Student scripts brought to life Single ladies just dance

Vol. 10 No. 6
Northside College Preparatory High School February 2009
Hoof Beat
The
News
pages 1-4
• Northside student earns
Eagle Scout status
• Budget crisis affects
Northside spending
News Global Connections page 5
• DTV transition moved to
June 12
Diversions page 6
• Around town: Not your
typical theater
Features page 7
• A-Cen, pizza, and Japan
• What to give your valentine
Centerfold pages 8-9
• Who we be NCP
Arts & Entertainment pages 10-11
• No laughs for “Mall Cop”
• Slumdog Millinaire rises to
the top
Editorials pages 13
• Melange: White History
Month
• Editorial cartoon
Sports pages 14-16
• Wrestling team prepares for
future matches
• Lady Mustangs beat
Eisenhower on Senior Day
Page 3
Page 11
Shakespeare’s
“Macbeth” with a
modern spin
Annual 20 Hour
Show displays
impressive talent
Single ladies just dance
Northside’s annual dance showcase
by Evan Rogers
led the dancers to have
experience.
Pasalo said. “I had so much Cendrawasih dance by SaNorthsiders are often
more confidence during the
Last to perform was
fun, I wanted to give the
gung Chika Kertyuda, Adv.
cited as good writers,
performance.
Northside’s Poms team,
audience a good show. It
904, and Sagung Mirah
scientists, and mathemati“We practiced twice a
which choreographed a
was great to hear all [the
Kertyuda, a Northern Illicians, but rarely as good
week,” Rosie Pahl Donalddance to Lady Gaga’s “Just
crowd’s] cheers.”
nois University student. Aldancers. However, the
son, Adv. 107, said. “On
Dance” and Beyonce’s
The performance
though six non-professional
students proved doubters
Monday afternoons, we
“Single Ladies (Put a
also featured multi-talgroups were expected to
wrong on January 30 in
practiced for an hour and a
Ring on It).” Lady Gaga,
ented dancers such as
perform, the XCLUSIVE
the latest installment of
half. On Wednesday mornBeyonce, and Missy Elliot
Karla Ortiz, Adv. 902, who
dance group withdrew
Northsider’s annual dance
ings, the practices were two
were the most frequently
performed with Hypnotik,
from the showcase as they
showcase, titled “Yes We
hours and twenty minutes.
featured musical artists
belly dancing, and Sabor
were not fully prepared to
Can… Dance” Sponsored
I definitely felt very prethroughout the perforLatino. Sabor Latino’s
perform on stage.
by Ms. Martha Mulligan,
pared for the performance,
mance. A Missy Elliot
dance incorporated
“Performing is somemath department, the show it was very exciting.”
song was featured in the
traditional Latino dance
thing you actually have
brought eight performance
The belly-dancHypnotik dance routine,
steps with contemporary
to be committed to,” Pahl
groups to Northside’s
ing group performed
which ranked as the largest
movements, producing a
Donaldson said. “You have
auditorium, including a few “H.E.A.T.,” choreographed dance group, featuring vari- modernized compilation of
to be very comfortable with
guest performances done by by Natalia Corredor, Adv.
ous new performers such as traditional Latin American
yourself and very relaxed.
professional dance groups.
106. All of the performancJames Pasalo, Adv. 107.
dances. The showcase also
I definitely think anyone
The performances ranged
es were choreographed by
“Performing was everyfeatured a performance of
interested should do it, it is
from a traditional Indonestudents, offering a unique
thing but nerve wracking,”
the traditional Indonesian
a great experience.”
sian dance to a modern
hip-hop composition,
displaying the breadth of
Northside’s dance talent.
“I think all the crews
performed brilliantly,”
Qing Hu, Adv. 206, said.
“You could tell each
group had their own style
that they tried to bring
out.”
The night began with
a performance by the
Chicago Onyx Dance Alliance [CODA], one of the
three special guest performances. Gifted Souls and
Nonstop Dance Productions also guest starred,
performing “La Liberta
(The Freedom)” and “Just
Dance,” respectively.
“Nonstop Dance Productions completely blew
me away,” Hu said. “Their
routine was filled with
incredible isolations that
looked like they were from
America’s Best Dance
Crew.”
The 90 minute performance was the first major
dance showcase of the
year, allowing Northside’s
dance troupes to shine
along with the professional dance groups. The Hypnotik dancers demonstrate their choreography skills at Northside’s annual dance showcase. intense practice schedule Photo courtesy of Roberto Loanzon
Student scripts brought to life
Plays by two Northside seniors produced in Young
Playwrights Festival
by Caitlin Swieca
Two Northside students,
Vincent Del Toral, Adv. 906, and
Raina Sun, Adv. 908, were chosen
as winners in the annual Chicago Young Playwrights Festival
(CYPF) sponsored by the Pegasus
Players theatre company. Their
plays were produced by professional actors at Pegasus Theater
on Truman College’s campus from
January 8 until February 1.
“The Young Playwrights
Festival is a year-long program of
workshops, performances, and special programs,” Ms. Ilesa Dunca,
director of the Young Playwrights
Festival, said, “all centered on
teaching playwriting to Chicago
students and concluding with a
citywide playwriting competition.”
According to Ms. Duncan,
over 700 scripts were entered into
the 2009 competition, 10 of which
were selected as finalists before the
final winners were chosen.
“All our artists involved with
the Young Playwrights Festival
enjoy working with high school
students,” Ms. Duncan said. “We
all find it immensely rewarding.”
Mr. John Hahm, English
department, has been involved with
the program for 17 years, and first
implemented this curriculum as a
teacher at Kenwood High School.
Mr. Hahm finds the program useful
in helping students create and experience unique literature.
“It’s one thought to have kids
learn literature through literary
analysis and technique,” Mr. Hahm
said, “but they don’t get the soul
of literature until they create their
own work.”
Mr. Hahm notes that, although
he and other students provide feedback to Northside’s applicants in
the early stages of the process, the
plays are ultimately judged by the
CYPF playwrights and actors who
provide professional opinions.
“[The playwrights] enter an
ongoing conversation that writers
have always had with each other,”
Mr. Hahm said. “Pegasus enables
kids to enter the ongoing conversation by giving them an authentic
audience.”
Del Toral agreed that this was
one of the most rewarding parts of
the process.
“With normal writing, you’re
the only one that reads it,” Del
Toral said. “With this, I got actual
feedback from a bunch of people
with different perspectives.”
Del Toral’s play, “Dine and N’
Hash,” is a humorous production
that centers on a family’s chaotic
dinner with a daughter’s new boyfriend, the father’s suspicious boss,
and a plotting son. The production
was directed by Ms. Duncan.
Del Toral originally wrote his
humorous play as a part of an assignment in his British Literature
class with Mr. Hahm during his
junior year.
“I wanted to make something
fun to write and fun for others to
watch,” Del Toral said.
Mr. Hahm felt that the final
production achieved this goal, calling the play a “rocking good time”
that “touches on every current
controversy.”
“Vincent plays with the idea of
over-the-top comedic probability,”
Mr. Hahm said.
Once chosen, each of the three
winning playwrights honed their
draft with help from a professional
playwright that served as a mentor
to the writer. Del Toral felt that
his mentor was very helpful in the
process of revising his script.
“I looked at my first and
finished versions, and there was
so much that had been improved,”
Del Toral said.
Sun agreed that her mentor was
a vital contributor to her finished
play.
“My director and mentor at
Pegasus were incredibly helpful in
helping me figure out what the play
was really about and what story I
wanted to tell,” Sun said.
Although Sun and Del Toral
wrote and revised the scripts, they
were not in charge of directing
their plays. This allowed the Pegasus Players to add new elements to
different parts of the show.
“There were a lot of interpretations I wasn’t expecting when I saw
it performed,” Del Toral said. “I
realized that there are a lot of ways
to perform a play.”
Page News
Northside in deficit
by Bushra Kabir
Principal Barry Rodgers
and the Local School Council
(LSC) hosted several short
meetings in a course of three
days, the 22nd, 27th and 29th of
January for Northside Parents
to discuss the budgeting process and the financial needs of
Northside.
“Over the past several
years, Northside has sustained
severe budget cuts,” Mr.
Rodgers said in a letter to the
Northside Parents. “We are
deeply concerned that the
current economic situation
will result in further cuts next
year. Such further cuts will
change the complexion of
Northside.”
In the past, Northside
received $400,000 in additional start-up funds, allocated by the Chicago Public
Schools (CPS), each year to
cover those costs associated
with starting a new school,
for example: purchasing
textbooks, curricular materials and equipments such as
LCDs. However, Northside
has received less than the
necessary amount it needs to
run the school properly during
the recent months since the
CPS no longer considers it a
start-up school. It has become
Northside’s yearly goal to
raise 400,000 dollars.
“Northside receives the
same per pupil allocation,
known as foundation level
funding, as other CPS high
schools,” Mr. Tim Devine,
social science department
says. “It also receives about
$250,000 per year for the
free/reduced lunch students,
but that is a very small sum
compared to other CPS high
schools which are eligible for
millions in these funds. As a
result, Northside receives less
per pupil than other CPS high
schools.”
Other Chicago Public
Schools (CPS), such as
Mather, receive additional
amounts of money from the
state and the federal government, due to its large quantity
of students, whereas Northside does not qualify for additional government funding
because of its relatively small
student population. Northside
is currently in need of this
additional funding because
over the years, the number of
students that take Advanced
Placement (AP) exams has
significantly increased; the
school has to pay for exams
when students do not pay due
to financial needs. Northside
operates differently than
other CPS schools, requiring
students to take seven classes
which demands additional
materials and equipments.
Northside has 99 percent
of its students applying to colleges every year, needs college
counseling, and the school
has to pay for the counselors
to facilitate the graduating
students. CPS have a formula
that determines how many
counselors high schools
receive. Northside’s counselors do the same amount
of work that all other CPS
counselors do such as social
and emotional counseling,
programming and administering Prairie State exams. In
addition, Northside Counselors have to administer a
tremendous number of AP
exams and prepare college
recommendations for hun-
dreds of students. As the number one high
school in Illinois, last year’s
graduating class received
8.2 million dollars in college
scholarship, with the help of
the counseling staff. One of
Northside’s many goals is to
help every year’s graduating
class with the transition from
high school to college and
that could effectively be done
if the school receives the appropriate amount of funding
it needs to stay as the number
one high school in Illinois,
according to Mr. Devine.
The state of Illinois is
facing the second worst public
school funding problem in the
Unites States according to Mr.
Devine. As one of the schools
affected by the funding crisis,
Northside is unable to provide
students with necessities such
as sports medicines and stage
production materials such
as costumes, stage settings,
and props. Mr. Rodgers currently receives 140 dollars
every month to spend on the
supplementary needs of the
school. The financial support
that Northside receives is used
for colloquium, game officials,
and athlete transportation to
and from games. The school’s
swimming pool alone needs
13,000 dollars every year for
essential chemicals. Northside
is planning to create a celestial
garden, which would also
serve as an outdoor classroom, and the school needs
additional funds to achieve
that goal.
Northside divides the
funding by the number of departments in the school. Each
department started out by getting about 6,000 dollars which
is used to pay for classroom
materials, professional development, and textbooks. Over
the years though, the amount
of money that is needed to
run a department increases.
The social science department
received 16,000 dollars from
which 100 dollars was spent
for every new book.
“We were able to replace
the U.S. Government books
just two years ago and until
then it had the picture of Bill
Clinton on the cover page as
the current president,” Mr.
Devine said.
Presently, Northside
receives 735 dollars for every
student that qualifies for free
school lunch. The LSC has
made it a priority to review
and improve discretionary
budgets for the school and
develop a plan to deal with
needs that are not currently
met by the school board.
The annual Cubby Walk
last year raised approximately
42,000 dollars, which was
used to provide the school
with the support that is
not provided by the school
board. Last year’s Mega Fest
raised approximately 18,000
dollars. This year Northside
is hosting a celebration for
its 10th anniversary and will
raise 50 dollars per ticket and
additional funding through a
silent auction.
Northside has profitably
raised approximately 170,000
dollars through annual funding over the course of its ten
years history. The school
continues to try to inform
Northside parents so they can
provide Northside with the
financial support it needs to
accomplish its goals.
LSC representatives met with parents and community members in the atrium to discuss budgeting issues.
Photo courtesy of Bushra Kabir
Young Playwrights Festival
Continued from page 1...
Although Del Toral does not plan
to pursue a literary career, he hopes to
continue writing plays as a hobby.
In contrast to Del Toral’s comical
production, Sun’s play, “Where We
Have Been,” told the story of a serious
relationship in which the character of
Perry must tell some important news to
his girlfriend, Louisa.
“For a while, I had been playing
with the idea of people controlling other
people in their daydreams and fantasies,”
Sun said. “And then I saw [the movie]
Raising Arizona, which inspired the
characters – a dysfunctional couple. But
like the movie, I wanted to keep a little
bit of whimsy in the play so that things
don’t become too severe.”
Mr. Hahm felt that Sun was skilled in
challenging her audience.
“Raina enjoys playing with literary
ambiguity, creating human situations
that don’t have easy answers,” Mr. Hahm
said.
Like Del Toral, Sun felt that the
professional portrayal of her play added
an unexpected element.
“What I thought was most interesting
about the production was the amount of
nuance the actors and director brought
to the characters simply with the blocking,” Sun said. “The looks and gestures
that I had never imagined gave the story
another dimension. I think the theatre
did an excellent job bringing them to life
and making them more compelling than
they were on paper.”
Sun plans to continue writing cre-
atively in college.
“I want to keep writing,” Sun said.
“Hopefully, at least a little drama, because that’s one of the sexier genres.”
Noting that many CYPF winners
plan to pursue literary careers beyond
high school, Mr. Hahm said that he felt
that the contest was valuable to students
who have a talent for writing. Because of
this, he hopes that students at Northside will continue to write plays for the
contest.
“Northside’s successful participation in the Young Playwrights Festival
has been a quiet tradition, and I hope to
continue it,” Mr. Hahm said. “It does
Northside proud and produces a generation of young people who will enter the
life of writing.”
The Hoof Beat
Northside College
Prep High School
5501 N. Kedzie
Chicago, IL 60625
Tel: (773) 534-3954
Fax: (773) 534-3964
Principal: Mr. Barry Rodgers
Assistant Principal:
Dr. Margaret Murphy
Advisor: Mr. Chester Tylinski
Editors-In-Chief: Zlatana Alibegovic, Vasiliki Mitrakos
Managing Editor: Andrea Ljevar
Third drafts Editor: Alice Henry
Web Editor: Molly McAndrew,
Riaz Shaikh
News Editor: Zahra Lalani
Global Connections Editor: Olutoye Adegboro
Features Editor: Andrea Ljevar
Centerfold Editor: Evan Rogers
Diversions Editor: Sonya Dekhtyar
Editorial Editor: Yonas Zewdie
Arts and Entertainment Editor:
Matt Glodz
Sports Editor: Caitlin Swieca
Editorial Cartoonist: Gigi Lee
Photo Editors: Alejandro Vadivieso,
Adriana Garties
Photographer: Kevin Lee
Art Editor: Andriana Mitrakos
Reporters: Olutoye Adegboro,
Pooja Agarwal, Lyanne Alfaro,
Subhan Ali, Zlatana Alibegovic,
Derika Benton, Tessa Biskup, Sarah
Capungan, Zobia Chunara, Anna
Cieslik, Krystn Collins, Sonya
Dekhtyar, Olympia Eldorrado,
Melissa Espana, Adriana Garties,
Matt Glodz, Dan Graham, Sarish
Hassan, Alice Henry, Zosia Holden,
Adriana Inojosa, Carolyn Jeon,
Tyler Johnson, Melissa Jordan,
Jeffery Joseph, Sarah Jose, Bushra
Kabir, Sony Kassam, Claire
Kilpatrick, Zahra Lalani, Adira
Levine, Andrea Ljevar, Molly
McAndrew, Andriana Mitrakos,
Vasiliki Mitrakos, Faique Moqeet,
Dylan Nugent, Alessandra Powers,
Evan Rogers, Sarah Schoonhoven,
Riaz Shaikh, Diana Slaba, Timothy
Suh, Caitlin Swieca, Neda Tolooi,
Alejandro Valdivieso, Yonas Zewdie.
The Hoof Beat is a monthly publication
produced by the Northside Prep Journalism Class. As a student-run newspaper, your
opinions are important to us. If you have any
comments, corrections, critiques, or questions,
please e-mail Mr. Chester Tylinski at [email protected] or the editors in chief at
[email protected].
February 2009 News
Piper becomes an Eagle Scout
Piper receives unanimous recommendations
more responsibility in organizing
service projects and demonstrated
leadership skills while acting as
Assistant Senior Patrol Leader for
Troop 957.
His Eagle Scout project
centered around refilling potholes
and cleaning parks that were untouched by Chicago’s streets and
sanitation system.
“The streets and sanitation
team usually cleans parks before
they’re open to the public,” Piper
said, “however, this area in my
community was left untouched.”
After spending 12 hours planning the project during March
of 2007, he invited his troop to
fill potholes and pick up garbage.
Together, his troop invested 110
hours in the improvement of their
community park.
“Scouting as well as my Eagle
Andrew Piper, Adv. 108, sleeps in 20 degree weather without a tent to prove his cold
Scout project has helped me build
weather survival skills while sleeping outside.
leadership and team building
Photo courtesy of Becca Piper
skills,” Piper said, “and these skills
by Zahra Lalani
Sunday, January 4, the Board tested
have helped me with working with
Learning to make fire and camping in
Piper on his leadership skills and level
my peers on school projects.”
the wilderness, 15-year-old Andrew Piper,
of responsibility. According to www.
Scouting has also taught Piper basic
Adv.108, describes his first backpackscouting.org, only five percent of all Boy
skills such as cooking, tying knots, setting
ing trip to the Rocky Mountains, New
Scouts earn the Eagle Scout, which is a
up camp sites, and starting fires.
Mexico, as unique and exciting.
solely performance based award. Piper is
“I can cook almost anything as long
“We carried all of our food with us,”
now one of over 1.7 million Boy Scouts
as I have a recipe,” Piper said.
Piper said, “and we had to wait until the
since 1912 that have received this honor.
Piper initially joined scouting as a
next disposal area to throw it out.”
Among this rank are Bill Gates, Neil
reason to go camping, but he decided to
During the summer of 2007, Piper
Armstrong, and Steven Spielberg.
continue with it due to the many leadspent ten days hiking in the mountains
In order to earn this honor, Piper
ership opportunities available to him
with his troop, covering 60 miles during
advanced through five different ranks:
and the ability to work with and teach
the course of his trip. The troop built their Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class,
younger scouts.
base camp at an altitude of 9,000 feet and
Star, Life, and finally Eagle. Each level
“This is the best youth program out
climbed to an altitude of 13,000 feet. In
incorporated different skill tests and merit
there,” Piper said. “Nothing else out there
late January, Piper went winter camping
badges, which indicate that the scout had
allows you to go camping and teaches you
in Wheeling, IL, where he slept outside in mastered certain skills. While the ranks
leadership skills. I also like working with
freezing weather without a tent.
must be completed in order, they are inde- younger scouts. A lot of boy scouting is
“My favorite part about scouting is
pendent of age, meaning a person of any
older scouts teaching younger scouts.”
the ability to do so much outdoors,” Piper
age would start in Tenderfoot and would
In the future, Piper plans to consaid.
have to pass through all the stages in order tinue his involvement with Boy Scouts
Piper, rose to the rank of Eagle Scout,
to receive the Eagle Scout. Piper fulfilled
by joining a venturing crew. The crew
the highest honor in Boy Scouting, after
his badge requirements by earning 30 of
participates in high adventure trips like
he proved he met the expectations set
the 120 merit badges available. As he prothe Rocky Mountain climb and is more
forth by the Eagle Board of Review. On
gressed through the ranks, Piper took on
physically demanding.
Northside’s orchestra plays with
professionals
Lake Shore Symphony Orchestra visits Northside
by Zobia Chunara
The Lake Shore Symphony Orchestra’s
(LSSO) “Giving Bach to the Community”
performance occurred in Northside’s
auditorium on January 25. Applause
rang in Northside’s auditorium as LSSO
conductor, Russell Vinick, approached the
podium.
Vinick conducts and directs the LSSO,
in additon to directing the Chicago Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and the
McHenry County Youth Orchestra. The
LSSO focuses on offering exposure for
talented musicians and entertainment for
communities.
The evening began with a joint rendition of Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” by the LSSO and NCP’s chamber
orchestra, featuring a solo by the LSSO’s
first violinist, Micheal John Ferry.
Practices for the performances on this
evening, ranging from Bach to Tchaikovsky, could be said to last for hours and
hours, but this was not the case.
“We practiced as a full orchestra with
the LSSO like five or six times,” Sarah
Yannytilla, Adv. 016, said, “and it wasn’t
that difficult because we were playing with
professional adults.”
About 20 adults from the LSSO then
played Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Branddenburg Concerto No. 2,” a piece from
the Barouche era of music. Between the
performances, the conductor spoke to
the audience about the pieces and the
orchestra.
“The first half was very light, bouncy,
and rhythmic comparative to the instrumental lines in second half that all
conflicted with each other and could be
heard along with very lush and beautiful
harmonies with Tchaikovsky.”
“We had several soloists; and they did
a great job by the way,” Vinick told the audience after the second performance. “The
trumpet that you heard is quite an unusual
instrument, called the piccolo trumpet;
you saw it right? It used
to be a regular trumpet,
but he (referring to one
of the musicians) left it
in the dryer a little bit
too long….”
Vinick introduced
Carmen Abelson, Adv.
900, who played a solo
piece with the LSSO.
Her mother ran up to
give her a bouquet of
flowers after Abelson
performed Camille
Saint-Saëns’s “Havanaise” and received a
standing ovation from
the audience.
“Mr. Park had told
me that I was going to
play with them before,”
Carmen Abelson said
after her performance.
“It was an exciting
opportunity. My hands
were shaking the entire
time I was playing
solo, and they are still
Lake Shore Symphony Orchestra performing in
shaking now, so I’m
surprised I didn’t make Northside’s auditorium.
a really big mistake. It Photo by Zobia Chunara
whole event took place within three hours.
was fun to play with the
“It was fun to watch my sister play,”
LSSO; they were all really, really nice, and
Silvia Abelson, Adv. 201, said. “I have all
they all wished me good luck.”
these people coming up to me saying that
Abelson is part of the Chicago Youth
my sister was fabulous. She did a really
Symphony Orchestra and hopes to pursue
good job. It was fun working with the
violin performance as a major in college.
conductor; he was very enthusiastic and I
Carmen was told she would be playing a
wasn’t really nervous because we played as
solo in June 2008, so she began practicing
an orchestra.”
in September under the guidance of her
“Giving Bach to the Community” was
instructor, Stefan Hersh.
the second of four performances by the
During the 10 minute intermission,
LSSO in NCP’s auditorium for their 2008people bought raffle tickets, and others
2009 seasons. The following performance
looked at Northside’s 20 Hour Art Show
is “Schumann and Song” on April 25 at
displays. The evening ended with Peter
3:30, which features some of the great
Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 5”
opera arias.
which ran for about thirty minutes. The
Page 3 Student
Council
Monthly update
by Zahra Lalani
Our student government has currently been
working on implementing Junior-Senior Connection which allows for seniors that have recently
finished the college application process to provide
thoughtful advice to juniors that will be starting
the process in the fall.
Student Council is the final stages of organizing Class Service Days. These days will allow
members from a certain class to participate in
organized projects, obtain service learning hours,
and have a fun experience in the process of helping the community.
On April 2nd, the Student Council has organized a concert where the L.A.-based rock group
“We The Living,”will be performing at Northside
to raise funding for the Greater Chicago Food
Depository.
The student government also mentioned that
the class shirts have been delayed due to problems
with the distributor but will be coming soon.
20 hours of
talent
by Pooja Agarwal
Northside students displayed their artistic talents
in the bi-annual 20 Hour Show. The show was held
on January 29 and was attended by parents and students alike. Students from the advanced art courses,
including Art Cubed, Drawing and Painting, Digital
Imaging, Ceramics, and Sculpture, produced the
artwork on display.
“The opening was very well attended,” Joanne
Minyo, head of art department, said, “and was a
mix of parents and students, as well as friends from
outside of the Northside community.”
Students were required to spend a minimum of
20 hours on their projects, although many of them
end up taking far more than the required time. The
project helps students by challenging them to learn
new art techniques and improve the skills they
learned during the first semester.
Teachers who were involved in the process of
organizing the show and evaluating the art pieces
include art teachers, Lindsey Caplice and Christopher Santiago, of the art department, as well as
Mrs. Minyo. Prior to the show, teachers hung up
the artwork, fired the ceramic pieces, painted the
pedestals, labeled all the pieces, and planned ahead
for the night of the display.
“Putting the show together is always a crazy and
stressful experience,” Mrs. Minyo said, “but it is
also a very worthwhile experience, as in the end the
show always looks amazing.”
Maeve Zolkowski, Adv. 204, created the “Candy
Monster.” She purchased large, cardboard boxes
and shaped them so the edges of the box were
round. Then, she paper-mâchéd the boxes with
strips of paper. Zolkowski purchased various sorts
of candy like jellybeans, mints, and other candies.
Zolkowski wrote letters to several candy companies
explaining her project and requesting free bags of
candy; she received boxes of candy from Mike and
Ike. Using a carpenter glue-gun, she covered the paper-mâchéd boxes with coats of the various types of
sugary delights. The end result was a candy covered
monster; the process took about twenty-two hours
to complete.
“I was inspired by a book called ‘City Where
It Rains Food,’” Zolkowski said. “It was a place
of bread houses, and no one would ever steal. The
weatherman would predict what foods would
shower the city on that day, and the citizens would
run outside with their plates, ready for their meal. It
was a really cute story, and I wanted to incorporate
that into my art.”
Art Cuber, Madelin Minogue, Adv. 209, created
an interactive animation of her brother spinning
around; viewers could rotate the wheel the photographs were hung on, and watch him turn.
“The pictures took a while with a fidgety five
year old as my subject,” said Minogue, “and the
record player I planned to make the pictures spin
broke, but it worked out and I printed all the pictures and connected them with rods and hooks.”
Minogue completed an animation lesson during
the first semester, which helped her pick up some
tips that helped with the animation aspect of her
project.
“It was tons of fun!” Minogue said. “I really liked how the requirements were so loose, so
we were free to choose whatever artistic path we
wanted.”
The endless hours students spent on their
artwork resulted in a successful exhibit, which was
attested by the large attendance of students and
parents, and the support of the art teachers.
“This show does not feel like a typical high
school art exhibit, which is, I think, part of what
impressed everyone,” Minyo said.
Page Global News
Connections
Success carried outside
Northside’s classrooms
by Pooja Agarwal
With a reputation for nurturing students
with the potential to accomplish significant
goals, Northside graduates move on to attend
top ranking universities in the nation. Many
alumni, including Andrew Miller, Katherine
Cobb, and Gabrielle Emanuel, are recognized
nationally through awards and scholarships.
They travel out of country, receive financial
aid, and are brought one step closer to accomplishing their goals.
In particular, Andrew Miller, ’05, was
recently awarded the Marshall Scholarship.
“We are extremely proud of Andrew,” Mr.
Barry Rodgers, Northside’s Principal, said.
“He has always been an extremely intelligent
and hardworking young man. I am very happy
for his family and for our school.”
According to www.marshallscholarship.
org, this program aids students financially for
studying abroad in the United Kingdom for
a degree. Established in 1953, honoring U.S.
Secretary of State, George C. Marshall, each
year the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
funds the awarded scholarships. Each year,
up to forty of the many college graduates that
apply are selected for the award. Statistics for
2009 showed that 982 of the applicants were
endorsed, 162 were interviewed, and forty were
selected. Scholars have a choice from 168 institutions in Britain they can attend. Miller, currently at Harvard University, will be attending
the London School of Economics and Political
Science, Politics and Communication.
This scholarship program was intended
to help make it possible for American graduates to explore and experience contemporary
Britain, with an educational background, and
“motivate scholars to act as ambassadors from
the USA to the UK and vice versa throughout
their lives, thus strengthening British American
understanding and contributing to the advancement of knowledge in science, technology, the
humanities and social sciences and the creative
arts at Britain’s centers of academic excel-
lence,” according to www.marshallscholarship.
org.
Aside from Miller, Northside alums have
achieved a great deal. Catherine Cobb, Class of
2005, will be graduating from Yale University
this May. Last spring, she was awarded the
Beinecke Scholarship. According to http://
foundationcenter.org/grantmaker/beinecke,
“The program seeks to encourage and enable
highly motivated students to pursue opportunities available to them and to be courageous in
the selection of a graduated course of study.”
“It’s an exciting opportunity because it
makes graduate school a much more reachable
goal if I’m not so concerned with finances,”
Cobb said.
The work done at Northside greatly helped
students in later years. Alumni found that essays and papers they had written during their
high school years provided a base for essays
written for applications and programs.
Gabrielle Emanuel, Class of 2006, currently a junior at Dartmouth College, will
be leaving for Lucknow, India to work for a
locally founded microfinance firm.
“I will be helping them set up a vocational
education program where they give out loans
for education, and with the new skills these
people are able to get a job and pay back the
loan,” Emanuel said. “This trip is particularly
exciting because it ties together a lot of what I
have been learning in classes and allows me to
see the theories and principles in action.”
The program Gabrielle will be participating in was funded by Dartmouth’s Dickey
Center for International Understanding and
Dartmouth’s Ethic Institute.
Students are branching out: from Egyptology, to a microfinance firm in India, and
studying for a degree in the United Kingdom.
Northside graduates have achieved great accomplishments and have moved far beyond
their first day of freshman year. They utilize
the many opportunities being a Northside
graduate allows.
The Hoof Beat
Teens for Jeans makes its
way through Northside
by Sarah Capungan
There are some pairs
of jeans that fit so well
they are worn over and
over again. Other pairs are
worn once, put away, and
outgrown. While many students may have never appreciated those jeans, other
teenagers may. One out of
three homeless people in
the United States are under
18 years of age and may
appreciate those outgrown
and hardly used pants.
Northside’s Key Club
sponsored a jean drive as a
way to help homeless teenagers by collecting gently
worn jeans. The drive is
titled Teens for Jeans and
has lasted from January
26 to February 22. This
is the first year the Teens
for Jeans drive was held
at Northside and the Key
Club has posted many flyers to advertise the drive.
Teens for Jeans is a national campaign launched
by Aeropostale and
DoSomething.org in 2008
to collect and donate jeans
for homeless teenagers. At
the end of the drive the donated jeans will be sent to a
local Aeropostale store that
will later take the jeans to a
local charity organization
or homeless shelter. Last
year, over 125,000 pairs of
jeans were collected around
the nation by individuals
and high schools. The drive
started at Northside after
Key Club leader Karen Li
found the idea on DoSomething.org.
Key Club members
seem to find both the club
and Teens for Jeans drive
extremely worthwhile.
“I joined Key Club
because I figured it was a
club that fit me,” Hannah
Doruelo said, a member
or Northside’s Key Club,
Adv. 204, “It’s fun, I get to
help others, and I think it is
incredibly worthwhile.”
As of the moment the
number of jeans collected
at Northside has not been
tallied yet, but the success
of the drive is not what was
expected.
“I think we could have
collected more jeans,”
Key Club member Peter
Podlipni said, “especially
since over 1000 students go
to Northside.”
Nevertheless, the Teens
for Jeans drive has been
running smoothly since its
start.
“No problems that I
know of,” said Podlipni
about any complications
the Key Club and Teens for
Jeans may have faced.
If Northside collects
more than 500 pairs of
jeans, Areopostale and
DoSomething.org will send
a large Teens for Jeans banner to hang in the school.
“I think the drive is
a really good cause and
incentive,” Doruelo said,
“but I’d love to see word
get out more.”
Each individual who
donates a pair of jeans
must write their name and
advisory number on a small
tag provided on the collection box outside the main
office. This is to ensure that
each individual receives his
own Aeropostale coupon
for 25 percent off any pair
of jeans in the store for
each pair of jeans they
donate.
“It’s a win-win situation,” Doruelo said.
The drive is open to
all students and all sizes,
colors, and styles of gently
used jeans are accepted.
When asked about donating jeans, many Northside
students replied they would
donate their old pairs of
pants.
“No one told me about
that [Teens for Jeans drive],
but I would donate jeans,”
said Alex Tran, Adv. 200,
about the drive. “I have a
lot of old jeans that don’t fit
me, so why not?”
As the amount of collected jeans slowly rises,
more and more students
are becoming aware of the
drive. After the jeans have
been collected and tallied,
Northside’s homeless
awareness will also be tallied as well.
February 2009
News Global Connections
The first seven days
President Barack Obama makes good on
campaign promises in first week of office
A week after his inauguration at the Capitol Building (above),
President Barack Obama has tackled several domestic issues
such as Guantanamo Bay, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,
and the current economic crisis.
Photo by Sonya Dekhtyar
by Olutoye Adegboro
While campaigning to
become president, President
Barack Obama made several
promises regarding health
care, education, the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq,
and the economy. President
Obama has made several efforts to keep those campaign
promises by proposing and
signing several orders concerning government ethics
and the closing of the United
States military base Guantanamo Bay, as well as meetings with top advisors within
24 hours of his ascendance
to the United States presidency on January 20, 2009.
“We are going to lead
by example, by maintaining
the highest standards of civil
liberties and human rights,”
President Obama said in a
campaign speech, according to a recent MSN article,
“which is why I will close
Guantanamo and restore
habeas corpus and say no to
torture.”
Guantanamo Bay
(Gitmo) has become a
source of controversy for
the United States as rumors
of interrogation methods
and the deprival of trials
for detainees placed at the
base during former President
Bush’s administration were
brought to global attention.
President Obama has made
several statements expressing
his view on the interrogation
methods used at Gitmo and
similar detention facilities,
and hopes to close the military base in one year’s time.
However, some politicians
and critics disagree with the
decision and believe that
closing Gitmo would be a serious threat to U.S. security.
“Our entire way of life is
just a few minutes away from
annihilation if terrorists were
to succeed in obtaining a
weapon of mass destruction
or carry out an unrecoverable
attack on our nation's infrastructure,” Missouri Senator
Kit Bond said according to
an article on National Public
Radio’s (NPR) website.
President Obama also
met with several military
advisors regarding the troops
stationed in Afghanistan
and Iraq, making his plans
for a troop withdrawal from
Iraq by the middle of 2010
known, despite some op-
position to the plan
from several military
officials. The Associated Press reports
that the White House
is considering a trio
of plans that would
entail a 16, 19, or
23-month troop
withdrawal. Many
have criticized the
war on terror in Iraq,
citing the failure
to find weapons of
mass destruction in
Iraq and the troops
already stationed in
Afghanistan. However, supporters of
the war believe that
a withdrawal plan
would be too much
of a risky move to
make.
“It should be General
Petraeus’ recommendation,
not that of a politician
running for higher office,
as to when and how we
withdraw,” Arizona Senator
John McCain said during
his campaign according to a
February 2008 MSN article.
However, many agree
with President Obama’s
plans and hope to see a
troop withdrawal in the near
future.
“We don't have a specific
date in mind, but we need
to agree on the principle
of setting a deadline,” Ali
al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for
the Iraqi government, said in
response to the U.S. military
presence in Iraq according to
a July 2008 CNN report.
President Obama has
also taken the first steps to
expanding healthcare. Congress passed a bill that would
provide health coverage for
4 million children who lack
health insurance. President
Obama has also made efforts
to provide more funding
for education, including it
in the stimulus package he
approved.
The $787 billion stimulus
package President Obama
signed in Denver, Colorado
on February 17 aims to improve the current state of the
economy. The bill has been
criticized by many Congressmen, most of whom are
Republicans, and has been
altered in both the House
and the Senate, where an
$820 billion and $827 billion version of the bill once
surfaced, respectively. The
stimulus bill has prompted
several disagreements
between Democrats and Republicans over the stimulus
package’s necessity and what
it will do for the economy,
causing a rift in President
Obama’s hope for bipartisanship in Congress. Critics
of the stimulus package say
that the bill includes too
much unnecessary spending and would be a burden
on the American taxpayers.
President Obama has stood
by the stimulus plan, citing
that without it, the economy
would worsen leading to an
increase in foreclosures and
a rise in the unemployment
rate.
“This recession might
linger for years,” President
Obama said in a Washington
Post op-ed. “Our economy
will lose 5 million more
jobs. Unemployment will
approach double digits. Our
nation will sink deeper into a
crisis that, at some point, we
may not be able to reverse.”
While many feel President Obama’s presidency is
being defined at the present
moment, many will wait
until late April, when the
one hundredth day of his
presidency will arrive, a
time many believe will truly
define what his administration will accomplish during
his term.
DTV transition moved to June 12
by Jeffrey Joseph
Television viewers have witnessed a
slew of public service announcements
in recent months regarding the transition to Digital Television (DTV), which
was originally scheduled for February 17, 2009. However, the transition
was recently postponed and will not
take effect until June 12, when analog
broadcasting in the United States will
end. The transition was postponed to
allow the estimated 6.5 million people
(an estimate made by the Nielsen in
January of 2009) who are not ready for
the transition enough time to prepare.
Converter box coupons can be acquired
by visiting www.dtv2009.gov or calling
the DTV hot line at 1-888-DTV-2009.
DTV promises to provide broadcast viewers with more free channels
along with clearer picture and sound.
One can convert to digital television
by purchasing a DTV converter box.
Converter boxes are available from most
electronics retailers for about $40 to
$60. However, the government provides
households with up to two $40 coupons
to ease the cost of buying converter
boxes. According to www.dtv2009.org,
converter boxes allow television viewers
with older television sets that do not
support digital television to continue
to receive a signal that will allow them
to view television programs that were
accessible when the analog television
signal was still being used.
DTV offers viewers more channels
through a process called multicasting.
Because DTV signals are more compressed, as they take up less broadcasting space than analog signals, allowing
stations to broadcast more channels
than they would
have been able to
without DTV. A
number of television
viewers are unaware
that they can get
access to the benefits of DTV at the
present moment, as
June 12 only marks
the end of analog
broadcasting, not
the start of DTV. In
most major television markets, the
digital signal needed
for broadcasting
DTV has been available for months.
DTV also offers other benefits. The
signal used to broadcast analog television consumes more airwave space than
the signal used to broadcast DTV, leaving more space for emergency service
workers such as firefighters and the
police. The extra space provided by the
DTV signal will allow different agencies
to communicate with one another as
stated by www.cio.com.Digital broadcasting will also allow for the development of wireless broadband and other
similar services for consumers.
The $1.3 billion government
sponsored program run by the National
Telecommunications and Information
Administration, which provides the
coupons for digital converter boxes,
has run out of money. Currently, about
3.3 million people are on a waiting list
to receive converter box coupons. The
bill that Congress passed regarding
the switch to DTV has only delayed
the transition and has not provided
the funds necessary to continue the
program. The stimulus bill signed by
President Barack Obama on February
17, 2009 will allocate an additional
$650 million for the converter box
program. Before the bill was signed, the
converter box program got its funding
by waiting for currently issued coupons
to expire, at which point the money initially given to purchase converter boxes
was put back into the program and new
coupons were reissued to those on the
waiting list.
Television viewers who subscribe to
services such as cable or satellite do not
have to purchase converter boxes as the
programming they already receive does
not depend on the analog broadcasting
signal. The transition will not affect
most televisions that were purchased
after 2004, as most televisions made after that year were equipped with digital
tuners.
Page 5
From CTA to
CPS
Huberman named
as Chicago Public
Schools’ new CEO
by Matt Glodz
Ron Huberman, the former President of the Chicago
Transit Authority (CTA),
is now the Chief Executive
Officer (CEO) of Chicago Public Schools (CPS).
Huberman was chosen by
Mayor Richard M. Daley to
replace Arne Duncan, the
former CEO of CPS and
current Secretary of Education under President Barack
Obama, sparking criticism
from parents, students, and
educators, who claim that he
lacks experience in education
to be appointed to such a
position.
Huberman by no means
lacks an education, though.
According to the Mayor’s
Press Office, he completed
his undergraduate degree at
the University of WisconsinMadison. While serving in
the police force, Huberman
attended the University of
Chicago, where he received
his Master of Business Administration and Master of
Social Service Administration degrees.
After rising up the ladder
as a police officer, Huberman headed the Office of
Emergency Management and
Communications, he became
Mayor Daley’s Chief-ofStaff, and was President of
the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). Daley appointed
Huberman as the CEO of
CPS on January 27. However, many feel that the
person chosen to run the
third largest school system in
the nation should have been
someone with more experience as an educator.
“Mayor Daley is clutching at straws right now,”
Mr. Patrick Proctor, father
of Ciara Proctor, Adv. 011,
said. “He could have at
least picked someone with
a background in education
- at the very least, a qualified
teacher. When Huberman
was dealing with roads, he
was dealing with inanimate
objects with no feelings.
Now he’s going to have to
deal with children and their
livelihoods.”
According to the CPS
website, Duncan worked for
the Ariel Education Initiative
and CPS before he became
the CEO. Huberman, despite
lacking experience as an
educator, has demonstrated
strong leadership and administrative skills in his previous
positions and may prove successful as the new CEO.
“Frankly, [Huberman]
has more executive management experience coming into
the job than Arne Duncan
did,” Mr. Tim Devine, Social
Sciences Department, said.
“Arne had slightly more
background in education
prior to his ascension to the
CEO position, but he was
never a classroom teacher
- he was a manager of programs.”
Still, many students have
mixed feeling about the new
appointee.
“At first I wasn’t comfortable with someone with
no educational background
becoming the new CPS
CEO,” Una Lim, Adv. 013,
said, “but then I realized
that we need new creative
juices to start flowing and
someone with impersonal
authority to fire those that
need to be fired.”
Mr. Devine agreed.
“Somebody from the
outside, like Huberman,
who doesn’t have personal
relationships with principles
and teachers might be able
to make those difficult
personnel decisions,” Mr.
Devine said. “That model
has worked in the past.”
Mayor Daley shared
similar views, according to
a quote from the Chicago
Sun-Times.
“Paul Vallas. Not an educator,” Mayor Daley said.
“He came in, appointed a
CEO for education and a
CEO for operations. Arne
Duncan did the same thing.
Ron Huberman will do the
same thing. He’s well-educated, very well-educated.
You appoint the CEO for
education and the CEO for
operations. That’s how we
divided it.”
Mayor Daley also
claimed that appointing
educators to the position
in the past did not result in
success.
“Before I took over the
Board of Education, remember all the educators?”
Mayor Daley said. “They
got fired from New York
and L.A. We hired ‘em.
Then, we fired ‘em and gave
‘em big bonuses? We went
through all the education
phase up to ‘95. It failed.”
Still, many are not comfortable with the mayor’s
decision to appoint Huberman.
“I don’t think [Huberman] should have been our
new CEO,” Caeleigh Renkosiak, Adv. 105, said. “He
[butt] kissed his way to the
top of the CPD [Chicago
Police Department], then
Daley had him working as
the head of the CTA - not
that the CTA was drastically
improved. Every time he begins a new job, he’s picking
up a pension, so he’s raking
in the money. I don’t really
trust him.”
Huberman’s appointment is final, however, no
matter how he is perceived.
“[Huberman’s] the guy,
and we’ve gotta work with
him,” Mr. Devine said.
“We can decry the mayor
for his selection, or we can
recognize that this man has
a substantial amount of
power and influence within
CPS and try to leverage that
power not just for Northside’s purposes, but for the
purposes of student learning
around the city.”
Special thanks to Mr. Timothy Devine and Ms.
Yvonne Smith for providing consultations on the
survey. Due to space constraints, not every poll
could be published, but the remaining polls are
available on the online version of the Hoof Beat
at www.hoofbeatweb.com.
Page Diversions
Around town
Not your typical movie theater
by Sonya Dekhtyar
We cannot hide from it. It is
everywhere. It is in bookstores,
where the large majority of showcase space is taken up by narcissistic titles like “You on a Diet” or
“YOU: Being Beautiful.” It is in the
streets, where, even in the hottest
weather, the chomping sound of
sweaty feet squashed into a pair of
Crocs forces any reasonable person
to ask – do those trend-setters realize how unhealthy and ugly that is?
It is in the music that spills out of
a booming car or a neighbor’s iPod
or the TV… why does this music all
sound the same? “It,” in this case, is
MASS CULTURE – that phenomenon which, day after day, further
and further impersonalizes our
lives, destroys their uniqueness of
styles and preferences. Those who
can still put a face to their lifestyle
must leave it behind if they desire a
sense of integration in society and
the comfort of being like “everyone else”. And anyone who rebels
against the great force of mass
culture deserves some praise and
respect.
For me, the symbol of mass
culture, out of many, has become
the modern type of movie theater,
with its standardized progression
– the box office, which sells tickets
and validates parking cards, flows
smoothly into the popcorn-candydrink stand, and the usher who
checks your ticket at the front
directs you into one of the 12 or 18
identical large cubicles headlined
“theater number (blank)”. But
there are some movie theaters in
Chicago which refuse to join this
trend, theaters which may suffer
financially (some of my favorites
have even closed over the past few
years…) or that may never see full
houses, but which, nonetheless,
continue to function as rebels to
mass culture. I go to these types of
theaters not because I’m a snob and
not because I prefer to see those
films which can’t be seen en masse
elsewhere, but because going to
those movie theaters is my way of
supporting their existence.
FACETS CINÉMATHÈQUE
1517 W. Fullerton Ave.
Founded in 1975 as a non-profit
organization, Facets is renowned
for its presentations of independent
films, both American and foreign.
It has only two auditoriums – a
large one for new film showings
and a smaller one for video screenings.
Facet’s mission is “to preserve,
to present, and to distribute independent, world and classic film,
and to educate adults and children
in the art and legacy of film.” Here,
you will not find the everyday
popular hits; this movie theater is
for serious admirers who are looking for more obscure and rarelyseen films. Every so often, Facets
also offers interviews, discussions,
director perspectives and opinions,
and exclusive premieres. Facets also
hosts several annual film festivals,
including the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, the
Chicago Latino Film Festival, the
French Film Festival, and many,
many more.
One of the loveliest features
of Facets is its “Videothèque,” an
enormous archival collection of
videos and DVDs. Over 50,000
titles span national and international film, with the oldest motion pictures dating back to the first half of
the 20th century. The Videothèque
offers VHS and DVD purchase and
rental; blockbuster deals are always
available – currently, select titles
are selling for $.99, and others are
going for under $10. If you’re one
of those people who can’t schedule
a trip to the movie theater but also
doesn’t want to take out a famous
American movie from the nearest
“Hollywood Video” store, drop by
the Videothèque – you’re bound to
find something to suit your taste!
Check online (at www.facets.
org, click on the “Videothèque”
link) for more information on
rentals and purchases, and check
out the splendidly organized and
breathtakingly large archive of
available films. Also see how critics
review certain films, and which
videos have been most rented or
purchased in a given time period.
Another amazing experience at
Facets is its film school. No, this is
not the type of school we’re used
to. In essence, it comprises a series
of classes, taught by professors or
directors; each class focuses on a
specific topic and examines it over
the course of five weeks. Each
year’s topics are different, but each
is equally fascinating, and I strongly
encourage you to check the classes
out.
To see just how varied the films
presented at Facets are – and how
they differ from the mass of films
being screened at other movie
theaters throughout Chicago – let
me introduce you to the upcoming
film schedule. From February 27
to March 5, the French-Israeli film
“The Secrets” presents the story of
the traditionally-raised daughter of
a rabbi. “Milk in the Land,” showing from March 6 to March 12, is
an animated documentary about
milk, Americans’ meal staple. From
March 20 to April 2, you can catch
“Silent Light,” a romance story set
in northern Mexico. “The English
Surgeon,” a documentary about
British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh
and his annual travels to Kiev,
Ukraine to perform brain surgeries,
will be screened from April 10 to
April 16. From April 17 to April
30, the 25th annual Chicago Latino
Film Festival will present films
from all over the Americas (call
(312) 431-1330 for more information on films, dates, and locations).
The week from May 1 to May 7
offers two documentaries: “Audience of One” follows the life and
work of pastor Richard Gazowksy,
and “Oblivion (El Olvido)” tells the
stories of waitresses and bartenders
in Lima, Peru.
All this you can see for $9 per
film – a pretty good price for a movie you probably won’t be able to
see elsewhere. Call (773) 281-4114
(box office) or visit Facets’ website,
www.facets.org, for information on
dates and showtimes.
MUSIC BOX THEATER
3733 N. Southport Ave.
Founded nearly two decades
ago, Music Box, like Facets, offers
spectacular screenings of foreign
and independent films. Unlike Facets, though, Music Box doesn’t have
a video archive. Instead, it constantly provides screenings of old
films for the general public. It also
holds annual showings of Oscarnominated shorts, both animated
and live-action, along with crazysounding film festivals, such as
Spike&Mikes Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation (not necessarily
recommended for everyone…).
Located on Southport Avenue,
metered parking may be hard to
find, but parking at the nearby
school and on side streets is readily
available. There is a Dairy Queen
and Coldstone Creamery nearby, so
treat yourself to some sweet stuff
before you head in for a wonderful
movie.
For the next month or so,
Music Box presents mostly love
films, including “Just Another
Love Story,” “Tokyo,” “Shall We
Kiss,” and “Vivre Sa Vie (Live Your
Life).” These films For complete
listings of dates and showtimes,
please visit www.musicboxtheatre.
com or call (773) 871-6604.
All tickets are below $9, depending on the time of the screening, but a great feature of Music
Box is its discount cards. For $33,
you can purchase a movie pass to
any five films; this may seem expensive, but the card actually saves
you about $3 per film.
GENE SISKEL FILM CEN-
TER
164 North State Street
This center was established over
30 years ago as the Film Center of
the Art Institute of Chicago and
has since showed national and
international independent and classical cinema. Annually, the Film
Center, renamed in honor of famed
movie critic Gene Siskel in 2000,
screens approximately 1,500 films
and presents about 100 guest-artist
appearances to yearly combined
audiences of over 65,000 people.
The Gene Siskel, like Music
Box, brings yearly showings of
Oscar animated and live-action
shorts to its audiences, and also
hosts its own festivals and themed
presentations.
Although complete updated
schedules for this year have not
yet been announced, screenings
in March include those of “Ballerina,” “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29,”
“Landscape After Battle,” “Bigger Than Life,” and many others
(check the “Calendar” link on
www.siskelfilmcenter.org for a complete schedule of dates and times).
Tickets to films are $9 (general
admission) and $7 for students. To
learn more, call (312) 846-2600.
LaSALLE BANK CINEMA
4901 W. Irving Park
The LaSalle Bank Cinema is a
practically-unknown venue located
in the midst of a Hispanic area.
Surrounded by tasty food shops,
people flock to this theater mostly
for its Saturday Vintage Nights
– every Saturday, the film center
offers screenings of old films – so
old, in fact, that they are silent and
are accompanied by a live pianist.
These nights are $4 (perhaps the
cheapest admission to a movie in
all of Chicago); popcorn and drinks
are another dollar.
No specific schedules for the
next few months have yet been
posted, but keep updated by calling
(312) 904-9442.
DOC FILMS (UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO)
1212 East 59th Street (IDA NOYES HALL)
As the longest-operating student film society in the nation, Doc
Films started its lengthy history in
December 1940 as the International
House Documentary Film Group.
At first, the student-run group
focused on presenting non-fiction films, but, soon realizing that
documentaries alone could not
sustain the organization, added fictional and experimental films to the
repertory, a tradition which lasts to
this day. The entire system, from
projection to sound programming
to ushering, is run by volunteers,
an incredible feat for a university
renowned for its lack of adequate
free time. Films are screened every
day of the academic year, so the list
of upcoming screenings is rather
lengthy – visit docfilms.uchicago.
edu and click on the “Calendar”
link for a complete schedule of
titles, dates, and times. For more
information, call (773) 702-8575.
I know that many of you are
not novices in this field, and that
many of you regularly go to some
of the movie theaters mentioned
above. However, I especially want
to emphasize the fact that the
goal of this article is not only to
introduce you to these theaters
– although I’ll be happy to know
that I helped someone discover a
new place outside the usual circle
of mass culture! – but to ask you,
by going to these places, to show
your support and appreciation for
them in this uneasy battle.
The Hoof Beat
Try your hand
at Sudoku!
www.dailysudoku.com/sudoku;
© Daily Sudoku Ltd, 2009
Chicago then
and now
Rogers Park: a home away
from home
by Sarish Hassan
Located nine miles from the
Loop, Rogers Park ranks among
Chicago’s most populous and
diverse neighborhoods. During the
late 1830s, Irishman Phillip Rogers
purchased 1,600 acres of government land, the basis of Rogers
Park. With the number of residents
increasing steadily, Rogers Park
was annexed to Chicago in 1893.
In 1915, the area north of Howard
Street was also annexed, giving
Chicago and Rogers Park a new
northern boundary. Railroad connections between Rogers Park and
Chicago were established in the
1960s and aided in the development and urbanization of Rogers
Park. By the end of the 1900s, the
number of apartment constructions
sky rocketed, establishing Rogers
Park as a renter’s community.
The population of Rogers Park
has expanded over the years to
include numerous ethnicities, comprising of a multicultural and international melting pot or residents.
Before the 1960s, the majority of
the population consisted of Germans, Irish, and Luxembourgers.
By the late 1960s, a large number
of Eastern European and Russian
immigrants had also made Rogers
Park their home. The 1970s saw an
influx of immigrants from Asia,
Africa, and the Americas.
Religious activity has always
flourished in Rogers Park and has
developed as the population has
grown and diversified over the
years. Historically, Rogers Park
has been identified as a Roman
Catholic and Jewish community,
but the neighborhood has grown
to include Hinduism, Islam, and
many other religions.
Neighborhood businesses,
entertainment spots, and religious
institutions are located near main
streets and transportation hubs
along Clark Street and Devon
Avenue and the four neighborhood “L” stations. Until the 1980s,
entertainment venues were an
important part of the neighborhood. During the first half of the
twentieth century, Rogers Park possessed four large movie palaces: the
Howard, Adelphi, Granada, and
Norshore Theaters. The theaters
contributed to changes in taste of
the viewing public and provided
quality entertainment for the residents of Rogers Park. The rapid
development of Rogers Park has
allowed it to become an entertainment hub and the site of a perfect
weekend visit. It offers unique
activities that are sure to meet
anybody’s entertainment needs.
For some extreme book
hunting, check out Armadillo’s
Pillow, on 6753 N. Sheridan Road.
Conveniently located right across
the street from a local Starbucks,
grab a cup of coffee and head on
over for an afternoon of reading.
Containing new to rare literature
and souvernirs, it’s guaranteed
to provide you with an interesting read for pure entertainment
or to fill boring days. The store
also offers the perfect opportunity
to pick up some unique birthday
gifts, such as handmade necklaces,
tarot cards, retro postcards, and
bookmarks.
Nurturing future artists and
exhibiting talent in Rogers Park,
Greenleaf Art Center, on 1806 W.
Greenleaf Avenue, is leading the
art movement in Rogers Park. The
center provides local artists with
studio space, hosts exhibitions,
and has rotating galleries for art
lovers of all ages. Visitors can also
purchase artwork in the Center’s
gift shop from $10 to $100.
Overall, Rogers Park is a great
neighborhood to spend a lazy
afternoon, so grab some close
friends and head on over for some
amazing fun.
February 2009 Features Dreaming with a broken heart
Page How to go about breaking up
by Lyanne Alfaro
Texts, Facebook, MySpace, Instant Messaging, and email are all modern ways of
breaking up with a partner that is no longer
desired. Joe Jonas, member of the Jonas
Brothers, broke up with his girlfriend, Taylor
Swift, via a 27 second phone call, according to USMagazine.com. Then, there is the
traditional way of breaking up - inviting
one’s mate to dinner and letting him know it
is over.
Websites, such as lovesagame.com,
demonstrate how to break up in seven steps.
The first step is to stay away from the partner
for a couple of days. Then, reflect on the
relationship’s conditions. Prepare to meet
with the partner in person and know what to
say and think the decision over once more.
After talking to the partner, give him time to
think, closure is important. Finally, the exes
should have no contact with one another.
The best way to help the ex get over shock is
to let him go, according to the website.
However, when breaking up with that
particular someone, Mr. John Codd, a social
worker from the Wellness Center, recommends the partner whose decision it was to
break up keep in mind that each person in
that relationship has equal responsibility,
from the beginning to the end.
“If you’re not happy with somebody,
finding a way of communicating correctly
is your part of the relationship,” Mr. Codd
said. “You need to take responsibility for the
break up so that the person you’re breaking up with doesn’t feel like it’s totally his
responsibility.”
Though psychologists like Mr. Codd
commonly recommend mates to do their
breakups in person, hundreds of sites and
hotlines help them do it another way. The
Rejection Hotline, created in 2001, serves
millions of Americans. Around 90 million
people have called this number and heard a
prerecorded message on the other end reply,
“…the person who gave you this rejection
hotline number did not want you to have
their real number. We know this sucks, but
don’t be too devastated. Accept the fact that
you’ve been rejected and then get over it.”
The Breakup Butler is also there to aid all
partners who aren’t satisfied with their mates
and wish to break up with them indirectly.
Users may decide between the Nice Butler
and the Not So Nice Butler. Furthermore,
last November, Samsung Telecommunications America conducted a survey regarding the issue, and 11 percent of Americans
A balancing act
find someone to talk to,” Mr. Codd said.
responded saying that breaking up via text
“He will grieve from the loss, but if somemessage was acceptable.
one’s functioning drops and he is not able to
Northside students have a different view
go to school or work, then I think talking to
on how to break up.
someone professional that’s able to help him
“If you break up over MySpace, it shows
heal and deal with the loss is good.”
the relationship wasn’t important,” Patricia
Morad, Adv. 101,
said.
A.J. Tran, Adv.
201, agreed.
“Breaking up over
Facebook or MySpace
is shallow,” Tran said.
Americans that do
take advice from psychologists may visit
Webmd.com, which
recommends talking
to the partner in person or take him out to
dinner before breaking up. Mr. Codd also
believes that the best
way to break up is in
person.
“I think that if
Relationships may end on bad terms if a break up takes
someone is deeply
depressed, he should place between passing periods.
Photo by Adriana Garties
Celebrating Valentine’s Day despite the conflict
by Claire Kilpatrick
he was put to death. Most believe that
chocolates and a card. The more serious
Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate, Saint Valentine’s Day is celebrated to
couples can provide not only flowers
laugh, love, and live. It is a day that
commemorate either the death or burial
and chocolates, but some might take
attempts to commemorate the efforts of
of Saint Valentine.
the opportunity to present a piece of
all who have loved and all who hope to
Today, Valentine’s Day not only
jewelry or even propose marriage.
love. It presents an opportunity to show
honors the efforts of Saint Valentine,
But, in today’s world, a world filled
love and to observe the relationships of
it honors the efforts of all who love.
with stress, schedule conflict, emotional
others. It is evident walking through the
For those currently in a relationship
disturbances, and economic hardships,
world on February 14 that couples are
Valentine’s Day provides an opportunity it is often difficult for couples to make
more affectionate, those who
it work. Relationships are comlong for a “special” relationplicated even in a perfect world,
ship are a little gloomier than
but when other factors enter the
usual, and that some chose to
picture, stress multiplies between
celebrate even without a date,
couples. Couples often will expericelebrating their relationships
ence problems due to a lack of
with friends and family. Some
communication and connection,
who are single, chose to hona situation which allows stress to
or Valentine’s Day not as a
flourish. Without communication,
day celebrating love, rather as
there is no relationship or partnera day alerting others of their
ship. A relationship requires the
relationship statue, Single
efforts of two people to help one
Awareness Day. At Northanother cope with their stress.
side, this definition holds true
Communication is key to reducing
for all, including those who
stress in relationships.
do not dedicate the day to
Extra-curricular activities and
that “special someone.”
schoolwork make high school
According to History.
relationships much harder to deal
com, Valentine’s Day was first
with. A good way to avoid conflict
celebrated in the third century
between schoolwork, extra-curricuof Rome. At this time, Emlar activities, and relationship is to
peror Claudius II outlawed
plan ahead, therefore eliminating
Northside couples can share some intimate time
marriage, due to the belief that together during their lunch.
a scheduling problem. According
better soldiers were made of
to Helpguide.com, dedicating 1
Photo by Adriana Garties
single men, rather than those
night a week will promote comsubject to the distractions of
to express love for one another. Those
munication and establish a stronger
married life. The story holds that Saint
who have established a relationship
bond.
Valentine, realizing the injustice of the
with the “one,” usually spend the entire
Balancing schoolwork, extracurricudecree, continued performing marriage
day in their company. During the course lar activities, and a relationship can be
ceremonies for young lovers. When Em- of the day, they often share tender modifficult; however, as evidenced by the
peror Claudius realized Saint Valenments together. The young couple will
population, it is not impossible if comtine’s efforts to undermine his decree,
often present each other with flowers or
munication is present.
I “less than three” you
How Northsiders celebrate Valentine’s Day
by Anna Cieslik
This year, Valentine’s Day lands on a Saturday, which
means that Northside students have the whole day to celebrate
the holiday however they want. For some, Valentine’s Day
is a time to just have fun with friends while eating chocolate.
Others use Valentine’s Day to get closer to their boyfriend or
girlfriend, or even ask out their crush.
Valentine’s Day is known as a celebration of love and
lovers.Some students approach Valentine’s Day with a more
traditional view and regard it with a sense of romanticism that
the holiday was originally all about. However, they also add
their own touch to the holiday to make it more meaningful to
them.
“I think it’s a good idea to ask someone out for Valentine’s
Day because it makes a really sweet anniversary,” Elizabeth
Schwartz, Adv. 202, said.
There are quite a few Northsiders that agree with
Schwartz, and use Valentine’s Day to tell their crush how they
feel in their own unique way.
“[Someone] left me a letter telling me about how much she
liked me,” Moy said. “It was quite mushy, but I felt happy. I
never found out who the person was.”
The Northside Latino Club is no longer hosting its annual
Valentine’s Day dance this year (they chose to host the March
Masquerade Ball instead), but students still have their own
Valentine’s Day plans with their boyfriend or girlfriend.
ThWith over one billion dollars worth of chocolate being
purchased each Valentine’s Day in the United States alone, it
is no surprise that Northsiders consider the candy a part of
Valentine’s Day.
Although many Northsiders show an interest in Valentine’s Day, it is not always obvious from just walking down the
school hallways.
"Northsiders don't seem to do too much for Valentine's
Day,” Martina Bright, Adv. 103, said. “Not many of us are too
big on the Hallmark holidays.”
There are also Northsiders that don’t mind celebrating
Valentine’s Day, but it’s not on the top of their to-do list.
“[We] usually do something,” Carmen Abelson, Adv. 900,
said, “but only really last minute because we all forget [about
Valentine’s Day].”
No matter how Northsiders decide to celebrate Valentine’s
Day this year, whether it is a romantic day with a boyfriend
or girlfriend or a relaxed day with best friends, most students
will be sure to celebrate February 14 in a way that’s fun and
enjoyable for them.
A-Cen, pizza,
and Japan
Northside’s Anime
Club
by Melissa L. España
Some call them strange,
others call them a little
weird. They call themselves
the Anime Club. “Anime” is another term for
Japanese animation. Anime
and manga are extremely
popular in Japan, and its
popularity has spread into
the halls of Northside Prep.
“Anime Club is a place
for people to come and
watch a little anime to relax
after a busy week,” Giselle
Lorence, Adv. 908, President of Anime Club, said.
For the past few years,
Anime Club has been taking
place every Friday in room
231, the Japanese room,
with the assistance of the
club’s sponsor, Ms. JeungHee Park, better known
as Park-Sensei. The club
welcomes new members
each and every year.
“I’ve always had an
interest in [old] anime,” Eddie Abraham, Adv. 202, one
of the club’s new members
said. “[but] I also like to
experience the new anime,
like cat girls and suicidal
teachers.”
Although the club does
spend most of its time
watching anime, there are
other aspects to the club
along with that.
“Anime Club’s goal is
to have people learn about
the Japanese language and
culture through what they
watch,” Lorence said.
Along with just having
fun while watching anime,
the club officers want their
members to get more out of
the animations.
“It’s a great help
to anyone studying the
language,” Lorence said.
“Within anime, one can
pick up common phrases
and learn about what Japan
is like; from old legends to
daily life, depending on the
series.”
A typical Anime Club
meeting involves coming in,
ordering their weekly dosage of pizza, and, at every
meeting, the club officers
give their members options
of what type of anime
they’d like to watch, and
then have their members
vote on what they want for
that day. This year, the club
has tried coming up with
themes for every month.
For example, in October,
the club watched horror-anime. This way, the club gets
a chance to experience new
types of anime that may be
different than what they are
used to watching.
“Many people when
they think of anime, their
thoughts go to series like
‘Naruto’ or ‘Bleach’,”
Lorence said. “But there
are many more series out
there, and we try and find as
many as we can for the club
to watch and enjoy.”
Like years before,
Anime Club plans to go to
ACen this year. ACen is
short for Anime Central.
ACen takes place every
year in Chicago and brings
together thousands of Japanese Animation fans from
all over the state. At the
convention, fans can walk
around, watch anime, purchase Anime-related items,
and meet other people who
are just as interested in
Anime as they are.
“It’s a wonderful place
to get together with other
anime fans and have fun for
the weekend,” Lorence said.
Every year for the
past three years, the club
members throw a pre-ACen
party the week before the
convention to get everyone
excited about going. This
year, according to www.
acen.org, ACen will hold its
12th annual event from May
8-10, 2009.
Anime Club is proud of
what it does and will continue to keep the club going
for as long as Northside
students are interested in
Anime. New members are
always welcome to stop by.
“We’d love to have
more people come and
watch,” Lorence said. “It’s
a fantastic way to meet others who share your interests
and learn a little bit about
the Japanese language and
culture.”
Page Centerfold The Hoof Beat
WHO WE BE? NC
College drama
by Faique Moqeet
Applying to college often
means long hours spent on filling
out applications and writing essays
for some students, while others
seem to command a more calm approach. Students can start applying
for colleges from summer of their
junior year until March 1, when most
colleges close their application process.
During this period, colleges receive
thousands of applications, as the
Northside counseling office, which
receives hundreds of applications
as well.
Northside students are
required to turn their transcript
request forms one month in
advance because of the immense amount of work they
require. The counseling department handles all the schools’
college application needs.
The department consists of
four counselors: Ms. Marina
Medina, Ms. Angela Lekkas,
Mr. Patrick Tassoni, and Mr.
Alexander Hughes.
Besides the college application period, Northside students are
usually well prepared for attending
college. The counseling department
tries to prepare students from the very
start. Freshmen and sophomores fill
out forms helping them keep a focus on
their goal or helping them choose the
best college for them.
“We did this assignment in advisory
where it asked us our values and how
it would affect our goals,” Sam Miller,
Adv. 208, said. “It asked us about long
and short term goals; everyone put college for long term goals.”
The counseling department believes
that students should not procrastinate
and keep college in mind throughout
high school.
“It starts early,” Ms. Lekkas said.
“When students pick classes they
should keep their college choices in
mind. It’s an on going process that
unfolds.”
According to them, college drama
only occurs when students do not take
the proper measures before the process
starts.
“The college application process
does not have to be stressful; with
careful planning most of the stress can
be avoided,” Mr. Tassoni said. “The
college drama starts when students
procrastinate.”
Some students find the process a
very simple yet overrated procedure.
“It’s pretty simple. You fill out a
few two-minute forms and write an
essay you would write for creative writing. As long as you don’t wait until the
last day, it’s like any other assignment
at school,” Shaheed Ghogha, Adv. 902,
said. “Except this assignment determines your future.”
There are other students who widely
disagree. To them this application process
is very important for their future and no
mistakes can be afforded. They believe
that this is the time to be meticulous and
spend long hours on essays. These students
believe that the effort they put in will determine their future jobs and salaries.
“At a place like Northside, where
everyone has fantastic options, it’s difficult
to avoid a storm of a college applications
process,” Doug Bright, Adv. 908, said.
“Personally, it’s been the toughest project
of my life. I rationalized the amount of
work I put in by telling myself that it will
all be worth it in the end.”
There are different types of applications. One is the early decision when students apply early and are selected from the
early applicant pool with less people but
usually more competitive. Lots of students
also do not apply through early decision
because of the downfalls, which includes
the fact that these applications can be
legally binding and force the applicant to
attend if accepted.
One of the other methods includes
early action, which is similar to early decision but is not legally binding.
On the other hand, regular admission
does not bind you into any commitment
and lets you chose from the accepted colleges. The deadline for regular admission is
a lot later and students receive results later.
The actual college application involves
filling out a long form, writing essays and
getting recommendations. Some colleges
require interviews.
“The application process doesn’t seem
that hard, but for me I waited till the last
minute and ended up working on applications for more than thirty-hours for applications due before January 1,” Spencer
Rosenfelds, Adv. 909, said. “The thing that
is most nerve wrecking is the interview.”
The process for seniors being called for
interviews is now finalizing. Seniors have
said that at the interviews, colleges generally recognize the Northside name.
“I went to an interview, and they asked
me some questions. I told them about
my extracurricular activities and it really
helped,” Albert Lin, Adv. 902, said. “All
the different activities make you unique;
that’s what there looking for.”
According to Naviance, an online
directory of the schools, Northsiders have
been accepted to and attended many colleges. Hundreds of students have attended
University of Illinois at Chicago, Loyola
University and University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign [U of I].
“A lot of seniors last year went to U of
I,” Christopher Lam, Adv. 907, said. “It’s
sort of the like the Lane Tech of colleges
in a sense.”
Some students approach to college
application seems tranquil while other
students take lots of stress. Overall, Northside seniors seem to be satisfied by their
attendance at Northside, and it fares them
well in terms of getting into college.
Obsessed with grades?
by Zobia Chunara
The number of applicants was about
six times the number of students at Northside College Prep (NCP) just applying for
a bit over 225 spots in 2009’s freshman
class. At selective enrollment schools,
average placement scores for 2008-2009’s
freshman class ranged from 824 at Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. College Preparatory High School to the highest average of
979 at NCP.
NCP accepts applicants with the
highest scores and sets the bar for other
selective enrollment schools academically.
Out of a thousand points, most Northside
students score high in the nine-hundreds,
suggesting that they are able to excel in
their school work.
Ability for parents to access IMPACT
raises pressures not only for teachers but
also for students since they can see assignment and test grades. CPS launched
a student portal and parent portal as part of
the new Grade Book system. Second semester
student portal was enabled so students can see
their grades with first quarter credentials.
As the school year began, there was some
Northsid
by Faique Moqeet
Other Chicago Public Sc
[CPS] high school students p
Northside differently than N
side students perceive thems
Northsiders are commonly s
homework-loving, grade gru
nerds without lives. On the o
hand, students who attend N
side consider themselves ave
high school students, and som
even find the stereotyping am
ing. The outside view of Nor
students can be linked to the
number of students who app
are turned down by the scho
This gives students an impre
of the high standards of the
and the fact that students are
to meet these standards adds
“nerd” perception.
The mainstream view tha
Northside is full of nerds lea
the other stereotypes Norths
fall victim to. One such stereo
the belief that Northside is fill
Asian students.
According to the website
SchoolDigger, ever since the
has been established, more C
casian students are accepted
year in comparison to East A
students. Yet the site shows A
students consist of at least th
percent of the student popul
In 2007, of the 1075 student
the school, 313 label themsel
Asian.
Going C
by Adriana Garties
Two students and a teac
all that is needed to start a c
The list of extracurricular a
able includes heritage organ
troupes, activist groups, serv
tions, and many more. Whi
attend clubs to relax and un
day of classes, many studen
another reason: to impress c
officers.
Anyone who has gone o
or asked for advice about co
has probably heard that sch
offices often look at student
in activities outside of schoo
some students join multiple
in order to create an impres
their applications. Colleges
by this strategy, as they gene
dedication above all else.
“Involvement is importa
are savvy,” said Mr. Tassoni
department. “They want to
involved, and they can tell i
your college application or i
commitment.”
Admissions representati
dents’ essays and recommen
out what they are truly pass
confusion with IMPACT and teachers could be
heard in almost all classes talking about the issues of the system. Confusion about the grading
scale stressed out some students, but not others
because the standards for the math department
were increased from previous years, making it
more difficult to get an A.
“I think the grading scale is pretty fair,” Lily
Ho, Adv. 104, said. “I think while grades are a
huge part of everything, I don’t try to let them
control me. But at the same time, I’ve definitely
stalked my grade on IMPACT a couple of
times. I’m not really sure why I do that, and it’s
probably just because grades play a huge part in
getting into college.”
The grading scale is crucial because it determines the letter grade a student receives and
colleges look at difficulty of classes, class rank,
and academic achievement in classes when
reviewing applications because these reflect how
well the student will do in college.
“I am pretty grade conscious, getting only
A’s and B’s, more A’s than B’s,” Karen Li, Adv.
018, said. “I guess I just want my GPA to look
good, since it’s one of the things that colleges
will look at on your transcript. I think this is
why a lot of my friends stress out too.”
Other students d
pressure to get good
grades depends on w
school, i.e. junior vs.
“Personally, I’m
grades most of the ti
some of my friends t
Katherine Garden, A
in the nature of a No
in all their classes, so
hard to get good gra
“People are obse
They ain’t happy un
Allen Tu, Adv. 101,
A’s and 3 B’s.”
With the parent
codes to access IMP
had decided not to r
want to give teachers
to IMPACT. Some p
only one assignment
be a mistake, and the
contacted.
“The students th
much and stress over
102, said. “Probably
academics are the m
February 2009 Centerfold CP! WHO WE BE?
ders as seen by others
chools
perceive
Northselves.
seen as
ubbing
other
Northerage
me will
musrthside
e large
ply and
ool.
ession
school,
e able
s to the
at
ads to
siders
otype is
led with
e
e school
Cauevery
Asian
Asian
hirty
lation.
ts in
lves as
The belief that Northside’s student body is predominantly Asian
may be attributed to the sizeable
membership of Northside’s Asian
Club, one of the largest clubs in
school.
“I’m in Asian Club and it’s
probably the biggest club in the
school,” Jenn Shen, Adv. 207,
said. “There are always events like
scavenger hunts and it’s really fun.
I think people think there are so
many Asians at Northside, because
well, there are a lot of Asians at
Northside.”
Some students from other high
schools perceive Northside students
as calculator-playing nerds without
lives.
“Northside is filled with a
bunch of snot-nosed, dorky Asians
trying to solve the Rubik’s cube or
writing programs on their calculator,” Marshal Hensel, a freshman
at Lane Tech high school, said.
“Oh, and don’t forget DDR [Dance
Dance Revolution] afterschool.”
These stereotypes reflect an image of the average high school nerd
who clamors for schoolwork and
spends all his time with technology,
as depicted on television and in
movies. Being a top school in state,
Northside students are matched
with these stereotypes by other
students. Other students who know
and have seen Northside students
give a more clear view of the aver-
age Northsider.
“Northside is a great school,”
Moyo Adeolu, a freshman at Von
Steuben high school, said, “but by
the sizes of their book bags, it seems
as if they overdose their students
with too much homework.”
Northside is home to students
who care about grades, but the
same can be said of any school.
The main factor that separates
Northside from other schools is the
high test scores for which the school
is famed. Other CPS selective
enrollment schools, such as Walter
Payton College Prep, Whitney
Young Magnet school, and Lane
Tech College Prep, also fall victim
to these stereotypes.
“It gets very intimidating for
some people,” Daniela Castillo,
a junior at Whitney Young high
school, said. “Other students are
either afraid to approach us because
they don’t think we’d talk to them
or they make fun of us because
they assume everyone is a “nerd” or
stuck up, which we’re not, at least
I’m not. I feel bad for Northside
kids, they have it the worst.”
Some students are annoyed by
this bias behavior and refuse to be
judged by the school they attend.
“The other kids just make fun
of us because it makes them feel
better about their school not being
so good or being rejected from one
of these schools,” Edwin Mendez, a
freshman at Walter Payton, said.
Some students from Northside
have acknowledged these
common views and accepted them as reality
within the school.
“What’s
wrong with
being
smart?”
Alex
Tran,
Adv. 200,
said. “Besides,
the reality is that we are the
better cheaters.”
Some Northsiders have accepted these stereotypes in a good
humored manner and consider
them second nature jokes.
“We’re nerds that suck up all
the CPS dollars,” Ruchi Mahadeshwar, Adv. 103, said. “What else?”
On the other hand, some nonNorthsiders just cannot brush aside
Northside students and grades.
Even though not all Northsiders
obsess over their grades, many
students from other high schools
believe the stereotype that states
that they do.
“Northsiders will throw themselves on the ground, drowning in
tears because of two B’s,” Grisdelin
Buenconsejo, a freshman at Lincoln
Park High School said. “I say this
from experience; I know quite a few
of them.”
Clubbing at Northside
cher sponsor are
club at Northside.
activities availnizations, dance
vice organizaile some students
nwind after a
nts join them for
college admissions
on a college tour
ollege applications
hool admissions
ts’ involvements
ol. Knowing this,
e clubs junior year
ssive résumé for
are not fooled
erally focus on
ant, and colleges
i, counseling
know you are
if it’s just to pad
if you have a
ives also read stundations to find
sionate about.
“It’s very subjective,” Mr. Tassoni said.
“No one [club] is better than the others. It’s
how you describe the experience.”
Of course, that does not mean that
students should refrain from participating
in multiple extracurricular activities. Some
people manage to juggle several clubs while
devoting time and effort to all of them. Merita Bushi, Adv. 012, participates in Key Club,
Recycling Club, Mikva Challenge, Yearbook,
National Honor Society, and Innovation
and Entrepreneurship Club. Bushi has been
involved in some of the organizations since
her freshman year.
“Key Club and Recycling started off as
just service hours freshman year, but I stayed
with them because they’re fun,” Bushi said.
There are many options, even for those
who do not want to dedicate so much time
to extracurricular activities. Students do not
have to choose between relaxing with friends
and attending clubs for college applications.
Extracurricular activities are rewarding for a
number of reasons, and there are enough that
most people manage to find one they enjoy.
Adriana Valdez, Adv. 017, is part of Amnesty
International. The club works on ways to
raise money to support less fortunate groups,
such as women in Africa.
“It was a brand new club this year, so I
do not feel burdened by the
grades. Worrying about
what year a student is in high
s. freshman.
not too worried about
ime, although I know that
think a lot about grades,”
Adv. 200, said. “I think it’s
orthsider to want to do well
o they will usually try really
ades.”
essed with their grades….
ntil they get straight A’s,”
said. “I’m happy with just 4
portal, parents need pin
PACT, but the administration
release them because they
s enough time to get used
parents would login and see
t in the class which could
en the teacher would be
hat worry, worry way too
r it,” Kaity Bobadilla, Adv.
y because they think that
most important thing because
wanted to be part of it,” Valdez said. “The
president doesn’t really run everything. The
members have a lot of influence. It’s not
like someone standing up there
and saying, ‘this is
what we’re going to
do.’”
A friendly atmosphere, it appears, is
one of the most desirable qualities in clubs
at Northside. Sharlene
Guiriba, Adv. 012, gave a
similar reason for participating in Asian Club, one of the
school’s largest organizations.
Members of the club meet to discuss Asian culture, play games,
watch movies, and organize
events such as I-Night.
“I think Asian Club is
popular because it’s just a great
place for Asians [and others] to
hang out with each other, and it’s a
friendly environment,” Guiriba said.
Some students use clubs as a way to fill
up their résumés, but after-school activities
also give students ways to express themselves, meet people with similar interests and
just hang out with friends.
of their parents, but even though it is important, it isn’t the only thing people should worry
about.”
Mr. Rodgers and Dr. Murphy chose to only
recently allow parents to access in order to allow
teachers to get comfortable using the new grade
book program. One grading scale is used for the
whole grade book, so most teachers wait until
the end of the semester to override the grade.
Either IMPACT will change to have one grading scale from CPS, or there will be one school
wide grading scale by the teachers. For now,
there are many students that are not worried by
IMPACT grading scales and parental access.
“Personally, I am not really that obsessed
with my grades,” Liji Jacob, Adv. 206, said. “I
mean getting a C or something is disappointing,
but I am not going to let it ruin my day. A lot
of Northsiders are obsessed with their grades
though because when they see a C, they go
bizarre. They can’t possibly ever imagine getting
a C, or that a C is the worst thing possible. A C
is average… it is not that terrible, so why freak
out?”
Obsession with grades can be looked at as
trying to get straight A’s for a high school GPA,
but it shows that a student is also learning what
is taught in the class. The craze
could also be caused by parents’ expectations and egos, since grades are
an impression of how considerably
a student works and absorbs what is
being taught.
“I think it’s more of what you get
out of class, but that’s not to say that
grades don’t matter,” Jenny Phan,
Adv. 206, said. “Getting good
grades is like one of those values
that appear frequently in our
society, like treating your parents
well, not giving
up, reaching for your
dreams, etc.
These values,
because they
are so driven
into our minds
that it’s almost
natural, are often
not questioned
as much, which is why I think obsession with
grades can be common. We are raised to react
that way.”
Page 9
Page 10
Arts and Entertainment
Fair is foul, and foul is fair
The Hoof Beat
Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
by Alexandra Rojek
“When shall we three meet again? In
thunder, lightning, or in rain?” With this
prophesy of the witches begins one of
Shakespeare’s most popular plays, “Macbeth.” As it is also one of the most popularly
produced plays on stage, one may expect
Chicago Shakespeare Theatre’s rendition to
be no different. And as such, when the play
begins, the audience may be thinking that
they have come to the wrong production, as
the play begins with a modern war scene. But
it is indeed “Macbeth” which they have come
to see, and despite the apparently differing
context in which it is performed, audiences
will not be disappointed.
As many high school students learn in
their British literature classes, “Macbeth”
tells of the corruption that absolute power
brings to the play’s title character. It is a tale
of scheming, murder, tyranny, and, in the
end, the conquering of a great evil with truth
and valor. Macbeth, once only the Thane of
Glamis, is awarded the title Thane of Cawdor
due to his bravery in battle, and the witches
foretell that he will be king of Scotland. They
do not, however, tell him by what means
he will become king. As a result of scheming with Lady Macbeth, he murders King
Duncan and is crowned as King of Scotland.
During his rule, he becomes a tyrant, and the
lords of Scotland plot against him, ultimately
killing him in battle. Macbeth is no longer the
same person at the end and is confused about
the meaning of life, if there is one at all.
With all of the hidden allusions in
Shakespeare’s original play, “Macbeth” is
challenging for any director to portray. Director Barbara Gaines pulls off her adaptation
of one of Shakespeare’s most extreme plays
perfectly, connecting what some think is
antiquated Shakespeare to an audience of the
modern world.
The modern setting and costumes of
Gaines’ production invoke more than meets
the eye. The play is still set in Scotland and
its overall idea remains the same, but the
costumes associated with the modern times
offer a new perspective. The army uniforms
and the promiscuous clothes of the witches
in a strip club scene all add to the sense that
Gaines is trying to convey a message to the
audience about the realities of modern life.
One of Gaines’ goals in this production, as
stated in the play bill, was to mirror the terror
and injustices that still exist in our world today, namely the reign of terror in the Congo
and the corruption of governments in all
parts of the world. Most literature students
view Shakespeare’s plays as outdated, but
due to the setting in modern Scotland of this
production, many of the similarities between
Shakespeare’s world and modern life are
revealed. One of the most striking comparisons is also a recent one: the comparison
of Malcolm’s new rule to that of President
Barack Obama’s. Both leaders bring about a
sense of change and a hope for reform, and it
allows for modern audiences to relate to the
play to an even larger extent.
Most notable are the visual effects present throughout the performance. One of the
more dramatic effects is presented at the time
when Banquo’s ghost, formerly Macbeth’s
comrade, appears to him at a banquet after he
had ordered Banquo’s murder. A gruesome
video of a bloodied Banquo is projected onto
the back of Macbeth’s seat, taunting him, and
frightening him away from the table. Given
the ghastliness of Banquo’s appearance, it is
The Fray is back with
self-titled album
by Carolyn Jeon
The Fray formed in 2002 in Denver
when the members of the band, old schoolmates, bumped into each other at a local
music store. Since then, the close friends
have worked together to write songs and
perform, shaping what the band has become
today. The popularity of The Fray soared
after their release of the debut album “How
to Save a Life” in 2005. The band’s new
self-titled album was released on February
3, 2009.
Their new album is brilliant, featuring
simple but powerful songs with lyrics that
listeners can easily relate to. Lessons learned
in life, misfortunes, and hope is the main
themes of the songs. As in their previous
album, The Fray continues its unique alternative/ pop rock genre because their voice,
or identity, is maintained in this CD.
The track “Syndicate” gives listeners
a general idea about what they will hear
throughout the CD. This song has lyrics
that contain a bit of sentimental value, as
do several other songs in the album such as
“Absolute” and “Happiness,” which makes
such songs pleasant to listen to, since lyrics
such as these is a drawing towards many
young, but more mature listeners such as
high schoolers.
Several songs, such as “Say When,”
have confusing meanings. For example,
some of the words the lead singer, Isaac
Slade, sings sound slurred and difficult to
understand at times. Luckily, because of
“The Fray” features simple but powerful
songs with lyrics listeners can relate to.
Image courtesy of Amazon.com
the tune and the meaning of the lyrics, this
factor does not detract from the song too
much. A few of the main words within it
do not make it difficult to draw conclusions
on the theme of the song, which is mainly
centered on love.
“Never Say Never” and “Ungodly
Hour” were some of the softer songs on
the CD, but their lyrics seem to become
slightly repetitive after a while because the
tunes dragged on. In “Never Say Never,”
Slade keeps repeating the phrase “Don’t
let me go,” multiple times in the song, but
this mostly emphasizes the importance of
this phrase and doesn’t detract the quality
of the song. The song “Ungodly Hour” has
good lyrics, but the tune of the song might
throw the listener off a little. Slade sings in
a higher tone at times, which seems quite
unnecessary.
The most likeable songs to listeners are
probably those in which Slade sings about
life stories, or when the lyrics talk about any
struggles or putting away difficult events
because it makes it easily relatable to others
and makes listeners want to hear more. In
the song “Enough For Now,” Slade sings
about the grandfather or father that never
really showed affection towards his family,
leaving others broken; “That’s enough for
now, I would’ve never left you broken. I
would’ve held you, things your father never
could do. Words your father never told
you,” Slade sings. This song is brilliant
because listeners can interpret it in many
different ways according to anything similar
that has happened in their lives. The lyrics
even give themes of hope at some points
when mentioning any struggles in the song.
For example, in the song “Where the Story
Ends,” the lyrics are, “All we know is distance. We’re close and then we run. Kiss
away the difference.”
In the single “You Found Me,” Slade
sings about how he endured the struggles
in his life through his faith. There are some
points when the lyrics have an angry tone;
“Why’d you have to wait, where were you?”
they sing and the like throughout the song.
Because of these aspects, listeners can find
this song incredibly relatable to their own
lives. This song compliments the album extremely well and seems to complete the CD.
The Fray’s newest album contains
songs that are full of variation and is very
much worth listening to. Listeners will
want to hear even more of what The Fray
can bring because of this CD.
no surprise that Macbeth is
driven to utter madness. At
other times, Macbeth’s soliloquies are projected onto
the backdrop behind him in
real time, emphasizing the
madness of what he says.
This contrasts Malcolm’s
speech at the end, which is
also projected, and signifies
a change in mood, transitioning to one of hope and
change.
Ben Carlson, who
plays Macbeth, and Karen
Aldridge, who plays his wife,
Lady Macbeth, could not
The Chicago Shakespeare Theatre puts a modern spin
have portrayed the depth of on Shakespeare’s classic “Macbeth.”
these characters any better.
Image by Vasiliki Mitrakos
Aldridge developed the charopens the gates when Macduff, a lord, comes
acter of Lady Macbeth so that she seemed to
to visit King Duncan the morning after he is
be a personality created in modern times, and murdered. Although Nussbaum does stray
not centuries ago when Shakespeare wrote
from the original script, it is solely for the
“Macbeth.” Her conscience ultimately led her audience’s enjoyment, as he makes playfully
to commit suicide, as is repulsively portrayed
offensive and creative comments to audience
in this performance by her dead body lying
members he singles out.
in a glass tub full of her own blood, and it
Not only does Gaines’ production bring
presents a fitting backdrop to one of Macaround political parallels meant to make the
beth’s most poetic and convoluted speeches,
audience see how the world has not changed
which begins with the lines, “Tomorrow, and
from Shakespeare’s times, but it also makes
tomorrow, and tomorrow.” It is also one that
evident the questions about humanity and
the British Literature students of Mr. John
human nature which Shakespeare once
Hahm, English department, have come to
intended in his play. Gaines’ production
know quite well and questions the meaning
emphasizes these questions, making the
of life and one’s very existence. Shakespeare
Chicago Shakespeare Theatre’s rendition of
himself would have been satisfied with the
“Macbeth” relevant to modern life and espeway in which Carlson invoked meaning to
cially appealing to younger audiences. It is a
Macbeth’s words.
refreshing take on an old play, and even those
The wittiest character of the play is the
who are not longtime fans of Shakespeare
Porter, played by Mike Nussbaum, who
will enjoy it.
Unexpected triumph
“Slumdog Millionaire” resonates
with emotion and creativity
version of “Who Wants
To Be A Millionaire?”
Moments before his
final question, the game
show ends for a day’s
break and Jamal is
taken to an investigator due to suspicions
of cheating. The story
unfolds as he explains
how and why he knew
the answer for every
question to the investigators. It turns out that
each question Malik,
played by Dev Patel,
was asked during the
game show had been a
crucial point in his life,
each separate moment
ranging from his young
“Slumdog Millionaire” tells the
touching story of a boy from the age to the present. The
slums whose life gets changed
movie begins in the
forever.
present, during Jamal’s
Image courtesy of Amazon.com
investigation, and uses
flashbacks to chronicle
by Andriana Mitrakos
his journey throughout life
The recently Oscar-nomiuntil his story reaches the monated film, “Slumdog Milment he decided to be on the
lionaire,” based on the novel
show, which is the opening
written by Vikas Swarup, hit
scene.
select theaters this November
The flashbacks into
with a minimal initial recogniJamal’s history show how retion that soon bloomed into
lationships between characters
critical acclaim, high rankdevelop and deteriorate with
ing awards, and nationwide
time. Ties within family and
release. This heartwarmfriends are tested throughing film, about friendship,
out the movie as Jamal’s
love, and family ties, has an
unpredictable and twisted plot character slowly drifts away
from his brother Salim and
depicting various aspects of
closer to his love Latika. The
a Mumbai teen’s life, which
interesting portrayal of each
keeps its viewers interested
character by the talented
until the very end.
actors holds viewers’ excite“Slumdog Millionaire”
ment and anticipation. Each
opens with the question:
character is appropriately
“Jamal Malik is one question
developed and his personalaway from winning twenty
ity is reflected by his experimillion rupees. How did he
ences. The strong emotional
do it? A) He cheated B) He’s
connection between two of
lucky C) He’s a genius or D)
the major characters, Jamal
It was written.” The film deand Latika, played by Freida
picts an uneducated peasant,
or slumdog, from the destitute Pinto, amuses the viewers.
Their relationship had been
areas of India who becomes
torn apart many times during
a contestant on the Indian
their lifetime through unfortunate situations, until the
very end of the movie when
the two were safely reunited
and shared the kiss they had
longed for.
The film intertwines
Jamal’s struggles as a young
homeless boy with his
unyielding love for Latika,
the girl from the slums that
he knew from childhood. By
weaving Jamal’s memories in
with the present interrogation,
the director, Danny Boyle,
creates a unique plotline that
has the audience searching for
the next experience that answers the following questions.
At times, some questions
asked during the game show
seemed impossible for Malik
to answer, such as “Who first
invented the rifle?”, but when
the movie reverts to his past
experiences, each answer
is intricately derived from
moments of fear, joy, love,
excitement, and disappointment throughout Jamal’s
life. The director breaks the
monotonous pattern of question, answer, and flashback
scenes by allowing the stories
of his past to continue and
reverting to the question after
the appropriate memory is
shown, allowing the viewers
to understand Jamal’s reasoning on their own.
Nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards,
Slumdog Millionaire is an
artwork in itself that has
earned the honor of recognition. The vibrant colors and
depiction of India, from the
slums to the skyscrapers, work
harmoniously to portray each
instance of Jamal’s complex
life. The movie continues to
excite viewers throughout the
country and will remain in
the minds of the millions who
watch it.
February 2009
Arts and Entertainment No laughs for “Mall Cop”
“Paul Blart: Mall Cop” fails to deliver
by Adira Levine
You would have to search
hard to find a movie much
worse than “Paul Blart: Mall
Cop.” Considering that this
movie, about a mall cop and
his efforts to save the mall, is
marketed as a comedy, there
is nothing humorous about it.
Rather, it is full of offensive
stereotypes and an unrealistic
sequence of events.
The plot of “Paul Blart:
Mall Cop” is utterly ridiculous. It is based on an
unattractive, overweight mall
security guard named Paul
Blart (Kevin James), who is
looking to get remarried. He
falls in love with Amy (Jayma
Mays), a young hair accessory saleswoman who works
at the mall. Everything he
does suddenly becomes an
effort to impress her. When
a band of thieves takes over
the mall and takes shoppers
hostage, Paul determines to
save the mall when he learns
that Amy and his daughter
are among the hostages.
Before the hostage situation arises in the second half
of the movie, Blart’s actions
are virtually unvarying, as
every scene seems to revolve
around Amy. The idea that a
young woman would like an
obnoxious, middle-aged man
who is practically stalking her
is completely ridiculous, but
this theme is a major premise
of this movie. The movie
goes out of its way to make
sure that Amy sees Blart’s
bad side, from his weird
knowledge of true facts to
an embarrassing sequence of
events while drunk at a party.
After witnessing all of Paul’s
flaws, it only makes it worse
that Amy likes this strange
man she barely knows.
The humor in this movie
is virtually nonexistent.
There are no witty lines.
The obvious attempts to
evoke laughter come from
physical actions such as
being dragged across the
floor, crashing into minivans, and walking into walls
and doors. However, these
actions are so often recycled
that they fail to be funny.
Weight is a ubiquitous theme in “Paul Blart:
Mall Cop,” as Blart and
mall shoppers constantly
make jokes about it or are
ridiculed because of it.
Blart’s eating habits are
overemphasized, and his
hypoglycemia, or low blood
glucose, is made into something comical as a way to
further portray his necessity
for food, particularly sugar.
This can easily be deemed
offensive as hypoglycemia is
a serious medical condition.
Other stereotypes in the
movie include mall security
guards, who are portrayed
as lazy and uneducated, and
many racial stereotypes.
The violent scenes that
ensue between the attackers,
the hostages, and Blart are
preposterously unrealistic.
A real unarmed, untrained
mall security guard would
never stand a chance against
several trained attackers
brandishing guns and other
weapons, let alone be able to
take them down. The other
problem with the attackers
in the movie is that they
seemed too benign, more
interested in their acrobatics
than their weapons and their
Oh Henry!
Dance or
supervised orgy?
by Alice Henry
There is nothing humorous about “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,”
a so-called comedy about a mall cop’s efforts to save the
mall from thieves.
Image courtesy of Amazon.com
mission. There is no reason
why Blart should have posed
any obstacle in their path to
accomplish their objective of
gaining credit card numbers.
In an empty, enormous mall,
they could have easily gotten
the data and left. The violence was too set up for Paul
Blart to emerge as a hero,
and it suffered because of its
transparency.
“Paul Blart: Mall Cop”
is a major disappointment.
It is neither comical nor
remotely believable. Its plot is
uninteresting and predictable,
and most of the characters
never fully develop or change
throughout the course of
the movie. The movie is an
unfortunate waste of time
and money.
“I’m seven, but I look a lot older”
“Benjamin Button” is a movie for the ages
“The Curious
Case of Benjamin
Button” is about a
boy in the early 1900s.
Benjamin is a unique
boy, as he was born
like an elderly man
with arthritis, wrinkles, and cataracts.
But as he grows older
and older, his body
grows younger and
younger, and around
the age of seven he
finally gets out of
his wheelchair and
learns to walk. Over
time, Benjamin meets
Daisy, the granddaughter of one of the
elderly people he lives
with, and she becomes
his first friend—then
his first love. “Benjamin Button” is not a
story about a boy, but
actually a story about
the unusual challenges
these two people face
when in love.
“Benjamin Button’s” script is cleverly
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is the story of executed; the viewer
a boy who is born an elderly man and grows younger will be quite surprised
to find humor in such
as he ages.
a sad story. Yet the
Image courtesy of Amazon.com
witticisms of many of
by Sarah Schoonhoven
the individual characters are what make
“I was thinking how nothing lasts,
this story memorable. Besides clever
and what a shame that is,” Benjamin
nuances, the storyline itself was sublime.
Button, the movie’s title character, said.
No part of the plot felt drawn out or unLuckily for audiences, however, “The
necessary, and by the end of the story, all
Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
loose ends had been properly tied up.
did last—almost a full three hours, and
The main reason for the movie’s
throughout the entire screening one
great length is the development of even
could not help but hope for it to be a
minor characters. Throughout Benjalittle longer.
min’s life, many people come and go,
and each one has a certain significance
and back-story. In the end, most, if not
all, somehow tie back to Benjamin’s
story. This valuable script trait has been
missing in action in most recent movies,
such as the historical flick “Valkyrie,”
and makes the movie all the more interesting. It is a delight to actually empathize with the characters, rather than
merely watch them; and the characters
in this movie are all quite deserving of
empathy.
The cast of “Benjamin Button”
was stellar. Brad Pitt made an incredibly convincing protagonist, and Cate
Blanchett, his stunning but self-absorbed
love interest, was phenomenal as well.
Perhaps the best actress in the film, however, was Taraji P. Henson, Benjamin’s
adopted mother. She admirably took
Benjamin in and made him a home,
while making the entire movie credible.
As the owner of a retirement home who
takes the abandoned baby Benjamin in,
one cannot help but fall in love with this
sweet, old-fashioned mother. Henson is
nominated for a well-deserved Oscar for
Best Supporting Actress for this role.
Alongside the acting, the digital effects were superior as well. Throughout
the film, it was impossible to tell that
Benjamin Button was not actually growing younger. From the wrinkly baby to
the early-twenties young man, Benjamin
was very believable - so much, in fact,
that it is hard to tell which Benjamins’
are played by Pitt and which are played
by someone else.
As Benjamin said, nothing lasts,
and this movie did not last nearly long
enough; it is definitely a picture audiences will watch again and again. Until
it comes out on DVD, nevertheless, audiences will be waiting for time to move
backwards with Benjamin once again.
Page 11
High school dances are
in deep need of a cultural
phenomena; specifically the
music and accompanying
dances. It recently came to
my attention that the theatrics displayed at Northside’s
esteemed homecoming
dance this year (theatrics,
since what took place could
hardly be called dancing), and at most dances
during high school, might
be linked to the depletion
of good hip-hop music
in America’s mainstream
culture.
In every decade, teenagers and people of all ages
have gone to dances for
enjoyment. Whether it was
a sock hop or a swing, disco
or steps, music and dance
have defined cultural and
social events for every era
of American life. However,
if there is no defining music
in a decade, there can be no
specific dance accompaniment. Without a music
phenomenon, a jumble of
steps and hormones will
take over school dances, as
apparent at our own dance
events.
Juking is not dancing.
Large attendance at a dance
cannot be founded on
attendees looking forward
to juking, unless their
hormones happen to be
raging. This could explain
the high number of teenagers that attend dances.
However, that changes the
event from a dance to an
orgy with parental supervision. Although there are
chaperones, they have little
effect on minimizing any
scandal that may occur at
the dance. Students seem
to only go to dances for the
before and after parties. In
simpler terms: to get drunk
and high. A dance’s most
talked about feature should
not be girls throwing up in
garbage cans and guys getting caught in not so kosher
acts. The notable events
used to be dance-offs.
Although a bit cliché, these
would definitely be preferable to watching people
that walk the hallways of
Northside everyday making
fools of themselves.
Granted these rituals
probably existed before
dances, they no longer
included any dancing. They
were not the sole incentives
to go to a dance. Dancing
used to have some appeal
to it. People used to go to
dances on weekends for
the dance, not just to get
wasted. Movies like “Footloose,” “Saturday Night Fever,” “Grease,” “Chicago,”
and “Save the Last Dance”
could never have existed if
there hadn’t been musical
and dance genre to back
them up. If a generation
is defined by their music
and dance or their culture,
the decade we are living in
now might as well not exist.
There is just no significant
culture to back us up. The
Top 40 might as well give
up, shrivel, and die; there is
nothing good to advertise to
teenagers anymore.
Perhaps the root of
the degradation into bopping and humping around
drunkenly during dances is
because the music we listen
to and dance to just does
not meet the standards past
decades had. Granted there
was a large population that
did not like disco music,
there was still a culture
based on that music. The
music we listen to today is
just leftovers of the hip-hop
movement that had its peak
during the 90s, and one
could argue maybe at the
beginning of the 2000s.
However nowadays all that
any artist can do is cover
past songs or mash and
distort them until a song
that seems new is produced.
Either that or artists just use
simple, overused beats with
monotone rapping over it.
Whatever one may
blame for high school dances quick descent into the
dark abyss where originality
and creativity have no place
to exist, everyone should be
praying for a quick change,
a significant, speedy music
and dance revolution. Not
Dance Dance Revolution
though.
“A dance’s most talked about feature should not
be girls throwing up in garbage cans and guys
getting caught in not so kosher acts.”
Image by Vasiliki Mitrakos
February 2009 Editorials
Something all seniors should know Mélange
by Riaz Shaikh
Every senior remembers both the
pros and cons of their final year in high
school. Apart from the year’s highlights
and liberating prospect of graduating,
senior year is most memorable because of
the college application process. Yes, the
same process which juniors so eagerly anticipate, is best described as a brand-new
lazy-boy; except, instead of being covered
by a hand-made woolen accessory, it’s
damp, mossy, and sprinkled with wooden
splinters. In all, it amounts to a great pain
in the rumpus.
Seniors are constantly complaining
about the impediments of “college-apps”
and the straining system of redundancy.
Students spend countless hours pruning essays, presenting biographical and
financial information, studying for
standardized tests, and soliciting recommendations, all the while maintaining
their grades and extracurricular responsibilities. The most frustrating part: each
college asks for the same information but
in a different format.
Finally after months of commotion
and stress the applications are submitted
and students nervously await their results.
Here comes the Tom Cruise paradoxical climax. So what do seniors do after
college apps, other than catch-up with
sleep and return to a regular social life?
They focus on their financial aid. The
Free Application for Federal Student Aid
(FAFSA) is just the first layer of topping.
A normal “Northside” student will go
above and beyond FAFSA and attack the
little cubby-hole full of monthly scholar-
ships in the Counseling Office.
On average, the Counseling Office
provides a total of 30-40 scholarships of
various genres and academic interests.
Some scholarships are need-based, others
merit. Most of these scholarships entail
the same requirements: transcript, recommendation, and small writing supplements. It’s safe to say that they are not
overbearingly difficult, and that students
– specifically Northside students – have a
very strong chance at winning at least a
couple of these scholarships.
“Yes, good, try, you-betcha”: just a
snippet of what we hear about scholarships. On the surface, much advice about
scholarships is positively encouraged.
Private scholarships are hyped-up to be
super-important bonuses just hovering
over our oblivious heads. Too bad they
may not weigh as much as they’re worth.
Every college accepts scholarships; the
question is how they accept them. Some
colleges – and this isn’t confirmed by
all – but some colleges actually deduct
private scholarships from the financial
aid packages that you receive. Say, for
example, the annual tuition fee is $40K,
and you receive $20K in financial aid
(including FAFSA). Now, as the superstar-student that you are, you bring $5K
of private, self-earned, merit-based,
scholarship money to the table. Your
expecting this $5K to be your savior, your
young-money secret-weapon: WRONG!
Instead, the college stoops down in front
of you grabs the money, deducts it from
your financial-aid package, hands you a
fresh-smelling t-shirt, and sends you off
to first block.
By the time you finish scratching
yourself, wondering what just happened,
your money has been “G-snatched,” and
you are stuck where you would have been
three months ago before you sat down to
fill out your first scholarship application.
So instead of having to pay only $15K,
you are paying the same amount, except
all your effort and hard-work which
won you the scholarship was wasted. In
all, the college is abusing its power and
exploiting your work to benefit there own
financial needs.
Surely, there must be some cure, some
safe-guard, a buffer of some sort. Well,
in the words of Captain Planet, “Yes.”
There is one alternative: check. Before
you sit down, with your favorite gel pen
and pad of paper, check with the colleges
that you’re applying to about their policy
concerning private scholarships. To date,
there isn’t any Google search with the answer, so you’re going to have to confirm it
for yourself.
The benefit: you don’t have to waste
time filling out scholarship applications
for colleges who aren’t going to give you
the credit anyway. Does this mean that
you shouldn’t apply for scholarships at
all? No. There was a reason that cubbyhole was made; it was carved into the
wall by a chisel and hammer by the hands
of some honorary city construction
worker ten-years ago for one and only
one reason: to house scholarship printouts. Plus, why ignore free money that
you have a legitimate chance of winning,
especially when it’s right in front of you?
Fun with Della and Senor Conejo!
by Gigi Lee
Page 13
White History
Month
by Melissa Jordan
Like clockwork, every February is accompanied by
schools and communities across the nation celebrating Black History Month. Originally conceived by Dr.
Carter G. Woodson in 1926 as “Negro History Week,”
its purpose was to draw attention to the contributions
of blacks during a time when blacks were relegated to
little or no positive representation in history books.
For several years now, the need for Black History
Month has been debated. Americans have arrived to a
point in time when a person consistently referred to as
“black” and “African-American” by news sources and
magazines holds the single most important office in
America. A majority of Americans look to President
Obama for hope for the future. Since President Obama
is admired and respected, is the original reason for
Black History Month still relevant?
If the original reason for a black history celebration was to gain respect for enterprising blacks, then
it may not be currently relevant. However, another
possible reason for Black History Month as it exists
today may be the lack of connection to a specific
African country. Because of the slave trade, some African-Americans may not know their specific ancestral
country or countries, and a celebration of all AfricanAmericans replaces celebrations of specific cultural
heritage. While the original reason behind Black History Month is no longer applicable, a rationale for the
celebration remains.
The culture of America does little to unify its citizens when American culture is a modernized patchwork of cultures of immigrants. Americans, especially
of our age, are identified more along racial lines--think
school applications--than anything else.
Race, as treated by celebrations like Black History
Month, is the most unifying yet general category for
any segment of Americans. This kind of celebration focusing on the contributions of one race allows
people of that group to gather together and celebrate
a common culture. One might argue that America
is “the melting pot,” but that phrase originally only
applied to European immigrants. The idea that differences can unify a nation as diverse as America is
simply half-baked.
More than any previous generations, the current
and future generations of Americans of European ancestry need a White History Month. I do not advocate
this out of envy for Black History Month, but rather,
out of an awareness of how whites define themselves.
At one time, whites were able to simply define themselves by their ethnicity: Polish-American, Irish-American, German-American, and the list goes on.
Now more than ever white Americans are becoming a fusion of several European ethnicities. And
somehow, the more countries one places in front of
the word “American,” the more impractical it sounds.
Further, it is simply not in vogue anymore for
families to keep detailed family trees. Originally, the
family Bible acted as a place to record family history
on the inside covers. The Bible also acted as an expandable file for birth, marriage, and death certificates
as well as other important documents. In this secular
era of hustle and bustle, we rely on websites such as
ancestry.com for family history. The sad fact is, this
is often time consuming and discouraging when electronic records cannot be found. If people turn to hard
copies that may also prove to be as difficult a search.
The wooden buildings of yesteryear that housed
hardcopies of documents had the unfortunate habit of
catching fire.
Between the ethnic fusion that whites are more
frequently experiencing as well as a lack of records,
whites are loosing their roots. If the new reason
behind Black History Month is to celebrate the history
of a people who are uncertain about their ancestral
nations, then clearly whites are in need of a history
month as well.
As supporters of Black History Month will tell
you, it is important for people to embrace their history.
The same holds true for whites. We live in a time
when the art of keeping a book of family history is
dying. In a time of extra-sensitivity when the negative
points in our history are dwelled upon, and the many
positive points are ignored; in a time when white
Americans seem to be loosing their sense of familial pride and human dignity, it is time to celebrate a
White History Month.
Let us take a moment to remember just a few
white Americans who made priceless contributions
to our American history: Jane Addams, founder of
the U.S. settlement house movement; Clara Barton,
organizer of the American Red Cross; Daniel Boone,
pioneer and folk hero; Thomas Edison, inventor and
businessman; Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father
and inventor; Charles A. Lindbergh, inventor and
explorer; Florence Nightingale, nurse and statistician;
General George Patton, U.S. Army officer; Betsy
Ross, creator of the first U.S. flag; St. Elizabeth Ann
Seton, first American to be canonized; Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, social activist; George Washington, general,
president, and Founding Father; Orville and Wilbur
Wright, inventors of the first successful airplane;
Frank Lloyd Wright, architect.
Page14
14
Page
Editorials
Sports
The
TheHoof
Hoof Beat
Beat
“You Better Don’t”
Northside’s varsity cheerleading competition results
by Krystn Collins
Northside’s cheerleading squad participated in the Illinois High School Association’s (IHSA) Cheerleading Competition
at Downer’s Grove South High School,
competing against 15 other high schools.
Arriving around 11:00 a.m. on January
31, the team practiced before actually competing against their opponents in the Large
Varsity Division, which included squads
from such schools as Loyola Academy,
Evanston Township, and Hershey High
School. Northside was the only Chicago
Public School (CPS) competing in the
tournament.
In the IHSA tournament, the squad
was competing in a higher division than
their usual, Large instead of Medium,
meaning that they faced larger squads. Because of this fact, the Northside cheerleaders were outmatched and did not place in
the top three spots.
“We competed at a huge disadvantage
because you are entered by the size of
your school and how many girls they feel
you should have versus the actual number
of girls on our team,” Mr. Victor Hicks,
cheerleading coach, said. “Because Northside is selective-enrollment, our enrollment is multiplied by 1.65, which places
us against schools with twice the number
of actual students we have. However, we
still placed sixth, but did not qualify for the
state final.”
However, no tears were shed over the
lack of victory, and it was instead celebrated, the team confident that they had
given their best performance yet.
“[The cheerleaders] were a lot better
than last year,” Spectator Lauren Casapao,
Adv. 104, said. “I was surprised they
didn’t win.”
Determined to improve the
team’s skills, Mr. Hicks has made
team tumbling classes mandatory
and is insisting that all Northside
cheerleaders try out for a spot on the
city competition team in preparation
for the City Championships, which
takes place in late February.
“This year’s city competition
promises to be a very exciting one for
NCP,” Hicks said. “After a controversial loss to rival Mather High School,
we look forward to putting our best
foot forward and bringing the championship to its rightful owner. Unfortunately, CPS does not have a co-ed
division, so we are forced to compete
with schools such as Mather who
have male participants, meaning the
level of stunting is automatically able
to increase. However, considering the
hard work the team and coaching
staff has put in this season, I am confident we will give any competitors a
run for their money. ”
While the team hopes to do
well in the City Championships, the
girls have already started discussing
Northside’s cheerleading team performs at the Homecoming rally in
the skills needed to make the team
preparation for its future competitions.
Photo by Kevin Lee
once again next year. Currently, no
experience is necessary to make the
Only ten to twelve of the seventeen
in order to compete on the city team. Secteam, but is preferred. However, for
girls on the team, however, will be able to
ond, dedication and great work ethic are
next year, Hicks has already decided that
participate in the competition.
also major determining factors as far as the
no girl will make the team without being
“The selection process to choose the
team being chosen. Anyone who presented
able to throw a back handspring. Hicks
city team is based on many factors,” Hicks
themselves as a coachable athlete has a very
also has many plans in store for next year’s
said. “First, the girls were given certain
good chance of competing in this year’s city
Cheerleading Program, some of which
skills which I told them must be mastered
final.”
may include a junior varsity team.
The bowling alley closes its lanes
Northside’s Women’s Bowling Team finishes its season
by Melissa L. España
This year, Northside’s Women’s Bowling
Team changed tremendously with only two
returning players coming back for another
season. This year the team consisted of six
bowlers, Katie Dugan, Adv. 103, Sabrina
Storino, Adv. 105, Samantha Prestigiacomo,
Adv. 103, Charmaine Yonzon, Adv. 102, and
Caeleigh Renkosiak, Adv. 105, who are all
sophomores, and Christine Kerrigan, Adv.
204, the team’s only freshman.
“Our team this year became more of
a sisterhood,” Renkosiak said. “We had a
sleepover, gave each other nicknames, and
made t-shirts. Of course we had our weekly
practice games as well.”
Much like the other sports teams that
Northside has to offer, the bowling team
worked hard everyday of the week. Each
day, the team made their daily commute to
Habetler Bowl—which is located a few miles
away from Northside—where the team held
their daily practices.
Jerry Pringle coached the team again
this year. Although he was the head coach,
throughout the season, the girls received
plenty of help from the boy’s Bowling Team
coach, Coach Pagani.
Aside from preparing themselves for
bowling matches that were held throughout
the season, the team worked hard to excel
in the matches that mattered the most. This
year, the team went to the City Championship and placed fifth out of 12 schools. The
team missed placing fourth by 12 pins.
“We did not expect that at all,” Yonzon
said.
Although the team didn’t place first, it
was a good learning experience for the girls.
“Playing in the play-offs was a good
practice for us,” Yonzon said. “[it] showed
us what to expect when trying to get higher
scores than other teams.”
On February 7, the team went to the
bowling sectionals which were held at Wood
Dale Bowl in Wood Dale, Illinois.
“We [were] prepared for whatever [was]
thrown at us at sectionals,” Renkosiak said.
However, despite the team’s optimistic
attitude going into their performance at
sectionals, the team was defeated and placed
last out of eight schools. It was a surprising
turnaround compared to their success at the
City Championship.
“Sectionals did not go very well,” Storino
said. “The opposing teams were much stronger than our team.”
Although their season is over for the year,
a few of the girls have already decided they
want to come back next year for another
season. The girls are also looking forward to
welcoming new players and experiencing all
the team bonding that comes along with it.
“The team was amazing this season,”
Yonzon said. “[It was] so much better than
last year.”
Sweet dreams, seniors
Lady Mustangs beat Eisenhower on Senior Day
by Sony Kassam
On Tuesday, February 3, Northside’s Women’s Varsity
Basketball Team celebrated their Senior Day and won their
last home game against the Eisenhower Cardinals with a
final score of 62 to 37.
This year’s Senior Day theme was “sweet dreams,
seniors.” The juniors on the team selected a theme that incorporated aspects of the team’s two favorite things: food and
sleep, creating a “perfect Senior Day,” according to Brittney
Mikell, Adv. 904.
“The theme was something along the lines of ‘sleepy
time,’” Mikell said. “[Everyone on the team] made and gave
[the seniors] pillows, blankets, bedtime stories and, of course,
bagels for breakfast. They had to incorporate food somehow.”
Becky Duffy, Adv. 109, further elaborated on the outerwear selection for the seniors on the team.
“We made [the seniors] dress up in red onesies,” Duffy
said.
During the Senior Day game, the Lady Mustangs were
led by Aral Johnson, Adv. 904, who scored 17 points, Lexi
Jones, Adv. 103, who scored 18 points, and Geri McInerney,
Adv. 018, who scored 9 points, giving the team a total of 44
points out of the final 62.
Michael Heavey, Women’s Varsity Basketball Team’s
coach, expressed the team’s feelings of joy over the victory.
“We were very happy with the win,” Coach Heavey said.
“It is always great to get a win on Senior Day.”
Mikell positively commented on the overall outcome of
this year’s Senior Day.
“It was one of the most fun days of my life,” Mikell said,
“especially since we won the game that night. I loved my
Senior Day. It will be one of my favorite memories with both
the team and at [Northside]. I will miss the team more than
anything else.”
Referencing the strong bond the Lady Mustangs have
developed with each other during the
course of the season, Mikell described
the significant lesson they have
learned, which is to be there for one
another.
“We now realize the importance of
the word ‘team’ and all that it entails,”
Mikell said. “We know that we have to
‘hold the rope’ for one another.”
In addition, Coach Heavey stated
his views on the Lady Mustangs’ basketball season as a whole.
“The season overall has had its
ups and downs,” Coach Heavey said.
“Inconsistent play has led to those ups
and downs. We are happy with how
hard the girls are working to continue to improve. They are still trying
to reach their team and individual
goals they set at the beginning of the
season.”
Even with the ups and downs
of the season, Mikell looks toward better seasons to come.
“Overall, the season was successful
in terms of chemistry and that common love for the game,” Mikell said.
“Our record was not that spectacular, Bianca Valdez, Adv. 908, plays defense during a women’s basketball
but perfection is something that comes game.
Photo by Kevin Lee
with more time, which unfortunately
is not available. There’s not much that
Northside nears, Mikell shared a piece of advice for future
I, personally, can do to make future seasons better, due to the
and returning team members regarding the team and playing
fact that I am graduating, but I know that the players remaingames.
ing will improve and learn from past mistakes.”
“Never underestimate the power of the team,” Mikell said,
As the end of the seniors’ final basketball season at
“and always remember that it is all about having fun.”
February 2009 Sports
Page 15
Mustangs ready to take down the
competition
REPLAMen’s
bowling
season ends
The team members offered different
ing on dramatic showdowns and hyped-up
The Northside Wrestling Team is
ways to maintain weight.
match-ups, requires strategy and careful
ready to end its season with the individual
“You don’t eat desserts the night beplanning rather than brute strength. A
regional tournament that will determine
fore [your matches],” Tenzin Wangdhen,
complex point system in wrestling acif certain individual team members will
Adv. 016, said, “and practice while wearcounts for almost every move a wrestler
proceed to the sectionals and state tourna- ing more clothing to lose weight.”
makes; for example, a takedown is 2
ments. The wrestling team has already
Coach Martinez summarized in simpoints, an escape from the bottom is 1
participated in the Frosh-Soph City
pler terms.
point, a reversal is 2 points, and techniChampionships where the freshman-soph“The way to make weight is to eat
cal violations are 1 point. Players must
omore members of the team were able to
smart and practice hard,” Coach Martinez always be a couple moves ahead of their
reach the third round before losing. The
said.
opponent. This mental side of wrestling is
team can redeem itself in the individual
Wrestling is, like any other sport,
often lost on its viewers, but the wrestlers
matches that span three weeks. If the indi- subject to many stereotypes. One of the
are quite aware of its effect.
vidual team members can make it through most despised stereotypes by wrestlers
“Wrestling is physical chess,” Coach
regionals and sectionals, they will qualify
is a result of World Wrestling EntertainMartinez said.
for the state tournament.
ment (WWE), an entertainment company
The wrestling team must keep this in
Although their season has had its ups
that deals primarily with professional
mind while preparing for its upcoming
and downs, the team remains positive in
wrestling, which combines wrestling with
individual tournaments, in which the indiits outlook of the season.
theatrical elements. This type of “profesvidual members of the team must wrestle
“Considering last year, this year has
sional wrestling” is what many perceive
for themselves, without depending on the
been doing much better than I expected,”
wrestling is all about. However, its style
team points to make up for any mistakes.
Antonio Martinez, head coach, said.
of play is subject to some humor on the
Despite having lost in one tournament
The team continues to work out every
wrestling team.
and facing setbacks such as losing all the
day, except Sundays, as a team, either in
“There’s no ‘slapping in’ tag team
senior members, the team remains optithe gym or on the second floor exercise
battles,” Wangdhen said.
mistic for the remaining tournaments and
area. However, it is important for the indiOthers commented on overacting and
what each individual can do.
vidual team members to put in individual
outlandish theatrics.
“The first tournament was for the
effort for the team.
“There’s no props: no chairs, tables, or freshman and sophomores,” Emilio
“The whole point of a wrestling team
ladders,” Seth Brecklin, Adv. 101, said.
Sanchez, Adv. 011, said. “It’s time for the
is individual effort plus team effort,”
High school wrestling, instead of relyjuniors to show what they can do.”
Coach Martinez said. “Wrestling is like
no other sport in that way.”
Wrestling requires such individual
effort because of the setup of weight
classes, which determines which opponents individual members of the team
will face according to their weight. In
accordance to the weight classes set
forth by the National Federation of State
High School Associations (NFHS), the
Northside Wrestling Team, and every
other high school in the nation, there
are fourteen weight classes that range
from 103 to 285 lbs. Maintaining weight
classes requires work and diligence from
team members because it is important
for wrestlers to keep their weight at the
upper limit of their class in hopes of
gaining an advantage in over their competitors. If they go over a certain weight,
they lose their advantage when they are
pushed into the next weight class.
“Every person on the team has a
specific weight class, and if they don’t
make that weight class, then the team
loses points,” Coach Martinez said. “If
you don’t make weight, you don’t get to
Ryan Walsh, Adv. 209, battles an opponent during a wrestling match.
wrestle. It’s one of those things that make Photo courtesy of the Northside Wrestling Team
it more mentally challenging.”
by Olympia Eldorrado
Wrestling team prepares for future matches
by Timothy Suh
Northside’s Bowling Team enjoys the spot that
entertains over 100 million people in more than 90
countries. As Northside’s men’s bowling season
comes to a close, the team is able to reflect on how
successful it was in meeting its goals. For most
athletic teams, one may assume that the main focus
would be to win. That was not the case for this team.
They focused on the more important things.
“We just wanted to become good friends while
becoming better bowlers and having fun,” Christian
Schmuck said, Adv. 203.
The team felt that it was successful in meeting
their goals. Their strategies for the season were to do
their best and not to worry about winning or losing.
They focused on the quality of their games, not just
the quantity of wins. Because of this, they were able
to enjoy the time they spent bowling. They were not
overly focused on achieving the highest amount of
points in the end. Their focus remained on having a
good time.
“Every practice and tournament was a blast,”
Schmuck said.
The team had a busy season. Tuesdays were
practice at Habetler Bowl and they attended tournaments every Thursday. During practices, the team
worked on their bowling skills but also was able to
get to know one another. Joining a sports team has
always been a way to meet new people and to get
outside of one’s comfort zone; that was what this
team did.
Although their record was disappointing, the
team was still able to enjoy themselves. They pushed
themselves and improved during the season. They
had some important moments. They ended Taft’s
undefeated streak during one tournament.
The team gives a lot of the credit to their coach,
Ramon Pagan. Out of the thirty years that he has
been bowling; this season was his first time coaching a team. His plan was to get to know the men on
his team. Pagan set the right example for the team
by maintaining a positive attitude throughout the
season. Through increasing the team’s confidence,
he was able to unite the students and help them improve their bowling techniques. During practices and
games, the team became great friends.
“He was a good coach. He didn’t get angry or try
to change how we bowl completely but he did give us
pointers on how we could become more accurate,”
Schmuck said.
The team was not only focused on expert bowlers. Beginners joined in as well.
“I had been to a bowling alley a few times but
I had never been in leagues or anything,” Schmuck
said.
The team was successful through each player’s
commitment. Every student had high expectations
for themselves. They reached their individual and
team goals this season.
After finishing fourth in city championships, men’s
swim team hopeful for rest of season and next year
by Alessandra Power
Newcomer to the team Issac Howenstine, Adv. 205, won
the diving contest to lead the Northside Men’s Varsity Swimming Team to a fourth place finish in the Men’s Varsity City
Championship of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), with
a total score of 229 points. The winning team of the event,
held on Friday, February 6, at the University of Illinois at
Chicago, was Lane Tech.
The city championships was the team’s last chance to
compete against all of the swim teams in the CPS system, as
only the top placers of the championship go on to the next
competition. Though it was the first time in six years that
the team did not place third, many of the team members had
their best times, and the team is shooting to rank third place
or higher at next year’s championships.
“I wish them all the luck,” Fabian Flexas, Adv. 900,
senior, said. “I believe that they want to get third at city, so by
working hard I believe that they can do it.”
So far, the season has gone well despite some rocky parts,
particularly in attendance. The team lacked the experience of
recent years because many players graduated after last year.
“This season was probably not the best ever,” head swim
coach Carlos Ceja said. “The team’s not as big as it could’ve
been, or was. We lost a lot of key players last year. Next year
is definitely going to be a rebuilding year.”
Some meets which team members felt were memorable
were the meet against Lane Tech, winning the Senior Day
meet, and the city championships.
When asked how well he thought the swimmers did, both
at the city championships and in general this season, coach
Carlos Ceja responded, “As long as they all did their personal
best and give it all they got, I mean, what more can you ask
for.”
The first event was the 200-yard medley relay, in which
Northside’s relay team ended in sixth place, with a time of
1:54.11. The third event was the 200-yard individual medley,
in which Flexas came in fifth place with a timing of 2:12.81
far they have each come, [I am] so happy for each and every
seconds.
one of them. Some of these guys have been with me all four
Event five was the one-meter diving contest between
years, others two, but seeing their accomplishments and
Issac Howenstine and Morgan Park’s Timothy Lewis. Both
failures have made this lesson so great.”
swimmers had five alternating rounds in front of three judges.
Thus, the team focuses not on the lower ranking in the
Issac’s overall score was 255, and Morgan Park’s Timothy’s
city championships, but instead looks forward to the rest of
overall score was 215.3, giving the crown to Issac.
the season and next year.
Event seven was the 100-yard
freestyle, in which Joe Wat, Adv.
904, ended with a close fourth place
ranking and a time of 54.08. Event
ten was the 100-yard backstroke, in
which Wat ended in fourth place at
a time of 1:00.95.
The final event of the day was
the 400-yard freestyle relay, in which
Northside’s relay team came in at
fourth place, at 3:39.97.
The team was supportive of
each other throughout the whole
season and during the city championships.
“[We were] talking to each
other throughout the meet,” Flexas
said, “keeping each other pumped,
really making sure that everyone felt
okay.”
On February 21, the Illinois
State Sectionals were held, and
upcoming events will include the
Illinois State Preliminaries on February 27 and the Illinois State Finals
on the 28th, both of which will be at
New Trier.
Fabian Flexas, Adv. 900, and Mike Figura, Adv. 909, swim with kickboards to
“Looking at everyone after
practice for the city championship meet.
city,” said Flexas, “and seeing how Photo by Alessandra Power
Page 16 A bonus
with
Yonas
One sport, one path
by Yonas Zewdie
Many budding athletes do not realize that, from
the moment they decide to play sports, they are forced
to do some marginal analysis, if I may invoke the
microeconomic principle. For those of you who are
unfamiliar with the term, marginal analysis is a type
of analytical framework that you use when facing decisions of “either-or.” In this case, athletes must make
a choice whether to stick to one sport or to pursue
multiple. From the time when athletes stop playing tag
and dodge ball and start playing real sports, they have
to decide which sports to play, and whether they will
specialize in one sport or play multiple.
Some athletes opt to participate in numerous
sports throughout the calendar year through leagues,
clubs, and school teams. Some of these athletes possess uncommon athletic ability and a certain affinity
for the sports which they are playing, which enables
them to continuously perform well at the highest stages
of competition. Conversely, some athletes who choose
to play multiple sports find themselves as a “jacks of
all trades” but masters of none.
Then there are those who choose the solitary path
of one sport. These athletes are often, regardless of
natural endowments or athletic ability, quite good at
their sport of choice. Their skill comes from good oldfashioned hard work – numerous repetitions of drills
and hours of game time and practices. The result is an
athlete that has reached the pinnacle of finesse in their
sport due to their razor-like focus on reaching perfection in their specific sport. So naturally, while there are
benefits of being both a numerous sport athlete and
being a one-sport athlete, I am more inclined to argue
on behalf of the latter.
However, my reasons - or anyone else’s - for taking
the route of the one-sport athlete depend upon his or
her motives for sticking with the one sport. Am I the
type of person that wants to possibly go professional
in that sport? Am I attempting to establish my rank
among others interested in a similar sport?
If you have ambitions to play beyond the varsity
level of high school, then your time would probably
best be served focusing on one sport. Think of each
additional sport that you play as an opportunity cost.
To clarify my meaning, each additional sport you play
means less time to focus on each sport individually.
The next logical step is to state that to become good
at a sport - that is to say, attain mastery in a sport
beyond that of natural talent – you must invest time
and energy in that sport. If you play three sports – say
soccer, basketball, and volleyball – and assuming
that as an average student, you have a grand total of
ten hours in a week to dedicate to your sport-related
training, spending five hours on basketball, means you
only have a total of five hours remaining to divvy up
between soccer and volleyball. Every additional sport
comes at a cost, ultimately in skill of another sport.
For a more common example, if you’re in training
for basketball during winter, you’re missing out on
pre-season conditioning and team meetings which may
adversely affect your performance in that sport. Now,
if you were to drop basketball for instance and focused
on volleyball entirely, you would be able to join a club
or travel team and progressively take your game to the
next level.
Furthermore, one of the biggest problems that
multiple–sport athletes face is that they often get out of
touch with one of their sports during the off-season or
while training in another sport and must spend a few
days and/or weeks getting back into game-time fitness
as they fine tune their sport-specific skills. However, if
one was to focus exclusively upon one sport throughout the year, the rust factor and the lack of conditioning would not really be an issue.
Additionally most sports have a mental element
to them; that is to say, there is a certain amount – or
rather a particular type – of intelligence required to
successfully compete in them. If you live, eat, think,
and breathe one sport all the time, imagine how much
sharper you would be at the technical and mental aspects of the sport. Finally, playing the sport year round
will probably give you a lot of game time experience,
and as such would boost your confidence during the
traditional season for that sport, so that you can truly
put your skills on display. Indeed, the one-sport, one
path motto is for me.
Sports
The Hood Beat
Men’s Sophomore Basketball Team
goes down fighting
In the fourth quarter, the
Mustangs made a comeback.
Dan Kosmala, Adv. 105, was
the game’s high scorer for
Northside with 11 points,
scoring six of those in the
fourth quarter alone. Northside
managed to score a total of
13 points. During that time
Northside had five steals and
breakaways in the last quarter,
with Alex Luke, Adv. 107,
and Fabian Lara, Adv. 206,
scoring on two of these. This
brought the team to
within three points of
Mather’s score.
The Mustangs
used a lot of plays on
offense. Coach Derek
Rubino would shout
the name of a play
from the bench, and
the Northside players would repeat it
around the court.
“Sometimes
points will come
from the way the
play goes,” Keuhn
said, “but other times
there are some variations from the way
we do it in practice.”
The Mustangs
Nick Dolleton, Adv. 109, and Alex Luke, Adv. 107, go for a rebound
also had problems
on a shot by Dan Kosmala, Adv. 105.
with holding on
Photo by Dan Graham
by Dan Graham
The Northside Men’s Sophomore Basketball Team’s final
home game was on Saturday,
January 31 against Mather.
The game was off to a slow
start, with no points scored in
the first minute and a half. At
the two-minute mark, Mather
made the game’s first basket,
and then added two more
points with another one. Soon
thereafter, Spencer Kennedy,
Adv. 110, was fouled and
scored on his second foul shot,
making that Northside’s first
point of the game. At the end
of the quarter, the score was
only 3–8 for Mather.
In the second and third
quarters, Northside had many
missed opportunities, and
some shots that barely missed
the basket. They were trailing
Mather by more than 10 points
for a few minutes of the third
quarter, the biggest lead Mather
had all evening.
to the ball later in the game,
despite the many points they
scored.
“One thing we’ve had problems with all year is too many
turnovers,” George Kolovos,
Adv. 100, said. “If you don’t
have the ball, you can’t win the
game.”
Northside did rally in
the last quarter, but it wasn’t
enough. The final score of the
game was 33 – 38 for Mather.
“We didn’t play poorly,”
Keuhn said. “Mather had a lot
of skilled players, and a few of
them played up to varsity. We
ended up losing, but not by
much.”
Though they played well,
the players weren’t exactly
happy with the outcome of
their final game at Northside.
“It was a little disappointing, considering it was our
last home game, and we lost,”
Kolovos said.
Though there are no
playoffs for the sophomores,
the team has more games to
play away from home and will
continue to improve as a team.
“Hopefully, over the summer they will continue to get
better,” Rubino said, “and
become great varsity players
next year.”
Varsity basketball’s ups and downs
Mustangs lose, win, and lose again
by Subhan Ali
The Northside Men’s Varsity
Basketball Team suffered a disappointing loss against Steinmetz on February
6, losing by only two points in a key
second round playoff game at home.
The loss eliminated the Mustangs from
the CPS playoffs.
“That game was the key to us going
further in the playoffs,” Jemine said.
The other teams that team would
have played in the subsequent rounds
were teams which Northside had
already beaten earlier on in the season.
The team felt that it should have not
only won against Steinmetz, but won
by a large margin.
“We should have won by 15 or 20,”
Albert Lin, Adv. 902, said.
The team maintained a lead for
most of the game, ending the third
quarter 33-28. However, outscored by
Steinmetz in the fourth, the team lost
44-42.
Spectators had their own comments
about the Mustangs’ performance.
“They’re like the Bulls,” Tyler
The coach of the varsity basketball team instructs Craig Melhuse, Adv. 908, as he
Throop, Adv. 018, said. “Do good for plays defense.
the first three quarters, then let the fans Photo by Kevin Lee
down in the last.”
“I had a better defensive game Friday,” by. The team felt that it played better than
Team members were also disapJemine said. “The blocks gave the team
it did at Mather, but still constructively
pointed with their own on-court perforsome energy that we lost from not convert- criticized its own style of play.
mance.
ing on offense.”
“We had too many turnovers and
“We should have put them away in the
Throughout the season, the team has
allowed them to score too much,” Jemine
third, but instead we let them hang around
lost several games to teams which it feels it said.
and [we] paid for it,” Nathan Raichel,
should have beat.
Jemine felt Richards should’ve been
Adv. 909, said.
“But then again that is the story of our held to a maximum of 40 points, giving
This “hanging around” was described
season,” Rachiel said. “We only seem to
Northside a win by at least 35 points.
by Head Coach Keith Miniscalco and
play well against good teams.”
The team seemed to rely on the “big
Assistant Coach Dave Genis as being too
An example of another loss the team
men” in the post: Jemine, Melhuse, and
loose on the offensive end. The coaches
felt it should not have incurred occurred at Eric Nelson, Adv. 905.
encouraged taking care of the ball because
Mather High School on Saturday, January
“They had smaller players, so we gave
the team was losing its stronghold on the
31. The team lost 53-38.
the ball to the big man down low,” Lin
offensive end.
“Mather is a team that we should not
said.
“Towards the end he was telling us to
be losing to or [even] staying close with,”
The team’s record is now 8-16, with
control the ball and make sure we have a
Jemine said.
two upcoming exhibition games against
good offensive possession,” Raichel said.
The team felt it should have stuck to
Elgin and Fenwick, followed by the State
Craig Melhuse, Adv. 908, gained the
the “game plan” like it did during the first
Playoffs. As of February 7, Elgin’s and
attention of several fans for nearly saving
quarter. It didn’t, and as a result took a
Fenwick’s records are 8-12 and 12-8,
the game. He made a key steal, vital layloss. This game was not a home game,
respectively. Both games are away games,
up, and potential game-changing rebound
and in light of the new rule prohibiting
and Fenwick has been undefeated at home
all within the last three minutes. Unforfans from visiting teams to attend games,
since February 16.
tunately for the Mustangs, his efforts did
Despite these challenges, the team
not save the game because of the turnovers no Northside fans attended the match. All
the same, the team does not feel that this
plans on making a few improvements in
that followed.
affected their play.
an effort to win these games. One of the
On the defensive end, the team tried
Nevertheless, the Mustangs did win its
biggest challenges is making smart choices
out a few substitutions in an effort to
game against Richards on Tuesday, Februat critical points in games.
guard a vital Steinmetz shooter. Wemi
ary 3 at Northside. The team won 75-61,
“We have to learn how to close out
Jemine, Adv. 903, was an essential defengames by controlling the ball when we
sive player. He left the game with a total of but once again feels it should have won by
a margin greater than the 14 points it won
have the lead near the end,” Jemine said.
six clean blocks.