3 bearing a cake she had baked herself. Pedrick delivered an appre-ciative speech to the gathered guidance staff, and unveiled the cake with frosted letter-ing: “We Love Stuy Counsel-ors.” It was the first occasion in a series of week-long cel-ebrations marking National School Counseling Week.

An annual celebration in the wake of college application deadlines, National School Counseling Week spanned the week of February 3 to February 7 this year. Pedrick took charge of organizing the celebration, which she noted is usually not officially observed at Stuyve-sant. As the new Assistant Prin-cipal, Pedrick was inspired by The High School for Arts and Business, her previous school, to begin celebrations. “I want our guidance counselors to be treated in the manner that they deserve to be treated,” Pe-drick said. “I hope that this will be just the start of improving students’ impressions of our counselors.” Throughout the week, the hallways of Stuyve-

sant were flooded with stu-dents and faculty bearing stick-ers stating, “I love my guidance counselor,” which were dis-tributed from Pedrick’s office.

Guidance counselors were enthusiastic about the cel-ebrations. “This is the first year [observance of National School Counseling Week] has been organized so well that the whole school recognizes it, and kids actually put the stickers on and came and said ‘thank you’,” guidance

counselor Vivien Ngai said.Even so, the guidance de-

partment gained true gratifica-tion from the community’s ap-preciation. “It’s not the material or the food, but the spirit of rec-ognition that makes these cele-brations so special,” Ngai said.

Guidance counselor John Mui agreed. “While the cele-brations were a very kind mea-sure on the part of the Stuyve-sant community as a whole, all in all, we’re happy enough to know that the students we work with appreciate us,” he said.

The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) sponsors National School Counseling Week. As it states on the ASCA website, the event is celebrated annually in the first week of February to “focus public attention on the unique contribution of professional school counselors within U.S. school systems [and highlight] the tremendous impact school counselors can have in help-ing students achieve school success and plan for a career.” Both the College Board, which mailed special gifts to counsel-ors such as pencil cases, and the United Teachers Federa-tion recognize National School Counseling Week as well.

Many students wore Pe-drick’s stickers as a sign of ap-

preciation for their counselor’s work on college applications. “It’s difficult to put into words the amount of work the guid-ance counselors do for each stu-dent; they interview you, write your SSR, and work in collabo-ration with the college office to make sure that your chances for acceptance to the college of your choice are maximized,” senior Zeerak Abbas said.

Sophomore Kristen Chang wore a sticker in recognition of the guidance department’s support in other aspects of student life. “For the most part, [the counselors are] all great, whether it comes to dealing with a schedule or with per-sonal matters,” Chang said of the guidance counselors. “I find teen drama drab and cliché, but everyone inevita-bly gets tied up in some emo-tional spectacle at one point or another. I had my guidance counselor on my side when I was really stressed, and she was amazingly supportive.”

Principal Jie Zhang sup-ported the enthusiasm for these celebrations, even wear-ing a sticker herself. “Ob-servance of National School Counseling Week is a tradition that I would definitely like to see continued,” Zhang said.

“i want our guidance

counselors to be treated in the

manner that they deserve to be

treated. i hope that this will be just the start of

improving students’

impressions of our counselors.” —Casey Pedrick,

assistant Principal of

guidance

News

Snow Days This Year Snow Fall This Season Average Temperature, Jan 2014

75.6”Record Snowfall (1996)

28.6º56.6”16Snow Days Since 1960

Barnes and Noble and Whole Food’s Policies for Students During Finals Week

By JeNNy yaNgand JordaN ZHou

With finals week under-way, hundreds of Stuyvesant students chattered anima-tedly as they headed towards Barnes and Noble and Whole Foods in attempt to seek ref-uge from the harsh weather outside. In response to the flood of students, Barnes and Noble restricted students to certain areas of the store. When asked for the reasoning behind this action, Store Man-ager Michelle Edson said that “The customers complained that the volume of people’s voices were too high and dis-ruptive to the point where our customers had reported that they could clearly hear them from the escalators.” Edson continued to explain that customers also had difficulty shopping at Barnes and Noble due to the amount of students occupying the floor area.

In response to the growing problem of overcrowding by

Stuyvesant students, Edson “decided to assign designated spots to accommodate Stuy kids during finals week… We removed the chairs near the windows at the music section and expanded the area at the stroller parking section. This system was very effective and succeeded in clearing up the store the next day when stu-dents stayed there to study. We accommodated quite a number of students that day.”

Edson clarified that this problem of overcrowding was exclusive to finals week and normally didn’t occur. “We didn’t have as many students coming to Barnes and Nobles the previous years as we did this year. Whereas previous years there would be around 100 students at Barnes and Nobles during finals week, there were approximately 300 students at the store dur-ing this year’s finals week. Again, we believe that this is due to the inclement weather and the number of tests that

were scheduled that day.” Sophomore Fairuz Naoer

recounted her personal expe-rience at Barnes and Noble. “I was there during finals week. It was very crowded and people were studying. Some associates told them to move away from aisles…I could understand, but Stuy students are a good portion of their business,” she said. She furthered mentioned that there are relatively few places around Stuyvesant as accom-modating as Barnes and No-ble and Whole Foods where students can stay comfort-ably and study with friends.

Similar problems oc-curred at Whole Foods, where students filled the sec-ond floor dining area of the store. Students were crowd-ing around tables, and were asked by store managers to leave because they interfered with the regular lunch rush.

“Unfortunately, I have to agree with the actions of Whole Foods and Barnes and

Nobles,” junior Norman Li said. “If visitors or patrons (in this case Stuyvesant students) become unruly or uncoop-erative, they are allowed to re-move students off of the prem-ises since it’s private property.”

With such an effective sys-tem in place, Edson explained that Barnes and Noble will continue to cooperate with As-sistant Principal of Organiza-tion Brian Moran for upcom-ing finals in June. Moran will send out a school-wide email prior to finals week in June to inform students of the study areas around Stuyvesant, as well as the designated spots which students are allowed to occupy at Barnes and Noble and Whole Foods. Although Barnes and Noble profits from students’ purchases, Ed-son said, “We need balance between accommodating as many students as we can as well as accommodating cus-tomers who visit our stores.”

“We need balance between

accommodating as many students as we can as well

as accommodating customers who visit our stores.” —Store manager michelle edson

Features

“it’s not the material or the

food, but the spirit of

recognition that makes these

celebrations so special.”

—vivien Ngai, guidance Counselor

Features

Page 4 The Spectator ● march 4, 2014

By miCHelle CHaN

Five cubes are placed in front of him and he is given time to inspect each of them. He turns every one of them over multiple times, taking note of the colored squares and possible patterns. A blindfold is then lowered over his eyes. Once the timer starts, his fingers shift at an incredible speed and he solves all five cubes in 40 minutes and 31 seconds! This amazing cube solver is Bran-don Lin, currently a sophomore in Stuyvesant High School. He is a competitor in the World Cube Association, and holds a first place North American record for Square-1 Rubik’s Cube Aver-age, sixth place World Record for the Square-1 Rubik’s Cube Aver-age, and first place in the Conti-nental Record for Rubik’s Magic.

Lin got his first Rubik’s Cube as a birthday present when he was seven years old. At the time, he didn’t immediately love the cube. It was only a few years later when “several kids in [his] school were also doing this,” that he began to develop this passion. “Simultaneously, in the summer of 2010, I just decided to look up how to solve one,” he said. Unlike many people, Lin really enjoyed his experience of trying to solve a cube, and didn’t find it confusing at all. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to be good at math to be a great Rubik’s Cube solver. “It just re-quires a little bit of patience and a little visual skill, and you need to have a slightly decent memory considering you have certain se-quences to remember,” Lin said.

A standard 3x3 Rubik’s Cube

has over 40 quintillion combina-tions, which is 40 followed by an astounding 18 zeroes. In order to solve a Rubik’s Cube in a timely fashion, one would obviously need a certain set of sequences to follow. Most Rubik’s cube solvers use the Fridrich Method, which is the method that Lin uses. When Lin solves the cube, he quickly notices patterns and tricks which he uses to expedite the process. “Well, I just look for familiar patterns that correspond to a certain move sequence, and look for a way to efficiently use less moves than usual. The rest is just muscle memory. To make these easy to remember, I give each case a name. Like for one, I would call it “crab” because it kinda resembled a crab,” Lin said. He practices solving Ru-bik’s Cubes every day, and of-ten brings a cube with him to school. However, when bogged down by a lot of schoolwork, he only practices for a few minutes.

All of this practice is put to the test at cubing tournaments, which Lin attends regularly. If you walked into a typical cubing tournament, you would prob-ably be overwhelmed by the huge number of Rubik’s cube stars twisting their cubes so quickly that you can only make out a blur of colors. “It might be quite intimidating to see all the people, but you can start getting to know people, and then that’s how you can get really fast, by in-teracting with other people that can also do the cube,” Lin said.

His first competition was in the summer of 2011 in up-state New York. “Initially I was pretty nervous. Then some guy

started talking to me when I was at the front solving. And that’s essentially how I made cubing friends at competitions, and I was no longer very nervous,”

Lin said. “My first average was there, and it wasn’t that great. It was like 33 seconds. So, after that, that’s when I really started getting into cubing and look-ing up certain techniques.” Lin has made remarkable progress and cut his time for the regular 3x3 cube in half, as his current average is around 14 seconds.

Lin competes with various different cubes, his best being the Square-1, which is similar to the regular 3x3 Rubik’s Cube. It has three layers, with the top and bottom layer having a to-tal of eight kite and eight tri-angular pieces. Those pieces are placed in an alternating se-

quence and form a square. The middle layer contains two trap-ezoid pieces, which also form a square in its solved state. This particular cube was the first event he got an award for at the competition, which moti-vated him to work harder on the Square-1 than his other cubes.

As a passionate Rubik’s Cube solver, Lin organized his own club in Stuyvesant, solely dedicated for Rubik’s Cubes, called Speed Cubed. The club’s intention is to foster a stronger interest in Ru-bik’s Cubes in students, or train those who already know how to solve them to become even fast-er. They hold small competitions within themselves, and last year hosted a competition open to all public high school students.

Lin also has his own YouTube channel, called “brandbestawe-some”. This name has a unique history, as he originally wanted the name to be “brandbest1”, which is also the name of his email that he created back in fourth grade. However, he had to settle for “brandbestawesome” because “brandbest1” was taken by a user who had posted one video, which only got 60 views. Lin has clearly surpassed brand-best1, with 232 subscribers and over 1,500 views on some of his videos. His channel consists of videos of himself solving various Rubik’s Cubes, his competitions, and tutorials. Lin has posted videos of him solving the Ru-bik’s Cube, 2x2 Cube, 4x4 Cube, 5x5 Cube, Megaminx, Pyraminx, Square-1, and Rubik’s Clock.

Lin has most certainly come a long way. When he first started his cubing journey, his father

was against it. “I wanted to go to some competitions, but I think my dad kinda got mad at me,” Lin said. These tournaments are very time consuming as they often require traveling outside of New York. Although cubing was Lin’s passion and he felt it was worth-while, his father thought other-wise. “At one point he kinda said that cubing is kinda useless,” Lin said. Even so, Lin persisted and continued practicing every day and competing in tournaments. Now both his mom and dad are very supportive of him and his success. Lin is likewise proud of his accomplishments, and when asked for one final message concerning Rubik’s Cubes, Lin protested one common Rubik’s cuber stereotype with the words, “It’s not as nerdy as you think.”

By david BaNg and liSa SHi

If Lisa Brando were not working as a history teacher, she might be called “Agent Brando” as she lifts weights in the gym, training for her next assignment in the FBI. And if she were not in the FBI, she would be called “Dr. Brando” as she crouches down to investigate the remains of Native Americans. However, Brando, a New York City native with a wide range of interests and love for turkey sandwich-es, was content with “Ms.” as her appellation and decided to follow her true calling to be-come a history teacher. Brando joined the Stuyvesant faculty at the beginning of 2014’s spring term, and is replacing his-tory teacher Berta Feldman.

Although teachers coming halfway through the year are

rare occurrences, Brando’s pas-sion and experience more than make up for her sudden trans-fer to Stuyvesant. Brando did not decide to become a teacher until 2006, but education has always been something she treasured. “I always had a love of history, from even before high school so…history was my favorite subject and pas-sion,” she said. But her passion goes beyond history itself, and to education in general. “Ac-cess to good public education is important, not only for the individual and their success, but for the success of a society,” Brando said. Brando’s experi-ence as a student at Townsend Harris contributed to her urge to become a teacher, because she remembers her teachers and their impact on her lifestyle.

One particularly profound experience Brando had during high school was a conversa-

tion she had with an archeolo-gist. “It really fascinated me,” Brando said. “[So] I decided to take a course as an undergrad and really enjoyed it, so I took more courses in the discipline of anthropology.” Anthropol-ogy, the study of cultures, was “linked together with history, which is like a social studies.” She was interested in many dif-ferent forms of anthropology, from linguistic anthropology (the study of languages in dif-ferent cultures) to medical an-thropology (the study of human health and disease), but even-tually decided to get a master’s degree in medical anthropology.

Brando further fed this in-terest by spending two of her college summers on archaeol-ogy excavations to the Cahokia Mounds at Southwestern Il-linois. These mounds were built by the Native Americans. The main goal of the excava-tions was to find a piece of a woodhenge, similar to Stone-henge, which was used in cul-tural events and to tell time as the sun reflected shadows over the course of the day. Brando stayed there for six weeks over the summer, working around eight hours a day. Although her own mound didn’t contain any artifacts, she recalls that, “the most exciting part was when there were some people who had found some pottery.” She remembers it being hard work, but she was ecstatic to work on the project and felt that it helped her learn about the work and dedication in large archaeologi-cal excavations. Brando hopes to share her expertise in an-thropology with Stuyvesant by

founding an anthropology club.It was during Brando’s col-

lege years, when she was a teaching assistant at the Uni-versity of Colorado at Denver, that she discovered her love for teaching. Of course, she always loved learning, but admits to not having been a perfect stu-dent. “I experienced bouts of laziness, but I was on time and I tried to be prepared,” Brando said. Still, she “was engaged and thought critically about the ma-terial.” She feels her experience as a student has taught her to have reasonable expectations from her pupils. Brando admits that, at first, she was disappoint-ed when certain children didn’t reach her standards, but under-stood over time that learning to be more flexible with school-work was beneficial to both the students and the teachers.

Before teaching at Stuyve-sant, Brando taught at Univer-sity Neighborhood High School and Sunset Park High School. The reason for her transfer to Stuyvesant was because of the reputation. “The student ex-pectations here at Stuy are very close to my own expectations,” she said. Brando was especially enthralled with how Stuyvesant students were so focused on school and held education in such high regard. She was ex-cited to see hard working stu-dents who were determined to learn. When questioned about her impression now that she is at Stuyvesant, Brando talked about a brief writing assign-ment she gave to her students. “Students’ personalities started to come through in their writ-ing and it was insightful as

well as touching, emotionally,” she said. She felt as though she could connect to their ambition and enthusiasm as well as a “touch of honesty.”

Although Brando is already a teacher and happy with her job, she admits that some-times she wonders about what would have happened if she hadn’t discovered her love for teaching. Brando has consid-ered numerous different career paths, ranging from anthro-pology to the FBI, and has not given up on these interests.

Brando was first introduced to the FBI by her family mem-bers, as her uncle and some of her cousins have careers in fed-eral law enforcement. Following in their footsteps, Brando went through the “long and rigorous process [of training for the FBI],” she said. While the training was very strenuous, Brando found the whole experience reward-ing. “[It] made me learn a lot about myself,” Brando said. “For example, I could push the lim-its of my physical strength with determination.” While Brando greatly enjoyed this process, she recognizes that working as a teacher may not be compatible with being an FBI agent. Thus, she has put her training on hold in order to focus 100 per-cent to teaching at Stuyvesant.

From taking courses in an-thropology, to excavations, to physical training, Brando is determined to be a great and encouraging teacher. Students should be careful to be on their very best be-havior in Brando’s class, be-cause you never know when her FBI training might kick in.

Best of Brando’s World

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The Swift Shifter

“it’s not as nerdy as you think.”

—Brandon lin, sophomore Sophomore Brandon Lin demonstrates

his agility and creativity skills through his impressive records in the art of Rubik’s cube solving.

Features

Page 5The Spectator ●march 4, 2014

Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve!

By maiSHa Kamal

A number of issues ago, the Stuyvesant Spectator show-cased some of the school’s lead-ing dancers, all of whom share the passion for an art that seems to go unnoticed in our academi-cally centered school. One issue, however, was not enough. Just in time for SING! season, when the hard work of students shine, here are three more dancers who put their heart and soul into the art of dance. Balancing school-work, extracurriculars, and so-cial lives, these three dancers don’t just do dance; they breathe it, despite every obstacle in their path.

The Passion of dance

If someone asked you to pick your favorite parent, could you? For sophomore Elizabeth Pav-lova, choosing between dance and cheer is just as difficult. That’s why, despite how stress-ful it looks on the surface, Pav-lova does both. “I first started dancing when I was around four or five years old. I always loved dancing and my mom fi-nally put me in classes at a stu-dio by home. I started with and continue to do ballroom dance, with more experience in Latin than standard, although I took lessons for standard for sev-eral years as well,” Pavlova said. Before she began attending Stuyvesant, Pavlova took lessons four to six times a week. Starting her freshman year, however, the usual four to six lessons were re-placed with one a week, evening out her commitment to Stuyve-sant’s cheerleading team along with schoolwork. “It’s difficult to balance [dance and cheer-leading], especially with school, and I have a stronger commit-ment to cheer, since I don’t do

dance as often anymore. It’s also sometimes hard to go from the strong, tight, and locked-out posture that cheer merits to the freer bounce motions of ball-room dance, but cheer has defi-nitely also bettered my strength, stamina, balance, and flexibil-ity,” Pavlova said.

On the flipside, dance has helped Pavlova in cheer as well. “Dance has helped in cheer for several reasons, an obvious one being that there’s an entire por-tion of cheer that is dance. Dance also teaches sharpness, clear-ness, familiarity and an asso-ciation with counts, so it’s easier for someone who’s experienced something such as dance to be able to associate a motion or other move to a specific count,” Pavlova said. It is these benefits that motivate Pavlova to do both sports. Being a Stuyvesant student may have lessened her dance opportunities, but Pavlo-va continues to put in the effort so that this important aspect of her life stays with her. “Dance is something that I’ve always loved and that I’ve started when I was extremely young, and that’s why it’s so hard to let it go—it’s built into me at this point. I’ve formed a family with my studio and I feel like I owe it to them to con-tinue, and I owe it to myself as well, because I’ve fallen in love with the sport,” she said.

Falling in love with the sport, in itself, has had positive and negative consequences for Pav-lova. “[With dance], I find my-self to be a very hard worker. I set goals for myself and I work myself beyond my limits to ac-complish them, and that goes for every aspect of my life, not just dance. My greatest weak-ness in dance would have to be to let go sometimes. I try really hard to do the right thing all the time that sometimes I forget I’m supposed to put as much of my

character into those structured steps as possible, ” she said. Nonetheless, Pavlova has dis-covered many of her strengths through dance as well. “I have the ability to learn quickly, and developed a passion for learn-ing and doing and succeeding,” she said.

The art of dance

Although junior Jessica Kar-don, another Stuyvesant cheer-leader, has not danced in over two years, dance has left more than its mark on her. “I first start-ed dancing at age two,” she said. “I did ballroom dancing until I was eight, and then for the next two years, I did modern and hip-hop dancing. For the next four years, I was taken into the com-petition team, which entailed taking ballet, jazz, modern, contemporary, lyrical, and hip-hop.” A spot on the competition team came with increased train-ing, as Kardon’s usual six hours a week transformed into five to seven hours a day. Looking back on dance competitions, Kardon remembers the anticipation. “My first competition was really nerve wracking, but after that it was nothing but excitement. I remember loving waking up and making sure all my numer-ous costumes were packed, as well as little things like make-up and extra tights and shoes. Then you’re on the stage wait-ing for the music to start: that’s the most nerve-wracking time of the dance because once the music starts, you just go and put your heart and soul into it and it’s just the most carefree feeling in the world. It feels so great and you just have so much fun doing it.”

After getting into Stuyve-sant, Kardon gave up dancing, thinking that juggling school-work and dance would be too difficult. “I was really upset with having to give it up because it was a big part of my life,” she said. Nonetheless, Kardon still has a love for the art and how well it conveyed her personality. When asked what dance meant to her, she remarked, “I did it for 12 years. I would have dance practice almost every single day for those 12 years. My life liter-ally revolved around that. I had to learn how to deal with others, as well as learn from others. But specifically with contemporary, I learned how to deal with my emotions. I tried to always be like a rock and not let my feel-ings out to anyone. Contem-porary was the only time I did. With contemporary dancing, you express yourself, your mind, and your feelings a lot more than you do in any other type of dance. It’s like I was speak-ing with my body—painting a picture, telling a story—with the movements and the expression on my face. It was an outlet for me since I never wanted anyone else to know how I feel and it helped me with that.”

The Sport of dance

A wide receiver for the Peg-legs and an outfielder for the Hitmen, it’s hard to believe se-nior Samuel Fuchs is able to add Latin ballroom dancer to the list. “I started dancing in the fourth grade—we had a ballroom teacher come to our school,” Fuchs said. Inspired by the prospect of doing some-thing fun and interesting, Fuchs

continued pursuing dance and began to compete profession-ally in sixth grade, continuing to do so until his sophomore year at Stuyvesant. He went on to participate in various competi-tions, one being the Manhattan Dancesport Championships, in which Fuchs won both first place for cha-cha and rumba, and second place for samba and jive. Fuchs remembers these kinds of competitions as “being quite stressful. Competitions would go on all day long and there would be hundreds of cou-ples competing in tens of differ-ent categories and age groups,” he said. In his last competition, before he went on a dance hia-tus to focus on other things such as football, baseball and piano, Fuchs was awarded first place for both his cha-cha and samba. Three and a half years after the aforementioned competition, however, Fuchs once again im-mersed himself in dance after his SING! partner Christine Xu asked him if he wanted to com-pete with her. “We want to com-pete eventually, but we still have to make routines. With SING!, it

becomes more difficult,” Fuchs said. On his return to the danc-ing world, he said, “My parents were supportive of my dancing from the start. They were actu-ally really excited about it. When I told them I want[ed] to return to dance, they didn’t even hesi-tate in supporting me by paying for lessons and such.” Reflecting on his break from dance, Fuchs also said the skills he acquired have been beneficial to him in many ways, including in sports. “Dance has greatly affected me. It helped me with reflexes and focus, as well as agility. Just like professional athletes use dance to help them, it has helped me. Dance has opened my hori-zons,” he said.

Although dance is often per-ceived as an insignificant hobby, for Pavlova, Kardon, and Fuchs, it has been something much more vital. As something that has served as an emotional out-let, a means of expression, and a release from daily pressures, to say dance is important to the three of them is merely selling it short.

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Features

Liz Pavlova is a talented professional ballroom dancer, currently directing SophFrosh Latin.

Senior Samuel Fuchs does latin dance in his free time, but sometimes can be seen free-styling.

Jessica Kardon participated in the Revolution Talent Competition.

Features

Page 6 The Spectator ● march 4, 2014

And the Winners Are...

anmolpreet Kandola, Junior

“A Picture of Me” recounts Kandola’s childhood experience of being bullied. Motivated by his cousin, who also won a Gold Key in previous years, Kandola entered the competition and decided to write about this event because it was one major instance of bullying that he endured and dealt with in an admirable manner. On his first day of sixth grade, Kandola encountered a fellow schoolmate on his school bus who made a snide comment about Kandola’s family looking like terrorists. Instead of acting angry or hurt and stooping to the same petty insults, Kandola brushed off the mockery and got off the bus at his stop. By dealing with the situation in an appropriate manner, the young Kandola proved that he was capable of looking after himself, even in light of such circumstances. To him, this story was about “overcoming people trying to put me down. I think that no one was ever able to dent it [his self-confidence] afterwards,” Kandola said. To this day, Kandola never once resents his heritage and wears his turban with pride. He didn’t begrudge his tormentor either, remarking, “I actually got to know him pretty well, over the rest of middle school. He wasn’t an all that bad guy—just sort of ignorant in the beginning. But he came around, which is good.”

Below is an excerpt from “a Picture of me”

My physical attributes seem to be the most defining thing about me – brown, glasses, and a Turban on my head. Following these traits are the stereotypes that come with the appearance: it made me, in the eyes of others, someone who has a bomb on their head, a terrorist. 9/11 has drawn negative attention to all people of all faiths wearing Turbans. When I was younger, I questioned who I was, and what my Turban meant. After learning more about my faith, and understanding why I wear a Turban, I became comfortable in my own skin and with my appearance. However, it seemed that I hadn’t changed in the eyes of others. Although after a while, I had begun to think that maybe I was in an environment where my personality, and not my appearance defined who I was and what people saw in me. I have constantly been proven wrong since then.I looked down at my shoes and the bottom of the seat in front of me. I was shaking with anger, fear, and confusion. I was clenching my jaw, curling my right hand up into a ball, my eyes trying to be mad, but instead portraying indifference. Get over it, I thought to myself. You can beat this. You have to beat this. My hand was tightly gripping the picture.Quickly, I swerved out of my seat and stood up. Everyone else was standing at this point. I realized in that moment, that I wasn’t afraid of him; I was angry at him. I was mad that he felt like he could alter my entire outlook on life and try to verbally beat me down. I wasn’t raised to cower. My Turban, which I wear every day, is a symbol, a distinction, and an honor, but certainly not worn to epitomize fear. Kyle didn’t hurt me. Moreover he couldn’t. That’s what I took away from the experience.Ever since, I think I’ve realized that I shouldn’t live in fear of being outcast because of my Turban. It’s what makes me different. I think many people search for that in themselves and for me, it’s been there all along. True friends will accept me regardless of my faith or my Turban, as many have come to over the years. So every day I walk out, it’s with my Turban held high with pride.ban, as many have come to over the years. So every day I walk out, it’s with my Turban held high with pride.

Stephanie yan, Senior

“Puerum Adolescensque Cano” is an Asian-American version of Virgil’s Aeneid, and Yan wrote this story for her AP English Great Books class in response to a Jewish-American account of the immigrant experience. Yan wrote of the plight of second-generation immigrants, likening the expectations of their parents to living an epic that was not theirs. Such sentiments are widespread amongst immigrant children. Burdened with the hopes and dreams that their parents carry and all too aware of the sacrifices that were made on their behalf, immigrant children often feel the need to set aside their own desires in order to walk along the path that their parents have laid out for them, to finish a story they did not begin. Yan compares the immigrant Aeneas’s desires to live a carefree and extravagant life to Aeneas’s desire to die in glory in the Aeneid. However, chasing glory is not a way of life and Yan’s Aeneas is not a Greek hero but a 16-year-old second-generation immigrant in New York City. Though Aeneas feels as if he is only trying to fulfill his parents’ dreams, the story he lives is none other but his own.

Below is an excerpt of “Puerum adolescensque Cano”

Aeneas is sixteen years old and in New York City. Aeneas’s parents have come as fugitives from the shores of some Eastern terrain, the first of their kind and the founders of a new race. “I am Aeneas, outstanding in pietas,” he might say, if he were an epic hero. But there is very little of the epic in New York City, so instead he will say, “I’m Aeneas,” and leave the rest unspoken. The addressee may take his sentence and fill in what is missing. There is a catalogue in the addressee’s head of the words that can be filled in, sorted first by location and second by age. There is only one option in it for this teenage boy on the corner of Mott and Canal, and that is “pietas”—pietas, the virtue in being a bulwark of duty and ethical obligation, in being, at least for Aeneas, a good son.There can be only one option when you have parents such as his. His father is not dead, but to the rest of New York City Aeneas’s father may as well not exist. Look down and to the left and you will see him as he squats by a crate of some leafy vegetable on the ground, slicing off the rotted portions with a knife and tossing the salvaged remains into a bucket. He is Neptune on the concrete, forming a battle-line of black-spotted leaves in the pile before him. Aeneas nearly tips over a jar of pickles with his elbow and his father the Neptune catches it, rights it, and returns to his work with not a word of commentary for his son. His battle-line of leaf remains is growing; soon it will march over the borders of the crate and tear open the seas and the sky as it goes. Or so it seems to sixteen-year-old Aeneas, sitting on a stool next to his father with his sixteen-year-old brain unwilling to com-prehend that his father the Neptune is a father for whom everything is an unshakable duty, for whom there is a right way and a wrong way and nothing in between. His father tips the battle-line into a trash bag and ends its advance into the world.

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Kirit limperis, Junior

Walking along the Hudson River after school one day, Limperis enjoyed the familiar sight. As if summoned, a picture came to her mind, the old kind—the kind you would expect to find in a museum. Depicted was a scene of people skating on a frozen body of water. A caption below informed onlookers that it was the Hudson River. Limperis is not sure where she first saw this picture, but she remembered feeling as if she were looking at a different world. On that day, Limperis found herself imagining going back in time. In many ways, the Hudson has become something like a portal connecting the present and the past. “New York City, as it is today, isn’t the same city that it was 100 years ago. Maybe if the ice froze over again, it would be the connection back to New York City circa 1900,” Limperis said. She entertained this idea, remembering an old beverage store in her neighborhood that had closed a long time ago. If the frozen Hudson River was a wormhole connecting the present and the past, then perhaps it would exist again on the opposite shore. This idea was the inspiration for “Hudson Circa 1933 / Die Spree Circa 2013,” which Limperis later wrote and submitted to the Scholastic Writing Awards contest.

Below is an excerpt from “Hudson Circa 1933/die Spree Circa 2013”

Today the lapping waves, which on ordinary evenings would grip onto the shores of both diverging islands, have fallen asleep under the heavy cover of thick, sea green ice. The people of the city scurry down the steps of their rectangular boxes after lunch, their dresses and shirtcoats rushing to catch up with their gleaming eyes, their skates slung over their shoulders. The white laces of mine are wrapped together just like our frigid fingers, as we slip under the railing and land onto the frozen surface. The opposite shores, with the twinkling lights that always seemed so far off on the horizon, beckon us closer with bent fingers and sandy smiles. But the drinks served in the diners across the river are sour and come with colorful umbrellas that sink into the bottom like paper weightsand you are my paper weight that holds down this slim crescent that the winds keep teasing to tear from my grip There are no beverage stores across the ice, where daddy can set me on the counter as he pulls a dollar from his worn black leather wallet, the Orangina cupped in my seashell hands.So instead we watchand spin circles in the frozen floor for ice fishing.Until, Mike the Cop comes in his royal blue coat with gleaming buttons, tapping his ring finger on the third one down like a faulty traffic light. He tries to pass us one of his crabby little slips of papers that he keeps in his leather pad, but we smile and pat the folded yellow picnic blanket beside us. I’ve never fished for starfish before, he admits. Today’s pursuit is for wormholes, we correct him.The currents are just caused by the wormholes, you know?

By PauliNe HuaNg For the 2014 Scholastic Writing Awards, the name Stuyvesant High School will appear 108 times for the 39 Gold Keys, 31 Silver Keys, and 38 Honorable Mentions that will go to students of this school. To honor these outstanding students, we have interviewed some Gold Key winners and asked them to share their story.

Page 7The Spectator ●march 4, 2014

FeaturesWan Qi Kong, Senior

As a writer, Kong makes it a point to write every day about things on her mind, though she does not often pub-lish them or submit them in contests, as a result of personal dissatisfaction. “38 Elvin Street” was written as an assignment for her junior year AP English Contemporaries and Classics class. The story was about a family Kong used to live next to until tragedy struck one day in the form of a family car accident. Only seven or eight years old at the time, Kong was very shaken by this event and the sudden realization that she would never see the family again—all because someone hadn’t pulled the hand brake.

Below is an excerpt from “38 elvin Street”

“What do you need to know?” “I don’t know, tell me a little bit about them, I guess,” the cameraman answered, tugging a little on his plain white tee-shirt. It had the appearance of a shirt that had once been oversized, but could no longer fit the pot-bellied cameraman. “They’re nice,” I said. “We play with these two little girls sometimes and their mother always gives us something to drink.”He nodded as he fumbled with a camera clumsily. He seemed to have lost interest in us already.“Wait, can we be on TV?” I asked and my sister pinched me for talking to a stranger for such a long time. I was probably bothering him quite a bit.“Sure thing, girls,” he said and gave us a wide grin. He turned the camera towards us and let us smile and wave at the camera awkwardly.That night, I scrambled to switch to Fox News Channel so we could watch ourselves on television. It took thirty unbearable minutes before the screen switched to a video of 38 Elvin Street, the last house on the side of our street.“Luo Qi!” I made sure my sister was watching.Needless to say, we didn’t see ourselves on TV. What we saw was a picture of 38 Elvin Street and a caption that read, “MAN KILLS FAMILY IN DRIVING BLUN-DER.” What we saw was a reporter in a black pencil skirt saying, “A Staten Island family whose mini van plunged off a Bear Mountain cliff brought terrible luck: while two young girls remained unscathed, the death of the mother devastated loved ones.” What we saw was one of our neighbors, a portly blonde-haired woman, shaking her head and telling the camera, “It’s such a shame. Really such a shame.”

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elena milin, Senior

Milin is a habitual poet, whose writing often revolves around anything—usually a feeling—on her mind. She prefers poetry because it allows the greatest amount of freedom to the writer. In Milin’s opinion, “House Cleaning” is one of her least-refined pieces. It is based on her own family relationships. Using the dishes in the kitchen as a metaphor, Milin writes about the is-sues her father failed to address, the problems that were never resolved, and the dangers that he did not warn her about. A short and straightforward poem, “House Cleaning” summa-rizes a problem that many youths in today’s busy world face.

Below is an excerpt from “House Cleaning”

house cleaning

listen this is a house & this is you and your fatherthere’s your mother and sister too but thisis about you & your fatheryour father takes the bowls from the cabinet & he expects you toput them away yourselfhe takes the knife from the knife stand & he expectsyou to put it away yourselfdoes not even tell you that this is a knife and this will make you bleed if youtake it from the wrong endyou are confused why does your fatherleave out the knives and the bowl and the cups and the olive oilhe took them out but he does notput them away himself heleaves them for you but you areyoung & nearly always confused you think it is like when you walk into a room & forget why you came in thereyou think it is like when you walk into a room & forget the end of the sentence you thinkyou know so many words but they’reonly enough to get lost in

Winton yee, Sophomore

Yee originally wrote “A Brief History of My Middle School Courtships” as a backstory for the beginning of his novel, modeling his main character, Schimidt, after himself. According to Yee, “all writers write about them-selves” whether blatantly or secretly. Despite its name, “A Brief History of My Middle School Courtships” does not contain any stories of true boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. More accurately, this story gives a chrono-logical recount of Schmidt and Yee’s crushes, relationships, and faux-relationships in middle school.

Below is an excerpt from “a Brief History of my middle School Courtships”

Towards the end of the year, as I was not breaking any ground with her, I actually almost stopped liking Abi-gail Kushner, but some way or another, even though I had been super careful about preventing such things, someone found out about my crush on Abigail and told her and it all pretty much crumbled from there. She messaged me saying that she had found out who I liked, which caused me to freak out and write this overly complicated email to her degrading myself but somehow still asking her out, and by “asking her out” I mean I asked her to dress up as a Warbler from Glee with me on Senior Twin Day. She sent a really confusing email back that didn’t really express her intentions, but did, however, say that “there are plenty of fish in the sea,” which I did not take as a good sign. The next day at school, she hugged me in the morning and said we would talk at lunch, which gave me a sliver of hope and made me daydream for the next three hours, but then Abigail broke my heart on the lunch line. We kept talking for a bit after-wards, but it was all mainly about Glee (ex: Abigail went to some Glee concert and got some Glee shirt), which I had developed a deep and passionate hate for. That summer, as the Fates would have it, I was in the same movie theater as Abigail for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. She was sitting two rows behind me and we actually acknowledged each other, as in said hi and made friendly talk before the movie began, so I am counting that as a date in my book.

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Peter duchovni, Senior

“Of Bagpipes and Belgian Chocolate” is a short satire of detective fiction set in the classical manor of an English earl who is murdered. Inspired by numerous detective fiction novels, as well as movies and television series, Duchovni describes his story as an “inflated Holmes in a [Agatha] Christie novel.” Featuring characters with ironic and tongue twisting names, such as Knee Deep the stable hand, Cleaner Chamberpots the street urchin, and the Earl of Dwynmyd-haynorcestershire, only the beginning of this story has the surface of cool seriousness that often accompanies murder mysteries. The exaggerated English stereotypes and the seriousness of the situation make detective Homesick’s silly antics all the more ridiculous and absurd. It is a mur-der mystery in all its essence, but all the darkness has been replaced with levity. The world that the novel describes is “not restrained by logic or rationality, not limited by social rules or even reality, to a certain extent,” Duchovni said.

Below is an excerpt of “of Bagpipes and Belgian Chocolate”

In the dead of night, when all was quiet, Hercules woke up with a start from his mattress on the floor. He had informed the staff that he preferred sleeping closer to the ground, so that he could hear the footsteps of everyone who walked the mansion in the dead of night. The real reason was that pirate ships tend not to have large four-¬post beds of the kind that mansions tended to have, so he could more accurately reenact his most secret fantasy. He had woken up, however, because he had dreamt that the windows and walls were also assassins, though it had been three years since the Case of the Case of Luminous Sponges and the Self¬-Propelled Wardrobe. He still occasionally had nightmares.The first thing he did when he woke up was run his hand over the windows, walls, and doors of the guest¬-room, checking for any tell¬-tale bulges. He then took an almost¬-empty glass of port from his bed¬-side table (or mattress¬-side floor, really), turn it sideways, put the flat end to his ear, and put the open end against the door at chest¬-height. He didn’t hear any breathing, so he rotated the glass and cupped it to his ear, and listened to the sound of the ocean. He could almost feel the sea mist, though that was probably the few remaining drops of port splashing against his face. He could almost hear the sea¬-gulls, though it was really a recording of seagulls on a phonograph outside that was used to lure owls off of the roof during the night. The excite-ment of his daydream left him much in need of a breath of fresh air, so he sauntered over to the window and opened it, though not before kicking it at about groin¬-height. He heard a grunt of pain, though he quickly realized that it was from himself, as shoe¬-leather tends to buckle more easily than marble. As soon as he had opened the window, he was hit in the head, and fell over, soundlessly. Until he hit the ground, at least.

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Page 8 The Spectator ● march 4, 2014

Featuresedmond loi, Junior

While “Half Full” has a plot similar to that of many other short stories about meeting homeless or penniless people on the street, it far outranks most others in its vividness. Loi attributes the realistic details in his work to his wild imagination. He exer-cises his imagination, often through people-watching or looking at posts from Humans of New York and fantasizing about the lives of the people he sees, conjuring up details in his head. To him, there is always something more than what meets the eye. “Half Full” was written to illustrate that concept. It is a story about a young boy who walks across an old drunkard lying on the sidewalk. Not wanting to associate with a drunkard, the boy excuses himself, but the sound of the old drunkard crying brings him back. He decides to hear the older man out, not expecting to find out that the scum of society he sees before him had once been a loving husband and a doting father before becoming a victim of tragedy. To Loi, the drunkard in the story represents how quick we are to judge people and form opinions of them. “Not everything is in black and white,” he said.

Below is an excerpt from “Half full”

A face materialized out of the fog, and it revealed a man slumped on the ground sitting underneath a streetlamp not yet lit. His face was framed by a glorious mane of snow-white hair dirtied with age and filth, and beautiful piercing blue eyes with a sad defeat in them. In another life, another place, this man could’ve been a king, I thought to myself. With a little soap, of course. A filthy and grimy green overcoat covered his body, and he sat with a bottle of beer in each hand, one opened and still almost full, and the other unopened with the cap still on. Another six-pack lay off to the side, still untouched. “I don’t know…I have to get home. It’s getting late,” I blubbered out as I scrambled back up. “Answer…answer…Go after you tell me.” the man drawled before taking a swig of the opened bottle of beer. “I just want some...damn company, man. Can’t even gimme that?” “I need to go. Really, my parents are expecting me home right now.” I said, exasperated and nervous, body half-turned to run should the man pull out a weapon. “I just want to go home, sir.” I pleaded “Nothing.” “Okay sir, that’s great. Have yourself a good ni-” I started muttering before the man cut me off. “NOTHING!” The man roared at me in drunken stupor. He took another sip before wiping his mouth with his dirty sleeve and motioning me to come over to him, eyes silently pleading me to. “Nothing,” he whis-pered. “There is nothing after this,” he continued with a thousand yard stare, eyes wide and mouth slack. “There is nothing.” I started backing up and he noticed, briefly making eye contact with me and shamefully muttering “Sorry.” “No, no, I’m sorry...have a nice night,” came my automatic answering machine reply. Thinking our strange encounter was over; I turned to go and managed a few hasty steps before the sudden sound of whimpering and quiet crying behind slowed me down. Coming to a standstill in the dark, hands jammed into my pockets with the wind starting to bite and howl, I could only think about how this lonely drunk I barely knew and respected...was breaking my heart. God I’m going to regret this. I thought as I turned around and slowly walked back to the desolate old man. “Nothing…nothing…nothing,” He sobbed to himself. Sitting down cautiously with him, feeling perhaps he only needed a friend, we sat in silence for quite some time as he slowly composed himself. As he was wiping his nose on his sleeve and slowly blinking away the tears, I asked, “So…does it hurt?” The man looked at me quizzi-cally with eyes not yet dry and took another drink from his bottle. “What…what hurts?” “Dying…does it hurt?” “What…what hurts?” “Dying…does it hurt?”

Benjamin attal, Senior

Attal’s short story “Gyokuon-Hōsō(The Jeweled Voice Broadcast)” was first inspired by stories he heard from his mom and his grandfather. Being quarter Japanese, Attal was enthralled by this part of his heritage, and wrote this story by piecing together all the information he knew from the stories he heard and from his visits to Japan. “Gyokuon-Hōsō” is a story set in Japan towards the end of World War II and is told from the perspective of Attal’s grandfather, a young boy at that time. Through the eyes of a pure and naive child, Attal describes the war effort, the senti-ments of the people, and the highly stratified patriarchal society in Japan at the time. Attal tried his best to be historically correct, including important names he had heard from his grandfa-ther and choosing common Japanese names for his characters. He also addresses the widespread conflict between new and traditional values during that era of change. While the story itself is simple, focused on the single event of receiving the emperor’s radio announcement, the experience of reading it is like a trip through time and space.

Below is an excerpt from “gyokuon-Hōsō”

As the oldest child in the Hayashi household he had responsibilities to attend to, just as his mother attended to the washing of clothes. It was his job to raise and breed the rabbits that govern-ment deputies had given to his family. It was his job to kill and cook the rabbits as well, giving the meat and hide back to the government for the war effort. Koji did not particularly like this task. He would have preferred to keep the rabbits as playthings and to give them names, but the first time he had tried to name them he could not bring himself to harm them. He had hid his face in the folds of his mother’s dress as his father broke each of their necks. Now he did this himself, but always closed his eyes tight while, like a machine, his hands did the work.

Since he had also been required to give away his metal toys to the government, Koji had few things with which to amuse himself. The brave men defending Hokkaido and all of Japan from the Western invaders needed the metal in his toys for bullets and airplanes. It was selfish, his teacher had told him, to play idly with the toys when they could be used to protect all the little boys and girls of Japan. Koji wanted to say “But Nobu-sama, mother paid for my car last year when I turned nine. She told me it would be mine so long as I didn’t lose it.” But he kept quiet. All of his friends had given up their toy cars, boats, and animals too.

“Japan will never surrender,” Nobu had told his students.

“My brother says that half of people will be killed, and the other half will commit seppuku before we surrender,” Haru, the girl who sat behind him in class had told him. But from murmurs half spoken in his household, and rumors from other children, Koji pieced together that the military was losing.

“Only more people will die as this war drags on.” Koji’s father had mumbled, downing a glass of sake. His mother had scowled at his father after he had spoken. Behind the bitterness she heard in his voice the fear of being drafted, but she remained silent.

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Tiffani ren, Junior

Ren originally wrote “See Me Complexly” for her first assignment in her AP English Contemporaries and Classics class. For the assignment, she was told to describe herself as seen from the perspective of others. Finding something lacking in writing from the first person perspective, Ren decided to take the challenge to divide it into four parts, writing about herself from the perspective of herself and three of her closest friends. The result was something very complicated and confusing, but fortunately her teacher sympathized and understood the ideas she was trying to convey. Encouraged by this and convinced that her story had a powerful message, Ren edited her essay obsessively before submitting it to Scholastic Writing Awards, as evidenced by the 13 pages worth of edits attached to the 10-page story that she showed me. “As a writer, I go back and rewrite things until I get the story right, but I never delete anything,” she said. Ren’s story is about four girls: M, F, P, and T, T being herself. All four hide secrets and constantly have to deal with conflicts within their families, as well as within themselves. However, none of them have ever talked about these problems, fearing their peers would reject them. As the story progresses, T’s friends open up to her, one at a time, sharing their worries and doubts. They assume T doesn’t have the same problems as them, but T surprises them all by revealing her own share of worries and doubts. “Instead of pushing us apart, we actually became closer,” Ren said. Ren hopes that people who read her story will understand that it is okay to show how they truly feel inside.

Below is an excerpt from “See me Complexly”

from: T. <tiffaniren@gmail.com>to: M. <arielle De Leon> hi M. agh so i’ve been thinking a lot lately and i realized that i act happy a lot. No I mean, it’s not like pretending, I just exaggerate. Because i feel like if I do that, i’ll be happier and maybe, maybe it’ll overshadow the times where I do feel sad. But. it doesn’t really lol :( So when I do feel sad sometimes… idk, if people would still see me the same, because … what would the people think, if the girl they thought they knew, fell apartpeople always told me that when they saw me happy, they become happier and esp. when they were sad. ugh god one of my friends told me that she didn’t know what she’d do if i were sad, that i was like a beacon of light in her day. i winced when she said that because LOL it’s such a cliche but also like. I mean. lighthouses are literal beacons of lights and they can’t ever go out or else ships will be wrecked and people will be killed. if if people depend on me like, like people do a lighthouse. i wouldn’t be allowed to be sad? even in times of storm oh GOD how can a person be depended on like lighthouse.to be fair, i kinda did it to myself. i never talked to anyone about my parents and i never really heard anyone close to me talking about sadnesses like the ones I harbored.

but then god I don’t even know, all these friends that i thought i knew start to talk to me, and I never, I never thought all this time.They were sad too, they had family problems/insecurities/flaws too, and they the ones i thought most immune to any kind of trouble, but after we finished talking. i felt i knew it somehow all along, and this sudden realization of what i kinda already knew didn’t change anything about them. these sad moments became them, a part of them…and i was grateful. that they told me it was ok to feel sad and they allowed me to tell them the same.

so if … you tell me about how sad you’ve been or, how stupid/tired/meaningless/sorry you feel you are, what you do when no one’s looking or judging, even if you just tell me something simple like how you’re doing today, i promise i promise i promise i’ll still love you the same :)

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Unfortunately, we could not include all Gold Key Winners here. However, we’d like to recognize the following names for their writing:

Teddy Becker-JacobDavid CahnJack CahnAshley DaiShannon DanielsTara Ivic-PavlicicSavannah JeffreysDaniel KodsiSharon LinDennis NenovMadina RadjabovaNadra RahmanAlika ReganaLucy WaingerLisa Zhang

Page 9The Spectator ●march 4, 2014

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Features

Page 10 The Spectator ● march 4, 2014

david Hanna, History Teacher

Past Professions: “I held a variety of jobs before I became a teacher. Unloading and loading trucks in a warehouse (my first job), raking blueberries, [working as a] house painter, working as a security guard at a school for the deaf, bell-man at a hotel, waiter, [and] bartender,” Hanna said. Out of all of the odd jobs, being a house painter was his favorite.Why Teaching/History?“Being a history teacher was the only profession I ever considered. I’ve loved history since I was very young. If I didn’t teach history, I wouldn’t be a teacher. Though, I did take the Foreign Service exam during my first year as a teacher. I passed it, but then later failed what was called the ‘Oral Assessment Center’ held in Arlington, Virginia. I am forever grateful to whoever it was that failed me, because [my] ego probably would have taken over and I would’ve accepted a posting if they had offered it. Boy, did I ever dodge a bullet there,” Hanna said.Hobbies/Summers Spent: He enjoys spending his free time either writing or with his family.Biggest accomplishment: “Being a father.”Biggest embarrassment: Wearing “a pair of khaki shorts, with boat shoes, and sunglasses” on his first day as a student teacher at Stuyvesant. “I had no clue!”favorites:Food: Blueberry pancakes at Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro, MaineColor: BlueTV Show: “Ripper Street”Book: “The Once and Future King” by T.H. WhiteSong/Artist: “Layla” by Derek and the DominosMovie: “Papillon”Blog/Magazine/Newspaper: New York TeacherQuote: “Why think of what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.” —Victor Hugo

Joel Winston, Technology Teacher

Past Professions:Before becoming a teacher, Joel Winston, who teaches drafting, worked in multimedia. “I especially liked working as a 3D photographer for a private experimental company. They gave me a lot of independence to do whatever I wanted. The highlight of that job was I got to see all my 3D work displayed at the Javits center,” Winston said.Why Teaching/drafting?Mr. Winston first worked as a freelance technician, and then dabbled in making films, even starting his own production company. Nonetheless, he decided those jobs weren’t for him either and went back to school to take night classes studying pre-med. “After two years of continually working full-time and studying, I eventu-ally ‘burned out,’” Winston said. After that, Winston found out that the Rikers Island Correction facility was looking for a video teacher for the inmates. “I fell in love with teaching, and after that program ended, the Board of Education asked me if wanted to stay on. I began teaching the sciences for the next seven years at an alternative High School in Brooklyn,” he said. He also continued working as part-time freelance, including an AV technician for the Guggenheim museum. Winston went back to night school to get a Master of Fine Arts degree (MFA) and helped start the first art high school in the Bronx. When the commute became too much, he quit. “I was lucky to find [that] Stuy[vesant] [...] had a position available,” he said.Hobbies/Summers Spent: Although he loves teaching, Winston always considers himself a visual artist. “On occasion, I display my work. I also like playing music with my friends as much as possible,” Winston said. During the longer breaks like summers, he “tr[ies] to catch up on [his] own projects and... enjoy[s] traveling to scenic wonders or going on adventures.” Biggest embarrassment: “Stammering and forgetting names”favorites:Food: Mr. Winston is mostly a vegetarian but occasionally eats seafood from time to time.TV Show: Anything relating to history, especially regarding World War II.Book: “In the Belly of the Beast” by Andrew LarsenSong/Artist: Ernst Ranglin. But his all-time favorite genres are world and ‘60s music, especially blues, funk and soul.Movie: Underground films. Contemporary works of Wes Anderson, the Coen bros, Tarantino, and Jeunet. Blog/Magazine/Newspaper: The Economist, Mojo, Architectural Record, and any science and history ragQuote: “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

So You Think You Know Your Teachers?

eric ferencz, english TeacherPast Professions: Eric Ferencz, an English teacher, has been teaching since he was 22. “This is my first and only professional job. Throughout high school and college, I worked as a grocery boy and cashier at a supermarket. I’ve lifeguarded and taught swimming lessons. I was a caddie for a day. Four hours of carrying heavy bags only to earn a five-dollar tip. That was it for me,” Ferencz said.Why Teaching/english?“I really looked up to my literature professors. Here were these academics who held these fascinating lectures with such charisma and passionate. I wanted to be like them. Here were these individuals who opened up a world of thought for me to explore. I could only hope to be such a figure in a student’s life,” Ferencz said. If he weren’t teaching English, he would become a haberdasher, someone who sells men’s clothing.Hobbies/Summers Spent: “I’m a bit of a comedy nerd, [and] I love cooking. In my free time, I tour NYC’s best eateries. There’s Taste Good in Elmhurst, Roti Boti in Astoria, DuMont Burger in Williamsburg, and any ramen I can get my hands on,” Ferencz said. Biggest accomplishment: “Getting through middle school.”Biggest embarrassing moment: “Ask my students on a daily basis.”favorites:Food: Shoyu ramenTV Show: “Jeopardy”Book: “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. DanielewskiSong/Artist: Radiohead (“I’ve seen them 14 times live!”)Movie: “Raiders of the Lost Ark”Blog/Magazine/Newspaper: The New York TimesQuote: “Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.” —Mark Twain

By laureeN CHaN and eriCa CHio

Sure, we spend an overwhelming amount of time with our teachers at Stuyvesant—that’s around 40 minutes a day and five days a week, not even counting the times we see them outside of class. With all this time, we’d think we know them pretty well. But do we really? Do we even know what their favorite books, mov-

ies, or songs are?

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Page 11The Spectator ●march 4, 2014

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If you’re a standout, you’ll fit right in.Don’t just communicate ideas—experience them. Don’t memorize a foreign language—think in one. Don’t study the ruins—excavate them. Don’t analyze dreams—live them.

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The Spectator ●March 4, 2014

Editorials

Page 12

E D I T O R s I N C H I E FLev Akabas

Teresa Chen

N e w s e d i T o r s

Coby GoldbergTina Jiang

Andrew wallace

F e A T u r e s e d i T o r s

Ariella KahanMaisha Kamal

emma Loh

o p i N i o N s e d i T o r s

emma Bernstein daniel Kodsi Justin weltz

s p o r T s e d i T o r s

Chris KimGrace Lu

Annique wong

h u M o r e d i T o r s

shane Lorenzendennis Nenov

p h o T o G r A p h y e d i T o r s

Anne duncan Justin strauss

Jin hee yoo

A r T s &e N T e r T A i N M e N T

e d i T o r s

shahruz Ghaemiemma Mcintosh

A r T d i r e C T o r sAlisa su

Lydia wu

L A y o u T e d i T o r s

Kelly Luo da-ye shin

Neil Vyas

C o p y e d i T o r s

eliza hripcsakTyler ishikawa

B u s i N e s s M A N A G e r s

Andrew Fischerdeanna Taylor

w e B e d i T o r s

eric stringhamChris Grant

F A C u L T y A d V i s o r

Kerry Garfinkel

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The SpectatorThe stuyvesant high school Newspaper

sTaFF EDITORIal

RE: What Drives Successwe’re all looking to achieve

something—whether it be publishing a novel, building a company, or discovering a new protein. This is what we call success. it’s doing something significant, or at least worth-while; it’s sustaining ourselves in a way that impacts the world around us. Although the word “success” means many things for different people, yale law professor Amy Chua and her husband Jed rubenfeld have not only defined success, but have also claimed to have pin-pointed precisely three ingredi-ents that generate it.

“The first is a superiority complex — a deep-seated be-lief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the op-posite — insecurity, a feeling that you or what you’ve done is not good enough. The third is impulse control,” wrote the couple. According to Chua and rubenfeld, these traits, referred to as the “Triple pack-age,” are directly correlated to the successes of certain cultural groups: “indian-Americans earn almost double the national fig-ure (roughly $90,000 per year in median household income ver-sus $50,000),” “Mormons have become leaders of corporate America, holding top positions in many of America’s most rec-ognizable companies,” “Jews...account for a third of the current supreme Court; over two-thirds of Tony Award-winning lyricists and composers; and about a third of American Nobel laure-ates.” Their argument estab-lishes that it isn’t simply innate within these cultures. instead, Chua and rubenfeld argue that these groups’ cultures create environments that effectively facilitate these three traits.

stuyvesant high school is its own little world. students spend anywhere from six to nine hours daily within our halls, and con-sequently, we manage to devel-op our own stuyvesant culture—one that according to Chua and rubenfeld, is practically an in-cubator for the Triple package. Alumni include four Nobel Lau-reates and Two Academy Award winners, and stuyvesant has sent the most intel science Tal-ent search semi-Finalists of any school for the past three years.

with that sort of reputa-tion, it’s no surprise that we’ve got the first trait down pat: the superiority complex. stuyve-sant’s decorated reputation, in addition to being one of the most competitive and challeng-ing high schools in the nation, makes it one of the most coveted high schools to attend in New york City. out of all of the spe-cialized high schools, stuyve-sant typically has the highest cut-off score on the shsAT, and subsequently, has the low-est acceptance rate. when fu-ture stuyvesant students open their acceptance letters, it’s common to be showered with overwhelmingly congratulatory responses from family, teachers and classmates. Before incom-ing freshmen even step through the Tribeca Bridge, many have already been told that they are the most intelligent students in New york City.

however, this atmosphere of academic eliteness at stuyve-sant is exactly what causes students to possess the Triple package’s second trait, the in-feriority complex. For instance,

each class at stuyvesant is com-posed of around 800 students, all of whom were confirmed to be “smart” by the shsAT. stu-dents who were accustomed to being at the top of their middle school classes encounter other students with the same or bet-ter academic aptitude in high school. Among a student body in which it is convention to compare test scores and essay grades, it is easy for those who perform below their peers to let their grades define them and lower their self-esteem. The inferiority complex thrives at stuyvesant, where there are end-less factors through which stu-dents can compare themselves against their peers, whether it be GpA, sAT score, Ap score, or admission into prestigious col-leges.

The final component of the “Triple package” is impulse con-trol, or the ability to resist temp-tation in pursuit of a long-term goal. stuyvesant’s environment necessitates developing time management skills through a rigorous curriculum—with four tests and a paper due this week, there simply isn’t room for temptation. Although our school is also full of profession-al procrastinators, our environ-ment discourages it to such an extent that a conscious effort against productivity must be made if you’re going to spend the next three hours on Face-book.

stuyvesant culture effective-ly nurtures the “Triple package,” supposedly leading us toward success, in an exclusively aca-demic perspective—but is this the type of success that students want?

Defining Success

we’re taught that there is a certain formula to success at stuyvesant: being successful means going to an elite college. Take this many Ap classes, have this high of an average, be part of this extracurricular, but not that

one, because you’ll never get a leadership position. oh, and don’t forget to intern for a cam-paign or partake in a research program, otherwise you’ll just blend into the background. Fol-low all of these steps, and you’ll be sure to get your shot at being accepted into one of those ex-clusive eight colleges.

Chua and rubenfeld’s idea of success is essentially based upon the idea that success is monetary and can be quanti-fied into awards, college de-grees, and ultimately, six-figure salaries. stuyvesant encourages the same myopic view of suc-cess: by immersing students in a pre-college curriculum, we’re influenced to pursue higher education and, ultimately, high-paying jobs. This is just one as-pect of success, yet it is the only route to success encouraged at stuyvesant.

what’s devoid from the “Tri-ple package,” and from stuyve-sant is any mention of emotional success or well being: ultimately being happy with what you do. According to Chua and ruben-feld’s thesis, an unhappy corpo-rate lawyer is more successful than a passionate teacher. The issue is, when we think about success and what it means to be successful, being happy seems to be one of the last things that stuyvesant students and faculty think of.

success is entirely subjective to each student. so why does stuyvesant only promote aca-demic success?

By trying to impose this strict academic interpretation of success on all students, stuyve-sant fails to nurture morality, humanistic values, and diver-sity into its students. stuyvesant shouldn’t prepare us for just one type of success, but instead, for any type of success we seek.

The mission statement of stuyvesant reads, “the goal of this institution is to instill the intellectual, moral and human-istic values necessary for each child to achieve his/her maxi-mum potential as a student and as a caring citizen of the world.”

This is a goal that stuyvesant has yet to accomplish—but that doesn’t mean we can’t get there.

success is a subjective mea-surement; the end goal is differ-ent for everyone. Although we’re all working towards different goals here at stuyvesant, we’re all forced to travel an extremely similar path. we’re mandated to take a plethora of mostly math and science courses, which in turn constrict our abilities to take courses that allow for creative and artistic growth. stuyvesant should encourage a more holistic perspective of ed-ucation by, for example, reduc-ing the number of mandatory classes and enriching the course catalogue, allowing students to have the freedom to pursue the subjects that they want to, rather than have to. students would ultimately graduate from stuyvesant with, not simply an education, but also a passion. institutions can’t create our success, but they can facilitate it. what we ask of stuyvesant is to stop trying to predetermine our success and to instead en-courage us to define success for ourselves—provide an environ-ment in which we can learn, grow, and thrive, all on our own terms.

A Note to Our Readers: The Spectator will now accept unsolicited Op-Ed pieces written by outside students, faculty, and alumni. These

columns, if selected, will be published in The Spectator’s Opinions section. Recommended length is 700 words. Articles should address school related topics or items

of student interest. Columns can be e-mailed to specreaderopinions@gmail.com.

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Or speak your mind?write a letter to the editor and e-mail it to

letters@stuyspectator.com or drop it in The spectator box in the second-floor mail room.

The mission statement of Stuyvesant

reads, “the goal of this

institution is to instill the

intellectual, moral and

humanistic values

necessary for each child to

achieve his/her maximum

potential as a student and

as a caring citizen of the world.”

The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

Opinions

Page 13

Please Test Me ResponsiblyBy WENHAO DU

“oh boy! i can’t wait to take my finals!” said no student ever. The very word gives us trau-matic memories; teachers don’t always want to give them, and students certainly don’t want to take them. But whether or not anyone likes them, they are the rite of passage every one of us goes through twice a year—a nerve-wracking period, as we cram an entire semester’s worth of material, or as much as we can anyway. it is thus the responsibility of our school to test our knowledge, while keep-ing our stress at a tolerable level during the last weeks of a semester.

unfortunately, for the most part, the school has done nei-ther this year; its handling of finals has been lacking. what should have been anomalies, such as having multiple tests back-to-back, were all too com-mon among students. one of my friends described her week as “beyond ridiculous.” i agree. it’s partially because we had to take a plethora of tests, but more importantly because the sheer number of tests, along with the tests themselves, did not allow for a fair assessment of our knowledge.

For the last three years here at stuyvesant, i have heard many students complaining about teachers rushing mate-rial at the end of a term and, occasionally, not finishing. This year it was no different, though the complaints were louder and echoed farther down the hall-ways. i personally experienced this in health class this year. My teacher rushed material up

until the first day of a two-part final that, for some unfathom-able reason, was adjusted to be in-class this year, which gave no time for review. when this occurs, teachers put their stu-dents at a serious advantage. if a teacher barely finishes teach-ing the curriculum, it’s unfair for students to be tested when they have not been given any time to absorb the new mate-rial, not to mention review old material.

A new problem has emerged this year: scheduling. i’m sure many of us have gone through taking two or three tests on the same day. But at what point do exams become a test of our

stamina instead of a test of our knowledge? A student would likely do better if he/she took five tests over the course of one week than all five back-to-back on one day. unfortunately, the reality for many students re-sembled the latter. during fi-nals week, for example, a num-ber of unlucky juniors had to sit through back-to-back Biology

and drafting final exams. was the schedule so inflexible that the school had to put students through this ordeal?

But finals week wasn’t even the worst. during the week be-fore, which was already short-ened one school day by Mar-tin Luther King Jr. day, many teachers raced to both cover material and administer tests. in addition to having in-class finals that week, i even had regular tests. in the span of four days, i took two periods’ worth of tests, eight periods’ worth of finals, and wrote a four-page essay for english—all while having to attend actual class. other students weren’t better off: one online Facebook poll that week indicated that five to seven tests was the norm for students during the week be-fore finals week. The immense stress of the four-day week, which almost became reduced to just three days because of the weather, led one of my peers to complain that she “would rath-er come in every day during finals week than take [seven] tests in [four] days.”

The worst part? on any one particular day, students can have multiple finals—and still have to attend class. it is dif-ficult to pay attention in class when you are worrying about the finals you have to take dur-ing the next two periods. i pro-pose that the designated “finals week” be extended to two weeks instead of one. The benefits are obvious. First, this will lead to drastic improvements in how exams are scheduled, leading to more flexibility and better spreading of exams to avoid conflicts and back-to-back ex-

ams. second, students would have more time to study with-out having to absorb any new material during that period. Additionally, it would allow the school to accommodate trans-portation difficulties, such as the severe train delays caused by bad weather conditions that occurred on the days of in-class finals.

Besides scheduling, another problem occurs when students aren’t adequately tested on their knowledge. The new mul-tiple choice math finals given this year represent exactly that. in contrast with previous years, the departmentalized math fi-nals (Geometry, Algebra, and precalculus) had their free-re-sponse sections removed this year in favor of multiple choice exams. while multiple choice tests are effortless to grade, they don’t fully reveal whether a student understands the ma-terial. Math isn’t just about do-ing problems and bubbling in the right answer, so why should students be tested on that as-pect alone? As any of our math teachers would tell you, the ability to solve proofs and show work is more important in math, and displaying this ability re-quires a free-response section. in precalculus, students learn induction, an elementary yet powerful proof technique with a variety of applications. yet the only question regarding induc-tion on the precalculus final this year was something i could have easily guessed without any knowledge of this technique, because the question was lim-ited by its multiple choice for-mat. The effect is more serious in Geometry, a class in which

students do proofs year-round. if the school doesn’t give stu-dents a final that tests them on what they have learned in class, then what’s the point of giving it at all?

Last september, the orga-nizers of the damesek protest asked “who’s going to run our tests?” as if testing would be-come total chaos. while per-haps not Armageddon, finals this year were certainly poorly planned, coordinated, and executed by the administra-tion and several departments. Administration of final exams should be better coordinated and should take into account the sanity of us students dur-ing the incredibly hectic and stressful time of year. The ques-tion that the school needs to answer is simple: is “getting the grades in” more important than fairly assessing our learning? As students, we readily accept responsibility for our learning, and we ask that our school do the same for the administration of our tests.

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Source Material Survival Guide

By OlivER liPTON

“The movie sucked: they took out the best parts of the book.” “it was awful: the main character was nothing like how i imagined.” “All the themes of the vastly superior novel were thrown out the window in the film.” These are all very com-mon criticisms whenever a film adaptation of a novel is re-leased, and the reasons for this sort of critique are understand-able. when reading a novel, you mentally construct a sort of film in your head: you give each character some kind of form; each setting, an image; each event, a camera angle. Months later, you read an article, see a poster, hear a rumor, watch a trailer that holds the good news you didn’t know you wanted so badly to hear: that novel you loved is being produced as a

feature-length film, complete with real actors, real cinema-tography, and real images. it’s just like how you imagined the book, but real this time. sitting down to watch the film, how-ever, you wonder why they cast Actor A as the lead: the lead is supposed to be taller. why did they cut out scene B? That was your favorite. setting C looks nothing like it does in the book.

These criticisms are un-derstandable, yet inherently flawed. First of all, there are, of course, certain limitations when it comes to using one medium as an inspiration, be-cause each medium is unique. Literature has a big advan-tage when it comes to density: readers are not only willing to spend multiple hours, days, or even weeks on a single work, but they also generally expect to do so. The latitude of literary potential is, thus, literally unin-hibited by size, length, or scale: authors can be as detailed, the-matic, stylistic, or exploratory as they wish. Film’s advantages, however, are sensory: film has a chance to tell a story through images and sound in a way that books cannot. yet, it comes with some serious weaknesses in that comparison, namely length and difficulty of pro-duction; feature length mov-ies are extremely expensive and time-consuming to make. There is simply no way to fit every theme, every scene, and every moment of characteriza-tion or satire of the novel into

a film and still expect people to watch it. what that means is that removing a scene, alter-ing the focus, or blurring over a character’s backstory is not the fault of bad directing: it’s an inherent problem that could only be fixed by increasing the film’s budget by several million dollars and forcing its audience to sit in a theatre for six to eight hours in a row.

Now, i want to treat film ad-aptations as films themselves. simply put: directors are artists. They’ve read the book; they had at least some appreciation for it, and were then hired to direct its movie. They were not, how-ever, hired to direct the book. Both the script writers and di-rectors were given a book and told to use it to make a film, so they made the film they wanted to make. The book is the source material, sure, the inspiration and the guide, but it’s not the gospel, nor should it be. Maybe the script writer was more inter-ested in one idea than another. Maybe the director thought one character should look or act differently from the author’s idea. it may be difficult for fans of the book to accept, but film directors respect the novels, not worship them. And that’s a good thing. The director is just as much of a storyteller as the author, not just a translator.

if you find yourself seeing these films and constantly at-tacking them for flaws in their adherence to the book, remem-ber that maybe the problem isn’t that you prefer the book

to the movie: maybe you pre-fer books to movies in general. Then again, maybe we are too set in our own interpretation that we don’t want to be told a story: we want to be told our story, the one we’ve assembled for ourselves and that we will protect with all the frustration and critical condemnation we need to. Because we haven’t just read the story: we’ve taken possession of it. The problem, though, is that this is not go-ing to change, and these com-plaints are not going to stop. i’d suggest making film adap-tations into spinoffs or sequels of the book instead of using the same plot, but then they’d be criticized for taking liberties with someone else’s canon. i’d suggest making film adapta-

tions under a different name, but they’d be criticized for ripping off the novel. i’d sug-gest stopping the adaption of books into film altogether, but that’s not going to happen: they simply make too much money. And they shouldn’t stop: stories have never been confined to one medium. stories change and adapt as they are passed from one voice to another and become part of our culture, and our generation has a right to experiment, play with the story, rewrite it, and push it from one medium into another to figure out where it works best. That’s how culture treats stories, and why should that change? we’ve read the book already. we can read it again. Now we should see what the movie has to say.

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Opinions

The Spectator ●March 4, 2014Page 14

By NAlANDA SHARADjAyA

“Boys are better than girls at math,” announced one of the boys in my fourth grade math class, “it’s been scientifically proven. everyone knows it. you might as well not even try.” he’s wrong, i told myself. of course he’s wrong. i’m just as good as math as he is. in fact, i’m better. But now, five years later, i still feel this stereo-type hovering around me. A year ago, if you had asked me what girl-boy ratio i would have expected to see at a top public high school in one of the most progressive cities in the world, i would have confi-dently assumed it would be even. But when i got to stuyvesant, i was surprised to find that boys out-numbered girls by a three-to-two ratio, and girls’ representation in math and science courses is even worse.

data obtained from stuyve-sant’s administration shows that girls dominate humanities cours-es such as Ap history, english, and Foreign Language classes, as well as environmental and biological science classes. Boys, on the oth-er hand, predominantly take the

“hard” math and science courses, such as Ap physics C, Multivariate Calculus, and systems Level pro-gramming. in fact, three classes at stuyvesant—two technology courses and one intel course—do not have a single girl enrolled in them. however, the class most skewed to girls, Ap english Lit-erature and Composition: Great Books is still composed of 25% boys.

This gender imbalance is con-fusing, because there’s absolutely no reason that equally qualified girls and boys should be so un-equally distributed in their course selections. The current system of testing could be a factor in gen-der disparity. A stanford univer-sity study demonstrated that boys tended to outperform girls when it came to being evaluated on the same material in high-stress, time-pressured situations, such as standardized tests. Gender differ-ences lie mostly in competitive-ness, rather than in any difference of ability. This may be a cause for differences in standardized test performance. Further research from the educational Testing ser-vices (eTs) found that sAT math scores under-predict young wom-en’s performance in college math courses. This makes the impact of standardized tests more troubling. regents and Ap exam scores ap-pear on official transcripts, but they fail to accurately reflect girls’ abilities.

Though test scores do not di-rectly affect enrollment in special courses, they do influence stu-dents’ decisions. if girls regularly receive worse scores than their male counterparts, they may feel less confident in themselves, and less inclined to sign up for difficult courses. And a lack of confidence in math-science abilities is ex-tremely prevalent in high school girls.

data has indeed shown that even today, in a world with far im-proved equality for women, girls still have less confidence in their math abilities than boys. A 2007 us doe study showed that students with strong “self-concepts” about their mathematical and scientific abilities were more likely to select and succeed in courses in these areas. The study also showed that many more boys than girls have these “self-concepts.” with this higher self-confidence, boys excel in the sciences and are more com-fortable pursuing college degrees in these areas.

it is important to note that female students who had strong “self-concepts” about their math-ematical abilities did very well in elective math and science courses in high school. however, even girls with high scores on their math sATs often ended up pursuing ca-reers in political science or medi-cine, and although these careers do involve mathematical abilities, they are often seen as being more hands-on, and have more direct involvement with other people.

Though the cause is not en-tirely clear, there are several more potential reasons why girls who have performed well in math and physics shy away from choosing the more demanding Ap courses in these subjects. perhaps girls opt out of math because they also perform well in language assess-ments, and have more course op-tions to choose from. it may also be that girls gravitate toward ca-reers that provide them with the opportunity to make positive dif-ferences in the world. Fields like medicine are thus more appeal-ing to girls than areas like particle physics or number theory, which may appear to them to as hav-ing fewer real-world applications. here at stuyvesant, biology cours-es generally have a girl-boy ratio

of around one-to-one, whereas Ap physics, for example, leans much more towards boys. This empha-sizes the need to teach math and science with more real-world rel-evance to help facilitate gender equality.

simply put, there aren’t enough girls in math and science classes, and there aren’t enough women pursuing math and science ca-reers. Though 74% of girls in middle school express an interest in science, technology, math, and engineering (sTeM), something happens to girls when they get to high school, and as one of the top schools in the country, stuyvesant has an obligation to set the prec-edent for a change. To start off, we need to acknowledge the is-sue as a community and have an open debate on the topic: not just between students, but with teach-ers and administrators as well. As we try to understand the causes that influence gender disparity at stuyvesant, we can begin by mak-ing male-dominated math and sci-ence classrooms more welcoming to girls. Teachers can try to com-pensate for lopsided gender ratios in their classrooms by seating girls together to reduce a sense of isola-tion and improve girls’ confidence in class participation. Classrooms can be observed to understand patterns of boys’ dominant be-havior and girl students can be surveyed for their experiences in these classes for ideas on how to change this situation. Teachers can then attempt to reduce this male competitive behavior and promote a more gender-neutral atmosphere of learning.

initiatives to expand and pro-mote female participation in ex-tracurricular math-science cours-es are also crucial. Just take a look at ‘Girls who Code’, an all-girls program that set out to introduce teenage girls to the world of com-

puter programming. They showed that running all-girls computer programming courses dramatical-ly increased participants’ self-con-fidence, provoking a strong inter-est to pursue careers in computer science. At stuyvesant, we should consider starting an all-girls math or robotics team. Girls may feel more confident to participate in an environment without being the minority in a field of boys.

we are still far from bridging the gender gap in education. if we’re really trying to create gen-der equality, we need both sexes to be represented fairly in sTeM courses, as well as the humanities. This change starts with us, girls, so don’t doubt yourselves. There are always going to be people like my fourth-grade classmate, but don’t ever take what they say to heart. instead, take initiative. sign up for that chemistry or programming elective you’ve always wanted to take. you might find you really en-joy it, and you’ll also be helping to close stuy’s gender gap, a change which is long overdue.

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Wanted: Girls in Science

How Stuy Can Produce More Innovators

By SCOTT FAiRBANkS

A dark wave of sleep-de-prived students sweeps along Chambers street. it is Monday and the winter winds are unfor-giving. The students of stuyve-sant high school are clinging to the last slice of the weekend as they are thrown into the tor-rents of another intense week. The pride of going to a pres-tigious high school has dis-sipated. Any excitement over the number of intel semifinal-ists or the recent placement of

the robotics Team recedes into the haze of another seemingly identical school day. There is something missing from the average stuyvesant school day: creativity.

steve Jobs said that creativ-ity is “just connecting things.” Creative people use experi-ences they have had in order to solve problems. whether you are an artist or mathema-tician, creativity exists inside everyone. it can be encouraged and cultivated on an individual basis. inventive thinking is the fuel for innovation and prog-ress in any field.

To say there is no creativity at stuyvesant would be absurd. A plethora of extracurriculars, electives, and Ap classes stim-ulates creativity. however, in-novative ideas can be further developed in an everyday class-room setting. if we can achieve a balance between rote and creativity, we can change the way students approach learn-ing at stuyvesant and produce more innovators.

Creativity is constricted by the testing culture at stuy. The academic evaluation system is centered on tests. Admission is based solely on a standardized

examination, for which most people cram. These are not ideal conditions for innovation. in addition, the curriculum in most classes is dominated by preparation for regents, Ap, or departmental final exams. yet, there is more flexibility than one might think. There are many ways to enrich the cur-riculum, without sacrificing preparation.

regardless of the limits im-posed by standardized tests, independent thinking can al-ways be integrated. sometimes it enhances preparation for the test itself. in Ap european history, our class took part in a Congress of Vienna simula-tion, which gave us the chance to explore the roles of various diplomats who met in Vienna to determine the fate of eu-rope. This simulation was excit-ing and stimulating. we had to work together and use our his-tory knowledge to solve prob-lems. in addition to teaching us valuable problem solving skills, it solidified the topic in our memories. This model for inno-vative thinking in approaching history can be replicated on all levels, in many different ways. in the case of an American his-

tory class, we could take the po-sitions of different delegates in the Constitutional Convention, which resulted in the creation of the united states Constitu-tion. This simulation would be challenging, entertaining, and provide us with original insight into our governmental struc-ture.

Another creative assign-ment i received was a project called an i-search, which many freshmen must complete. My teacher instructed us to find any topic that was especially interesting to us and to conduct our own research on that topic. This approach taught us how to break a large amorphous task into smaller pieces so that it becomes feasible. The project also taught us how to combine different pieces of information into a presentable whole. These skills help us to think outside the box and innovate on a sub-ject in which we are interested.

The i-search project was as-signed for english class, which has a more flexible curriculum. however, this project can be used as a model for different subjects as well. For example, in biology we could choose a specific process in the hu-

man body that interests us. we would then break up this larger process into smaller compo-nents and research each com-ponent separately by talking to experts and consulting scientif-ic reports and medical journals. The bottom line is that a project like this gives us the freedom to approach a task in our own way. if stuyvesant wants to create innovators, it must encourage students to learn and think for themselves on topics that they are passionate about.

As students, when we take part in projects like these, our academic experience changes. it becomes more than just an endless cycle of memoriza-tion. each class becomes more meaningful. if students are excited about a class, they are more likely to seamlessly ab-sorb the information given. Thus, by increasing creativity in the everyday classroom, we can enhance understanding of the material and give students tools to innovate. stuyvesant has churned out enough robots. it is time to produce visionaries and game changers.

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Page 15The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

The Things We Carried

By The Photo Department

Humor

Page 16 The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

Students Boycott Barnes and Noble and Whole

FoodsBy LaSzLo SandLer

In response to being kicked out during finals week, Stuyvesant students have decided to boy-cott Barnes and Noble and Whole Foods. The boycott, which is said to be a protest against the treat-ment of the student body, is—rather surprisingly—supported by the CEOs of Barnes and Noble and Whole Foods, Michael Huseby and John Mackey. The boycott comes as a great benefit to the companies, which have recently encountered problems with Stuyvesant students who spend time in their stores with-out spending any money. “We never wanted these kids in here to begin with,” Huseby said. “So when we learned about the boycott, we thought, ‘what a great way to keep them out for good!’”

“We figured it would be easy to get the students to participate,” said junior Cole Reschke, one of the leaders of the boycott. “I mean, look at how easily the freshmen

were persuaded to protest for Damesek.”

Freshman Claudia Zelek ex-plained her reason for boycotting. “This ain’t even fair,” Zelek said. “They had no right to kick me out. I’m a paying customer, some-times.”

The boycott has been widely upheld among the student body. “Barely anyone eats at Whole Foods anyways,” junior Benjamin Lanier said. “So, essentially, almost the en-tire school has been participating without even knowing.”

“I didn’t know that I was sup-porting a cause by eating Halal every day, but hey, it’ll look good on my college application to have been involved,” sophomore Pranav Lowe said.

Other students, such as fresh-man Sarah Yoon, are not as happy about their involvement. “For God’s sake,” Yoon said. “Will there ever be a time when I can buy a pizza bagel without it meaning something?”

These articles are works of fiction. all quotes are libel and slander.

In a desperate attempt to •please his angry girlfriend, ju-nior Benjamin Lanier report-edly began collecting broken stems and petals outside the cafeteria with the intent of pre-senting them to her. His chiv-alrous efforts were stopped by a passing security guard.Renowned musician and proud •recycler Snoop Lion was the keynote speaker this year for the Environmental Club’s an-nual Environmental Festival.Michael Phelps led the Den-•ver Seahawks to a gold medal in the Super Bowl by scoring a buzzer-beating grand slam.Freshman William Yen slept •the entire weekend in order to make up for the sleep he missed out on during the school week. “It’s not my fault that the best League players live in dif-ferent time zones,” Yen said.

Newsbeat Brian Moran Recounts Cutting School

By danieL GoynaTSky

As winter break and the begin-ning of the second semester ap-proached, the number of students who cut class daily was even higher than it was two years ago when Barnes and Nobles had a “buy one get one free” deal on SAT prep books Yearning to gain insight as to why students decide to cut class, Assistant Principal of Security, Safe-ty, and Student Affairs Brian Moran decided to experience a day in the life of a Stuyvesant student.

The following is an excerpt from his diary about that day:

6:30 AM: Wow, I get to wake up one hour later than usual. This whole “student life” thing might be better than everyone thinks.

7:48 AM: It’s not my fault; I was really in the zone because I was lis-tening to “Timber” by Ke$ha and Pit Bull. They didn’t have to confis-cate my iPod and my headphones.

8:04 AM: I’m really good friends with Dr. Barrow, so first period should pass without a breeze.

8:07 AM: I did not expect to fall asleep in class that quickly.

8:45 AM: I have to go from the 10th floor to the 1st floor. Who pro-grammed this schedule? I need to talk to guidance about this.

10:19 AM: Why do I have lunch this early? How can this be lunch if McDonalds still serves their break-fast burritos? The burritos are deli-cious, but I can’t have them more than once a week because they go straight to my thighs.

11:07 AM: OK, finally a class I’ve always been good at. Math should be an easy free period.

11:10 AM: I’m confused about what my teacher is saying. I don’t understand how this polynomial is like Cuba during Fidel Castro’s rule.

11:49 AM: I went to talk to my guidance counselor. I just wanted to change two of my periods, but instead I had to waste 45 minutes discussing the effect the color of the hallways has on my emotional well-being.

12:37 PM: What a great time for a free period. Gee, thanks Program-ming! I never liked Mr. Wong. The way he smiles at me in the morn-ings. I know it’s all fake, but I wish it was real. </3

1:19 PM: Since when is tor-renting music not allowed in the library?

1:46 PM: How am I supposed to know that I have gym class in the fifth floor gymnasium and not in room 380 like it says on my sched-ule?

1:48 PM: Note to self: never call physical education class “gym” again.

2:12 PM: I was in US History class and I saw someone pass a note, so I told Mrs. Greenwald. I think she likes me now.

2:14 PM: There is a rumor go-ing around the class that I like to be called Mr. Shiny. Teenagers can be so cruel.

2:49 PM: This day so far was terrible. Kids made fun of me, the breakfast burrito did not do friendly things to me during gym physical education, and I got my headphones confiscated. I might as well skip 10th period and go home because this day cannot get any worse.

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Doritos Win Superbowl

By Shane Lorenzen

America is a land of tradition and festivity. From the children dressed up as fictional serial killers on Halloween to the fireworks set off on the 4th of July, the people of the United States engage in patri-otic celebrations all year round.

Indeed, every February, 110 million proud Americans and 35 Canadian citizens gather around their television sets to watch the most patriotic and virtuous cel-ebration of all, the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl is a culmination of several lifetimes’ worth of hard work and dedication, in which our nation’s top advertising firms face off against one another in a glori-ous struggle to see who can sell the most hardworking citizens the most useless and possibly carcino-genic products.

By the end of the night on Sun-day February 2, 2014, America had its newest Super Bowl champion: the Doritos Corn Chip (a.k.a “the chip with the orange stuff that my eight year old cousin gets all over everything”). Critics are now calling the commercial that won Doritos their coveted status as Super Bowl champions “riveting,” “transforma-tive,” and a “tour de force.”

The commercial tells the story of two young brothers, reminiscent of the Old Testament’s Cain and Abel, who use cowboy lassos and a dog to fight over a bag of Doritos while their mother is putting away groceries. It is easy to see why there was not a single dry eye left in this country after the end of this ad-vertisement’s 30 second run time. The hard work and dedication that went into this commercial was clear from the very first frame until the last. “The win was no surprise to us, we were giving it 110% the whole year,” said Ryan Anderson, the commercial’s director. “It was a team effort for sure, but special mention must go to the dog from

the commercial. There were times when we weren’t sure of ourselves and he always pushed us that extra mile. Our MVP, no doubt.”

Not everyone, however, felt positively about the Doritos victory. In a press conference, NFL quarter-back Peyton Manning objected to the snack’s inclusion in the compe-tition because of its reputation as a “choking hazard.” Budweiser (a.k.a. the liquid yeast infection) also felt slighted by the Doritos’ victory. Ini-tially a fan favorite and projected to win, Budweiser came out of the gate strong with two commercials pandering to America’s insatiable love for both veterans and puppies, but in the end it wasn’t enough to beat out Doritos.

Fans also felt somewhat disap-pointed by the other contestants. “I was looking forward to the Chee-rios commercial because they were planning to continue their series about a bi-racial family. I was hop-ing they’d add a third ethnicity to the clan, such as an Asian or a His-panic, but they didn’t! Come on people, it’s 2014!” exclaimed junior and Super Bowl fan Gideon Leeper, when asked to elaborate upon his frustrations with the event. “Be-yond that, nothing else stood out to me. It was a pretty boring Super Bowl,” he said. “Also, believe me, the less said about anything Go-Daddy did, the better.”

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By JacoB FaBer-rico

DepressionThe survey found that in the

last 30 days, 61 percent of Stuyve-sant students have felt “so de-pressed that [they] could not func-tion.” What can explain this large number?

One would think the answer could be Flappy Bird, but the sur-vey showed absolutely no corre-lation between Flappy Bird high score and depression. Students who are almost always too de-pressed to function have an aver-age high score of one. Students who are never depressed have an average high score of one as well, the only difference being that they report throwing their phones out the window.

Substance AbuseWhile 80 percent of students

reported that they had never used alcohol, only 92 percent answered the question that asked how often they were in control of themselves when drunk. “We believe that 8 percent of students were actually too drunk while taking the test to select the right answers,” senior and veteran Spectator reporter Jer-

emy Karson said. This may explain other skewed results in the survey: 0.18 percent of students have no friends who are under the influence of alcohol at least once a month; 60 percent of students are juniors; 69 percent of students report being broken by escalators; 119 percent of escalators report being broken by students.

There do, however, appear to be a couple of conclusions from this survey. “There seems to be a di-rect correlation between marijuana usage and being high,” sophomore and Spectator Opinions writer Scott Fairbanks said. “What’s impressive is that everyone who has ever been high in school reports also having smoked marijuana at least once in their lifetime. In addition, everyone who reports having used hard drugs at least once in their lifetimes has done hard drugs in their lifetime,” an ecstatic Fairbanks explained.

RaceAn overwhelming majority of

East Asian and Southeast Asian stu-dents, as well as many South Asian, and Middle Eastern (in other words, also Asian) students reported that they attend Stuyvesant, leading us to believe that Stuyvesant is pretty

much exclusively Asian. A similar survey given to students from other schools found that when the word “Asian” did not appear in the stu-dent’s ethnicity, just eight percent of the respondents reported that they attended Stuyvesant, while 92 percent reported attending Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, or the School of Hard Knocks. While we are still trying to locate that one, we suspect that it is an out-of-city school, possibly in Staten Island.

Commuting“What is your total commute

time daily (one way)?”This question yielded false re-

sults because it ignored the realities of public transportation. Not only does it ignore the fact that the typi-cal train takes anywhere between five minutes and six days to cross the East River, but it also ignores the possibility that the guy sitting next to you on the A train suddenly has a seizure, so you have to go to West 4th street, where a water main broke, and somehow, you accident-ly get on the M train and end up at Marcy Avenue in Williamsburg with no MetroCard rides left, no money, and a dead cell phone.

Outside of the station.

The Spectator Survey: An Exhaustive Analysis

By JereMy karSon

“Sorry. The opening time has not yet arrived.” Before every Stuyvesant semester begins, this cruel message haunts the dreams of students, infiltrates their thoughts at every waking minute, and bur-rows itself into the darkest corners of their hearts. However, every year, as the first semester transitions to the second, a mysterious thing happens. Briefly—sometimes for a couple hours, and sometimes for mere minutes—students’ sched-ules and/or semester grades ap-pear prematurely on the Student or Parent Tools sections of the Stuyve-sant website.

For millennia, these leaks have puzzled historians, pundits, and food critics alike. Even the most re-nowned student journalists, those of the News department of The Stuyvesant Spectator, have been repeatedly “stonewalled” in ef-forts to learn about the leaks of this data. “Between this and the Stu-dent Union’s budget, the admin-istration sure has a lot of secrets,” senior, former News Editor, and acclaimed investigative journalist Noah Rosenberg said.

However, recently junior and ex-pert News reporter Coby Goldberg uncovered an amazing new revela-tion. While engaging in an extend-ed and sweaty session of “me-time” on the Internet last Saturday night, Goldberg inadvertently stumbled upon something incredible. He found out that the data was, in fact, leaked by none other than former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Many have theorized that Snowden orchestrated these leaks in order to relieve some of the emotional bur-den placed on Stuyvesant students, who often spend entire weekends refreshing both the “transcipts.rb” and “grade_check.rb” Student Tools extensions as they await their grades. “It’s confusing whether or

not this should be in a humor ar-ticle, because on the one hand, it’s ridiculous, but on the other hand, it’s entirely true,” junior and grade check rabble-rouser Hubert Pusz-klewicz said.

Those infinitely more quali-fied and knowledgeable on the subject, such as television host Ryan Seacrest, have confirmed that Snowden’s main motivation is to mess with Assistant Principal of Technology Edward Wong. “Yeah, it’s a real pain in the you-know-what,” Wong said. “Ever since things got weird that one time in the Pinkberry bathroom, he’s had it in for me. I think it’s an Edward thing.”

One element of the mystery re-mains unsolved. Analysts all over the world, from China to Taiwan, have theorized that, kind of like what happens in the 2010 movie Inside Job starring Matt Damon, Snowden must have an “inside man” in the Stuyvesant adminis-tration. Otherwise, no matter how much computer science instruc-tion he may have received, there is no way that he could have cracked the state-of-the-art firewall that protects the elite high school’s in-credibly modern, really quick, and efficient, not to mention extremely sophisticated and devilishly hand-some, computer system. But who could this inside man be?

Speculation and wild accusa-tions have overtaken the school, with people blaming everyone from Assistant Principal of Security, Safe-ty, and Student Affairs Brian Moran to that hot sophomore girl who you sometimes make eye contact with, and then feel kind of creepy about it afterwards. However, until soph-omore, upcoming superstar, and News Editor Tina Jiang completes her top-secret, life threatening, and totally illegal investigation, the truth shall remain hidden.

Snowden Leaks Schedules and Grades

Arts and Entertainment

Page 17The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

Calendar

SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY27ConcertMayer HawthorneWebster Hall7:30 p.m.

ConcertNick WaterhouseBowery Ballroom8 p.m.

28Movie release“Non-Stop”Genre: ThrillerCast: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Nate Parker

Art exhibitionGabriel Hartley: “POSING”Foxy Production (Chelsea)Available through March 29, 2014

1ConcertYoung The GiantThe Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center Studios9 p.m.

ConcertThe Summer SetThe Studio at Web-ster Hall8 p.m.

2Art exhibitionBrent Owens: “For Thinkin’ Long and Dark”English Kills (Greenpoint, Wil-liamsburg)Available through March 30, 2014

ConcertLeonidas KavakosCarnegie Hall (Judy & Arthur Zankel Hall)7:30 p.m.

3Album releaseImogen Heap’s “Sparks”Genre: Electronic, Indie Pop

Album releasePharrell Williams’s “G I R L”Genre: Hip Hop, R&B

4Album releaseReal Estate’s “Atlas”Genre: Indie Rock

Album releaseLea Michele’s “Louder”Genre: Pop, Dance

5ConcertAustin MahoneHammerstein Ball-room7 p.m.

ConcertJennifer NettlesBeacon Theatre8 p.m.

6ConcertDeer TickThe Allen Room at Lincoln Center8:30 p.m.

Art exhibitionRichard Mosse: “The Enclave”Jack Shainman Gal-lery (Chelsea)Available through March 22, 2014

7Movie release“The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”Genre: Adventure, fantasyCast: Martin Free-man, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cum-berbatch, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace

ConcertWild ChildMercury Lounge7 p.m.

ConcertZ100’s Jingle Ball 2013Madison Square Garden7:30 p.m.

8Art galleryChip Hooper: “Surf”Robert Mann Gal-lery (Chelsea)Available through February 1, 2014

Museum exhibition“Magritte: The Mys-tery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938”MoMAAvailable through January 12, 2014

9ConcertNew York City Gay Men’s ChorusTown Hall Theatre3 p.m., 7 p.m.

New York City BalletGeorge Balanchine’s “The Nutcracker”1 p.m., 5 p.m.Single tickets are now on sale online

10Museum exhibitionChristopher WoolThe Guggenheim Museum Available through January 22, 2014

ConcertRhett MillerNew York City Winery8 p.m.

11ConcertLordeRoseland Ballroom7 p.m.

Art exhibitionJanet Fish: “Panoply”DC Moore Gallery (Chelsea)Available through March 15, 2014

12Art exhibitionJeffrey Catherine Jones: “Solo Exhibition”Society of Illustra-tors (Upper East Side)Available through May 3, 2014

Amateur Night at the ApolloApollo Theater7:30 p.m.

13ConcertEllie GouldingThe Theater at Madison Square Garden8 p.m.

Art exhibitionAli Banisadr: “Motherboard”Sperone Westwater Gallery (Chelsea)Available through April 19, 2014

14Movie release“Veronica Mars”Genre: Mystery, DramaCast: Kristen Bell, Percy Daggs III, Jason Dohring, Mar-tin Starr, Jamie Lee Curtis, Justin Long, James Franco

Album releaseKylie Minogue’s “Kiss Me Once”Genre: Dance Pop

15Art exhibitionKarla Black: “Solo Exhibition”David Zwirner Gal-lery (Chelsea)Available through April 12, 2014

ConcertMaria Schneider OrchestraThe Allen Room at Lincoln Center7 p.m.

Looking Forward: February & March

Playlist1. “Harlem” by New PoliticsAlternative Rock

2. “Ashes” by The Bengsons Post-Rock/Experimental

3. “Alone Together” by Fall Out BoyPop Punk

4. “Communist Daughter” by Neutral Milk HotelIndie Rock/Psychedelic Folk

5. “After the Disco” by Broken BellsIndie Nu Disco

6. “This is the Day” by The TheAlternative Rock

7. “Until We Get There” by LuciusIndie Pop

8. “Short Skirt Long Jacket” by CakeAlternative Rock

9. “Amber Waves” by Erin McCarleyPop

10. “Love Me Again” by John NewmanPop/Soul

Arts and Entertainment

Page 18 The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

Food

Cutting Edge FoodBy Jenny Jiang

Recently, I decided to check out a restaurant that many of my friends were recommending—Cutting Board. When I went there with my friends after school, I realized that from the train station, there were still several blocks to cover before arriving at the restaurant. Nevertheless, this “sai chaan”(Cantonese-Western fusion) restaurant lo-cated in Chinatown attracts the young generation of Asians, and was definitely worth the walk.

Cutting Board is a restaurant that serves many kinds of Asian cuisine, but it is unique in that its menu incorporates Western influence. Upon walking in, the restaurant appeared to be small and crowded, but it opened into a wider area hidden by a wall. Spiky ball lights, hanging from the low ceiling, gave it a live-lier atmosphere. The customers chattering at surrounding tables were mostly Asian like us, and appeared to be either in their teens or in their twenties.

While the restaurant played K-pop songs, we browsed the menu. The first thing I noticed on the menu was the price of the dishes. Everything was under $10. This made ordering much easier because nobody had to worry about overspending.

There were some unique starters, like the Teppan But-ter Gyozas with orange Ponzu dipping sauce and CB Clams w. White/Red Sauce; however, we decided to enjoy the classic starters, Cajun Fries and Cheese

Fries, which were only $4 each. The fries were fat and thick, unlike the ones at McDonald’s. Though the Cheese Fries fell a bit flat compared to the Ca-jun Fries, the latter was nicely flavored and spiced, while the cheese that came separately for the Cheese Fries wasn’t too salty.

The main dishes took a while to arrive, but they were the high-light of our meal. The Grilled Chicken Creamy Rice, which came accompanied by peppers and onions, was perfect—the chicken was soft, chewable, and a bit sweet. The Satay Sliced Beef Udon (Stir-Fried) was juicy and somewhat sweet and just oily enough for the noodles to move easily in the mouth. Like the Grilled Chicken Creamy Rice, this dish was accompa-nied by many vegetables, which provided a nice balance. The unnamed sauce tasted similar to Alfredo sauce, except it was slightly spiced and less cheesy. I remember the Sea Urchin (Uni) Pasta, a linguini-like pasta com-bined with Japanese style sea ur-chin meat, for its strong, flavor-ful smell: an underlying scent of cheese, with sauces and steam flowing from it. The meat was soft and buttery in taste, mean-ing the dish was cooked well. Cutting Board’s signature style definitely worked and showed me something that I had never experienced before.

The drinks and desserts section was not lacking, ei-ther. There were drinks such as various teas (with the option

of adding tapioca), aloe drinks, and soda, but we wanted to try something new, such as the Mango and Green Apple with aloe. The drink, a shade of faded lime green, came in a mason jar, with large jelly pieces at the bot-tom. Though sweet at first, the aftertaste was sour, a character-istic of green apple. The dessert menu had interesting choices as well, including Chocolate Log, Italy Fillo Apple Roll, and Yuzu Ice Cream Cake. I decided to be bold and try the plain Souf-flé. With a smooth muffin-like appearance, this French dish was served warm; when eaten, the fork broke easily through the soft shell to reveal the milky creaminess of egg whites inside. It was better than I expected, and worth the almost $5 I spent on it.

In terms of the service at Cutting Board, I was a little dis-appointed. The waiters made a few minor mistakes: at first, they brought three menus instead of five for our group, and later seemed to have forgotten about serving us the usual glasses of water. However, aside from the insignificant problems with the service, I could definitely see why people were talking about this restaurant. With already-great aspects such as low prices and a somewhat convenient location, Cutting Board’s Asian-Italian fusion cuisine is one not to miss.

Cutting Board is located in Chinatown at 53 Bayard St.

Exhibition

A Revolutionary Designer Visits BrooklynBy CLaire Burghard

Fashion can be a disappoint-ing, monotone industry. In a world where cookie-cutter, stick thin models in eight-inch stilet-tos rule, and where handbags cost more than cars just because of their labels, there lies a thin line between predictable and innovative. It is an industry that needs more people like Jean Paul Gaultier, who celebrates his at-traction to “people who are dif-ferent.” The Brooklyn Museum recently opened an exhibit dis-playing some of Gaultier’s most characteristic work, including pieces that feature his iconic use of the corset, man-skirt, and cone bra. “The Fashion World

of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk” expos-es Gaultier’s genius in taking his world and all the problems he sees in it and creating fashion around it. In the process, the de-signer transforms fashion into something much more power-ful than just the clothes on our backs.

Gaultier’s influence can prob-ably be summed up with his use of the corset. The controversial garment, which historically has had a variety of uses and mean-ings, holds a limited purpose in the Western world as a garment used to slim and shape the fe-male body, and therefore is typi-cally considered a garment of female oppression. Gaultier has aimed to change this definition by introducing the corset as an instrument of liberation, sexual power, and strength. He even chooses to dress men in corsets, explaining that they have been used in many cultures as a form of armor. Almost everything designed by Gaultier—from his models to his perfume bottles to his teddy bears—features a cor-set, making it his unexpectedly liberal signature. In “Tribute to Africa,” Gaultier celebrates maternity and pregnancy in his designs, including a pouch on the belly of one of his cor-sets. He uses the man-skirt in a similar way, referencing Scot-tish kilts and Japanese samurai as counterexamples to the west-ern premise that skirts are only for women. In “Flower Power and Skinheads,” leather jack-ets, plaid skirts, and knee-high boots adorn both the males and

the females, making the col-lection almost independent of sexuality. His scrambling of ste-reotypes is emphasized in the museum’s exhibit, and makes us question, as one of the talking

mannequins in the exhibit asks, “Why can’t men wear haute cou-ture too?”

One central theme is high-lighted in Gaultier’s work: di-versity. The designer embraces diversity in unexpected ways, both in his work and in his prac-tice. His models display a huge spectrum of types of women (and men), diverging from the stereotypical thin-and-tall model by including plus-sized,

petite, as well as somewhat pe-culiar-looking people. Both his designs and his models embrace diversity: the various collections featured in the exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, including “Dada” (1983), “The Surrealists” (2006-07), “Constructivist (Rus-sian)” (1986-87), “Tribute to Frida Kahlo” (1998), “Japanese Tourists at the Louvre” (1999) and “Good-Time Gauguin” (2000), use themes and refer-ences to fashion from all over the globe. As a viewer roams through the exhibit, he or she might encounter anything from Gothic-style Christian figures to zebra and cheetah prints to plaid kilts on Gaultier’s extrava-gant outfits. Each piece is so dif-ferent from the next that even strolling through the exhibit can be somewhat dizzying.

This dizzying effect was one of the only faults in the Brook-lyn Museum’s curating of the exhibit. Upon entering the gal-lery, there were 3 different paths I could take; and leaving the exhibit, I felt like I had missed parts of the show because the layout was so scattered. I often felt completely surrounded by equally interesting displays, and didn’t know where to turn. In ad-dition, the talking mannequins, a big hit of the exhibit, were not my cup of tea. The projection of faces was interesting to watch, and the inquisitive phrases said by the mannequins sometimes made me laugh, but it seemed to me that they were the only part of the exhibit that inter-ested much of the crowd around me. Their shock factor drew at-

tention away from the beauty and educational aspect of the fashion itself. Nevertheless, the pieces were breathtaking, and created an excellent profile of the monumental designer that is Gaultier. Although the exhibit is now closed at the Brooklyn Mu-seum and is moving on to other cities, an abundance of material on the designer can be found on the Brooklyn Museum’s website, including images and video in-terviews.

Possibly the most fascinat-ing aspect of the exhibit was the emphasis on Gaultier’s influ-ence in celebrity pop-culture. His most iconic follower, Ma-donna (and her signature cone-bra) is everywhere, as she was his most significant muse. Oth-ers, including Nirvana, Michael Jackson, David Bowie, and the modern Karlie Kloss and Lady Gaga, were featured in various videos and displays throughout the exhibit. In these displays, all of his muses possess a par-ticular peculiarity, such as Kurt Cobain’s raw punk attitude in his “Heart-Shaped Box” music video, or Beth Ditto’s curviness and flamboyance. This goes back to his belief in difference and diversity: “I would like to say to people, open your eyes and find beauty where you nor-mally don’t expect it.” These ref-erences brought the exhibit rel-evance, placing it in the context of the exciting and animated pop-culture revolution of the late 20th century that still influ-ences our lives today.

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Arts and Entertainment

Page 19The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

Artists Who Have PassedEach year countless men and women, some more well-known than others, pass on, always

leaving their own marks on the people who loved them and even looked up to them. The follow-ing artists – actors, musicians, etc. – were dedicated to their work and to their fans, and it is with

heavy hearts that we must say goodbye to them. However, the legacy they have left with us will never be erased.

Shirley Temple BlackBy Shahruz Ghaemi

In the midst of the Great Depression, FDR said that “as long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right.” As a child star in movies like “Glad Rags to Riches” and “Heidi”, she was the singing, dancing, and acting princess of American cinema. With her charming personality and radi-ant joy onscreen, she captivated adoring audiences across the nation. As she said later in her life, “I don’t like to do negatives. There are always pluses to things.” Even so, her acting career went down-hill after 1939 and her first marriage at 17 ended in divorce. Temple later remarried, successfully, to Charles Alden Black in 1950, and became the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, Czechoslovakia, and the UN. She inspired the non-alcoholic “Shirley Temple” cocktail. She also became the one of the first prominent women to speak openly about breast cancer, following her own diagnosis and mastecto-my in 1973. Shirley Temple Black passed away February 10, 2014, at the age of 85, of natural causes at her home in Woodside, California.

Pete SeegerBy Anne Duncan

When a boy is born, he rarely looks to his future, expecting, at such an early age, to become a political and musical icon. But how else could Pete Seeger have lived his life? He was born in 1919 to parents who were both musicians and political activists. Though he tried to rebel against his parents’ lifestyle, he could not turn down the sweet sound of the banjo. Between his talent and passion for activism, Seeger became an influential and irreplaceable folk musician and role model for Americans.

Many agreed with what Seeger sang, and joined in his chorus. He joined with Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, and Ronnie Gilbert to form the all-Communist band “The Weavers” which became known for the songs they either wrote or made popular, including “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine”, which is about the lifetimes of a man and a woman; and “If I Had a Hammer,” which is about how a man would use his hammer to fix the problems of his country, and how a woman would use her song to do the same. Their music is set to typical folk instruments, but have a fuller and more produced sound than Seeger’s solo music has: just Seeger and his banjo, although both have their appeals. In later decades, The Weavers set the stage for the revitalization of folk.

Seeger died of natural causes on January 27, 2014, in New York City. He is remembered for the impact of his music, but also for some specific songs that still hit close to home. In “Turn, Turn, Turn” he sings about destiny and the temporariness of each event in life. “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” remains a gentle reminder of our repeated mistakes in war and violence. Seeger, even after death, can impart a hard-learned truth: “Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards, every one. Oh, when will they ever learn?”

Philip Seymour hoffmanBy Emma McIntosh

A born performer through and through, Philip Seymour Hoffman, arguably one of the most tal-ented actors in Hollywood in recent years, met an unfortunate death on February 2, 2014 due to a heroin overdose. Hoffman, an Academy Award winning actor (he received three Oscar nominations for Best Actor in a Supporting Role after winning Best Actor in a Leading Role for “Capote”), never ceased to amaze audiences with his ability to command attention and hold it. Hoffman had several works in progress when he died, including the final two “Hunger Games” movies. A phenomenal presence both onscreen and off, Hoffman’s absence from the movie world will not go unnoticed. In addition, the outcry in response to his passing has been astounding. Ian McKellan, an admirer of Hoffman and a skilled actor himself, said that Hoffman’s “work on film survives his death, the only consolation in our grief and regret.”

Cory MonteithBy Emma McIntosh

The world became a little sadder on July 17, 2013 when “Glee” star Cory Monteith was found dead in his hotel room af-ter overdosing on heroin and alcohol. The 31-year-old actor was best known for his role as quarterback, drummer, and Glee Club member Finn Hudson, although he had previously landed a few smaller parts before becoming one of the leads on the Fox series. Monteith’s audition tape for “Glee” comprised him drumming on Tupperware containers with pencils as he sang “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” a song he would later perform on the show. This quirky start to Monteith’s career as a TV star proved to be more than appropriate when considering his unique and charming personality. Big, clumsy, and loved by the entire cast of “Glee” as well as its enormous fanbase, it came as a shock to everyone when his passing was announced far too soon. Although Mon-teith had had a history with drug use, he seemed to be recover-ing. The third episode of the fifth season of “Glee,” titled “The Quarterback,” displayed the raw emotions of the cast as their characters reacted to the death of Finn, Monteith’s character. Al-though the show itself seems able to continue without him, the loss of Cory Monteith has damaged the hearts of his countless fans, friends and family members.

James averyBy Emily Lee

Best known for his role as Uncle Phil on “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” James Avery passed away on December 31, 2013, at the age of 68. Avery had been battling multiple illnesses for years before he died due to complications with his open-heart surgery. For a generation raised on television, Avery will always be a part of our childhood. Uncle Phil will remain in our hearts as the lovable, witty father figure who taught Will (Will Smith) morals and gave him compassion when Smith’s father couldn’t. When he talked, everyone listened. He came to be everyone’s uncle, regardless of race. Avery’s other works included cameos on “Grey’s Anatomy” and “That ‘70s Show.” He was an extraordinary actor, and as “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” co-star Alfonso Ribeiro put it, “the world has lost a truly special man.”

James gandolfiniBy Frances Dodin

For eight years, actor James Gandolfini portrayed New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano, a charac-ter he embraced and brought to life, gathering an immense following to his TV show, “The Sopra-nos.” He passed away on June 19, 2013 after a heart attack, leaving many fans and colleagues with one fewer source of joy in their lives. “James Gandolfini: A Tribute to a Friend” aired last December on HBO in honor of the deceased actor. In it, fellow actors and close friends expressed their admi-ration for Gandolfini and the joy and generosity that went into each of his actions. It went on to discuss his work with troops in Iraq, really showcasing his dedication and amazement at the work of the troops. His performances and humanitarian efforts affected countless people during his life-time, making him a man who will always be looked up to, even when his time has passed.

Lou reedBy Anne Duncan

Born Lewis Allan Reed, “Lou” Reed became one of the most influential rock figures of all time.

At the beginning of his career, he joined John Cale to form The Velvet Underground in 1965 with Sterling Morrison. Mau-reen Tucker joined the band soon after. The Velvet Underground ventured out into unexplored rock and roll styles, and they are best known for their guitar-heavy tributes to love and music. Their music included a lot of “talky” singing, distinctly different from older classic rock.

After the band broke up due to financial hardship, Lou Reed continued his solo career with rebellious songs, such as “Walk On The Wild Side,” that challenged the expectations of Ameri-can culture.

He struggled with popularity, as his most serious music in his solo career was not well received. He was most popular and most respected for his work with The Velvet Underground, and this recognition grew after the band broke up. Unhappy with the commercial success of his more processed songs, he rebelliously released an album composed entirely of machine sounds, titled “Metal Machine Music”. Later in the early 2000s, he worked on an album that put Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry to music.

Lou Reed died in late October of 2013 from liver disease. Despite his lifelong struggle between popularity and individu-ality, Reed is remembered for his brilliant work with The Vel-vet Underground and his incredibly innovative style. He is one rocker we will not forget.

Arts and Entertainment

Page 20 The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

Movie

Forget Indiana Jones, The Men Who Actually Saved Art From The Nazis

By Shahruz ghaeMi

Nazi and Soviet goose-steppers were the Hollywood enemies of a different era. The America that fought the Second World War and then the Cold War was unquestioningly sure of its beliefs, its decisions, and its enemies. At least, that’s what nostalgia tells us. “The Monu-ments Men” brings back both the old-school villainy and the old-school nostalgia in this World War II drama, but from a completely new angle.

Starring, directed by, and written by George Clooney, the film, adapted from Robert M. Edsel’s nonfiction book, is about a squad of art historians drafted into the war to save stolen Euro-pean art from the Nazis’ greed. The star-studded cast also in-cludes Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, and Jean Dujardin.

The movie begins with Frank Stokes (Clooney) pitching FDR on the need to rescue Europe’s art from Hitler, who plans to put it in his massive “Fuhrermuse-um.” The art must be recovered and returned to its original own-ers. FDR agrees, and creates the Monuments Men, a somewhat grandiose title for the small team of aging art scholars.

Stokes is a moral absolut-ist in this crusade to stop one man from looting the People’s art for his own personal collec-tion, and Clooney drives this point home to an eye-rolling

extent. Almost every one of the many monologues delivered by various characters throughout the movie deals with the moral righteousness of their cause. It is a truthful message, but a very repetitive, tiring one.

The rest of the movie is, for the most part, similarly black-and-white. The Americans are nobly engaged in risking their lives to preserve freedom and Western cultural heritage. The movie specifically focuses on the Ghent Altarpiece triptych and Michelangelo’s “Madonna and Child” sculpture, which Brit

Donald Jeffries (Hugh Donnev-ille) gives his life to defend.

On the other side of the mor-al coin are the Nazis of course, but also the Soviets. Although the Soviet Union is fighting the

Nazis with the US, the Russians’ “Trophy Brigade” has a strik-ingly different mission—to steal back Nazi art, yes, but to bring it back to Moscow, not to return it to its original owners.

Clooney’s movie isn’t wholly without nuance or depth. As Da-mon’s character, James Granger, says, the Russians are looting art in their turn because “they lost 20 million people.” Clooney willingly includes other sober-ing facts, showing, for example, a massive Paris warehouse filled with the innumerable parapher-nalia of lost Jewish lives—family portraits, dining tables, even sets of teacups.

As a director and screen-writer, Clooney preaches to the audience the following message: though people may be killed, their lives are told through memories past, and art is what carries this heritage and remembrance down through the ages. Therefore, stealing or even destroying art (as the Na-zis do in the final, desperate days of the war) is the ultimate act of destruction, wiping away the entire existence and cultural memory of a people.

Although this is a powerful and thought-provoking topic, it is conveyed very heavy-hand-edly, as it comes straight from the mouths of noble American heroes.

The problem is that the Monuments Men are ethically stainless, making them unreal-istic. Granger struggles to gain

the cooperation of Claire Simon (Cate Blanchett), the secretary of a S.S. officer in charge of Nazi loot. Later, he refuses her ro-mantic advances, seemingly just to point out again what a good guy he is. The other Monuments Men receive similar character-izations that just aren’t able to break through into three dimen-sions.

At least Clooney excels at di-recting humorous drama, and puts the strong cast to good use. For instance, Richard Campbell (Bill Murray) and Preston Savitz (Bob Balaband) are accidentally invited right into the farmhouse of Simon’s former S.S. boss by a relative of his, the dentist whom Campbell had gone to for a toothache. Instead of ending in a shootout between the Ameri-cans and the Nazi family, the scene ends with the S.S. officer wedged between Campbell and Savitz in the Jeep on his way to custody.

Clooney should also be praised for the way he draws upon earlier works about World War II. When the team lands in France to begin their mission, they land on one of the beaches that the Allies stormed during D-Day. Clooney doesn’t have to create an epic battle scene for this movie; he just evokes the fa-mous opening scene of “Saving Private Ryan,” which depicts the bloody landings. Similarly, im-ages of the Monuments Men dis-covering hidden troves of Nazi loot recall the “Indiana Jones” or

“National Treasure” movies. But instead of fighting Nazis with his wit and his whip, Indy would have actually done what Stokes did and spent countless hours bent over recovered pieces of art, identifying and restoring them.

The humor and the visuals are redeeming qualities of the movie. Though the warm nos-talgia for mid-century America is appreciable, the film displays old, cheesy moralities at a time when American culture is em-bracing the dark and murky characters of “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men.”

“The Monuments Men” is a good movie, but not a stellar one. It is humorous, dramatic, and fun to watch, but even the impressive star power is weighed down by its heavy-handedness and the jingoism of its script.

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“The Monuments Men” is a good movie, but not

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Arts and Entertainment

Page 21The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

Film Spotlight: Looking Ahead to the Oscars

By ThoMaS WeSTFaLL

2013 was an excellent year for filmmaking in sci-fi, comedy, drama, and more. What follows is a special look at three of the films nominated for Best Picture: “Gravity” (starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney), “Her” (Joaquin Phoenix), and “Captain Phillips” (Tom Hanks). Other nominees for Best Picture are “American Hustle,” “Nebraska,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “12 Years a Slave,” and “Dallas Buyers Club.” The award for Best Picture, along with the rest of the Oscars, will be presented on March 2, 2014 at the Dolby Theatre in San Francisco.

“gravity”

“Gravity” was nominated for an impressive 10 Oscars, including Best Director (Alfonso Cuaron) and Best Actress (Sandra Bullock). While the screenplay and special effects were incredible, I dis-liked the plot. It was dull and failed to portray its theme of loneliness in a unique and interesting manner. Yes, Bullock’s character, Ryan Stone, is in outer space and loses connection with Earth, but this is unsurprising and doesn’t develop the plot much. The audience has felt that loneliness countless times in other space movies. In addition, the character development was predictable and uninteresting because Stone didn’t undergo changes throughout the film, even after climatic events. There wasn’t exactly much room for development anyway, because the only person Stone could have talked to was Clooney’s character, Matt Kowalski. His entire purpose was to provide both comic relief and a “father figure” for the protagonist, so he was a static character. “Gravity” was also panned for its scientific inaccuracies, though that may not seem like a big deal to the general audience. Things as tiny as the fact that Bullock’s hair was not acting the way it should have in zero gravity were noticed and criticized. While “Gravity” was a solid movie overall, it lacked unique or memorable qualities.

“gravity” won eight awards, for: Best Cinematography, Best Sound editing, Best Sound Mix-ing, Best Visual effects, Best original Score, Best Film editing, Best Cinematography, and Best directing.

“Captain Phillips”

Another notable movie, “Captain Phillips,” was nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Barkhad Abdi), and Best Adapted Screenplay. One nomination it did not receive, however, was Best Actor for Tom Hanks, although many people commended Hanks for a job well done portraying the captain of a ship hijacked by Somali pirates. The Los Angeles Times’ explanation for this is that “2013 was indeed a golden year for film, one in which there were so many strong (and commercially successful) films that academy members couldn’t include all those worthy of recognition.” Perhaps the fact that he has two Oscars already under his belt may have played a role. Hanks played his roll to the fullest, but his role wasn’t as memorable compared to those of the other movies from this year.

“Captain Phillips” received no awards, despite six nominations.

“her”

“Her,” starring Joaquin Phoenix, was rightfully recognized for its uniqueness. It takes romantic comedy from loving someone to somewhere nobody else has gone before: loving “something.” The premise of the movie is that a lonely writer falls in love with his new operating system, an artificial intelligence voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Imagine being at an amusement park, talking to your smartphone the entire time as if you were talking to your girlfriend! Taking “her” to places such as beaches and snow-lined forests, Joaquin Phoenix treats his smartphone like a woman. He was not, however, nominated for Best Actor. This film is unique for its social commentary on the contempo-rary “Computer Age” and how we are becoming more and more attached to technology.

“her” took home the award for Best original Screenplay.

“The Wolf of Wall Street,” a money-filled dark comedy filmed right next to Stuyvesant, and “12 Years a Slave,” an epic historical drama recounting a story of American slavery, are films that clearly show future directors and actors what they need to accomplish. They set the bar in their respective genres (or mix of genres). Every year, however, it gets harder to come up with good “original” film ideas. You can’t tell a good joke twice, but you can use the same themes, camera angles, and even plotlines if you do it well.

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Page 22 The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

Movie

More Than Just a Promotion for LegosBy MiChaeL gao

Here’s a friendly warning: “The Lego Movie”’s target audi-ence is not teenagers, but chil-dren and the adults who bring them to the theaters. Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, this computer-animated family comedy, which gives a respectful nod to old stop-motion “Brick-films,” is a nevertheless wonder-fully crazy ride, jam-packed with humor and creativity.

The story opens with a dra-matic confrontation between good and evil, represented by Vit-ruvius (voiced by Morgan Free-man) and Lord Business (voiced by Will Ferrell), respectively. Clad in ominously large robotic boots, a suit, and a helmet that spouts jets of fire, Lord Business manages to easily defeat Vitruvi-us’s forces to seize the most pow-erful weapon in the Lego World: the “Kragle” (Krazy Glue with a few letters hidden or peeled off). Defeated, Vitruvius prophesizes of a “special one”: “the most im-portant, most interesting person of all time” who would come to save the Lego World from Lord Business and be marked by the piece of resistance (the cap to the Kragle bottle).

The movie then follows the life of Emmet (Chris Pratt), an ordinary construction worker who listens to popular music, drinks ridiculously overpriced coffee, and generally follows the instructions published by Lord Business (now President), like everyone else. After work ends at the construction site, Emmet ac-cidentally falls Wonderland-style down a hole where he discov-ers a mysterious, glowing rock. Upon touching it, he has a psy-chedelic vision during which the

“piece of resistance” attaches to him, marking him as the alleged “Special.”

He is joined by a team of cre-ative Master Builders, who have been waiting for the Special to appear: WyldStyle (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett), Vitruvius, and other famous Lego personages. Eventually, through a series of amusing and sometimes heart-touching struggles, Emmet and company manage to save the Lego World from Lord Business’s scheme in-volving the Kragle.

“The Lego Movie” is highly entertaining, partly because of the eye-popping colorfulness and animation. However, the truly memorable factors are the moral messages, plot, humor, and use of the Lego world prem-ise.

Perhaps the most notice-able of the film’s many messag-es is about creativity: although creativity allows for infinitely many possibilities, there are

times when creativity is best restrained and limited to allow for teamwork. When Emmet’s team of Master Builders creates a plan to foil Lord Business, the plan only works because they put aside their individual dif-ferences and come together as a team. Furthermore, the movie shines light on the positive pow-er of belief in oneself. Vitruvius tells Emmet to believe in himself (“like a cat poster”—you’ll get this reference if you watch the movie) and when he does, he is capable of astounding feats. The same holds true for the general population of Emmet’s home city, as is proven at the end of the movie.

The Lego Movie also directs the audience to draw its own conclusions about other ideas such as the negative effects of pressure to be special, the hum-drum result of a lack of diversity, and the intertwining of business and politics; these lessons are less obvious and expressed indi-rectly.

While the film’s underlying themes are notable, the movie’s extraordinary use of Legos as a medium is even more unforget-table. The audience is presented with two worlds: a realistic world and the Lego World. The realistic world dominates and directs the second world through people building with Legos. But in the Lego world, everything is made of Legos, which allows filmmak-ers to achieve novel effects. For example, water, fire, and bullets are represented with Legos; the surprising blockiness is fresh and interesting. In addition, Lego figures, which differ signif-icantly from actual people, can do things for a comical effect: ro-tate their heads and take off and

reattach body parts. The movie also includes Matrix references, cameos, slapstick comedy, and intentional ineloquence. Wyld-Style, for instance, tells Emmet “Come with me if you want to not die,” subverting the cliché quote, “Come with me if you want to live.”

In the end, “The Lego Movie”

may not seem like a ground-breaking movie and it is not in many ways. Like many family films, it lacks realism and like “Toy Story,” it plays on the child-hood nostalgia of adults. How-ever, despite the fact that it is apparently for young children, its messages resound and linger, making it a worthwhile watch.

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Arts and Entertainment

Page 23The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

Advertisement

Crossword Puzzle

What’s That Theme?By anne dunCan

Can you guess the theme of this crossword? If you think you have it, email your guess to speccrosswords@gmail.com and if you are the first to guess correctly, you can pick the next theme. If you are the second to guess correctly, you can pick one word for that theme. Best of luck!

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9

10 11 12

13 14

15

16 17

18

19

20 21 22

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28 29

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42 43 44 45

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48

1. Make the stage look better3. Mars has two of these4. King of Roman gods7. Prehistoric people didn’t do this11. Stomping dance crew13. Land bridge connecting Alaska and Russia14. Rare as a ____ bird16. Belt containing Pluto19. First landmass20. “Ground Control to ____”22. Flying rock similar to 3 Down23. First man on the moon

25. ____-rope walkers26. Wax and ____28. Ruins in Amesbury, UK31. Death of a star33. Pieces on stage35. Our oldest ancestor37. Another type of matter39. A ball of burning gas41. Typical circus cat42. Wolf constellation46. The person in charge47. Purpose of a ticket48. Typical winners

2. Light show3. Real shooting stars5. City covered in ash6. Kirk and Picard’s ship8. Ba-Dum-____9. Ringling ____10. Out-of this-world candy bar12. “Lightyear to Space ____”13. Partner of 23 Across15. Fastest speed on 6 Down17. “____ phone home.”18. Competitors of Homo Sapiens21. Herbivorous dinosaur with three horns

24. After the heys27. ____ Island heads29. Short-armed dinosaur30. Disney baby elephant31. Cirque De ____32. American space organization34. Big and little ____ constellation36. Our star38. What we gossip about40. Home to the circus43. What Anna Netrebko is paid to do44. A group of actors45. Typical cheer

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Sports

Page 24 The Spectator ●March 4, 2014

Pirates Remain Second in the CityBoys’ Swimming

Pirates Enter Finals With Em-phatic Victory Over Wolverines

By AnThony CheAng In the world of competitive

swimming, onlookers might think that swimming is simply a sport decided by whoever can get to the other side first. But as I walked into my first time watch-ing a competitive swimming event, with the smell of chlo-rine and the raucous noise of the crowd, I came to realize that swimming is much more than just getting there first. Momen-tum plays a big part in how the swimmers perform. Coming into the meet against the Bronx Sci-ence Wolverines, the Pirates were looking to generate momentum heading into the finals, against Brooklyn Tech, who defeated the Pirates last year.

The Pirates came into the meet hungry for victory. “We had to crush [Bronx Science]. We came into the game thinking that we just had to destroy them,” junior Edison Shi said. The ri-valry between Bronx Science and Stuyvesant has been well not-ed, but this meet was different. Though the Pirates were only one game ahead of Bronx Science for the entire season, it was apparent from the beginning that the meet was really just a prelude to the finals against Brooklyn Tech, the juggernaut with record-setting swimmers. As a result, the entire team came into the meet with chips on their shoulders.

The Pirates managed to hold their undefeated record through the season, and finished first in the division. The Wolver-ines, however, were hot on their tail with the second best record in the division - with only one loss to Stuyvesant. Because the Pirates’ previous meet against Bronx Science during the regular season had come down to only a single event, the Pirates were prepared to face tough competi-

tion. The meet started off tense, but the Pirates quickly pulled away and squashed the Wolver-ines 60-41. The Wolverines won the 200-yard medley relay and the 200-yard individual medley, as well as the 400-yard freestyle relay, but in all of these events, the Pirates were hot on their tails, sliding into second place and securing valuable points. In every individual event, clinching second and third yields the same number of points as placing first and fourth.

The Pirates also stepped up by winning events by tiny mar-gins. In the 100m breaststroke, sophomore Peter Stribik beat the Wolverines’ Josef Sarabia in a photo finish, winning by only seven tenths of a second. By managing to place first in many of the events and place in second or third in every event that Bronx Science took first, the Pirates eas-ily took over the meet. “We just didn’t have it today,” Bronx Sci-ence coach Steven Warman said.

This win was important for the Pirates, not only because it was an elimination game for them but also because they needed this win for their confi-dence. Barely scraping by to win the division this year has put a dent in the morale of the Pirates, who, in the last few years, have seemed invincible in the Bronx-Manhattan division. Because of this, they especially wanted this win to try and restore the idea that the Pirates are the big dogs in the division. “We knew it was going to be tough, but this win definitely gives us momentum going into the finals,” coach Pe-ter Bologna said.

“We came in knowing we needed a victory, and we crushed them,” Shi said.

Redemption Will Have to WaitBy grACe Lu

It was going to take a miracle

to happen, but the Pirates had no such luck. On Valentine’s Day afternoon, the renowned Pirates once again raced against the Brooklyn Tech Engineers for the city championship. And for the second year in a row, they came up short, unable to ward off the Engineers.

The Pirates started the meet with a second and fourth place finish in the 200-yard medley relay. Relays, worth more points than individual events, were go-ing to be a crucial factor in the team’s performance. A first place finish in a relay would earn six points, second place would earn three, third place one, and fourth place zero. Down 7-3 after the first event, the Pirates knew their shot at the title was only going to become slimmer. Despite fail-ing to limit the number of points garnered by Brooklyn Tech, the Pirates were not disappointed with their performances. Stand-out freshman Lawrence Kwong swam a 22.88 in his 50-yard free-style leg of the B medley relay, one of the fastest times on the team, and his goal for the season. “He’s a non-club swimmer, so that’s a huge, huge thing,” coach Peter Bologna said. Most of the fastest swimmers on the team are mem-bers of outside club teams where they can train on days when the Stuyvesant team does not have practice.

Following Kwong’s outstand-ing performance anchoring the medley relay, sophomore Aaron Glas was able to clinch first place in the 200-yard freestyle, the only first place finish for the Pirates the entire meet. Glas finished with a 1:52.26, one of his fast-est times this season. After the 50-yard freestyle, however, the Pirates were down 23-11. For-tunately, the team would win seven points in the diving event. Brooklyn Tech had no divers, but the Pirates had two, seniors Alex-ander Gurvets and Michael Lim.

They earned 93.15 and 91.60 points, respectively.

Even after scoring seven points with diving, the Pirates were still down by five points. Glas came close to first place again in the 500-yard freestyle. He started out in second place, but caught up to first place after the 11th lap. In the end, Glas was out-touched by a Brooklyn Tech swimmer by a tenth of a second, but success-fully beat out the third place Tech swimmer by .13 seconds. A simi-lar sequence occurred again in the 100-yard freestyle. Senior and co-captain Brandon Koo start-ed out in the lead, but the Tech swimmer caught up in the last few yards and out-touched Koo by half a second. Then again in the 100-yard backstroke, junior Andrew Guo was in first place after the first 50 yards, but was edged out by .43 seconds. After a series of second and fourth place finishes, the Pirates relinquished hopes of the championship title, and they surrendered 62-39.

Unlike last year, no tears of sadness were shed when the meet was over, and the atmo-sphere was not as glum. “I don’t think we that came in really ex-pecting to beat such a stacked team, and I think that we mea-sured up pretty well,” Glas said. The 23-point margin with which the Pirates were defeated was still disappointing, “but it just gives us more motivation to win next year,” Glas said.

With the season over, the team looks back on their progression over the last couple months. One thing they all agree on is the im-proved team dynamic. “At the be-ginning of the season, we weren’t really connected and even coach noticed that. But now we’ve re-ally come together as a group and we’re family,” sophomore Peter Strbik said. Many of the Pi-rates attributed the rocky start to the lack of a home pool, but that problem was finally fixed on Feb-

ruary 12th, two days before the end of the season.

The seniors, who must wave goodbye to their years as Pirates, became emotional when reunit-ed with the Stuyvesant pool. “We had tears this year when the pool came back. It was really moving,” senior Glib Dolotov said. Though the completion date for the pool was pushed back multiple times, causing frustration among the Pirates, the seniors were able to enjoy a final home practice as they reflected on their four years as Pirates.

“Being part of the Pirates gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of people who I can now call brothers. I might’ve never met these guys if it weren’t for the team,” Koo said.

“Swim practice after school has been the one thing I’ve been looking forward to every single day during the season,” senior Bryan Chu said.

While reminiscing on their growth from “short, somewhat pudgy freshmen,” to “young adults, maybe even young men,” Bologna said, the seniors gave a warm shout-out to their coach. “It’s always been us pulling through together. It’s been us training together. All of us were willing to sacrifice so much, but [Coach Bologna has been] sacri-ficing as much if not more than any of us have,” Dolotov said.

At the end of the day, how-ever, Brooklyn Tech soundly de-feated the Pirates, and the fight for redemption will continue forward. When asked to address Tech directly, senior and co-cap-tain Kevin Lee summed up what every Pirate was thinking. “You guys [Tech] did really great this year and I’m really happy for you guys but remember don’t cel-ebrate too much because we’re coming.”

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Page 25The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

Peglegs Enter Playoffs With Stumbles

The End Drawing NearBy LouiS SuSSer

With the basketball season drawing to its end, the Peglegs faced off against the red hot, top-seeded Washington Irving team. As their second matchup with Washington Irving, this game was more competitive than their first, entering the fourth quarter with the score tied. The Peglegs burst into the first quarter with a momentous nine unanswered points. Senior and co-captain Imtiaz Hssan, the top scorer for the Peglegs, took a hard foul as he drove into the lane to make an “and-one” layup, and the crowd erupted in cheers. Although Washington Irving dug themselves a hole early in the game, they managed to cut the lead down to two by the end of the first quarter with three-point shooting. As the game progressed, it became harder and harder for the Peglegs to keep up with the Washington Irving offense, due to Washington Irving’s re-siliency and adjustments to the Peglegs’ defense. However, the Peglegs were able to keep a team that usually averages over 70 points per game to only 40 points. “We did exactly what we wanted to do. We had the pace of the game,” coach Philip Fisher said. The Peglegs were able to contain senior Joshua Martinez of Washington Irving, the top scorer in the Manhat-tan A Southwest division, to 19 points. However, the slow pace that the Peglegs maintained throughout the game collapsed during the last few minutes of the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter, senior

Noah Kramer took a charge and was walked off the court with blood dripping from his mouth. “When Noah took the big hit, we were weaker,” Hssan said. The Peglegs missed almost all of their free throws in the fi-nal quarter, which completely killed their prior momentum. Once they faced an eight-point deficit, there was no coming back, and they went on to lose 40-36. The Peglegs’ last two games will determine whether or not they have a spot in the playoffs. With the season on the line for the team, the pressure is on.

A Dominating Final Home Performance

By Ari hATziMeMoS

After a long and tough sea-son, the Peglegs’ last home game of the season had finally arrived. Although they played 14 hard-fought games, the sea-son would have meant nothing if the Peglegs were unable to improve their record to at least eight wins. Despite the fact that their opponent was the winless High School of Economics and Finance (0-15), it was still a do-or-die game to make the play-offs. The Peglegs secured their road to the playoffs on Thurs-day, February 6 in the seniors’ last home game, winning 68-43.

The game started off almost perfectly for the Peglegs. They took a quick 18-4 lead after the first quarter and dominated throughout the rest of the game. The Peglegs displayed strong defense in their half-court press, forcing a lot of turnovers and getting many steals. In addi-tion, the team was landing most of its shot. “I think the fact that it was our last game definitely

gave us a boost. Also, our press defense was very effective,” se-nior and co-captain Matthew Dalton said. The press defense, designed to pressure the offense into making poor decisions, has been a huge part of the season and has greatly improved the Peglegs’ defense. In their first five games, they gave up an av-erage of 53 points per game. In the last five, they allowed fewer than 47 points per game. Those six points may not seem like much, but it can make all the difference, and shows how the team has improved.

Throughout the game, the Peglegs seemed to put in extra effort. During one play, junior Lev Akabas hustled to save the ball from going out of bounds after a steal, which led to an-other scoring opportunity for the team.

Senior and co-captain Im-tiaz Hssan was on fire, scoring 31 points, which accounted for almost half of the Peglegs’ total score. “We really wanted to win today. The confidence really took us off,” Hssan said. How-ever, Economics and Finance didn’t go down without a fight, cutting the Peglegs’ lead down to 40-31 by taking absolute control in the paint with their strength and size.

Fortunately for the Peglegs, Hssan was able to re-ignite the team with eight quick points and help the Peglegs escape the third quarter with a 48-33 lead. Dalton also turned in argu-ably his best game of the year, recording a rare triple-double. “I took [Hssan and Dalton] as sophomores, and I knew I had something special there,” coach Philip Fisher said.

Unlike with many of their other games, the Peglegs were able to close impressively. By the end of the game they were out-rebounding Economics and Finance and hitting their shots. The Peglegs outscored Economics and Finance 19-10 in the final quarter.

Although the Peglegs have clinched a spot in the playoffs, they won’t be celebrating for long. The Peglegs began practic-ing and focusing on the upcom-ing playoffs right away. “I think this was definitely a great mo-mentum win for us, but we will have to tighten up our defense and not get ahead of ourselves for the playoffs,” Dalton said.

Bears Can’t Be TamedBy ChriSToPher KiM

It’s been a stressful season for the Peglegs, and for good reason. Unlike last season, in which they clinched a playoff spot with six games left to go in the regular season, the Peg-legs travelled through a much rockier road this year, guaran-teeing themselves a post-sea-son appearance with just one game left to play. However, the Peglegs’ regular season wasn’t over just yet. Their last regu-lar season match-up at Seward Park Campus would determine whether the Peglegs would tie for 3rd in their division, bringing a first-round game to the fans at home, or fall to 5th in their divi-sion, forcing them to play on the road the rest of the season. With the bitter memories of their last encounter against the Seward Park Bears, when the Peglegs blew a convincing 18-point lead and fell by three to the Bears, the Peglegs were looking for re-venge. However, it was superior athleticism and size that would once again consume the small-er Peglegs, allowing the Bears to take the win with a score of 57-46.

The Peglegs have faced and will continue to face bigger and stronger teams. Because of their disadvantage, the Peglegs know that if they want to come out on top, they have to take the lead right from the start. Repeating what had happened in their last game with the Peglegs, the Bears committed multiple turnovers and demonstrated poor transi-tional defense throughout the first quarter, giving the Peglegs the perfect chance to capitalize on their mistakes. However, the Peglegs were unable to convert the turnovers into easy points. “We can’t miss all those great opportunities that we got in the first half,” coach Philip Fisher said. “We missed six two-foot-ers, and if we miss two-footers that we practice every day, we’re not going to win because of their ability.”

Despite their lackadaisical first quarter, the Peglegs began picking up the pace at the start of the second quarter. The layup opportunities that the Peglegs created were finally falling in, and the team continued to take advantage of the Bears’ poor ex-ecution. However, towards the end of the second quarter, the Bears demonstrated just how

dominant their athletic “abil-ity” was over the Peglegs. Taking advantage of a misfired Pegleg pass, senior Moello Williams of the Bears rushed to steal the ball and began hustling down the court, with a defender chasing Williams from behind. However, Williams shrugged off the Pegleg right behind him and simply took off, dunking the ball with authority. The Bears gained huge momentum through Williams’s impressive dunk, and what was a large lead for the Peglegs quickly dropped to three points within the last two minutes of the first half.

Unfortunately for the Peg-legs, this momentum would carry through to the second half for the Bears. The Bears seemed dominant in all aspects, taking control of the paint and locking up the Peglegs with constricting defense. At a certain point in the third quarter, the Bears forced four consecutive turnovers through their press defense, contributing to their first lead since the first quarter. Whenev-er the Peglegs tried driving into the basket, they were met with a towering, long-armed Bears center who had a whopping six blocks in the second half. The Bears were merciless in the paint, out-rebounding the Peglegs by 15 and securing 12 offensive rebounds throughout the game. “We have to box out. Second chance opportunities killed us,” senior and captain Matthew Dalton said. The Peg-legs simply were unable to tame the Bears’ superior athletic abil-ity and fell by 11 points.

With the loss, the 8-8 Peg-legs placed fifth in their divi-sion, but are scheduled to play their first post-season game against the Hillcrest Hawks. The Peglegs must focus on boxing out and defending the paint if they want to even think about surpassing the Hawks, who av-erage 17.6 offensive rebounds per game. However, the Peglegs have shown that they are able to overcome stronger teams and that they have the potential to do so in the playoffs. With the leadership of Dalton and the combined effort of the Peglegs, the team hopes to go deep into the playoffs instead of being stopped in the first round like last year.

Senior noah Kramer protects the ball on offense.Just

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Boys’ Basketball

Phoenix Secure 11-Seed, Advance to Second Round of PlayoffsGirls’ Basketball

Phoenix Outshoot the Lady Rangers

By zhe Lee

As the final buzzer sounded in the game, the Phoenix celebrated with smiles, as they had won their first playoff game with a decisive 63-43 victory over the Forest Hill Lady Rangers, the 22-seed. As the 11-seed in the postseason stand-ings, the Phoenix certainly played like the favorites to win, as their improved half-court offense, great transition offense, and good de-fense during crunch time pro-pelled them to victory.

The Phoenix, undaunted by the Rangers, who were first in their respective divi-sion, took imme-diate control of the game. By the end of the first quarter, the Phoe-

nix al-ready had a nine-point lead. Throughout the game, the Phoenix dominated with their ex-ceptional cutting and ball movement. In the fourth quarter, when the Lady Rangers’ lethal and quick guards attempted to close the gap by driving to the basket, the Phoenix quickly responded to this by forti-fying their 2-3 zone defense. “We knew that Forest Hills was primar-ily a jump shooting team. So we planned on defending the perim-eter,” senior and co-captain Marie Frolich said.

On the other end of the court, the Phoenix generated much of their offense through juniors Lau-ren Sobota and Sophia Gershon to pummel their way through the Rangers’ defense, over which the Phoenix had a decisive height ad-vantage. Gershon led the way with 13 offensive rebounds out of her

18 total rebounds, providing the Phoenix with second chance op-portunities. She also led the Phoe-nix in points with an outstanding 26-point performance. Gershon, the tallest player on the court, was nearly unstoppable, especially since the Lady Rangers couldn’t guard her in the low post or score over her often.

“Sophie [Gershon] helped to take away their interior game and [she’s] a huge presence in the paint,” said coach Vincent Miller after the exceptional performance by the starting center. Late in the third quarter, Sobota threaded the needle by lobbing the ball over the defense to Gershon, who absorbed contact from a defender and made the layup.

Sobota also performed to the best of her ability, dishing out 10 assists and scoring 12 points. So-

bota’s passing, nothing short of spectacular, allowed the Phoe-nix opportuni-ties for transition layups, of which the team took full advantage. Sobota’s court vi-sion also provided them with open shots in their half-court offense. Sobota’s aggression in the paint also showed success with her 13 attempted free throws, making eight of them.

“Without Lauren’s play we don’t win that game. She handles the ball for us the entire game, she plays lockdown defense, she box-es out and she hustles the entire game,” Miller said proudly after the game. “When Lauren [Sobota] plays well, our team plays well.”

Despite the Phoenix’s perfor-mance, the one thing they lacked consistently was making free throws. Although aggression in the paint was present, the Phoenix

were able to convert only 10 of their 23 attempted free throws, which may have drawn the game out lon-ger than necessary. “Free throws [are] one area we need to improve on if we want to keep advancing in the playoffs,” Miller said.

For the Phoenix, the Rangers were just victims who fell to the dominating pres-ence of Gershon, who averages around 18 points and 18 rebounds per game, and the top-notch dexterity of So-bota, who averages 13 points, six rebounds and eight assists. How-ever, the two phenomenal juniors will still have an entire season to even further develop their games. The Phoenix, already a force to be reckoned with, are only getting scarier; unlike many other teams, the Phoenix can always count on Gershon and Sobota to take com-mand.

continued from page 26

Sports

Page 26

By TAhMid KhAndAKer

The Spartans came into the 2013 regular season uncertain of their future. With ambigu-ity in the air, 45 wrestlers, 29 of them new, swarmed into the first practice of the season, energetic and hopeful. But as reality set in, it became obvious that the momentum of last season’s solid 7-3 record was not carrying over into this season. As the number of Spartans that quit skyrocketed and the number of humiliating defeats, such as the 72-0 loss to the Brooklyn Tech Engineers, in-creased, the team was forced to ask questions about their disap-pointing 4-3 season and about their commitment.

The graduation of city and state champions Matt Moy and Paul Ma (‘13) presented a challenge for the Spartans not only in terms of starters, but also in terms of leadership. “Those two were definitely role models for the rest of the team. As cap-tains their accomplishments are probably going to be really hard to live up to,” senior and co-captain Michael Berlin said. Berlin was a dependable wrestler last season with an undefeated 6-0 record, but went 3-3 this year. Similarly, senior and co-captain George Liu went 2-2 last season, and 1-2 this year. Furthermore, senior and ex-co-captain Jae Bum Ahn’s inactivation presented questions about the dedication of the lead-ers.

However, the captains’ sub-par performances during the 2013- 2014 season were not the sole reasons for the Spartans’ decline. There was increased competition in the division at Canarsie Campus, Wingate Cam-pus, and Brooklyn Tech, which were filled with “wrestling ex-perts,” Berlin said. Injuries also affected important starters such

as juniors Cooper Weaver, Taras Klymyuk, Tony Chung, and Al-len Na. Since the lineup con-stantly changed, inexperienced wrestlers were thrown into the spotlight, and the team lost key matches. As the season went on, the squad slowly looked depleted as many got injured along the way and less-dedicated wrestlers left the team. Wrestlers such as junior Henry O’Donnell felt that practices were unproductive since “Coach doesn’t really teach us the basics, and focuses on the more advanced stuff,” he said. Likewise, junior Jarek Liang said, “We need to focus [more] on lift-ing and strength.”

Still, the Spartans maintained some of the attributes that made them the third seed last season. Some wrestlers displayed their prowess, developing into impor-tant contributors. Sophomore Neil Meepagla continued his ex-cellent progress, amassing a 6-1 record this year, a slight improve-ment over his 6-2 record last year. O’Donnell once again achieved an undefeated 4-0 record. Liang, a newcomer, went 2-2 this sea-son, proving himself despite his inexperience.

The Spartans capped off the disappointing season by finish-ing 4th in the division, their first time in four years placing lower than third. While captains Berlin and Liu tried to save a struggling team desperate to make the play-offs by partaking in additional captains’ practices and actuating a bruised and battered team, ulti-mately the negatives outweighed the positives. With constant inju-ries and a depleted team, some of the Spartans showed their re-silience and heart; however, in the end all that matters is win-ning, and they failed to get the job done this year.

Better Luck Next Year A Pleasant SurpriseBoys’ Wrestling

Phoenix Secure 11-Seed, Advance to Second Round of PlayoffsPhoenix Incinerate Lady Devils

By zhe Lee

Looks of impatience were plastered on the Phoenix’s faces as their long-overdue game with the High School of Graphic Com-munication Arts Lady Devils was delayed for two hours; this game had already been postponed twice due to the recent snow and miscommunication with the PSAL. Despite these setbacks, the Phoenix unleashed their frustra-tion on the Lady Devils, domi-nating the game with a final score of 62-31 and improving to a 12-1 record in what was a rather quick and simple game for Stuyvesant.

The Lady Devils’ roster was composed of small, quick play-ers: a team that was designed to cause defensive troubles with their speed. However, this plan was thwarted by the Phoenix’s full-court pressure and zone defense, which allowed only 12 points by halftime. “We made sure we closed up the middle and adjusted ourselves to a stronger zone defense,” junior and co-captain Lauren Sobota said. The speedy Devils were unable to cre-ate any drive-in opportunities, as the impenetrable zone defense of the Phoenix was able to lock down the smaller team.

The Phoenix’s solid defense was topped off with an offense that scored a whopping 23 points in the third quarter, effectively sealing the game. The Phoenix’s fluid offense was nearly unstop-pable, displaying their danger-

ous combination of half-court and transitional offense. The ball rarely stayed in a single player’s hand for more than a couple of seconds, demonstrating excel-lent ball rotation. The transitional offense was on full throttle in one play when Sobota passed a quick lob to senior and co-captain Ma-rie Frolich, who easily laid it up into the basket. Sobota and Frol-ich’s chemistry was unstoppable throughout the game, leading to 18 points for Frolich and 11 as-sists for Sobota. “Lauren [Sobota] is our playmaker and whenever she is on the court she really sets our offense in motion,” Frolich said.

The Devils’ small roster also proved to be an advantage to the Phoenix when it came to grab-bing rebounds, as the Phoenix pulled down an impressive 21 of-fensive rebounds out of 49 total rebounds and effectively bullied the Lady Devils in the paint. Ju-nior Sophia Gershon took advan-tage of her opportunities in the paint, finishing the game with 18 points and 16 rebounds, seven of which were offensive. Most of the possessions in which Gershon scored were primarily off lobs to the middle of the paint, where Gershon was dominating due to the smaller opposing roster. “She will always be our top rebounder and help us get more points by getting the ball in the middle,” Sobota said.

However, simply lobbing the ball to Gershon for easy points will not work as efficiently during

playoff time, especially against taller and more skilled players. “I think when we play bigger teams we will have to keep the ball mov-ing and help Sophie [Gershon] with the rebounding down low,” Frolich said.

Despite some flaws in their half-court offense, such as a high number of turnovers and some poor shot selection, which the Phoenix will have to fix in or-der to succeed in the upcoming postseason, the Phoenix players are willing to work on them as a team. “The playoff teams might force us to run more of a half-court offense, which is some-thing we’ve been working on all season,” Frolich said.

Phoenix Hit Turbulence

By Jeffrey zheng

For a team that has looked nearly invincible in many of its divisional games throughout the season, the Phoenix were taken by surprise when they were un-able to deal with the dynamic Seward Park Lady Bears. With shots not falling for star players and co-captains junior Lauren Sobota and senior Marie Frol-ich, coach Vincent Miller and his Phoenix relied on leading scorer junior Sophie Gershon to lift the team over the fighting Bears.

Though Gershon ended the game with one of her typical stat lines, a superb 19 points and 10 rebounds, the Phoenix fell to the Lady Bears by a score of 40-33 for just their second loss of the sea-

son. Coming right off a 62-31 win over the High School of Graphic Communication Arts the previ-ous day, the Phoenix’s 33-point output was their lowest of the season.

The Phoenix definitely seemed fatigued, as many shots fell short of the rim and the team had trouble boxing out junior Courtney Irabor and sophomore Alisicia Machado of the Lady Bears, who had ten and nine rebounds, respectively. Stuyve-sant was also outplayed by se-nior twins Carol and Karen Yu. Throughout the game, the Yu sis-ters beat the Phoenix down the floor with their speed, leading to dazzling plays and easy layups at the rim. On one play, Carol Yu picked up a loose ball and finished on the other end with a brilliant euro-step layup that completely faked out a Phoenix defender. She finished with 16 points and 7 assists.

Miller wisely called a timeout after this play in order to prevent a big run from occurring. “There was a lot of frustration today. We turned the ball over a lot today and we started getting frustrated at each other,” said Miller.

Their leading scorer agreed. Gershon felt that “[our] passes could’ve been better because turnovers were a really big big is-sue,” she said.

The biggest game changer occurred in the middle of the third quarter with Phoenix up by four. The Bears began to pressure the Phoenix on defense, forcing

a couple of turnovers, which re-sulted in easy layups. Though the Phoenix successfully broke the press most of the time, the Bears changed the pace of the game and caused Stuyvesant to rush many shots. The Bears were able to generate a four-point lead and were able to carry the momen-tum throughout the rest of the game. “We really could’ve worked the ball around better and really needed to stop turning the ball over,” Sobota said.

While the Phoenix looked very sluggish in their loss, they have looked sharp all season. Stuyvesant beat Seward Park in their first meeting and the Phoe-nix’s only other loss was against the undefeated Lab Museum Lady Gators, whom they lost to by a single point. Despite hav-ing lost two games to two elite teams, the Phoenix have also come out with easy wins against other top teams such as Beacon (12-4), Graphic Communication and Arts (10-6) and West 50th Street Campus (10-6). Currently tied with Seward for first place in their division, the Phoenix are poised going into the play-offs after being awarded the 11-seed. “I’m pretty confident in our team this year. We can definitely match up against Seward and other good teams and come out on top,” Sobota said.

By rAyyAn JoKhAi

The girls’ indoor track and field team was able to bring home the PSAL banner once again at the Manhattan Bor-ough Championships on Mon-day, February 10. Medaling in four of the 16 total events, and performing strongly in each of them, the team was awarded with the first place banner.

The climb to becoming bor-ough champions was not an easy one, as the team did not begin the season appearing ready to win it all. “Considering we didn’t even expect to place at boroughs, our team has come a long way. With resilience and a lot of sweat, we have all im-proved greatly,” senior Stepha-nie Liang said. However, despite what appeared to be a bumpy start, the team continued to stay optimistic and practice hard, something that coach Anna Markova always made sure of at each and every practice.

Since last year, the number of the Greyducks on the roster has increased considerably. To compensate for the gradua-tion of talented members, such as Kineta Wahl (’13) and Bebe Legaurdeur (’13), the team in-creased the number of runners it had in each event. The more athletes the team has, the bet-ter chance there is of having a member qualify for the city championships. However, get-ting new runners into the swing of things was very important. “The biggest change from last year to this year was how much more involved we became in helping the new girls ease into practicing with the team,” se-nior and captain Wan Qi Kong said. “Everyone on the team became very involved in help-

ing them, from running with them to recommending spikes to buy.”

The team was able to per-form as well as they could hope for in each of the track events it participated in. In the 55-meter dash, senior Lily Lee finished in fifth place with a time of 7.78 seconds, just 0.1 seconds away from third place, show-ing just how intense this short race can be. Missing third place once more, this time by a mere .03 seconds, Lee placed fourth in the 300-meter dash. In the 1500-meter run, freshman Dina Re was able to take third with an astounding but unsurprising time of 5:09.54, thus qualifying for the city championships. The racewalking team was able to dominate the 1500-meter race

walk; eight of the 12 racewalkers who participated from Stuyve-sant placed in the top 10 in a heat of 16. In a very close finish with an average difference of less than a second, sisters junior Luo Qi Kong and senior Wan Qi Kong took first and second place, respectively, and junior Olesya Mykulnska won third place. In the 3000-meter run, senior Vera Pertsovskaya came in fourth place with a time of 11:38.64. To wrap up the run-ning events, freshman Zovinar Khrimian took second in the 1000-meter run with a time of 3:18.26.

Similarly, the team had a lot of success in the field events. Ju-niors Sadie Solomon and Emily Xu won fourth and ninth place, respectively, in shot put. In the pole vault, sophomore Tiffany Lam tied for first place at a height of seven feet flat. Sopho-more Sarah Joseph and fresh-man Chloe Deflau took third and fourth place, respectively, in the triple jump. Deflau also took fourth in the high jump with a height of 4’2’’, missing third place by a mere two inches, and Joseph came in fifth in the long jump with a jump of 14 feet.

Thanks to their work ethic, the members are always able to come to the meet prepared to perform their best. “Hard work is the backbone of the team’s success. I’d also credit the team’s success to the energy and spirit everyone has,” Wan Qi Kong said. Though the Greyducks did not place as well in the city championships, finishing 24th, the team is still pleased with the season, especially the unex-pected success in the borough championships.

Girls’ Basketball

Girls’ Indoor Track

“hard work is the backbone of the

team’s success. Besides

hard work, i’d credit the team’s

success to the energy and spirit

everyone has.” – Wan Qi Kong,

senior and co-captain

continued on page 25

The Spectator ●March 4, 2014

Sports

Page 27The Spectator ● March 4, 2014

Pirates Come up Short at OpensBoys’ Swimming

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Sochi Winter Olympics 2014

with a total of 27 points. Koo, whose goal was to qualify for States in the 100-yard freestyle, came 0.53 seconds short. Koo’s time of 49.29 earned him a fifth place finish. Koo “was a bit dis-appointed” because making States in this event “was [his] main goal for this season,” he said. Junior Victor Gaitour was another contributory swimmer, earning 25 points for the team. He came to the meet hoping to break a 56 in the 100-yard but-terfly, but came up a hair short with a 56.01. However, Gaitour was content with his overall performance, having improved in all his events, including an astonishing 18-second drop from his preliminary 500-yard freestyle. Gaitour credits the improvement to hard work. “Practice was life. That’s where I am all day, everyday,” Gaitour said.

The Pirates had high hopes pinned on the 400-yard free-style relay. The Pirates were seeded in first place accord-ing to preliminary results, but just 0.53 seconds ahead of the Bronx Science Wolverines, and

1.02 seconds ahead of Brooklyn Tech. Gaitour led off the relay with a personal best time of 51.65 seconds, but the Pirates were in third place when Glas, the second swimmer, dove into the water. Glas also swam a personal best time of 52.24 seconds, but it was not until Koo’s third leg that the Pirates finally took over the lead. Koo also swam a personal record of 48.84, faster than his individual 100-yard freestyle time of 49.29. With the Pirates holding a body-length lead, sophomore Daniel Gutman propelled through the final leg with a time of 50.28, yet another personal best, but was no match for Brooklyn Tech senior George Tilneac. Tilneac, unquestionably the fastest swimmer in PSAL, pulled ahead with a 46.48 to beat out Stuyve-sant.

With the final event over, the Pirates totaled 317 points, com-ing in second place to Brooklyn Tech’s 418 points—thus ending the 2014 Opens for the Pirates without any States qualifiers and without the championship.

Coach Peter Bologna stated that though he was disappoint-ed in the loss, he was not disap-

pointed in his team. “My kids still stepped up, did very well. They did a lot of their best times between yesterday and today, so I really can’t complain.” There are, however, aspects that need improvement. Starts and turns were neglected this season be-cause of the lack of sufficient fa-cilities that came with the home pool’s renovation. Fortunately, the pool was ready before the Pirates’ last meet of the season: the City Championship against Brooklyn Tech.

The Pirates’ 101-point loss to Tech at Opens made the prospects of winning seem thin. But some team members main-tained a hopeful outlook, saying that anything can happen, de-spite the unfortunate fact that Brooklyn Tech has been stron-ger in most events this season. “So Tech beat us here but you never know what will happen. We’re not counting ourselves out yet,” Gutman said.

“Hopefully things go our way,” Bologna said. “But if all my kids do their best and they leave it all in the pool, I can’t ask for anything more.”

the same coach, Marina Zoueva, most spectators expected to see similar styles of skating. But in the free dance, the American pair de-cided to skate to the story of “Ara-bian Nights,” about a woman who charms a murderous Persian King with her stories, while their Cana-dian counterparts skated to a more intimate story: their own - a sev-enteen year old partnership. Proof of a more loving routine is the fact there were several unscripted mo-ments where Moir lovingly kissed Virtue’s hand. Although commen-tator Tara Lipinski, a former gold-medalist figure skater, called Virtue and Moir’s performance “flawless,” Davis and White were more tech-nically sound. For example, their twizzles (multi-rotational one foot turns) were cleaner and closer to-gether. Their choreography leading in and out of lifts was also more in-novative and connected to the mu-sic. There is no doubt that Davis and White worked insanely hard since the creation of their partner-ship (by their mothers) in 1997, and made their country proud.

3) Sage Kotsenburg Puts the “Style” in Slopestyle and Wins the first gold Medal of the games (Grace Lu)

Slopestyle, the new snow-boarding discipline, is one of the coolest sports in the Olympics, in-volving tricks and jumps off of rails and other obstacles on a downhill slope. Athletes often try to spin multiple times in the air while get-ting the highest altitude and land-ing solidly. The sport is exciting to watch for everyone, non-snow-boarders included. It is basically the opposite of watching curling, where everyone is wondering why buff Canadians are yelling so loud-ly over a rock. Slopestyle is the hip sport of the younger generation, filled with fresh moves and swag-ger, and Sage Kotsenburg is its per-fect champion. Sage, with his gum-chewing and YOLO-esque attitude, embodies the essence of the sport.

When everyone thought Ca-nadians Mark McMorris and Max Parrot would sweep the podium

with their elaborate triple corks and spot-on technicalities, Sage stole the show with his unique and creative moves, including a back-side 1620 with a Japan grab. He invented the trick himself and had never tried it before. “I had no idea I was even going to do a 1620 in my run until three minutes before I dropped,” Kotsenburg said. He surprised himself when he landed without falling. The 1620, dubbed the “Holy Crail,” was actually not any more difficult than the triple corks done by the rest of the slope-stylers. It was, however, a crowd-pleaser with more innovative style than the rest. Sage became not only the first Olympic slopestyle gold medalist, but also the first gold medalist in Sochi.

“I kind of do random stuff all the time, never make a plan up,” Kotsenburg said in a relaxed drawl with gum in the back of his mouth. Thanks to Sage and the Holy Crail, slopestyle will be an American fa-vorite for years to come.

We wish that…

1) Queen yuna had defended her Title (Chris Kim)

In the eyes of the Sochi figure skating judges, Yuna Kim’s seem-ingly flawless free skate perfor-mance wasn’t nearly enough. Rus-sian teenager Adelina Sotnikova, who scored 5.48 points higher than defending champion Kim, shocked the world. However, Kim’s abun-dant followers weren’t convinced, and, once again, a heated figure skating controversy ensued from the questionable judging.

Having finished first in the short program at Sochi, Kim looked to repeat her success from Vancou-ver with a solid routine in the free skate. Although Kim successfully executed yet another performance filled with her signature elegance, 17-year-old Sotnikova indisput-ably outclassed Kim in terms of technicality, skating a more dif-ficult program, filled with im-pressive combinations and sharp spins. While Kim chose to carry out one of the easier double jumps, Sotnikova chose to do the most difficult double jump, the double

axel. Throughout Sotnikova’s en-ergetic performance, she demon-strated height in her jumps and better footwork. However, there are more aspects to figure skating than just technicality. Sotnikova failed to match the gracefulness of Kim’s movement on the ice, and to say that both performances were flawless would be a lie. None of Kim’s fans would forget Sotnikova’s stumble after landing a triple com-bination, which would be a major source of the outrage against the judges’ seemingly biased decision.

Even when looking past home-field advantage, it’s hard to over-look the dubious composition of judges. One had been suspended for trying to fix an event at the Winter Olympics 16 years ago, and another is married to the head of the Russian figure skating federa-tion. Add in the fact that, of all the Olympic Sports, figure skating has had the most questionable offici-ating decisions in its history, and Kim not winning becomes very suspicious.

Fortunately, Kim is pleased with the final chapter of her Olym-pic run. Although Kim won’t get another opportunity to reclaim her title, she will always be “Queen Yuna” to her South Korean fans. As the current record holder for la-dies in the short program, the free skate, and the combined total, the Queen has triumphantly set a de-fining mark in the history of figure skating.

2) Shaun White had, at the Very Least, Made the Podium (An-nique Wong)

Before his performance at Sochi, Shaun White was known for his wild and very red hair, hence the nickname “The Flying Toma-to,” and for winning gold medals at the 2006 and 2010 Olympics. On the days leading up to the Men’s Snowboard Halfpipe, most people were predicting that White would win a third straight gold for Team USA.

On White’s first of two runs dur-ing the halfpipe final, his attempt at a trick named “YOLO” (you only land once), which consists of two head-over-heel flips and two 360

degree turns, led him to fall and slide on his back into the center of the halfpipe. Not letting this failure to stop him, White tried once more at his double-cork tricks but didn’t get enough height and hit the edge of the pipe, giving White a dismal fifth place finish.

White’s second run, which in the past was considered to be his “victory run”, started with two seemingly flawless jumps with a height of sixteen feet. His third jump, his second attempt at the “YOLO,” looked good in the air, but he didn’t land well, which affected his last two jumps as he couldn’t generate enough speed, and fin-ished fourth overall.

Why the disappointing finish? Andy Finch, an American snow-boarder, believes that it was due to “holes, clumps of loose snow, and a curve in the flat-bottom,” imper-fections of the Sochi halfpipe. We’ll never know if it was the pressure or bad boarding conditions that got to White. But I do know that this run was uncharacteristic of White - his title of the most X Games med-als and gold medals proves that - and expect a complete redemption in 2018 at PyeongChang if he does compete.

3) Bode Miller had Met expec-tations (Grace Lu)

Throw your expectations away when Bode Miller comes to play. Miller was by far the favorite in the Men’s Downhill Skiing coming into

Sochi. Bode had won two out of three training runs, even setting a course record his third time down the hill. But when the big day came, Bode finished half a second slower than the first place Austrian, Mat-thias Mayer, pushing him to a dis-appointing 8th place. Maybe it was the decreased visibility, warmer weather, or other unlucky condi-tions, according to Bode, but really, we should’ve known better. When he was a favorite at the 2006 Olym-pics, Bode partied the night before his race and went home without a medal. In Vancouver, when expec-tations were low given his previous immature behavior, he surprised us by winning three medals, one in each color. Now, carrying high ex-pectations with him into Sochi, he missed the podium by a long shot.

Bode was also set to compete in four other alpine skiing events: the Super Combined, the Super-G, the Giant Slalom, and the Slalom. But he injured his surgically repaired left knee in the Giant Slalom while placing 20th, and thus withdrew.

We watched Bode progress so much since his partying days, and we sympathized with him when his brother died recently. We were all looking forward to see-ing the domination of this Ameri-can Olympic veteran. Though this bronze medal makes him the old-est Olympic medalist and the man with the second highest medal count in alpine skiing history, it is safe to say we are disappointed in Bode Miller.

Highlights of the Sochi Olympics

Boys’ Greyducks Soar at Borough Championship

continued from page 28

consistently forcing the athletes to give it their all at every prac-tice, the runners went into the meet ready to perform at the peak of their abilities.

In addition to Mendes, the team has a new sprint coach this year, Jeff Teta. “This season was actually great because we had the best sprinting coach ever,” Hoffman said. Because of him, a lot of the sprinters got faster and put in a lot of work.”

Not only have the strong coaching and diligent work ethic of the athletes helped to mold the team into champion mate-rial, but the sense of unity that the team brings to every meet helps keep the spirits high. “Not only has everyone gotten stron-ger, but we’ve all gotten closer to each other. I think it’s important that we share these friendships and bonds because it ties our whole team together. It teach-es us how to be a team, how to work together, and how to have fun,” Ng said.

Throughout the season, the team has faced the obstacle of

maintaining focus, as the indoor season is broken up and seg-mented by all of the breaks and the discouraging weather. “It can be hard to really keep focus all throughout the indoor season,” Karson said. “Some of the guys have done a great job, especial-ly some of the JV guys in cross country.” In addition to keep-ing focus, the team has battled through a string of injuries that plagued them all season, name-ly those of junior Eamon Woods and senior Andrew Puopolo.

As expected, the boys were ecstatic about their expected win, and all banded together at the end of the meet to take a team picture with their coaches, medals, and plaque.

As most of the athletes get ready for the outdoor track sea-son, they hope to have similar success. With a winning formula, dedicated athletes, and capable coaches, the team hopes to con-tinue its success. The Greyducks’ domination of the Borough Championships should propel them across the finish line and into the outdoor season with a bang.

Boys’ Indoor Track

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The SpecTaTor SporTS Page 28March 4, 2014

Pirates Come up Short at OpensBy eriCA Chio and grACe Lu

On the morning of Sunday, February 9th, the Pirates yelled out their signature “Whoosh!” cheer as junior Andrew Guo led off the team in the 200-yard medley relay, the first event of the day. After last year’s loss to the Brooklyn Tech Engineers, which broke their nineteen-year victory streak, the Pirates dove into this year’s A Division Championships—commonly known as Opens—determined to win back the title. Although the Pirates did not win, their spirit did not diminish through-out the rest of the meet as they continued to cheer loudly for their teammates.

As the meet progressed, it became clear that the victory the Pirates wanted was no lon-ger within reach. The Engineers were steadily pulling ahead as they clinched first place in four of the 12 events; Stuyvesant failed to score first in any of the events. The Pirates were fight-

ing an uphill battle with some serious losses against Tech’s strength. Sophomore Aaron Glas was seeded 3rd in the 500-yard freestyle but finished 5th. “I took it out too fast. I just kind of died after that,” Glas said. He finished with a 5:01, a four sec-ond increase from his prelimi-nary time. But Glas is going to use this disappointment as mo-tivation to be “smarter, keeping

control of my emotions before the race, not getting too excited [and] taking it out too fast,” he said. Nonetheless, Glas was an instrumental part of the team, earning a total of 29 points, the most among the Pirates.

Senior and co-captain Bran-don Koo was right behind Glas

Boys’ Swimming

Though defeated by Brooklyn Technical high School, the Pirates smiled brighter than any team on february 14, 2014.

Sports Wrap-UpBoys’ Indoor TrackThe PirATeS, Stuyvesant’s boys’ swimming team, lost in the finals to Brooklyn Tech

for the second year in a row, relinquishing hopes of taking back the city championships, and putting redemption off until next year.

After going 12-2 in the regular season and tying for first in their division, the Phoe-niX, Stuyvesant’s girls’ basketball team, were stopped in their post-season run in the second round. Though the team displayed a strong opening to the playoffs, in which ju-nior Sophia Gershon led them team with 29 points, they were no match for the stronger Port Richmond Raiders, as they fell by a 36-point margin on Wednesday, February 26.

The reBeLS, Stuyvesant’s boys’ basketball team, having gone 8-8 in the regular sea-son and placing fifth in their division, quickly fell out of the playoff picture, losing to the Hillcrest Hawks by 10 in the first round. With nine returning players, the team will look to return next season with a much more experienced group.

As expected, the greyduCKS, Stuyvesant’s boys’ indoor track team, place first in the Indoor Track Borough Championships. In the City Championships, senior and co-captain Jeremy Karson finished first in the 1600 meter and junior Eric Chen finished second in the 3200 meter run. These two, including senior and captain Alex Lui, who fin-ished 6th in the 55 meter dash, will be competing in the State Championships. Stuyve-sant’s girls’ indoor track team also took first in the Borough Championships. Junior Luo Qi Kong finished 4th in the 1500m Racewalk for the City Championships.

The feLineS, Stuyvesant’s girls’ gymnastics team finished fourth in their division and fifth in the city overall.

The LeMurS, Stuyvesant boys’ gymnastics team, placed fifth in the city, but came in second at the 33rd Annual Long Island City High School Invitational Gymnastics Tournament. The team looks forward to the individual finals on Saturday, March 1.

Felines Are on the Rise

Girls’ Gymnastics

Highlights of the Sochi OlympicsThe XXII Olympic Winter

Games occurred from February 7th to 23rd in Sochi, Russia. Dur-ing this international sports event, 2871 athletes from 88 nations par-ticipated in 98 events in seven sports. Here are the opinions of the Spectator Sports Editors.

Top 3 Moments at Sochi

1) Viktor Ahn Brings home the first Short Track gold for russia (Chris Kim)

After three-time gold medalist Viktor Ahn was kept from qualify-ing for the 2010 Winter Olympics for South Korea because of a knee injury, there were doubts about whether the 28-year-old would be able to shake off the rust and meet expectations for Russia in these Olympics. But as Ahn cried with tears of joy, having finished first in the Short Track Men’s 1000 Meter Final, he knew that he had just brought Russia its first ever Olympic short track gold medal. He knew that there were no re-grets for Russia, and that he had

marked a significant milestone in the sport’s history.

Ahn’s journey from competing for South Korea in the 2006 To-rino Olympics to participating for Russia in Sochi is perhaps one of the most interesting stories in the Olympics. Since his career-threat-ening knee injury in 2008, Ahn was not provided with the support that he needed from South Korea, and, frustrated, he looked for another country to represent for the next games. After considering offers from many other nations, includ-ing the United States, Ahn settled on Russia, who he felt provided him with the best situation.

Ahn won bronze in the 1500 meter and, later on, Russia’s first gold medal in the 1000 meter, which made him the first ever to win four short track gold medals in a career. However, Ahn wasn’t satisfied with his results just yet. Ahn continued to prove his great-ness, winning gold in both the 500 meter and 5000 meter relay races. With his two gold medal night at Sochi, Ahn tied retired Ameri-can star Apolo Ohno for the most

Olympic short track medals with eight and, with six of those eight being golds, solidified his position as the greatest ever in the short track races. But his Olympic ac-complishments not as significant as his impact at home. Now con-sidered a hero to his Sochi fans, Ahn has permanently guaranteed his warm-welcoming spot on Rus-sian soil.

2) Meryl davis and Charlie White Become the first Ameri-cans to Win gold in ice dance (Annique Wong)

History was made for Team USA when Davis and White skated their victory lap on the rink at the Iceberg Skating Palace with the American flag waving over their heads. Placing second behind Tes-sa Virtue and Scott Moir of Cana-da in Vancouver, Davis and White came into Sochi with determina-tion to score some gold hardware.

Because Davis, White, Virtue and Moir train together and with

Sochi Winter Olympics 2014

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The SpecTaTor SporTS Boys’ Greyducks Soar at Borough Championship

By rAyyAn JoKhAi

Which team, whose members wear #Dope T-shirts and have a tradition of drinking tea and eating toast before a meet, just won the Manhattan Borough Champi-onships? The Stuyvesant boys’ indoor track and field team did. Taking the Armory track field by storm on Monday, February 10, the team was able to bring home another win.

This meet was the domination of up-perclassmen. Senior and co-captain Jeremy Karson took first in the 1000-meter run with a time of 2:40.01, followed by a second place finish in the 1600-meter run, in which he was just .06 seconds behind teammate junior Eric Chen, who ran a 4:40.69. Chen was also the winner of the 3200-meter run, edging out second place by .15 seconds with a time of 9:45.36. The Greyducks were unbeatable in the relays, taking first in all four, and exceptional in the short- and mid-

distance events. Senior and co-captain Alex Lui snatched third in the 300-meter dash, followed by a first place finish in the 55-me-ter dash. He was the only runner to break seven seconds, with a 6.89. Senior Henrik Lempa-Cho came in third behind Lui, and also finished in second in the long jump. The team went one-two in the 55-meter hurdles, with sophomore Jacob Hoffman and junior Garlen Ng running times of 9.26 and 9.54, respectively.

Naturally, the success of the team came as a result of hard work and dedication from each of the athletes. “The weather stopped us from having practices a few times, and some people were injured, but that didn’t stop us from working and pushing our-selves to the next level,” freshman Harvey Ng said. With diligent coach Mark Mendes

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By AnThony CheAng

Though to one person, basketball may be the great-est sport in the world, to oth-ers, less popular sports such as water polo or even roller derby may be their cup of tea. When it comes to high school sports, in Stuyvesant, obviously sports like basketball, football, and softball are more popular to students than sports like gym-nastics. I took my first ever look at the world of competi-tive gymnastics on Thursday, February 6 when the Felines were prepping for the most important meet of the year. The atmosphere was simply electric, with gymnasts flying across the arena and specta-tors snapping photos left and right. Amongst the chatter-ing, everyone was anxious to see how the four-time repeat champions from Totttenville would fare this year. Com-ing into the meet, the Felines were not even in the conversa-tion to contend, but coming off of their best season under coach Vasken Choubaralian, they were looking to make a splash.

The Felines started off the event with the balance beam, moving to floor exer-cises, vaulting, and finally, the uneven bars. The event very much mirrored the regular season for the Felines, scoring high on the vault, and low on the uneven bars. “We scored really high on vault overall, probably one of the best scores we’ve had,” senior and captain Ruihan Zhao said. Overall, their performance was better than the regular season, scor-ing a 108.35, their highest to-tal for the year, with the next highest score being a 102.00. By stepping up their game, the Felines were able to compete closely with the other teams, surpassing everybody’s expec-tations.

Entering the finals meet fourth out of six teams in the Bronx-Manhattan division and fifth in the city, as major underdogs, the Felines man-

aged to snag fifth place in the City Championships and com-pete with other strong teams in the division. “Whatever our expectations are, we exceeded them. We came into the event in fifth place, and we managed to hold fifth place,” Choubara-lian said.

The meet as a whole was extremely close, marking the first time in PSAL history that more than four teams scored over 100. Stuyvesant was one of the seven teams that managed to break the century mark, ex-ceeding expectations by scor-ing a 108.35, their best score in seven years. The competition between third placed Laguar-dia (108.95) and fifth placed Stuyvesant (108.35) was neck-and-neck, as the point differ-ence was six-tenths of a point.

Tottenville still swept the event, scoring 136.35 points, outpacing second-placed Car-dozo by over 23 points, but with the point deficit between the middle teams so miniscule, there is hope that next year, the Felines can get even closer and compete for a banner.

The Felines have always had difficulty competing with the other juggernauts in the city, but every year, they get closer and closer. Just last year, the Felines were com-ing into the playoffs dead last in their division, but this year, the team as a whole stepped up their game. “We didn’t re-ally know how the other teams were, and I’m really happy that we were able to finish strong, I’m really proud of my team,” Zhao said.

The Felines have the future to look forward to, as the team has shown rapid improvement over recent years and doesn’t look to slow down. “We have a bunch of new people this year, who are really strong,” Zhao said. “Grace Stempel, Maria Fomitchova, and Sonia Epstein all competed consistently, and they’re all freshmen, so we def-initely have a lot of potential to grow and get better.”

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