In case you forgot, corona right now is hitting different. School’s out, all activities are canceled, and your parents aren’t letting you leave the house except to play basketball at the local park (I told Josh I’m grinding but still can’t make a layup). APUSH assignments, conversations over dinner, and even articles about dogs like Patch all have been consumed and held hostage by the news and coverage of this virus.
I’m not gonna lie: besides not being able to see my friends, I’m loving this e-learning lifestyle. I wake up at noon, finish a school day’s worth of work in less than an hour, then have the rest of the day to chat with friends or play video games (or, in many cases, do both at the same time). Teachers are grading assignments more leniently than ever, and every missed homework assignment, Zoom appointment, or test question can be easily excused by a “technical error.” Honestly, from a purely academic and productivity standpoint, the twists and turns of day-to-day life have seemed to straighten out tenfold.
Yet, at the same time, a lot has been lost to void of these “unprecedented times.” To be honest, I could care less about graduation (I didn’t even buy a cap-and-gown, remember?). But things like middle-school reunions, college visits, and precious last moments with your lifelong friends before journeying off to university? Those truly feel like treasures stripped away from me.
With all of these moments left for speculation, that’s not to say things haven’t happened here at home since school’s been out. Remember the countless late nights of League scrims and Minecraft ridiculousness? Or doing (extremely makeshift) workouts with backpacks stuffed with textbooks and chromebooks? Or Zoom-ing with the lads to share in experiencing the rewards of years of hard work and dedication?
Bro, I’d eat that.
It’s these moments of isolation that seem to make connecting with those you care for most so special. In case you forgot, Allen and I trekked on a loop around the neighborhood, snapping quick selfies at each house we passed. We caught Chen cheffing, Josh balling, Jeff gaming, and Brian refusing to leave his house to avoid risk. Oh, and Wang not attending, as usual.
Big Blind Baller (Source: my iPhone)You still aren’t good at cooking (Source: my iPhone)
Finally, you got the time to reconnect with old friends who you hadn’t seen/talked to in so long. Calling the ISSYP guys from the past summer in the middle of the day, with kids from all around the world (and the chaperone, Dan!) was easily the highlight (so far) of the quarantine. To know that people from Turkey, India, Canada, and Ghana were all dealing with issues similar to you almost unified us in our fight to stay safe.
ISSYPers (Source: my iPhone)
Well, I’m about to go upload a video and duo with weyuijoko. I hope you are having fun wherever you may be.
As many of you know, I’m a huge animals guy. To me, pets and animals in the wild are the world’s most purest form of life: their primitive, oftentimes adorable, and, best of all, can’t talk back to you (not in English, anyways).
So, when the COVID-19 quarantine began, I, unlike most of my friends and family, wasn’t too upset. Patch, my dog, would be accompanying me for the next three weeks (hopefully longer) on the couch. Not only that, but the schoolwork that used to take eight hours could be crammed into three without the distractions of other human beings around me. In fact, this whole virus outbreak seemed to make me more focused and productive than ever.
Or so I thought.
You see, this past Tuesday, my sister texted me a news article that would begin to invade my every waking thought until this present moment. Amidst shocking statistics about the number of infected Americans or mortality rates, this was the most unprecedented of them all. Most shockingly, with my sister, Jessica, being a practicing allergist in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, I never thought a professional doctor would be willing to share this earth-shattering news with her closest coworkers, let alone her immediate family.
“Penguins Toured An Aquarium That Closed Because Of Coronavirus Concerns. The Videos Were Exactly What We Needed.”
The front page of this life-changing article (Source: The Washington Post)
In a three-part Twitter-thrille consisting of seconds-long clips of penguins strutting the hallways of the Shedd Aquarium, I was briefly transported to paradise. Watching those short (compared to most of us), waddling, flapping birds mosey along dolphin exhibits, information desks, and exotic fish aquariums was truly a sight to behold.
I was entranced. My ELA and APUSH homework went by the wayside as I looped the clips over and over. While the world was crashing and burning around me, these penguins were just too damn funny to watch. By the end of that Tuesday, I had found closure and contentment in my imprisonment to my home, computer, and phone.
The adventure continues! 🐧🐧 This morning, Edward and Annie explored Shedd’s rotunda. They are a bonded pair of rockhopper penguins, which means they are together for nesting season. Springtime is nesting season for penguins at Shedd, and this year is no different! (1/3) 👇 pic.twitter.com/VdxN3oQAfe
Part one of three of this cinematic masterpiece. If I could give extra credit points on Rotten Tomatoes, this is where they’d all go. (Source: Shedd Aquarium)
All jokes aside, this stunt put on by the Shedd Aquarium was, in reality, healing in its own right. Essentially, because of the massive closings of tourist attractions, the Shedd Aquarium staff allowed the penguin exhibit to roam free, transforming the exhibit to the expeditionists. Seen as a lighthearted, uplifting pick-me-up in these dark, unprecedented times, tens of other zoos/aquariums have put on similar shows, streaming exhibits online or walking their own rare species around the block.
While this easily has to be one of the cutest and funniest videos I’ve ever seen, it also showed me the power that your mindset has. In a way, I’d argue that these video clips, blurry footage and all, will heal millions of people worldwide, whether they have the coronavirus or not, blessing them with entertainment and giggles to combat their recommended isolation and distancing. Though completely meaningless and (probably) against all Shedd Aquarium policies, this short news article was truly something special that I felt I needed to share.
Link to original article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/17/penguins-coronavirus-shedd-aquarium/
When it comes to my closest friends, our hangouts usually consist of doing one of the following three activities: playing Spyfall, playing Canadian Fish (see Jeffrey Cheng’s blog), or just acting stupid in general (see all of Eric Wang’s blogs). Be it guessing locations, guessing half-suites, or guessing who the hell stole Eric Wang’s Minecraft potatoes, I guess it’s time for me to round things off by explaining a go-to for spending quality time with the lads.
In essence, Spyfall is an online, real-time “Guess Who.” After joining a game on spyfall.crabhat.com with your friends, every person except one is given a predetermined location and role from a displayed list. The last person is deemed the “spy” of that round, and he/she is not informed of the location nor the roles of the other players.
The objective of the game is to rat out the spy without giving away the location solely through asking and answering questions. If the spy figures out where the rest of the people are, he/she wins. If the non-spies can determine who the spy is and accumulate a majority vote, they win.
Seems simple, right?
Simple screen, simple concept, not so simple game-to-play. (Source: Apply World Today)
Not so fast. The problem with asking extremely revealing and obvious questions is that, with each clue you drop, the spy can hear it, too. With that being said, the dominant strategy, in general, is to ask misleading, referential questions that only a few other players would know the deeper meaning behind in order to single out the clueless spy. Puns, childhood memories, and inside jokes are all fair game, forcing every person in the game to expand their craniums to stay afloat.
Yet, the scope of the game spans far beyond just the content of the intense Q&A session, as it’s often easy to forget that your teammates/opponent are all sitting within ten feet of you. Staring too much at the list of locations as if you don’t already know where you are? Suspicious. Slow to get a reference that directly relates to your past because you “didn’t hear it correctly the first time”? Doubt.
Grinning stupidly all of the time and acting clueless in general?
Unless you’re Josh Tennyson, I think we’ve found ourselves a spy.
(Yeah that’s right, celebrate. Source: Brian Zheng’s New Years Party)
Thinking back, Spyfall brings me closer to my friends not because of the present, but because it allows us to relive our pasts. It forces me to make near telepathic connections with each individual player, transcending the childish roleplaying and scenarios our phones spit out to us. It creates drama, frustration, and skepticism, all while sitting quietly in a friend’s car.
And when the spy is unveiled, with pointed fingers lashed out towards suspects, the game may come to a close, but the newly formed bonds of friendship and uncovered memories don’t. The long, once-boring car ride had been transformed into an all-out mental battlefield, and the winners and losers alike relish in the hardfought war they’d just experienced. As the final hands are raised and a majority consensus is reached, there’s only one question left to ask as we finally reach whatever destination we’d traveled to.
In case you didn’t know already, I’m not usually a movie type of person. I fall asleep through horror movies, text through Lord of the Rings watchings, and pester my nerdiest friends during Avengers movies as I struggle to figure out which superhero is who (the online summary of all past movies I read before going didn’t include pictures).
So, you can probably guess what my reaction was when my friends asked me to watch a “cinematic masterpiece” called Parasite which, only after sitting down, I realized was completely dubbed in Korean. Needless to say, if I didn’t get to (try and) play basketball and grab dinner prior, coronavirus would probably have had to do as my excuse for the night.
But, after watching Parasite, I can safely say that it is easily the best movie I’ve ever seen in my life.
Even with it lasting until near midnight and having maybe 10 words I could understand, Parasite was definitely an eye-opener (literally). Source: FandagoNOW
For those of you who also won’t watch movies until they win an Oscar, Parasite tells the story of the Kim family’s struggle to survive economically. Through a series of ingenious (or what we would call “big brain”) schemes, each member of the family lands themselves a job in the upper-class Park household. However, throughout the duration of the film, we watch the moral and interpersonal conflicts between the rich and poor create a black comedy that draws striking parallels to classic stories like “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”
Rich vs. Poor? Person trapped in a basement underneath wealth and prosperity? Must be déjà vu. Source: Goodreads
While I know next to nothing about film techniques, my AP Lang/Lit mindset couldn’t help but notice the countless symbols and extended metaphors this seemingly impossible, fantastical plotline contained. In what is completely my personal (and most likely, uninformed) opinion, I’d say that this movie is making a social commentary and archetypal characterization on the divisiveness between rich and poor.
The poor Kim family is impressively intelligent. They are smooth and persuasive with their words, quick on their toes to cover up holes in their plan, and, for the good first half of the movie, play the Park family like a fiddle. Yet, this brief sense of utopia and acquired prosperity doesn’t last for long. In an eerie, twisted (clockwise) series of events, the Kim’s are left to watch the Park’s enjoy the superficial pleasures of life that they were so close to sharing.
Yet, the Park’s, in my opinion, are nowhere near as deserving of this life of luxury as the Kim’s. They are gullible and spoiled through and through, never having once needed to worry about the struggles of life that the Kim’s fight through everyday. With housekeepers and drivers that help keep their lives running smoothly, the Park’s seem quick to blame and judge people doing the work they never have had to do.
So, when we look back at this movie’s horror-esque title, we really have to wonder who the true parasites really are. It’s obvious that the poor Korean family, invading and hosting the body of the Park’s dream house, resemble the word “parasite’s” biological roots. However, the Park family, when we take a closer look, reflects this very same parasitic behavior. For all of their gluttony and materialism, what have any of the family members truly created by themselves, save for a couple ugly drawings of a “ghost” and an affair between a high school sophomore and a grown adult?
It seems as if, behind the lavish cupboards of plum extract, the dirty, smelly depiction of the Kim family can be directly reapplied to the Park’s.
Hearing Roxanne the lunch lady’s words pierce through the white noise of the small caf, I couldn’t but stare down at the six cardboard-esque chicken nuggets on my styrofoam plate. For the past three-and-a-half years, I’d been eating the exact same thing each day of the school week. And, considering the quality of the Sodexo/Aramark lunches that have ingrained themselves into the lunchtime diets of high schoolers nationwide, Roxanne’s wishful words (as well as the chicken nuggets) were impossible to digest.
You see, stumbling into my final year of high school, I was struck with tragedy: off-campus lunch, for me, was a no-go. For first semester, at least, all odds were against me. I had lost my ID card, had never applied for a parking pass, and had peer tutoring three days a week and college applications suffocating the other two. In fact, the only off-campus experience I had that semester involved a class-ditch, a quick trip to Chicken Lit, and a sneaky returning and smuggling of former student Benji Kan back into the building disguised as a current Huskie. Safe to say, for $7.99 and hours of panicked text messages, those five chicken tenders with Yummy Sauce were hardly worth the work.
Second semester, however, is what has really opened my eyes to this liberating school policy. Nowadays, shriveled up chicken nuggets have been replaced by savory Panda Express orange chicken morsels. Frozen pizza slices have gone obsolete in the midst of customizable Mod Pizzas. Plastic-cheese nachos have been upgraded into fresh, homestyle Taps burritos.
Yet, while the food is undoubtedly tastier, off-campus lunch has managed to satisfy much more than just my taste buds. To me, off-campus is a hallmark NNHS senior privilege not for its meals, but rather its sense of freedom. For years, the seven-forty-five to three-ten block of time for North students has been dictated and governed by long, droning bells and some (absolutely garbage) music. And, while certain classes have, without a doubt, been extremely informative and engaging (one of my favorite classes lets me write blogs about off-campus lunch, how cool is that!), to say that doing ceramics or swimming units is a good use of fifty minutes would be flat-out lying. Yet, with the final-year gem of off-campus, the monotony of (for the most part) useless lectures and worksheets is sliced in half with a quick Chipotle run, speeding away from assassin targets, and sharing precious last moments with high school friends you may not see for years starting next fall.
Even more abstractly, the term “off-campus lunch,” intrinsically, can be a bit misleading, as the possibilities for this period of freedom span far beyond just a mid-day meal. With this brief, fifty-minute-long “get out of jail free card,” I’ve heard countless stories of quick naps at home, high-intensity gym sessions, and failed attempts at the infamous Sonic Challenge. Hell, a couple of friends and I even have a group chat dedicated to honing our nonexistent basketball skills at Nike or Abbeywood park during our sixth period downtime in a long-anticipated match against some former-Panther, current-Redhawk students. Not only is off-campus lunch a great way to destress after a (seemingly unavoidable) failed attempt at an ELA test, but it fosters activities and challenges that are oftentimes hard to come by in a busy high schooler’s free time.
An example of our (hopeless) dreams of breaking ankles and swishing threes (please ignore the group chat name and profile picture). (Source: my iPhone)
Looking back, I’ll be the first to admit that my initial impressions of off-campus lunch were wrong. In reality, it can dish up some delicious meals, create time for relaxation and leisure, and (with chicken tenders and a North alum who really wants to say “hi” to Mrs. Moore and Mr. Kim) connect old friends with new perspectives and environments.
So, as we come down to the final months of senior perks before being once-again thrown into different schools as clueless freshmen, I hope that you take Roxanne’s advice to heart.
I mean it. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve spent a good portion of the past three-and-a-half years doing physics. Competitions, summer programs, research, you name it: anything with a chance to test my knowledge and learn more about the world is something that I’m all for.
But, obviously, that’s not true for the majority of high schoolers, and it’s not hard to see why. Be it tedious homework assignments, test proctor errors, or just a lackluster teaching and learning community in general, you might as well bid your chances of loving physics in high schools like Naperville North FAREweLL (typo, sorry! :)).
Well, not so fast. See, call me a weirdo, but this semester I’ve decided to create a YouTube channel catered towards AP Physics topics. In a sort-of ASAPScience, MinutePhysics-esque style, I try my best to explain some of the most confusing physics concepts in a couple of minutes. In essence, it’s a useful crash-course tool for you, and even better senioritis cure for me.
Before starting, however, there was some research that needed to be done on what truly makes videos like these so helpful. According to Vanderbilt University’s Center for Teaching, there’s three main components that make an effective educational video. Here, let’s dive right into my (early) attempts at checking the boxes.
The bonds that create a strong and effective educational video (Source: Vanderbilt University’s Center for Teaching)
Cognitive Load
The first component of any good academic video is, naturally, it’s academics, or what’s known as the cognitive load. Now, while there are multiple types of loads, the one I tried to isolate was the most valuable: the intrinsic load, or raw information. With a whiteboard and marker, I tried to illustrate, detail, and diagram fundamental formulas and concepts that would show up on people’s tests. How I did? That’s up for you to decide.
(A short video describing one of Maxwell’s most famous equations: Gauss’ Law. Source: Physics Done Phast)
Student Engagement
The next aspect of quality education content lies in the student engagement, or the “fun” factor. Vanderbilt University claims that this aspect–sharing the allure and captivating aspects of the subjects taught in classrooms–is often what’s lost in translation in our fifty-minute periods. Yet, I hoped to combat this issue with a dash of humor and heavy pour of self-deprecation. With embarrassing cutouts of my face and an illustration of my dog who continues to pester me throughout each video, I try to make the blandless of a whiteboard more vibrant with some personality and a good ol’ laugh or two thrown in the mix.
(I surely hope this video was engaging. Only one way to find out, I guess. Source: Physics Done Phast)
Active Learning
Finally, the last component is described as features that students find directly related to the topics they’re studying. While my editing and tech skills still prevent me from adding interactive questions, buttons, and keys, I have done some digging on the classes I make my videos for. Asking for formula sheets, textbook problems, and MasteringPhysics worksheets (all with teachers’ permission, of course), I tailored my content to hit home when it comes to the AP curriculum.
No matter whether my videos align with professional college educational research studies, I still have a blast making them. While the end goal is to cover all concepts covered in AP Physics 1, 2, and C, my meager two-video-long channel repertoire has a long way to go.
I guess that, before you leave, there’s only one thing left I need to say.
Please subscribe.
Link to Physics Done Phast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOjnndPveFarl-YNIolL3EQ
Works Cited
Brame, Cynthia. “Effective Educational Videos.” Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University, 6 Nov. 2019, cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/effective-educational-videos/.
What is your favorite food? Maybe it’s a juicy burger with fresh lettuce, onions, and tomatoes, a buttery toasted bun, and a side of fries – crispy and salty on the outside but smooth and fluffy on the inside. Perhaps a pizza: with warm, soft crust, gooey, stringy cheese, and perfectly roasted vegetables or meats on top. And for the sweet tooths, what about a rich, moist chocolate cake with hot fudge pooling in the center, topped with an ice cold scoop of sweet vanilla ice cream?
Hungry yet? Just you wait. (Source: Unsplash)
Now, though these foods are delicious and can make us feel satisfied and happy, there is one substance in all of them that can potentially be the cause of obesity, fatty liver disease, and countless other diseases: MSG, or monosodium glutamate. However, while MSG has become best buds with my taste buds, MSG is a dangerous substance that, when consumed in excessive amounts, has many harmful health repercussions.
MSG, not cocaine. It’s a lot more accessible, a lot more addictive, and tastes a lot better (wait… what?) (Source: Chatelaine)
So, what exactly is MSG? Well, MSG is a seasoning whose origins lie in Asian cuisine. It has become such a staple in Asian kitchens that each country has their own translation of how it tastes. Japanese people call MSG’s taste “umami,” and is crowned one of the five fundamental flavors of our world, a taste paired side-by-side with salty, sweet, bitter, and sour.
According to my parents, who were born and raised in China, foods with MSG, or “weijin” in Chinese, were described as “xian”, which means “deliciousness”. However, this once-Asian seasoning has since, like my own family, immigrated to America, and is in almost every single bag of chips, bowl of instant ramen, or high school lunch that you eat.
Serving a stir of sweet and savory sensations, MSG takes the cake when it comes to flavor.
Now, although a little bit of MSG isn’t harmful, if we were to eat a whole spoonful of it, what would we feel like? In large quantities, Mayoclinic actually states that there is a wide variety of symptoms we could experience from consuming large amounts of MSG, coined the MSG Symptom Complex. Examples of these symptoms include headache, sweating, chest pain, nausea, and weakness.
Of course, the geniuses might argue: “If I ate a spoon of salt, I wouldn’t feel that good either.” However, studies have actually proven that there is a noticeable difference between MSG and other seasonings. In an article titled “The Real Reason to Avoid MSG: Industry Secret Ingredient for Food Addiction,” a study was conducted by the Journal of Headache Pain. In this study, half of the subjects were given salt, while the other half were given MSG. However, both groups were told that they were given MSG. The study showed that “MSG intake caused spontaneous pain, jaw aches, high blood pressure, and other unwanted side effects including nausea and fatigue,” while the group who consumed salt showed none of these symptoms, showing that MSG can have short term effects on a person’s health and is much more harmful than other food seasonings.
Who’s salty now?
But, what makes MSG harmful, and why can’t we just stop eating it if we see it on ingredients lists? The problem is, MSG is also very addictive in the sense that it makes you hungrier the more you eat it. According to Dr. Russell Blaylock, who wrote a book on the subject called Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, he says that “when we eat MSG, our cells excite themselves to death, it is what we call an excitotoxin.” I’ll be honest: eating any food stimulates our brains, as it is necessary to eat a lot to continue to survive. However, this unnaturally suicidal stimulation of our cells makes us unable to stop eating, making us crave fattier, sugary foods as well.
For example, if, after reading (and commenting) on this blog post, you were to go home and, after paying utmost attention to your new favorite blogger, make yourself a big bowl of instant ramen, you’d probably find yourself unconsciously grabbing a box of Oreos and washing it all down with a Coke. And while your body currently may seem chiseled and sculpted by the gods themselves, those foods will eventually take their toll on you. In essence, eating foods with MSG only make us want to eat more, and this is why it can be so addictive and, eventually, harmful if we aren’t careful.
Actual depiction of the effects of consuming large amounts of MSG. ‘Cept you won’t be wearing a fat suit and aren’t Thor (obviously). (Source: Entertainment Tonight)
Sadly, there is no magical cure to the symptoms of MSG. But, with it being so common in our foods nowadays, it seems that trying to stop eating it altogether may be biting off a little more than we can chew. However, according to the Mayoclinic article titled “What is MSG? Is it bad for you,” the only way to prevent a reaction is to avoid foods containing MSG. Obvious as it may seem, to minimize your MSG intake, try to be aware of the ingredients in your food. Also, when going into restaurants, you can easily ask them to not use MSG in the dishes they serve you, and, disregarding the massive pouches of Asian seasonings in my own kitchen, try to avoid using it as a seasoning at home.
As we see, eating an excessive amount of MSG can produce many harmful side effects. In the end, however, it is really all about balance. While eating tons of MSG is harmful, it is important to treat yourself and eat foods that you find tasty. Food nowadays is much more meaningful, and can be comforting or be a social event, so I don’t believe that avoiding MSG at all costs is beneficial to anyone, either. Still, it is clear that if you don’t pay attention at all to your diet, serious consequences could occur in the future.
But, in the end, that’s all just some food for thought.
Works Cited
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS).” U S Food and Drug Administration Home Page. Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, 4 Jan. 2018. Web. 15 May 2018.
L.D., Katherine Zeratsky R.D. “How Does Your Body React to MSG?” Mayo Clinic. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 20 Mar. 2018. Web. 15 May 2018.
Mercola, Joseph. “MSG Is This Silent Killer Lurking in Your Kitchen Cabinets.”Mercola.com. Mercola.com, 21 Apr. 2009. Web. 15 May 2018.
Michaelis, Kristen. “MSG Is Dangerous – The Science Is In.” Food Renegade. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2018.
Nakanishi, Y., K. Tsuneyama, M. Fujimoto, T. L. Salunga, K. Nomoto, J. L. An, Y. Takano, S. Iizuka, M. Nagata, W. Suzuki, T. Shimada, M. Aburada, M. Nakano, C. Selmi, and M. E. Gershwin. “Monosodium Glutama
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