By Jillian Mihailovich ‘25Each Candlelight Term, all of the dorms around campus are festively decorated for the upcoming holiday season. Each dorm has its own distinctive traits. The oldest dorm building on campus, Alumni has the longest history. Meanwhile, Kelter and Gund are the most modern and newly renovated. Despite these differences, each dorm has an equal chance of being the most festive dorm.
By Sunshine Li ‘26From the renowned Westy Dip to the childhood favorite dino nuggets, Gund House has had an extensive selection of feeds this past term. Among the wide variety of feeds that the dorm has enjoyed, a few common favorites have emerged. In this article, I cover some of our dorm favorites that we should definitely repeat moving forward.
 By Maya Tavares ‘24 The uncomfortable cold air and gray-colored landscape alter the mood of life on the hill. Because the sun is setting earlier, we are losing a great amount of light that shines through our community. Although there are multiple exciting activities to look forward to during the candlelight term, our campus needs some cheerful colors to correlate with the upcoming holidays. This is why, for the candlelight period and further on in the winter, we should…
LIGHT UP WESTY! By Aniela Apteker ‘24Ah, you’ve been assigned to Sunday Hall. What did you do? Skipped class, an afternoon commitment, or worse? Sunday Hall has long held a frowned-upon reputation. It is one of the greatest inconveniences you will encounter during your time on the Hill. However, fear not, as dreadful and depressing as the thought of attending Sunday Hall is, I am here to provide a combination of logic, advice, and tips that will hopefully turn 90 minutes in Sejong into success.
 By Ryan Jainchill ‘23On Saturday, Dec. 3, the puck dropped at Jackson Rink as the Boys Varsity Hockey team took on Northfield Mount Hermon, signifying the start of the 2022-23 season. This year's team composition is interesting. Because the team graduated 13 Sixth Formers last years, only ten are left. Of the remaining ten, only five are Sixth Formers. But what the team lost in veteran leadership, they gained in skill.
 By Rhys Marschke ‘24As we pivoted from Fall to Winter sports on campus, the anticipation for some of our most popular teams on campus has been mounting. Despite frequently being in the Hockey team’s shadow, the Boys' Varsity Basketball Team holds high expectations for themselves ahead of this season and believes the program is in the middle of a resurgence.
 By Margee Mahoney ‘24I recently had the pleasure of watching Varsity Girls’ Hockey win their first game on Wednesday, November 30th. For those who were not in attendance, it was a tight game throughout, remaining 1-1 until the third period, when Olivia Gordon ‘24 scored a hat trick, and Hailey Tullo ‘23 tacked on another goal in addition to her original break-away. It was an immensely entertaining game to watch, and I am even more excited that I experienced it with many other fans. In Westy history, it has been common to have a lack of fans at certain games, especially on Wednesdays, and especially girls' teams; however, seeing the support for our girls' hockey team this Wednesday was amazing. I'm sure they could feel the overwhelming encouragement on the ice as the cheers, thanks to Mari Camara ‘23 and Maya Tavares ‘24 (our primary cheerleaders that game), were deafening. I know the team greatly appreciated the support, and I urge our community to keep showing up for each other, supporting and pushing our athletics to new heights. Though our athletes can play under any conditions, seeing a community that truly wants the best for their friends, peers, and teams makes a difference. All the love to Mr. Joncas, but our sports announcements do nothing to compare to being able to watch the real thing and feel the excitement rolling off the fans and the team as we get to see or participate in the talent we have at this school.
 By Johnathan Li ‘24One of the ways that we, as students, often describe our preference for academic subjects is by classifying certain subjects as more “mathy” than others. This particular label is often more fundamental than others, and it has always been of interest to me as to why, out of all other ways to differentiate academic fields, the math vs. non-math distinction is such a prevalent one; for example, “I am not a math person” is said more often than “I am not a geography person”, and it seems that the term ‘math’, here, is not merely the subject that shares the name, but the more general quantitative aspect of computation. This article seeks to defend the “quantitative subjects” from the inaccurate, though understandable, biases against it; this article also includes practices that have helped me through my academic journey and which, I hope, can also be of help for underformers going into challenging STEM courses.
 By Katie Corr ‘25 & Camilla Norton ‘25From classroom dress to spirit week to Westy wear, students frequently show up in Uggs. We noticed that most students wear the Tasman slippers, Coquette slippers, or the Ultra Minis. With such a wide range of styles, a question emerges: which Ugg Slipper is the best?
In order to figure out which style was superior, we tried on each style ourselves, interviewed our peers, and compared and contrasted the characteristics of each. The data we gathered is as follows: By Wills Erda '24As Westminster enters its second year under the stewardship of Mrs. White, the school will soon embark upon new strategic planning. As we plan and prepare for this, one topic, in particular, has stuck out to me as necessary to change: The Westminster Schedule. Whether it has been debating the benefits of Saturday classes or bemoaning the seemingly never-ending set of special schedules, the schedule has been a topic on many student, faculty, and administrative minds.
By Tarapi Pyo ‘24After a quick week of Thanksgiving break, students returned to their adored Westminster campus for Turkey (or Candlelight) Term – two and a half weeks of school before Winter break. Black SUVs, Toyotas, and white sedans packed outside the dorms. Parents and students unloaded students and luggage from their cars, hauling heavy suitcases and bags into rooms. However, these students are evidently more preoccupied with “hellos” and “I miss yous” to and from friends they see on their way into the dorms.
 By Alice Tao ‘24Mrs. Nancy Urner-Berry, one of the first girls to attend Westminster, was a member of the class of 1981. She now remains a valuable faculty member. Let’s hear about her experience during the ‘Old Westy Era’ compared to her experience now. We discussed everything from 20th-century food to dress code. Enjoy!
By Jacqueline Wu ‘24Since the coronavirus outbreak in 2020, China has been implementing near-universal PCR testing, city lockdowns, and movement restrictions. While there have been requests to relax these restrictions, for most of the pandemic, the majority of Chinese citizens saw them as necessary precautions to reduce widespread infection and fatality until this winter.
By Chip Genung ‘25While the Midterms have officially been over for over a month, a viciously contested Senate run-off election still rages in Georgia. Unlike in many states where whichever senate candidate with the most votes wins, in Georgia, during a senate race, a candidate must reach over 50% of the vote to win. In the recent election last month between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Hershel Walker, neither candidate attained this minimum, with Warnock achieving 49.4% of the vote and Walker receiving 48.5% of the vote. Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver won just over 2%, or about 80,000 votes, which caused neither of the major party candidates to win a majority.
By Grace Yuan ‘23When he promised to pardon US Capitol insurrectionists if he ran for president again and won, former president Donald Trump envisioned a second administration that would serve as a tool of personal retribution that would be even more authoritarian than his first.
The Spread of Sports Gambling: Examining Through the Lens of Science, Technology & Society (STS)12/13/2022
 By Meiyin Ren '25Photo by John Locher Gambling, the action of wagering on an event with the intention of winning valuable assets, has existed for years. One of its most prevalent forms is sports betting, feeding upon the passions of sports fans. This form of gambling originally emerged with the intent of placing a bet on a match or game to prove the individual’s knowledge of the sport, or to demonstrate their loyalty to a particular team or player.
By Kimi Weng ‘24SARS-CoV-2, also known as COVID-19, is a virus that has been going around the world for almost three years following its first appearance in Wuhan China in 2019. This virus has troubled people’s lives, including the Martlets': at the beginning of last year, all students at Westminster had to obtain a negative PCR test result to be on campus. However, have you ever wondered what a COVID PCR is?
 By Henry Flaton '25Photo by Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing - https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=124800316 Throughout 2022, the people of the United Kingdom have witnessed many historic events unfold across their nation. Perhaps one of the most momentous has been the appointment of British-Indian Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister, the third within thirteen weeks. On May 12, 1980, Sunak was born in Southampton, England to foreign Punjabi Indian parents. The future Prime Minister grew up in a dual-income household. His father was a general practitioner for the National Health Service of Britain, and his mother owned and operated a pharmacy. This financial stability enabled Sunak to attend schools such as Winchester College, Lincoln College, Oxford, and eventually Stanford University.
By Hannah Small ‘25Times have changed, and so has the fashion industry. Clothes are more than a way to layer up to face the brisk winter weather; they are an art form, now more than ever. Fashion is an expression that allows people to share their identity with the world. Considering the dress code, picking out an outfit is a necessary and routine task in everyday life at Westminster.
By Andrew Pang ‘24What sense is evoked when I mention the word roasting? The firm texture of rotisserie chicken from the convection oven? Perhaps a rich waft of caramelized coffee beans at the local Starbucks? Personally, I recall dread and humiliation from getting roasted by a friend and being too dim-witted to think of a comeback. Due to personal reasons, I won't mention the specific roast, but it was enough to flatten my ego from a three-dimensional creature into a two-dimensional pancake. Since that day, like in other stereotypical villain’s origin stories, I've been practicing for revenge.
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