Pigeonholed

My Valedictorian Speech

You know that feeling when you do really well on a test you studied for? Since I’m up here, you can probably guess that I’ve felt it a lot. The feeling I have right now, standing in front of you all, is pretty similar, which is why I’m not going to talk about it– it’s just not that interesting.[...]

Exposing Lazy Shortcuts in Film

This article is about a frustrating recurring technique I’ve noticed in some of the movies and TV shows I’ve watched recently.[...]

Unraveling Aristotle: The Essence of True Happiness

In this article, I will first present Aristotle’s argument that happiness is the soul’s activity that expresses reason well, and then consider an objection it seems to face. After explaining why this objection won’t work, I conclude that Aristotle’s argument is successful.[...]

Beyond Theory: Reviving Creativity in Chess and Strategy Games

When asked why he hated chess, Bobby Fischer, arguably the greatest chess player of all time replied: “Because I know what chess is all about. It’s about memorization [and] pre-arrangement… creativity is lower down on the list.”[...]

Socrates' Tripartite Soul: A Critical Perspective

In this exploration, I delve into Socrates’ argument for the tripartite soul, raising a potential objection to it. My analysis concludes that there might be a fundamental flaw in Socrates' reasoning.[...]

Starting BayRise

It was 2017. I was on my beat-up, hand-me-down, 6-year-old Macbook messing around with the online code editor for Pyret, a niche coding language my science teacher had shown me in class. She had seen me messing around on one of the school computers earlier in the day and decided to give me something to do. That night I didn’t sleep or eat.[...]

English:  The Cultural Battle of Linguistic Assimilation

Learning a new language is difficult, but fitting in somewhere foreign is even harder. In her play English, Sanaz Toossi demonstrates the unforeseen cultural difficulties of learning a new language that turns what should be a purely semantic puzzle into a cultural threat.[...]

What Parasite's Success Signals

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the world is divided. Not by opinions, race, or religion, but by wealth. The gap between the haves and have-nots is widening, and[...]

What Running Means to Me

It’s the last event of the meet: the 4 by 400 meters. This is the distance that athletes at both ends of the distance spectrum have equal claim to, and this is the race where they can team up.

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What Is True Randomness?

If I told you to give me a random number, you would probably think that the task was too easy, that it could be completed with the simple google search of “random number generator.” But you would be wrong

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My Connection to Nature

The moody, gray sky gave off a languid aura, obstructed only by a ribbon of clouds and the sporadic lone seagull. Creating a small glare in my eyes, the sun poked out from behind the horizon, releasing the skinny beams of light that rested on the pebbles and vines in front of my feet.

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Is Innovation Declining?

Galois fields, Galois Theory, Galois Modules. All of these mathematical concepts were created by and named after Évariste Galois, a French mathematician born in 1811. But what’s so special about Galois specifically?

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Three Policemen

Deep into the darkened alleyway, the trio of policemen waited patiently in their car, each more apprehensive than the last, with their dark attire blending in with the night sky.[...]

The Chinese Room

"Imagine a native English speaker who knows no Chinese locked in a room full of boxes of Chinese symbols together with a book of instructions for manipulating the symbols. Imagine that people outside the room send in [...]"

An Old Castle

The castle stood atop a small hill, peering over the surrounding forest. The stone walls were gray and weathered, their once smooth surface now covered with cracks and chips.[...]

The Future of Our Economy

Sitting down in Mr. David Keller’s empty classroom, I could feel the cool breeze coming from the open door. There was a stillness to the room that was interrupted only by the rustling of leaves outside and the faint ticking of the clock on the wall.[...]

Chess's Quarantine Rise

The quarantine has been challenging and tedious for many of us, but it has also brought some unexpected positive experiences. One of the most significant ones for me has been witnessing the rise of chess in internet culture.

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