DESTINATION: SPRING BREAK

Sunwashed days in a Cancun resort, at the beach, in the pool, at cafes. Wild nights at crazy parties, dancing the night away to the sound of ocean surf. Midnight swims in hotel pools. Such is a typical Spring Break stereotype.

But is it true? Is it realistic? Where are Paly students REALLY going this March?

Exhibit A: Leadership Conference in San Jose. "It could have rained, snowed, hailed, or have been beautiful outside, I wouldn't know: we had to stay inside the hotel at all times."
Exhibit B: Brussels, Belgium and Oxford, England. "Right now it's two degrees above freezing."
Exhibit C: HAWAII!!! [No comment.]

As appealing as all these exotic locales may sound, Palo Alto's weather has been nothing to sneeze at in the past few days. Stubbornly sunny days should continue most of the week, with a slight chance of precipitation on Wednesday.

If you're looking for a pleasant lunch location to soak up some rays right here in Palo Alto, Stanford's Cantor Arts Museum has a great cafe that offers outdoor seating with plenty of sun.

Staying home doesn't have to be boring. Spring Break's a perfect time to shoot some hoops, practice guitar, or watch all those movies you never seem to have time to watch on weekends.

And if all this hasn't been enough and you still want to go to Cancun, let me know. I have connections.

The AP Question

"I'm taking APUSH next year."
"I'm sorry, are you suicidal?"
This exchange is an example of just a few of students' views on AP classes.

Should I sign up for AP Environmental Science? Is BC Calc AP really worth it? How many AP's should I take to impress colleges and yet maintain my basic human sanity?

Stanford says, "Always sign up from among the most challenging courses that excite you the most." On the other hand, "Do not feel pressured to take Honors or Advanced Placement courses just because they are Honors or Advanced Placement Courses."

The question of how much is too much is too often forgotten in the average overachiever's quest for college admissions. Five AP's per year is regarded as ridiculous; one is not challenging enough. The magic number must lie somewhere between.

Advanced Placement classes, according to CollegeBoard, help you "enter a universe of knowledge that might otherwise remain unexplored in high school" and AP exams give you "the opportunity to earn credit or advanced standing at most of the nation's colleges and universities." However, most of the students who take AP courses in high school do not plan to finish college early, as the original purpose dictates. Has an AP course become just another ruler by which colleges measure their prospective applicants? And above all, is the result worth the rigors?

Six Paly students shared their experiences.
A, a senior, took AP US History her junior year and AP's in all core subjects her senior year. She wrote a piece on the unreliability of college admissions for Verde (http://voice.paly.net/view_story.php?id=6146).

K, a senior, took one AP and one Honors class her junior year, and three AP's her senior year.

T, a senior, took one AP her junior year and three her senior year, but dropped one, leaving her with Spanish 5AP and AP Statistics in her schedule. "AP Stats is really different from the other math classes," she said, without saying it was harder or easier.

K, a junior, is taking no AP's this year, and expressed incredulity when I told her I planned on taking four my junior year.

E, a senior, took two AP's as a junior and four as a senior. A prospective Political Science major who recently interviewed for Brown, he manipulated his schedule to take multiple social studies classes his sophomore year "to make colleges see that I'm serious about the subject." In other areas, however, he did not plan quite as well. "Believe me, you do not want to take Living Skills your senior year," he said, referring to the traditionally sophomore-dominated class that includes First Aid training, among other "life skills."

M, a senior headed to Stanford for track, took two AP's her junior year and three her senior year. She also holds the school track record in the 400 and 800m.

Paly, a demanding school in itself, offers a wide array of honors and advanced placement classes, making it possible to sign up for an all-AP schedule of 7 classes in 12th grade, provided one has completed the prerequisites.

Favorite AP Environmental Science is looked upon as a less stressful AP, but requires a year of Physics. Senior A described the AP College English teacher as "crazy," but laughed as she said it. An endless combination of social studies electives begins with AP US History (dubbed "A-PUSH" by students) in junior year, and culminates, some would say, in AP Psychology, a class exclusively for seniors. And then there is the KING OF ALL AP CLASSES: BC Calculus AP. A Stanford engineering professor, whose child took the class, reportedly said it was excruciatingly and unnecessarily painful.

Of course, the moral of the story ought to be that it doesn't matter how many AP's you take if you do what you love. And to a certain degree, this is true; take senior M as proof. However, it is also true that colleges love to see you focusing on a challenging class in a subject about which you are passionate.

So, sign up for as many AP classes as you think you can handle, but take them with a pinch of realistic expectations, self-awareness, and - oh yeah - salt.

Palo Alto Theater Gets a Little Drama

The set: Palo Alto. The scene: Children's Theater. Picture this: some cash goes missing. Then a video camera. Next to go is some "hard to find" equipment. Who is behind it? No one can say.

What happens? An anonymous person calls the police, who storm in, evacuate the building, place the four employees on paid leave, and promise to investigate while providing insubstantial "reports" on their actions to the public. Subplot: three of these four employees are union workers. What do the police do? They forbid the union members to talk to the union president. Subsubplot: one of these union workers is currently in the hospital dying of stomach cancer.

With Hollywood writers on strike, I think we might just have a blockbuster here.

This drama, of course, revolves around the shutdown of the Palo Alto Children's Theater.

Who called the police? Unknown to public. Why did the person call the police if they suspected inside theft instead of disciplining the suspects (as would any company with suspicions of employee misbehavior)? Unknown to anyone. What are the police really doing? Unknown to public. And what would theater staff be doing with a bunch of video and audio equipment?

Planning their comeback by making a music video, probably.

The two main directors, both long LONG time employees of the Children's Theater, are city employees. This means the city finances the Children's Theater even though it only makes a fraction of what it spends. However, when it comes to accountability, who is the boss of these two veteran directors? This is the question.

The Friends of the Children's Theater provides additional financial support to buy "extras" that are out of the $1 million annual budget. They are not financially responsible for the theater nor do they have any control over the theater management. They don't even see spending records.

If you understand all this, explain it to me.

As will happen with a scandal, there are those who accuse the police and the city of destroying the reputations of four honorable citizens. To a certain degree, it's a valid point. If there is no definitive evidence, what are the police hoping to find? A document saying, "I took the video camera?" And if there is definitive evidence, why are the police keeping so quiet about it?

Of course, there are also those who believe it's about time for some new blood; directors who don't insist upon a Jordan outreach show being performed to a CD instead of live music. (i.e. younger people who aren't quite so controlling and resistant to change.)

All you need now to nicely round out the plot is the sister of the box office worker secretly being in love with the former husband of the theater director, who coincidentally overheard some illegal dealings between the costume designer and her fiance, who is actually planning to escape to Swaziland by the next boat to cover up his 14 jail terms before the day of the wedding is set.

But hey! That's drama.

Update: Well-known long-time director Michael Litfin died of cancer on Friday, February 1. A celebration of his life will be held at the Childrens' Theatre on February 17.

Lunch Crisis!

Let me tell you, lugging a 12-pound softball bag to school every day for a week is nobody's idea of fun. Especially when the load is accompanied by a 46 pound backpack, a small lunch bag, and exhausted shoulders from lobbing softballs for two hours after school.

So is it any wonder that I sought to consolidate by tucking my lunch in with my cleats and glove? Of course, you respond. It's perfectly sensible. However, when one forgets to take the lunch out of the bag when one leaves it in a certain PE teacher's office to be collected at 3pm, the plot thickens.

No matter, though. I begged a few friends to accompany me on the cross-campus trek to retrieve my wayward lunch. It was then that disaster struck. The door was locked! Now I was stuck on a Tuesday without a lunch right before a math quiz.

Having coerced a senior into buying me a decaf mocha during 4th per, I was not absolutely starving, but the fact remained: I needed food. And unfortunately, given the time, the only food available was - *gasp* - that's right. Cafeteria food.

I told myself it would be OK. I could get some overpriced, substandard, but filling Chinese food (orange chicken, I believe it was) and not collapse from exhaustion.

Then, it happened again. "Sorry, we're out of chicken."

I cringed, not believing I could sink this low. "Can I have...a...pepperoni...pizza?" I choked. Five second later, IT landed in front of me.

The cheese was mangled, displaying the thin layer of once frozen tomato sauce. The crust was puffy, belying the insubstantial air bubbles beneath the surface. When I turned IT over, the bottom crust had the consistency of an uncooked shortbread cookie full of partially hydrogenated soybean oil. (Fun, huh?)

I took a bite. It was greasy and disgusting, but I didn't collapse in math.

I guess we must all be thankful for the small things in life. Like not being poisoned by cafeteria food. Really puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

Freshman Finals!!!

"Wow. This is the first time you guys have ever taken real finals."

This ominous quote was uttered by a particularly observant senior to a class of freshmen on the first day of official first semester finals. Needless to say, it did not calm my nerves as I anticipated the horrors to come.

Luckily, my first "final" consisted of watching a movie. Thanks to the first-per. teacher who knows what's important in life! (If anyone wants to snag this class for next year, it's Video Production.) Unfortunately, this film turned out to be possibly the most depressing piece of footage I have ever viewed. SPOILER WARNING. PLOT DETAILS FOLLOW. In a nutshell: A pair of sarcastic just-graduated high school misfits, (Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch) decide not to go to college. The dark-haired one falls in love with another misfit guy 12 years older than her after helping him get a girlfriend in the first place. Her best friend, both concerned and annoyed at the amount of time Enid spends with her new "friend," grows farther and farther away from Enid. Eventually, Enid loses a college scholarship and her boyfriend, and, her life ruined, is seen boarding a bus to - we never find out. Exactly the movie that leaves you pumped up and ready to spend two hours taking a science final.

After a leisurely half hour spent with friends frantically recounting study habits and speculating on just how much the teachers would delight in giving us all F's when we failed each and every test (as we were all positive we would), I crossed the quad with two friends to the first hurdle.

Freshman biology is a relatively easy class, but of course I overstressed and overstudied for a final comprised of all previous test questions. Unless one didn't study, has amnesia, or possesses a particular aversion to paramecium, the final was not difficult. Accurate stress factor: 4 out of 10.

As the Supreme Dictator of All Finals (that would be math) was scheduled for Thursday, Wednesday night was spent somewhat like this: worry. study old quizzes. fret. study old quizzes. freak out. calm down. study review sheet. study social studies to take my mind off it. firmly tell myself that I have to study if I want a good grade. study everything. Reason that I've been studying for a week, so I have nothing to worry about. Remind myself that overconfidence is the pitfall of all test-takers. (I just made that up, but it sounded genuine at the time.)

I don't even remember what the weather was like on Thursday. Because my English final was all vocab, I breezed through that final and set my sights on the goal. (2/10.) As soon as I walked into the math classroom, I could tell something was out of the ordinary. (Besides the fact that my entire college and after-college career was to be decided in that very room, I mean.) (By the way, that was a joke. I am not actually that overly anxious.) Rearranged desks always put a feeling of unease in the air, but the multiple choice went all right. All in all, I was only worried about one proof and one algebra problem when the test was over. (9/10.) Exhausted, I thanked the Supreme Being of Schedule Making that I had PE next and could unwind by watching another movie - this time it was one of the "stupid", not the "depressing" genre. Oh well. (0/10).

About French, what can I say? Only that a certain celebrity whose first name resembles that of the capital city of said country could probably get an A on it. This was due in part to the fact that the students wrote the final questions. The only remotely challenging section was that of culture. (a.k.a. In Mahgreb (Francophone North Africa), do they praise the Lord for their food before or after the meal?) I was thankful for this respite from "killer" finals and used the extra study time to study for social studies. (1.5/10.)

After having heard from multiple people that a lot of the questions centered on the Enlightement, I brushed up on my philosophers and had a good time trying to remember why Phillip II declared war on Queen Elizabeth I. (Maybe he thought he could beat her because he had a greater number after his name.) (6/10).

All in all, most of my finals were not hard. Some even bordered on - dare I say it? - easy. Math was about as hard as I'd expected, and the rest were easier than I expected.

Congratulations to all on surviving the week! And for those who are sad finals are over (you know who you are), there's always Spring finals!

New Year's Resolutions: A Study in Societal Impact

New years' resolutions, just like school rules (some would argue) are made to be broken. A firm "I will start studying for tests three days in advance", seeming a perfectly achievable goal during those relaxing days of Winter Break almost always dissolves after the first test, especially if the result was not ideal.

The categories of resolutions have been fairly standard this year. Present was the academic resolution (from a freshman: "I will stop procrastinating - doing homework in the morning is not a good idea.") The athletic goal made an appearance as well (from a freshman: "I want to make CCS."). And then there's the "aspirational resolution" - a resolution regarding an ability over which one doesn't actually have much control, which, technically, brands it a wish. (From a freshman: "To be able to see my true friends and never let them go.") Of course, if one fails to acquire this ability, there's always the safeguard that "it wasn't really a resolution." Milestones to be achieved through work are easy to make and easy to break. However, they also provide a high level of satisfaction. A sophomore from Mexico emphasized the opportunity to turn over a new leaf ("I'll try to erase my mistakes and start all over, be a better person and not fight with my sister.") A respectable but, again, difficult resolution to follow through on is "to be nice to people I don't like" (from a freshman).

But, taking a close look, what really is New Year's? The only reason January starts on this day and not on May 23 is because of Pope Gregory XIII, who decreed in a papal bull that this reformed version of Julius Caesar's calendar would be the norm. (Ironically, he decreed this on February 24, not at New Year's.) As put by a Jordan eighth-grader, "Every day is a new year, from that day one year ago." Why do we set so much store by this particular day? The answer is the same as the reason why celebrities are famous: we decide what events, things, and people are important. If we all decided not to buy movie and concert tickets, never watch TV shows, never Google celebrities, and generally ignore them, their status would disappear. A celebrity, by definition, must be famous. So if we decided to make the year start on July 4th, our year would start on July 4th, no questions asked (well, there would be some questions, but it would catch on eventually).

A new year, whatever its real societal significance, does give people hope for new ways, new promises, and renewed appreciation for life because people so designate it. Plus, it gives us all an excuse to sit around and drink Martinelli's.

Other: The Problem with Standardized Ethnicities

We can all agree that the STAR tests have many faults, but one glaring issue that is usually overlooked is that of the choices included in the “Ethnicity” section of the bubble-test. “American Indian” always tops the list – perhaps it’s our idea of compensation for the mass genocide in the 1600’s. “Hispanic” is followed by several variations of “Pacific Islander,” then “Asian”, “African American”, and finally, “White or Caucasian”.

Although I consider myself a diverse and well-rounded as well as culturally sensitive individual, I always feel guilty marking “White,” as if it’s my fault that my grandparents were not Haitian. * sigh. * That’s life.

But what of the cultures completely omitted in this by-no-means comprehensive list of “acceptable” ethnicities? Indians (that is, those from the country of India), are nowhere to be found. Are they “Asian?” Doesn’t that imply almond shaped eyes, tan skin, and an exceptionally high math IQ? (I don’t actually stereotype “Asian” this way; the statement is for the sake of argument.) What could be the cause of this discrepancy?

To answer this question, we must first ask ourselves, “What is the purpose of the STAR testing masterminds knowing whether our skin is white, black, or purple?” An executive answer would probably come close to “In order to improve the test through enhanced data collection and ensure that all races have an equal opportunity to succeed.” In other words, so that they can quote the exact percentage of Pacific Islanders who scored above average on the STAR test, thereby proving that “Americans really aren’t prejudiced!”

What would a person whose mother is African American and whose father is Mexican bubble in? What if her grandmother was born in Spain? What if her great-uncle was born a native of Australia (of Aboriginal descent)? Is Spain “Hispanic”? If her grandmother was from Spain but her aunt was born in Florida, does that make her aunt American?

Although an individual might not think this deeply which black and white bubble to fill in during a week where teachers don’t give homework, the STAR test does, in essence, force participants to either categorize their identity or to abstain from answering the question (which, in reality, rarely anybody does). While for some it may be simple, for others it shoves the potentially touchy issue of their heritage right in their faces.

STAR tests are designed to categorize. They sort out students into types, making it easy for the analysts to throw together some numbers that supposedly represent the entire American population under the age of 18. STAR tests: progress reports, or offensive identity sorters? Only you can decide.