All of my work at El Estoque can be found at https://elestoque.org
THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Published at http://elestoque.org/climate/
ABOUT: I did a solo in-depth research article for a media conference at the San Jose Tech Museum where I compiled interviews that I, along with other staff members, did to talk to many members of the community involved in climate change efforts, including the previous mayor of Cupertino. It was a hard article to keep engaging and to understand myself, but as I wrote it, I fell in love with all of its 3274 words and it really gave me an opportunity to branch out my writing expertise and learn about scientific news writing.
The noxious grey-yellow fog hung over the greater Los Angeles region. He remembers the day vividly. He was excited for a tour with his college singing group from Stanford but as he approached the area, he was met with a surprise. The fog even covered the bright sun he was so used to seeing. Former mayor Rod Sinks felt his eyes sting as he stepped out into the city.
That’s when he clearly saw the effects of climate change.
The pollution back home in Silicon Valley wasn’t great either. His interest in the field of climate change was sparked by vice president Al Gore, who had spoken to the public about climate science. With Sinks’ own rationale of always leaving the earth in a better shape than he found it, Gore’s teachings really stood out to him. He looked into the research behind climate science and looked past the hills of the Silicon Valley at the pollution that covered parts of the Bay Area.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” In other words, global climate change is a significant, scientific dilemma.
It was around then, when Sinks and his singing group was in Los Angeles, that the Clean Air Act kicked in and he recalls how the first regulations had a substantial impact.
That’s when he clearly saw the effects of climate change.
The pollution back home in Silicon Valley wasn’t great either. His interest in the field of climate change was sparked by vice president Al Gore, who had spoken to the public about climate science. With Sinks’ own rationale of always leaving the earth in a better shape than he found it, Gore’s teachings really stood out to him. He looked into the research behind climate science and looked past the hills of the Silicon Valley at the pollution that covered parts of the Bay Area.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” In other words, global climate change is a significant, scientific dilemma.
It was around then, when Sinks and his singing group was in Los Angeles, that the Clean Air Act kicked in and he recalls how the first regulations had a substantial impact.
INSIDE THE CHAT
Published in El Estoque Volume XLVII Issue II and elestoque.org at http://www.elestoque.org/2016/10/23/print-2/chat/.
UPDATE: THIS STORY WAS TAKEN DOWN FOR THE TIME BEING AS THE SANTA CLARA COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT RE-OPENED THE INVESTIGATION INTO THE CASE.
Editor’s note: We generally do not report on stories involving El Estoque staff members, however, we determined this story needed to be told. The fact that it involved a staff member, sophomore Ruth Feng, is irrelevant to the importance of the topic. This chat included many explicit messages. For the purpose of keeping this article as clean as possible and protecting the identities of those involved and victimized, we have removed names and explicit language from this article. MVHS administration declined to comment on this incident as a whole for legal reasons.
Guys, can we all agree women shouldn’t use their heads unless they’re sucking d—.
CHAT TITLE “MEN ONLY.”
When sophomore Ruth Feng first opened this Instagram chat on Sept. 28, 2016, she was shocked by what she found. Not knowing what it was about, Feng accepted the chat request, only to find a plethora of sexist remarks, mentions of the Ku Klux Klan and a hit list that included specific students from MVHS.
“My heart just skipped a beat, because especially guys [doing] this, their group, it’s like they’re all coming at you,” Feng said.
The day she was added to the group chat, Feng screenshotted what she could, saved it on her phone and showed a group of her friends the comments the boys were making. On Sept. 29, the next day, after talking to a teacher who encouraged her to report the incident, Feng went to the office. Feng thought the boys needed to understand they had crossed the line because people get away with this kind of behavior too often and their comments were directed at people who didn’t know about what was happening.
“The main goal I want to have is for them to realize what they did wrong, instead of holding a grudge against me or not [learning] from anything,” Feng said.
Two of the boys, who were involved in the chat, but say that they weren’t contributing, said the group chat did not start out as a way to talk about others. To protect their identities, they will be referred to here as Student X and Student Y.
According to the boys, the chat began in the middle of last year, when the group sent each other funny pictures like memes and commented on the photographs other members of the chat posted on their Instagram accounts.
But on Wednesday, Sept. 28 of this year, three girls were added to the chat. The boys said most of the incident occurred in a span of two to three hours that night. In fact, Student Y said he didn’t even know what had happened until the next day. He still doesn’t know exactly what was said that night. According to Student Y, some of the messages from that night were deleted, but after seeing screenshots of the conversation, he was able to piece together a general idea of what occurred on Sept. 28.
Another girl added to this group chat was junior Natalia Osorio, whose reaction to the event was confusion.
“I didn’t let it affect me too much because I know it was out of anger and rage,” Osorio said, “but it did hurt a little bit to be called those names and to be singled out and having a group of guys up against me.”
She felt bullied.
“Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance,” according to stopbullying. gov. “The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.”
This may bring to mind the image of young children on the playground calling each other names, but in the digital age, it has morphed into a new beast. With the ability to hide behind a screen and type feelings without seeing the emotional repercussions, a non-confrontational type of bullying has been created.
REALIZATION
The boys were gathered in the school office on Friday, Sept. 30 during second period. They sat down, confused as to why they were called into the office, to see the administration and police in front of them.
Because the conversation was taking place on Instagram, on the night of Sept. 28, according to Student X, the school didn’t intervene with punishments, as it was out of their jurisdiction. Instead, the local police took on the investigation.
Student X and Student Y said it was when the administration and police sat in front of them and began discussing why they were there that they began to understand the severity of the situation. They said the other boys understood what they did that night was wrong. But Student X and Student Y didn’t participate in the discussion—they said they were bystanders.
“Originally we saw it as just a joke,” Student Y said. “But then later when the admin explained [what we did]to us and we saw how serious they were, it showed us how serious this thing actually [was].”
To the boys it was harmless joking, but the effects rippled through those who were targeted.
“FLAT A–.”
Osorio wasn’t the first one in her family to see the messages.
Around 10 o’clock on Sept. 28, Osorio noticed that a lot of people were commenting on a recent picture of her getting asked to Homecoming, and that all of the comments were of people tagging other people. The next thing she knew, she was in an extensive group chat.
Chat title: “Leave the chat b—-.”
According to Osorio, the boys even changed the chat title for her. As they spammed her Instagram notifications, telling her to leave the chat, she couldn’t feasibly leave. Her phone was with her dad. He was the one seeing the notifications and he asked her what they were about. But she didn’t know what the chat was about, and when she stayed, according to Osorio, they started sending inappropriate images and using explicit language.
According to Student X and Student Y, the boys were just doing everything they could to get Osorio out of the chat. In those attempts, some of the images they sent were sexually explicit. Those pictures, according to the boys, were not of any of the boys involved in the chat, but rather pictures that came from the internet.
“They were pointing out that I had a ‘flat a–’ and they were calling me the n-word and f—– and a lot of bad things like that,” Osorio said, “And then they started sending me d— pics … I felt kind of singled out and a little bit betrayed.” Her dad immediately sent an email to administration detailing the identities of the boys involved in the chat. Osorio took a few screenshots to illustrate what had happened and then left the conversation. Through her email, she sent these screenshots to the administration.
THE BEGINNING
“Grow an a–.”
There was a screenshot of another girl.
“Babe alert.”
“HAHAHAHHA SIKE N—-”
According to Student X and Student Y, the crude thread of discussion that night all started with a picture. Feng posted a picture of a Syrian boy whose house just got bombed with the caption: “Why I like Hillary and why you shouldn’t vote third party and why Donald Trump is unfit to be president.”
After seeing this, one boy commented on the picture itself to express his opinion on the issue, an opinion which differed from Feng’s. She, along with others, disagreed with him. According to Student X, the comments all started off as a way to vent their frustration at being attacked for expressing how their opinions differed from those of Feng, not to specifically target any individual.
Ten minutes later, Feng was added to the group chat.
Student Y said he believes the frustration over the debate sparked the chat.
“Frankly, I think she got frustrated when any of us brought it up and we like started talking about it or debating about it,” Student Y said. “I found that sort of weird, because if she posts something really controversial, there’s going to be someone that’s going to say something about it. When she got mad that we said something against it, I think that’s what started the whole thing.”
However, Feng said her frustration began when she was added to the group chat and saw the title of it and what they were saying. She said it didn’t have to do with their comments on her political post.
It started as a chat among friends, but quickly spiraled out of control. According to both Student X and Y, the kind of behavior that happened recently wasn’t what the chat was originally for or an accurate representation of their friend group.
“I know all these guys and they wouldn’t have said that stuff had they known that she was in the chat,“ Student X said.
On Instagram, the boys said, the notification that says someone was added to the chat is tiny, and as the boys sent more messages the notification that was to alert them of her being added was buried in the messages. So, the boys assumed their thoughts were only being shared within the security of their own “men only” chat.
They were wrong.
“Only when [our friend]sent a screenshot of ‘ruthsprout has been added to the group,’” Student X said, “did everyone realize, ‘Oh we’ve been saying all this mean stuff without us knowing that she’s been reading all of this and talking about it.’”
As it was happening, Student X messaged Feng in a private direct message on Instagram to apologize for what his friends were saying about her. Feng said he did not have bad intentions in the chat and hadn’t participated, but still made the decision to turn the group of boys in to ensure that the boys that were involved understood what they had done wrong.
THE AFTERMATH
“The n—- killing spree masters.”
On Sept. 30, the group of boys were called to the office.
“After they realized I was going to the office they apologized,” Feng said, “Most of them [apologized].”
According to Feng, all but four of the boys apologized to her, but she still doesn’t think they realize what they did wrong.
For Osorio, it was upsetting that the boys were not apologetic about what happened. In her opinion, they were angry over what happened and didn’t regret their actions. No one has apologized to her.
As bystanders, Students X and Y were solely given a verbal warning and no call home to their parents.
“We got off with nothing, but we seriously learned our lesson because the police were involved and they came in and that really taught us that that was a mistake,” Student Y said. “If it’s something of that gravity, that’s something we should never be doing again.”
In an ongoing investigation, some boys haven’t received their punishment yet and many of the boys have yet to know what the future holds. Our staff has currently submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for police documents on the issue.
And with this, the boys still have trouble coming to terms with what Feng did when she turned them in. Although the two in no way think that what Feng did was unfair, they are still surprised by what happened. Student Y said out of all the boys, he was probably the most frustrated at Feng for what she had done. He said Feng turned them in for the wrong reason because after talking to her, he understood that she turned them in not to give them dire consequences after what had happened, but show them exactly what they had done wrong.
“I feel like it’s a lose-lose situation at that point,” Student Y said. “Because honestly, she told us to stop, we didn’t stop, she tells the office, we get something we don’t deserve, so there is no median here. Either way, we’re gonna go completely unharmed or we’re gonna go actually getting something that we really don’t deserve.”
And while the boys say they remain remorseful over what has happened and scared about what still could happen to them in the future, Osorio wishes administration stepped in to do just a little more. For her, these feelings come hand in hand with a lack of understanding of why they targeted her. She wonders whether or not she did something wrong in their eyes.
Osorio feels that administration was really supportive of her in helping her overcome what had happened. They made sure she still felt safe on Instagram and gave her the ability to go around campus without worry. However, she still feels as though there’s a lack of closure.
“[Administration] could’ve at least, maybe had a sit down where all of the boys could tell me themselves that they’re sorry about what they did and that their action were wrong and maybe what their motive behind it was because right now I have no idea, maybe something I did wrong, or if it was just because they were mad, or if it was someone else’s fault,” Osorio said. “It’s really clouded and it’d just be really nice to clear that up.”
Now, the situation is out of her hands.
The two boys agree that this incident wouldn’t have happened in person because somebody would have physically told the other boys to stop rather than just ignore a tirade of Instagram notifications.
But for Feng and Osorio, there’s a lack of closure. They were personally attacked in the chat, yet neither feels like they’ve received a full apology.
“We’re not trying to undermine the topic by saying it wasn’t bad; it was pretty bad,” Student X said. “It’s just not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.”
But the jokes escalated.
“Do you have anything to say or yourselves? Why would you do something like that?” Osorio said. “I thought we were okay and I hope that it doesn’t happen again.”
For the boys, Osorio and Feng the consequences of the incident are unclear. For some of the boys the ongoing investigation means the effects of their choices on their future is unclear. For the girls, the lack of clear resolution has left them unsure of the motives behind the chat and whether any true understanding has come from the situation. For both parties the situation has been taken out of their hands, and for now all they can do is wait.
If you feel like you are being bullied in any capacity, contact a teacher or a counselor who you feel comfortable talking to, or talk to student advocate Richard Prinz to help you deal with the situation.
Guys, can we all agree women shouldn’t use their heads unless they’re sucking d—.
CHAT TITLE “MEN ONLY.”
When sophomore Ruth Feng first opened this Instagram chat on Sept. 28, 2016, she was shocked by what she found. Not knowing what it was about, Feng accepted the chat request, only to find a plethora of sexist remarks, mentions of the Ku Klux Klan and a hit list that included specific students from MVHS.
“My heart just skipped a beat, because especially guys [doing] this, their group, it’s like they’re all coming at you,” Feng said.
The day she was added to the group chat, Feng screenshotted what she could, saved it on her phone and showed a group of her friends the comments the boys were making. On Sept. 29, the next day, after talking to a teacher who encouraged her to report the incident, Feng went to the office. Feng thought the boys needed to understand they had crossed the line because people get away with this kind of behavior too often and their comments were directed at people who didn’t know about what was happening.
“The main goal I want to have is for them to realize what they did wrong, instead of holding a grudge against me or not [learning] from anything,” Feng said.
Two of the boys, who were involved in the chat, but say that they weren’t contributing, said the group chat did not start out as a way to talk about others. To protect their identities, they will be referred to here as Student X and Student Y.
According to the boys, the chat began in the middle of last year, when the group sent each other funny pictures like memes and commented on the photographs other members of the chat posted on their Instagram accounts.
But on Wednesday, Sept. 28 of this year, three girls were added to the chat. The boys said most of the incident occurred in a span of two to three hours that night. In fact, Student Y said he didn’t even know what had happened until the next day. He still doesn’t know exactly what was said that night. According to Student Y, some of the messages from that night were deleted, but after seeing screenshots of the conversation, he was able to piece together a general idea of what occurred on Sept. 28.
Another girl added to this group chat was junior Natalia Osorio, whose reaction to the event was confusion.
“I didn’t let it affect me too much because I know it was out of anger and rage,” Osorio said, “but it did hurt a little bit to be called those names and to be singled out and having a group of guys up against me.”
She felt bullied.
“Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance,” according to stopbullying. gov. “The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.”
This may bring to mind the image of young children on the playground calling each other names, but in the digital age, it has morphed into a new beast. With the ability to hide behind a screen and type feelings without seeing the emotional repercussions, a non-confrontational type of bullying has been created.
REALIZATION
The boys were gathered in the school office on Friday, Sept. 30 during second period. They sat down, confused as to why they were called into the office, to see the administration and police in front of them.
Because the conversation was taking place on Instagram, on the night of Sept. 28, according to Student X, the school didn’t intervene with punishments, as it was out of their jurisdiction. Instead, the local police took on the investigation.
Student X and Student Y said it was when the administration and police sat in front of them and began discussing why they were there that they began to understand the severity of the situation. They said the other boys understood what they did that night was wrong. But Student X and Student Y didn’t participate in the discussion—they said they were bystanders.
“Originally we saw it as just a joke,” Student Y said. “But then later when the admin explained [what we did]to us and we saw how serious they were, it showed us how serious this thing actually [was].”
To the boys it was harmless joking, but the effects rippled through those who were targeted.
“FLAT A–.”
Osorio wasn’t the first one in her family to see the messages.
Around 10 o’clock on Sept. 28, Osorio noticed that a lot of people were commenting on a recent picture of her getting asked to Homecoming, and that all of the comments were of people tagging other people. The next thing she knew, she was in an extensive group chat.
Chat title: “Leave the chat b—-.”
According to Osorio, the boys even changed the chat title for her. As they spammed her Instagram notifications, telling her to leave the chat, she couldn’t feasibly leave. Her phone was with her dad. He was the one seeing the notifications and he asked her what they were about. But she didn’t know what the chat was about, and when she stayed, according to Osorio, they started sending inappropriate images and using explicit language.
According to Student X and Student Y, the boys were just doing everything they could to get Osorio out of the chat. In those attempts, some of the images they sent were sexually explicit. Those pictures, according to the boys, were not of any of the boys involved in the chat, but rather pictures that came from the internet.
“They were pointing out that I had a ‘flat a–’ and they were calling me the n-word and f—– and a lot of bad things like that,” Osorio said, “And then they started sending me d— pics … I felt kind of singled out and a little bit betrayed.” Her dad immediately sent an email to administration detailing the identities of the boys involved in the chat. Osorio took a few screenshots to illustrate what had happened and then left the conversation. Through her email, she sent these screenshots to the administration.
THE BEGINNING
“Grow an a–.”
There was a screenshot of another girl.
“Babe alert.”
“HAHAHAHHA SIKE N—-”
According to Student X and Student Y, the crude thread of discussion that night all started with a picture. Feng posted a picture of a Syrian boy whose house just got bombed with the caption: “Why I like Hillary and why you shouldn’t vote third party and why Donald Trump is unfit to be president.”
After seeing this, one boy commented on the picture itself to express his opinion on the issue, an opinion which differed from Feng’s. She, along with others, disagreed with him. According to Student X, the comments all started off as a way to vent their frustration at being attacked for expressing how their opinions differed from those of Feng, not to specifically target any individual.
Ten minutes later, Feng was added to the group chat.
Student Y said he believes the frustration over the debate sparked the chat.
“Frankly, I think she got frustrated when any of us brought it up and we like started talking about it or debating about it,” Student Y said. “I found that sort of weird, because if she posts something really controversial, there’s going to be someone that’s going to say something about it. When she got mad that we said something against it, I think that’s what started the whole thing.”
However, Feng said her frustration began when she was added to the group chat and saw the title of it and what they were saying. She said it didn’t have to do with their comments on her political post.
It started as a chat among friends, but quickly spiraled out of control. According to both Student X and Y, the kind of behavior that happened recently wasn’t what the chat was originally for or an accurate representation of their friend group.
“I know all these guys and they wouldn’t have said that stuff had they known that she was in the chat,“ Student X said.
On Instagram, the boys said, the notification that says someone was added to the chat is tiny, and as the boys sent more messages the notification that was to alert them of her being added was buried in the messages. So, the boys assumed their thoughts were only being shared within the security of their own “men only” chat.
They were wrong.
“Only when [our friend]sent a screenshot of ‘ruthsprout has been added to the group,’” Student X said, “did everyone realize, ‘Oh we’ve been saying all this mean stuff without us knowing that she’s been reading all of this and talking about it.’”
As it was happening, Student X messaged Feng in a private direct message on Instagram to apologize for what his friends were saying about her. Feng said he did not have bad intentions in the chat and hadn’t participated, but still made the decision to turn the group of boys in to ensure that the boys that were involved understood what they had done wrong.
THE AFTERMATH
“The n—- killing spree masters.”
On Sept. 30, the group of boys were called to the office.
“After they realized I was going to the office they apologized,” Feng said, “Most of them [apologized].”
According to Feng, all but four of the boys apologized to her, but she still doesn’t think they realize what they did wrong.
For Osorio, it was upsetting that the boys were not apologetic about what happened. In her opinion, they were angry over what happened and didn’t regret their actions. No one has apologized to her.
As bystanders, Students X and Y were solely given a verbal warning and no call home to their parents.
“We got off with nothing, but we seriously learned our lesson because the police were involved and they came in and that really taught us that that was a mistake,” Student Y said. “If it’s something of that gravity, that’s something we should never be doing again.”
In an ongoing investigation, some boys haven’t received their punishment yet and many of the boys have yet to know what the future holds. Our staff has currently submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for police documents on the issue.
And with this, the boys still have trouble coming to terms with what Feng did when she turned them in. Although the two in no way think that what Feng did was unfair, they are still surprised by what happened. Student Y said out of all the boys, he was probably the most frustrated at Feng for what she had done. He said Feng turned them in for the wrong reason because after talking to her, he understood that she turned them in not to give them dire consequences after what had happened, but show them exactly what they had done wrong.
“I feel like it’s a lose-lose situation at that point,” Student Y said. “Because honestly, she told us to stop, we didn’t stop, she tells the office, we get something we don’t deserve, so there is no median here. Either way, we’re gonna go completely unharmed or we’re gonna go actually getting something that we really don’t deserve.”
And while the boys say they remain remorseful over what has happened and scared about what still could happen to them in the future, Osorio wishes administration stepped in to do just a little more. For her, these feelings come hand in hand with a lack of understanding of why they targeted her. She wonders whether or not she did something wrong in their eyes.
Osorio feels that administration was really supportive of her in helping her overcome what had happened. They made sure she still felt safe on Instagram and gave her the ability to go around campus without worry. However, she still feels as though there’s a lack of closure.
“[Administration] could’ve at least, maybe had a sit down where all of the boys could tell me themselves that they’re sorry about what they did and that their action were wrong and maybe what their motive behind it was because right now I have no idea, maybe something I did wrong, or if it was just because they were mad, or if it was someone else’s fault,” Osorio said. “It’s really clouded and it’d just be really nice to clear that up.”
Now, the situation is out of her hands.
The two boys agree that this incident wouldn’t have happened in person because somebody would have physically told the other boys to stop rather than just ignore a tirade of Instagram notifications.
But for Feng and Osorio, there’s a lack of closure. They were personally attacked in the chat, yet neither feels like they’ve received a full apology.
“We’re not trying to undermine the topic by saying it wasn’t bad; it was pretty bad,” Student X said. “It’s just not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.”
But the jokes escalated.
“Do you have anything to say or yourselves? Why would you do something like that?” Osorio said. “I thought we were okay and I hope that it doesn’t happen again.”
For the boys, Osorio and Feng the consequences of the incident are unclear. For some of the boys the ongoing investigation means the effects of their choices on their future is unclear. For the girls, the lack of clear resolution has left them unsure of the motives behind the chat and whether any true understanding has come from the situation. For both parties the situation has been taken out of their hands, and for now all they can do is wait.
If you feel like you are being bullied in any capacity, contact a teacher or a counselor who you feel comfortable talking to, or talk to student advocate Richard Prinz to help you deal with the situation.
TO FEEL PRETTY
Published in El Estoque Volume XLVII Issue I and elestoque.org at http://www.elestoque.org/2016/09/21/print-2/to-feel-pretty/.
ABOUT: This article was nominated for CNPA best writing by my publication. It analyzes the impact of beauty in our lives through the eye of someone who feels the constant need to change themselves to feel beautiful, a portrait photographer and a person who doesn't let beauty affect their life. While writing this story, one facet I focused on was the lede.
AS THE CLASS NATURALLY SPLIT UP, senior Ethan Yao couldn’t help but feel excluded. He stood by, watching them all pair off within themselves and chatter incoherently. Waiting. Wondering. He did what everyone else was doing: attending the class, participating, working. But he just didn’t fit in.
Thin bodies paired with cheerful personalities surrounded him, and in every way they appeared radiant. He looked around to realize that he was indeed a great deal different. The pitch of his voice, the shape of his body, his melancholy personality, his introverted tendencies. He wasn’t the same as them. To him, they were beautiful. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Yao said. “If you try to live your life trying to appeal to other people and be beautiful in front of other people, then you’re going to waste a lot of your time.” |
DESIGN IT
Published in El Estoque Volume XLVII Issue IV and elestoque.org at http://www.elestoque.org/2017/02/09/entertainment/design-it/.
ABOUT: I heard of one source who had gone to the New York Fashion Week and met president Obama and I realized that I had to write a story about her. In our interviews, I learned a lot about her interest in fashion and pursued the story more in depth by interviewing other students at our school about their interests in fashion design.
IN A SMALL ROOM of long-legged models strutting down runways, clicking their heels with every step, senior Yiting Li had an epiphany. There, at the age of five or six, she realized her calling: fashion design.
Li has her mother to thank for the experiences that allowed her to realize her dream so early. An active member of the fashion industry and an owner of multiple retail clothing stores, Li’s mother gave her opportunities to see the inside of the fashion world. A friend of her mothers works at Ultimate Network, and Li has him to thank for connections that have given her opportunities and exposure into the seemingly exclusive world of high-fashion. In 2015, his network opened up a sea of opportunity for Li’s mother — who was offered the chance to attend New York Fashion Week. She declined, but when the offer popped up again a year later, Li boarded a plane headed to New York City with her mother’s friend’s girlfriend, Vivi Tian — a top Miss Universe China contestant — and Tian’s friends. Less than an hour after landing in New York, Li was in a taxi, headed for the New York Fashion Week. Accompanied by Hayat Ammouri, the founder and editor-in-chief of online fashion magazine Glamouria, Li walked through the show’s immersive live gallery, which featured stunning models dressed from head to toe in the brand’s signature eccentric designs. |
THE DISAPPOINTMENT THAT IS THE COLOR OF THE YEAR
Published at elestoque.org at: http://www.elestoque.org/2017/01/24/entertainment/disappointment-color-year/.
ABOUT: Following the release of the color of the year, I co-wrote an opinion-piece column about how the color greenery isn't a good reflection of what the year is actually about. I ended up comparing its choice to the song "Red and Black" from Les Miserables, arguing that red is a much better reflection of what 2017 has to come.
APPARENTLY, “Les Misérables” predicted the color of the year in the song “Red and Black“, a song that introduces a group of young student revolutionaries in the June rebellion on Paris in the early 18th-century. At least, it predicted the color much better than the Pantone Color Institute, a company that is a manufacturer of colored paint and other materials, most well known for their choices for color of the year.
Sadly, not everyone seems to be as realistic as I am at looking towards the future. The Pantone Color Institute released the 2017 color of the year last month.
Greenery.
Apparently the zesty young shade is meant for “consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate.” The color is all about “flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors,” and encourages people to submerge themselves in nature as a way of renewing themselves.
What nonsense.
Because as I look to the future of the nation with a symbolic color, I think I’d need more than just green to describe it. The fear of not knowing. The instability of what is to happen. The masses of people and their discontent with the future of our nation. I don’t think that can be simply summed up by “greenery.”
Sadly, not everyone seems to be as realistic as I am at looking towards the future. The Pantone Color Institute released the 2017 color of the year last month.
Greenery.
Apparently the zesty young shade is meant for “consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate.” The color is all about “flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors,” and encourages people to submerge themselves in nature as a way of renewing themselves.
What nonsense.
Because as I look to the future of the nation with a symbolic color, I think I’d need more than just green to describe it. The fear of not knowing. The instability of what is to happen. The masses of people and their discontent with the future of our nation. I don’t think that can be simply summed up by “greenery.”
RETURNING TO THEIR ROOTS
Published at elestoque.org and hosted at: https://mvelestoque.atavist.com/returning-to-their-roots.
ABOUT: After finding a newly-moved immigrant in the area, we went to their house. There, we found an interesting story to fit our overarching concept of the American Dream in an interesting way. What we didn't know was his reliance on Taiwan and America for two different things: opportunity and education.
CLEAN, LARGE STREETS AND NO TRAFFIC. Those were Jackson Hu’s first impressions of America when he immigrated to the United States from Taiwan in the early 1980’s. Jackson explains that there was tension between Taiwan and China at that time and his family was worried that Jackson and his brothers would be drafted into the war and torn from the family. But in America, that wouldn’t happen. During the family’s time in Taiwan, Jackson’s father worked as a successful architect, designing homes and Taiwanese infrastructure. Because of that, Jackson’s family had the financial capability to come to the United States. But without access to a variety of American pop culture at the time, Jackson had no clear idea on what America would be like. He was being brought to an unknown land, shrouded in mystery. |
FEMALE LEAD
Published at elestoque.org at http://www.elestoque.org/2015/11/18/magazine/roleplay-stigma-around-girls-initiating-askings.
ABOUT: I wrote this story two years after the dance Sadie Hawkins, where girls are supposed to ask boys, stopped at our school. There was a lot of stigma around that decision and I was very interested in hearing what girls and boys had to say about the event. I focused the story on the stigma of girls asking boys and its impact on students.
SHE STILL HAD yet to hear a response. Freshman year. Senior Mallory Strom could hear her pulse race as she waited. She was the one who asked her boyfriend out, and stood shaking waiting for his response. To this day, she doesn’t know how he reacted to her question because her nervousness blinded her to everything but the answer.
“Why does she have to ask him?” To Senior Vidhi Tibrewala, this is the mentality of the average student to a dance asking initiated by a girl. Even she, an avid feminist who almost asked one of her friends to a dance, can’t help but think these thoughts when she sees that kind of asking. As girls awkwardly fumble posters in their hands, they wait to ask a potential date to the only dance of the year where the majority of people that ask are girls: Sadie Hawkins. A tradition first started in 1934, this dance has become a controversial topic in discussions. Although MVHS stopped holding the dance two years ago, Sadie Hawkins remains a common dance around the community. Strom notes that creating a separate dance for girls to ask boys not only enforces the idea that the norm is for boys to ask girls to dances, but also alienates non-binary genders and same-gender couples from feeling involved. “I’m sad that there needs to be a specific event where girls have to ask guys,” Tibrewala said. “That’s just kind of inherently weird to me.” However, the dance also has its own upsides. According to Tibrewala, it allows for an atmosphere in which girls can ask the person of their choosing to a dance without breaking traditions. Sophomore Jadon Bienz sees this dance as the opportunity to encourage the uncommon. |
BORDERLANDS
Published at elestoque.org and hosted at: https://mvelestoque.atavist.com/the-story-of-a-friendship.
ABOUT: My co-section editor and I decided that we would try to cover the students on campus that were under covered. In turn, we asked a pair of people in our section to go to a corner of the campus and find a story. We compiled it all on a home page (attached below and located at http://www.elestoque.org/2016/01/22/special/borderlands-exploring-the-farthest-corners-of-campus/) and created an interactive graphic to connect the stories. For my story, I found an interesting group of friends with an intriguing past.
SOPHOMORE VARSHA SATHEESH could finally finish her sentences.
With her old friends she was never really allowed to finish her thoughts — she couldn’t fit in with them. They wouldn’t let her do what she wanted and they eventually emotionally hurt her in eighth grade. Now, she sits under the shelter of the D building stairs looking over the basketball courts, resting against the wall to hide away from the weather. With her are sophomores Nithya Sampath and Adeline Pennec. But the wall doesn’t just shelter them from the wind, cold and rain; it shelters them from the people and the world around them. “Here is just away from everyone else,” Sampath said. “We don’t care about what anyone else thinks or says.” |