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ECHOEast’s student-run news source
May 2024 Volume XXI, Issue 5
By Graysie Casey & Cornelia
Nisbet
Staff Writers
As graduation rolls around at
the end of each year, seniors are
sent off into a new world beyond
high school. Some choose to leave
behind embarrassing memories,
piles of homework and not-so
astounding grades. Many seniors
will also hang up their jerseys,
stepping away from their high
school sport that they've given so
much time to.
“I never thought that I would
be in the same position as the
seniors that I always saw on Senior
Night. I always thought I would
be wearing the ‘I heart our seniors
shirt.’ It made me really thankful
By William Helser & Graham
Jones
Staff Writer & Co-Editor-in-
Chief
Our freshman year was infamous
for screens filled with faceless
initials, class in bed, breakout
rooms and gym classes that none
of us did. A lot of us can’t even
name five people in our freshman
history class, let alone anything
Seniors reflect on their athletic careers
for how far the team has come and
being able to play with everybody
for another game,” senior Naimh
Malin said.
Knowing it’s their last season
makes each moment that much
more special, whether it’s a
big event like Senior Night or
something small at practice. Things
that seemed routine for the past
four years now take on a special
significance, even if it’s something
as small as playing Sharks and
Minnows in the pool after practice.
“I’ll miss laughing on the bus
and during warm ups, getting cards
from refs, playing with friends
straight out of school, and getting
boba after practice,” Malin said.
What their sport has brought
them is something that many senior
we learned in said class. Not due
to our teachers, of course, but due
to the fact that we had to learn
through a screen.
We started our sophomore year
with the same amount of high
school experience as that year’s
freshmen, except we were better
because they were freshmen. So
as the end of the year approaches
and the last batch of COVID-19
high schoolers is getting ready
East’s varsity volleyball team posing for a team picture Courtesy of Phil Stapleton
athletes will cherish forever, from have fun,” senior Will Breaden said.
relationships and connections, to Despite the love for their sport,
balanced and healthy lifestyles. some senior athletes decide to
“I’ve made a lot of connections prioritize other aspects of their life
with people I wouldn't know once they leave for college.
otherwise. And I've been able to go
out there, be active, be healthy and Continued on page 12
Last group of COVID high schoolers: Looking back as seniors
“As freshmen we were all pretending we didn’t exist”
Courtesy of Pie on a Plate Productions
Accurate depiction of the authors on a Google Meet, circa 2021.
to graduate, we have just one
question: Are we okay?
“I think a lot of kids were
shocked about having expectations
put on them that haven’t been
there [during lockdown]. You
had to learn how to handle those
expectations in a very short
amount of time,” Earth science
teacher Erin Shindledecker said.
“I’ve heard [other seniors] reflect
this to me; that the biggest shock
to the system was sophomore
year. Students really hadn’t had
the ‘high school experience,’”
social studies teacher Brian Link
said. “I’ve heard some students
say that sophomore year was
harder than junior year. Not for
the actual content itself necessarily
being more difficult, or they were
being asked to do more things, it’s
that they didn’t have the actual
experience.”
We certainly did not have the
“high school experience;” an
experience was had, but high
school it was not.
“I didn’t even learn anything.
I just turned on my computer, put
on my voice recorder and left the
class when it was over,” senior
Ayden Farmer said. “I think when
it comes to our [cohort] and the
classes we took in
freshman year, we
didn’t learn any of
that, we just didn’t
do it.”
Farmer’s sentiment
is a common one.
The experience
of learning online while being
isolated from a world that was
rapidly changing, was challenging
for many of the current seniors.
While some of us took advantage
of the period to boost their
academics (“I got almost all 100s
in all my classes. All you needed to
do was be present in class and all
the tests were open notes,” senior
Michael Kang said), there were
many of us for whom just being
“present in class” was a struggle;
adopting some combination of
apathy, dissociation and a general
lack of motivation to do anything
“‘It gets better.’ That’s
probably the only
thing I could say, and
it did get better, still a
little rough, but it got
better.”
East
Chapel Hill
Observer
Featured this
issue...
“The age of meticulously
planned albums like ‘Folklore’
and ‘Evermore’ feels distant.” -
An honest review of Swift's “The
Tortured Poets Department,”
page 8
“It’s sad, but when
the budget gets tight, you have
to lose something,” - Chapel
Hill-Carrboro schools begin to
suffer implications of declining
enrollment, page 5
“The feeling mayo gives me
is similar to the feeling of
wanting to terrorize a family
of four.” - Advice, page 3
in the wake of online high school.
“There wasn’t really a reason
to do anything…. If you weren’t
someone who cared about grades,
you didn’t have your teachers
calling you out on it,
so it felt like you had
less accountability,”
senior Dylan
Freedland said. “As
freshmen we were
all pretending we
didn’t exist.”
Feeling like there was no
reason to get out of bed, to try at
all, to reach out to people, a lot
of us sort of just shut down, not
only academically, but socially as
well. Freshman year is the year
that we’re all supposed to make
new friends, connect with our
teachers and get used to what the
next four years of our lives will be
like. Instead we got accustomed to
“Wellness Wednesdays,” hanging
out with our parents, and gosh
dang Edpuzzles.
Continued on page 5
Find us online!
echhsechoonline.com
@echhsecho
tinyurl.com/2r3ps8dw
“I’ve also gotten a lot of hate for this idea from the lactose intolerant
crowd (Hannah Wright) which is dumb.”
- Read this story on page 8
Opinions..............................................2
Features...............................................4
Arts & Culture......................................7
Satire..................................................11
Sports.................................................12
OPINIONS
ECHO
Our Staff
Co-Editors-in-Chief
Graham Jones
Avery Tortora
Staff Writers
Juman Alyousif
Samantha Benton
Grayson Casey
Gabe Deel
Mischa Dorn
Evan Elk
Suna Erdim
William Helser
Jordan Huang
Linda Li
Camden Lauver
Keira McArthur
Clara Mast
Cornelia Nisbet
Elise Owre
Jackson Polish
Clara Wolfe
Hannah Wright
Adviser
Neal Morgan
ntmorgan@chccs.k12.nc.us
Our Address
500 Weaver Dairy Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
919-969-2482 ext. 27260
The ECHO is a forum for
student debate. We invite you
to submit any opinions, op-ed
pieces or responses to anything
published in the ECHO. Please
send letters or comments to
echhsecho@gmail.com.
View our full op-ed policy:
The ECHO is published by the
students at East Chapel Hill
High School for the student
body and is supported by the
school. Letters are encouraged
but must be signed by the writer
to be considered for publication.
Names may be withheld
from publication upon request.
The ECHO staff reserves the
right to edit letters for length,
clarity and for other ethical and
legal considerations.
East Academic Culture: It’s time to talk about what we’ve created
By Suna Erdim
Staff Writer
Like many of my classmates,
I can safely say that my
senioritis goes way back—
maybe even as far as the end
of junior year. But I would
argue it doesn’t stem from a
lack of academic motivation.
If anything, looking ahead at
college and the multitude of
courses and pathways it has to
offer has only gotten me more
excited about the subjects I
enjoy. But that doesn’t erase
the fact that I’ve found my drive
to engage and perform for this
school increasingly depreciated
and almost at a breaking point.
I must confess that my
senioritis is East-specific, and
I’d like to use the platform of my
last-ever column for the ECHO
to deconstruct why.
It’s with a complex range
of emotions that I begin this
narrative, because I have many
reasons to remember this school
fondly and to be energized by the
opportunities I’ve encountered
here. This was the place where
By Clara Mast
Staff Writer
If I were to pick a song to
represent my childhood, it
would be a song about killing
a duck and cooking it for
dinner.
My grandmother—my
mother’s mother—sang the
song to my sisters and me
before bed, while combing
out our hair or washing the
dishes. At the time, I knew
very little about what the song
meant; though I could mimic
the Indonesian words easily,
I contributed to the production
of a literary magazine for four
years, where I discovered
“Crime and Punishment” by
accident through a criminal
justice project for Lang, where
I made a graphic novel poster
for another one of my favorite
books that I have hanging up in
my bedroom.
But I want to travel back
in time to the online school
scene at the beginning of my
freshman year, when I was in
the process of moving to Chapel
Hill from the
Wake County
Public School
System in
Raleigh. East’s
notoriously
competitive
culture was
foreign and unknown to me
from behind a screen. I was
lucky enough not to have
parents or other adults in my
life pushing me to think about
college when I was 14, so it
was one of the last things on
my mind. Instead, I was writing
plays for my friends and I. I was
dipping my feet in languages on
Duolingo and trying to figure
out three-octave scales on the
violin.
I was excited about the
prospect of high school courses,
but at the same time, I also
didn’t know there was a course
book online. I didn’t know that
East was an AP school and not
I couldn't understand them.
My grandmother lived in our
downstairs bedroom, keeping
it filled with orange Tic Tacs
and colorful Indonesian
books. As I watched my
grandmother age and move
away from my house, I took it
upon myself to keep the song
alive. My family would sing it
to her over the phone for every
holiday. I would make my
mom sing it to me before bed.
To me, the song represented
the gentle and sugared way
my grandmother taught me
to see the world, and how she
encouraged me to be kind,
empathetic and thoughtful.
I was shocked when I later
found out the true meaning
of the lyrics—they were so
different from how the song
made me feel. My lack of
understanding emphasized
my disconnection to my
“My peers’ unyielding
fixation on each other’s
stats has given rise to a
near-death of any relevance
to academic material in the
classroom” and beyond.”
an IB school, like the one I
would’ve attended in Raleigh.
All I got at the beginning of
the year was a brief phone
call with my counselor, who
walked me through most of
the ordinary freshman courses
and registered me accordingly.
I wasn’t presented with any of
that information until the time
of junior year registration, and
it was not presented through
administration, but through my
classmates.
I never fully understood what
was meant by
“East academic
culture” until I
saw, over and
over again, my
peers comparing
their course
loads, reciting
their standardized test scores,
and talking about the Common
App as early as freshman year.
I came from a world where you
didn’t talk about your grades or
scores. Those things constituted
a private world between me,
my parents and my computer
screen. My elementary and
middle school experiences were
anything but utopian, but for
the most part, I could count on
the fact that if my friends and I
were going to talk about a class,
we discussed only the material.
My peers’ unyielding fixation
on each other’s stats has given
rise to a near-death of any
relevance to academic material
My Grandmothers’ cultures
family’s culture. I was satiated
with the comfort and safety
my grandmother provided,
never feeling the need to go
deeper. I regret not asking her
about her life in Indonesia or
ever becoming fluent in her
language. I struggled for a
long time to find the courage
to explore this part of my
life, although now I want
to. I’m trying in small ways,
like using my grandmother's
recipe to bake spekkoek—an
Indonesian cake she always
made for my mom’s birthday.
On the other side of my
family, there’s my Oma—my
father’s mother—sitting at
the kitchen table with a cup
of lemon tea, a dingy egg
timer and an old wooden
chess board. She would tell
me about her father, who
was a chess grandmaster.
After dinner, she would wait
for me, lips shining with
meticulously applied lipstick,
fingers adorned with chunky
rings, and a plate of sugar
cookies set out beside the
board.
I’d sit down at the table and
proceed to lose every game of
chess we ever played. Being
immensely competitive, my
younger self was extremely
disgruntled at the endless
losses. I stopped wanting to
play—I didn’t see a point if
I knew I was going to fail.
But my parents would give
me a firm nudge, and I would
sullenly make my way back
for yet another game. Now, I
realize that my Oma was able
to show me the value in failure
and the beauty in practicality.
Though the concept of
optimizing failure was hard
to grasp for an 11-year-old
perfectionist, little by little
in the classroom and beyond. I
was amazed, and continue to be
amazed, with the way I’ve seen it
affect clubs and extracurriculars.
If an activity isn’t something
that offers service hours, state
and national contests, or some
other quantification of academic
rigor, the engagement will
tumble by incredible margins.
And this goes for classes, too, no
matter how they’re weighted. I
almost never hear conversations
about my AP classes that have to
do with whichever topics we’re
covering in them, be it “Hamlet”
or confidence intervals. I mostly
hear ones about the FRQ or
essay rubric and how to most
efficiently knock out our current
assignment, often at the expense
of blurring the lines around
academic integrity.
And in the midst of this
sea of striving, struggle
and comparison, seldom
does anyone pause and ask
themselves: why is it that I find
myself in a position to take
these classes, some of which
may interest me genuinely, and
some of which I’m taking for
the sake of their appearance on
my transcript? What does that
say about my priorities and the
priorities of those who I allow
to influence me? And most
crucially, what does that say
about my privileges?
Instead, we allow our social
environment to perpetuate a
very typical American, pioneerlike
illusion of a meritocracy,
knowing full well that this
school and this district faces an
opportunity gap so large that
it’s comparable to segregation.
Instead of looking at those
statistics and acknowledging
that the courses and activities we
find ourselves involved in are, at
least to some extent, a reflection
of our degree of affluence and
establishment, we look the other
way and continue to be absorbed
in the dominant culture of our
social strata. If this is the case
and we know it is the case,
why do we still give so much
weight to these numbers tied to
our names?
It’s this ongoing dynamic that
lies at the root of my waning
energy for East and its academic
climate. I want to make it
abundantly clear that this is
not a preaching attempt. If it
were, it would be one founded
in hypocrisy, because I’ve
plummeted down many of the
social pitfalls I’ve just described
from sheer desperation,
insecurity and pressure over
the years. Those pitfalls and the
impression of their necessity
have taken their toll on me as I
know they have on others. I end
this column in hopes that it will
ignite something, somewhere,
in someone and through that, I
will be able to pass on a torch of
awareness, understanding and
capacity for action towards the
future of this school.
she was able to teach me not
just how to accept setbacks,
but how to turn them into a
reason to try again.
Both of my grandmothers
created little worlds for
me. They were somewhat
removed from reality, full
of songs with tragic lyrics,
endless rows of chess figures
and the scent of sugar cookies,
but the lessons from both
women have migrated from
the pages of my childhood to
who I am today.
The more I think about it, the
less morbid the song becomes.
It’s not just about killing a
duck, but how the action
of doing so brings family
together around a dining table.
The song connects my two
grandmothers in my mind,
uniting their separate cultures
and lessons for me to carry
throughout my life.
May 2024
A letter from the ECHO’s seniors
Thank you for reading our last issue of our high school careers. We’ve
had a lot of fun making the ECHO this year and we hope that everyone
who picked up and read an ECHO this year felt the commitment, effort
and lack of Oxford commas we put in our newspapers.
The future of the ECHO now lies in the hands of our underclassmen
staff writers. If the ECHO is bad next year, we take no responsibility for
their potentially poor performance.
We would also like to thank our teacher, advisor, mentor and bully
Mr. Morgan. You're a great teacher, a father and a pretty decent guy. We
apologize for the strife that we may or may not have inflicted upon you
this school year; we all got the bird flu and couldn't come to class, sorry
we couldn't tell you sooner :(
Sincerly: Gabe Deel, Evan Elk, Suna Erdim, William Helser, Jordan
Huang, Graham Jones, Linda Li, Camden Lauver, Keira McArthur, Clara
Mast, Elise Owre, Jackson Polish, Avery Tortora and Hannah Wright.
Understanding myself
By Graham
Jones
Co-Editor-in-
Chief
I don't remember
much of my
childhood, or at
least, I don’t have
a lot of memories that I look back on with
fondness. I don’t have that nostalgia that a lot
of other people seem to have for their younger
years. I hear people often say that their childhood
was a “simpler time,” one that they would love
to return to. When I think back on my childhood,
of the limited memories I have, I never recall it
being simple, because quite plainly it never was.
Meltdowns and anxiety attacks were common.
Too often for my liking, I would have an entire
class staring at me having a meltdown, which
isn’t super fun.
Having no understanding of your emotions
and how to control them is overwhelming, which
is ironic because you can’t even identify when
you're overwhelmed. Everything feels out of
your control, yet somehow it's your fault. Even
now, at 18, I still find myself faced with the
internalized guilt I carry from my childhood. With
all that being said, I would like to go back to my
childhood, not as a child, but as I am now.
I had very few adults in my childhood who
understood me or autism in general. It wasn’t
until I got diagnosed at age seven with Autism
Spectrum Disorder (ASD), that I started meeting
with people who understood me. Not to sound
OPINIONS
like a cheeseball, but it is life changing to talk
to someone who listens, who understands, and
who can give you the ability to better understand
yourself. I wish I met those people sooner, I wish
I could’ve been those people for my younger self.
For the past two summers I have been working
as a camp counselor, specifically with those on
the autism spectrum. I initially took the job just
to have something to do, to pass the summer
by. I really didn’t expect it to turn into a healing
experience. I was able to be the person that
understood those kids, I was able to be the person
who communicated with those kids, I was able
to be the person who I wish was there for me at
their age.
While working with the kids I found myself
reflecting more and more on my childhood. There
was a time in my life when I hated my younger
self. I hated him for every mistake he made, every
person he hurt and every friend he lost. I stopped
hating him after a while, probably around the 8th
grade, but the feelings didn’t become positive. I
just ignored my past, becoming apathetic to the
first 11 years of my life. When I started working
with the campers I came to realize something,
the kindness, patience, and grace that I give my
campers I wasn’t giving to my younger self. I
never treated him like someone who is worthy of
forgiveness, someone who should be loved despite
his flaws. I can’t ignore my own experiences
when I am helping people who are going through
something similar. Leaving high school I still have
reservations accepting my younger self in my
entirety; I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but I’ll
definitely be moving forward.
Advice: A farewell to Fluffy Cheeks
By Avery Tortora
Co-Editor-in-Chief
“Do you prefer ranch or
mayo?”
Whoever likes mayo
deserves to be jailed. It ruins
every food it’s added to and
I can’t stand the stupid offwhite
yellowish color that
coats all my hamburger buns.
The feeling mayo gives me
is similar to the feeling of
wanting to terrorize a family
of four. Or similar to the
feeling I get when watching
“Sharkenstein” directed by
Mark Polonia. “Sharkenstein”
is about a weaponized shark
machine that destroys a quaint
ocean town after World War II.
Anyways, I will advocate for
the end of mayo ‘till the day I
die. Ranch is okay. Good with
carrots and other veggies.
“I dislocated my knee doing
the Jojo Siwa ‘Karma’ dance.
How do I avoid risks like this
in the future?”
With the chokehold that Jojo
Siwa currently has over Gen Z,
I’m not surprised her music has
led to the demise of your knee,
and you know, I can’t blame a
guy or gal for giving a go at
the dance since it’s all over
TikTok. With proper care like
a simple knee brace which can
be found at most drug stores,
frequent icing and laying low
on the dancing, it should be
better in no time. But the last
thing I’ll do is sit idly by as
this song climbs the charts,
so if you listening to the song
contributes to that, I guess you
could say it’s karma that your
knee dislocated.
“How is Fluffy Cheeks doing
now?”
By Clara
Wolfe
Staff Writer
Our family
would gather
for dinner at my
grandparents’
table every
Wednesday. My Papa would spend the whole
morning crafting a complicated menu and going
to 10 different stores to find all of the ingredients
for the best price. He would always cook three
times what we could eat, because it was his way
of showing us how much he loved us. There were
always at least three sides on the table, along with
a main, a vegetarian option that he would always
make for me despite his Southern roots and a
dessert. We would gather around the table, talking
about our weeks and laughing as a family. When
my brother and I were finished eating, we would
always kiss Mimi and Papa on the cheek and thank
them for the meal. Those Wednesdays created
some of the fondest memories of my childhood.
My Papa was the person who taught me how
to bake. We would make apple roses together,
rolling the thin slices of fruit up in fluffy pastry
dough. When I baked my first cake, he was the
one who helped me.
I would step up on my ladybug painted stool
whenever I could, eager to cook with him, to learn
his secrets. My Papa was like a second father to
me. My mom was a single parent and a resident
when I was little, so my grandparents were always
present in my life. They would pick my brother
It’s funny you ask, I wonder
that myself sometimes, too.
When I go on leisurely walks,
or when it’s a gloomy day out
and I’m sipping on my piping
hot tea, I often think to myself,
“I wonder how Fluffy Cheeks
is.” Whoever this person is,
they are a mystery to me, and
although I’ve heard people
claiming to be them, I will
never know for certain. If
you’re out there, Fluffy Cheeks,
this is my last advice column
ever, so I will no longer be able
to communicate with you via
our high school newspaper. I
hope you have a good life.
Sincerely, ECHO advice
columnist
The love language of baking
3
Courtesy of Wild Eye Releasing
and me up from school, and we would go to the
pool in their neighborhood. Every day, my Papa
would greet us with a smile and a Ziploc baggie
of snacks for both of us.
When he passed away in 2020 due to
complications from spine and stomach cancer,
I spent weeks in shock. Though his passing was
somewhat expected, the loss of our family’s
patriarch was jarring. Overnight, I lost one of the
most important figures in my life. It was hard
to cope with the fact that he was gone- that he
wouldn’t be at my graduation, wouldn’t be there
to dance with me at my wedding, and wouldn’t
be there to spoil my kids as he had spoiled me.
After he died, I started baking and cooking
more than ever. With every chop of the knife and
sizzle of the pan, memories of my grandfather
flooded back to me. My Papa, no doubt a food
hoarder, had an extra freezer in the garage, jam
packed with food he had made. That food lasted
us probably a year, and every time we would eat
something he cooked, it was like he was there
again, smiling with pride and love as we gathered
around the table, scooping chicken and dumplings
into our mouths.
I am now the baker in my family, the one who
makes every birthday cake and brings cookies
to school for random occasions. Though I make
more brownies than apple roses, I can still feel
the spirit of my Papa with me every time I cook.
As I dust my hands with flour and roll out cookie
dough, I find comfort in the recollection of my
grandparents' kitchen, knowing that my Papa’s
memory lives on through my simple act of
cooking.
FEATURES
Carrboro amends mid-year final exam mandate in response to petition
By Jordan Huang
Staff Writer
“I highly respect our Carrboro High
staff, but I am downright ashamed.”
“Announcing a change like this in the
middle of the year without notice is not
only ridiculous but unprofessional.”
“The implementation and
communication of this policy were a
complete failure.”
These are just a few of the reactions
from disgruntled Carrboro High School
community members who signed
the “Rescind the Belated Final Exam
Policy” petition. The initiative was
launched in February in response to
school administration announcing that
final exams would be mandatory and
worth 20 percent of students’ overall
class grades, effective immediately.
That change would have replaced
Carrboro’s previously nonexistent
final exam requirement and aligned
their policy with the other Chapel Hill-
Carrboro City high schools, had it not
been amended.
Seven weeks and 700 petition
signatures after the initial policy
update, school administration yielded.
In an email to all Carrboro High
School parents, teachers and students,
Principal Helena Thomas thanked the
community for their feedback and
announced, “Students will be held
harmless for the 2023-2024 school year,
meaning their overall grade can only
By Linda Li
Staff Writer
Every Saturday at dawn in Chapel
Hill’s Umstead Park, a group of
dedicated runners gather for the
parkrun event. Starting in England
in 2004, parkrun is a non-profit
organization that has spread
worldwide. It is a free community
event where people can walk, jog,
run or even just watch. The run is
a 5K and happens every Saturday
morning in local communities across
the world.
Umstead Park Parkrun recently
celebrated its one-year anniversary
on Mar. 23 with over 100 participants,
undeterred by the rainy weather. The
presence of notable figures including
Chapel Hill Mayor Jessica Anderson
and Director of Parks and Recreation
Atuya Cornwell highlighted the
significance of the youth-led event
in promoting community wellness
and unity.
Chapel Hill was organized by East
increase, not decrease, due to taking
a required teacher-made final exam.”
Carrboro junior, Alexander Kwok,
and his mother, Melinda Manning,
who created the petition, said they
were surprised by how much support
they received.
“We didn’t know what to expect.
People seem to have a very short
attention span nowadays. They get
upset about things, but that can fizzle
quickly. But, when so many people
started signing so quickly, and not just
signatures, but comments too, we knew
we touched a nerve,” Manning said.
With an enrollment of fewer than
900 students, Carrboro is the smallest
school in CHHCS – making the flurry
of comments and 700 signatures even
more impressive.
“It’s one thing just making a petition,
but having hundreds of people sign is
huge,” Kwok said. “We created the
platform, but change only happened
because of the people.”
Although both Manning and Kwok
consider the recent policy update to be
a “fair compromise,” achieving it was
not entirely straightforward. Kwok, a
member of the CHCCS Student Equity
and Empathy Ambassadors, initially
tried to broach the subject at their
monthly meeting.
“[Carrboro’s] principal, Dr. Thomas,
came to our meeting, but when I tried
to discuss final exams with her, I didn’t
receive any concrete feedback. They
didn’t choose to comment on the topic;
they just avoided my question, which
made me pretty upset at the time,”
Kwok said.
However, when he took the issue
home, his mother’s law background
proved to be a valuable asset in
developing his argument.
“The process of getting a law degree
really changes your thinking and
how you analyze issues,” Manning
said. “When Alex came home and
got into the policy change, my mind
immediately jumped to the idea
that, although a syllabus isn’t a legal
contract, [Carrboro High School] was
basically violating an agreement with
their students.”
In the reasoning for their petition,
Manning and Kwok argue that “late
changes to syllabi that are punitive to
students go against the concept of a
syllabus as a good faith agreement,”
and reference the grading policy
listed in Carrboro’s 2023-2024 school
handbook. Manning says that she
wouldn’t have been prepared to make
the petition if she had a different
background.
Christian Cabrera, Carrboro’s student
body president, saw that many students
and teachers were unhappy when final
exams were made a requirement, but
he personally believes that it was a
necessary change.
“Now, people are just going to go
and guess on the whole exam because
it can’t hurt your grade. People are
definitely going to get a little bit lazy,”
Cabrera said.
Despite his opinion, Cabrera still
signed the petition, because he “felt
it was most representative of the
students.”
Andrew Chin,
a junior at East
Chapel Hill High
School, also favors
a standardized
final exam policy
for all schools in
the district.
“Depending
on the class
and final exam
requirements, I
may study for up
to 10 hours leading
up to a final. It is a
little frustrating
that Carrboro’s
students won’t
have to put in as
much work to get
the same grade as
me,” Chin said.
“Softening the
policy was well-intentioned, but it
doesn’t translate to the real world. You
won’t get rewarded for not trying.”
However, despite their focus on
rescinding this year’s final exam
requirement, Kwok said that he
“personally wouldn’t mind having
tests in future years,” which Manning
agrees with. Her only suggestion would
be to withhold end-of-year exams for
Advanced Placement classes because
they “already have a built-in final test.”
Going forward, the pair aims to hold
school administration accountable.
“The bigger, ongoing issue is the
lack of communication. The first
Senior celebrates anniversary of weekly parkrun
senior Stephen Chen, who serves
as the director, coordinator and
announcer for Umstead Parkrun.
“Chapel Hill is a small, positive
college town, and we just wanted to
have a place where people can gather
and spread positivity while engaging
in a beneficial sport,” Chen said.
Parkrun is what you make of
it. People can run hard and push
themselves for their own personal
best, or just go on a morning nature
walk and make new friends. Parkrun’s
most important aspect is bringing
people together into a community.
“When people come they usually
leave happier than what they came
with. And I've seen a lot of people
become more fit and healthier,” Chen
said. “Parkrun itself is an exercise,
so it encourages people to run, to
practice, to get better mentally and
physically.
In recognition of its impact, the
North Carolina Asian American
Alliance honored parkrun
youth volunteers with the Youth
Volunteer Star Award, providing
further encouragement to the youth
leadership groups involved.
However, Chen's journey in
establishing the Umstead Parkrun
has not been without its challenges.
“The biggest challenge was
communicating with the local
government to get permission to run
the parkrun in the beginning,” Chen
said. “And it’s weekly, so I do have
to be consistent, but I am generally
consistent on doing it every week…
even if there is a conflict with my
schedule, there are always people
to help.”
During the more than 50 parkruns
in the past year, parkrun has been
special to its participants in their own
different ways. No matter your age or
how fast you run, parkrun is about
everyone joining together and doing
the same exercise regularly.
“Every parkrun is a special
memory in itself. But I think the most
memorable parts are the kids and the
elderly. There was a couple, one of
Courtesy of Alexander Kwok
Alexander Kwok and Melinda Manning started their petition stating that
the school was violating an agreement with Carrboro studentry. Over 700
people signed.
them is handicapped and the other just
pushed her through the whole 5k, and
it was encouraging to see,” Chen said.
Parkrun also couldn’t have
happened without the group of
volunteers behind the scene to ensure
the whole thing goes smoothly. They
wake up much earlier before the
parkrunners arrive to set up the scene
and wait until the very last person to
finish before they clean up and take
down everything.
“I think volunteering is the core
part that runs the entire event. We
couldn't have done this without
volunteers. It's definitely not a solo
venture,” Chen said. “They help
with handing out tokens for people
who are finishing, scanning them,
recording their time, and volunteers
are definitely very important to us to
keep things working.”
According to Chen, volunteering
at Umstead Parkrun has been a
transformative journey of personal
growth and responsibility. From the
beginning of seeking permission from
[final exam] policy change was only
announced in an assembly, and the
information felt almost hidden from
parents,” Kwok said.
Manning added to his statement.
“There needs to be more transparency.
The administration obviously has to
make big decisions, but they should
be taking input. I mean, effective
communication is a two-way street,”
she said.
Whether or not Carrboro maintains
their current final exam policy in
future years remains to be seen. When
reached to request clarification, the
school’s administration declined to
comment.
the town government, to becoming
the leader of the whole event, it has
been a journey of self-discovery and
growth.
“In general, I became a lot more
open to talk to people. I feel like
it's more natural for me to speak
in front of more people. It is also a
commitment in itself that makes me
more responsible,” Chen said.
With over 2,000 locations in 22
countries across five continents,
parkrun’s footprint is still expanding.
In addition to North Carolina, it is also
organized by the youngest person.
Chen is going to Duke University
in fall 2024, and he promised that
you will still see him every Saturday
morning. There is still a long future
in front of Umstead Parkrun.
“I want parkrun to be left as a
legacy to the community. Even if
I will not be there in the future, I
hope someone will continue to work
for me, and I think that's definitely
possible. I hope it'll run indefinitely,”
Chen said.
May 2024 FEATURES 5
Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools begin to suffer implications of declining enrollment
By Jordan Huang
Staff Writer
Enrollment within the Chapel Hill-
Carrboro City Schools district has
decreased by nearly 1,000 students
since the 2019-2020 academic year,
according to the Board of Education’s
2023-24 executive enrollment
summary. This downturn, representing
an overall decrease of 8.5 percent, has
also significantly impacted funding.
District officials were already forced to
pass a series of planned budget cuts in
February of this year, and enrollment
forecasts remain bleak.
“Based on our projected enrollment
trends, it is almost certain the district
will be facing year-over-year
reductions for the foreseeable future,”
said Johnathan Scott, the CHCCS
Chief Financial
Officer.
The district’s
struggles serve
as a microcosm
for larger trends,
reflecting the
ongoing tug-ofwar
over student
enrollment
between public
and alternative
schooling
options. Ten
years ago, 85
percent of North Carolina students
attended a K-12 public school, but
that number has since dropped to
76.6 percent, according to Census
Bureau data. Meanwhile, home,
private and charter schooling options
have seen substantial gains in the same
timeframe.
According to Scott, the district is
already “navigating the challenges of
having less money while still providing
students with a quality education,” and
he anticipates further “significant
impacts on various areas of operations
and educational programming.”
“It's really important for us to
keep talking to everyone involved—
teachers, parents, students, and people
in the community—so we can make
good decisions that match what we
Photo courtesy of Unsplash/Feliphe Schiarolli
want for our schools,” Scott said.
“By working together and thinking
carefully, we can deal with the
challenges of having less money while
still giving students a great education.”
Theodore Nollert, a Chapel Hill
Town Council member, attributed the
enrollment decline to rising living costs
and expressed concerns regarding
Chapel Hill’s loss of diversity.
“We are losing low-income families,
and there is a lot of overlap between
race and wealth in America,” Nollert
said. “Generally speaking, wealthy
places can provide a higher level
of services, but if we get wealthier
by pushing out folks with lower
incomes, that produces a kind of
income inequality
and potentially, racial
[division].”
Nollert referenced
studies mapping Chapel
Hill’s shrinking Black
population and stated
that “both the housing displacement
and the decline in student enrollment
are primarily observed among
marginalized communities.”
However, despite a 32 percent
decrease in Black homeownership
in Chapel Hill since 2010, CHCCS
minority enrollment has not
particularly suffered. Compared to
White and Asian enrollment, which
Last group of COVID high schoolers
Continued from page 1
“Freshman year was especially
difficult because I just moved here
and it made making any sort of
connection pretty much impossible,”
senior Jake Donovan said. “It made
it hard to participate in school—I
still did because it was kinda my
only lifeline. It set me up in high
school to have a rough time with
grades especially, and the social
aspect which I was stunted in.”
When we finally came to East it
was kind of strange. Academically
it wasn’t too dissimilar from online
school with policies like the 50-floor
and mandatory late work acceptance
following us to in-person school. But
socially it was a little cattywampus.
For those who were able to sustain
friendships over lockdown or even
were able to make new friends had
an easier transition into sophomore
year.
“I did the hybrid learning at the
end of my freshman year and there
was almost nobody there,” senior
Cash Tzoumas said. “But the friends
that I did have in my classes and
the people who I knew from middle
school I was really tight with, so
those are the people that I stuck
with.”
But for the rest of us, lockdown
was a limbo of sorts where it was
almost impossible to make new
friends, online or otherwise, but all
too easy to lose the friends that went
into lockdown with you.
“In my experience it was very hard
to maintain friendships and just any
relationships through it all. It took
me some time when coming back
to readjust and navigate socially,”
senior Elijah Barr said.
Speaking from the authors’
personal experiences, we both relate
to what Barr describes above. We
both lost connection with friends
over the pandemic. It’s hard to
describe the feeling of seeing those
people again, not as friends but as
someone who is now more of an
acquaintance. Someone who you
could probably still be friends with
if you just reached out, if you tried
to start where you guys left off.
But the possibility they could be
someone who might have moved on,
who may not be all that interested in
revisiting where you left off, is kind
of paralyzing.
Neither of us ever reconnected
to those people. We wish we could
tell our freshman selves to just
reach out.
Wanting to correct your past
mistakes isn’t an uncommon feeling;
living with regrets just means you’re
growing as a person. The class
of 2024 isn’t special, we’re just a
group of seniors who happen to have
had less time at our high school.
We aren’t unique or extraordinary.
We probably aren’t going to be
facing long-term consequences
over missing freshman year. At
the end of the day, we are normal
kids who were put under unique
circumstances… but we did good
for ourselves. We may not all be
at the same place whether it be
socially, academically or whatever
other category we feel the need to
compare each other with, but we
did a lot in the three years we were
at East. We made friends, competed
in national competitions, wrote
in the newspaper, got accepted to
colleges, got jobs, played assassins,
disappeared for days at a time and
still never did gym. We should
celebrate ourselves for just making
it to the end of our “high school
experience,” COVID and all.
Celebrate ourselves for making it to
the beginning of the rest of our lives.
“I think the senior class is a
fabulous senior class,” Link said.
“You guys are a great, talented
bunch of kids who are also very
caring and empathetic—just decent
human beings.”
“It’s sad, but when
the budget gets
tight, you have
to make tough
decisions.”
have decreased by 14.6 percent and
11.2 percent, respectively, since
2019-20, Black enrollment declined
by only 3.1 percent, while Latinx
enrollment decreased by only 1.5
percent. Additionally, multiracial
enrollment has actually increased by
nearly 3 percent, according to the
CHCCS Office of Assessment and
Research.
This year’s budget cuts focused
on reducing P.E. teacher and teacher
assistant positions within elementary
schools and the virtual learning
academy. In response to the change,
a petition was created by Morris
Grove Elementary Instructional Coach
Kelli Smith, which received over
450 signatures from
CHCCS educators.
“We talk a lot
about maximizing the
return on academic
investment, and there
isn’t much higher
return on investment than studentfacing
educators,” Smith wrote. Other
concerns about the proposed personnel
cuts include the loss of face-to-face
instructional time and reduced staff
morale.
If additional operating funds are not
approved by the Orange County Board
of Commissioners in November,
middle and high schools will soon
“Even if you are afraid…
you just need to put
yourself out there and do it
anyway. Even though the
pandemic has made you
a lot more anxious, you
need to make memories
and friends. You’re
gonna regret not making
relationships in freshman
year.”- Rebecca Conway
“Try to plan more events
and get people together.
I’m sure everyone was
down but it was just hard.”
- Cash Tzoumas
“It’s important to have a
routine because it can be
hard to feel like you’re in
control of your life.”
- Elijah Barr
“Just because it’s
quarantine, don’t make
school your entire life.
Try to get out during those
times.” - Walt Reuning
“Be friends with everyone.
Have a conversation with
everyone.” - Sam Ashley
feel the impact of budget reductions
as well.
“Budget reductions will have the
biggest effect on which positions
we keep. If we lose 150 students,
that’s a teacher position that we can’t
maintain,” Principal Jesse Casey
said. “One position requires paying
someone a full salary, on top of
insurance, retirements, and other
benefits. The number of teachers
we hire entirely depends upon
enrollment.”
Going forward, Casey said that East
would need to be “more creative about
money” and mentioned “utilizing
more digital options in place of
physical learning materials” as an
example.
An hour away, in Franklin County
N.C., the school board has already
adopted a budget plan which eliminates
all certified School Librarian positions
as a cost-cutting measure.
“I don’t agree with what [Franklin
County] is doing at all, but it's what
they deemed necessary. In my old
school system, they were talking
about cutting middle school athletics,
because of what could be saved by
not paying for equipment, trainers,
coaches, and transportation. It’s sad,
but when the budget gets tight, you
have to make tough decisions,” Casey
said.
The ECHO asked seniors what advice
would say to their freshmen selves.
These were some responses...
“‘It gets better.’ That’s
probably the only thing I
could say, and it did get
better, still a little rough,
but it got better.”- Jake
Donovan
“Do better.”- Ayden
Farmer
“Always try to make
friends.”- Henry Spencer
“Take more AP classes.”
- Michael Kang
“Even if you don’t see the
point you should still try.
Because now, senior year
with college applications,
I am kinda regretting
not having tried more
freshman and sophomore
year.”- Dylan Freedland.
Freedland is now facing
the consequences of his
actions, being Co-Editorin-Chief
Graham Jones’
college roommate at App
State. A fate worse than
death :)
6 FEATURES echhsechoonline.com
Absenteeism reaches new highs since COVID-19
By Avery Tortora
Co-Editor-in-Chief
Despite COVID-19 recently passing
its fourth anniversary since being
declared a national emergency, many
schools are still facing the repercussions
of changes made during the remote
learning period. One of the largest
being students’ willingness to attend
school.
According to an ABC 11 report, a
third of North Carolina students were
chronically absent during the 2021-22
school year, unlike before the pandemic
where only 15 percent were chronically
absent during the 2018-19 school year.
A student becomes chronically absent
when they miss at least 10 percent of
their total school days.
From 2019 to 2023, chronic
absenteeism across the nation has
risen from 16 to 23 percent according to
the American Enterprise Institute. East
Chapel Hill is just one of many other
schools across the country attempting to
combat soaring absence numbers, with
28.69 percent of East students being
chronically absent, compared to the
district’s overall rate of 20.76 percent
according to North Carolina School
Report Cards.
English teacher Jennifer Martin, who
has been teaching at East for the past 19
years, noticed the visible shift in student
attendance.
“I know COVID had a big impact….
[attendance] was definitely better
around 10 years ago,” Martin said.
Martin also noted that students,
especially seniors, have begun missing
school earlier in the year.
“Seeing absenteeism in seniors
is not new. It used to be after winter
break you’d start to see a lot of kids
By Avery Tortora
Co-Editor-in-Chief
East 4-H Club
With nearly 6 million members
worldwide, 4-H is America’s biggest
youth development organization,
and freshman Nitya Sharma has been
determined to bring it to East.
Sharma described how the club
and organization as a whole “help
kids reach their full potential”
through what the 4-H website
describes as, having kids engage in
discussing “critical societal issues…
civil discourse and advocating for
equity and inclusion for all.”
Since this club is a recent addition
to East, this being its first year, the
club is still focusing on recruiting
members but still has many goals
for the future.
“We are planning on helping the
special-education program at East
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
13%
15 15
13%
Graph of percentage of chronic absenteeism Series in 1 U.S.
28%
26%
2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22 2022-23
not show up, but now it’s in October.
That’s frustrating for me because that’s
really early in the school year,” Martin
said.
But East’s attendance numbers
seem to stand out among other schools
in the district, and an anonymous
junior expressed how the culture and
policies surrounding attendance could
contribute to this growing problem.
“I think it has to do with there being
no punishment policy for skipping….
The culture in this school just doesn’t
prioritize attendance,” the junior said.
Many may speculate what the main
factor is in causing such new highs
for student absences, but they span a
multitude of reasons. Some factors
were present before the pandemic,
while others arose due to students’
experience during the pandemic.
The junior highlighted how the
shift to online-centric lessons and
assignments has made skipping and
still keeping up with school a more
viable option.
with fundraising and volunteering,”
Sharma said.
Aside from their philanthropic
goals, Sharma noted how the travel
opportunities the organization
provides for teens to places like
Chicago and DC are one of the
largest perks, and that being in the
club has really “helped [her] learn
what [her] strengths and weaknesses
are.”
To join, you can reach out to
nsharma1@students.chccs.k12.
nc.us.
Mock Trial Club
15%
15%
Order in the court! The Mock
Trial Club at East offers a unique
opportunity for students to simulate a
realistic court case experience; from
eyewitness testimonies to crossexaminations,
students are able to
learn the ins and outs of what a court
trial looks like.
0% 0
Avery Tortora/The ECHO
“Most of the work we have is online,
so when I stay home I get a lot more
work done than I do when I’m actually
in class,” the junior said. “We don’t
really do much in class, they just give
us an assignment on the computer, so
what is the point of being in class when
I could be doing it from my own bed….
At home I can be on my own schedule.”
The lack of punishment for students
who miss school is also a possible factor
as to why students are so lenient with
their attendance, and as these students
become seniors who have already
committed to a college or university,
school attendance becomes less and
less important.
Senior Ben Johnson noted how
“senioritis” and sports have affected
his attendance and contributed to his
absences.
“I used to be very on top of my top
of my attendance, but now that I’m a
senior and I’m already in college I don’t
care about it much anymore…. I also
miss classes because of baseball which
Co-president and senior Andrea
Wang stated how the members “play
out a trial, and at the end, there’s a
competition where [the club] goes
to the site [they’re] assigned to, like
Raleigh, Hillsboro or Fayetteville,
and goes to a physical court,” said
Wang, the experience is also made
possible by the attorney and judge
volunteers that play the role of a
meta-chart.com
Club Spotlight: East 4-H and Mock Trial Club
Left to Right: East 4-H Club, Mock Trial Club
have to be dismissed in the
middle of a period, so I just
won’t show up for the whole
period so I can take my time
and get to the field,” Johnson
said.
The junior shared how
the skipping culture at East,
mainly set by seniors, is what
validates her reasons to skip
as well.
“I do see a lot of people
skipping and it does normalize
it,” the junior said. “My best
friend who’s a senior skips a
lot, so when she doesn’t go to
school I don’t really want to
go either.”
As skipping becomes more prevalent
toward the end of the year, students are
more relaxed with their attendance,
making constant absences a normal
part of their schedule.
“At first I felt guilty for skipping, but
now it’s kind of a lifestyle,” Johnson
said.
The leniency that schools had to
exercise during the pandemic has
spilled over into the past few years
of normal, in-person schooling, and
many students have taken advantage
of the ability to skip school without
consequences.
“We had to be more understanding
about absences during the remote
learning period and it shifted
expectations. Now that we are back
to a more normal routine of going
to school, we are seeing the effect of
those expectations,” principal Jesse
Casey said.
The 50 percent floor, a controversial
policy enacted during the pandemic, is
another rule that has stayed since then
judge in the competition.
Although the club didn’t make it
to the national competition this year,
they’re focusing on brushing up their
skills and preparing for the years to
come and the future of Mock Trial.
“We’re also working on the
different skill sets we need too, like
acting and improv skills,” Wang
said.
and is a possible contributing factor to
students’ attendance choices even long
after remote learning ended.
Casey stated that the grading floor
“may be a factor, but not the main
factor,” in student absences. Martin
shared similar sentiments, saying that
“the students are smart kids, they’ve
done the math and calculated that
they can slack off here, and still get
this grade…[the 50 percent floor] is
one piece of helping a kid make the
decision not to come to school.”
The shifted expectations include
little to no remediation for chronic
absenteeism, and Martin highlighted
the precautions she believes would
help.
“Before we had state testing, we
had a senior exam exemption policy,
which is where if you have less than
‘X’ amount of absences, you get to opt
out of the final exam.… You can talk
to other teachers here, it worked… to
not know why we can’t do something
like that again is frustrating. I’m going
to continue to fight for it,” Martin said.
A 2011 study conducted in the
Northwest Independent School
District in Texas found that “the
average number of absences decreased
significantly after an exam exemption
policy was implemented,” proving that
the policy can effectively deter chronic
absenteeism.
There are only so many steps a
school can take to combat a nationwide
trend, and Martin highlighted the
struggle of constantly “fighting against
cellphones, laptops, warm weather and
the year ending.”
Casey hopes to work on relieving
this problem from a more communal
standpoint.
Courtesy of Nitya Sharma & Andrea Wang
Wang also noted the many skills
that the club offers aside from acting
and improv, like the law and policy
expertise you can gather from the
experience that can be especially
helpful to students looking to go into
law, politics, public policy and many
other fields.
To join, you can reach out to
awang1@students.chccs.k12.nc.us.
ARTS & CULTURE
Gallery: The best of East’s spring activities
Featuring photos from the solar shower, pep rally, Asian Night and prom
Avery Tortora, Evan Elk/The ECHO; Bella Adjei-Dapaah, Zoey He, Jasmine Ji
The vibrant journey of East dance ensemble
By Clara Mast & Elise Owre
Staff Writers
From the precise, modern
moves of K-pop dancers to the
elegant, classical ballerinas, East
Dance Ensemble has it all. For
many years now, the dance club
has been a community within
East Chapel Hill.
The members meet once a
week during lunch to carefully
curate music selection,
choreography and style. The
dancers are working toward a
performance that happens twice
a year in the auditorium for the
East community to see.
“It's nerve racking at first,”
said Paulina Martinez-Leal, a
senior dancer of the ensemble,
“but once you’re on stage with
your peers you become more
confident and it’s satisfying
afterwards”.
The group creates a space for
every member to showcase their
talents and grow together.
Senior Rebecca Shank fell
in love with dance when she
was four years old sitting in
the Chapel Hill High School
Auditorium, watching her older
sister dance as a gingerbread
man in “The Nutcracker.”
Today, as president of the
club, Shank sees the ensemble as
a learning opportunity, not just
for the club members, but for all
of East.
“I think our school is very
academic and sports focused,
and it doesn’t really go beyond
that,” Shank said. “People don’t
really understand what dance
is. We put it on as a learning
opportunity for our fellow
classmates.”
The club is about more than
just performing. It also provides
an atmosphere for members to
socialize and learn from each
other.
“It’s not just about dance,”
said Martinez Leal. “It’s about
meeting people and learning
their stories behind the art.”
The gathering of like-minded
people creates opportunities to
form unlikely connections to
learn and grow together.
“Dance is my community in
and out of school. A lot of my
deepest friendships and mentors
have come from dance—It’s the
easiest way for me to express
myself and connect with
people,” Shank said.
One of the main goals of
the club is to foster a love of
dancing in the audience as well
as the performers. With the art
on stage, Shank hopes to inspire
people to join the club.
“It’s very low stress, if you
know how to dance, enjoy it and
are willing to dedicate your time
to the club, it’s definitely worth
it,” Shank said.
East Dance Ensemble’s next
performance will take place in
late April, its theme is life in
color. Shank chose the theme
Elise Owre/The ECHO
inspired by a song that has
helped her a lot in the past year,
“Life in Color” by OneRepublic.
“The idea behind it is, as
seniors, this is our life in color,”
she said. “We’re going to have
fun moving on and we’re also
going to have fun right now.”
8 ARTS & CULTURE echhsechoonline.com
Why you need a point-and-shoot camera My new love:
The beauty of crilk
By Jordan Huang
Staff Writer
I was in Malibu when I was
first introduced to the world of
early-2000s point-and-shoot
cameras.
It was 2021. I’d made a new
friend, Tony, within the first few
hours of my political journalism
summer camp. We were into
the same things: fashion, stocks
and talking big. One day while
we were walking back from our
afternoon class, Tony told me to
stop and pulled out a battered
Powershot A20. He raised the
camera to his face, peering
through the viewfinder to snap
a quick photo of me against the
California sunset. I took one
look at the picture he’d taken
and knew that I, too, wanted to
own a crappy digital camera.
Later that evening, we
ventured back out into the arid
summer night to take more
photos, where I discovered the
true pinnacle of low-resolution
digital photography: flash
pictures. Older digital cameras
have a very limited dynamic
range compared to modern
devices. In bright daylight, this
limitation becomes particularly
evident: bright areas become
overexposed, while darker areas
become murky. However, flash
pictures don’t suffer from that
issue whatsoever. Harsh lighting,
unique color saturation and a
sprinkle of grain combine for
By Avery Tortora
Co-Editor-in-Chief
The dynamic duo of “Black Swan” and
“Whiplash”
If you’ve ever seen either
“Whiplash,” directed by Damien
Chazelle, or “Black Swan,”
directed by Darren Aronofsky, I
highly recommend watching its
girl/boy counterpart.
“Whiplash,” the 2014 film
starring Miles Teller, follows
Andrew Neiman, a student
studying jazz drumming
at the prestigious Shaffer
Conservatory, where he is
discovered by jazz instructor
Terence Fletcher, played by
J.K. Simmons. Fletcher pushes
Neiman to extreme lengths
to acquire perfection from
him, morphing his passion for
drumming into an obsession
that disrupts all aspects of his
life. With an excellent score and
perfect, Y2K aesthetic photos
– the lazy man’s method of
obtaining the tactile, “livedin”
quality reminiscent of film
photography (Walmart edition).
And the best part of all this?
You don’t have to know anything
about how cameras work to use a
point-and-shoot. The name says
it all: automatic settings and
portability allow users to quickly
take photos without worrying
about manual adjustments. This
simplicity is a hallmark of such
cameras, and the only thing
you need to do to acquire this
power is search “digital camera”
on your favorite e-commerce
platform. There used to be a
blind spot in my narcissism, as I
was unaware of how photogenic
I could be. Editing is completely
unnecessary when you’re taking
pictures on an old digital. The
low-resolution and stark textures
unforgettable performances from
Teller and Simmons, “Whiplash”
is a passion-turned-obsession
story for the books.
Its “girl-counterpart,”
in my opinion, is the 2010
psychological thriller “Black
Swan,” starring Natalie Portman.
Portman plays Nina Sayers, a
young, ambitious dance student
at the New York City Ballet.
Sayers is chosen as the lead in
her company’s performance of
“Swan Lake,” which stars an
elegant white swan, Odette,
who is cursed by a sorcerer and
emerges into the evil version of
herself, Odile. The good-turnedevil
swan is played by the same
dancer in every production, and
Sayers is pushed to her limits,
expecting nothing less than
perfection while attempting to
take on this role. Her obsession
Jordan Huang/The ECHO
airbrush your photos, wiping
away your imperfections and
giving your face a chiseled look.
In flash photos, subjects stand
out dramatically against their
backgrounds, main-character
style.
Before even arriving home,
I’d already found another
Powershot on eBay for roughly
$20. I had just turned 16 when I
bought that camera. As of today,
I’m 18 years old, and I can say
with confidence that I never
looked back. Across two years of
parties, games, trips and photo
sessions, my camera has been a
mainstay. Through thousands of
photos and countless instances
of “Yo where’d you get your
camera?,” I learned that people
love having their picture taken,
just like I did that one summer
day. Shoutout Tony.
with perfection begins to take
a toll on her sanity, and a dark
side of her personality emerges,
reflecting her ballet role in her
real life.
Both films are structured
around the passionate
performer’s obsession that leads
to their downfall, and there’s
something very satisfying
yet startling about the way
their characters develop and
ultimately unravel. But the
reason for being each others’
boy and girl counter-films goes
beyond just the gender of the
main character. There’s a certain
atmosphere that comes along
with each main characters’
endeavors. With “Black Swan,”
the audience experiences a
fragile character who deals with
anorexia and struggles with not
succumbing to the pressures of
By Camden Lauver
Staff Writer
Ice cream and milk, otherwise
known as America’s mother and
father. The former: a sweet treat to
enjoy after a long day of hard work,
the latter, a hard worker in its own
right, there to support you whenever
you need to bolster your body’s
skeletal supports, giving you the
strength to face the day. It could not be
clearer that our society would cease to
exist without these two things, but the
question must be asked: could proper
utilization of milk and ice cream
(defenders of freedom, enemies of
brittle bones) elevate every aspect of
our day to day life? I think the answer
is yes.
Also known as crilk, this creamy
combo of nature’s finest offerings
has the potential to cure depression
in one sitting if prepared correctly. To
start: grab a large cup (pro tip: novelty
cups from football games are perfect
for this), fill said cup with as much
ice cream as you can reasonably fit,
then fill the cup about 2/3 full with
milk. That’s it. If it seems way too
simple, that’s because it is. Adding
milk to your ice cream forms a sort of
frozen shell surrounding each scoop,
her mother and dance director.
With “Whiplash,” there’s an
intense battering relationship
between Neiman and Fletcher,
and also a romantic aspect where
the main character navigates
rejecting and rejection because
of his obsession with drumming.
Ultimately, these films are
not only packed with interesting
character development, but
amazing cinematics. These
factors come together to create
two incredible masterpieces; if
you loved watching one, you
will certainly love watching the
other.
but makes each bite exponentially
creamier. Yum yum yum.
Haters will argue that crilk is
basically an unshaken milkshake,
which is unarguably the most stupid
thing I’ve heard in my entire life. They
may have the same main ingredients,
but the presentation, consumption and
experience of the dish is completely
different. A milkshake is a drink. You
put a straw in and slurp. Crilk, on the
other hand, IS A FOOD. You use a
spoon and eat scoops of ice cream just
like you always do, it’s just drowned
in milk. Muffins have the same basic
ingredients as cake, but you don’t
see anyone calling a muffin a cake
because they’re different in every
possible way.
I’ve also gotten a lot of hate for this
idea from the lactose intolerant crowd
(Hannah Wright) which is dumb.
First off, you’re lactose intolerant
so I’m not really sure why you
think you get to have an opinion on
anything. Secondly, this is obviously
not a dessert intended for you, so do
not come at me because you can’t
properly appreciate it. If you’re pissy
that you can’t eat ice cream without
crapping yourself, you can eat a
cookie or something and go cry in the
corner.
At the end of the day, you either
see the vision or you don’t, and if
you don’t feel like giving crilk a
chance, you can live in ignorance,
but I need people to stop calling me
weird for this because they’re upset
they didn’t come up with it first. Give
waterboarding your ice cream in milk
a chance, it might just change your
life.
Photos courtesy of Amazon
May 2024 ARTS & CULTURE 9
An honest review of Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department”
By Mischa Dorn & Clara Wolfe
Staff Writers
Hot take: Taylor Swift’s new
album, “The Tortured Poet’s
Department,” is a flop. It’s messy
and unfiltered, and not in a good
way. All of the songs sound the
same, and the lyrics seem like
they were written by AI.
Before you hate us, we are
both proud Taylor Swift listeners.
We went to The Eras Tour
together in Pittsburgh and had the
time of our lives. We scream-sang
every song, including the entire
10-minute “All Too Well,” which
we both obviously know by heart.
Swift’s songs are in nearly all of
our playlists, and we’ve both been
listening to her since we were
little. We watched the Grammy’s
livestream, texting each other in
all caps when Taylor announced
the new album. Believe us, we
don't want to hate the “Tortured
Poet’s Department.”
Unfortunately, our high
expectations were greatly
disappointed. Upon first listen
on Friday morning, we couldn't
ignore the difference in quality
Courtesy of William Morrow
“Reamde” by Neal Stephenson,
Thriller
Neal Stephenson’s “Reamde”
is over 1,000 pages and host to a
huge detailed and amazingly well
executed story, the epic is one for
“No Exit” by Jean-Paul Sartre
- Drama
Some of us find ourselves
more anguished than others by the
sweltering summers of the South—
perhaps to the point where we feel
we’re watching our backdrop
grow vaguely infernal before
our eyes. Quite relevantly, “No
Exit” by Jean-Paul Sartre, a play
first performed in Paris in 1944,
follows three individuals, Garcin,
Inez and Estelle, as they reckon
with their entry into the afterlife
where, despite having never
previously known each other,
they are thrown together into a
mysterious room. As they begin to
between this album and her past
music. Her lyricism, which is
usually praised for its thoughtful
poetic nature, sounds brash and
lazy. For example, the random
Charlie Puth reference and her
dream of going back to the 1830s
“without all the racists” create an
odd listening experience. With
31 songs total, after a surprise
extended album, it’s no shock that
the writing sounds rushed. She
wrote “TTPD” in the past two
years, while juggling another new
album release, two re-recordings
and the famously long Eras
Tour.
Recently, Swift's brand has
become defined by this excess of
activity. It seems as if her new
strategy is to oversaturate the
market in an attempt to always
be the topic of discussion.
However, this “quantity over
quality” mentality has led to an
overabundance of subpar releases.
The age of meticulously planned
albums like “Folklore” and
“Evermore” feels distant.
Swift has faced countless
criticisms in the past describing
her music as repetitive and
the ages.
The premise of the novel is
centered around a computer virus
designed by Chinese hackers;
this alone does not seem like
it would result in much action,
until it infects the computer of
a Russian mobster and holds
valuable files for ransom, files
that the mobster’s boss, illiterate
in the ways of computers, needs
fast. This kicks off the action, and
it just keeps escalating, jumping
from twist to twist, building to a
climactic final.
And it is truly Epic. The story
spans the globe with characters
from Africa, China, Hungary,
interact and unfold their separate
pasts, they slowly find that they’re
part of an inevitable, engineered
plan to serve as psychological
unoriginal, and this is the first
time we agree. Listening to the
two-hour long album, all of the
songs blend into one. The only
distinction between songs is the
jarring switch between producers
Jack Antonoff and Aaron Desner’s
musical styles. Otherwise, the
music is relatively uninspiring and
stale.
The album is not a complete
loss, with a few bright spots in
an otherwise mediocre album.
Certain songs, such as “I Can Do
It With A Broken Heart” and “My
Boy Only Breaks His Favorite
Toys,” still contain that iconic
Taylor cadence. Individually,
the songs aren’t bad, but they
just sound incohesive when put
together
Because of the intense support
for Swift, anyone who critiques
her new album has been getting
flamed online, being called “antifeminist”
and “tasteless.” The
issue with such a huge, devoted
fan base is that people lose
the ability to freely voice their
opinions without great backlash.
To anyone who loves “TTPD,”
we’re not telling you to stop
Russia, Canada and more. Their
journeys take them to a myriad of
places, and the backstory spans a
central character’s entire career
from a marijuana smuggler to one
of the richest men on Earth and the
head of an online gaming empire,
god of the world he created.
For those looking for a casual
read, or a simple story, this is not
the book for you. But for those
looking for a long and engaging
read with constant action and
intricate characters, this might just
be your next great read.
— William Helser, Staff Writer
tormentors to one another for the
rest of time. Despite the extreme
circumstances at its center, this
play is so thematically universal
that I would recommend it far
and wide—even and especially
to those who are not already avid
fans of French existentialism.
Being entirely dialogue and stage
directions, it’s a fast-paced read,
and I would also advise reading
this play with some friends (or
better yet, some strangers or
mortal enemies) so that you have
the chance to act it out! — Suna
Erdim, Staff Writer
liking it. Music is a subjective
matter and everyone is free to
form their own opinions and
have their own musical taste.
However, in our opinions, the
album doesn’t match up to
Taylor’s past quality. It’s easy to
overlook the poor production in
ECHO staff summer reads
Courtesy of Vintage Publishing
“An Emotion of Great Delight” by
Tahereh Mafi - Historical Fiction
Tahereh Mafi’s “An Emotion of Great
Delight” is a story of identity and hope.
The story follows Shadi Nasreen, an
Iranian-American and hijabi Muslim
girl, who’s family is falling apart after
her brother Mehdi’s death. Shadi, who’s
name means joy, struggles to find that
joy in an otherwise hopeless time, a post
9/11 world. Topics like mental health,
self-harm and Islamophobia hover
over Shadi and her family as they try to
stay strong. Shadi is seen as suspicious
by officers and people around her. To
make matters worse, there’s a great
deal of miscommunication between
Shadi and her “best friend.” This book
is the perfect window into the life of
a typical Muslim family post 9/11,
“Me Before You” by Jojo Moyes -
Fiction
Heartbreakingly beautiful, Jojo
Moyes’ New York Times bestseller,
“Me Before You,” is a must read.
Moyes follows eccentric Lousia Clark,
a recently unemployed barista in a
quiet, boring town in South Wales. In
the midst of the 2008 recession, Lousia
quickly searches for a new job and finds
herself working as a personal caregiver
and companion to a quadriplegic.
Lousia expects to be wiping the butt
of an old man, yet finds herself with
Courtesy of Beth Garrabrant
the excitement of a new album
and constant “Swiftie” praise on
the internet, but it is important
that as fans, we hold our favorite
artists to high standards. Swift
still needs criticism, even as the
most famous artist in the world,
in order to maintain that title.
Courtesy of HarperCollins
ending on an optimistic and hopeful
note. If you’re looking for a historical
fiction story revolving around innerstrength,
identity and hope, then this is
the book for you.
— Juman Alyousif, Staff Writer
sarcastic and witty Will Traynor. In the
following six months, Lousia attempts
to foster a relationship with Will, a
former adventurer and businessman,
and show him the joys of life. I picked
this book out of my mom’s collection of
old literary novels and self help books
out of sheer boredom. My extremely
low expectations were far exceeded
by “Me Before You,” the perfect quick
read for a good cry. — Mischa Dorn,
Staff Writer
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10
ARTS & CULTURE
By Avery Tortora
Co-Editor-in-Chief
ACROSS
1. “Dat ___” (jazz
tune)
5. Art movement
10. Professor Lupin's first
name, in the "Harry Potter"
books
11. Largest planet in the solar
system
13. Quitter's comment
14 Chopin, Liszt, Mozart, etc.
15. Apollo 11 destination
16. Fit to ___ (perfectly)
18. ___-mo
19. Unowned, free-ranging
pooch
21. Bedtime, for some
24. Spanish uncles
25. “Eureka!”
27. English essay format
28. Prayer ender
30. ___ tots
32. Caucasian wild goat
33. “Much ___ About Nothing”
34. You are here
35. Aliens, for short
36. Romanian currency
37. Diameter halves
38. Reverse
40. Golfer Ernie
41. “When will you be here?"
42. Thorny flower
45. Oozes or leaks
47. Set free
50. Addition to a bank acct.
51. He loved Lucy
52. ___ & turn, restless sleep
53. Plague
55. Second planet from the sun
57. 55 neighbor
58. Beethoven's "Für ___"
59. Put pen to paper
60. For old times' ___
DOWN
1. Interior design
2. Flow forth
3. Sprint
4. Spanish state
5. Place for a massage
6. Sheriff's badge
7. Functional/useful
8. Struck a chord
9. He played Clubber Lang in
“Rocky III”
10. Uprising
11. Computer image file format
12. Turnabout, in slang
15. Sent text abbr.
17. Deep-fried tortilla dish
20. ___ and yang
echhsechoonline.com
May Crossword: “Out of this world”
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12
13 14
15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31 32
33 34 35
36 37 38 39
40 41 42 43 44
45 46 47 48 49
50 51 52
53 54 55 56
57 58
59 60
28 "Rolling in the
Deep" and
"Hello" singer
29 Smallest of all
including hoofed line
"easy ___,"
mammals
31 Pura "Thank ___ U, Next"
singer, to fans
33 Pub orders
on
34 Consume
37 band Word spelled
out in Aretha
callFranklin hit
38 Take advantage
of
39 Slob's opposite
43 Martini
garnishes that
soilmay be stuffed
with pimientos
44 later?" Commercials
46 "The Last of Us"
star ___ Pascal
47 Depend (on)
Mini crossword #1 v1
ACROSS
1 Snitch
By Avery Tortora
4 Bubble tea
Co-Editor-in-Chief
5 Jackson 5 song
ACROSS
1. Snitch 6 Bracelet brand
4. Bubble tea
5. Jackson 7 Past lovers 5 song including line “easy ___,”
6. DOWN Bracelet brand Pura ___
7. Past 1 What lovers you drive
2 "Mamma Mia!"
DOWN
1. What
3 Tic-toe
you
filler
drive on
2. “Mamma 4 Possible Mia!” bingoband
3. Tic-toe filler
4. Possible 5 "___ Maria" bingo call
5. “___ Maria”
Mini crossword #2 v1
ACROSS
1 Was victorious
By 4 Avery Wear Tortora away, as
Co-Editor-in-Chief
7 Allow to enter
ACROSS 8 "___ anything
1. Was victorious
9 Distant
4. Wear away, as soil
7. Allow DOWNto enter
8. “___ 1 Fuse, anything as metal later?”
2 Black-and-white
9. Distant
cookie
3 Phone alert,
DOWN slangily
1. Fuse, 5 Meyer as metal of the
2. Black-and-white "Saw" moviescookie
3. Phone 6 MIT alert, grad, slangily often
5. Meyer of the “Saw” movies
6. MIT grad, often
ECHO mini crosswords
48 Drunk
49 Start of North
Carolina's
motto
51 Film
4
developer?:
Abbr.
53 5Mercedes
competitor
54 Point de ___:
6opinion, in Paris
56 Middle school
subject
7involving
writing (Abbr.)
1 2 3
1 2 3
4 5 6
7
8
9
“A modern femboy
would be considered
the most masculine
person in 18th
century Europe.”
“You know those
electric chairs you
sit on at the grocery
stores.”
“You basically just
kissed Mr. Link.”
“I personally don’t
believe in equality.”
Overheard at East
Various utterances caught in passing
“One v. one me in
Fortnite, I’m gonna
cream you.”
“Never go skiing,
Gywneth Paltrow is
out there.”
“You better be
looking at my
armpits during beach
week.”
“Genetic skill issue.”
22. Demoted planet
23. The Red Planet
25. Dresses or outfits
26. Sneaky chuckle laugh
28. “Rolling in the Deep” and
“Hello” singer
29. Smallest of all hoofed
mammals
31. “Thank U, Next” singer,
to fans
33. Pub orders
34. Consume
37. Word spelled out in Aretha
Franklin hit
38. Take advantage of
39. Slob's opposite
43. Martini garnishes that
may be stuffed with pimientos
44. Commercials
46. “The Last of Us”
star ___ Pascal
47. Depend (on)
48. Drunk
49. Start of North Carolina's
motto
51. Film developer?: Abbr.
53. Mercedes competitor
54. Point de ___: opinion, in
Paris
56. Middle school subject
involving writing (Abbr.)
“Its an ancient
tradition to eat
dogs.”
“You know those
guys on TikTok who
eat their placenta.”
“The problem with
wearing green is that
I always feel I'm
photosynthesizing.”
“Salt can't be the
only delicious rock.
I'm going to eat
The ECHO knows that not everyone has a yearbook to for their
friends to sign. The ECHO also knows that if you’re reading the
ECHO, you probably don’t have many friends. To let everyone in on
the signing fun, the ECHO presents...
Signing space for your two friends!
ECHO introduces meditation
By Graham Jones
Co-Editor-in-Chief
Sometimes it feels like
we have no control in our
lives; like we’re just going
about the world doing
predetermined things at
predetermined times. The
monotony of sitting in class
on our phones, the dullness
of a free education (which is
actually $20), even the daily
iced coffees and energy
drinks lose their luster.
Some thoughts manage to
pierce our mental daze:
Is anything worth it? Are
we just cogs in the ornate
grandfather clock that is
father time? What day is
it? While these thoughts
are completely valid they’re
also dumb and stupid.
We at the ECHO have
personally struggled with
this mentality, many of our
editors and writers have
taken many days off to work
on ourselves and figure out
productive ways to handle
our existentialism. We
have tried many forms of
self care such as positive
affirmations, urine therapy,
crystals and screaming.
That was when we
had the genius idea to
invent meditation. It’s
completely free, requires
almost no effort on your
part and you can do it in
the middle of class! You
won’t need anything for this
special exercise other than
your body, your breath and
a pair of eight-inch tungsten
By Suna Erdim
Staff Writer
To the FBI Agent with the distinct
honor of being assigned to my IP
Address,
Greetings, I hope this note finds you
well. I know we’ve done some indirect
“bonding” during the past few weeks
of your perusing through my browsing
history. I imagine you may have a
question or two regarding some recent
spikes in the nature of its content, and
I was hoping I could clear the air and
provide you with some answers to
your satisfaction.
Upon examining my recent
searches, I’m sure there have been
times when you’ve found the flow of
mundane, typical keywords such as
“seven-day forecast for Chapel Hill,”
steel slip-joint pliers that
you can set to the side for
now.
Let’s begin by taking a
deep, full breath in and a
long, relaxing exhale out.
Begin to gently close your
eyes, but don’t actually
because then you couldn’t
read the guide. Continue to
breathe in and out, slowing
your breathing each time
you fill and empty your
lungs. Scan your body for
tension. Start with your
neck and shoulders, and
make your way down to
your legs and feet.
It’s natural for the mind
to wander while doing
meditation; while our
thoughts may drift and
scatter, we only need to
notice our thoughts, not
pursue them. I like to
imagine each and every
thought as a cute little
duckling with a cute little
beak waddling into the
forest. I smile fondly and let
them go. I do not chase them
because I know they will be
eaten or murdered, and that
makes me sad.
After we are all relaxed
we bring attention to a new
location, the mouth. Open
your mouth like you're
going to do a big yawn or
are about to eat a long,
tasty submarine sandwich.
Don’t close it for the rest
of meditation. Take this
opportunity to put your
fingers in your mouth and
feel around. Feel all the
teeth that you have: some
or “how many ounces in a cup?”
permeated by some questions on the
less conventional end of the spectrum.
A couple examples may include ones
like, “How quickly does a cello stop
producing sound once lit on fire?”
“theater scandals throughout history”
and “Was whipped cream widespread
in the USSR?”
Now, I know you may have no
shortage of theories regarding all the
ominous things I could be planning,
given my pursuit of such questions.
My objective is to provide a concrete
resolution to your anxieties by telling
you that the thing that I am planning,
depending on who you ask, is either
marginally better or infinitely worse
than the most heinous products of your
imagination: I’m drafting a novel.
I know that, despite this explanation,
SATIRE*
sharp, some dull, some
brown, some chipped, all
unique except for the ones
that aren’t. Take your time
to pick a favorite tooth.
I am partial to the lower
right back molar. Once you
find your favorite tooth
you may notice that your
mouth suddenly feels very
crowded, that your favorite
tooth is far too close to all
your dirty, filthy, not as
favorite teeth. Oh no, this
won’t do at all.
To remedy this move to
grab your pair of eight-inch
tungsten steel slip-joint
pliers and carefully guide
them into the mouth until
you feel a firm, steady grip
on your favorite tooth. If
you have been continuing
your deep breathing from
earlier in the exercise, your
teeth should now all be dry
due to the air drying out
the moisture on the enamel.
Now take one last long, full
inhalation and while you
exhale summon all your
might to pull up and away
from your favorite tooth.
Repeat if necessary.
If done correctly, you
should now be able to
see your favorite tooth
decorated in glistening
crimson. It’s so perfect it
almost distracts you from
the unfamiliar, but potent
sensation of excruciating
pain. But let it be known
that it is all worth it in the
end because you probably
aren’t worrying about
global warming.
By Avery Tortora
Co-Editor-in-Chief
these questions in my history, in and
of themselves, may have led you to
certain conclusions regarding my
mental state, and that you might be a
bit worried for my physical condition
as well, given the amount of time
I’ve been spending on WebMD as
of late. I hope it puts you at ease to
know that I am simply striving to
become a more informed tormentor
to my fictional characters. For reasons
objectively related to the story’s
thematic development, a few have
become punching bags, quite literally.
But I do promise, rest assured, that
none of them are real—at least not
to you.
Finally, I would like to address the
point you’ve probably been wondering
most about, which is the notable
amount of time I’ve spent on baby
As the end of the year rolls around, the
infamous “Senior Assassin” game continues to
consume the lives of many seniors. Since the
beginning of the game April 15, there have been
over 100 spoon tags. However, some students
have lost more than just their spot in the game,
as the competitive nature of East has proven to
go far beyond just academics.
“Every day I pray that he’ll come home,” said
Mary Davis, the mother of senior Henry Davis,
who has been missing since just two days after
the game began.
Oliver Duncan, a close friend of Henry, shared
what he last heard from him before he went
missing.
“I remember him texting me something along
the lines of, ‘I love you, man, but I’m going away.
I need to win this. It’s for the best.’”
Duncan expressed his belief that Davis
might be camping out somewhere in the Rocky
Mountains, which Duncan knew to be a favorite
traveling destination for Davis.
Mary Davis has contacted the police for help,
but as of now, there has been no lead into the case.
“If anybody has any information as to where he
is, please, please reach out. I just want my baby
back,” Mary said.
But the Davis family are not the only ones
experiencing hardships from the game. Senior
Molly Pollock noted the distress the game has
caused her. The person targeting Molly as their
target has called the SWAT team to their private
residence multiple times in efforts to get her
outside in order to tag her.
“I have been swatted three times. Three times!
Was one not enough? My family is considering
moving to other countries at this time,” Pollock
said.
Her tagger has not yet been identified, and
Pollock described her frustration with getting
justice for her family.
“Since I don’t know what psycho is doing this,
I can’t give the police a name yet… I just have
An Open Letter to My FBI Agent
Senior Assassins,
more harm than fun
name websites. I do hope that by
now, it is no longer your assumption
that, based on the duration and range
of names I’ve scrolled through, I am
someone preparing to birth about
eight children at once. However, I
am merely pondering some potential
names for more of my beloved fictional
characters.
As I see it, the very least I can do,
considering how much they go through,
is give each of them first, middle and
last names that are no less than an
11/10, as far as my tasteful but humble
opinion is concerned. Otherwise, that
might be really crossing a line. If it
weren’t for
that balance
I’ve taken
the time to
implement,
Graham Jones/The ECHO
Innocent student being held at spoonpoint by a
senior assassin
to hope that I don’t get swatted again, it’s really
scary,” Pollock said.
For some contestants, the game has had a
serious effect on mental health, like senior Sienna
Romeo, who was recently admitted into a local
psychiatric hospital. Her mother, Melissa Romeo,
shared her thoughts on her daughter’s state.
“I remember her mumbling under her breath
the word ‘spoon’ over and over. She wouldn’t
sleep at night, and she blacked out all the
windows in the house,” the elder Romeo said.
“She would rarely ever eat and also shaved her
head, saying that she needed to maximize her
aerodynamics for running away from her tagger.
She would scream randomly and claim she was
being chased, even though we were in our own
house, and she threw away all of our spoons. I
can’t eat soup anymore.”
Romeo stated that she hasn’t gotten any news
on when her daughter will be released from the
hospital, but she hopes that her irrational fear of
spoons will subside once the game ends.
As of now, there are 10 contestants left in
the game, and according to the Senior Assassin
Instagram page, it's still planned to continue until
only one person is left, despite the harm caused.
then we truly may have a crisis on
our hands—a humanitarian crisis. But
lucky for us, I’ve thought this through.
I really do hope reading this letter
has proved worthwhile, and that my
explanations have given you some
peace of mind. I think in the end,
these experiences have truly brought
us closer together in a sense, and so,
if you have any further questions,
please do not hesitate to reach out to
me. I’m sure you will have no trouble
doing so.
All the best,
Suna Erdim
*The stories on this Satire page are works of fiction,
intended as commentary on events and issues at East.
The quotes and details are entirely made up.
SPORTS
East senior to compete for Team USA figure skating
By Keira McArthur &Cornelia
Nisbet
Staff Writers
East has had successful athletes
in many sports, and now, thanks to
senior Alicia Wang, synchronized
skating can be added to that list. Wang
has recently started training with the
Boston-based Haydenettes, who are
often chosen to be Team USA for
international synchronized skating
competitions.
“I saw this team at a competition
my sophomore year, and I saw them
skate and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I
love them. I need to be on that team,’”
Wang said.
From that point on, Wang focused
all of her training on joining the
Haydenettes. She studied videos of
their routines and had her coaches
help her familiarize herself with their
skating style.
“I would try to find them at any
competitions that I was at to go
watch. And then I tried to train in a
way to skate more like them because
they have a really specific style that I
like and that I feel really matches my
skating style,” she said.
She first met the Haydenettes a
few months later, at a camp run by
the team in the summer of 2022.
The camp focused more on teaching
skills and technique than evaluating
potential new members, but head
coach Saga Krantz noticed Wang
and asked if she would be trying out.
Krantz mentioned that she’d even be
willing to take Wang as soon as the
next year.
Two years and a successful tryout
later, Wang is now busy splitting time
between Boston and Chapel Hill to
finish high school while trying to
attend as many Haydenette practices
as possible. To limit the amount of
juggling she has to do, Wang mostly
applied to colleges in the Boston area,
but she recognizes time management
will still be a challenge.
Many traditional college activities
will be set aside to make room
for figure skating, as well as time
consuming extracurriculars. For
example, she has decided not to join a
collegiate figure skating team, which
she says are “a lot less competitive,
and a giant time commitment.”
These sacrifices are nothing new for
her, as Wang has grown up making
time for figure skating since she
began skating at the age of seven.
Normal elementary school activities
such as after-school programs and
summer camps were replaced by
more practices and skating camps.
“I made the choice to give up a
lot of early mornings, late nights,
Seniors reflect on their athletic
careers
Continued from page 1
“I would love to play club [sports]
in college, but I think being a student
athlete would be too time consuming
when it comes to focusing on
academics as well,” Malin said.
Breaden opted to
prioritize academics
over athletics,
explaining he would
have likely ended
up at a smaller
Division III school
if he had tried to
get recruited, putting less focus on
his education. He still aims to play
lacrosse and hockey at as high a
level as possible.
“I am going to try and walk on
to the [lacrosse] team at UMass-
Amherst. It’ll be hard, but I can put
in the work,” he said.
Irene Essou, a senior on the
swim team, has decided to leave
swimming in high school to focus
on studying neuroscience. However,
Essou emphasizes that she’ll keep
referring back to the lessons she
learned from coaches, teammates
“I always thought I
would be wearing the
‘I heart our seniors’
shirt.”
and the sport as a whole.
“I learned a lot about myself, like
not giving up, trusting the process
and just being patient with yourself
because swimming is a hard sport,”
Essou said.
Good work ethics and morals
are products of
practicing any sport,
but staying committed
through one’s high
school years results
in leaders that many
underclassmen look
up to.
“I've had a bigger role with the
team as a senior. Everyone on the
team knows me and respects and
listens to me. I get [to make] more
decisions about what happens,
which is nice,” said Breaden, who’s
played lacrosse since his freshman
year.
Unlike previous seasons, this
season has meant something extra
to seniors, making the farewell
emotional.
“It was more of a bittersweet
moment. I'm not really sad, I'm just
happy that it happened,” Essou said.
summer breaks and school breaks. We
would have practice on Thanksgiving
break and on January 1 at 7 a.m.,”
she said.
Her practice schedule has been
made more complicated due to the
limited amount of ice nearby, meaning
practices are more often than not at
odd times or longer drives away.
“Sometimes it’s frustrating that
I live in an area in the south with
a smaller rink. It’s not the same
as training at a big, international,
well-known training center with
top coaches and all those resources.
There's just not as many people into
skating, and the resources aren’t as
good down here,” Wang said.
However, Wang has been able to
travel across the state and county to
train, including one memorable camp
at Miami University.
“The ballet teacher [at Miami
University] was kind of crazy. She
would hit people with pool noodles,”
she said.
The most influential person in her
skating career so far has been Jannika
Lilja, who started as her team coach
in 2021, and now also coaches her
personally.
“I love her. I owe my entire skating
career [to her], pretty much,” Wang
said. “I feel like she had a really
big impact on my skating journey
By Linda Li & Avery Tortora
Staff Writer & Co-Editor-in-Chief
As pickleball has become a viral
sport across the nation these past
few years, the fans are spreading
from professional tournaments all
the way to high school communities.
Recently, the PTSA and CHHS/
ECHHS Pickleball Clubs both
hosted separate tournaments for
anybody to play in.
“I went to the Habitat for
Humanity pickleball tournament
that UNC students hosted. There
and getting me
ready to try
out for Team
USA.”
W a n g ,
who began
competing
individually,
has reached the
highest level
in each of the
four skating
disciplines:
singles, pairs,
ice dancing and
synchronized
skating.
“In each
of those, you
can compete
and you can
also take tests
where you
will skate for
a panel of
judges, and
you have to do
certain skills,” Wang said.
Out of the four disciplines, Wang has
decided she most enjoys synchronized
skating, and now aims to compete
in the World Synchronized Skating
Championship in Finland next spring,
as there is no synchronized skating in
the Olympics.
I ran into Lindsey White, who’s
a student at East, and she said it
would be really fun to have one
with the high schools,” said PTSA
member and mom of East senior
Lauren Garber. “We’re trying to get
a few more social opportunities for
students and parents to do things
together.”
On April 14, parents, teachers,
high school students and pickleball
lovers across all age groups
gathered on the courts to have
some fun.
“It was great because [East] has
Photo courtesy of Alicia Wang
“I would much prefer to skate on
the teams I think it's more fun to train
and also to compete because I get
really bad competition anxiety, and
I find that helping or having other
people there with me really helps. And
I just love having that sort of bond
with being in a team sport.”
Pickleball sparks community engagement
Photo courtesy of Raghav Singh
a real reputation for being a very
intense school, so it’s nice for
people to see us having some fun,”
Garber said.
East and Chapel Hill High
School’s pickleball clubs organized
a pickleball tournament a week
after that, which mainly focused on
just high school students.
“Our main goal is trying to get
young people into pickleball, since
when you hear the word pickleball,
it's more like an old [people] sport
and the tournament is a great way
to bring in young folks,” said vice
president of East pickleball club
Larry Liu.
The tournament format featured
a bracket system with participants
contributing $5 each to the prize
pool, which encouraged more
students to learn about pickleball
and join the club.
“I think it has definitely influenced
many students,” Liu said. “At the
beginning of the year we didn't
really have many people attend
the pickleball club. But now, after
the tournament, more and more are
coming to the club to improve their
skills. We’ve increased at least 10
members.”