By Ellie Pitkowsky ’18, Humor Editor and Short Person

It would be a wild understatement to say that Newark Academy students get excited for summer. After the excitement for convocation dies down, summer planning and complaining about a lack of sleep begin. However, when talking to students about what they did this past summer, answers were underwhelming. Many community members I talked to did as close to nothing as possible. Responses included binge-watching Netflix, ignoring pre-season workout plans, and learning to crochet (which is a useless skill in today’s modern times!). To attempt to gain a greater perspective on NA students’ and teachers’ summers, I interviewed many different people from around the school. Here are some things they said about their time away from Newark Academy.

I began my investigation at the most obvious starting point, the Humanities office. While I certainly thought that teachers would have taken advantage of their time away from paranoid and annoying students, this was not the case. Ms. Fischer said that she “spent quality time with her kids.” More time with kids?????? After a whole year with them?????? Doesn’t seem fun at all, if you’re asking for my opinion. I thought that Mr. Reed would have a better answer, but when I asked about his summer, he merely said that he “memorized 6 books verbatim and ate exclusively vanilla frozen yogurt”. YAWN!

Newark Academy students were no better than their teacher counterparts. If anything, they were worse! I began my student survey with the seniors, without a doubt the busiest and best-looking students, especially with the onset of college applications. Despite this, I found that seniors had some of the most boring summers across the board. Tyler Mudge ’18, former humor editor, explained that he participated in an architecture program on a college campus, which is really just a fancy way to say “drawing stuff”. Dean Tan ’18, who I expected to have a pretty cool answer since he’s a VERY cool guy, disappointed me as well. When asking Dean, he said (with his classic Dean Tan smile, might I add) that he “relaxed and de-stressed.” What an absolute LOSER!

As the word got around that I was conducting this survey, I was approached by students who believed that they had had particularly exciting and productive summers. David Cohen ’20, assured me that he “spent a lot of time significantly improving [his] golf game”. I immediately knew that this was a fake answer, as it is a commonly known fact that Brahm Wieseneck ’18 is the only person in the NA community who is allowed to play golf. Sorry, David! His sister, Amanda Cohen ’18, didn’t have a much better answer: “I really got a lot of work done this summer. I made nice progress on some college essays and got my summer reading done early.” I am not sure if Amanda expects me to believe that she actually did these things, but regardless of whether or not this is true, it’s still BORING.

I don’t have much to say beyond that I expect more from the Newark Academy community in the upcoming summer. I’m not looking for “destressing” and “productivity.” I’m looking for curing diseases, skydiving, writing multiple novels, traveling to Mars, and becoming a dog breeder. After all, knowing NA students, they probably already have plans.