Columns

Sitting down in world geography class as a freshman, my mouth full of spearmint contraband, my teacher immediately found out. “Hey, are you chewing gum in my class? Go spit it out right now.” Such is the life of a Saratoga High gum aficionado such as myself. Every day, a piece of gum that was […]

While I had always been marginally aware of the existence of fanfiction, it felt as elusive as the deeper meaning behind Mr. Yim’s calculus lectures. That is, until I came across fanfiction while working on a research paper last year, and the glimpse of this fascinating community spurred me to make explorations. For a Stanford […]

Three years ago, my family and I spent time in our old home, Singapore, on our way to India. What I was most looking forward to, however, wasn’t seeing old friends or our old house — it was eating the Singaporean foods that I had missed so much.   I was born in Singapore and lived […]

Despite being a world-renowned country, pop and alternative icon, Taylor Swift still manages to produce music that is criminally underrated. While this list of masterpieces should consist of her entire discography, we’ve taken the liberty to narrow it down to the 10 most underrated Swift songs. Read this at your own discretion — you won’t […]

My misery was caused by a tiny hard speck on the top left region of my gums in the very back of my mouth. When I first noticed it, I shrugged and dismissed it as a bit of food. A few days later, when it was still there and had gotten bigger, I had a […]

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved Halloween, especially the festivities that come with it. For one night, I’m able to transform into a completely different person, and there is an added bonus to boot: I’m able to dress my pets up with me.  From pirates to princesses, there’s an endless amount of […]

Hello. My name is Shaan.  It’s pronounced the same way as its alternate spellings — Shawn, Sean and Shaun. It’s a fairly simple name in my opinion, but for some reason, it’s prone to a lot of confusion and mispronunciation.  You’ve likely met someone like me; there are quite a few Shawns and Seans in […]

Dear fifth grade me,   Hello! Your 15-year-old, sophomore-year self speaking here. You can carry on eating your sugary afterschool snacks. You’ll have no regrets about that. Just make the most of your time, OK? I’m quite jealous of you — you don’t have many responsibilities to take on, and you don’t need to meet […]

At lunch, when the rest of the Foothill Elementary School 5th graders ran around swinging from monkey bars and dribbling basketballs, my friends and I sat on a bench, crumpled pieces of paper in our grubby hands, battling our invisible Pokémon. It didn’t matter that we looked absolutely crazy as we shouted out complicated names […]