Category: In-Depth

By Sophia Xiao

What’s happening to the students of the Bay Area?

We live in Silicon Valley, a place that leads the world in technology.  Somehow, it only makes sense that its children must lead the world in academics.  This is what millions of Bay Area students tell themselves every day as they struggle through ever increasing college standards, AP classes and anxiety.  And to a degree, the “work hard now to play hard later” idea makes sense because hard work means a better college which means a better job which means higher pay which hopefully will finally turn into a happy life. However the cost of this philosophy, especially here in the Bay Area, and especially now more than ever, is piling.

“Gunn was ranked by U.S.  News World Report as one of the nation’s top five STEM schools.  Every year, about 20 of its seniors get into Stanford and a quarter are offered spots at University of California schools,” wrote The Atlantic.  Yet despite its academic success, the Palo Alto School District has had two suicide clusters, one in 2008 and one in 2014.  Seven students, many of which had promising futures, committed suicide.  All of a sudden it seemed, news reporters flocked to nearby schools like Gunn and Mission, and administration finally woke up to try to control the mental health crisis.

At the end of 2016, Newsweek’s rankings had 11 Bay Area schools in their top 100 US private high schools list and 14 schools in their top 500 US public high schools list.  These powerhouses are all surprisingly close to home– Monta Vista, ranked 18th, and Lynbrook, ranked 29th, are both less than half an hour drive away.  With the culture of Silicon Valley success and these nationally ranked schools breathing down our necks, it’s no wonder Piedmont Hills students are feeling the stress to outperform and overachieve.

Why are the schools around here so competitive?

With four AP classes, two club officer positions, a job, and other achievements to pad her resume, senior Sarah Dao’s schedule is packed.

“I know that the way I’m stressed right now isn’t really healthy, but I also think it’d be a waste if I don’t give it my best,” confesses Sarah.

This mindset to always be the best is common.  A big reason for Silicon Valley’s academic success is that it is filled with hard working immigrants who have come to give the best life they can to their children.  These immigrants believe that since they worked so hard for their kids, the kids should obviously work just as hard for themselves.  A further reason for this Silicon Valley mindset is that 32% of San Jose’s demography is Asian, a culture which emphasizes obedience, high standards and constant success.

We live in one of the most expensive places to in the US, and the expectation is that we become an engineer and work for one of the tech giants next door.  This pressure to be outstanding is what makes Bay Area students successful but is also what drives a lot of students to their breaking point.

“There is definitely a pressure to overachieve.  I’m always looking down on myself as an underachiever since everyone else is taking all these extra classes,” admits sophomore Steven To.

“It’s just society’s standards now,” Sarah states simply. And it’s true. For students who judge themselves based on how impressive they look on paper  to colleges, average is nowhere near enough.

“Students are definitely coming in with more competitive classes, with higher classes… I think it is part sort of colleges (responsibility/fault), but I also think it’s just part of our society and how it’s changed in the sense of how competitive it’s gotten and the stress it puts on students,” agrees Counselor Justine Kunkel.

Okay, but is this stress necessarily a bad thing? It only lasts for four years anyways, right?

As more and more kids get access to private tutoring, music classes, college counseling and other extracurriculars, people are finding more ways to get a competitive edge over everyone else.  Parents start their children on this path to college with the idea “the younger the better.”  This poses a problem to kids who have grown up with overachievement infused into their identity.  Fear of failure is something that students are taught in order to get into college, but by then, these habits and lifestyles are hard to get rid of, causing long term stress and anxiety.

“I obviously do have students that strive off of stress.  It moves them and motivates them to get things done, but we do have a large number of students here that sort of give in to the stress and it really affects them.  Ultimately it can lead to the other grades falling and mental health issues.  So I would say that (academic stress) is more a detrimental than a positive thing,” expresses Ms. Kunkel.

Something new that has popped up recently is an entire industry based solely on getting kids into specific colleges.  Of course, it makes sense for parents to hire help for something as important as getting into good colleges.  However, college counseling reinforces the culture of tailoring students’ lives towards college, as if many students don’t base a large portion of their lives off of the admissions process already.  Additionally, counseling creates an imbalance among students with different backgrounds.  It gives those who can afford them an unfair advantage over the students who simply don’t have those kinds of resources.

So how do we regain control of our lives?

In the midst of this chaos known as high school, it is important to slow down and take more breaks from the all consuming goal known as college.  You are the one who decides your fate, not the college you go to– a different one won’t make or break you.  Allow the things you do for college to also be things that you love.  For example, Sarah, who enjoys graphic design and music, is publicist for NHS and president of the Instrumental Club.
Likewise, remember that you don’t have to take all the APs and extracurriculars in the world.  If you genuinely hate and suck at math, then taking that AP Calculus class may not be the best idea.

I’m not saying to stop pushing yourself to do more, but don’t do it for the primary purpose of getting into college.  You don’t want to wake up one day after graduating from college and have no idea what to do next because all you’ve ever done was for it.

And listen to Steven’s advice: “There will be times where you procrastinate, and that’s fine.  We’re not perfect, but at the same time, we’re also capable of great things.”

Compared to even four years ago, college admissions have tightened considerably, and it’s reflecting on our high schoolers.  Nine years ago, it took a suicide cluster of 4 students for the Palo Alto High School District to implement significant measures for the safety of students.  How long and what will it take for we, as students, to start taking our own mental health more seriously?

By Sean Tseng

Anxiety twists your nerves into knots.  Blood rushes to your cheeks, and your knees nearly buckle under your weight.  The pounding of your heart is so barely contained by your chest that you’re sure the entire world can hear it.  It’s not a heart attack—it’s love.
Or is it?

Love is everywhere.  Artists, both contemporary and traditional, have constantly delved into the ever-enthralling subject of love.  But what is love?  For all the centuries of attempting to immortalize the elusive, confounding, praiseworthy, and yet often cursed emotion, it is hardly ever described as more than a vague feeling of “rightness.”  Is it the dreamy and nerve-wracking infatuation of adolescence?  Is it the endless fiery passion of novels and movies?  Or is it the quiet, consistent commitment of the old married couple next door?

Science says it’s all of the above.  In a study conducted by Dr. Helen Fisher of Rutgers University, Fisher suggests that people fall in love in three stages: lust, attraction, and attachment.

Lust primarily involves estrogen and testosterone, which amp up desire and pleasure.  However, beyond the initial physical reaction of the body, lust offers little to no lasting emotional connection.  What most teenagers experience as “crushes” is largely rooted in the next stage, the stage of attraction.

Often dubbed the “honeymoon phase,” attraction may also be described as the stage of infatuation.  It’s marked by lack of appetite, loss of sleep, emotional highs and occupied thoughts.  Such a response in the body stems from three neurotransmitters: adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin.

The final stage in Dr. Fisher’s scientific model of love is attachment.  This stage introduces the chemicals which lead to long-term relationships: oxytocin and vasopressin.  Oxytocin builds a strong bond between people through intimacy, and vasopressin is closely linked to interpersonal behavior.

Knowing Fisher’s findings, one can assume that, at least chemically speaking, the various portrayals of love around us are all valid examples of the emotion.  However, love takes on many forms even after going through the same stages.  The clinical science behind love is one thing.  Beyond brain chemistry lies the psychology of love.

In a 1985 study, psychologist Robert Sternberg of Yale University asserted that love is composed of three primary characteristics—passion, intimacy and commitment—which are notably similar to Fisher’s stages of love.  The passion presents a physical stimulus, the intimacy forges a bond through emotional closeness and the commitment is a conscious decision to maintain the relationship.  Instead of exploring the chemical reactions behind these factors, however, Sternberg examined the multiple types of love that manifest from different combinations of these components.

Sternberg’s theory produced eight forms of love: non-love, liking, infatuation, empty, romantic, companionate, fatuous and consummate love.  Non-love, as its name implies, is the absence of all three factors.  Liking involves only intimacy and is used in this theory to characterize friendships.  Infatuation is marked by passion alone, and empty love contains the single component of commitment.

On the other hand, romantic love has passion and intimacy but lacks commitment.  Companionate love can be compared to the platonic bond shared between family members or close friends, with intimacy and commitment as the key factors.  A lack of intimacy and presence of passion and commitment indicate fatuous love, and finally, consummate love is the existence of all three components.  As theorized by Sternberg, this is the ideal relationship that couples should strive for.

But what about all the singles out there?  Not everyone is so lucky as to find romance around every coffee shop corner.  Some people have even wondered whether love can be manufactured.

Dr. Arthur Aron is one of those people.  In 1997, Aron and a team of psychologists set out to discover whether they could make two strangers fall in love.  This produced the 36-question test that claims to lead to love.  Since then, multiple articles have reported experiments testing the questionnaire with varying levels of success.  However, even with relationships that sprouted and eventually sputtered out, the verdict seems to be that the questionnaire does indeed provide a solid basis of trust and intimacy between two individuals.

Aron structured the questionnaire specifically to gradually become more personal.  At the end, the two participants must hold eye contact for four minutes before the test is fully over.  These elements all serve to ease two relative strangers into a space of intimacy, and thus, possibly, love.

Still, for all the conjectures about love, nothing beats the reality.  As Sternberg says of his theory, and by extension, all theories of love, “Without expression, even the greatest of loves can die.”  The emotion is much more than findings in a paper—it takes action.  So express your love this Valentine’s Day, whatever type or stage it may be, and explore the emotion yourself.

By Michelle Lin and Jen Luu

Love. We hear that word around on a daily basis. Your best friend says she loves her new ABH Renaissance palette. Your mother says she loves the smell of fresh, baked cookies on a Friday evening. Your significant other says he or she loves you. Love is such a simple four-lettered word, yet it can take on so many different meanings. The dictionary definition of love is an intense feeling of admiration towards a particular person or object. However, there is a whole spectrum that goes beyond what words can define. Love, whether it be complex or not, imbues life with colorful experiences that each person can resonate with.

As many great novels and films depict, romantic love is the deep, emotional connection felt between two people, no matter the gender or sexual identity. Being in a relationship with a significant other comes not only with intimacy, but also the hardships and potential struggles to be faced throughout life. Romantic love is truly getting to know someone—to understand this significant other—and still accept the person for who he or she is, regardless of the flaws. This is the key to a long, healthy and successful relationship.

Although many people refer to love in regards to romance, the platonic kind is just as sweet. Friendship, as cheesy and cliche it may sound, is one of the foundational aspects of a social being. As a vital part of a support system, a friend is someone you walk along side with, not behind or in front. These are the people who we laugh with, confide in and cry to. A bond like this, built upon mutual trust and understanding, is what motivates us to be better and see the good in others as well.

Love is a verb, not just a feeling. It’s investing in, sacrificing for and caring about those around you. Perhaps the most common token of this is parental love. The intensity with which a parent loves his or her child is incomparable to all other feelings—mothers and fathers sacrifice so much to ensure their children’s well-beings. Whether fleeing the country to come to America to find better lives for their families or sacrificing time at home to make enough of an income to support their family members, parents are constantly looking out for their children. Parents tend to their child’s every needs and ensure that love is manifested toward them through physical touch, eye contact and loving actions. Parents have the power to uplift their children’s spirits, keeping them positive and shaping them to become the future leaders of society. It is through unconditional parental love that a child can prosper and grow up successfully.

More commonly known as passion, love towards a certain activity can breathe vigor into people’s lives. Whether it be playing video games, ice skating or dancing, the intense eagerness gives people purpose. This inherent dedication pushes us to seek more and more of what we love to do. There isn’t exactly an explanation to the the science behind it, but having a passion, even if it’s just a side hobby, truly gives people a way to simply enjoy life. Especially during times of turmoil, passion grants a kind of sanctuary that temporarily relieves people of stress, agony or sadness.

While strong passion is great, love for the simpler pleasures in life can bring joy as well. Happiness does not have to stem from grandeur things such as thousands of dollars or the most fashionable purse; instead, noticing the everyday details in our lives can help us be more appreciative of and content with life. The soft and cozy feeling of snuggling in bed after a long day full of work feels immensely satisfying. Likewise, most people can relate to the joy when rushing home from school to watch the latest episode of their favorite show after waiting for a week. The love for these minute yet universal delights make us cherish each day.

The need for love is rather important in all our lives today. Love, whether it stems from a platonic friendship, family members or significant others, has been deemed an important factor to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. According to Dean Ornish, a well-respected author and medical doctor, there is no other option to love that has a “greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness, and premature death from all causes.”

Experiencing strong, supportive relationships between those close around you provides a sense of purpose and contribution that ultimately cannot be found elsewhere. No matter where you find it, love is a feeling that is wholly worthy of being experienced.

By Melody Li

On the first day of the school year, social science teacher Frank Cava said something along the lines of: “You have to love yourself before you can love others” — a quote that anyone who has ever done a Google search of “inspiring quotes” has encountered over and over again.  A quote that an overwhelming amount of teenagers include in their Instagram bios.  A quote that everyone uses but no one really understands.

I am guilty of all the aforementioned.  Although I never even did a Google search on the definition of the word “self-love,” I’ve always told the people around me to love themselves.  I didn’t think much of it.  I simply used the quote to promote positivity and what I thought was self-love.

So what really is self-love?  According to Google, it’s the “regard for one’s own well-being and happiness.”

This vague definition can often mislead people into thinking that self-love is the selfish idea of putting one’s own needs and wants before anything else.  Why, then, would anyone want to practice something that sounds so selfish?

However, self-love actually couldn’t be more selfless.

According to Mr. Cava, self-love teaches people how to treat other people.  Once people understand that others’ emotions work similarly to their own, they develop more empathy and begin to be more careful with others’ feelings.  Self-love teaches people to treat others with the same respect they expect for themselves.

“If you know, respect and love yourself, you’ll have a better connection with your own feelings, which will help you understand how other people feel and learn to be careful about how you treat other people,” explains Mr. Cava.

By first learning how to make good decisions for themselves, people can then also make good decisions for others and further benefit those around them.

“Self-love is having enough self-respect to make the right decisions and becoming a more responsible and caring person.  It’s that feeling of happiness you feel when you realize you are able to bring positivity to the world around you,” says Mr. Cava.

Although Google will provide copious articles titled “Ways to Practice Self-love” that contain lists including tips such as “buy yourself flowers,” “meditate,” and “find your happy place,” there really is no tangible way to learn how to love yourself.

Mr. Cava believes self-love is not something that you can just practice.  It takes time and

it comes from building yourself up.

“Self-love comes from self-respect, which comes from having self-esteem and believing in your worth. Without self-esteem, you can’t care about someone else,” explains Mr. Cava.

To build self-esteem and self-worth, he suggests keeping a “track record” to remember “some successes and some challenges that you were able to surmount so that you can say you’re worthy and capable of doing good things.”

Therefore, it’s important that people practice and do things that make them feel good and better about themselves.  It’s important that people remind themselves of their capabilities and that they seek to expand what they can do for themselves as well as what they can do for others.

Ultimately, self-love is not selfish.  It is necessary to understand and practice self-love in order to be a better person for your loved ones.

Even on a day like Valentine’s Day, self-love must be practiced whether or not you have a significant other.

If you refer to Valentine’s Day as Single Awareness Day, take some time to appreciate yourself and what you have to offer to the world around you.  Set aside time from your busy and hectic schedule to take care of yourself first.  Find what you truly enjoy doing and do what makes you happy.

If you celebrate Valentine’s Day with friends, family or a significant other, it should be no different.  Show the people you love a healthier and happier side of you.  Help them gain your trust by showing them you can care for them the same way you love and care for yourself.  Assure them that you can be happy alone, but happier together.

“Before you can love others, you have to know your own self. Before you can understand another person’s needs, you need to know how your own needs are met and what makes you happy,” reinforces Mr. Cava.

You truly have to love yourself before you can love anyone else.

By Arthur Hoang

When people think of difficult sports, their minds tend to think of football, basketball, baseball or soccer. However, there is one sport that is often overlooked: swimming.

Most people think that swimming is more of a luxury or a recreational activity, but if you meet someone that has swam or coached competitive swimming, they would tell you otherwise. Swimming, whether casual, competitive or even synchronized, is a difficult sport.

Swimmers tend to have more practices than days in the week.

“We practice six days a week for two and a half hours in the evening and sometimes in the morning from five to seven,” confessed East Bay Aquatics Swimmer Kayen Chua.

With the exception of Sundays, competitive swimmers will sometimes have two practices a day, one before seven o’clock and one after four o’clock. They are followed by a series of weightlifting and other exercises to help build up muscle. Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps trains six days a week for six hours a day even if training falls on Christmas Day.

Next, a swimmer’s season is nearly yearlong. Swimmers constantly train to improve strength, endurance, technique and feel of the water. Swimmers have very diverse training from long endurance sets and short and fast sprint sets to technique and drill work. Any swimmer will tell you that after a couple days out of the water, it’s hard to remember their grip on the water.

“I was out of the water for four days and when I got back into the water I felt awful for the first part of practice,” stated Piedmont Hills freshman swimmer Andrew Hoang.

Being a competitive swimmer requires much personal sacrifice as well. Practices in the morning start at 5 am and swimmers are often forced to go to bed early to cope with their intense schedule. In addition, swimmers constantly have to make sure that they are eating a nutritious, balanced diet.

Britain’s most successful Olympic Swimmer Rebecca Adlington admits that she often missed school due to the amount of traveling that swimmers do, and she was often busier than her school friends. In 2005, she had a case of a glandular fever but she neglected it as fatigue and kept pushing until it developed into post viral fatigue.

Competitive swimming forces swimmers to go to meets, where warm ups usually start around 7:30 am and last for two hours. There are many things that can affect a swimmer’s performance at a meet depending on what they ate that morning, are they standing without shoes before their race, or whether they shave their legs to reduce drag. Even what they wear can affect their times. Are they wearing a regular practice suit? Are they in speedos? Or did they drop the $100 to $500 on fastskin to help reduce drag and are generally useable for very few times. Many factors can affect a swimmer’s race and time; and they can mean a world of difference. Shaving could make the 0.001 second difference for a 50 meter Freestyle Olympic.

With all the factors and skills that go into the sport, it’s clear that swimming is not just a recreational activity.