Lit by Design presents
The New Design Times October Issue | Vol. 2.1
Halloween Guide / p. 2-4 City Events / p. 5 Lit x Design: 2 poems / p. 6
Halloween opinion “Dots are a top-tier candy.”
RANT OF THE MONTH “I do not need to see a snake toy from IKEA for you to call it a damn costume. You’re just being a doppelganger of yourself, but it’s 10x worse.” (You are lucky this is anonymous)
October’s focus is on the school’s new history teacher, JESS RICHTER. Interview by Lexy Frye Yanos New Design Times: What was your first impression of New Design? My first impression of New Design was when I came for an interview, and immediately there were several things about the school that I hadn't seen in any other schools, like the shop, or the fact that there was music playing in the halls, or the art on the walls. Scott showed me the roof and library after I finished my interview. There's just a lot of things about the school that create joy in people who are here, Fighting the good apps. New history teacher Jess R. both staff and students. That’s what stood out to me. Are there any interesting stories from your time at New Design already? I don’t know if this is the answer you’re looking for… but last night I had a dream that I was subbing for a class, and I was really tired in my dream and there were 45 students in the room. I was like “guys we can just like, lie down on the tables and chill and watch a movie?” Then everyone including myself fell asleep. So when I woke up I was like, “Cool. I just taught a class that was basically nap time.” How much have phones been a problem? The problem is that apps like Tiktok, Instagram, etc. are built and designed by billionaires and Silicon Valley to psychologically manipulate their users to look at the apps as much as possible. So I don’t feel like I'm fighting phones, I feel like I'm fighting how good apps are at getting us to want to look at them, and that's a tough fight. PHOTO BY XIN PING CHEN
INSIDE STORIES!
NEW DESIGN NEWBIE of the MONTH
HALLOWEEN SURVEY resultS By
Xin
Ping
Chen
I created a Halloween-themed survey for NDHS students and staff! I collected a lot of funny responses. Here is a sample of the best! Thank you 10th grade teachers for dealing with me begging you to fill out the survey, it was fun while it lasted! Don’t chase me down for this.
Halloween costumes to look out for?
pet costumeS this year?
Five Nights at Freddy will appear! AJ will be Mangle and Liz will be Bonnie, I wonder if they’ll scare us? Let us live, thank you! To make it more entertaining for freshmen, expect Mr. ESRT to appear! Enjoy your a comically large Earth Science Reference Table! Expect a double of Ms.Rachel! Unfortunately her doppelganger won’t be known till the day.
One of Meg’s and Tori’s two dogs will be a lobster, the other dog will be a chicken and a crab. A surf & turf- themed costumes for pets, must be fun! Pets dressed as food?!
Oh, and there’ll be a teacher as Ken and a student as Barbie!
A teacher plans to have their pet become a princess! While most students want their pet to be Chucky… or a pumpkin, a dinosaur, and a spider. Have fun dressing them up!
How much money would you spend on your costume? Where would you find costumes if you have no money? Ezekiel would spend $20 (not sure what you can get with inflation this high). But there are people who would spend $50k to $10 million! When it comes to finding costumes, many of you will go to your closet to find costumes to use! Someone would look through the trash can to find a costume, hopefully you’ll clean it before wearing it. Who knows where that came from.
What age is too old for costumes? 67% of people wrote that it’s never too old for costumes. Gia will wear a Halloween costume at the age of 45 to 65! Emmy believes you’re only too old when you’re dead. (What happens if you die and get an embalmer to help during Halloween? You’ll be in a costume, after all.) I wrote the age of retirement because by the time you would retire, it’s likely you spend your time travelling or enjoying life that isn’t anything costume related. Uriel and others think 16 is too old for costumes. Ezekiel thinks 20 or higher is too old, Liz thinks 35+ is too old, then we have those will wear costumes till the age of 45, 90, and 200.
Emmy wrote with a lot of context that her pet will be chonk, nothing else. Spooky! I’m lying.
best Halloween costume Ever seen? Ezekiel, AJ, and Issac found inflatable dinosaurs the best costume they’ve seen! It’s funny seeing people running around in them considering how tedious it can be. Jaz saw a chicken without a head during Halloween, I wonder if that person was carrying the head…. There is a teacher who saw a group of people dressed up as the Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus… how much effort was put into the costume itself is the question: seems like a lot of work for a holiday.
This ghost has more to say about the survey…
Halloween Survey Results
23 Students 9 Teachers 1 Staff
the best Treats to receive when trick-or-treating? Let’s say there were a lot of similar answers when it came to trick or treat candy. Most involved, unsurprisingly, chocolate! Out of the 29 people who answered this question, there were 7 who chose Snickers, 6 chose KitKats, 6 chose Twix, and 3 people chose Hershey’s chocolates! For other candies, 3 like receiving Sour Patch gummies and 2 like getting gummies in general! Nice … until they get stuck between your teeth. After those popular candies, we can’t forget other food-related treats! Emmy over here likes getting warm cookies while trick or treating. (I question those willingly able to hand out cookies, especially warm cookies.) We also have Gia who likes Rice Crispy treats! Though I’ve never seen someone give out those treats, they really fulfill your cravings! I would know, I was once obsessed with them!
Fun Fact: 70% of the teachers who filled out this survey are 10th grade teachers, I wonder why… Mysterious circumstances.
best tricks you’ve seen when trick-or-treating? When people have no interest in giving treats, they decided to chase down Liz as Michael Myers. I wonder if there was a fake knife included in the chase…. Then we have Jillian who got tricked by a person with a fake eye who dropped the eyeball into the bowl without warning. Traumatizing!
Excluding candy, what else have you received as treats? We somehow had 8 respondents who got money when trick or treating! How? People can’t afford candy to hand out but are able to afford giving money? It better be change, if it isn’t then allow me to ask for donations! All I got was wired headphones that died within 2 days and a fake cockroach. I can confirm that as I picked up that cockroach from my My Little Pony candy basket, I screamed so loud the teacher shushed me. (This was 4 years ago when I was in elementary school.)
If you were giving treats, what would they be?
a reasonable age to hand out candy?
To be completely honest with you all, I would say roughly 80% of the responses said the candies listed above. We do have a teacher who would want to hand out Halloween-themed stationery! So that’d be exciting for anyone who loses stuff! However, there is a student who would give out snacks collecting dust that haven’t been touched in a while. As long as it’s not expired then that’d be fine. I mean– who hasn’t received expired treats?
Out of the 26 responses, there were 7 people who wrote “any age.” Charity had her daughters give out treats as toddlers! S0me said you should be 15 or older, and someone said any age is fine as long as you aren’t a creepy old man!
If you were giving a TRICK INSTEAD OF a TREAT, what would it be? A New Design student will do a backflip! Not a trick we expected, but pretty cool nonetheless! Meg would give out Beanboozled jelly beans and another would give out candy wrappers! (Must be fun tricking and treating people at the same time.) No one suggested writing the word “treat” on an index card, but me… I’m so kind.
If a kid knocks on your door, despite having your lights off. what would you do? Someone will open the door and disappear. How would they disappear? By closing the door, it’ll be such a magical moment. We have Uriel and 2 others who would tell the kid to leave, nothing else to expect. What else would people do? Another student will aggressively knock on the other side of the door and scream at the top of their lungs. Water is required. Other than that, we have Liz who will grab a flashlight to find the door and shine it on the kid. I wonder if anyone takes it out of context….
iF YOU WERE IN A hALLOWEEN MOVIE, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
What ARE the BEst Halloween-Themed Songs?
Tori said Scream 1 because it’s goofy and camp. I have no clue what that means, but we’ll just take her word for it!
AJ and I both wrote Happy Halloween by “Junky,” it’s in the name itself and a really good song! Listen to it.
A teacher would be in The Craft because it gives her 90s throwback vibes! I wonder if anything will happen.
Meg and 2 anonymous people like “Monster Mash,” I don’t remember a time when I haven’t heard that song play when Halloween arrives.
Huh, all teachers box? Anyway, we have Meg who wants to be in Casper because she wants ghost friends. It’s okay, we have sleep-deprived students for you!
Jaz and another teacher likes “Thriller”! To be completely honest, I forgot that song existed.
What do students dislike about teachers during halloween?
Would you host a haunted house? If so, what kind of Haunted house would you host?
2 students hate it when teachers put little to no effort into their costumes.
Someone among the school would host an escape room themed house! I wonder if people will have to find clues to run as fast a possible to actually escape.
Others don’t like the fact that teachers would put on costumes so old that the majority don’t have a clue about. Goro from Tampopo? Who? Someone doesn’t dislike teachers during Halloween, they just dislike them all year long. Not to mention, where’s our candy? We need it.
Then we have Meg (again) who would host a haunted maze murder mystery. She plans to get dead people to jumpscare participants and grab their legs to give it the full horror effect. How much work is that? Lastly we have a student who would host a epic chase down. We get participants running as fast as possible and monster actors to chase them down with a prop. That’d be a fun school event honestly….
what Halloween Decorations would you get? A teacher would get everything from dollar Tree! I wonder how random it’ll be seeing turkeys sitting outside during Halloween. That’d be funny. Someone would go all out and get air machines to make ghosts float and dress skeletons up each week of October. Damn, you have way too much dedication! Gia would buy fake bugs, bodies, and smoke makers to fill the entire year!
How would you create Halloween DEcorations? A teacher would go all out and collect spiders to use as their webs. I mean it’ll be genuine webbing, but how are you not scared by those 8-legged creatures? Not to mention it’ll take a while to create visible webs, unless it’s under a light. Many people decided to use paper to create ghost, pumpkins, and mummies! Someone would even use toilet paper to create a ghost too, I wonder how that’d turn out. Another person would take school materials and create decorations.
What do teachers dislike about students during Halloween? A teacher hates it when students leave their candy wrappers on the desks! Who can blame them, it’s so much work to pick up others’ trash! Someone doesn’t like the fact students forget learning exists for the day! Completely fair, cannot argue against that. Then we have 2 teachers who hate it when kids are too distracted on both costumes and Halloween plans! I’ll say this on the behalf of NDHS students, oops.
Free Halloween Happenings around NYC! By Isaac Gomez
Bronx Halloween Parade: Saturday, October 28th @ 12pm. Southern Blvd. & Westchester Ave., marching South to Intervale Ave., concluding on Rogers Pl. & Dawson St. Post-parade Festival at Bill Rainey Park @ 2pm. Cash prizes, candy, live music & more
Brooklyn
Check out the Harlem Meer Pumpkin Flotilla in Central Park on Oct. 27 @ 4pm
Park Slope Halloween Parade on Oct 31, starting @ 6:30 pm on 7th Ave. at 14th St., marching to 3rd St., then down to 5th Ave.
Manhattan Asphalt Screams! Thursday, Oct. 27 @ 3:30-6:30 pm, Litwin Field at Asphalt Green's Upper East Side campus, 555 East 90th Street. Haunted maze, thrilling games, and much more. RSVP required. Halloween Pet Parade! Sunday, Oct. 29 @ 2-4 pm at the Elizabeth Street Garden, 211 Elizabeth St. NYC Village Halloween Parade! Oct. 31 @ 7 pm along 6th Ave. from Canal to 15th St. Bryant Park Halloween Party, Oct. 31 @ 4-6 pm
Queens Amazing Maize Maze at Queens Farm: Free until October 28; 30-31. Oct. 29 an online ticket must be purchased for Halloween of the Farm; the patch will be open to ticket holders only that day.
Halloween Pet Parade at Elizabeth St. Garden happens on Sunday, Oct. 29!
Lit x Design Showcase New Design High School’s Literary Magazine
2 Poems
Freshview of a Freshman By Ahmiyah Cooper A new school year A new start A new day Just got off the train And I'm on my way Standing outside just kinda a little nervous But I know in there I'll have my purpose. I walked up the steps And I’m just already tired Give myself a little pep talk As I walk to my first class Earth Science Pretty easy Kinda a bit strained I met 2 girls freshman and sophomore Just can't wait to see more.
THE LIT TEAM Xin Ping Chen / Ahmiyah Cooper/ Isaac Gomez / Sherlynn Flores Guevara / Lexy Frye Yanos Send your story ideas or lit work to: LitbyDesign@newdesignhigh.com
The Lit Team meets Wednesdays in Rm. 432 during lunch. Join us!
Class starts and I see much diversity It's literally my dream I meet many people as I step into each class Geometry Art English They have so much pizazz. I meet a bunch a people That day counted what like 16? The people are so cool creative, and really sweet I was kinda scared I thought I would make the same mistakes But I'm gonna make new friends new memories I won’t be nervous, for god sakes.
Nature’s Madness By Josiah Baugh Morning’s dew on a peaceful morning Like the tears straight from the heavens The world’s relief on a quiet, warm morning Alone. Isolated. Quiet One drop Two drops Tears coming down in quick succession Tears from the heavens Nature’s sadness Humanity’s whispers of destruction Nature helplessly trying to silence it One drop, domino effected into multiple drips Yin and yang, good and evil, dark and light Nature’s thunderclouds Nature’s dark thought.