Winged Post Vol. 17 Issue 1

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STEM: Arctic Trip, 9 Sports: Fall season, 11 Back page: Freshmen Features: Fringe Fest, 7 sahana srinivasan asst. STEM editor News: Matriculation, 3 Students will be able to audition for the fall play, the Laramie Project, beginning to- day. “The Laramie Project is a very unique kind of play, with a wide range of challenges for students in the conservatory,” theater teacher Jeffrey Draper said. “I’m excited to see who shows up.” The spirit kickoff took place at the upper school on Friday from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. The event included a raf- fle, games, brainstorming and a Medican buffet. Auditions for the upper school’s new all-male dance troupe, the Kinetik Krew, were held last Thurday in the dance room from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Neil Movva ‘15, Rajiv Movva (10), Business and Entrepreneurship teacher Jus- ton Glass and Head of Upper School Butch Keller traveled to Washington D.C. at the end of June to attend the White House’s Celebrating Innova- tions in Career and Technical Education (CTE) event. First Lady Michelle Obama spoke at the event about CTE’s benefits for stu- dents, businesses and the economy, as well as the need for students to pursue educa- tion wholeheartedly. Glass spoke about the state of the Business and En- trepreneurship program and won the National CTE Innova- tor Award. Neil presented his tech- nology that utilizes sensors to detect nearby objects, and Ra- jiv talked about his research on flavonoids in fruits and vegetables in relation to dia- betes. They both had the op- portunity to speak with other students and educators across the country who work in ca- reer or technical education. “There were kids from all around the country and a lot of different organizations, and meeting all of them was pretty cool,” Rajiv said. “We take the path of going to college here at Harker, but it’s actually not so common outside. It was an eye-opening experience.” Fall play auditions begin today NEIL MOVVA (‘15) presents on flavonoids and diabetes. FIGHTING FIRE (TOP) UC Davis senior and two-year fire fighting participant Michael Cullen serves as team EMT for Grayback Firefighters in Medford, Oregon during August and July. (INSET) The company has been helping suppress wildfires due to the lack of national resources and abundance of fires. More than 5,500 California wildfires have ravaged a total of 180,000 acres since the begin- ning of the year. The ongoing four-year drought that California is facing, which has been known to induce some of the wildfires, has caused California governor Jerry Brown to declare “a state of emergen- cy.” “There was a big difference between the moisture in the green versus what looks dead, the brown vegetation,” said Mar- garet Stewart, spokesperson for the LA Fire Department. “Now, the water content is so low in the green vegetation. That means fires start and spread more eas- ily.” Among the largest and most active wildfires in California this summer is the so-called “Rocky Fire.” According to NPR, this wild- fire alone has destroyed over 60,000 acres of land in the state and forced 1,480 people from their homes. Originating just north of San Francisco, the fire has outsized the city itself. Compared to last year, there have been around 1,200 more fires and 87,600 more acres damaged. Some fires have start- ed in the past few weeks due to thousands of lightning strikes in dry areas caused by the drought. So far, 23 different areas in Cali- fornia have had wildfires. Forest fires often occur be- cause of intense heat applied to arid surfaces such as dead and fallen trees. When exposed to heat, extremely dry plants release explosive gases, which combust into flames while com- bining with oxygen in the air, ac- cording to The New York Times. Due to the large number of fires this year, many firefighters are feeling the sting of low re- sources and lack of manpower. Michael Cullen, a senior at UC Davis who is currently taking a two-year fire program com- mented on the additional risks associated with firefighting. “Another risk is fatigue. It lowers your situational aware- ness and can make an individual less receptive to hazards in the environment that are not neces- sarily as evident as fire,” Cullen said. W INGED P OST MON. AUGUST 31, 2015 | THE HARKER UPPER SCHOOL STUDENT NEWSPAPER, VOL. 17, NO. 1 | www.harkeraquila.com Spirit to launch at upper school Kuehn holds Kinetik Krew auditions Movva brothers visit White House PROVIDED BY JUSTON GLASS elisabeth siegel editor in chief elisabeth siegel editor in chief elisabeth siegel editor in chief DROUGHT SPAWNS WILDFIRES Rocky Fire north of San Francisco torches 60,000 acres, outsizing city Continued page 2 trisha dwivedi & jackie gao sports editor & reporter The water content is so low in the green vegetation...that means fires start and spread more easily. MARGARET STEWART LA FIRE DEPARTMENT PHOTOS PROVIDED BY MICHAEL CULLEN

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Transcript of Winged Post Vol. 17 Issue 1

Page 1: Winged Post Vol. 17 Issue 1

STEM: Arctic Trip, 9 Sports: Fall season, 11 Back page: Freshmen Features: Fringe Fest, 7

sahana srinivasanasst. STEM editor

News: Matriculation, 3

Students will be able to audition for the fall play, the Laramie Project, beginning to-day.

“The Laramie Project is a very unique kind of play, with a wide range of challenges for students in the conservatory,” theater teacher Jeffrey Draper said. “I’m excited to see who shows up.”

The spirit kickoff took place at the upper school on Friday from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The event included a raf-fle, games, brainstorming and a Medican buffet.

Auditions for the upper school’s new all-male dance troupe, the Kinetik Krew, were held last Thurday in the dance room from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Neil Movva ‘15, Rajiv Movva (10), Business and Entrepreneurship teacher Jus-ton Glass and Head of Upper School Butch Keller traveled to Washington D.C. at the end of June to attend the White House’s Celebrating Innova-tions in Career and Technical Education (CTE) event.

First Lady Michelle Obama spoke at the event about CTE’s benefits for stu-dents, businesses and the economy, as well as the need for students to pursue educa-tion wholeheartedly.

Glass spoke about the state of the Business and En-trepreneurship program and won the National CTE Innova-tor Award.

Neil presented his tech-nology that utilizes sensors to detect nearby objects, and Ra-jiv talked about his research on flavonoids in fruits and vegetables in relation to dia-betes.

They both had the op-portunity to speak with other students and educators across the country who work in ca-reer or technical education.

“There were kids from all around the country and a lot of different organizations, and meeting all of them was pretty cool,” Rajiv said. “We take the path of going to college here at Harker, but it’s actually not so common outside. It was an eye-opening experience.”

Fall play auditions begin today

NEIL MOVVA (‘15) presents on flavonoids and diabetes.

FIGHTING FIRE (TOP) UC Davis senior and two-year fire fighting participant Michael Cullen serves as team EMT for Grayback Firefighters in Medford, Oregon during August and July. (INSET) The company has been helping suppress wildfires due to the lack of national resources and abundance of fires.

More than 5,500 California wildfires have ravaged a total of 180,000 acres since the begin-ning of the year.

The ongoing four-year drought that California is facing, which has been known to induce some of the wildfires, has caused California governor Jerry Brown to declare “a state of emergen-cy.”

“There was a big difference between the moisture in the green versus what looks dead, the brown vegetation,” said Mar-garet Stewart, spokesperson for the LA Fire Department. “Now,

the water content is so low in the green vegetation. That means fires start and spread more eas-ily.”

Among the largest and most active wildfires in California this summer is the so-called “Rocky Fire.”

According to NPR, this wild-fire alone has destroyed over 60,000 acres of land in the state and forced 1,480 people from their homes. Originating just north of San Francisco, the fire has outsized the city itself.

Compared to last year, there have been around 1,200 more fires and 87,600 more acres damaged. Some fires have start-ed in the past few weeks due to thousands of lightning strikes in dry areas caused by the drought. So far, 23 different areas in Cali-fornia have had wildfires.

Forest fires often occur be-cause of intense heat applied to arid surfaces such as dead and fallen trees. When exposed to heat, extremely dry plants

release explosive gases, which combust into flames while com-bining with oxygen in the air, ac-cording to The New York Times.

Due to the large number of fires this year, many firefighters are feeling the sting of low re-sources and lack of manpower.

Michael Cullen, a senior at UC Davis who is currently taking a two-year fire program com-mented on the additional risks associated with firefighting.

“Another risk is fatigue. It lowers your situational aware-ness and can make an individual less receptive to hazards in the environment that are not neces-sarily as evident as fire,” Cullen said.

WINGED POSTMON. AUGUST 31, 2015 | THE HARKER UPPER SCHOOL STUDENT NEWSPAPER, VOL. 17, NO. 1 | www.harkeraquila.com

Spirit to launch at upper school

Kuehn holds Kinetik Krew auditions

Movva brothers visit White House

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elisabeth siegeleditor in chief

elisabeth siegeleditor in chief

elisabeth siegeleditor in chief

DROUGHT SPAWNS WILDFIRESRocky Fire north of San Francisco torches 60,000 acres, outsizing city

Continued page 2

trisha dwivedi & jackie gaosports editor & reporter

The water content is so low in the green

vegetation...that means fires start and spread more easily.

MARGARET STEWARTLA FIRE DEPARTMENT

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NEWS VOLUME 17 • ISSUE 1 AUGUST 31, 20152

Plunging into class trips Juniors and sophomores take rapids and ropes

The junior class partici-pated in the annual rafting trip while the sophomores went to the yearly ropes course trip on Aug. 20.

The juniors started from campus at 6:25 a.m. boarding buses from the upper school campus. Each of the four buses arrived at the rafting location at different times for lunch before students and faculty donned rafting gear and received a safety talk.

Several advisories split up into smaller groups in order to fit in the rafts, but the boats stayed in close proximity to allow the entire class to bond. The small rafting groups worked together to paddle through rapids as a team and swam in ponds along the way.

“You really learn to bond with each other without all the distractions you usually have because you’re just on the river and you’re facing the waves,” Haley Tran (11) said. “I really enjoyed the trip because there were no distractions like phones or homework, and people don’t have to worry about school yet.”

The junior class previously had a choice of three aquatic activities for their class trips, but an overwhelming demand for rafting prompted a change one year ago. Mark Brada expressed his approval of the change to rafting after enjoying the trip last week.

“I thought it was much better than past class trips that we’ve done with the juniors,” junior advisor Mark Brada said. “I had gone both on a sailing

trip with another one of my advisories and on the kayaking trip with one of my advisories, and I feel like this was a better experience than either one of those two things.”

Following the day of raft-ing, advisories changed out of their wet clothes, ate dinner, and arrived back on campus in the evening.

On the same day, the soph-omores class travelled separate-ly to four different ropes courses to swing through the trees with ropes and harnesses. For the first part of the day, the students participated in a variety of team bonding games and activities that focused on teamwork and communicating with others.

“I got closer to my adviso-ry and I learned that it’s easier to work with a team than by yourself,” Preethi Madabusi (10) said.

After lunch, students par-ticipated in various climbing el-ements that needed cooperation as a team in order to succeed.

“We used to go to two courses and as the school con-tinued to grow, we were taking up to 100 students to the cours-es and not everybody could get through the different elements,” said Dean of Students and soph-omore advisor Kevin William-son. “So this is our second year now using four sites so every-body gets a different experience but similar events.”

While the sophomores and juniors attended class trips, the new freshman class enjoyed ori-entation day on Davis Field. The seniors attended a college coun-seling class in the afternoon.

ashley jiang & kshithija mulam

photo editor & news editor

FUN IN THE SUN (TOP) Kendall Ka (11) and Kshithija Mulam (11) watch a raft of students paddle past them in a pond. (BOTTOM LEFT) Alexander Chen (10) uses handholds to climb up a tree in a ropes course activity. (BOTTOM RIGHT) Matthew McCallaCreary (10) completes a ropes course activity by balancing himself to cross a tightrope.

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Five students from Hark-er attended the National Junior Classical League (NJCL) conven-tion from July 27 to Aug. 1 at Trinity University in Texas.

Maya Nandakumar (‘15), Elisabeth Siegel (12), Justin Au (10), Jin Tuan (8) and Jai Bahri (8) were accompanied by cur-rently retired Latin teacher John Hawley and middle school Latin teacher Lisa Masoni.

JCL is an organization that encourages the interest in the classical arts of Ancient Greece and Rome. The annual Latin convention holds competitions among members.

“I worked on a lot of cre-ative, graphical and classical arts at the convention,” NJCL first vice president Maya Nandaku-mar (‘15) said.

Students individually stud-ied in advance for each of their contests, which include academic tests, arts contests and costume contests. The Olympika and Ludi competitions mimic the original Greek olympic games with mara-

thons, swimming, track and field events. Certamen, another con-test, is a trivia style game that can be played competitively.

“There were so many events. One of the biggest [events] for the Upper School was Certamen, where Elisabeth Siegel was one of four people representing Cal-ifornia,” Hawley said.

The convention has a differ-ent theme every year. This year’s theme was “tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito,” Lat-in for “Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them.” Students also get to participate in themed spirit week of the convention such as “Tiber Riverwalk,” “Old Western Classics” and “Lone Star-struck by Latin.”

“The number of contests that the convention features allows students to show their prowess,” Hawley said. “I would say that it is very successful. I enjoyed it because being part of California delegation is just real-ly impressive for us.”

JCL students will participate in the state chapter convention in the upcoming school year.

Latin students attend national Junior Classical League convention

CARPE DIEM John Hawley, Jai Bahri (8) and Justin Au (10) participate in a session at the NJCL Convention in July in Texas. Five students partici-pated in multiple events, earning commendations and awards.

“Fatigue can affect an entire crew no matter how physically or mentally prepared they are. My crew is currently on two back-to-back tours where we were not able to drive all the way home for our mandated two days off. When both tours are completed, we will have been on the road 31 days consecutively,” Cullen said.

Forest fires often occur be-cause of intense heat applied to arid surfaces such as dead and fallen trees. When exposed to heat, extremely dry plants release explosive gases, which combust into flames while com-

bining with oxygen in the air, ac-cording to The New York Times.

Many water limitations and rules have been set across the state in many cities because of the drought situation and scar-city of water. Billboards are of-ten seen displaying the phrase “Brown is the new green” to discourage residents from water-ing their lawns; some cities have also enforced rules as to how much water can be used.

Because Santa Clara is al-ready conserving water, the gov-ernment only requires the low-ering of water consumption by

eight percent. While for some people the

drought and water usage are the most important issues, others in wildfire danger zones have to worry about when to evacuate their homes and how to rebuild them after drought-induced fires.

According to Stewart, the two things that the fire depart-ment would suggest to people living in fire hazard zones are to prepare for the possibility of a fire with emergency kits and to evacuate quickly when a fire arrives.

DROUGHT OF LUCK UC Davis student Michael Cullen controls a forest fire in Medford, Oregon with the Grayback Firefighters as the crew’s EMT. The four-year drought in California has lowered the water content in vegetation, causing fires to start and spread more easily.

vijay bharadwaj reporter

Continued from front page

Wildfires more threatening, last 60 days longer on average

Page 3: Winged Post Vol. 17 Issue 1

The Class of 2019 matric-ulated into the upper school during a ceremony in the Quad on Aug. 21 at 9 a.m.

The day also welcomed back all the sophomores, juniors and seniors. Before introducing the 9th graders, all upper school faculty, dressed in black robes, walk into the Quad before taking their seats on the stage.

For seniors like Ankur Kar-wal, president of the Class of 2016, this year’s Matriculation was their last.

“I think Matriculation is a really great way to start off the school year, because the first day of school you don’t go directly into classes,” Ankur said. “We sort of relax, meet up with your friends, and I really like that part of Matriculation and it’s always great meeting new people. As a senior, I’ll definitely miss being able to meet new people. It’s definitely one of my favorite cer-emonies.”

Head of School Christopher Nikoloff started the day off with a speech and an introduction of Upper School Division Head

Butch Keller. Cantilena, directed by Su-

san Nace, performed after he made his speech.

Afterwards, the string sex-tet, made up of May Gao (11), Jason Lee (12), Cuebeom Choi (11), Luke Wu (12), Edward Oh (11) and Kevin Kim (12) took the stage. May, Jason and Cue-beom played the violin, Luke the viola and Edward and Kevin the cello.

This year, the skit, used to provide the freshman informa-tion about the upper school, became much more concise and direct due to some concerns by administration.

It covered topics such as the dress code, wet and dry system, branching out and exploring op-tions at Harker and microaggres-sion and diversity.

ASB President Michael Zhao (12) explained the new changes.

“This year, we’re taking a different approach than most of the different years, as in pre-vious years there has always been a theme, and usually the skits tended to be a fun way of getting across the message to the freshman to let them know what they need to be ready for

high school,” Michael said. “This year, however, Mr. Williamson had concerns that it started to become more and more of com-edy than getting the freshman to actually learn.”

Upper School Dean of Stu-dents Kevin Williamson oversaw and coached the student coun-cils’ skit rehearsals.

“There are a few role play-ing skits but we’ve changed the format somewhat so that there will be more individual speech-es or monologues given to the freshmen class by individual stu-dents,” Williamson said. “[It’s] a little bit of a different feel this year.”

The student councils of each grade have worked on these skits throughout the summer.

“The [meetings] in summer, we’re preparing for the Matricu-lation skit, rehearsing, costumes, blocking, and we already had to have the lines memorized,” ju-nior class secretary of Alexander Lam said.

To finish the ceremony, the teachers recessed and each class split to follow their assigned schedules.

3NEWS VOLUME 17 • ISSUE 1 AUGUST 31, 2015

Matriculation kicks off academic year

justin su & emma yuasst. sports editor & photo editor

BACK TO SCHOOL (TOP) Upper School Head Butch Keller delivers a speech to the students assembled in the Quad for Matriculation. (MID-DLE) Freshmen Srija Gadiraju and Haris Hosseini recite the Matriculation Oath as part of their induction into the upper school. (BOTTOM) ASB Secretary Grace Guan (12) depicts a student breaking the dress code in the annual “Freshman 101” skit.

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4 AD VOLUME 17 • ISSUE 1 AUGUST 31, 2015

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The Upper School’s fascination with summer activities

It is the most popu-lar question at the start of the school year: “What did you do this summer?”

Summer is the oppor-tune time for students to participate in activities that interest them. Ask any Harker student what the ideal extended sum-mer entails and you’ll hear about long days at the beach, afternoons watching TV or going out with friends or family. But that’s not what hap-pens anymore.

Students now use the summer to participate in classes, join internships,

work at jobs and volun-teer. Though some of us truly enjoy the real-world experience offered by summer programs, others participate because they believe it’s necessary.

Maybe they are right, since 60% of the business-es surveyed by the Soci-ety for Human Resource Management believe that students need to start fo-cusing on their careers as early as high school. And 90% agreed that a high

school internship increas-es a student’s odds of en-tering a better college.

Increasingly, high school students feel pres-sure around balancing academic goals with per-sonal interests. Here in Silicon Valley, home of countless tech startups and industry leaders, the professional culture de-mands that youths keep improving academically. Whether due to external stressors, such as par-

ents, peers and cultural expectations, or internal fears driven by the col-lege application process, students would agree that their summer activities revolve around checking off all the boxes on their college résumé.

If we glorify colleges over finding ourselves and pursuing our pas-sions, how do we mature? Each summer provides us a golden opportunity to experiment and discov-er more about ourselves. Whether that means han-dling bacteria samples at a Stanford internship or relaxing at home, the vacation is a time to con-template the future and prepare for the upcoming school year.

Outrage over Cecil the Lion highlights ironic neglect

I woke up, checked Facebook, and there it was, trending as number one on the site.

I was still groggy and definitely only half awake, so as soon as I saw the name “Cecil,” I thought the worst — another hashtag to fol-low the stream of hashtags that seemed to have explod-ed into mainstream news in August 2014 beginning with the fatal shooting of Mike Brown.

Then, I read further. The lion.

What?In Zimbabwe, a lion at

a national park was wound-ed and then killed by a den-tist and “big-game hunter,” Walter Palmer. International outcry sparked immediate-ly, and various politicians, celebrities and animal con-servationists quickly de-nounced Palmer’s actions.

Almost at the same time, less than two weeks after Palmer shot Cecil the lion, Sandra Bland was pulled over for a minor traf-fic violation by a Texas state

trooper, taken into custody and then found dead in her jail cell on July 13.

Activists around the country were devastated, and demands quickly fol-lowed for law enforcement to follow up on the sus-picious nature of Bland’s death. Bland’s name joined a long list of black individ-uals killed by police in 2015 and contributed to making July the deadliest month of the year for police killings.

Yet the outrage over Sandra Bland’s death seemed paltry, even pitiful compared to the reaction in

the U.S. to Cecil the Lion’s death.

Just as a reality check, animals do die all the time, and horrifically so. Why did the outrage over that one lion outweigh the indigna-tion over the polar bears struggling to survive as the ice caps melt or the reef eco-systems collapsing all over the world due to bleaching? Humans are just as respon-sible for these instances as they are for the shooting of Cecil the Lion.

But even that’s beside the point when humans find themselves unable to ex-

hibit that level of decency for each other. If someone starts bringing up the black lives taken by police, it only takes a moment for some-one else to chime in, “But, all lives matter!” or “Maybe they could have been more courteous towards that po-lice officer.”

This is not to say that I don’t believe animals de-serve rights at all, or that no problems exist with the treatment of animals in this world. I think poaching is evil, I think that animal ex-perimentation is inhumane and that the meat industry in general contributes way too much to humanity’s col-lective carbon footprint.

But the reaction to the fatal shooting of Cecil the Lion is only one instance of a long history of people caring more about or prior-itizing the lives of animals over other human beings. Perhaps our fury over ani-mal treatment might result in more successful changes across the world if we show at least that much regard for other human beings first.

elisabeth siegeleditor in chief

MANE IDEA Cecil the lion (above) was killed by Walter Palm-er, an American recreational big-game hunter in early July, leading to outrage over anti-poaching enforcement.

Hello! Nice to meet you. I’m Vivek. I see you in class meeting every week, and I wanted to know your name.

Pretty random, I know. Please, don’t get the wrong idea. You see, I’m on a quest to meet everyone in the se-nior class. Why? Long story.

I joined Harker in 9th grade, and it seemed like everybody knew everybody else. The community was a giant jigsaw puzzle, and I had to choose the right spot to fit myself into. I found a circle of friends to spend my

time with and was satisfied - but slowly, the circle turned into a bubble. Beyond the initial spate of introductions and satisfied with my social life, I stopped trying to meet new people.

During the homecom-ing rally of my sophomore year, I looked through the sea of drowsy, glazed-over eyes and hunched shoul-ders, meeting the gaze of countless strangers whose names I did not know. A year into high school, I still felt like “the new kid.” That had to stop, and so I decided to simply get to know every-body.

Don’t worry — I don’t keep a hit-list or plaster the

walls of my room with the portraits of my next “tar-gets.” I know, however, that there are clusters of people to whom I still have to in-troduce myself to, such as the entire Performing Arts department. An imperfect memory doesn’t help either — I can remember names as well as I can stomach Snick-ers (I’m allergic to them).

I imagine that one day, decades from now, I’ll en-counter somebody from this class by pure coincidence - maybe at work, or at a bus stop when the bus is run-ning 20 minutes late or at a swanky New York masquer-ade ball. And I worry that despite having spent four

vivek bharadwaj

editor in chief

In this guest column, we encourage all student writers from

around the community to share their memorable experiences while at the

Upper School. Please email all column ideas to

[email protected].

years of our lives studying in the same classrooms, work-ing with the same teachers, and hanging out with friends common to both of us, neither of us will have anything to say to each other. I don’t want that to happen. In fact, I’m making sure that it won’t.

Maybe that person is you. So it’s been nice talking! I’m sure we’ll see each oth-er around somewhere. Who knows when our paths will cross again?

5OPINION VOLUME 17 • ISSUE 1 AUGUST 31, 2015

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HEART OF HARKER

Sharanya BalajiTrisha Dwivedi

Ria GandhiAshi Gautam

Raveena KapatkarVineet Kosaraju

Jenna SadhuSahana Srinivasan

Justin SuAditya Varshney

Alex Wang

Aquila Staff

Adrian ChuJackie Gao

Melina NakosLauren Russell

Derek YenNeil Bai

Reporters

Visit The Winged Post Onlineat www.harkeraquila.com

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The Winged Post is published every four to six weeks except during vacations by the Journalism and Advanced Journalism Newspaper Concentration courses of Harker Upper School, 500 Saratoga Ave., San Jose, CA 95129.

The Winged Post staff will publish features, editorials, news, and sports in an unbiased and professional manner and serve as a public forum for the students of The Harker School. Editorials are the official opinions of The Winged Post. Opinions and letters are the personal viewpoints of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Winged Post. All content decisions are made by student editors, and the content of The Winged Post in no way reflects the official policy of The Harker School. The opinions expressed in this publication reflect those of the student writers and not the Harker board, administration, faculty, or advisor.

Advertisements are accepted in the Post. However, The Winged Post reserves the right to deny any ad. Letters to the Editor may be submitted to Manzanita 70 or emailed to [email protected] and must be signed, legible, and concise. The staff reserves the right to edit letters to conform to Post style. Baseless accusations, insults, libelous statements, obscenities, and letters which call for a disruption of the school day will not be considered for publication. Letters sent to the Post will be published at the discretion of the editorial staff. Mast eagle courtesy of photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen.

The Winged Post is the official student newspaper, and it is distributed free of cost to students.

2014-2015 Silver Crown-winning publication2013-2014 Silver Crown-winning publication2012-2013 Silver Crown-winning publication2010-2011 Gold Crown-winning publication2009-2010 Silver Crown-winning publication

Editors-in-ChiefElisabeth Siegel & Vivek Bharadwaj

Managing EditorKavya Ramakrishnan

Copy EditorMeena Gudapati

News EditorKshithija MulamFeatures EditorMeilan Steimle

Asst. Features EditorMaya Kumar

Opinion EditorAditya Varshney

STEM EditorVineet Kosaraju

Asst. STEM EditorSahana Srinivasan

Sports EditorTrisha Dwivedi

Asst. Sports EditorJustin Su

Photo EditorsAshley Jiang & Emma Yu

Business EditorStanley Zhao

AdviserEllen Austin, MJE

Shay Lari-HosainKaity Gee

Kaitlin HsuVijay Bharadwaj

Wingspan Staff

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SUMMER STRESS While most students found the summer rather relaxing, around 30% encountered some stress along the way.

My quest to meet everyone in my grade

Cramming the calendar

Page 6: Winged Post Vol. 17 Issue 1

Students swarm in a crowd-ed gym. Club officers shout to the masses like street-vendors. There is actually a chance of se-curing a seat in the library. Wel-come to club fair.

Like many of the other freshmen, I had been warned by seniors to stick to a small num-ber of clubs that I could reliably dedicate my time to. And so I decided only to sign up for clubs that were truly interesting to me.

Unfortunately, there was a club for everything, and every-thing was interesting. There was the programming club, and its sister, the algorithm club; the fast-paced challenges offered by quizbowl and science bowl; the humanities of linguistics and philosophy; and the intricacies of mathematics and economics.

By the end of the day, I had only signed up for the clubs truly interesting to me. That entailed about 20-odd clubs.

Would I attend all of them regularly? No — by the end of the year, I had effectively signed up for five clubs. Conflicts be-tween clubs invariably arose, and while I did attend many of the other clubs once or twice, I was forced to miss several meet-ings.

This is in no way a new phenomenon. Club mailing lists are filled with unfamiliar fac-es. While there is no immediate problem in being able to sign up for as many clubs as you wish, I

posit that students would enjoy clubs much more if they were limited in the number they could join. In being able to join an unlimited number of clubs, stu-dents attend clubs less often and inadvertently impact the health of smaller clubs.

Because it is possible to join any club, there is no incentive to commit, and attendance rates plummet. When presented with a choice, prospective members will often be drawn to the larger clubs such as DECA on account of their reputation. This dispro-portionately impacts smaller clubs and c n cause meetings to

be cancelled due to insufficient attendance. When given too many options, students spread their attention across too many clubs and dilute their overall ex-perience.

It so happens that more choices aren’t always optimal. In a famous study from 2000, two psychologists found that between a jam stand offering a wide variety of jams and another of just six, the larger stand at-tracted more customers, yet the smaller stand secured more pur-chases. To expand on the analo-gy, if there was a quota, rather

than attracting more customers (signing up for excess clubs), there would be more purchases (actual attendance of clubs).

The indecisiveness brought about by being given so many options leads to overall low-er student attendance and lists of nonexistent members. If the school imposes a limit to the number of clubs that a student may join — even a generous or unenforced quota — I think that students would actually attend clubs more often, not less, and enjoy themselves more as a re-sult.

TALK AROUND CAMPUSWhat about the new school year excites you the most?

INDUSTRY STANDARD The majority of dominant industries employ men in greater proportions than they employ women.

“You’re a girl. I can’t let a girl pitch the company to inves-tors.” Those words were spoken by my male teammate nearly three months ago, yet they still echo loudly in my head even to-day.

The gender gap in the mod-ern workforce is a topic that has been discussed in a myriad of newspapers, books and lectures. Over the past few years, I found myself skimming through the articles I read about the lack of women in the field of business and the disadvantage that wom-en are at compared to males.

Gender disparity was a faint idea somewhere on the far-off horizon, not an issue close to my heart.

This past summer, I was thrown into a month-long whirl-wind where I was given the chance to meet 65 other busi-ness-minded individuals with a diverse range of talents from all across the world. The first thing I noticed when I stepped into the room was the ratio of males to

females.Ideally, the gender ratio

should always be 1:1. This al-lows for a better exchange of ideas and equal compatibility between individuals. Instead, I was shocked to realize that there were 4 males for every female in the room.

Throughout the month, it became strikingly clear that it was the boys who were benefit-ing from the program the most, as they were able to exchange ideas and support each other with the camaraderie that they shared. When individuals were put into groups, the teams com-posed of only males won compe-

titions and had greater participa-tion than the teams made up of girls.

Every girl, including myself, felt overshadowed and slightly overwhelmed. Whenever I raised my hand to answer a question, I was met by glances of sur-prise from boys across the room. Should I have stayed quiet and not offered my opinion?

When my own teammate, someone I was supposed to trust to always have my back, refused to let me talk to venture capital-ists merely because I was a girl, I decided that his remark was the last straw. I stood up and declared that if I was a member of the team, I deserved the same opportunities as everyone else.

After successfully having multiple conversations with ven-ture capitalists, I realized that this was a problem worth fight-ing for.

To this day, it is frustrat-ing to look back at the endless instances of gender disparity that I faced over that month. I am glad to say that I took a stand and refused to submit to

the overbearing attitude of my male counterparts, yet it hurts to know that other women and girls across the world also face the same problem. According to the Media Planet’s Empowering Women, women earn 77 cents for every dollar that men earn, even though they are 35 percent better than men at returning in-vested money to shareholders.

With only 14 percent of ex-ecutives of the S&P 500 compa-

nies being women, it’s time for girls who are still in high school to start showing men that we have the same, if not more, ca-pabilities as they do.

My summer has been filled with a wide collection of expe-riences that I would never give up. But if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the gender gap is real, and it’s worth fighting against.

Gender gap in business: a personal experienceria gandhi

Aquila features editor

“To this day, it is frus-trating to look back at the endless instances

of gender disparity that I faced over that

month.”

emma yuphoto editor

6 OPINIONVOLUME 17 • ISSUE 1 AUGUST 31, 2015

“I’m excited to start school again and meet new people.”

-Kevin Tzeng (10)

“I’m really excited to be on the JV dance team and perform with them.”

-Miranda Larsen (10)

“Being an upperclassman, with all the nice privileges”-Sneha Bhetanabhotla (11)

CLUB QUOTA Johnny Trinh (12) demonstrates at last year’s club fair. Having a club limit could increase club participation by ensuring that students consider their commitments.

Considering a quota on clubsderek yen

reporter

PROS AND CONS

Pros:

Expected to increase club participation, espe-cially for smaller clubs

Requires students to anticipate their extracur-

ricular commitments

Gets students more seri-ous about specific clubs

Cons:

Reduces the number of clubs that students may

join

Could make it difficult for newer, less known clubs to gain partici-

pation because many students may rather

sign up for more popu-lar options first.

“I’m looking forward to wel-coming the students from the Middle School and see how they do, because they’re a new group.”-Shaun Jashan

Page 7: Winged Post Vol. 17 Issue 1

“Computers are everywhere, and I feel the earlier you get your hands on technology, the more comfortable you feel with the advance-ment that’s happening. Every day there’s a new thing coming up. So I personally feel that getting the hang of computer science is essential at an early stage. I think students at Harker are getting a wonderful opportunity to learn advanced topics at a young age.”

New teachers, new perspectives

ANU DATARCOMPUTER SCIENCE

“I think literature is at its core about humanity, so I think studying literature teaches you about others’ experienc-es, and it deepens the level of empathy with which you ap-proach others and the world.”

MICHELLE ANDELMANENGLISH

“Chemistry offers great problem solving skills and life skills. There’s chemistry all around us... weather, and it’s understanding how our bodies work or just trying to cook breakfast or dinner, or make cookies. It’s everywhere. Learning chemistry and really un-derstanding it allows us to understand our world and function in it at a much higher level.”

DAVID CASSOCHEMISTRY

“It is important to learn Spanish because it is the third most widely spoken lan-guage in the world and spoken in 22 different countries. It has a beautiful long history and literature and the cinema and art and everything, it is key to understand the language to be able to understand the culture and the art that comes with it.”

RICHARD BAILEYSPANISH

“With Latin, I think Latin is such an integral part of English. If you were to take latin out of English, there would not be very much left. Sixty percent of English would come from Latin. Also, learning about the ancients will teach you lessons from the past. You know they always say and examine life is not worth living if you don’t study or look at the past, you’re going to make the same mistakes, so theres a lot of stuff that you can learn.

CLIFFORD HULLLATIN & HISTORY

“It’s going to be involved with almost every aspect of their fu-ture, whether its with work or making financial decisions for their family. Math is a natural part of our day to day lives. “

SHEVA MOMENIANMATH

I like history because it’s like reading a newspaper that’s been edited by time, for centuries, for millen-nia, picking out the most interesting, important, in-fluential stories from the narrative of the human ex-perience. The reason I like to teach history is that it’s ultimately malleable, it’s never static. Time doesn’t actually edit history, people do.

BYRON STEVENSHISTORY

“I think that [speech and debate] are skillsets that help you to develop critical speaking, critical listening, and critical thinking skills, so those are the skillsets that are most obviously focused on in terms of that. It seems to me that stu-dents who are planning on going to col-lege, all Harker students, students who are planning to go into fields like science could certainly benefit from that.”

SANDRA BERKOWITZSPEECH & DEBATE

It’s important for students to learn about business, entrepreneurship and economics because they’re really about life, and even though there’s this per-ception that business is for adults, the business of life is buying and selling ideas and items and all sorts of things, so it’s really the most practical course in the curriculum from my perspective.

CHRIS THOMPSONBUSINESS & ECONOMICS

“For the last three years I was auditing and maintaining freshmen and transfer applications. With that, I’m able to bring that experience and expertise, and I’m doing everything I’ve done over the years in this position, so I’m able to fall right into this. Now I’m on the front side.”

RAE ANN PRADOCOLLEGE COUNSELING

meilan steimle & maya kumar features editor & asst. features editor

7FEATURESVOLUME 17 • ISSUE 1 AUGUST 31, 2015

ALL PHOTOS MEILAN STEIMLE & MAYA KUMAR - WINGED POST

Page 8: Winged Post Vol. 17 Issue 1

BREAK A LEG (TOP) In Scotland, Madi Lang-ree (‘15) sits in the spotlight, performing as one of the stars of Hark-er’s production of “Into the Woods.” The audience they attracted from the Royal Mile watch her shine. (LEFT) Shivani Awasthi (11) allures people along the Royal Mile by transforming into an affectionate, milky white cow. If anyone desired, she would allow them pet her. (RIGHT) he performers huddle up, encouraging each other to give their audience the best performance they can possibly provide. The spotlight awaits for them to cast shadows onto the stage floor.

Edinburgh — the bustling capital of Scotland is where it all took place. Pamphlets gliding from hand to hand, spreading the news of an amazing show. Singers enchanting the ears of a future audience. Spirited shouts arousing curiosity.

Taking place 24 hours a day for 25 days in August with over 250 venues, 3000 different shows, and performers from over 50 countries. This is where the world’s largest performing arts festival, held every year since 1947, took place. The Fringe Festival.

The name “fringe” comes from the festival’s exclusive or-igins. Performers must be nom-inated through competitions. Nominations are submitted to the American High School The-atre Festival (AHSTF) from local competition finalists or winners. AHSTF recently began request-ing nominations from esteemed directors and judges since not all schools have access to the com-petitions.

Harker nominations come from judges at competitions Top Honors, California Musical The-ater Honors programs and the Ohlone College Theater Festival.

Naomi Molin (12), who took part in musicals since sev-enth grade, talked about her fa-vorite parts of the festival.

“You’re always on the go and I love that about it,” she said. “It was one of the best experienc-es of my life so far. You meet a

lot of cool people like other high theater kids from all over Amer-ica but also just random street performers. It’s incredible.”

This year, 2,500 school were nominated, 200 applied, and 44 were selected to repre-sent AHSTF.

Invited every year, Hark-er attends once every four to perform that season’s Spring Musical at the festival, which this year was “Into the Woods.” The 43 people from the Harker School this year arrived in Ed-inburgh on Aug. 4, staying for a total of two weeks with two days in London. The festival started on that Friday.

Harker’s performers, like everyone else at the fringe, pro-moted their show on a famous street in the city, the Royal Mile.

The next chance for Harker to revisit this experience again will be in in the year of 2019.

Harker Performing Arts visits Edinburgh Fringe Festival

emma yu

photo editor

“It was one of the best experiences of my life so far. You meet a lot of cool people like other high theatre kids from all over America but also just random street

performers.”NAOMI MOLIN

CAST MEMBER IN MUSICAL

3, 2, 1, DECA Launch 2015

Eesha Chona (12) spent her summer building a nonprof-it that she co-founded last year along with her brother, Aneesh (‘13).

The Association of Teens Against Cancer (ATAC) is an or-ganization that aims to help chil-dren and teenagers with loved ones who have been diagnosed with cancer.

The Chona siblings were in-spired to start ATAC after their own mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“We noticed that there is a lack of support provided to the children of parents diagnosed with cancer,” Eesha said. “There’s tons of support for the patient, of course, and their spouses, but the children are unintentionally ignored. And when my brother and I went through this situation in our family, we had each other to lean on for support, but we re-alized that not every child is that lucky to have a sibling or even a friend who underwent the same experience.”

ATAC allows children and

teenagers to share their voice with the world through blog-ging, and the association pro-vides education on the various types of cancer. There is also a directory of hotlines for teenag-ers to call if they need support during a crisis.

In addition to providing sup-port nationally, ATAC is active in two continents and has given over 200 individuals access to healthcare through fundraising, but it hopes to continue to grow.

“Both my brother and I hope to extend ATAC’s domestic and international footprint,” Ee-sha said.

ATAC will also release an app this fall that allows children to send personalized cancer rib-bons to their loved ones.

Summer loving activities:Students spend summers in service

On the Fringe

DECA officers hosted a three-day launch event from Aug. 12 to 14 at the upper school campus for incoming DECA par-ticipants.

Officers organized activities and lectures designed to intro-duce new members to all parts of the program. The launch event included opening and closing ceremonies, lectures on writen events, roleplay games, and a scavenger hunt. The proceedings started on the evening of Aug. 12 and lasted throughout the days of Aug. 13 and 14.

Senior Shannon Hong, the Executive Vice President, de-scribed it as a chance to welcome the first-year members as well as teach them about the competi-tion.

“[It’s] to educate the young-er generation on what DECA does, so how we compete, and then teaching them about the culture of DECA and inviting them into our family,” Shannon said.

Students can learn more about DECA during the club fair on Wednesday, Sept. 10, or during its events fair, on Wednes-day, Oct. 1, both of which will take place in the gym at lunch.

ria gandhiaquila features editor

sahana srinivasanasst. stem editor

I AM DECA Freshman Logan Bhamidipaty works on his team’s Idea Challenge product during DECA launch. Materials students could use for their product included popsicle sticks, glue and pipe cleaners.

RUNNING FOR A CAUSE Eesha Chona (12) and her mother pose with a sign supporting the cure for breast cancer.

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8 FEATURESVOLUME 17 • ISSUE 1 AUGUST 31, 2015

Page 9: Winged Post Vol. 17 Issue 1

9STEM VOLUME 17 • ISSUE 1 AUGUST 31, 2015

ON TOP OF THE WORLD

T he natural snow-capped mountains rise slowly out of the fog as senior Steph-

anie Huang’s plane prepares to land, completing the small one hour journey from Norway to a settlement in Svalbard called Longyearbyen. As she exits the flight, the first thing she notices is the pristine, unmarred envi-ronment, characteristic to only the most remote of places on the planet.

She joins the remainder of her group, 11 other Harker stu-dents and two faculty members, and prepares to embark upon the journey of a lifetime. For the first time in school history, she and her fellow explorers have the opportunity to tour and re-search the Arctic.

This summer, while others were browsing Facebook and dreading the return of home-work assignments, 12 students visited the Arctic on a biology trip from July 14 to July 29 to research and explore the effects of climate change.

The students include David Zhu (11), Sharanya Balaji (12), Elena Bronder-Chang (11), Ed-ward Sheu (12), Jack Rothschild (12), Davis Dunaway (11), Sar-ah deVegar (11), Isaac Smith (12), Chandini Thakur (12), Tong Wu (12), Akshay Battu (12), and Stephanie.

Each of the students who attended the trip carried out re-search projects of their own, with help from Science Department Chair Anita Chetty and biology teacher Dr. Gary Blickenstaff.

Stephanie, who studied the changing migratory patterns of

reindeer, enjoyed both the op-portunity to perform unique re-search in the field and the chance to meet with other researchers.

“Most of [the research-ers have worked] on this exact cruise line for around 10 to 20 years, and they would tell us all

these stories about polar bear en-counters, or their own research,” Stephanie said. “The cool thing was that we also got a lot of op-portunities to meet the captain and talk with them and we got to work closely with the crew on our projects.”

Apart from having the op-portunity to do field research, the trip also offered several lec-tures directly on the ship, cover-ing topics from geology to Arctic geography and wildlife.

David said that he appreci-ated the ability to both perform research and attend the lectures, as they were each informative in their own ways.

“The lectures were very in-formative and really helped us understand the changes occur-ring, but field research is its own experience,” he said.

Beneath the Arctic’s decep-tively beautiful landscape lies the serious problem of global warming, which has a variety of detrimental effects from damag-ing polar bear habitats to caus-ing unprecedented flooding. Ac-cording to NASA, arctic sea ice is decreasing at a rate of 13.3 percent per decade.

On the trip, students had the opportunity to research the effects of climate change and see how it was changing the Arctic landscape.

“We got to see firsthand that climate change is a problem, and we saw ice falling off the glaciers by the tops.” Edward said.

Although the location for the next climate change research trip has not been decided, the science department plans to host the expedition biannually and welcomes suggestions from the student body.

Currently, Chetty is consid-ering a wide variety of options including Africa, Australia, and the Galápagos Islands.

vineet kosaraju

STEM editor

(TOP) BARREN EXPANSE Students marvel at the sublime beauty of the Arctic landscape. (BOTTOM LEFT) EXPLORE GALORE Akshay Battu (12) points out a feature of the landscape to the rest of the research expedition group. (BOTTOM RIGHT) ARCTIC POST Edward Sheu (12) mails a letter from the northermost post office in the world. In July, 12 students embarked on an expedition to research the effects of climate change on the Arctic environment and habitat.

Summer Arctic research expedition explores climate change

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ICE ICE BABY Akshay Battu (12), Isaac Smith (12), and Tong Wu (12) present samples collected from the Arctic for their research projects. The biology trip to the Arctic took place from July 14 to July 29.

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HOW DID YOU SURVIVE WITHOUT WI-FI?

“At first, it was a little weird, the first day or so, but honestly we spent the days doing so much [...] it was just hanging out with the other people on the ship [...] It’s honestly so nice spending

time with all these people.”

EDWARD SHEU (12)

“There was so much to do that we didn’t really notice it. [...]We would open our phones and scroll through Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook messages, but then nobody was as glued

to their phones anymore.”

STEPHANIE HUANG (12)

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Arctic sea ice is decreasing at a rate of 13.3 percent per decade, according to NASA.

•Ocean acidity has increased 25% in the last two centuries

according to National Geographic.•

Weather Underground states that Arctic temperatures are increasing at twice the rates of the rest of the world.

•Scientists say that 2° Celsisus is the tipping point for

widespread drought and mass extinction.

FAST FACTS

While in the Arctic, students lacked regular Wi-Fi and cell

phone access.

Page 10: Winged Post Vol. 17 Issue 1

vivek bharadwajeditor in chief

RADIOACTIVE ART (TOP) Chem-istry teacher Andrew Irvine holds a jar of uranium dioxide. (BOTTOM LEFT) A Geiger Counter is used to detect radiation. (ww RIGHT) Irvine created a ceramic plate inflused with depleted uranium.

Chemistry teacher infuses ceramic with depleted uraniumAndrew Irvine uses chemistry to create unique glazes

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10 STEM VOLUME 17 • ISSUE 1 AUGUST 31, 2015

“I was excited about it beacuse of its potential

color development. I also thought, it’s

uranium. It’s such a bogeyman in the

periodic table.”ANDREW IRVINE

CHEMISTRY TEACHER

Depleted uranium is also used in commercial aircrafts and to shield from

radioactive materials.

FAST FACT

408-257-321121269 Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 618 • Cupertino

www.danceacademyusa.como�[email protected]

Now enrolling for2015-2016

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Chem-istry teacher Andrew Irvine holds a clicking black box a few inch-es away from a pastel-yellow, glazed ceramic plate just a little larger than the size of his hand. The face of the plate is sculpted with ridges and rough crannies, and the yellow is tinted in plac-es with tones of dusky gold and pale red.

Tickticktickticktick. As Ir-vine brings the box, a Geiger Counter for detecting radiation, closer to the plate, the clicking speeds up as more and more tiny alpha particles bombard the counter’s detection tube.

“It’s cool that it’s actual-ly setting it off,” Irvine remarks with a smile.

The Geiger Counter’s ticking and the distinctive color of the ceramic both owe themselves to a remarkable quality of Irvine’s plate: its infusion with a salt of depleted uranium.

Irvine picks up the plate and

turns it over in his bare hands, explaining that the plate he cre-ated is a piece of art.

“I was excited about it be-cause of its potential color de-velopment of the glass. I also thought, it’s uranium. It’s such a bogeyman in the periodic table,” Irvine said.

According to his measure-ments, the depleted uranium

emits radiation at 400 times the natural background level. De-spite this, the radiation, most-ly alpha particles, cannot pass through skin to cause damage.

“You’d think that by hold-ing this, it would be bad. It’s not. It sounds bad when you put it here,” Irvine explains as he holds the plate close to the Gei-ger Counter to unleash a flurry of ticking.

He removes a glass bottle in the shape of an oversized ink-well from a box. It contains a few powdery-looking nuggets of raw uranium dioxide in a shade of yellow lighter than the plate, but just as intense in color. In the

process of creating his art, Irvine sculpts the plate and prepares the glaze himself, mixing in the salt that gives the artwork its

otherworldly hue.“I’ll make a glaze body, and

in this particular solution I put in 40 percent lead carbonate, which makes it very glassy. I’ll

make my glass mixture, and then I’ll add an absurd amount of ura-nium,” Irvine says, gesturing to the plate.

He creates his pieces in sets that take seven to eight hours to create and 13 hours to bake in a kiln.

Irvine is not the first artist to incorporate radioactivity into his artwork. The artist and nuclear scientist James Acord worked with material from spent nucle-ar fuel rods in his pieces. Nor is he the first to infuse ceramic glaze with the mildly radioactive material — the glazes of Fiesta dinnerware plates were once in-fused with bright red uranium

dioxide. The company has since abandoned the practice.

“So you wouldn’t eat off [this plate]. I would say ‘defi-nitely not food-safe’. It’s pretty to look at,’” Irvine adds. He ex-plains that acids and solvents in food might leach uranium from the glaze and into the human body.

Antique dinnerware and the odd art project aside, the high density of depleted uranium makes it useful for a variety of commercial applications, includ-ing as ballast in commercial air-craft and as shielding from more highly radioactive materials. De-spite this, the material is not easy for private citizens to obtain.

“I went through some dif-ferent commercial vendors, and they rejected me because I didn’t meet their policy of use,” Irvine explains, adding that he received the uranium from a vendor he works with. “I called up the nu-clear regulatory commission and spoke to their PR person, who sent me a long list of the regula-tions. As a hobbyist, I’m allowed to acquire and be in possession of up to 15 pounds of depleted uranium.”

Irvine believes that uranium is stigmatized as a material be-cause of its association with high radiation and atomic bombs.

“Its controversy is related to its use in nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. But really as a material, when it’s depleted, its radioactivity is not the issue,” Irvine claims. “It’s [as] toxic as lead - you wouldn’t want to eat a spoonful of lead. [But] I could take my finger, rub it on that yel-low stuff, and not worry about getting cancer.”

To Irvine, adding depleted uranium to ceramic is no gim-mick; it’s a powerful artistic statement.

“My hope is that it will sep-arate me even more from this idea of pottery as ceramics,” Irvine said. “Like, ‘Oh, that’s a cute mug!’ I don’t want to make mugs. I want to make fine art.”

Page 11: Winged Post Vol. 17 Issue 1

Fall athletes begin after-school practices11SPORTS VOLUME 17 • ISSUE 1

AUGUST 31, 2015

GolfVarsity girls’ golf kicked off their

season with their first practice on Mon-day. Led by Head Coach Ie-Chen Cheng, the girls look forward to improving as a team even more from last season where they placed third in league champion-ships.

“We have around six new freshmen joining the team this year, so that’s very exciting because we’ll have a lot of new blood, a lot of new people that can play,”

Girls’ Water PoloVarsity girls’ water polo officially

began their season on Aug. 14. Since many of last year’s key players were se-niors, Head Coach Allie Lamb plans to rebuild the team through the incoming freshmen. The girls will play their first match against Fremont High School at the Singh Aquatic Center on Sept. 15.

Cross CountryVarsity cross country had their first

official practice of the school year on Aug. 14 at Rancho, San Antonio. Led by Head Coach Scott Chisam, the team cap-tains are Niki Iyer (11), Alexandra Del-lar (12), Jack Rothschild (12) and Lev Sepetov (12).

“It’s going to be a good season; we had 12 people at practice [on Aug. 10],” Sepetov said.

FootballFollowed by a summer of preseason

workouts, the varsity football team offi-cially started their season on Aug. 10 on Davis Field. This year, the team will be led by a new head coach, Mike Tirabassi. “I think for this season, all the guys have really improved,” William Park (11) said. The team will have their first game on Sept. 4 on Davis Field against Yerba Buena.

Girls’ VolleyballVarsity girls’ volleyball held their first

official practice on Aug. 14. This year, the girls plan to surpass their performance last year where they finished second in CCS finals and advanced to the semifi-nal round in Norcals. The varsity girls’ volleyball team will play against Home-stead High School in their first match on Sept. 3.

Girls’ TennisThe varsity girls’ tennis team started

officially practicing on Aug. 14. This year, the team will have an additional head coach, Eileen Schick. Narrowly missing an undefeated record last season, the girls look forward to playing even better than last year and hope to advance fur-ther in CCS finals as well.

Boys’ Water PoloVarsity boys’ water polo started their

season on Aug. 14. The team, led by Head Coach Ted Ujifusa, lost many se-niors but still plans on improving from its last season.

“Although last year we had a stron-ger shooting team, this year we are bet-ter all-around,” Mikhail Ivkov (11) said.

The team will play its first match against Fremont High School in the Singh Aquatic Center on Sept. 15.

kshithija mulam & kaitlin hsunews editor & Wingspan staff editor

As the school year starts, athletes who play fall sports have begun prepar-ing for the beginning of their season.

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FALLING INTO A ROUTINE (RIGHT, TOP) Doreene Kang hits the volleyball during the girls’ volleyball summer practices. (RIGHT, MIDDLE) The football team practices running plays during their summer practices. (RIGHT, BOTTOM) Andrew Chang (9) hits a water polo ball during summer practices for guy’s water polo.

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FALL SPORTS (TOP LEFT) Karen Tu throws a water polo ball during summer practices for girls’ water polo. (TOP RIGHT) Alexis Gauba finishes her swing during summer practices for girls’ golf. (BOTTOM LEFT) The Girl’s tennis team warms up during practices throughout the summer. (BOTTOM RIGHT) The cross-country team prepares for their upcoming fall season.

Page 12: Winged Post Vol. 17 Issue 1

Ninth-grade students at-tended the freshman orienta-tion to meet and participate in activities with their adviso-ries on the upper school cam-pus on Aug. 20.

The activities, which in-cluded relay races, a centi-pede-walk and time to splash around in the swimming pool, allowed the freshman class to scocialize and famil-iarize themselves with the upper school campus.

“My favorite would prob-ably be the ping pong [game]; it was really fun,” Ihita Man-dal (9) said.

The games provided an opportunity for students to bond with their advisor and fellow advisees.

“What I love about my advisees is they’re very caring and thoughtful and engaged,” Dr. Lola Muldrew said. “I think that the field day we spent together really bonded us; we’re necessarily bond-ed because we are spending some time together.”

The new freshman class is the largest in school histo-ry, with 160 students from the Middle school and 37 stu-dents who have not attended Harker in the past.

Applications for the Har-ker Upper School were due around the middle of Janu-ary, and decisions were sent out on March 17. By June, most admitted students re-sponded with their atten-dance decision.

During the selection process, the admissions staff evaluated applicants based on their test scores, grades,

extracurricular activities and dedication. In addition, they searched for students who brought a variety of perspec-tives to the Upper School.

“We’re looking for di-verse backgrounds, experi-ences [and] perspectives that will add to our community because the student body is only as strong as the students that are there,” Upper School Admission Director Jenni-fer Hargreaves said. “Having that diverse perspective can help enhance the experience for every student.”

Class of 2019 matriculates as largest class yet, takes part in orientation

meena gudapati & kaitlin hsu

copy editor & reporter

SUN SALUTATIONS (TOP) Link Crew forms a human tunnel around Elizabeth Yang (9) to welcome her to the upper school. Link crew were the first students on campus last Thursday to welcome the Class of 2019. (BOTTOM) English teacher Michelle Andelman talks with her advisory during freshman orientation. The Class of 2019 first met their upper school advisors last Thursday during orientation.

2 190WHO ARE OUR FRESHMEN?

GOLDEN YEAR (LEFT) 119 freshmen responded to a poll sent directly to the Class of 2019. (RIGHT) Freshmen Trevor Thompson, Neil Tiperneni, Arushee Bhoja and Allison Cartee participate in the centipede walk during freshman orientation.

12 BACK PAGE VOLUME 17 • ISSUE 1 AUGUST 31, 2015

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