This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Good morning. I would like to welcome members of the board of trustees, administration, faculty, staff, parents, friends and family, alumni, and the true guests of honor, the graduating Class of 2014. I have the privilege of saying a few words of farewell to our graduates each year. Like most graduation speeches, my talk takes the form of advice, like “Dare to Singletask” or “Love Like a Labrador.” Since my talk is the only remaining formality standing between you and your diplomas, I will continue the tradition of confining my remarks to one page of single-space, size twelve font. I am so confident that I can achieve this goal that I have even spelled out the number twelve. But I will make no promises about the size of my margins.
Today I turn for inspiration to the award-winning song “Let It Go” from the Disney movie “Frozen.” I know, I know, by now we all are tired of the song. My boys howl from the back seat when I play the song in the car, let down my hair, and belt out its chorus. I can do it here if you would like. But Rolling Stone Magazine calls “Let It Go” a “bona fide anthem that’s Disney’s single-biggest and best song in a generation.” Also, this year’s Oscar win for best song brings one of the writers of “Let it Go,” Robert Lopez, what the magazine calls “a rare EGOT (wins for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony).” (By the way, EGOT is an unfortunate acronym; why not the more stylish TOGE or pithy GOET?)
The song is sung powerfully by Idina Menzel, or, as John Travolta mispronounced her name at the 2014 Oscars, “Adele Dazeem.” In case you didn’t know, there is now a widget that will “Travoltify” your name for free. For instance, my name Travoltified is Catherine Nicheems. “Travoltify,” unlike “selfie” and “derp,” hasn’t made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. If it does, however, it will have the unique classification of being a proper name that is also a transitive verb with only one possible direct object: another proper name. Spooky. Nonetheless, Menzel’s glorious voice makes the song so meaningful and memorable that even 2-year-olds know the words. I know you do, too.
The song and the movie have had their share of controversies. The biggest controversy is the transformation of Elsa into a slender, elegantly gowned ice diva at the moment of her liberation during this song. I will not address these controversies, but I will add one of my own: why is the male hero, an ice harvester named Kristoff, so good looking and oafishly charming? Why aren’t there any movies with stuffy administrators, like, say, heads of schools, as the heroes? Instead of Kristoff the hero could be named, well, Chris Nikoloff. I could swoop into a life or death situation, devise some policy, form a committee and save the day.
In any case, the song’s message is to, well, “let it go.” What exactly are you letting go? On one level, the song can be taken to suggest letting go of inhibitions, the past, caring what others think, or even fears. This is not unlike Buddha’s third noble truth. Buddha’s second noble truth is that we suffer because we desire, or “cling” to be exact. His third truth recommends letting go of desire, or clinging, a process called nirvana, which literally means to blow out, or “whew” as translated by Alan Watts. Buddha’s students would point out that this puts them into the paradoxical bind of desiring not to desire. Luckily there is a way out of that trap, but that is for another graduation. In any case, some of these interpretations have gotten the song into trouble, but I think there is a more precise message anyway.
For those of you who have taken psychology, you may be familiar with Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow, the unconscious part of yourself that you dare not recognize but that you eventually must integrate to become whole. Elsa’s secret power that turns everything into ice is her shadow, the part of herself that she hides to conform to society’s expectations. She sings “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know.” Your 2014 baccalaureate student speaker, Efrey Noten, captured this sentiment with a quote from David Wallace: “Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.” It is Elsa’s shadow that she accepts, after years of concealing, and lets go. When she lets her shadow go, she builds a marvelous ice castle in the mountains; her shadow is finally liberated, as is her hair when she lets it down.
Acceptance and liberation aren’t enough, however; Elsa still has to integrate her shadow. Not until she allows herself to love her sister, and her complete self, does she fully integrate her shadow and use her powers for good, like creating ice skating rinks for her adoring subjects. Also, because shadow material contains all of your so-called imperfections, integrating your shadow means dropping perfectionism, too. Elsa sings, “That perfect girl is gone.” I know that good is the enemy of great, but perfect can be the enemy of good enough, and believe me, there will be plenty of times in your life when good enough will have to be, well, good enough.
In closing, all of the weaker, less desirable parts of yourself, those parts that you hide to conform, can be sources of power, of your unique expression in the world. They are the metaphorical frogs that transform into princes, or the dragons that fight for you instead of breathing fire at you. In the movie “Shrek,” remember how helpful Dragon becomes once she discovers love with Donkey? So my advice to you today is to let it go, with the “it” being that part of yourself that no one, not even you, acknowledges. Lao Tzu, the great author of the Tao Te Ching, said the following: “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” You have spent 18 years becoming what you are and if you dare to let it go, you will discover just how wonderful who you are really is. Thank you.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Good morning. I would like to welcome members of the board of trustees, administration, faculty, staff, parents, friends and family, alumni, and the true guests of honor, the graduating Class of 2014. I have the privilege of saying a few words of farewell to our graduates each year. Like most graduation speeches, my talk takes the form of advice, like “Dare to Singletask” or “Love Like a Labrador.” Since my talk is the only remaining formality standing between you and your diplomas, I will continue the tradition of confining my remarks to one page of single-space, size twelve font. I am so confident that I can achieve this goal that I have even spelled out the number twelve. But I will make no promises about the size of my margins.
Today I turn for inspiration to the award-winning song “Let It Go” from the Disney movie “Frozen.” I know, I know, by now we all are tired of the song. My boys howl from the back seat when I play the song in the car, let down my hair, and belt out its chorus. I can do it here if you would like. But Rolling Stone Magazine calls “Let It Go” a “bona fide anthem that’s Disney’s single-biggest and best song in a generation.” Also, this year’s Oscar win for best song brings one of the writers of “Let it Go,” Robert Lopez, what the magazine calls “a rare EGOT (wins for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony).” (By the way, EGOT is an unfortunate acronym; why not the more stylish TOGE or pithy GOET?)
The song is sung powerfully by Idina Menzel, or, as John Travolta mispronounced her name at the 2014 Oscars, “Adele Dazeem.” In case you didn’t know, there is now a widget that will “Travoltify” your name for free. For instance, my name Travoltified is Catherine Nicheems. “Travoltify,” unlike “selfie” and “derp,” hasn’t made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. If it does, however, it will have the unique classification of being a proper name that is also a transitive verb with only one possible direct object: another proper name. Spooky. Nonetheless, Menzel’s glorious voice makes the song so meaningful and memorable that even 2-year-olds know the words. I know you do, too.
The song and the movie have had their share of controversies. The biggest controversy is the transformation of Elsa into a slender, elegantly gowned ice diva at the moment of her liberation during this song. I will not address these controversies, but I will add one of my own: why is the male hero, an ice harvester named Kristoff, so good looking and oafishly charming? Why aren’t there any movies with stuffy administrators, like, say, heads of schools, as the heroes? Instead of Kristoff the hero could be named, well, Chris Nikoloff. I could swoop into a life or death situation, devise some policy, form a committee and save the day.
In any case, the song’s message is to, well, “let it go.” What exactly are you letting go? On one level, the song can be taken to suggest letting go of inhibitions, the past, caring what others think, or even fears. This is not unlike Buddha’s third noble truth. Buddha’s second noble truth is that we suffer because we desire, or “cling” to be exact. His third truth recommends letting go of desire, or clinging, a process called nirvana, which literally means to blow out, or “whew” as translated by Alan Watts. Buddha’s students would point out that this puts them into the paradoxical bind of desiring not to desire. Luckily there is a way out of that trap, but that is for another graduation. In any case, some of these interpretations have gotten the song into trouble, but I think there is a more precise message anyway.
For those of you who have taken psychology, you may be familiar with Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow, the unconscious part of yourself that you dare not recognize but that you eventually must integrate to become whole. Elsa’s secret power that turns everything into ice is her shadow, the part of herself that she hides to conform to society’s expectations. She sings “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know.” Your 2014 baccalaureate student speaker, Efrey Noten, captured this sentiment with a quote from David Wallace: “Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.” It is Elsa’s shadow that she accepts, after years of concealing, and lets go. When she lets her shadow go, she builds a marvelous ice castle in the mountains; her shadow is finally liberated, as is her hair when she lets it down.
Acceptance and liberation aren’t enough, however; Elsa still has to integrate her shadow. Not until she allows herself to love her sister, and her complete self, does she fully integrate her shadow and use her powers for good, like creating ice skating rinks for her adoring subjects. Also, because shadow material contains all of your so-called imperfections, integrating your shadow means dropping perfectionism, too. Elsa sings, “That perfect girl is gone.” I know that good is the enemy of great, but perfect can be the enemy of good enough, and believe me, there will be plenty of times in your life when good enough will have to be, well, good enough.
In closing, all of the weaker, less desirable parts of yourself, those parts that you hide to conform, can be sources of power, of your unique expression in the world. They are the metaphorical frogs that transform into princes, or the dragons that fight for you instead of breathing fire at you. In the movie “Shrek,” remember how helpful Dragon becomes once she discovers love with Donkey? So my advice to you today is to let it go, with the “it” being that part of yourself that no one, not even you, acknowledges. Lao Tzu, the great author of the Tao Te Ching, said the following: “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” You have spent 18 years becoming what you are and if you dare to let it go, you will discover just how wonderful who you are really is. Thank you.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Good morning. I would like to welcome members of the board of trustees, administration, faculty, staff, parents, friends and family, alumni, and the true guests of honor, the graduating Class of 2014. I have the privilege of saying a few words of farewell to our graduates each year. Like most graduation speeches, my talk takes the form of advice, like “Dare to Singletask” or “Love Like a Labrador.” Since my talk is the only remaining formality standing between you and your diplomas, I will continue the tradition of confining my remarks to one page of single-space, size twelve font. I am so confident that I can achieve this goal that I have even spelled out the number twelve. But I will make no promises about the size of my margins.
Today I turn for inspiration to the award-winning song “Let It Go” from the Disney movie “Frozen.” I know, I know, by now we all are tired of the song. My boys howl from the back seat when I play the song in the car, let down my hair, and belt out its chorus. I can do it here if you would like. But Rolling Stone Magazine calls “Let It Go” a “bona fide anthem that’s Disney’s single-biggest and best song in a generation.” Also, this year’s Oscar win for best song brings one of the writers of “Let it Go,” Robert Lopez, what the magazine calls “a rare EGOT (wins for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony).” (By the way, EGOT is an unfortunate acronym; why not the more stylish TOGE or pithy GOET?)
The song is sung powerfully by Idina Menzel, or, as John Travolta mispronounced her name at the 2014 Oscars, “Adele Dazeem.” In case you didn’t know, there is now a widget that will “Travoltify” your name for free. For instance, my name Travoltified is Catherine Nicheems. “Travoltify,” unlike “selfie” and “derp,” hasn’t made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. If it does, however, it will have the unique classification of being a proper name that is also a transitive verb with only one possible direct object: another proper name. Spooky. Nonetheless, Menzel’s glorious voice makes the song so meaningful and memorable that even 2-year-olds know the words. I know you do, too.
The song and the movie have had their share of controversies. The biggest controversy is the transformation of Elsa into a slender, elegantly gowned ice diva at the moment of her liberation during this song. I will not address these controversies, but I will add one of my own: why is the male hero, an ice harvester named Kristoff, so good looking and oafishly charming? Why aren’t there any movies with stuffy administrators, like, say, heads of schools, as the heroes? Instead of Kristoff the hero could be named, well, Chris Nikoloff. I could swoop into a life or death situation, devise some policy, form a committee and save the day.
In any case, the song’s message is to, well, “let it go.” What exactly are you letting go? On one level, the song can be taken to suggest letting go of inhibitions, the past, caring what others think, or even fears. This is not unlike Buddha’s third noble truth. Buddha’s second noble truth is that we suffer because we desire, or “cling” to be exact. His third truth recommends letting go of desire, or clinging, a process called nirvana, which literally means to blow out, or “whew” as translated by Alan Watts. Buddha’s students would point out that this puts them into the paradoxical bind of desiring not to desire. Luckily there is a way out of that trap, but that is for another graduation. In any case, some of these interpretations have gotten the song into trouble, but I think there is a more precise message anyway.
For those of you who have taken psychology, you may be familiar with Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow, the unconscious part of yourself that you dare not recognize but that you eventually must integrate to become whole. Elsa’s secret power that turns everything into ice is her shadow, the part of herself that she hides to conform to society’s expectations. She sings “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know.” Your 2014 baccalaureate student speaker, Efrey Noten, captured this sentiment with a quote from David Wallace: “Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.” It is Elsa’s shadow that she accepts, after years of concealing, and lets go. When she lets her shadow go, she builds a marvelous ice castle in the mountains; her shadow is finally liberated, as is her hair when she lets it down.
Acceptance and liberation aren’t enough, however; Elsa still has to integrate her shadow. Not until she allows herself to love her sister, and her complete self, does she fully integrate her shadow and use her powers for good, like creating ice skating rinks for her adoring subjects. Also, because shadow material contains all of your so-called imperfections, integrating your shadow means dropping perfectionism, too. Elsa sings, “That perfect girl is gone.” I know that good is the enemy of great, but perfect can be the enemy of good enough, and believe me, there will be plenty of times in your life when good enough will have to be, well, good enough.
In closing, all of the weaker, less desirable parts of yourself, those parts that you hide to conform, can be sources of power, of your unique expression in the world. They are the metaphorical frogs that transform into princes, or the dragons that fight for you instead of breathing fire at you. In the movie “Shrek,” remember how helpful Dragon becomes once she discovers love with Donkey? So my advice to you today is to let it go, with the “it” being that part of yourself that no one, not even you, acknowledges. Lao Tzu, the great author of the Tao Te Ching, said the following: “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” You have spent 18 years becoming what you are and if you dare to let it go, you will discover just how wonderful who you are really is. Thank you.
Rising senior and Harker Conservatory student Agata Sorotokin was recently featured on “From the Top,” a radio program that highlights the talents of young musicians aged 8 to 18. Distributed by National Public Radio to 250 radio stations across the country, “From the Top” is recorded in front of live audiences in concert halls from coast to coast. A member of the upper school women’s vocal group Cantilena, Sorotokin performed movements from Sofia Gubaidulina’s “Musical Toys,” including one section thathad the young pianist playing notes with her nose.
Grade 6 violinist Jun Lin accompanied the Bay Bells community ensemble in playing “Ghost Riders in the Sky” during their spring concert season. The concert took place in mid-May at the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Saratoga. To watch Lin perform, view this video, taken by his mother during the concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLUCLV2MjaI
Also in spring, grade 2 student Nathan Liu attended the 39th Annual CalChess Scholastic Super State Championship at the Santa Clara Convention Center. This is the largest state event with hundreds of players from all over California. Liu won fifth place out of 100 players in the K-3 group. He also helped Harker to win a trophy in a group competition.
Soham Khan, grade 9, participated in the Music Teachers’ Association of California Composers Today state competition in late May, winning third place in his division. He will perform the piece, titled “Sonata in G Minor,” at the MTAC convention on June 30 in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Shafieen Ibrahim, grade 7, participated in the 2014 Chicago Open Chess Tournament over Memorial Day weekend. He tied for first place in his section, earning $1,000 in prize money. Ibrahim won the No. 1 standing through tie-break points, with some 86 players in his section. In June, he participated in the 2014 North American Youth Chess Championship in New York. The venue rotates each year between the United States, Canada and Mexico, with top players competing from all over the world. While there, he tied for eighth place in his section.
Junior Agata Sorotokin appeared in the National Public Radio show From the Top, which features young musicians from around the country. In her appearance, Sorotokin performs movements from “Musical Toys” by Sofia Gubaidulina. You can hear the whole show – and see her play with her nose! – at http://www.fromthetop.org/content/show-289-seattle-washington
In June, the Fremont Table Tennis Academy completed its 2014 Bay Area Inter-schools League season, during which the Harker team of recent graduate Avinash Nayak and Kaushik Shivakumar, grade 7, won first place in Division I. Team Harker ended the regular season of round-robin competition by placing fourth in their division. In the playoffs, Team Harker defeated Horner, the division leader, in the semifinals with a match score of 3-2. In the final, Harker prevailed over Parkmont, with a match score of 3-2. After being Division I runners-up at the 2013 Bay Area Inter-schools League, Team Harker was happy to get to the top position this year. For the second year in a row, Nayak won all of his singles matches and was named the league MVP. Submitted by Harker parent Narendra Nayak (Avinash ’14).
Last month, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation began announcing this year’s National Merit Scholarship Winners – and 18 Harker graduating seniors have been named thus far.
Winners of the National Merit $2,500 scholarship are Stephanie Chen, Adarsh Battu, Shivani Chandrashekaran, Christopher Fu, Saachi Jain, Divyahans Gupta, Angela Ma, Rahul Sridhar, Aditya Batra, Meena Chetty, Vikram Sundar, Brandon Yang, Albert Zhao, Zareen Choudhury and Varun Mohan. These scholarships are awarded based on criteria such as academic standing, standardized test scores, community service, recommendations by school officials and student essays.
Harker also had three College-Sponsored Merit Scholarship winners. These awards are given by college officials to National Merit finalists who plan to attend the colleges that they represent. Winners of these awards receive between $500 and $2,000 for every year of attendance at their chosen school, for up to four years. Rebecca Chen and Nikkan Ghosh both received scholarships from the University of Southern California, and Benjamin Huchley’s award was courtesy of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
This year’s sports season is behind us, but the honors continue to rain down, as both a Harker team and a recent grad were commended in the press this week.
Golf
Harker’s male golfers had the highest GPA of any boys golf team in the state of California this year! Last week, the California Interscholastic Federation announced its 2013-14 Academic Team Champions, honoring the high school teams with the highest GPAs in the state. For boys golf, the honor went to Harker’s squad. Congratulations to the team on this outstanding achievement!
Volleyball
The San Jose Mercury News named its top volleyball players last week, and 2014 Harker alum Andrew Zhu was awarded an Honorable Mention. Zhu is heading to New York University to continue his volleyball career!
Davis Dunaway, grade 10, and his collaborators on the “Grid” project, detailed below, will appear at the World Maker Faire in New York City this weekend. They will be sharing the lesson’s they’ve learned in order to help young makers and the adults mentoring them how to get their ideas off the ground.
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Rising sophomore Davis Dunaway started off his summer in a big way by participating in the White House Maker Faire. Dunaway and his friends were invited to showcase a project they created through the Young Makers program, which brings together young people ages 8-18 to create projects that are showcased at various events. Their creation is a massive version of the popular mobile puzzle game Flow Free, in which players connect identically colored dots. The version Dunaway and friends created is made up of 64 tiles that change colors when players step on them. It was designed and built by the students with the help of their parents and was also featured at Maker Faires in New York and San Francisco. The size of the game board allows the game to be played by multiple people simultaneously.
The White House Maker Faire took place June 18, which was declared a National Day of Making by President Barack Obama. “This event celebrates every maker — from students learning STEM skills to entrepreneurs launching new businesses to innovators powering the renaissance in American manufacturing,” Obama said in a presidential proclamation on June 17. “I am calling on people across the country to join us in sparking creativity and encouraging invention in their communities.”
Amid the festivities leading up to graduation, seniors active in the performing arts have a pre-graduation of sorts: they graduate from the Harker Conservatory’s certificate program, signaling their successful completion of a four-year course in dance, technical theater, theater, vocal or instrumental music, or musical theater.
The evening before their Harker graduation at the Mountain Winery, 23 seniors performed selections from their portfolios to a packed house at the Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater in San Jose, and received their plaques from the performing arts faculty.
Acts ranged from a Shakespearean monologue, divided into two parts performed toward the beginning and end of the show by Damon Aitken, to a clarinet sonata during which the instrument was slowly dismantled section by section, leaving Daniel Pak with only a mouthpiece. Four dance graduates, Anishka Agarwal, Pooja Chirala, Jennifer Dai and Gaurav Kumar, called upon non-senior friends to accompany them in numbers that incorporated Bollywood, hip-hop, classical and modern grooves. Musical theater students Shenel Ekici, Anna Kendall, Sean Knudsen, Ian Richardson and Namrata Vakkalagadda enacted moments from Broadway shows.
Avinash Nayak and Stephan Pellissier showed off their vocal chops with a jazz standard and Italian aria, respectively, and Callie Ding wowed the crowd with a hauntingly beautiful piece played on a traditional Chinese harp. Pianist Justin Young transported the audience with a devilishly difficult piece by Paganini, adapted by Liszt. The robust instrumental department was rounded out by Krishan Kumar (flute), Nathan Dhablania (violin), Meena Chetty (saxophone), Sahithya Prakash (bassoon), Renu Singh (violin), Andrew Wang (jazz trumpet) and Dennis Moon (cello). The show was stage managed by technical theater graduate Nicky Semenza, and juniors Ishanya Anthapur and Jai Ahuja brought humor and energy to their roles as masters of ceremonies.
When his final putt dropped, “I wasn’t sure where I stood with regard to the cut line,” said McNealy, but when I got to the scoring table and saw that I was two shots inside the projected cut with nobody who could realistically pass me, it hit me that I was going to be playing in the US Open.”
In an interview with the Northern California Golf Association, McNealy said about qualifying, “It’s awesome. It’s a great day. It’s something I’ve wanted to do my whole life. It’s still sinking in.”
Maverick will have his secret weapon along for the U.S. Open, too. “I am excited to have my dad caddying for me that week, and my three brothers (Scout, grade 7; Colt, grade 9; Dakota, grade 10) and mom will also be there cheering me on from the grandstands!”
At Stanford, McNealy was named to the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team and received an All-Pac-12 honorable mention. In his career at Harker, he twice earned the WBAL individual championship and was named to the WBAL All-League first team three times. McNealy is the Harker record holder for lowest nine-hole match score (-6) and most matches as medalist (nine of 10).
He noted, “at Harker I figured out that I wanted to pursue both golf and my academics seriously; hence, it was a pretty easy decision to choose Stanford. I plan on majoring in management science and engineering with a minor in computer science.”
In a 2013 Harker Quarterly article on Harker athletes playing in college, McNealy noted he was learning the game when he was learning how to walk and “loved to go outside and whack balls around with a plastic club.” Arriving at Harker in grade 9, McNealy immediately excelled on the links, but he believes that “until I shoot 18 in every round, there will always be room to get better.”
Given that drive, it is no wonder that McNealy is acutely aware of the life lessons golf provides: “Golf, to me, is the ultimate game of personal responsibility,” he said. “Your performance is a direct result of the time and effort you put into the game, and you take complete responsibility for your play. If you hit a bad shot, you can only blame yourself because you were the only one to swing the club. Conversely, if you make a hole in one, you can take complete pride in your accomplishment.”