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Andrew and Jaden’s Second Advice Column!

We’re back and better than ever with more questions and advice featuring Godwin! Enjoy 🙂

Ship name? Anjaden, Andrewden, Jandrew… All of these kinda suck, but it’s surprisingly hard to come up with a good ship name. We’re open to suggestions 🙂

If I want to have a life, but I also want to do an activity, how do I balance?

This is definitely a really challenging task to do, especially given the vast amount of extracurriculars that CPS offers. I think it honestly has to do with what your personal priorities are. That isn’t a question of “what am I good at” or “what can get me into college,” but more of a “why do I do the things that I do and what do I enjoy doing the most?” I think you really have to know the answer to that before you start deciding how you want to allocate your time. If your favorite moments of life are when you spend time relaxing with your friends, then by all means, spend more time just trying to do that as opposed to spending most of your time practicing for an activity. But if you genuinely find enjoyment in an activity and want to keep pursuing it, then spend more time on that. If you want to do both, try creating a more rigorous schedule and figuring out when you’re going to be practicing for an activity and when you’ll try to hang out or talk with friends.

How can you be groovy, cool at CPS?

Godwin: To be groovy and cool at CPS, you have to be genuine, honest, respectful, understanding, be a good listener, supportive, have an open mind, and have sense of humor. When you walk by students, faculty, staff, facilities staff, and the janitors, try and say hello!

Is Jaden sponsored by Dasani?

I wish…

I am spending too much on things like in game purchases or just junk food. How do I budget and control myself?

It’s definitely pretty hard to manage your money, especially when we’re all high school students and trying to hang out whenever we can or go grab boba. This is definitely something that I struggle with too, but just keeping a more rigorous account of how you’re spending your money and where the money is going can really help you realize how much money you’re spending on things, and hopefully that can help you budget yourself better. Beyond that, asking someone for help with budgeting can help, especially when it’s probably a personal temptation to spend money.

What’s your advice for Freshmen?

Andrew: Uhm… “advice for Freshmen” is pretty vague here lol. I know it’s probably super intimidating to come into a brand new school where you don’t know a ton of people, but hopefully by now you’ve at least found one or two people who you’d like to get to know better. If not, go talk to some upperclassmen! We don’t bite, I promise. One tip: Don’t lock yourself in socially. I know CPS tends to have a lot of group culture, where people end up just hanging out in the same group for the entirety of high school, but there are a lot of people in your grade and there are definitely other people out there not in your group that you’d get along with. This isn’t to say that having a main friend group is necessarily bad; in fact, it’s probably pretty healthy to have one. Just make sure that in the process of finding a friend group, you don’t instinctively rule out every other person in your grade from being one of your close friends.

Jaden: Don’t worry about college or finals because you’ll get a lot of that stuff later on… Definitely try to find a strong and reliable friend group, especially the kind of friends you can rely on for academic stuff and more personal matters later on in your CPS career. Also, make sure you’re good on meeting with teachers because they’re all extremely friendly and helpful. Even if it’s a small problem, don’t be afraid to talk with them, whether it’s about academics or not.

What effect have Li Bai and Du Fu had on the development of Chinese Poetical history?

Jaden: Both poets are considered sages in their own right in Chinese culture. While Li Bai was a more romantic poet who loved discussing human nature and natural objects, Du Fu was more realistic with a passion for writing about the struggles of the everyday citizen in the late Tang Dynasty. One of Li Bai’s most famous poems is “Thoughts in the Night” and a famous poem by Du Fu is “Spring Sight.” If you want to know more, you should definitely ask Nichos M., an A.P. Chinese student, who absolutely adores ancient Chinese poetry.

Andrew: Whyyyyyy T.T

How do I ask someone out if I don’t know them all that well?

Andrew + Jaden: We would say first: you should definitely get to know them better, maybe as friends or even just simple acquaintances. If you really want to be in a relationship with that person, it’s better to know at least a few things about them to see if you guys have anything in common or share similar interests. If you wanna ask them out on a single date and see where it goes from there, we would say just straight up ask them. There’s no use waiting around and overthinking it, but at the same time be prepared for their response which might not meet your hopes.

Godwin: That is the beauty of life. Walk up to them, and introduce yourself with a smile. That in itself displays “Confidence”. Talk about the weather, compliment them on what you admire about them, and go from there.

Cactus, or Gordos?

Andrew: Gordos. This isn’t even a question, what.

Jaden: Okay, Cactus has really good tacos and horchata and aqua fresca… But Gordos burritos are superior by far, and, really, what’s better than burritos?

What are your favorite songs?

Jaden: My favorite songs usually don’t last more than a few weeks but right now I’m really liking “Palace” by Brockhampton, “Mansions” by Matt Champion, “thank u, next” by Ariana Grande, “Time in a Tree” by Raleigh Ritchie and “Slow Dancing in the Dark” by Joji. Also, there’s this really cool house artist named Ross From Friends that I discovered recently who makes good songs for studying and relaxing.

Andrew: I’m not sure how I got associated with this (actually I am, I troll people a lot with it), but people tend to group me with “Baby Shark,” so I guess I’ll just go with that. In my defense, I heard the song before it blew up and became a meme; my teacher at camp would make me listen to it once for every minute I was late, so I got VERY familiar with it. For those who don’t know the song, it goes like: “BABY SHARK DO DO DO DO DO DOOOOO” (I just got that song stuck in around ten people’s heads, you’re welcome :D)

What makes you happy?

Jaden: This differs for each individual but I really enjoy listening to music, hanging out with friends, and chilling with my dogs reading a good book.

Andrew: I think I just enjoy being in the company of people who I care about and love spending time with, whether or not we’re playing basketball, board games, video games, or just hanging out and having fun.

Godwin: Nothing makes me happy. I make myself happy by being happy. I am always happy because I am happy. My happiness does not depend on anyone, and no one can make you happy. Only you can make you happy.

Why do you suppose the advice columns for the radar are always male-oriented?

I definitely agree that there should be more representation in this aspect, and I’m sorry to say that we can’t really give a good answer to this. There are other advice columns on the rise though, like Queeries and Girl Talk, so hopefully those mark a growing trend with our advice columns and help incorporate more perspectives. If you wanna start your own, shoot Ana and Aaron an email and show up to a Pitch Session!

Is blue an endangered color?

Here’s an article I found:

This took me a while so pls appreciate the effort T.T. Seriously though, this might be the strangest thing our grade has EVER come up with (that’s saying a lot), and I’m not sure how I feel about spreading it to the rest of the school. I’ll do it anyway: For the rest of the school, this was a theory that Kevin Z. pulled out of nowhere when our grade found out we were wearing blue to the spirit rally. It’s pretty whack, so don’t worry if you don’t understand it, cuz I don’t either lol.

Can I be a co-star one day???

Mmmm… submit your application and we’ll check it out.

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