DEADLINE Volume 7 | Issue Five
IN THIS ISSUE: Senior Spotlight: pg. 1-2 Netflix Nook: pg. 3-4 Baking with Dragons: pg. 5-6 MCHS Mixtape: pg. 8 India’s Farming Protests: pg. 13-14
Senior Spotlight Sandra Naylor
Danielle Tuazon
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Hey Dragons! For our newest addition to Senior Spotlights, I interviewed Sandra Naylor to talk about her interest in cloud engineering as well as her time as an MCHS student. Sandra has different interests and hobbies that she likes to do. She loves crocheting and baking. She loves to watch TikToks, especially watching a professional sandcastle sculptor make sandcastles (@ sandsculptor). One of her favorite holidays is Christmas. Some of her pet peeves are racism and people who chew with their mouths open— two relatable pet peeves. Quarantine for her has been difficult as it has been for everyone. However, she’s taking time to watch anime such as HunterxHunter and focusing on perfecting her skincare— she highly recommends the Ordinary. She and her mom have been bonding more during quarantine, watching the Great British Baking Show together. I asked her what she’s most passionate about, to which she replied: “I would say I’m passionate about perfecting the immigration system and lowering homeless rates because they are far from perfect currently.” After graduation, Sandra plans to major in Computer Science. She doesn’t know what career she wants to do, but she has a particular interest in cloud engineering. Sandra found out about cloud engineering while taking an intro to Computer Science class and doing research on professions that relates to the subject. The colleges she applied to include: San Jose State, Sacramento State, Chico, Fresno State, and Cal Poly Pomona. Her top priority school is San Jose State because she’s most familiar with the town and has family who lives there. “I took an intro to Computer Science at Delta. My professor gave us the assignment to look into three careers and write an essay about it. That’s when I discovered the cloud engineering field, which seemed to stand out the most for me.” I asked her about what she wishes to accomplish during her last year at MCHS, and she wishes to get her license. She hasn’t been able to since Covid-19 began and regret procrastinating on it. She’s working on getting her AA degree but has been stressed out with certain classes this semester. We only hope for the best and encourage her to strive through this semester! Her expectations for senior year have changed significantly. Originally, she thought it would be a breeze, but she is feeling a lot of pressure this year. With college applications and her classes, she’s been more stressed-out than usual. Along with college apps, her anxiety levels have risen waiting for acceptance letters. “I turned in my applications already, and now I just have to wait, which is more nerve-racking.” MCHS has changed her for the better. Freshman year was a huge turning point for her. She said that she was self-conscious and was afraid of judgment from others. However, she has found that MCHS has a lot of nice people and is full of so much positive energy. She feels like she has improved into a better person and loves herself for that. Procrastination has always been a little of a problem for her, but she has taken steps into becoming more productive during her senior year. “MCHS does have a lot of nice people, and I am thankful to go to a school with such a positive energy.” One of her pieces of advice she’d like to share is to not feel pressured towards choosing a career or major immediately. It’s important that you find the profession that fits you the most and that you’d be able to enjoy it. You have a lot of time before you need to make a decision. In the meantime, enjoy your high school years, and don’t take for granted the time you’ve spent with your class and friends. The last one and possibly my favorite advice of her would be: “Crack is wack.” 2
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Dash & Lily
Netflix Nook Arlene Hickman
One evening while scrolling on Netflix like many of us do, I found myself drifting towards Dash & Lily after noticing it on my Netflix recommended list. I was intrigued by the prospect of a city-wide scavenger hunt, but was not particularly fond of the Christmas theme. I was not aware this show was going to be a romance before watching, but I am glad I didn't because I think I might have clicked away. Either way, I ended up watching the whole season in one night, and I do not regret it.
Dash & Lily is about two lonely teenagers during Christmas break (a.k.a. most of us in a few weeks). The two are, at first glance, polar opposites. Lily is extremely optimistic, and Dash is very cynical. Dash despises Christmas and loathes the holiday spirit that seems to be drenching all of Manhattan. On the other hand, Christmas is Lily’s favorite holiday, but her family goes out of town without her. This leads her to place a little red notebook in a bookstore for someone to find. The two communicate strictly through this notebook and agree not to look each other up on social media. They send each other dares that push the other out of their comfort zone, and then leave the notebook for the other to pick it back up (not before writing a summary on how things went, and leaving the next dare, of course). It amazed me how many friends Lily had all around the city. The connection between the two characters before they ever meet face-to-face was nicely portrayed. It was as if they were in each other's heads. This was one of my favorite aspects of the show. When one of them was reading an entry in the notebook, the writer’s voice would be the one heard reading it. This made it seem as if they were friends just having a normal conversation rather than just reading what a stanger had written. Netflix originals often feature more diverse characters than cable television shows, and Dash & Lily is no different. Lily is bi-racial (her mother is Asian and her father is white), and her older brother, Langston, is gay, which is a great choice of writing, especially considering how important diversity in media is. People want to see characters that look like them or are similar to them in the shows and movies they watch, and Dash & Lily does a great job at mimicking real people to create a fun story. Overall, I would have to give this show a 7/10. It was a tad bit corny for my taste, but the storyline was fun and adventurous. I did find the overall theme of Christmas in New York super Hallmark-esque and cliche, but the complex, diverse characters made up for it. I definitely shed a couple of tears when things weren’t going the way I wanted, but the surprise cameo that followed soon after made everything better. Watching this show made me wishful of a normal, COVID-free holiday season.
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h t i D w rago g n i k Oreo Cheesecake
Nora Taing
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ns
With Thanksgiving being right around the corner, you should treat yourself to some dessert (even if you are not celebrating this year)! This easy recipe for cheesecake is perfect if you are craving something sweet. There is no baking required (so no need to clean your oven for this). You can make a regular cheesecake by substituting the Oreos for Honey Graham crackers as the base. In this recipe, we will be using Oreos for the base and toppings!
Ingredients - A 5-inch cake pan (preferably springform to easily get smooth sides) - 10-12 vanilla Oreo cookies (a good amount to cover the base of the pan) - 2 tbsp of melted butter 100 g of cream cheese (room temperature) - 3 tbsp confectioners sugar (also known as powdered sugar) - 100 g of cream cheese (room temperature) - ¼ tsp vanilla extract - 250 ml of heavy whipping cream (chilled)
1. Put the Oreos in a ziplock bag. Get a tool with a hard, flat surface. I suggest using a meat tenderizer for this step. Using all your pent up anger, smash them cookies! >:0 Break the Oreos up until they become fine crumbs. 2. Transfer the Oreo crumbs into a bowl and add your melted butter. Mix! The butter will be the glue to stick the crumbs together and shapen the base. Once mixed, add the crumbs into the pan and flatten it. Make sure to cover the entire bottom part of the pan. Set it aside in the freezer to get the base hardened when finished. 3. In another bowl, add your chilled cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla extract. Mix until they’re well combined. Next, add your whipping cream and beat with a whisk or hand mixer. 4. Take out your chilled pan, and add the
cream cheese mixture into the pan. Smooth the layer with a rubber spatula. This is the part where you can add whatever toppings you’d like! I like to top it off with chocolate ganache, which can be easily made by simmering heavy whipping cream in a pot and pouring it over a bowl of chocolate chips. I also like to add pieces of fruit such as strawberries and raspberries. 5. Place your cake in the freezer for an hour or two to get it nice and chilly. And that’s it! I give credit to David Hood for making this great recipe. You can check out his other recipes on his website or Youtube channel. Stay safe, everyone, and have a great Thanksgiving! 6
Dining with the Dragons: Pho Lucky Noodle House
By: Elizabeth Rocili
I ordered food from Pho Lucky Noodle House, which is a Vietnamese restaurant located in Stockton. They serve a variety of delicious foods, including pho, soups, noodles, rice, and meats. They also serve boba here. Pho Lucky is open every day from 9:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. The food here is available for take out and delivery through DoorDash and GrubHub. I ordered through DoorDash, and it took about 45 minutes to arrive, which isn’t too long of a wait. Because you are ordering through one of the apps, there is a delivery fee on top of the cost of the actual food. I thought that the food was phenomenal. I ordered the pho, with brisket and rare steak, and it was amazing. I also ordered the pork fried rice to share with my family. My sister ordered the spring rolls, which had shrimp and pork inside of them. She also ordered a mocha drink with boba. The food wasn’t too expensive either. My bowl of pho cost $7.95. A lot of the other restaurants that I have ordered from for these articles have been a little more expensive, but I think that this place had the best food and the price was really good. The last time I ordered food from this restaurant, it was before Covid, so I hadn’t ordered the food to go. When the food was delivered, I was actually surprised to see that the noodles, meat, onion, cilantro, mint, and sprouts came in a seperate box, while the broth for the pho came in a separate container on the side. Once the food is delivered, you can add what you want to a bowl. Once I put the food in a bowl, I left out the sprouts, because I personally do not like sprouts. Since this was the first time I ordered this food to be delivered, it was surprising, but the taste of the food was still as amazing as it was the last time I ate it. Whenever I eat here, I usually order the same pho every time. However, this time I wanted to try the pork fried rice, because I always think that it sounds really good, but I have just never ordered it before. I am glad I ordered the rice because I actually think that I liked it more than the pho. The rice had great flavor to it, especially with the taste of the pork inside of it. Another thing that I really liked about the food that I ordered was the taste of the broth for the pho. This dish had an amazing flavor that was extremely prominent every time with every bite of the meat or the noodles. I liked ordering pho, especially since it has been getting colder outside and soup always makes me feel warm in the fall or winter. When ordering the pho, there is an option for a small or large bowl, and the large is only one dollar more. If you order the large, it comes with a little more noodles, yet the small bowl already comes with plenty of food. I would give this restaurant a 5 out of 5 stars because the food here was outstanding. I would definitely order food from this restaurant again. If you really like Vietnamese food, then you should definitely try Pho Lucky Noodle House! 7
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Street Car
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Fair Weather Friend
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Unbothered
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Heartstrings
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Just Vibe
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First Choice
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Nikes On
Daniel Ceaser
Bruno Major
Omar Apollo
Kolohe Kai
Jeff Bernat
Gabe Bondoc
Healy
Feel free to send us your favorite songs: tinyurl.com/mchsmixtape 8
HAVE SOME MEMES!
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By: Mehki Randle 10
209 Times’s Impact on the Stockton Mayoral Race By Chau-Anh Nguyen
[Michael Tubbs on the left, Kevin Lincoln on the right]
The Stockton Mayoral Election has been a major subject of interest for the past few weeks not only in the local news, but in the mainstream news as well, with big name networks such as NPR News and LA Times publishing pieces on this situation. With current Stockton mayor, Michael Tubbs, trailing behind upstart politician, Kevin Lincoln, by 11,547 votes as of the writing of this article, it seems highly, highly unlikely that Michael Tubbs will win reelection, especially since there are only 7,550 ballots left to be counted, according to the San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters’s latest report. At this point, it’s safe to say that Kevin Lincoln is the mayor elect of Stockton. The continuing election results have commonly shocked those outside of Stockton, because how can a candidate that was both endorsed by (now former) President Obama and Oprah Winfrey back in the city’s 2016 mayoral race and achieved national fame to the point where he was offered his own HBO documentary lose to the new, relatively unknown Kevin Lincoln? 11
Many point to the popular blog, 209 Times, as the main cause behind this situation. With Stockton’s local newspaper, the Record, suffering staff cuts over the past few years, 209 Times has become increasingly more prominent on social media, accumulating over 119,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 100,000 followers on Facebook. While they post about various news, they are widely known for their bias against Mayor Tubbs. With the large influence they exercise, both media outlets and individual citizens blamed the misinformation spread by 209 Times for Mayor Tubbs’s poor performance in the 2020 Stockton Election. According to Michael Fitzgerald, a former writer for the Stockton Record, Tubbs was “ . . . wounded by the 209 Times . . . [They] just created this false narrative about Tubbs, and they just kept pounding that narrative.” Tubbs’s spokesman, Daniel Lopez, bluntly stated that the 209 Times’s publications about Tubbs were “outright lies,” going on to say, “209 Times is a perfect example of what you are seeing in the country. It’s ‘pick your own news.’” In response to the public attention, Motecuzoma Sanchez, the founder of 209 Times, expressed in the LA Times, “We are not asking their side of it. We are telling you what we know. We never tried to hide our bias.” . . . And this statement does hold true. 209 Times is proud of their dislike towards Mayor Tubbs, often calling him “a failed incumbent and absent mayor,” that can only respond in “arrogance” to Kevin Lincoln giving him a “Stockton slap” in the mayoral race. Over the years, they’ve mocked Tubbs and his workers by calling them, “Mayor Tubbs and his corrupt crew,” and frequently insulated that Tubbs’ Advance Peace program was simply just a “Cash For Criminals program.” Sanchez further elaborates on his comments made in the LA Times article later on their Instagram platform by stating, “Our team [is] the only [one] in the nation exposing the truth about Tubbs with documentation, photos, and actual videos. Meanwhile, the mainstream media continues to follow pre-fabricated narratives that Tubbs himself gave them.” Lopez passionately disagrees with these statements, however. “To address our challenges we need an informed public. How can we have a dialogue around homelessness, for example, when the 209 Times persuades residents that we’ve been given $60 million for this issue, when in reality we only have $6.5 million? I’m sure a good number of Stocktonians reading this article will learn for the first time that the $60-million number is fake, yet some will still believe regardless.” However, while 209 Times did play a major role in Tubbs’ failure to win reelection, it’s important to remember that it wasn’t the only cause, as some Stockton residents have already been unsatisfied with Tubbs’s performance as a mayor to begin with before 209 Times’s rise on social media. Critics often point out that nothing—at least, in terms of crime rate—has changed under Mayor Tubbs. When analyzing the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Stockton PD crime reports, crime rates have remained relatively the same, only increasing or decreasing by 0.1 YTD percent over the years. Furthermore, Tubbs’s endorsement of Micheal Bloomberg (a man who received continuous negative public reception for his decision to run) for the democratic presidential candidate position undoubtedly harmed his reputation as a supposed “man of the people.” While Mayor Tubbs has seen notably successful results with his universal income program, SEED (Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration), his achievements are often overshadowed by his failures, and 209 Times only built upon that stirring discontent.
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India’s Farming Protests: Who is to Blame? By Jaskaran Bajwa
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In the nation of India, farmers have taken to the streets to protest the actions taken by the government in regards to farming regulations. This comes after a bill that was passed in September of 2020 which allowed private sector companies to buy directly from farmers. This bill initially garnered attention, but nothing compared to the outrage that is occurring today. Prior to the passing of the bills, farmers were guaranteed a set price for their yield through government-imposed price floors. They would sell their yield via auction at their state’s Agricultural Produce Market Committee, also known as the “Mandi.” The bill would dismantle these committees and make it so that farmers would be able to sell directly to big sellers such as bigbox grocery chains or enter into contracts with private companies. This bill was passed due to the monopoly held by the committees over the purchasing of crops and other farm goods. The process was, in essence becoming centralized by the committees, reducing competition and creating problematic monopolies. These changes were hailed and praised by economists as being the step that India needed to take towards being a developed economy, but the farmer’s think otherwise. Many have stated that they believe they will be exploited by big companies and not receive the guaranteed prices they need in order to survive. Majhinder Singh Dhaliwal, a farm unionist, has stated, “We are fighting for our rights. We won’t rest until we reach the capital and force the government to abolish these black laws,” according to AlJazeera. Many have called this bill pro-corporation and anti-farmer, but the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, states otherwise. His party, the Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) have stated over and over again that they are pro-farmer and for the workers, but this bill signals otherwise. The BJP is the center-right to right-wing branch of Indian politics and has gained significant power in the country, so much so that they have become the largest political party by members in the world. Modi has stated, “The farmers should get the advantage of a big and comprehensive market which opens our country to global markets.” This type of privatization is not new for his party. They have spearheaded the privatization of many of India’s state-owned industries such as banks, but none of this scale. The vast majority of protesters come from the states of Punjab and Haryana, both in the northern half of India. These states are along India’s wheat belt and produce the large majority of the nation’s wheat and major agricultural produce. These states are largely agricultural nations, and their economies depend on the prices they receive on their yields. These bills act as the nail in the coffins for many workers. In the past years, suicide rates of farmers have gone up due to the stress of not being able to provide for their families. Banks have claimed land that have been in the families of many farmers for generations, further increasing the rate of suicide. The Modi government stands by their decision and hopes that the bill will introduce private sector investment for the agricultural industry, which has lagged behind other industries. These protests have gone down as the largest in recorded history. While farmers have been tear-gassed and hosed down by high-pressure cannons, they show no sign of backing down. Instead many of the protesters, who belong to the Sikh religion, have started to set up food services and give out food to both the attendees and the police officers who are attacking them. Many nations such as Canada, which houses a large Indian diaspora, have spoken out against the bill and many members of parliament from both Canada and the United Kingdom have voiced their concerns. As of right now, these protests rage on and will continue. The farm bills will decimate many households which relied on the price floors to put food on the table, but will further modernize the economy of India. There seems to be no solution for this problem. Many critics have said that other jobs should have been introduced in the affected states before the privatization, while others say it was a necessary step. This unrest comes at a time when India enters its first recession in years and is facing the full brunt of Covid-19, but we will have to wait and see what impact this bill has on India and its struggling farmers. As for the question of who is to blame, I believe that there is no true villain. Privatization is a step that if not taken now, will be taken later down the line. Farmers will struggle under the new system, but they were already suffering under the previous system. It is a tough situation, with no victors on either side, the farmers or the government. 14
DECEMBER 2020
Thank you for reading this issue from MCHS Deadline! If you have any questions, comments or concerns please DM us on our Instagram page: @mchsdeadline. We would love to hear feedback from you. While you are reading our digital copy, we have a website available for you to check out.
TEAM MEMBERS
adfa
Senior Editor: Chau-Anh Nguyen Senior Editor/Social Media: Hieu Ho Graphic Designer: Charlene Nguyen
We will continue to accept your song recommendations for MCHS mixtape all year round along with applications to take part in Freshman Interviews! So you may be apart of the next issue! The links for both of those forums can be fond in the linktree on our instagram page.
Graphic Designer: Aashna Singh
The Deadline team will continue to work hard and come up with new ideas! We hope you will come along with us on this journey! Until the next issue, stay fiery Dragons!
Senior Writer: Jaskaran Bajwa
Webmaster/Writer: Nora Taing Senior Writer: Arlene Hickman Senior Writer: Danielle Tuazon Junior Writer: Mekhi Randle Junior Writer: Elizabeth Rocili