The Cane Tassel Fall 2022 Issue

The Cane Tassel Staff

Kila Brown

Editor-in-Chief, Sports Editor

Alyssa Salcedo

News Editor

Kimberly Murphy

Features Editor

Jesselle Ann Morales

Photography Editor

Staff Writers

Karl Abon Calla Cheung Jonaiya Lorin Caraang Brianna Melchor Jolene Palijo Honesty-Marie Riley Sadie Saoit Tesaranaddy Te’o Sale

Illustrators

Maryann McCann Jheanna Mae Carlos

Adviser

Katrina Karl Waipahu High School 94-1211 Farrington Highway Waipahu, HI 96797 thecanetassel.org

Homecoming photos by Alyssa Salcedo and Kimberly Murphy

Waipahu High School welcomes Principal Zachary Sheets

By Alyssa Salcedo

Within his first few days at Waipahu High School, new principal Zachary Sheets came to love the school. He can often be seen out and about, greeted by studen ts during passing time as they rush to their next class.

Prior to becoming principal, Sheets taught at August Ahrens Elementary School from 2007 to 2012. Then, he went on to become the school’s vice principal from 2012 to 2017.

Afterwards, he served as a Complex Academic Offi cer for the Pearl City-Waipahu Complex. For the past four years, Sheets continued his administrative ca reer as a principal at Pearl City Highlands ElementarySchool.

Once he saw the opening for principal of Waipahu High School, Sheets saw it as an opportunity to recon nect with his former students from August Ahrens and the community of Waipahu.

He shares that the community here in Waipahu “re sonates with [his] belief system as an individual.”

More specifically, Sheets values Waipahu’s rela tionship-oriented community. Sheets finds a great deal of love, care and trust among Waipahu faculty, staff,students, and families.

As he remarks, “I think that there’s so much poten tial in each student in the community, and it’s impor tant to not be defined by what others may think of the community, but what it really is about: relationships, determination, care . . . and to me, that’s what Waipahu represents.”

As principal, Sheets aims to get accustomed to Wai pahu High School’s culture and academy model. Since a majority of his work experience came from elemen tary schools, he was not exposed to the academy sys tem.

Nonetheless, Sheets plans to build upon the school’s strengths and address its needs.

Sheets encourages students to “work on defining your own belief system and what matters to you, and find your purpose.”

Photo by Jesselle Ann Morales

Filipino Curriculum coming to Hawaii schools

By Jesselle Ann Morales

The Filipino Curriculum Project is an upcoming addition to Hawaii's education system. The project is all about bringing awareness to Filipino history, and its student collaborators created lesson plans with the hope of inspiring students from all back grounds.

Once the Filipino Curriculum is implemented in Hawaii schools, students can look forward to units related to Historical Context, Culture and Connec tions, and Filipinos in Hawaii, with an overarching theme of identity.

The Filipino Curriculum Project was founded by Punahou senior Marissa Halagao. Marissa was inspired when she was required to take an Asian history course, but noticed that Filipino history was not offered.

Finding this out upset her as she felt that Fili pino students deserve to see their history within their schools’ curriculum. From then on, Halagao took action and recruited students from many different schools who saw the same problem and who were also passionate about making a change.

“We are creating the Filipino history, culture and identity curriculum that we wish to see as stu dents to empower future generations of Filipinos and show everyone that becoming aware of your culture and the cultures around you is important,” Halagao says.

Established in the spring of 2021, the project only had five initial members. Now in the fall of 2022, the project has 14 student collaborators.

The student collaborators all come from diffe rent public and private high schools and colleges, in and out of state.

Halagao and her team reached many different milestones in the journey of getting their curricu lum implemented into Department of Education schools and private schools all over the islands.

One year after establishing the project, the stu dents were able to get their legislative resolution to offer the curriculum in public schools passed in the spring of 2022.

The team also presented the project to dif ferent high school principals to gain their su pport.

The Filipino Curriculum Project is not only about raising awareness of the beauty within Filipino history in Hawaii, but also all over the country. This past summer, seven of the pro ject’s seniors went to Seattle to attend and speak at the Filipino American National Historical So ciety Conference. There, they were able to speak about the project’s progress and the importance of representing Filipino heritage and history in schools.

The curriculum is expected to be implemen ted in Department of Education schools in the fall of the 2024-2025 school year.

Culinary students win Aloun Farms Mahi'ai Culinary Competition

By Brianna Melchor

Waipahu Culinary students Carmela Alejandro, Shania Nicolas, DaidenOshiro, and Jhon Asuncion (pictured above) competed in the 9th annual Aloun Farms Mahi’ai Culinary Competition on Sept. 9. Partners Oshiro and Asuncion were the first place winners of $2,500 in scholarship money.

The competition allowed students from Waipahu, Kapolei, Nanakuli, Waia nae, Farrington, Leilehua, and Moanalua high schools to compete for scholar ship funds toward each school’s culinary program. Aloun Farms hosted this year’s competition at Kapolei High School. Chef Lee Alan Dung, Councilman Augie Tulba, and Chef Alan Wong judged the competition.

The Waipahu culinary students practiced after school with guidance from their teachers in order to perfect their recipes and dishes. Team 1, Oshiro and Asuncion, came up with a Kauai shrimp ravioli with a base of ratatouille and beurre blanc sauce. Team 2, Alejandro and Nicolas, came up with a portobello mushroom and zucchini pasta with a poached egg and kabocha pumpkin sauce to top it off.

Partners Nicolas and Alejandro were equally excited and nervous as it was their first competition.

Winners Oshiro and Asuncion also expressed how they felt before the com petition. Asuncion wanted to take this competition as a way to learn and impro ve his cooking skills, while Oshiro took a different approach to the competition.

“Looking at the competition and what the schools had to offer last year, they were on some high level stuff. So seeing that and trying to compete with it is kind of intimidating,” Oshiro says.

Now that he and his partner are first place winners, Oshiro says, “I now feel pretty confident in my cooking skills because when we were entering the com petition and when we were preparing for it, there were always these doubts in the back of my head, like what if I’m not good enough? I proved myself wrong… and it feels nice to have that kind of proof that I can do what I want, if I put mymind, the hard work, and dedication into it.”

Oshiro then went on to say that this win is not the end for Waipahu Culinary, but that it’s just a milestone, and that they’re only going to accomplish and achieve bigger things.

BeReal app soars in popularity

By Sadie Saoit

Let’s just be honest, let’s just be real. Students have taken a liking to a new social media app, BeReal.

BeReal was created in January 2020, but has risen to fame in 2022. The app got most of its attention after being shared through the already-popular social media app TikTok.

The app’s popularity soared in the summer of 2022, ranking #1 in social networking and receiving a 4.8 star review on the Apple app store.

BeReal is described as “Not Another Social Network” on the app store. Some consider BeReal to be a more intimate and less fake form of social media.

But how does BeReal work? Each day at a random different time, BeReal users receive a notification stating, “Time to BeReal. 2 min left to capture a BeReal and see what your friends are up to.”

When the notification to “BeReal” goes off, you have 2 minutes to capture a picture of what you’re doing. When you open the app, you take a picture of what you’re doing with your back camera, then the app switches to the front camera. It then shares the pictures with all your friends on BeReal. The exact timestamp of when you took the BeReal is displayed with your post. Location is also an option that can be shared with each post.

The purpose of this app is to capture a more “intima te” and “authentic” version of your life. No editing or filters go into posting on BeReal. Users have less control over what is captured and posted.

The spontaneity of the BeReal notification is the one of the biggest components of the app’s uniqueness. Early in the morning before you even wake up, in the middle of class, or when you’re getting ready for bed are all pos sibilities. But even if you’re late to the notification, you can still take the pictures.

Opinions on the app are still somewhat mixed, as some people don’t enjoy the concept of the app. Brianna Melchor, a Waipahu High School freshman, says that she doesn’t like the two-minute timer you’re given to take the picture. “I’m being honest about where I am, but I might as well post a picture that isn’t blurry and unappealing,” Melchor says.

Whether you would rather stick with more typical so cial media apps, or would prefer something a little newer and more authentic, it’s good to BeReal sometimes.

Are these BookTok recommendations worth the hype?

By Calla Cheung

What first comes to mind when you think of a popular book? You might envision the young adult romance “The Summer I Turned Pretty” by Jenny Han, or perhaps “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover. Even if you didn’t picture either of those novels, it’s certain that you may have heard of them somewhere, likely on TikTok.

One of the driving forces of book sales, the TikTok subculture known as Book Tok started as a small online community focused on book recommendations and reviews. BookTok began spreading to other social media sites such as Insta gram (Bookstagram), Twitter (booktwt), and Reddit (r/books), garnering over 75.1 billion views on TikTok as of 2022.

Book recommendations are still a main focus of book social media. Many teens are beginning to read just because of BookTok, and if you’re looking for a book to read, the best place to start is often on BookTok or Bookstagram.

As I swiped through BookTok, I found a common pattern. Though many users populate the subculture, people recom mend specific novels repetitively, often promoting books so frequently that they are household names among the book community. Users repeatedly praise au thors and their books, and get very exci ted over their favorite novel.

But often, readers who jump onto the excitement of the trends are highly disappointed by them. They take to Goo dreads, writing reviews such as:

“If I had expected less, I probably wou ld have enjoyed it more.”

“I was so excited for this book because people on tiktok were saying it is better than ACOTAR (A Court of Thorns and Roses)… I was wary, but still hopeful. And I was let down.”

“the bones of a powerful story but reads like a low budget Hallmark movie pushed forward by ridiculous plot revela tions.”

If you’re looking for a book to read and are worried that what you’ll choose won’t be as satisfying as you had hoped, don’t worry at all. I will explain why a book isn’t worth the hype and recommend another book to read instead.

1. “We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart

This book did not live up to its Book

Tok hype. The writing is often choppy and the plot is clever, but not well-rendered. It focuses on a girl and her cousins who don’t contribute anything to the storyline.

Read “I Killed Zoe Spanos” by Kit Frick instead. It takes place during a summer in the Hamptons, and is about a girl who admits to killing another girl, but something doesn’t entirely add up. This book has many twists and turns that any mystery lover would enjoy.

2. “They Both Die At The End” by Adam Silvera

I felt like this novel dragged on forever. BookTok users filmed themselves crying after reading the book, but I honestly di dn’t cry at all. Yes, it was sad, but I didn’t feel much connection to the characters. All they did was walk around New York for a few hundred pages. An alternative book would be “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller, an adaptation of Ho mer’s Iliad from the perspective of a you ng Patroclus that follows his relationship

thurian legend,” it’s about an intelligent high school girl attending a residential program on a college campus who dis covers a secret society of Legendborn mage students who hunt down demons. She discovers her own secret powers as she infiltrates the Legendborn to unlock memories of the night her mother died. Compared to “City of Bones,” Legendborn has characters and a story actually worth reading about.

4. “Red Queen” by Victoria Aveyard

Although this novel’s storyline was likable, the most riveting part of reading this was that I guessed each and every plot twist in the story. It was very predic table, and the supposedly strong female protagonist’s rival had more depth to her personality arc than anyone else in the book. I really wanted to enjoy this novel, but alas, I was utterly disappointed.

A book I found more enjoyable with a similar premise was “Iron Widow” by Xiran Jay Zhao. In a Chinese-inspired sci-fi setting, a girl offers herself up to be paired with a pilot of a giant transforming robot that protects their city against me cha-aliens. Only, she signs up to avenge the death of her sister who was killed by a pilot. She’s morally gray, strong, and her character develops throughout the whole story. Everything about this book was unexpected, chaotic, and much more promising than “Red Queen.”

5. “Anna and The French Kiss” by Stephanie Perkins

with demigod Achilles. This book shares similar themes with “They Both Die At The End,” and delivers a much more gut -wrenching ending.

3. “City of Bones” by Cassandra Clare

“City of Bones” promises hidden magic similar to Harry Potter, fast pacing, a strong female lead, and a memorable cast of characters. The book did not give me even half of those. All of the main charac ters were one-dimensional, and Clare’s attempts to add depth weren’t consistent throughout the story. “City of Bones” reads like a fanfiction (down to the bad -boy crush), and is not worth the hype.

If you’re looking for a similar book, read “Legendborn” by Tracy Deonn. Marketed as a “modern-day twist on Ar

Anna from Atlanta can’t wait for her senior year. But when Anna from Atlanta gets sent to a boarding school in Paris for wealthy American teens, she can’t help but think, “Why me?” After moping around, she learns to love the city and her crush, a French boy with a girlfriend who prevents Anna from ever dating him. Anna is what many people call a Mary Sue, which is a character portrayed with no weaknesses whatsoever. I was bored from the beginning, as Anna was largely focused on her first-world problem of being sent to France. She was quite igno rant and everything seemed to be handed to her.

For a boarding school storyline, I recommend “XOXO” by Axie Oh instead. Jenny, a cello prodigy, goes to Korea with her mom to help her sick grandmother. She gets to attend an elite art conserva tory with the same boy she met on the streets of Los Angeles three months ago, and discovers that he’s a K-pop star. With higher stakes than “Anna and the French Kiss,” this romance did not disappoint.

Meet some of this year’s new teachers

By The Cane Tassel Staff

Scott Alquisa is one of the Academy of Arts and Com munications’ newest additions, teaching Arts & Commu nication Pathway Core, Graphic Design, and Broadcast Media.

Alquisa previously taught at Wahiawa Middle School as a visual arts teacher. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in creative media from UH West Oahu, and is currently working toward his master’s degree in teaching at UH Manoa. During his senior year at Mililani High School, Alquisa placed in multiple video competitions including the Olelo Youth Xchange.

In his free time, Alquisa enjoys capturing his life through photography, whether taking pictures of food or editing snapshots of his life on Lightroom to post on Instagram.

Trading 12-hour shifts in the hospital for days in the classroom, Jarek Garcia decided that his work as a regis tered nurse wasn’t making him as happy as he hoped. “I went through all of this and thought maybe I can just be a nurse for a while. But I figured that we aren’t guaranteed to live forever, so why would I wait to try something I could possibly be happier with? So that’s when I made a change to teaching soon after,” Garcia says.

Garcia now teaches Foundations of Health Services and Advanced Health Services in the Academy of Health and Sciences. His nursing experience helps him unders tand and share the course material in a unique way with his students: “It’s one thing to hear about it and learn about it from a textbook or from a friend in the health field, but it’s another thing going to UH Manoa School of Nursing, working in the hospital setting, talking to pa tients, and working in the community. That brings me a new understanding of the subject.”

When Barron Lum was completing his master’s de gree in education and teaching at UH Manoa, he was placed at Waipahu High School as a student teacher. His mentor teachers were Ian Ferris and Tracy Takahashi. After finishing the program, he taught social studies at Ewa Makai Middle School for four years. Lum then tau ght at Punahou School for a year, before returning to Ewa Makai for another three years. He now teaches 10th grade US History and Government for the Academy of Health Sciences.

“I’m enjoying my experience so far. I have great kids and I really appreciate them, and hopefully, this feeling will continue on as the year continues,” Lum of his re turn to Waipahu High School.

When not teaching, Lum enjoys working out, sleeping, and spending time with his family and friends.

While he was interested in being an engineer since intermediate school, Algebra 1 and Geometry teacher Daniel John Quiamas discovered his passion for teaching during his senior year in the Teacher Education program

at Waipahu High School. His parents were both teachers in the Philippines, and his father is now a special educa tion teacher.

Quiamas says it feels good to be back at his alma mater and encourages all Waipahu High School students to take his parents’ advice to “just try—take on any opportunities that come [your] way. You’ll never know if you’re going to like something unless you try it out.”

Pauline Sawai teaches yearbook and photography classes for the Academy of Arts and Communication.

Sawai knew in elementary school that she wanted to be a teacher, creating makeshift worksheets for her younger brothers. After graduating from the University of Hawaii, she worked at Disneyland and Ford Aerospace in Orange County, California because there were no teaching jobs in Hawaii. After starting her family, Sawai returned to Hawaii and began teaching at Kahuku High School and Kapolei High School before joining the Waipahu High School faculty this year.

Outside of school, she’s had opportunities to travel through many teacher workshops. Sawai has traveled to the South Pacific, Japan, and the mainland. This sum mer, she visited Heart Mountain, Wyoming, one of the sites of the Japanese American incarceration sites during World War II, through the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Courtesy Photos Alquisa (left), Sawai (top right), and Garcia (bottom right).