2016-2017 Year in Review

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. We came into Stuyvesant last September, saved from the derelict mindlessness and reckless idleness of the dreaded summer. Now in June, we are forced to once again contend with the onerous summer, but with a new collection of SAT prep books to accompany us.

Back in the beginning of the year, Harambe was still a thing, and Pokémon Go made us actually exercise for once. Over the summer, two swanky nominating conventions were held to nominate two insanely popular candidates: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Everyone who actually came to the Republican National Committee was pleased, and the entire convention was notably undisturbed. Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake insisted that “mowing his lawn” would take precedence over a political caucus that happens once every four years, and the Kasich- and Cruz-friendly delegations were more than happy to take their seats in the back corners of the convention hall.

Similarly, at the Democratic National Convention, the talk of the town was former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s positive remarks on Bernie Sanders. These remarks were so enthusiastic that Schultz stepped down as DNC chair to lead the #Bernie2020 movement.

Enough about summer—let’s go relive some good memories with the first day of school. Coming into school the first time in two months, students were seen kissing the scanning machines, kneeling in front of the portrait of Peter Stuyvesant, and rolling around with glee on the pristine half-floor.

Freshmen were more than delighted to be at Stuyvesant—the school that many have drooled over for 14 years (actually, 15 years counting the time in the womb). Many of them patted themselves on the back while they failed their biology tests and pulled their first all-nighters—just simply proud of the privilege of travelling two hours to and from school.

Meanwhile, upperclassmen put college on the back of their minds as they began their immersive academic engagement. They signed up for APs, got screwed over by programming, worked for leadership credentials in extracurriculars, and went sleepless for nights on end for self-enrichment. “Yes, the ‘I Created This Club To Look Good For College’ is completely legit,” senior Laszlo Sandler claimed.

Speaking of Sandler, the U.S. got its very own joke-of-a-president on Election Day—imagine…the entire country was jealous of us! With Trump’s election, many of us were left more shell-shocked than when the MTA decided to cease all service to Manhattan. There was some solace in Clinton’s popular vote count, but just like how everyone on the packed platform is fumingly angry at the MTA, there was no strength in numbers.

We could go on about Trump, but it’s probably better to lie low before he roots us out. If The Spectator maintained a Twitter presence, we would probably get lambasted by the president, a position that formerly entailed being the leader of the free world. That battle probably wouldn’t end well for us. Sometimes, we actually do let Alternative Facts pass through as News, such as when we announced that programming would be streamlined last semester—of course not! Though, we don’t think we’ve published any covfefe just yet.

Some underclassmen might have called our SING! coverage covfefe. There’s a lot to commend Soph-Frosh on, such as their brilliant job on the poop-inspired costumes and their innovative plot that in no way resembled 53929 other teenage trilogies. The only criticism from our end was the annoying Jolly Rancher—she sounded nearly as bad as senior Michael Espinosa’s announcements.

The Foreign Language department planned some terrific events over the last year: they were so engaging that some attendees even forgot that they had originally come to nab extra credit. Now, if only more departments would host extra credit events…

Springtime meant that there was a student to tissue box ratio of 1:2 and that there was a student to AP prep book ratio of 1:17. In effect, no one had the energy to put up a fight against incumbent Student Union tickets. Given that we live in the age of Laszlo Sandler, however, any inexperienced candidate would’ve won.

Fidget spinners soon swept the whole school as students began minting them on 3D printers. Before long, there’ll be physics test questions asking about calculating the momentum of a fidget spinner and maybe even a club…