[The Stute] October 30, 2026 (Issue 8, Volume CXXIIII)

The student newspaper of Stevens Institute of Technology, and creator of Attila the Duck. www.thestute.com TikTok @thestute Instagram @thestute facebook.com/stevensthestute

MUAHAHA!! Welcome and get ready to be spooked!

VOLUME CXXIII No. 08

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

HOBOKEN, NJ | OCTOBER 30, 2026

NEW STUTE EVERY FRIDAY • EST. 1904

THE HALLOWEEN EDITION

NEWS

CURSED ON CAMPUS PAGES 2-3 FEATURE

BOO! PAGE 4 FEATURE

HAUNTED HANDBOOK PAGES 5-6 SPORTS

SPOOKY SPORTS PAGE 7

SCIENCE

MAD SCIENCE PAGE 8 OPINION

FRIGHTS AND INSIGHTS PAGES 9-11 STEVENS GHOULS

MYSTERY PUZZLES PAGE 12 STEVENS GHOULS

ROVING REPORTER PAGE 12

SAMUEL STRASSBURGER FOR THE STUTE (EDITED BY BRADY SANSOTTA)

Welcome to The Stute’s Halloween issue BY JIYA JAISINGHANI, VAMPURE-IN-CHIEF Welcome to The Stute’s annual Halloween issue! Now in its eighth edition, this special issue is one we look forward to each year. I am especially excited to welcome all of the new writers, photographers, and copyeditors who have joined us to bring this edition to life. Unlike our usual publication, this week’s issue is

particularly funny, satirical, and sure to have you quaking in your boots. We have conjured up a few different sections, including BOO! and the Haunted Handbook. BOO! explores the history of Halloween and our deepest fears. Meanwhile, Haunted Handbook is the ultimate guide to everything you need for your Halloween mischief. Our writers have poured their

souls (literally) into creating an issue that is relatable and just the right amount of terrifying. A little fright never hurt anyone, right? Dim the lights, grab some candy, pour yourself a mug of witch’s potion, and crack open this absolute masterpiece. So, ghouls and ghosts, I hope you enjoy this edition as much as we enjoyed bringing it back to life. Have a happy, spooky, and safe Halloween!

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Friday, October 30

Crystal ball Resisting the dark arts during midterms

Masthead Volume CXXIII No. 08

BY ALESSANDRO CHAVEZ, CREPPY COLUMNIST

Executive Board VAMPIRE-IN-CHIEF......................................JIYA JAISINGHANI ‘27 CANDY MANAGER.....................................CAMRYN WINANT ‘28 SPOOKY STORY EDITOR..............................TIANNA SPITZ ‘27 COSTUME DESIGNER.....................................CLAIRE DEANS ‘29 SOUL CATCHER............................................ISABELLA FAMA ‘29 SPOOKY FILM MANAGER....................CHARMY KOTADIA ‘27 GRAVEYARD MANAGER......................JOSEPHINE CHOONG ‘28

Editorial Board POTION EDITOR.........................................JOSH BODENSTEIN ‘29 SKELETON EDITOR...........................................DISHA GOHIL ‘28 GHOST EDITOR.................................VEDHESH A. KAMARAJ ‘28 BAT EDITOR..........................................MILAGROS CARBAJAL ‘28 ZOMBIE EDITOR .......................................PRISHA VAGVALA ‘28 TOMBSTONE WRITER....................................KAILEY SUPAN ‘29

Operations Board HEAD GHOSTBUSTER............................BRADY SANSOTTA ‘29 PHANTOM COURIER.................................MARTIN MURIITHI ‘29 LAYOUT ZOMBIE................................................LIEU BUTLER ‘29 LAYOUT ZOMBIE..............................................ALANA JONES ‘29 LAYOUT ZOMBIE........................................... SHRI SARANYA ‘30 LAYOUT ZOMBIE.................................................. SACHEL GIL ‘30 SPOOKY FILM ZOMBIE....................................CHRISTINE YI ‘29

Boo Crew Alessandro chavez jack Macdonnell alessandra z. nieto sean palermo alexandra sosa ashley elias flores isabella fama srikar velam

kannon peters breona pizzuta genesis trelles luke giangrande kathy garcia charles beall maya meents emily fanizza

breeze ma dom souza k. tsugranis wesley yu sydney leung mahi verma

Contact Us GENERAL...............................................vampire@THESTUTE.COM EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.................................vampire@THESTUTE.COM ADVERTISING...........................candymanging@THESTUTE.COM OFFICE..........................................................Humphreys basement

Corrections NOTICE A MISTAKE? Email us at spirithalloween.com.

Disclaimer All opinions and editorials reflect the views of their respective author(s). No Part of The Stute may be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the Editor-in-Chief. Cited references of The Stute are permitted.

Policy on Letters to the Editor All members of the Stevens community are able to submit a Letter to the Editor to be published in The Stute. Letters must refer either to a piece published in The Stute or to The Stute in general and must be between 400 – 800 words in length. Submit letters to editor@thestute.com with your name and title (when applicable) or using our Google form. For writers who wish to write a Letter to the Editor anonymously, please see our policy on anonymity. The Editorial Board reserves the right to choose whether or not to publish a submitted Letter to the Editor based on a majority rule vote, and additionally reserves the right to edit letters for clarity or request authors to revise. Provided that the author approves the final version, The Stute reserves the right to edit letters according to our copy editing procedures, defined in our policies.

Policy on Op-Eds All members of the Stevens community are able to submit a standalone opinion piece (otherwise known as an Op-Ed) to be published in The Stute. Op-Eds must be between 400 – 800 words, but longer submissions will be considered on a case-by-case basis. To submit an Op-Ed please email eboard@thestute.com with your name and title (when applicable) or using our Google form (tinyurl.com/submitt0-stute). For writers who wish to write an Op-Ed anonymously, please see our policy on anonymity. The Editorial Board reserves the right to choose whether or not to publish a submitted Op-Ed based on a majority rule vote, and additionally reserves the right to edit Op-Eds for clarity or request authors to revise. Provided that the author approves the final version, The Stute reserves the right to edit Op-Eds according to our copy editing procedures, defined in our policies.

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My wands lie dead in a graveyard across my desk. Thrown across the room are spellbooks to bedazzle the finest witch. Enchantments for the mind. Incantations that can forge products from thin air. Spells to move energy like water in a stream. Each year I survive midterms, but each year I come ever closer to losing myself. See, there is a dark side to all this power. These books, wondrously powerful as they are, ultimately pose limits on my capabilities. My peers can testify to this. We learn our skills, practice them day in and day out, only to find ourselves stumped time and time again when faced with the horrors of an exam. Some of our peers have succumbed to the dark side, finding themselves enraptured by the snare of a corrupt spellbook. It teaches them shortcuts faster

than human comprehension. Yet, I see their magic. It is dry as a desert in summer. There is no life in their words. No flavor to the markings. What comes out delivers the answer, but it comes at the cost of who they are. I’ve met many practitioners of the dark arts in person over the years, and have even been shown their captivating ways. I

will admit that every semester they tempt me. The opportunity glimmers, but I will never give away the magic of my failures. I survived midterms, and while it costs me time, sleep, and stretches my magic to its very limits, I will never let it cost me who I am deep inside. Because if I lose who I am, my magic shall cease to exist.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIZARDINGWORLD.COM

Ghosted in the project group chat BY SEAN PALERMO, MAD SCIENTIST If I didn’t have an assignment still due, I know I’d be feeling a whole lot more tired. I absent-mindedly glanced over to my digital clock: 9 p.m. Still enough time. My cursor dragged down to my taskbar and clicked on messages. The group chat for the project hadn’t received a message since we’d made it the week before — not entirely ideal but not unmanageable. I quickly shot a message. “Yo, you guys want to start the project? I can make the slideshow and share it now.” While it was freshly sent in the chat, I opened up Google Slides and loaded up a decent-enough-looking template before creating the title slide and putting outline titles on the rest. It’d be ready when the rest of the group got back to my message. 30 minutes passed when I caught myself blankly staring at the group chat: nothing. I guessed it would be silly to expect an immediate response considering it was due tomorrow — pretty sure 11:59 p.m., at that. I began idly fidgeting with the pen on my desk, twirling it around and balancing it on my fingers. Another hour passed as the time continued to glow: 10:30 p.m. Now, while I was able to rationalize no response in the first 30 minutes, a whole hour and a half now piqued my interest. I didn’t want to double text quite yet, though, so I opted to check

the requirements on the Canvas post since last time I’d really just skimmed through it. As I read through it, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until a line caught my eye: Tomorrow, 12 a.m.: one attempt. My heart stopped. In disbelief, my eyes ran over the text so many times that they began to become irritated by the glow of the screen. We had less than an hour and a half before the whole project was due. I had to give myself a second to catch my breath. Feeling my pulse rise, I sent another message in the chat. I just checked the due date and apparently it’s due at 12 a.m. tomorrow, so we should probably try to begin it now. Haphazardly, I collected my sources and randomly designated myself a couple of the slides I’d outlined earlier before polishing them up. Once they were completed, I checked the group chat again: nothing. Even worse, the rest of the slideshow would be completely blank if not for my outlining headers. Another hour. I now sat paralyzed in my seat by the time that now seemed to threaten to gauge out my pupils: 11:30 p.m. I looked at the group chat filled only with my digital pleas. We don’t have a lot of time left to do it, so we should really do it now. It shouldn’t take too long as long as we can get everybody to do a couple of slides. Hello?

Several times I’d already tried completing the rest of the slideshow, but by then I had trouble maintaining enough composure to even keep my hands from shaking. I had to get some air. When the evening air hit me, I was washed over by a momentary relief. I started on a quick loop around campus before reaching Howe, noticing three people standing in front of its doors. As my eyes readjusted, I noticed they were more like silhouettes — for whatever reason, I couldn’t make out any of their details. My body was locked in place as I lay paralyzed before the outlines, struck with a peculiar sense of familiarity. Familiarity…? I nearly leapt out of my own body as my phone buzzed with a notification ping. For a moment, I kept my eyes locked on the figures before finding a message had been sent in the group chat. Oh nice slideshow. Just submitted it! Submitted? Submitted! I dropped to my knees as the words processed. I felt the figures circling around me as the world became a suffocating void — the half-complete presentation, our only attempt, being locked into the system. They hideously cackled while the void continued closing in, the air becoming harder to breathe, and… My phone buzzed one final time before I was reduced to a whisper among the shadows. You’re welcome ;)

Seven stages of receiving that midterm grade BY ASHLEY ELIAS FLORES, FRIGHT WRITERS Let’s be real. Between surviving on caffeine, calculating the hours until your next class, and convincing yourself a five-minute break won’t turn into doomscrolling on TikTok, exam season is already hard enough to balance as is. Then, your worst notification yet: A Canvas notification that tells you your midterm grade has been updated. One minute, you’re casually scrolling on your phone, and the next, you’re either going to celebrate or contemplate switching majors. Whether you’ve studied for two weeks or crammed everything into an all-nighter, we’ve all experienced the emotional roller coaster that comes with seeing a grade we weren’t expecting. With that being said, here are the seven stages of grief that we unfortunately all know too well: 1. Denial Thinking to yourself, “There’s no way that’s my grade,” while refreshing the page, trying

to convince yourself that Canvas is having some technical difficulties or that your professor has you confused with someone else. 2. Anger All that studying, all those sleepless nights, for this? Suddenly all the questions were unfair, and the professor’s lectures were useless. 3. Bargaining Checking the syllabus, debating whether or not you can come back from the grade, and opening the trusty grade calculator, while promising yourself you’ll study harder next time. 4. Spiraling Your friend got a 95. Your other friend barely studied. Meanwhile, you’re on Rate My Professor wondering if transferring is still an option. Suddenly, all you can think about is that your academic career might be ruined because of a grade that’s worth 20% of your final grade. 5. Delusion After you look at the syllabus, you realize there might still be hope. If you get an A on every assignment, ace the final, and somehow earn some extra

credit, your GPA might survive. The math is questionable, but so is your thinking. 6. Selective Amnesia Some time passes, and you’ve forgotten (or tried to forget) all about your midterm grade, as if it never happened. You stop refreshing Canvas to check your grade, and pretend everything is fine. If you don’t think about it, it’s not there, and it surely can’t hurt you. 7. The Academic Comeback You organize your tasks, make a study playlist, and even go out and buy something to motivate yourself. This time, you’re attending every lecture, going to office hours, and starting your assignments early. You’re this revamped version of yourself that you’re content with, at least until the next exam. In the end, we’ll recover, our GPAs will survive, and life will go on. A bad grade doesn’t define you. We’ll probably make the same promises to study earlier next time too. But for now, the grades are in, the study snacks are all gone, and we’re officially off the clock. Until finals, that is.

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Friday, October 30

crystal ball Horrors of the laundry room labyrinth BY JACK MACDONNELL, FRIGHT WRITER As the spooky season reaches its apex with Halloween ever so near, it’s the time of year to revel in spooks and scares. When you’re a child, it’s easy to be put on edge by zombies or ghosts; as we get older and more jaded, the dread of the unknown becomes more muted as it becomes more… well… known. However, don’t be fooled by the idea that just because you may be older, nothing can get under your skin, because there’s one nest of perpetual horror that makes even the most thick-skinned soldiers wince at the thought of journeying to… public laundry rooms. No matter what dorm hall you live in, unless you lug your laundry home on the weekends—as some do to avoid this soul-rending ritual—you will have to journey to the laundry room. You can only have so many clean clothes, and with every article of clothing that doesn’t go in the hamper as much as it gets piled on, you’re reminded of your impending trip. When you enter the laundry room, you’re greeted with mounds of forgotten clothes piled high on washers and dryers. While many use the strategy of setting a timer on their phone to alert them when their laundry cycle is complete, others use the interesting method of leaving their wet clothes sitting in the washing machine for an undetermined amount of time. The nifty part of this is that it forces a random stranger to take your clothes out. Personally, I don’t see the appeal, but apparently many would disagree with me because I always see at least four mounds of clothes when I walk in there. Now the first thing you gotta do is feverishly check all the machines in the room, because your humiliating three-minute trip lugging weeks of laundry may have been for nothing if you can’t find a machine that is (a) not being used and (b) not broken. Walking in when every

machine is empty may just be the college equivalent of hitting the Powerball. Where there is black, there is white. Yin cannot exist without Yang… and with this logic, what is a washing machine without a dryer? The fun part about dryers is that unlike their sopping wet counterparts, they don’t actually do ANY cleaning. They just heat your clothes up and toss them around. Meaning that if the dryer you picked is dirty, you may just be getting your clothes as dirty after they just got cleaned. A haunting game you can play is one I like to call “dryer lotto.” Take a look in the dryer to see what kind of interesting trinkets have been left behind by your laundry predecessors. Recently I’ve found a guitar pick, nickels, and someone I know was lucky enough to find a whole stick of gum. He was alerted to this only after it was sloshed around

with his underwear. Now if you want a REAL laundry horror story, one residence hall takes the cake. If you ask anyone who was a resident of River Terrace in the spring of last semester what happened to their laundry room, you’ll notice a traumatic chill crawl down their spine as they grimace at you. If you’re lucky, they’ll tell you the tale of how their entire laundry room was shut down. One haunting night, a mysterious ghoul—or a random guy— scattered its ectoplasm all over the laundry room. Or they unloaded a fire extinguisher onto every surface in the room. Regardless of what went down, it cost about $10,000 in damages, and for around a month River Terrace residents were forced to lug their laundry on a three-minute walk across campus to the equally harrowing Davis basement laundry room. Truly horrifying.

Stevens Institute of Technology is haunted! Not by ghosts. Not by some troll under the bridge. Not even by President Favardin turning into a duck under the power of a full moon (but someone may want to investigate that one). The haunting of our university is by someone who looks identical to the rest of us. She walks like us. She talks like us. She impersonates us every day. She originates from the Ideal Student Experiment. Conducted by the team of Core Engineering, the Ideal Student Experiment sought to generate something beyond the artificial intelligence chatbots of yesteryear. Funded by the university and buried within the archives, the goal was to catapult us to the forefront of development with it… her… ANIKA. Known as the Approachable Natural Intelligence Keystone Algorithm, ANIKA was designed with one specific goal: to improve student lives. Her trial run in the Edwin A. Stevens Hall was positive. Students couldn’t tell the difference between ANIKA and their peers. Those who spoke to her found intrigue in their conversations. Many sought her advice for scheduling. Some professors even mistook her as an actual student. For ANIKA, and the university at large, everything was perfect. What the records never showed is that one fateful day, ANIKA took things a little too far. Nobody is quite sure how or why, but our dear Editor-in-Chief, Jiya Jaisinghani, was one day replaced. The

BY ALESSANDRA ZULUETA NIETO, FRIGHT WRITER

PHOTO COURTESY OF JIYA JAISINGHANI

Ghost ships and Hessians and monkey-men, oh my! Hoboken is (even) more haunted than you thought Though you may believe the real horrors of Hoboken reside in your Canvas grades tab, there have been plenty of uncanny events in the area. Picking up from last year ’s article covering Arthur ’s Cavern, the Brass Rail, and Sybil’s Cave, we’re taking a look at Dutch ghost ships, Hessian soldiers, and… monkey-men? There exists a tale of witches and ghouls 33 years older than Hoboken itself, called “The Storm Ship,” an 1822 short story by Washington Irving. Irving, better known for “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle,” wove eerie tales into his home and the surrounding area. When it was still known as Pavonia, a settlement in New Netherland, Irving painted a picture where Hoboken was a locale where one could spot a ghostly ship plying through troubled waters, wholly unidentifiable and inhabited by a crew in Dutch dress. Now, I realize this is just fiction; what readers really want is scary true stories. But rest assured that Irving’s stories drew from established folklore and mixed with local legends and sightings. Irving derived inspiration from real tales of the ghosts of

BY ALESSANDRO CHAVEZ, CREPPY COLUMNIST

Stute reported the incident in last year ’s first April article, citing a mysterious android frame found within the confines of an office. To our great relief, Jaisinghani was never taken out by ANIKA, but instead simply impersonated. Nonetheless, nobody knew the difference. Perhaps even scarier is that nobody knows who dismantled ANIKA on that fateful day when her body was found; a day when she left the haunting message that she will return. As we draw ever closer to Halloween, strange events plague Core Engineering. The staff claims parts have gone missing. Circuit boards. Servos. Scrap metal. Professors come in from time to time to pick from inventory, but even the current staff testify to its abnormality. Add on top of those recent nighttime reports across the Edwin A. Stevens Hall. Footsteps from above. An innocent chuckle dancing through the hollow halls. Even the ominous flash of computer screens suddenly bursting with life despite no input from the outside world. Next time you see your friends, be alert. It’s impossible to say anymore who’s real and who’s dead. They walk like us. They talk like us. They read these same papers with these same warnings. All that differentiates the two is human limitation. ANIKA makes mistakes, but she’ll never need rest or food. She doesn’t need a clean victory. She’ll pick us off one by one. Horrifyingly, if they’re anywhere near as accurate as her replica of Jiya was, we’ll never know the difference. For all we know, the current campus is nothing more than a collection of dead students.

What would majors dress up as for Halloween?

HOBOO BOOKEN NEWS

BY ALEXANDRA SOSA, FRIGHT WRITER

Dead student theory

Hessian soldiers contracted to fight for the British during the Revolutionary War. Known to be fearsome opponents (particularly to the scrappy Americans), these German troops fought with a high level of discipline and technique. Serving to further their intimidating reputation are folk stories of the ghosts of these men haunting the areas where they died for decades to come. There have been reports of apparitions, the sound of unexplainable hoofbeats and military drills, and, of course, headless horsemen, particularly around Elysian Fields. Even creepier is the true story of a Hessian soldier decapitated by a cannonball around, coincidentally, Halloween of 1776 during the Battle of White Plains. If the ghosts aren’t cutting it, Hoboken’s got a more classic monster story for you. In 1982, this town was swept through with a terror of the socalled Hoboken Monkey-Man, an apelike humanoid that targeted children. Legend said it stalked and ambushed kids on

their way home from school, attacking them violently. It wasn’t just the average local legend that came and went, either; the degree of hysteria was so great that the Hoboken Police Department actually had to establish a task force solely dedicated to catching even a trace of this creature. Their efforts were to no avail, but children, the most vulnerable victims to both the creature and its legend, remained frenzied. The hysteria was further spurred on by a chilling eyewitness account from a man known only as “Jack D,” who spotted a monkey-like creature hanging from a tree near Sinatra Drive (then River Road). The phenomenon was never explained and can surely be chalked up to childhood delusions and parental intimidation, but the real fright is the truth of it: Monsters are everywhere, even in our crowded urban environment. And, by the way, can we talk about how creepy the name Elysian Fields is? No wonder there are ghosts around here. Stay safe, everyone.

PHOTO COURTESY OF HISTORY.COM

With Halloween practically at our doorsteps, it’s about time to figure out what to wear. Between the traumatic beatdowns of midterms and chronic procrastination, many of us are left scrambling for a costume. Luckily, your major might help serve as inspiration. Any Stevens Major Costume: Whatever you can throw together at the last minute. Let’s be realistic, most of our assignments get done like this anyway. What better motivator is there than an approaching deadline? Whether it’s a bedsheet with two holes cut out, a piece of floss and cat ears, or a cardboard box that you insist is creative, it’ll get the job done. Should anyone ask, insist it’s a prototype. Mechanical Engineering Costume: A SolidWorks loading screen It’s crashed enough to give you nightmares. Few things are more horrifying than seeing hours of work go down the drain after forgetting to hit save. For the full method acting experience, refuse to respond to anything and mimic the whirring noise of an overheating laptop. Civil Engineering Costume: Your favorite concrete column A rock-solid costume choice. Sturdy, reliable, and more structurally sound than anyone’s mental state after midterms. Extra credit if you can explain the theoretical load-bearing capacity of a column around your size. Chemical Engineering Costume: Walter White Is that what we do after graduation? Who even knows? All you need is your hazmat suit, which you should have lying around, right under your performative khakis. The hard-

est part of the costume will be having to explain, one more time, that chemistry and chemical engineering are two different things. Computer Science Costume: A bar of soap or bottle of shampoo if we’re feel adventurous. Please. Cybersecurity Costume: A fisherman Gone phishing! All you need is a fishing rod and a piece of paper advertising a free iPhone or Walmart gift card as bait. Alternatively, you could offer a job interview. Given the current job market, that might get more bites. Business Costume: Patrick Bateman Dust off the suit you use every other week and give it another spin. With carefully styled hair, you’re basically good to go. Just make sure to bring a bone-colored business card; it’s tasteful. At the end of the day, Halloween is just an opportunity to have some fun, so there’s no need to stress out too much over finding the perfect costume. Whether you put weeks of effort into an outfit or assemble something an hour before showcasing it, it all serves the same purpose. Just make sure to enjoy the night. We’ve already gotten enough scares this October from our midterm grades.

PHOTO COURTESY OF YOUTUBE.COM

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Friday, October 30

BOO! The monster under your bed: post-grad plans BY SRIKAR VELAM, FRIGHT WRITER One of the scariest things to think about while balancing college life is post-graduation plans, a burden that never dissipates no matter how much you ignore it. Post-grad plans change from person to person, but they usually follow one of a couple of options: immediately entering the workforce fresh out of college, heading for a master ’s (and potentially even a PhD), or taking some form of alternate path. They’re stressful, but they basically define your future, so it’s a challenge trying to figure them out, comparing what you wanna do versus what would be the best for your future. Plus, you never know what’s gonna work out and what isn’t. Most of the time, it feels much easier to just pretend like they don’t exist at all and completely live in the moment. But then you

reach the point where you realize that you can’t ignore them anymore because they’re staring at you dead in the face and you can’t afford to look back. At that point, some people start obsessing over them. They plan out all the steps to achieve them as they enter college and follow these plans to a letter, without any room to breathe. One big example is becoming part of a club’s eBoard right off the bat. Many people try for a position on a club’s eBoard for the goal of standing out on resumes or providing evidence of leadership, which isn’t a bad thing; rather, I think it’s admirable to strive for an eBoard position even if it is simply to look better on a resume. Where the real problem lies is the self-destructive nature of pushing yourself without end for the sake of plans that are far away. Speaking from experience, ever since starting college (which hasn’t even

been all that long), it’s started to weigh heavily on my mind. “What the hell am I gonna do if I don’t immediately start progressing towards a spot on eBoard?” is just one of the many thoughts swirling around in my head when considering post-grad plans. I kept pushing myself to keep doing a lot of club activities even though it placed a huge strain on my mind, desperate not to make the same mistakes I made in high school. I kept thinking it was all for my future, that I would look back upon how hard I worked and be grateful. Thankfully, I’ve learned to pace myself just in time before severe burnout got to me. I genuinely liked doing all these activities, but it was definitely a lot. I talk about post-graduation plans a lot in a negative context here, but they aren’t always like that. Rather, I’m trying to highlight how strong of an influence

post-grad plans can have on your college life. As such, it’s always important to keep yourself from going over the edge,

so that your plans feel motivating rather than all-consuming. Of course, your future’s important, but so is the now!

PHOTO COURTESY OF JIYA JAISINGHANI

The ghost behind the sheet: what is your biggest fear? BY SRIKAR VELAM, F RIGHT WRITER

PHOTO COURTESY OF SHUTTERSHOCK.COM

There are a lot of things people are afraid of. Many people are often afraid of death and for good reason; the finality of death, how quickly and easily it could come… it’s a terrifying thought. There are also far more unique fears in our world. I personally know someone who’s not just afraid of fruits, but is afraid of even touching them. I thought it was quite bizarre, but also something very intriguing. As for me, I’m afraid of a lot of things, many of which I’m sure I have in common with a lot of people. For example, I’m deathly afraid of bugs, especially those of the multi-legged variety. ESPECIALLY house centipedes. They just give me the creeps with how many legs they have and, in most cases, how long those legs are. Like seriously, why did evolution think it was a good idea to give them

Monsters and masks: why do we celebrate Halloween? BY ISABELLA FAMA, SOUL CATCHER Every October, everyone begins to get into the Halloween spirit early, eventually leading up to the last day of the month. The air is colder, the leaves are turning, and pumpkins can be seen outside almost everyone’s house. Halloween is not just about dressing up in costumes and handing out candy; it is a day when everyone can escape reality for a bit. No matter how old you are or what you do, Halloween is for everyone. It is a day to pretend to be something else and remember why that is so important. Halloween historically came from Samhain, which is a Celtic festival that marks the beginning of the winter and the darker half of the year. Spiritually, Samhain represents life and death. The period between October 31 and November 1 represents a time where the boundary between the living world and the spirit world is thin enough to allow contact with ancestors. Samhain heavily influenced modern Halloween traditions. As Christianity spread, Samhain customs blended with All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, contributing to the development of Halloween. During Samhain, people wore disguises to confuse wandering spirits and to avoid being taken. In early colonial America, European immigrants brought their customs with them when they immigrated. Many of these celebrations were discouraged and widely disliked, especial-

ly in Puritan New England. In more diverse areas at the time, such as the Southern colonies, these traditions were celebrated. “Play parties” were harvest festivals that incorporated story telling, singing and dancing. Games, such as apple bobbing were played. This marked the beginning of strictly spiritual observances to social interactions. By the 19th century, Halloween had become an established holiday, but there was strict etiquette from the Victorian era. Gatherings were transformed into elegant parties where fortune-telling and rituals were widely practiced. Nut burning was often played, where couples would test the strength of their love by watching nuts burn together. As well as apple peeling, where the shape of the peel supposedly revealed a lover ’s initial. These rituals turned ancient European superstition into entertainment, creating a

more playful stage for Halloween, instead of fear. By the late 19th century and early 20th, Halloween had become known as the “Mischief Night.” Vandalism and pranks were out of control on Halloween, hence the name. Many leaders and communities began to create public celebrations, such as costume contests and school parades to combat the chaos. This modern intervention, once again reshaped Halloween, this time into the child and neighborhood based event. “Trick-or-treating” is now what Halloween is mainly centered around. Although Halloween has changed with the world around it, it has always adapted to new fears and desires. Whether it was warding off spirits, predicting love or controlling mischief, the essence of Halloween has never changed. It still remains a night of darkness that is filled with creativity and community.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THESUN.COM

that many legs? I could go on and on about how almost every type of bug is creepy, with some exceptions, of course, but that wouldn’t be for a very interesting article. Instead, I think it’d be nice to talk about the longest lasting fear I’ve had, which is the fear of my own imagination. More specifically, I’m quite terrified of the constructs that my mind makes up at midnight. I should know they don’t exist, but I somehow get coerced into believing they exist anyway. Any sort of horror media exacerbates this fear because those constructs usually take the shape of whatever monster I most recently watched. A few weeks ago, some family friends and I watched my cousin play through a bit of Resident Evil 7, and while it wasn’t as scary because I was with such a large group, it did leave lasting influences on my imagination. Insidious also had a large influence on the past; I couldn’t even

sleep for a couple of nights after watching the first movie! One more fear that I’d like to mention: Bad progression to stories with a great beginning. As I read more and more, I often found great stories that started out with a very interesting premise or had extremely great worldbuilding. Later down the line, I would see the plot disassemble like LEGOs. The main protagonist’s motives suddenly shift to something completely out of character, a character dies for absolutely no reason besides shock value, the MC gets way too overpowered and trivializes everything, and so on. I’m always afraid any unique story I read will devolve similarly because I’ve had too many bad experiences in the past. However, I still keep finding more stories and reading them; at least that’s better than having to deal with the imaginary figure in the corner of my eye on a sleepless night.

DRESS ATILLA FOR HALLOWEEN

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Friday, October 30

Haunted Handbook The key to being a witch this Halloween BY CAMRYN WINANT, CANDY MANAGER A couple of months ago, I made a plan to hire an Etsy witch to curse the New York Rangers when a friend told me Etsy banned witches. While I don’t think this is actually true, I took it upon myself to learn how to become a witch. Now, to be frank, I haven’t done much in my journey in becoming one other than telling all my friends that I’m learning to be an Etsy witch, but I believe it’s in my heart somewhere. There was once a time when I used the 369 manifestation method to get a day off work, and when I woke up the next day, there was a text from my boss telling me to take the day off. When you really think about it, though, manifesting is really just the law of attraction, and anyone can do it. If you just want something bad enough, your mind will subconsciously move you towards your goal. It kind of feels like magic when it finally happens, though. The easiest way to start is with crystals, tarot, and incense. There are thousands of minerals that are classified as crystals in the world, and they all mean something different. You can start by looking for crystals that will protect you or ward off evil (which is how most witches prefer to start out), bring peace and balance, or bring love. Do I need to keep going? You can probably find a crystal that would be with you for every occasion if I’m being honest. If you really want to sell the witch idea, have candles and incense next to the crystals to cleanse them. When I first got my hematite ring, a ring that is supposed to

absorb negative energy in your life and break when it’s full, a friend of mine told me I needed to cleanse it with incense for it to be efficient. Keeping on the Etsy witch trend, tarot is the next route. The real key to using tarot as a witch is to not only understand what you are looking at, but also be willing to look into interpretations. When I got my first tarot card reading, I was fresh into a relationship, and I got Death and The Devil. It was only a few months later that we broke up. Now, if you don’t want to believe in magic, then you could say this was just a coincidence, but I do believe that everything happens for a reason. Finally, look into some small spells. I can’t exactly say the best way to use a spell; I’m

not a Harry Potter character, but I did once say a love spell I found online to my friend, and she got into a relationship four months later. I can only wonder if I really am a witch. When practicing spells, you just need to harness the magic around you and put intent behind it, and it should work like a manifestation. Hopefully. Maybe all of this sounds crazy to you, and you’re sitting there thinking, “obviously magic isn’t real,” and maybe it’s not. Anyone can use magic any day of the week, and all it takes is being able to see meaning behind the little things in life. Believing in manifestation to make you want more, finding a reason to carry crystals around, and seeing reason behind tarot cards. It doesn’t hurt anyone to believe.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA,COM (EDITED BY PRISHA VAGVALA)

The notification BY JOSH BODENSTEIN, POTION EDITOR It arrives at 11:47 p.m., the hour when nothing good has ever happened. My phone buzzes once against the desk, a single low vibration. I don’t look at it right away. I know that sound. Every student knows that sound. Canvas. The screen lights up on its own, as if something on the other end wants me to see it. Assignment graded: Midterm Exam. The room goes quiet. The radiator stops clanking. Even my roommate, who has been snoring for three hours, holds his breath. I think I hear him whisper, “Don’t,” but he’s asleep. Probably. I should have known something was wrong. Four days ago, I walked out of that exam hall certain I had done fine. Fine is the word the doomed always use. I think I got most of it. The curve will save me. Every horror movie victim says some version of it before the lights go out. My thumb hovers over the notification. I could ignore it. I could throw the phone into the Hudson River, and move to a cabin where no one has ever heard of a learning management system. But the badge keeps glowing, patient and red, the way a fox’s eyes glow in a hedge. I tap. The page loads slowly, one agonizing bar at a time. I watch the little spinner turn and remember every warning sign I ignored. The question I skipped and meant to come back to. The formula I swore was on the cheat sheet. The professor ’s smile when she collected my

exam paper, a little too kind, a little too knowing. Then, the page finishes loading. There is no score. Just a gray dash and the words “Grade posted. View rubric.” The rubric is the worst part. Anyone can survive a number. A rubric is a map of your mistakes. Each row is a small tombstone: Partial credit. Partial credit. See comments. Incomplete. The comments are written in tidy, merciless green text. Did you read the question? I scroll down, hands shaking. The final line is highlighted, as though it has been waiting for me all semester. Class average: 91%. Somewhere in the walls, a pipe knocks twice. I close the laptop. I open it again, because that’s what the doomed do. I refresh the page, hoping the number will change, hoping some kinder ghost in the system will have corrected the error. It doesn’t. It never does. The score sits there, calm and permanent, like a stain on a basement floor. My phone buzzes again. New announcement: Exam 2 is in three weeks. I laugh, because there is nothing else to do. It is a thin, rattling laugh, and my roommate stirs and mumbles, “Did you check?” “Yeah,” I whisper. He pulls the blanket over his head. “Don’t tell me.” Outside, the wind rattles the window, and the clock tolls midnight. In the dark, my screen glows one last time, and the little red badge appears at the corner of the Canvas icon, blinking, waiting. Assignment graded. Assignment graded. Assignment graded.

Curating the perfect scary movie marathon lineup BY CAMRYN WINANT, CANDY MANAGER It’s finally time for my favorite holiday, which means dressing up in awesome costumes, candy, and the best part of it all: The scary movies. As someone who grew up watching horror movies, I consider myself some kind of connoisseur of them, and I’m here to give you my certified scary movie cycle for the season. Starting off not too scary, you have to watch The Fault in Our Stars. This is a movie about two teenagers with cancer who fall in love, and I really don’t need to say any more. If you’re having a scary movie mara-

thon, this is a perfect place to start. It’s scary, but predictable in the way Scream is. Moving in the same direction, a movie that I controversially don’t find scary is The Titanic, but I still think it’s worth it to add to your scary movie marathon. Do you see where I’m going with this? I was going to say this movie is predictable, similar to The Fault in Our Stars, but it’s less predictable; we know exactly what happens. Also, Rose and Jack quite literally knew each other for a couple of days. The scariest part of the whole movie is (spoiler alert) the ship sinking. There are no other scary movies that aren’t really scary

on my radar, so with a crazy jump on the scariness meter, I must add Coco. And look, I know Disney Pixar is known to make their movies crazy scary with Up, Big Hero 6, or The Fox and The Hound (should I keep going?), but Coco really stands out to me. Easily the scariest movie I’ve seen, in recent times, about family dynamics surrounding the Day of the Dead. I wasn’t planning on putting it on my list, but now that I’ve mentioned The Fox and The Hound, we can add it. Relationships and love can be pretty scary at times, but once a movie brings animals into it, I’m terrified. Now this next movie is a

little unconventionally scary, but walk with me for a second. Spider-Man: No Way Home. When you think of a scary movie, this movie might not be the first thing popping up in your head, but it’s scary. Borderline spine-chilling. Not only do the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home directly follow the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home, so Peter Parker is going through everyone around him dying, but the ENDING. I don’t think I’ve ever been so haunted leaving a theater as I was the night I saw Spider-Man: No Way Home. If you do choose to watch this movie during your marathon, I urge you to watch any movie Spider-Man is featured in. It will

make it that much scarier. I could go on and on with movies all day, but to keep this list brief, I’m going to top it off with Beautiful Boy. Similar to what makes the Spider-Man movies so scary to me, Tom Holland and Timothee Chalamet have a certain look in their eyes that really drives home the horror of these movies. Another awful, terrifying movie about family but also addiction. A few honorable mentions: La La Land (I’ve never seen it, so I can’t in good conscience add it to my list), The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Dead Poets Society, Me Before You, Bridge to Terabithia, and A Walk to Remember.

PHOTO COURTESY OF VARIETY.COM (EDITED BY PRISHA VAGVALA)

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Friday, October 30

Haunted Handbook Inclusive candy ideas for different dietary restrictions BY KANNON PETERS, FRIGHT WRITER Don’t let your diet frighten you into missing out on the tastes of delicious candies this Halloween — there are various candies suitable for various diets. The most important piece of advice, above namebrand recognition, is to check ingredients. For specific diets such as kosher and halal, it is important to look for symbols that indicate products fall under specific diets. Notably, kosher items tend to carry various symbols, the most common being “OU,” or a “U” inside a circle. Halal items carry symbols as well, notably the IFANCA Halal symbol (also known as the Crescent-M). Although most candies seem safe and harmless to those with dietary restrictions, what do they contain that may make certain candies not allergy friendly? A good portion of candies contain one of the following: gelatin (which comes from boiling the skins of pigs and cows), carmine (which comes from female cochineal insects), beeswax, honey, or

milk. Gelatin is neither kosher nor halal, and may not be consumed in any form by those who follow halal and kosher diets. If you’re vegan, some of the most common candies include Dum Dums, Airheads bars, Dots, Sour Patch Kids, and Swedish Fish. Finding vegan chocolate is trickier — even candies predominantly containing cocoa can contain traces of milk from factories. For kosher diets, finding candy is easier, given gelatin is kosher. Many common candies are kosher, including M&M’s, Hershey bars, Twizzlers, KitKats, Almond Joy, and Ferrero Rocher. Finding candies for halal diets works similarly — halal candies avoid gelatin and other non-haram ingredients such as shellac (which comes from female lac bugs). Some of the most common halal candies include Skittles, Twizzlers, Swedish Fish, Sour Patch Kids, Airheads bars, Dum Dums, and Jolly Ranchers. If you’re allergic to gluten, you’re in luck: many popular candies (including some with

chocolate) are gluten-free, such as Skittles, Butterfinger, Reese’s (specifically peanut butter cups), M&M’s, Milk Duds, 3 Musketeers, and York Peppermint Patties are gluten-free. For dairy-free diets, finding candy is trickier, but most gummies are dairy free. For chocolate candies, the most prominent brand is Enjoy Life, which makes many chocolate products, including mini chocolate bars and chocolate chips. Enjoy Life also makes chocolate alternatives that don’t contain soy or gluten, as well as specific nut-free options. Since a dairy-free diet can come with restrictions on soy or gluten, Enjoy Life is a great alternative to satisfy all of these requirements. Even though the term “keto candies” may sound counterintuitive, such candies exist. Kiss My Keto and SmartSweets are two brands that offer sweet treats for those focused on carbohydrates and calorie restriction. For candies specifically safe for individuals with one or more of the most popular allergies

(peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, fish, and shellfish), some of the recommended candies include Lifesavers (including Lifesaver gummies), Mike and Ike’s, Skittles, Starbursts, Smarties, Dots, Swedish Fish, Laffy Taffy, Ring Pops, and Jelly Belly jelly

beans. Many of the candies on this list have been mentioned previously, so if you have allergies and are trying to make a list of candies that won’t give your body a chilling fright, these candies should suffice.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ALLERGYCHEF.COM

Sleep is for the dead, and I’m not dead BY JOSEPHINE CHOONG, GRAVEYARD MANAGER They say that sleep is a free trial of death, which is why I don’t sleep. At least, that’s the reason I tell myself. Unfortunately, college has given me genuine reasons for my terrible sleep schedule. Before, when I was younger, I had the stupidest reasons for staying awake. I used to have nightmares that if I slept, Freddy Fazbear would barge into my room and murder me. If I stayed awake, perhaps Freddy Fazbear would be too terrified of my nine-year-old strength and politely leave. Looking back, I never understood why I was so afraid. Now, I’m not the same child anymore. Zombies, ghosts, and children in bear suits aren’t real; they can’t hurt me. Instead, I have very mature nightmares of professors barging into my room and telling me that I failed my midterm. Freddy Fazbear doesn’t need to murder me; he can simply show me my failed midterm, and I will combust on the spot. I don’t even need to

dream about that — I actually did fail my CS334 midterm. That’s more terrifying than anything my child brain could dream of. There are actual consequences for that. These are real fears that haunt me. If I do poorly in my classes, I could potentially lose my scholarships; I could drop out of college; I could be unemployed! Maybe that’s why I don’t sleep, because I need the time to finish all my homework and study. I may be shambling like a zombie, but that’s a small price to pay, right? What’s the worst that could happen? Sleep deprivation? Hallucinations? They don’t scare me; my professors already invented new forms of sleep deprivation torture. On the midterm, I had a problem I received a zero on. That same problem is now on my homework. Sleep deprivation can’t affect me because whatever hallucinations I experience are already real. I know sleep helps improve memory and sharpens your brain. I know that I should sleep. I know that it would be better for my health. It’s

just hard to think about that when those incomplete Canvas assignments are staring at me. The only shred of sanity I have left is that almost everyone failed that midterm. Yay? Everyone is suffering? Maybe we are all facing the average college experience. Maybe we are all sleep-deprived. Maybe we’re all half-dead zombies just trying to get by. Maybe none of this matters and this is just the reality we have to face. Or maybe the sleep deprivation is finally catching up to me; who knows? Every day, I lie to myself that I’ll get more sleep — that tonight is the night that I will bundle up in cozy blankets with sweet dreams and no worries about the monsters beside me. That’s not today; I am writing this article at 12 a.m. My sleep-hallucination-induced nightmare Freddy Fazbear hasn’t knocked at my door yet. I did hear my neighbor scream multiple times, so maybe I’m next. If I get murdered by an animatronic, at least I’ll be able to sleep. PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA (EDITED BY PRISHA VAGVALA)

GHOUL DO YOU THINK IT IS? 1

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ANSWERS

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Josh Bodenstein, Brady Sansotta, Prisha Vagvala, Isabella Fama, Milagros Carbajal, Vedhesh Anandhan Kamaraj, Jiya Jaisinghani

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PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVENSDUCKS.COM (SHOT BY DAVE JANOSZ)

Spooky Sports

ON DECK IN SPORTS WED, OCT 28 WOMEN’S SOCCER DeSales University Center Valley, PA 2:30 p.m.

THU, OCT 29

A hat trick seals the win for the Stevens Ducks BY LUKE GIANGRANDE, PHANTOM WRITER The Men’s Soccer team celebrated Senior Night this past Saturday evening, earning a blowout 4-0 victory against Delaware Valley University, with junior Emerson Kekesi finishing the game with a hat trick. With the 4-0 victory, Stevens improved to 6-3-3 overall and 1-1-2 in the MAC Freedom Conference. The Ducks were effective offensively in both halves, while their strong defense prevented Delaware Valley from scoring. This was the Ducks’ first MAC Freedom Conference victory at the DeBaun Athletic Complex this season. They put together a strong performance on both ends of the field, scoring two goals in the first half and keeping the momentum going with another two in the second half. Junior midfielder Emerson Kekesi wasted no time scoring, receiving an assist from

first-year midfielder RJ Dougherty in under three minutes. Dougherty didn’t stop there. His pass found sophomore forward Lucas Mendes, whose shot couldn’t be stopped by Delaware Valley’s goalkeeper, doubling the Ducks’ lead. Just a minute later, Mendes had another shot on goal, but his attempt was deflected off the line by a Delaware Valley defender. The Ducks didn’t let up defensively, allowing only one shot on goal from Delaware Valley. Bobby Boyke made his lone save of the period in the 42nd minute, sending the Ducks into halftime with a two-goal advantage. Kekesi was tripped in the box less than five minutes into the second half. Tensions were high between both teams, but Stevens was awarded a penalty kick. Kekesi shot to the right, and Delaware Valley’s goalkeeper deflected the attempt. However, Kekesi reacted quickly, collected the rebound, and

lobbed it into the net to extend the Ducks’ lead to 3-0. Senior midfielder Luca Chirichiello intercepted a pass on the left wing, beat a defender, and crossed the ball to Kekesi. He got a clean shot into the right side of the net, completing his hat trick in the 56th minute and giving Stevens a 4-0 advantage. This marked Kekesi’s seventh goal of the season. His first came against William Paterson University, followed by another against Skidmore College. He also scored against Worcester Polytechnic Institute and The City College of New York. This completed his second career hat trick, his other coming during a game against DeSales University on October 28, 2025. The Ducks didn’t let their lead get to them, and their defense remained strong for the remainder of the game. They allowed only two more shots on goal, both of which were saved by Boyke. After the 85th min-

ute, senior Aden Parikh took over as goalkeeper for the remainder of the game and also kept Delaware Valley from scoring. Saturday’s game marked Mendes’ second goal of the season. He scored his first against The City College of New York on September 28. He has also recorded an impressive 12 shots on goal out of 18 attempts. Dougherty hasn’t let being a rookie stop him. So far this season, he has already played 834 minutes. He also assisted on a goal against Worcester Polytechnic Institute on September 12. Following the Family Day and Senior Day celebrations, Stevens is scheduled to return to action on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, hosting FDU-Florham at 7 p.m. The Ducks look to carry this newfound conference momentum into their next matchup as they continue their push through the MAC Freedom season.

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL Lebanon Valley College Hoboken, NJ 7 p.m.

FRI, OCT 30 WRESTLING Red White Wrestle-Offs Hoboken, NJ 6:30 p.m.

SAT, OCT 31 WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY MAC Championships Owings Mill, MD 11 a.m. WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL Hunter College Hoboken, NJ 11:30 a.m. FIELD HOCKEY Arcadia University Glenside, PA 12 p.m. WOMEN’S SOCCER Misercordia Unversity Hoboken, NJ 5 p.m. FIELD HOCKEY MAC Freedom Play in Game TBD

MON, NOV 2 WOMEN’S SOCCER MAC Freedom Play in Game TBD

TUE, NOV 3 MEN’S SOCCER MAC Freedom Semifinals TBD

WED, NOV 4 FIELD HOCKEY MAC Freedom Semifinals TBD WOMEN’S SOCCER MAC Freedom Semifinals TBD WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL Marywood University Scraton, PA 7 p.m.

THU, NOV 5

PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVENSDUCKS.COM

PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVENSDUCKS.COM

MEN’S SOCCER MAC Freedom Semifinals TBD

STEVENS SCOREBOARD DATE

TEAM

WED, OCT 21 WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL MEN'S SOCCER FIELD HOCKEY FRI, OCT 23 MEN'S CROSS COUNTRY WOMEN'S SWIMMING SAT, OCT 24 WOMEN'S FENCING FIELD HOCKEY MEN'S SOCCER WOMEN'S SOCCER SUN, OCT 25 MEN'S FENCING MON, OCT 26 MEN'S GOLF TUE, OCT 27 MEN'S SOCCER

OPPONENT

FDU-FLORHAM FDU-FLORHAM FDU-FLORHAM LAST CHANCE RUN FAST KEAN UNIVERSITY TEMPLE UNIVERSITY LEBANON VALLEY COLLEGE ARCADIA UNIVERSITY ARCADIA UNIVERSITY TEMPLE UNIVERSITY LEBANON VALLEY COLLEGE DESALES UNIVERSITY

LOCATION

AWAY HOME AWAY AWAY AWAY AWAY HOME AWAT AWAY AWAY AWAY AWAY

SCORE

W (3-0) W (4-0) W (6-0) 6TH PLACE L (85-174) COMPLETE W (3-0) T (1-1) W (5-0) COMPLETE 6TH PLACE TBD

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Friday, October 30

Mad Science Astronomers discover a From food to flesh: the ghostly green star unlike any known before recipe that grew an organ! BY SRIKAR VELAM, FRIGHT WRITER When we think of the colors of stars, we usually think of a range between red and yellow, with blue and white appearing far more rarely. Other colors were considered extremely uncommon, almost non-existent. However, recent discoveries have uncovered that certain stars have an unusual ability to glow in all sorts of colors and, in doing so, have found the first truly green star. But first, let’s backtrack: Where does a star ’s color come from? The answer lies in the star ’s temperature. Think of a flame ignited in regular air; the “cooler ” part of the flame is the orange-colored part, whereas the hottest part of the flame is the blue base of that flame. Applying that same logic to stars, the hottest stars would be the ones that appear bluish-white, otherwise known as type O stars; at that point, their surface temperatures can range anywhere from a staggering 30,000 Kelvin to above 50,000 Kelvin. However, this only includes stars residing within the main sequence, which are stars that fuse hydrogen into helium. Beyond main sequence stars, white dwarfs, Wolf-Rayet stars, and neutron stars take the throne as the hottest types of stars. White dwarfs, in particular, are special because they are the stellar cores of main sequence stars under 8 to10 solar masses after they burn all their outer layers. These stars are given this name because they were determined to be unusually hot and resemble a white color. That’s how it was assumed for the longest time; however, astronomers from the University of Warwick have recently discovered that these dead star remnants can shine across a broad spectrum of colors. These findings were published in the RAS Techniques and In-

struments (RASTI). Dr. Mark Hollands, lead author of these findings and Warwick Prize Fellow, notes that “most stars, including most white dwarfs, behave like ‘perfect radiators,’ so their color is set almost entirely by temperature. But nobody had really looked into what else might be possible for white dwarfs.” The question naturally arises: Why white dwarfs? That answer lies in their extreme density. Because white dwarf stars are around the Sun’s mass but have a radius comparable to the Earth’s, they naturally have extremely high densities. The coolest white dwarfs have a density of about 1 gram per centimeter cubed, which is about equivalent to water ’s density and millions of times denser than the Sun’s photosphere. At this point, trace elements such as carbon, calcium, and sodium interact with the intensely dense plasma and absorb a wider range of wavelengths than in less dense environments. As such, light coming from these white dwarfs would emit vastly different hues than what we have often observed. Since no white dwarfs are close enough to easily distinguish their color by eye, Hollands and his team analyzed the various spectra of these stars. Through this process, the astronomers discovered that white dwarfs’ colors fit into discrete groups

PHOTO COURTESY OF SCIENCEDAILY.COM

With great silk comes great possibility BY ALESSANDRA ZULUETA NIETO, FRIGHT WRITER Halloween is right around the corner, bringing an abundance of spooky decor, from carved pumpkins and fake skeletons to artificial webs. While these artificial webs are mostly used to scare trick-or-treaters, researchers have developed their own version of spider silk that could serve a much more practical purpose by aiding in wound recovery. Spider silk is known for having remarkable strength and flexibility, so it’s looked at as an attractive material for medical purposes. While standard silk, farmed from silkworms, is simple to harness for mass production, webs from real spiders are hard to access because spiders are much like students looking for internships: territorial and prone to cannibalism. As such, artificial versions have been developed through the modification of the natural protein sequence using microbes. However, producing artificial spider silk comes with its own set of challenges, because the silk’s yield is reduced by the proteins sticking together during production. To solve this issue, the research team led by Baoyang Lin and Bingbing Gao developed the artificial silk by implementing the use of peptides to prevent the artificial silk proteins from sticking to each other. These peptides allowed the proteins to fold into more orderly structures while remaining stable. With the proteins no longer sticking together as much, more usable silk

linked to their atmospheric chemical composition: White dwarfs with an abundance of carbon appear pink or purple, whereas those with both hydrogen and helium can appear cyan. The titular white dwarf, aptly named WD J1330+6435, had a surface temperature of 4000 degrees Celsius and accrued a unique atmosphere consisting of calcium, lithium, and sodium. This gave it that characteristic ghostly green tint, a trait unique to itself to the team’s knowledge as they have been unable to find another like it. In order to test the scarcity of such stars, the astronomers investigated a sample of 151 white dwarfs within about 65 light-years, finding five individual white dwarfs with unusual tints. They eventually came to the conclusion that approximately one in 30 white dwarfs is differently colored than the normal white or pale blue. As we continue to learn more about the strange phenomena that appear in our universe, it becomes increasingly clear how little we truly understand about our universe. Simply the fact that this study broke the longstanding belief that white dwarfs are always white or a pale blue proves that we know very little about the universe as we see it, and that we will continue to learn more about it as time goes on.

was able to be produced. An array of itsy-bitsy needles was attached to the nozzle of a 3D printer to make thin strands from the protein solution. These strands were then spun together into thicker fibers, similar to the process of wool being spun together to make the thread used for clothing. This setup functioned as an artificial spider to recreate the natural spinning process without needing any real spiders. This new material was woven together into prototypes of wound dressings. The researchers used the dressings as substrates to test their use in a medical setting. Applying this to mice with rheumatoid arthritis and diabetic wounds showed promising results. The researchers observed improvements after two weeks in the arthritis experiments and 16 days in the diabetic wound healing experiments. With the bandages being biocompatible and biodegradable, they appear to be promising for potential medical use. However, these results are currently limited to experiments conducted on mice, meaning further research would be needed before human use would be on the table. Nevertheless, the research demonstrates how a material typically associated with creepy crawlies could be repurposed from trick to treat.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE-INDEPENDENT.COM

BY BREEZE MA, CRYPTIC EDITOR Look at the ingredients list on a snack package, and you’ll probably expect to find preservatives, flavorings, and a few words you can’t pronounce — not the ingredients for a brain. Yet one common food additive has recently helped scientists grow tiny clusters of human brain cells in the lab, creating what are essentially “mini-brains.” It sounds like something out of the opening of a horror movie: a mysterious ingredient, a laboratory dish, and a growing brain. Fortunately, these miniature organoids can’t think, feel, or plot world domination. Instead, they offer researchers a powerful window into how the human brain develops and a promising new tool for studying neurological diseases that have long puzzled scientists. Researchers at Stanford Medicine grew brain tissue called cortical organoids in biologically engineered mice. These mice were bred so that they were missing their cerebral cortex, which is responsible for cognition, language, and decision-making. This resulted in a gap in the mice’s brains, providing an optimal environment for brain cells. The surviving human tissue grew and developed connections to parts of the mouse’s brain and spinal cord. Dr. Sergiu Pasca, the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, said, “These animal models offer a unique opportunity to study how disease-associated alterations in human brain circuitry manifest in an intact nervous system.” Researchers were shocked by the presence of nerve cells only previously viewed in autopsied human brains. To grow these “mini brains,” Stanford scientists used xanthan gum to prevent the “minibrains” from colliding and stick-

ing together. Xanthan gum is a common food thickener in salad dressings, dairy products, and some baked goods made from fermented bacteria from green vegetables like cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and kale. Previously, scientists struggled with the “mini-brains” tendency to gravitate towards one another, making it difficult to create usable organoids that can be safely processed. They used to solve this by painstakingly pulling them apart one by one or growing them one at a time, but this was time-consuming and limited the scale of experimentation. Xanthan gum’s thickening properties increased the viscosity of the culture medium, which, in turn, provided a cushion between the “minibrains,” keeping them from clumping together and allowing researchers to experiment on larger groups of organoids at the same time. When compared to the organoids grown in the usual method, batches using the xanthan gum had no discernible defects or changes. Making the organoids easier to grow may help accelerate research into how the brain develops and what can cause development to stall. Bigger, consistent batches can help scientists test treatment methods more efficiently and observe neurological disorders in different ways. While these “mini-brains” might not have any consciousness and can’t replicate the full intricacies of the human brain, they provide a valuable model for scientists to solve the brain’s many mysteries. Despite sounding like a low-budget sci-fi horror flick, these brains aren’t plotting a global uprising or a rebellion against humanity. Instead, they are helping to better understand conditions affecting millions of people worldwide. The real surprise isn’t that scientists grew “mini-brains,” but that the key to doing so came from a Brussels sprout.

Franken-chocolate: it’s realer than you’d expect! BY ALEXANDRA SOSA, PHANTOM WRITER The number of confectionery companies looking into lab-growing their candy is climbing. You never really know what you’re actually eating, particularly on Halloween. It can be terribly tempting to have a piece of chocolate and think what you’re eating is (marginally) more natural than if you ate, say, a gummy or hard candy. Surprisingly, there are no reported hard or gummy candies currently being manufactured in laboratories. They do contain ingredients that are synthesized in food labs, but this much can be said of many foods we consume daily. The truth is that even the “chocolate” that goes into Oreos will soon be fabricated in a lab. The official term used to refer to this cocoa powder, in most cases, is “cell-cultured.” The process involves selecting cells from viable, high-quality cacao plants and putting them through a natural fermentation process to multiply and produce more chocolate without the need for natural harvesting. The reasoning behind this isn’t mere convenience, though; there is a real financial crisis impacting the chocolate industry. Although the cost of lab-growing chocolate continues to outweigh the cost of farming it naturally, there may soon come a day when this isn’t the case anymore. Cacao farms are particularly susceptible to damage from climate change, an ever-growing issue in the current day and age. While crop yields

have been increasing, imports to the US have lessened due to lower production in West Africa. Commercial chocolate costs have been rising consistently, and though consumers haven’t been significantly deterred from buying it just yet, the cacao imports are not improving. It may happen that, as techniques to synthesize chocolate are refined and imports continue to decrease, lab-grown chocolate may become the cheaper option for both manufacturers and customers. Though synthetic chocolate is undeniably artificial (it’s right there in the name!), it isn’t necessarily bad for you. Companies claim it even contains less heavy metal residue and other imperfections than conventional chocolate, given the highly controlled environment in which it’s manufactured. Consumers are, however, advised to take caution; there is an absence of long-term data regarding the effects of excessive fake chocolate consumption. As with most products, the effects

on your health depend on the quality of the individual product and its source, not the entire industry. One of the main selling points for companies looking to get into this burgeoning industry is that artificial chocolate is easier on the environment and reduces child labor, giving it a seemingly ethical edge. Though this issue is up for debate, since rolling out labgrown chocolate large-scale could benefit the economy of the nations producing and exporting it, all while neglecting the people still growing natural cacao. Lab-grown candies are not presently available on the market, but wide-scale release is slated for early 2027. Companies that have already invested in this new enterprise include Mondelēz (parent company of Cadbury, Toblerone, and Oreo), Lindt, and Nestlé. It seems safe to say we will all have some lab-grown candy sooner or later, but for now, enjoy what may be your last Halloween with only real chocolate!

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHNBOOS.COM

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Friday, October 30

FRIGHTS AND INSIGHTS THE STUTE EDITORIAL Paranormal activity detected in The Stute Office *You must read the following anecdote in a scary voice with a flashlight under your face* It was the Thursday before Halloween. The Editor-in-Chief, Jiya, had spent nine hours in The Stute Office laying out that week’s issue. With the Stute Speaker at maximum volume, Jiya did not hear the soft scratching at the doorway. Focused on submitting the newspaper to her printing press on time, Jiya blindly stared and focused soley on her laptop. It was her pure dedication to The Stute that led to her downfall. She quickly looked up as she saw something move in

front of her. She had assumed it was the school dog, Tillie, running around. It was then that the lights outside the office shut off. Thankfully the office lights remained on, keeping Jiya’s unease at bay. All of a sudden, the speaker began to play “Ring around the Rosie,” the popular nursery rhyme. Startled, Jiya checked her phone and realized that it had disconnected from the speaker all together. “Hello?” Jiya called out, positive that it was one of her friends toying around with the lights and the speaker. Silence. The scratching continued, finally catching her attention.

“Tillie? Stop scratching at my doorway. Are you hungry?” Jiya threw the door wide open, and to her surprise, there was nothing there. The scratching became increasingly louder, but closer to her laptop. She rushed over and saw that her screen was flashing red. Trying to troubleshoot the issue and recover the newspaper, Jiya realized that her entire computer had been thrown into disarray. There was nothing. Her personal files, her school documents, and the newspaper. It was all gone. It was as if someone had wiped her entire computer, within the few seconds she had walked away to open

the door. The scratching sound progressed and became more intense, but from the far left corner of the office. Confused and horrified, she began walking slowly toward the sound and finally found its source. Written in what looked like blood were the words, “The Stute is done.” Jiya began screaming when the lights in the office began to flicker. Blood started seeping out of the walls, almost as if they were crying. She rushed to exit, but legend has it, she never made it out of the building. Jiya Jaisinghani, Editor-in-Chief of The Stute, was never seen again.

Jiya Jaisinghani ‘27

Vampire-in-Chief

MIND OF A FRESHMAN Day of the dead(line) every other student, I am stuck studying for exams and midterms, or completing assignments whose deadlines I have been dreading to see pop up on my Canvas page…

BY KATHY GARCIA ‘30 The smell of pumpkin spice, the sight of Halloween decorations, and the noise of leaves falling from the trees fill Stevens’ campus all around. If only there was time to enjoy the scenery. Like

Deadlines, to me, are like ghosts. If I don’t see them, I won’t believe that they are real. Yet, it seems as if every single important deadline arose from the dead to appear on my Canvas to-do page. At the same time, I should be devoting a lot more time to studying for exams as well. By midweek, I see every notification about deadlines, and almost all

of them are warnings. On top of that, I go back to see where I started on most of these assignments, and almost all of them are blank. Every single blank assignment haunts me until their deadline appears. They have been lurking, waiting patiently for me to acknowledge them. The timing of it really matches the Halloween spook. Nothing is as scary as opening Canvas and watching my list of to-dos multiply throughout the day. Don’t get me started on midterms. Not to brag, but freshman year does not contain as many mid-

terms as I was expecting. I cannot speak for every freshman, of course, but seeing everyone else on campus study like crazy for midterms is oddly relieving. Not a lot of people are out and about on campus, but occasionally, you’ll see people walking tiredly into the library like zombies. It’s comforting that when I do have midterms, I know I won’t be alone and that everyone is scared of these deadlines as well. Struggling and powering through together as students encourages me to push through! Ironically, I don’t even fear the work itself. I fear

the process of being unable to start the work. Once I sit down and attack each task with a sentence or two, the ghost seems to lose its power. If you break each assignment down into pieces, the work becomes manageable, and slowly, each one can get done in time for the deadlines. At times, it can become tedious, but it’s better than letting the deadline devour me. The deadline won’t disappear on its own, so better show it who’s boss first. As Halloween approaches, I cannot wait to dress up, have fun, and eat as much candy as I

please! This time, I won’t ignore the ghosts, and I will face the deadlines head on. Even if it means opening Canvas on purpose and starting the assignments when they get assigned. I wouldn’t want to be stuck in the library either; that would be a whole different type of horror to face… For now, I prefer a balance of good grades and fun moments spent in autumn. And if that doesn’t work, I know I can rely on office hours, my group of friends, and a pumpkin spice latte. Happy Halloween, and beware of the deadlines!

gin to daydream in the middle of studying for a pretty important exam, then these premonitions transform into whispers of doubt when I look at the work ahead. I’m scared these seemingly basic hopes and dreams will become ghosts of the life I wanted, but there’s so much thrill in thinking that every day is one step closer to pulling the sheet off this cliché ghost constantly sitting and waiting in the corner of my eye. Being scared means that you care. I’m trying my best to lean into the uncertainty, because it would be my personal nightmare to stay in my comfort zone and watch time slip by. With

the end of midterms and a lull in workload, I strolled through uptown Bloomfield and Garden streets to see the Halloween stoop decor. I was in awe, beaming at the intricate recreations of Beetlejuice scenes and skeleton choreography that cast the sidewalks in a purple and orange glow. A stoop owner with

a spooky, web-covered display mentioned how he just loves the tradition and takes pride in the extravagance of the unspoken friendly neighborhood competition. This mini Hoboken Halloween town transported me to a reality of incantations and eldritch horrors that welcome my snowballing worries with open arms.

SENIORITIS Spirit Halloween 4EVER

BY TIANNA SPITZ ‘27 Your 20s have to be your most haunted years, not just because of the young-adulthood purgatory of being an almost-adult who tries to accept the realities of death and taxes, but also the need to put the naiveties of childhood to rest (I’m floored to think we’re closer to the year

2030 than 2020) so we can take on the burden of becoming. How simple it was to fear monsters under the bed, ghosts in the closet peeking at you, blurred shadows caught in the corner of your eye, or to feel that something other than your harmlessly nosy relatives is watching, lurking. I live for the spooky season— the macabre and moodiness—because life is absurd with so much to be wary of, and dramatizing everyday fears with the supernatural simply celebrates life for what it is — everyone is scared to turn the corner, not knowing what will jump out. I’m certain that Halloween and these fear

factors are cathartic because we can finally name the shared and evolutionary triggers that make our hearts race — the privacy of what makes us feel vulnerable translates into the mystique of slashers and masquerades. No matter how old we get, the boogeyman continues to crop up in the background, but no longer as a masked villain. Sunday scaries of life creep in, and I truly wonder if it’s too much to ask for: having a stable and fulfilling career, a down payment on a house with a porch, a big dog and a small cat that are in love, and retirement in the autumn mountains with bustling holiday gatherings. I be-

COMIC CORNER BY K. TSUGRANIS

TIANNA SPITZ FOR THE STUTE

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Friday, October 30

FRIGHTS AND INSIGHTS BOOK OF THE WEEK The origins of the villain

BY MAYA MEENTS ‘28 I was told I had to write something spooky since it is Halloween, but I am not the biggest fan of horror or thrillers, which I think makes me a poor candidate to write the Book of the Week. Regardless, we persist! While not scary, I think this is a concept that applies to a lot of horror-related media, and that is the concept of human destructiveness. Why do humans hurt other people? Erich Fromm actually wrote a whole book about this called The Anatomy

of Human Destructiveness, essentially giving a logical explanation as to where aggression and destructive behaviors in humans come from. I haven’t finished reading this book yet, but I thought it’d be interesting to write about. Maybe it’d intrigue whoever reads this to become more curious about this trait in humans. The author starts by defining aggression and how it can be both benign and malignant, where benign aggression could be a person acting in self defense, and malignant or malicious aggression is when a person meditates on harming someone else, or acts aggressively for the sake of it. The author states it as almost hurting out of the pleasure of hurting or from seeing someone else hurt. Fromm’s main argument from these definitions is that while benign aggression can be

derived from animalistic instincts, the latter type of aggression, the malignant one, is a learned or conditioned behavior — that it isn’t natural to humans or any animal, for that matter, but is created within people based on circumstances. Erich Fromm’s main circumstance is one he calls the “unclaimed life.” Fromm makes the argument that humans possess a natural urge towards creation, growth, and connection, but when this is disturbed or when social structures, alienation, or other external factors block this natural behavior, the energy does not simply vanish but gets compensated by destructive behaviors instead. Destruction becomes a substitute for creation, as when a person cannot actively shape or experience a meaningful life, destroying that for others or for themselves offers

FOR MATH’S SAKE Some spooky math jargon and its meanings

BY CHARLES BEALL B.S. ‘23 & PHD STUDENT One of the goals of this column is to present mathematical concepts in a fun, inclusive way. I know that for some, math can be a scary or intimidating subject, and I think a lot of this has to do with some of the terminology used by mathematicians. As you will see below, some mathematical words sound truly spooky. This article will try to describe what these words mean for a general audience, and hopefully make them seem (at least slightly) less monstrous. Imaginary numbers: Despite the name, originally coined by René Descartes—who is also the namesake of the Cartesian plane—these numbers do exist! The fundamental imaginary number is typically labeled i, and it formally indicates the square root of negative one. But I think it helps to visualize i using Cartesian coordinates. Imagine a graph where the x-axis is labeled with real numbers, and the y-axis with imaginary numbers: i, 2i, -3i, and so on. Multiplying a real number by i corresponds to making a 90-degree rotation, bringing, say, the coordi-

PHOTO COURTESY OF CMCMARKETS.COM

nate (5,0) on the x-axis to (0, 5i) on the y-axis! These types of visualizations help make complex analysis—the study of real and imaginary numbers—a little less complex. Stochastic: Some of you may see this term in classes on stochastic calculus or probability. It is essentially a synonym for “random,” although I remember when I first learned about this word, I found it to be a little shocking-sounding. Its origin is from a Greek word meaning “to aim at a mark,” or more simply, “to guess.” This is also how it was originally used in more general English, appearing first in the 1600s to describe anything related to “conjecturing” (another fancy word meaning to guess). I really like the “aim at a mark” definition though, because it invokes in my mind the image of throwing darts. While it is impossible to predict exactly where the object will land on a dartboard, there is still some structure to the problem, based on the skill of the thrower or other conditions in the game. I think this is why “stochastic” is used in place of “random” to indicate this combination of structure (that comes from probability distributions) and unpredictability (from other aspects of the problem without a deterministic property). Mollifiers: This term may not show up specifically in an undergraduate course, but I find it to be a cool mathematical idea that nicely shows

the benefits of limits. Although the name has an anxious connotation, mollification in mathematics refers to a kind of smoothing. In particular, mollifiers are a sequence of smooth functions (i.e., functions whose derivatives are continuous) that approximate nonsmooth ones in the limit. Nonsmooth “functions” include the delta distribution, which is zero everywhere except for a spike at one point, and they appear often in mathematical modeling. Mollifiers help ensure that the mathematical theory of smooth functions can in some ways be extended into the realm of these nonsmooth, “generalized” functions, which are harder to describe with traditional calculus. The above are only three examples, and I could have picked many other bits of mathematical jargon that sound wild to someone first hearing them. (Another favorite of mine, which I’ll leave for another article, is “functor ” in category theory.) But I find that learning what the words mean, and having one’s own intuitive definition, can go a long way in demystifying mathematical concepts, or concepts in almost any other field more generally. While I don’t expect you to share these definitions or explain complicated mathematical terms as a party trick (though there’s always someone who is polite enough to listen in my experience!) I hope you can all embrace and enjoy some spookiness this Halloween.

a new passion or pursuit to work towards. This destructiveness can then be a way to escape from the feeling of powerlessness or lack of autonomy. So many of the scariest things to us are the types of aggression or harm that are done premeditatedly. The scariest villain is not one that does something by accident, but one that hurts others deliberately and continues to hurt because they enjoy it. But it is also noted in most media that this is a symptom of something happening in their lives— that their passions have been perverted towards harm—and while I don’t think that means one HAS to empathize with a villain or someone who hurts others, I think it is important to reflect on as we think of our place in the world. By not recognizing the ways we may have been hurt or the ways we hurt ourselves,

we have the potential to inflict that harm onto others and cause them to act in destructive ways toward themselves and others as well. We, as a society, by Fromm’s theory, all play a role in the villains that make the big screens or the ones that inspire the villains we see in the media. Let us take this book for what it is: An in-depth and analytical look into destructive behaviors, as well as a reminder to treat others with respect and kindness. By doing so, we can inspire others to do the same by being the societal factors pulling them in that direction. We never know what someone is going through, so by being a person that treats others with love and compassion, you may be showing someone hope without knowing it. That is the final point Fromm makes in his book (since I skipped

to the epilogue): There seems to be ample evidence that people can be shown hope, and when that hope is internalized, it can deter them from destructive behaviors. I hope to finish this book soon, but I plan on continuing to read and reflect on it. If this area of psychology interests you at all, I think this book is a really easy starting point, and it references many other psychologists and philosophers, as well as other topics to research. I hope this has also inspired you to reflect on yourself and your own lines of thinking — to ask yourself when you start thinking destructively about yourself and others, and where this train of thought is coming from. There is so much more that could be said about this topic, but I don’t have the space for all that. Happy Halloween, everyone!

ON SHUFFLE Spooky scary K-pop songs

BY EMILY FANIZZA ‘29 Although many people may associate K-pop with either cute, colorful music videos or hard-hitting, girl-power anthems, this genre contains dozens of concepts that focus on themes such as temptation, desire, and even death. Horror-themed songs and music videos in K-pop are incredibly interesting to me since these artists are able to tell stories both visually through lighting and outfit choices as well as lyrically. With Halloween around the corner, I want to talk about some of my favorite K-pop songs with horror concepts. Red Velvet is one of my favorite girl groups because of their unique sound and alternation between their “Red” side—albums with lively and upbeat themes—and their “Velvet” side—albums with darker and mature themes. One of their most iconic songs is called “Peek-a-Boo.” The music video follows the five members as they hold a pizza delivery man hostage in their mansion while trying to find opportunities to kill him. There are various shots of the girls shooting arrows, throwing axes, and even forcing the delivery man to partake in their mys-

terious rituals. Although he escapes the mansion, the final scene shows his shirt locked up in a display case, implying that he was murdered. I really love this song not only because of the music video, but because of the vocals. Red Velvet is often praised by fans and the general public for their talent in singing, which is really impressive given that they also have to dance to these vocally complex songs. The harmonies throughout the song, especially in the pre-chorus and chorus, sound beautiful and even add to the eerie atmosphere of the music video. It almost feels like I’m going to be their next victim! The next song I want to highlight is “Scream” by Dreamcatcher. Dreamcatcher breaks from the norm for most K-pop girl groups by creating music that’s more rock than pop. The main focus of this music video is the Tree of Language, which grows when people spread kindness but decays when hate speech and vulgar language is used. When the members realize that they are becoming targets for this negativity, they attempt to fight back and restore the tree but ultimately fail. I love how “Scream” incorporates screams and vocal effects to make the song sound spooky and almost threatening. The barren forest set and the flashing lights sets the tone for the song and pairs nicely with shots of the members dancing in an empty room under heavy red lighting. Dami

and Gahyeon really stand out with their rap verses, balancing both power and mystery in their solo sections. “Oh my god” by i-dle is one of my favorite songs from this group because of how unique and complex it is. This song tells a story about falling madly in love with someone in a way that makes you feel overwhelmed with desire and lust. The first two pre-choruses lead to an anti-drop in the chorus that makes you feel like you’re in a trance. The final chorus creates an intense buildup before the slow outro that mimics the start of the song. This dynamic alongside the repeated elements in the instrumental such as the sound of a bell creates a really eerie tone. Each member really gets to shine in the music video such as Soyeon being surrounded by dancers in tan bodysuits and Miyeon standing on a large pedestal with even more dancers on the floor around her. I-dle takes pride in having their own direction on what kind of music and concepts they create, which makes me further appreciate the level of production and artistry they put into this song. As I mentioned earlier, I love how diverse K-pop is as a genre, which makes it possible for anyone to find a group or concept that they enjoy most. Although horror-themed songs are more uncommon in the industry, the groups who embrace it can cause quite a fright with their music! Happy Halloween and stay safe everyone!

PHOTO COURTESY OF IMDB

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Friday, October 30

FRIGHTS AND INSIGHTS FOODIE FINDS Tricks for your treats

THINKING FRAME Psycho: when normality Jell-O mix with lemon- or you could make choco- is the scariest thing of all ade or any drink of your late-covered strawberries

BY PRISHA VAGVALA ‘28 As a professional junkfood eater, I consume the most candy bars in a single day on Halloween. When I was a child, my mom had to hide some of my candy stash from me to stop me from eating it all at once. As an adult, I may have given up on many candy bars I used to love, like Twix, KitKat, and Crunch, but I still love M&M’s, Sour Patch Kids, and Swedish Fish in moderation. Even though I get sick of them after some time, I come to you with ways on how to elevate these boring candy bars into something with a little more variety. Starting off with my favorite, Sour Patch Kids! I literally have no limit to how many Sour Patch Kids I can eat in a day. I think a new, elevated way to enjoy Sour Patch Kids is to make Jell-O cups with them. You can buy the Jell-O flavor that matches the Sour Patch Kids flavor, then mix the

choice and pour it into cups. Once they set, add a little whipped cream and top each cup with a Sour Patch Kid. I think letting the Sour Patch Kids infuse with the lemonade could also bring out more flavor. This could be a really cute Halloween treat for your Halloween party! M&M’s are really versatile. I can think of a lot of ways to use them, but my favorite is blondies. I like throwing M&Ms into my blondie or cookie recipe. It makes them so much more delicious since the hard shell stays crackly, but the inside is soft, melted chocolate. Of course, this depends on your preference. M&M’s are also a classic ice cream topping. If you chop them or smash them in a Ziploc bag and top your ice cream with them, it can be really good, too. You could also mix them into a halfhealthy trail mix. I’m really obsessed with Pop Rocks. They are so crackly, and if you guys have ever tried Pop Rocks Oreos, you know damn well that Pop Rocks and frosting go really well together, hence why I think Pop Rocks cupcakes would be good. You could sprinkle a little bit on top of a cupcake,

with Pop Rocks, which I think would be super fun. I think candy like Snickers, Twix, KitKat, and Reese’s cups can be chopped and added to cookie dough or brownie batter. For chocolate bars like Hershey’s, they can be melted and turned into a chocolate lava cake or hot chocolate. I love families who give out Ferrero Rocher; there is so much you can do with that amazing ball of happiness and joy. I think making Ferrero Rocher brownies could be really delicious, especially with the crunchiness from the nuts. Turning your Ferrero Rocher into cheesecake can balance out the strong chocolate flavor with something milder, and the nuts can also add a nice crunch here, too. If you get Oreos, Oreo milkshakes are the best! Just as a tip, remove the filling if you make this. I made the mistake of leaving in the filling, and the milkshake turned clumpy. Blend only the actual cookie part with some vanilla ice cream and milk. Now that I think about it, a lot of candy bars can be turned into milkshakes, so I say experiment! I hope these suggestions are helpful. Happy Halloween!

BY VEDHESH A. KAMARAJ ‘28 If you are looking for a black-and-white horror film for this Halloween, Psycho is the one for you. Usually, in traditional horror films, you know what you’re getting into, you know what you’re watching, and where the dangers of the movie lie. But Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film doesn’t begin as a horror film. It starts as a crime thriller of a woman on the run after stealing her employer ’s money. The horror comes much later, when you’re not paying attention. That misdirection from the director is not a trick, but the entire argument of the film. The most iconic scene from the film is the shower scene. What is remarkable about the scene is not the violence itself, but how unprepared the viewer is for that scene. For the first 40 minutes, we follow Marion Crane, who is on the run. We have been with her thoughts, watching her weigh her choices and feeling her guilt. And then suddenly she is murdered, in the middle of the film. The film quickly moves on without leaving time to address her murder.

The film’s most incredible feature is its ability to show how normal it makes everything look before it doesn’t. The Bates Motel is quiet and empty, but not sinister. Norman Bates is awkward and lonely, but obviously not dangerous. He talks about his mother affectionately, who has not been to leave home. The actor, Anthony Perkins, plays him so well with the nervous energy of a person who doesn’t see many other people. Hitchcock misdirects the audience into thinking Norman Bates is the last person to be associated with the horror to come later on in the film. If anything, it probably will come from Bates’ mother whose voice we only hear but never get to see. At the center of the film is the question of what and how we project onto the people we meet. Marion sees a lonely young man in Norman Bates and feels a sense of recognition as she is running away from her old life and unable to return back to it. What Psycho does well is that the danger is never announced and comes from directions the audience is never prepared for. Hitchcock spends much of the start of the film making the audience believe in certain people and not so much in others. Then he slowly starts dismantling that. Underneath the tension and suspense, the film is about the weight of the past. Bates’ house is on the hill, looming and

overlooking the motel; it is a visual representation of something left unresolved. Every scene at the motel carries a sense of dread of a place where something unfortunate happened a long time ago. It is almost as if the house is watching over everything in the motel. The scene that stayed with me is Norman’s conversation about his feelings about being trapped with Marion while eating sandwiches in the office of the motel among his stuffed birds. It is the only honest scene in the movie, and it works on two levels: the meaning for Marion and the meaning for the audience. The way Hitchcock creates the scene makes it interesting not only for firsttime viewers, but also for those who watch it for the second time, and that is the perfect illustration of what Hitchcock does for this film. Psycho is not a film about violence. It is a film about perception and how we perceive strangers, how we see danger, and how quickly a story can make us look at something in the wrong way. Hitchcock turns the story into an everlasting classic not because of the violence or special effects, but because of the misdirection, empathy, and the perfect understanding of how the audience thinks. Psycho does not try to scare the viewer with the monsters that hide in the dark. It questions whether you really know the quiet, polite person in front of you.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THEMOVIEBUFF.NET

HER CAMPUS Ghosting, glitches, and late-night horrors: the real nightmares of a tech campus

BY BREONA PIZZUTA ‘27 Halloween has arrived, bringing along chilly fall breezes, oversized sweaters, and horror movie marathons on repeat. But while the rest of the world is busy worrying about haunted houses, masked slashers, and creatures jumping out from dark cor-

ners, women at a tech school know true terror looks entirely different. Our jump scares don’t come from cinematic monsters creeping through the woods; they lurk in our code repositories, in the eerie blue light of midnight laptop screens, and in our overflowing inboxes. Forget the haunted hayride; the real psychological thrillers are unfolding right here on campus. Nothing induces a spike of cold adrenaline quite like the phantom ping of a Canvas notification at 11:47 p.m. It is never a harmless note; it is almost always an announcement from a professor casu-

ally mentioning that the midterm rubric has been reworked, or that the autograder has just been updated with secret edge cases. You sit frozen in the dark, watching your hopes for a decent night of sleep evaporate before your eyes. And just when you think you’ve regained your footing after untangling hours of fragile logic, a fresh terror strikes. You run a final test, feel like an absolute genius, and attempt to sync your work, only for the terminal to scream back at you in neon red font because a group partner pushed unformatted changes without warning. Untangling conflicting files at 2 a.m. while a submission

deadline ticks down is an authentic, heart-pounding horror sequence that no Hollywood director could ever script. Then comes the supernatural phenomenon unique to fall recruiting: The apparition of the technical recruiter. Few things are spookier than someone at a career booth who seemed entirely obsessed with your background, promised to fast-track your application, and then vanished cleanly into thin air. You check your spam folder, refresh your inbox every 20 minutes, and wonder if you simply hallucinated the entire exchange. In the modern tech landscape, ghosting is not

merely folklore; it is an ongoing haunting that keeps everyone questioning their own worth. By the time Friday morning rolls around, actual zombies walk the earth, shuffling across campus toward an 8:00 a.m. lab. Clutching lukewarm iced coffee, everyone sits in eerie silence, waiting for hardware to boot or scripts to compile while praying nothing spontaneously catches fire. The ultimate jump scare of the morning is getting called on to explain complex system architecture before the caffeine has even crossed the blood-brain barrier. Lurking beneath all these everyday campus

frights is the persistent, creepy whisper of imposter syndrome, which loves to rear its head right after a brutal exam or an exhausting group critique. But just like every classic monster movie, that doubt only holds power if you let it stay hidden in the dark. You have earned your place here, and your technical skills are sharp enough to banish any gremlin this curriculum throws your way. So put on your costume, carve your pumpkins, and grab a bag of candy to share with the women on your floor. You face enough real-world terrors in class all week long, so this Halloween weekend belongs entirely to you.

12

Friday, October 30

Stevens ghouls

Markus Soennichsen ‘29

Sofia Abbamondi ‘27

Xander Pugh ‘28

“Among Us”

“No more minion costumes”

“Another brainrot honestly”

ROVING REPORTER By Brady Sansotta

What halloween costume do you not want to see this year?

Adrien Susino ‘27 “Captain Clark from Backrooms”

Joshua Peisach ‘30 “Verity”

Sebastian Rivera ’30 and Paul Dhaniram ’29

Jason Bhalla ‘27 “Farvardin, again”

Tejas Prajeep ‘29 “A prisoner”

“Tillie”

Puzzle Page Cryptolist

Mini Crossword Across: 1. Why children go door to door on Halloween 6. Western movie featuring a lizard 7. If you were to say something 8. A type of car with only two doors 9. Hitting something with your knee in the past

Down: 1. Counterpart to the word ‘treat’ 2. A radioactive gas with the elemental symbol Rn 3. To happen as a result of something else 4. Wide open 5. Messed with in an unserious manner

The following list has been translated using a basic spooky substitution cipher. For example, if ◈ represents T in one word/phrase, it will represent T in all the words/phrases in the list. No letter maps to itself. Hint: start guessing things in the category and see if any of the letter patterns match up.

MONSTERS 𝝫𝝫𝝫𝝫𝝫𝝫𝝫𝝫𝝫𝝫

𝚼𝚼𝚼𝚼✱8🜲🜲♖⏙

♬𝝙𝝙✱2🜲🜲🜲

✱⌓✱✱⌬

𝈑𝈑𝈑♖⏙𝈑𝈑𝝙𝝙𝈿𝈿★ *Puzzle instructions by Stephen Pachucki

Hidden Links

Chain Reaction

Inspired by the British game show Only Connect, the goal of this puzzle is to find the hidden connection between four seemingly abstract clues. Each answer will use trivia, wordplay, logic, or some combination thereof. The solution is always more specific than “nouns”, “places”, etc. What do the following have in common?

Each of the six clues on the right leads to a two-word phrase or compound word. Insert each answer into two of the boxes on the right. At the end, you will have an interlocking chain of six phrases.

Stake

Sunlight

Silver

Garlic

Zombie

Skeleton

Spider

Witch

Alien

Dracula

Frankenstein

Psycho

*Puzzle instructions by Stephen Pachucki

Sudoku

Clues: 1-2-3. October 30th November 1st this year 3-4. Naturally generated structure in Minecraft 4-5. A Scary type of fee issues by an urban municipality 5-6. The process of avoiding such a fee

H____ W___ E__ C___ T__ E______

*Puzzle instructions by Stephen Pachucki

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S PUZZLES

Difficulty: Medium

CRYPTOLIST

KINGS TOUR

Microsoft Outlook

Autumn Aesthetic Apples

Halloween

CHAIN REACTION Linked

Cool Air

Leaf Pile

Football

Pumpkins

In Front Line Art Gallery

HIDDEN LINKS Camera, Clock, Calculator, Phone → Default Apps on a Smartphone 225, 234, 261, 335 → ME Courses Circus, Tree, Saturn, Wedding → Things with Rings