Opinion

By Lincolnn Log Staff

The vertical scroll format has taken over every corner of the internet—TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat all offer the opportunity  of full-screen doomscrolling. With the flick of a thumb, users can go from footage of a civilian pleading for mercy as an ICE agent slams them onto the ground to a video of an influencer opening mountains of PR packages. Another swipe and—oh, look! An AI-generated video of Diddy and Jeffrey Epstein battling it out on Epstein island! With the Internet, we’re being fed content in a way never seen before—a way that has made it all too easy to forget the true impact behind the content we see. 

As the Internet is more integrated into everyday life, the boundary between private thought and public expression has all disappeared. Shielded from the intimacy of face-to-face confrontation, people no longer feel afraid to broadcast opinions they might otherwise keep to themselves. In the modern digital space, individuals are reduced to their Internet personas, making it far easier for those interacting to dismiss, insult, or dehumanize them without consequence.  Coupled with a rising culture that rewards outrage and harsh commentary, phones have promoted an environment where rudeness is not only easier, but increasingly encouraged.

Social media is the main platform where students receive their news, whether it’s the latest celebrity gossip or international current events. Most of the time, social media platforms blast hundreds of reels and posts of headlines that are designed to shock. Many teenagers have began to feel numb towards these headlines—almost as if social media conditioned our generation to lose the sense of shock. When reports of shootings and robberies are normalized through the small rectangle screen, viewers begin to feel as if this is the “standard” of how our world works. 

Consequently, AI and social media have revived the worst people on Earth and turned them into TikTok influencers—or at least, one might think so based on the current state of social media. Adolf Hitler can be found dancing to silly songs, and ICE is posting videos to the Pokémon soundtrack. But these posts are far from innocent. 

Memetic warfare is a term which describes the use of Internet memes—humorous media that is spread rapidly on social media—to influence the way people view information. Adolf Hitler dancing to trendy music isn’t funny, and Donald Trump pretending to rain feces on protesters is far from hilarious. This system was intentionally built to desensitize us to violence, even extreme cases.

Recently, memes of high-profile sex offenders Jeffery Epstein and Sean “Diddy” Combs have circulated the Internet, making light of the fact that an extensive network of sex trafficking has been operating under society’s noses for decades. Instead of supporting the victims, people have taken to laughing at and even showing support for the crimes committed.

Along with the memes of Epstein and Diddy, gore on social media has become more accessible on a daily basis among the youth and it has made us more apathetic to violence. Unfortunately, extremely violent videos are seen everywhere now; whether it is animal cruelty or the torture, they no longer just remain in private group chats like Telegram. Telegram is a messaging app, but in recent years it has been widely known for hosting gore, violent extremist content, and graphic imagery due to its lax moderation in their private servers. Despite the recent increase in moderation and the removal of millions of harmful posts, Telegram remains a hub for the gore type of content particularly on its open or public channels. 

Telegram is not the only app. Anybody can see a disturbing video while scrolling through Instagram Reels or TikTok. Mere minutes after right-wing media personality Charlie Kirk’s assasination, clips of the shooting circulated online. After the shooting happened, Kirk became the main subject of memes, such as “Kirkifying” people  and the AI-generated “We Are Charlie Kirk” song. 

During the past years, several other disturbing videos have gone viral—ones that people online still talk about in regards to disturbing shock content. As devastating as it sounds, there are people online who enjoy these types of videos or images, whether it be a true crime junkie or bored doomscrollers. 

When the series “Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” came out, searching up real graphic images of Dahmer’s crime scenes became popular on TikTok. On top of that, people were making fan edits and memes of Evan Peters, who played Dahmer, and the serial killer himself. 

Through repeated exposure, wanted or unwanted, people become less reactive to the contents, which can reduce empathy in those who are exposed to gory media. 

In an age where information and news is easier to access than ever, it is getting harder and harder for us to discern whether or not a source or story is credible. Gone are the days of newspapers on doorsteps or rumors spread through word of mouth. Now, information rampantly spreads through social media algorithms, leading to a flurry of misinformation. It is so important to ensure that we, as consumers, know how to find accurate, unbiased information that allows us to form our own opinions. It is also extremely important that we take our opinions, with the knowledge that not everyone agrees with them, and be able to have civil debates, something it seems we’ve forgotten how to do in the present.

In addition to desensitizing us to the awful current events, the Internet has transformed every debate into a battlefield. Differing opinions are no longer valued online; the options are now to be right or against the original poster and their wave of followers who are indeed willing to die on that hill.

Initially this new wave of online behavior or loss of etiquette was blamed on the Internet being ingrained into the culture, especially from such young ages. However, social media platforms have instated age-based filtering  policies, including Instagram with teen accounts and TikTok family pairing which limits kids to PG-13 content. Australia has taken this a step further and banned the usage of social media for children under 16 because of how much violent content has been passed around on platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, X and Instagram.

While the Internet has undeniably contributed to the desensitization to violence, it has also become one of the most powerful and fastest tools for awareness in history. Incidents that may have once gone unnoticed are now broadcast globally within minutes, forcing people to confront realities that they may have not otherwise been exposed to. The 2020 murder of George Floyd, for example, spread rapidly across social media, sparking worldwide protests and renewed attention to systemic racism and police brutality. Without the immediacy of online platforms, moments like these might have not reached such a wide audience or inspired such large-scale action. 

Similarly, footage from war zones, protests, and humanitarian crises can humanize distant suffering and motivate people to care, donate, or advocate. For example, in Gaza people are able to post the realities of what the Israeli and American government is putting them through at a faster rate than the news organizations ever could. Not to mention, real people are able to share their raw story and experiences online without censorship.

The same constant exposure that risks numbing viewers can also serve as a wake-up call—reminding people that these events are real, urgent, and demand attention. The issue, then, is not simply the presence of violent content online but how it is consumed and understood.

From desensitization to gore to memeifications of serious issues to a lack of media literacy, one common matter shines through. The Internet has the potential to provide endless positive outcomes, but when neglected and used improperly, can be extremely harmful. The digital age shows no signs of stopping; as users we must educate ourselves beyond surface level memes and approach issues with a nuanced point of view, before we lose the very thing we mock, our humanity.

By Yasmine El Hattab

While the word “incel” originally stood for involuntarily celibate, the incel community has evolved more to refer to a degenerate internet subculture. Within this space, one ideology, the “Blackpill” argues that success is determined solely by your genetics, where looks function as the single determining factor in a life. From this belief system came the birth of  “looksmaxxing”.

“Looksmaxxing” is the term that describes the attempt to better one's physical appearance to then see success—or as the Blackpill defines it, climbing up the perceived hierarchy of attractiveness. 

Beauty is not something to maximize, a trait to be optimized and scored according to a standard. Looksmaxxing does not promote self improvement, it promotes conformity and condemns those who don't fit its formula. 

As looksmaxxing continues to rise on the internet, recent figures like Androgenic and “ASU Frat Leader” Varis Gilaj, as well as older icons in the community, such as the self-proclaimed “Blackpill King” James Sapphire, promote the community and the standards it calls for, but one figure appears repeatedly in the discussion about looksmaxxing: Braden Peters, better known by his online name, Clavicular.

Finding success on the streaming platform Kick and TikTok, Peters has built a reputation as one of the most, if not the primary promoter, of the modern looksmaxxing culture online. Gaining most of his fame through his “ascension” journey, Peters has cemented himself as a true looksmaxxer to the world. 

In a multitude of popularized clips, Peter can be seen striking his face with hammers, globes, massage guns, or even his own fists. The practice, known as bonesmashing, is intended to create microfractures in the cheekbones in belief that the bones will grow back.

In reality, hitting one's face till bruising in hopes of gaining a centimeter of cheekbone is nothing more than an unnecessary and painful process. Not only has it been medically disproven as there is no control over creating microfractures, but the practice only creates bruising, swelling and a risk of long term injury with no success in the “looksmaxxing” category.

These ideas have created a culture where individuals constantly criticize their appearance and search for ways to change it, no matter the lengths. 

Music artist Gnel Gregorian, sharing Internet interactions with looksmaxxers, describes the mindset as damaging, “I think these really cruel men started idealizing that you can alter it [your genetics]. That you can alter yourself, and you should alter yourself. [...] You think, ‘Why I was not blessed with[...] good genetics?’”

For some people involved with the looksmaxxing community, the mindset can quickly turn into an obsession with genetics, diet and symmetry.  Terms like “starvemaxxing” and “leanmaxxing” both words that describe drastically dropping the caloric intake to change the body's overall physique, 

Visually, looksmaxxing promotes a highly specific appearance—Hollow cheeks, positively titled eyes, low set and thick eyebrows, specific heights and body fat ratios, are all criteria used all to rate people. 

Split into 13 labels ranging from “Subhuman” to “Adamlite” alongside a number scale from one through eight, the community places people into categories based on their applications and attractiveness compared to the tailored look. 

Chinese-American student and self proclaimed “looksmaxxologist”, Eames Chen, says, “Asians don't really feel included because we live in the cold climates that recess our maxilla [bone] over time […]  I don't have a developed maxilla bone, so I'm still classified as an imperfect person.” 

Interacting personally with those parts of the community,  Chen recalls. “
They're really toxic towards me. I got rated a subhuman.”

For many observers, the rating Chen received was simply online jokes, but to those more involved, it's a highlight of the culture that looksmaxxing promotes. 

The widespread sharing of these ideas across platforms like TikTokhas allowed the language and ideology of looksmaxxing to spread far beyond the small online communities where it first appeared and cement itself online. 

Terms once confined to niche Internet spaces now circulate widely, now reaching those unfamiliar with the origins of the philosophy behind them. 

Whether seen as self-optimization or as an extremist offspring of Internet beauty culture and incel ideology, looksmaxxing reflects a growing trend in online spaces, one where appearance is analyzed, categorized and judged. 

 Looksmaxxing has introduced a language of rankings and “genetic potential”, turning appearance into something to be measured and sorted into hierarchy rather than the individual expression of beauty. While many Internet users continue to treat the trend as satire, the communities promoting it have made clear that their intentions are not ironic. 

By popularizing looksmaxxing, they've been allowed to control what defines beauty and push their standards beyond just a niche.  

Looksmaxxing is not simply a desire to look better, it represents a growing form of lookism, one that reduces people to measurements, ranks and perceived genetic value. 

By Ariana Lopez

Permissive parenting is often mistaken for gentle parenting and it makes gentle parenting look bad. This style of parenting  only works if done the right way. Gentle parenting is a parenting style that focuses on validating a child’s emotions, and setting respectful boundaries instead of punishing a child. 

However, this parenting style is often seen as permissive, or without setting any proper boundaries with a child, but it is necessary to know that gentle parenting is not permissive parenting. An example of permissive parenting is a child receiving endless lectures without receiving any consequences for their behavior. On the other hand, gentle parenting is about validating a child’s feelings while creating clear and firm boundaries. As a parent, it is important to be able to differentiate gentle parenting from permissive parenting. Gentle parenting balances high empathy with firm, consistent boundaries, aiming to teach emotional regulation without punishment. On the other hand, permissive parenting offers high warmth but low demands, avoiding problems and enabling a child’s behavior. Children need a parent who will acknowledge their distress and remain calm even when they can’t. Mindful parenting holds space for difficult feelings while having structure. Parenting styles have a huge impact on how children see the outside world; it impacts their emotional and social development by determining their emotional security, self esteem, and behavioral regulation.  Sara Falls, Writing for Publication teacher at Lincoln and mother of one, stated, “I wish that I really had someone to help me as a young person learn how to react, like know what to do when I was feeling emotional: when I was having big emotions.” Falls claimed, “I am a really hot-headed and angry person, and my mom is the same, so she often came with emotions, yelling and anger.” Nobody talked to Falls about meditation, breathing, or ways on how to self-comfort when having big emotions. “There was no intentionality around helping me to cope.”Falls said. Adding on, she stated that it made it hard for her as she grew older to learn how to respond,and even as an adult she still finds herself in conflict. She also mentioned that when she and her twin sister would fight, their mother would yell at them and it would just make things worse; there was no room for her to breathe and process her emotions. As an adult she still struggles to calm herself down because she was the one that taught herself how to regulate her emotions. Falls is implementing the tactics that she would have liked to benefit from as a child into her parenting. She stated that during dinner time with her husband and her 11-year-old son, her son was upset because he didn’t do his homework earlier and instead was playing with his Ipad. Falls didn’t yell or punish her son, instead she told him, “Hey kid, just hear yourself right now, what’s going on?” and reassured him that nobody was mad at him.

When Falls became a parent, she realized that she wanted to be intentional with her parenting. She read books about parenting, and also lived in what she described as an ‘intentional community,’ where she saw how families who were intentional with their parenting would raise their children, which influenced her style of gentle parenting; Falls describes her and her husband’s parenting as being intentional. Her and her partner had conversations about their values and what mattered to them as parents. Being a teacher has also helped her with parenting, because she works with young adults on a daily basis. She practiced gentle parenting since her son was a baby by talking to him: even when he was crying and couldn’t say what was wrong, she would  say to him, “Oh, you must be tired,” or “Oh, you must be hungry.” 

By Denise Mai

On February 13th, the San Francisco Unified School District strike ended with a tentative agreement. The strike centered on issues such as pay, staffing shortages, and classroom conditions. Although the district and the United Educators of San Francisco reached an agreement, as a SFUSD high school student, I feel the district was not taking the strike seriously, and after speaking to Lincoln students and teachers, it reinforced my opinion. 

During and before the strike, there was little to no information or communication coming from the district about the strike, besides the fact that both sides were negotiating. 

Even a member of the Student Advisory Council in the SFUSD, Joyce Ye, says, “I don’t exactly think that students were given clear communication about what was happening during the strike. Speaking for myself, I had to dig through articles to really educate myself on what the union and teachers were fighting for.”

 I find this very insightful and true because most information about the strike was either found by self research or word of mouth from teachers. 

One instance of this was when I heard a teacher mention during class that Maria Su had not shown up to negotiations. This made me think the district leader didn’t seem to take the strike and teachers seriously.    

After the strike, Mr. Sultan commented on negotiations, claiming, “They did not negotiate in good faith. They just tried to bully us, tried to break us, tried to win the negotiation [...] I have a lot of disdain for the idea that you're gonna [try to] win a negotiation with teachers who are already overworked and underpaid. It's just absurd.”  

The way the district handled the negotiations comes across as immature and unorganized, focusing more on overpowering teachers than working toward a reasonable solution that both parties are happy.

As the strike progressed, I, as a student, grew concerned about scheduling and classwork, but Anabella Ramirez, a senior at Abraham Lincoln High School, who was affected by the strike in a whole different way, __?

Ramirez states, “it affected me in ways I never really thought about before. The free meals I usually would get were gone and I couldn’t leave my house as much due to me having to help out with my sisters and the house.” 

After listening to her struggles with the strike, it opened my eyes to a whole other problem some students had to face; not everyone was able to grab food from the districts grab and go food system because some might have had to help around the house, so this solution just didn’t seem so inclusive for all students on school meals. 

Classes and course progression were an issue when it came to the day of the strike. First, the district offered digital independent study packets through social media. Some might argue that the District just wanted students to have learning materials during the strike, but on the other hand, some others thought of it as a way for the district to undermine the strike and a way to wait the teachers’ strike out by claiming Average Daily Attendance funding from the state. This makes it seem like the district didn’t really want to come to a compromise with the UESF and might have caused the strike to be prolonged.

Overall, the strike has opened my eyes and brought my attention to the relationship between the district, educators, students, and parents. It has shown me how the district reacts and handles a serious situation. Moving forward, the district should hear the voices of our students and educators and work more collaboratively with them, since the educators are the foundation of the school system.

By Christine Kang

The majority of people carry a phone with them, including adolescents.

The pervasive nature of digital media has become a concerning influence on today’s youth, with smartphones now nearly universal among the majority of adolescents, this trend accelerated by the pandemic.  In the aftermath, adolescents have become more reliant on technology than ever before. This has not only worn down traditional communication skills but has also changed the self-perception of young people across all gender identities.

Caitlin Hilt, a student at Abraham Lincoln High School, highlights the pressure of online aesthetics: “[The Internet] negatively affects us because we take inspiration from blogs and from articles to see how we can become skinny, petite girls… but people don’t know how bad it is to trust the Internet or people on social [media].”

Hilt continues, "There's an ongoing lawsuit against social media apps because teens' parents are considering that their kids are developing an eating disorder and want to know why and put a stop to it.”

Hilt notes that these concerns have escalated into legal action, citing ongoing lawsuits against major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, and Discord. Parents involved in these lawsuits say that platforms contribute to the development of eating disorders and digital addiction in their children. 

The consequences are visible even in elementary and middle schoolers, who increasingly struggle with body dysmorphia and an obsession with unrealistic beauty standards. At such a formative age, these pressures interfere with both mental well-being and academic performance. While adults face similar struggles with comparison, they often find it harder to seek help due to a combination of social barriers and emotional shifts.

Despite this, some argue that the media provides essential benefits. Alex Lu, a middle school student, views the digital landscape as a resource: “I use the Internet for homework, inspiration, and it allows teachers to have better communication with students.” 

Lu continues, stating, “I do use AI—however, I don’t abuse this technology, I just have it as a partner [tool] for my writing works.”

While this perspective is common, it often overlooks the subtle transition from “using” a tool to “relying” on it; essentially, you could lose your ability to think for yourself or solve problems manually. If minors prioritize digital assistance over human interaction, they risk losing the ability to engage in group thinking and  large ranges of ideas.

The solution lies in early intervention and active engagement and management. By introducing technology to elementary students under strict guidelines, consistent limits, the parents are able to help children develop self-control for later life. Because the adolescents brain is developing, they can establish healthy boundaries early on. As technology continues to evolve, our strategies for protecting the development of the next generation must grow along with it.

By Xavier Malizia

Twenty-eight games in four months. Almost three games every week. Practice on the other three days. Three AP classes. Seven periods. That was my second semester of junior year. My Thursdays were the most intense: AP Language and Composition from 8:40 to 10:10, AP US History from 10:15 to 11:45, then lunch, then AP Environmental Science—but wait, I had to leave class early to get ready for my 3:30 game against Lowell High School, the reigning city champs. Don’t even get me started on my four-hour-long AP Lang test on the exact same day as the City Championship at Oracle Park. Why was it that hard? 

Sure, I didn’t have to take three AP classes, but then maybe I wouldn’t have gotten into my dream school; I simply am not good enough to play college baseball at a college that would also fulfill my academic desires. 

As the captain of the ALHS Varsity Baseball Team, who also cares a lot about my academics, I find that the school system does a poor job of supporting student athletes in their pursuit of reaching their full potential in both academics and athletics because of a grueling schedule, lack of school support, and a distance between coaches and the school.

When someone asks me what the hardest part of being a student athlete is, the first thing that comes to my mind is the schedule. School starts at 8:40 , a reasonable time, and ends at 3:45, which, in my opinion, is far too late. For a sport like baseball, when taking into account travel time to a field and changing into uniform, practices usually don't start until 4:15- 4:30. Now, add a two to two-and-a-half hour practice, and athletes have a nearly 11-hour day just at school activities, not including hours of homework added on to that after we get home. 

What this schedule does is add an incredible amount of stress to student athletes, which affects both their abilities in the classroom and performance on the field. 

This is a contrast to a student athlete at Saint Ignatius, where they get off of school at 2:45 pm every day and practice at 3:30 pm, a whole hour earlier than us. In fact, we practice on the same field as SI’s freshman team, who either practice before us altogether or end shortly through our warmups. That extra time allows for less stress, more time off to rest, and more time for academics. 

On the public school side, Lowell High School also gives their student-athletes a free last period of the day to have more time for sports. That can be possible for students at Lincoln, but is mostly reserved for upperclassmen and is not a guarantee. 

These are just practice days. Games require early release, transportation, and a higher level of play and focus.

Secondly, support from the school side is seriously lacking. Students for the large part have to take initiative for all missing work, classes, and attendance. While this is a good and valuable life skill, it also poses lots of challenges for students. Very few tutoring resources are available for students, let alone student-athletes. The most common time student-athletes are told to make up work is during lunch, and while it is a time that students are usually free, in my opinion it is not a fair time to have to make up work. With an already long day that creates limited time to socialize, lunch becomes a very valuable time to hang out with friends amidst a busy schedule. Pair that with the fact that athletes need an especially high level of nutrition while performing at a high level, and making up work at lunch is really not a good idea.

I have a solution that would help all parties involved. Imagine an athlete-specific class (sort of like a study hall) that any student-athlete was guaranteed a spot in. It would be during the last few classes of the day, and provide benefits to all challenges student athletes face. The teacher would have a relatively small number of students and would be able to support the student-athletes. Tests and assignments could be made up during this class when needed, and when not, students could watch sports games, weightlift, or learn more about their sport. In addition, since it is towards the end of the day, it would be one fewer class that students would be behind in when missing. 

Further, I have had only a small handful of classes with my teammates, and an opportunity to interact with them more would give the opportunity to build team chemistry. The class could also help with college recruiting, help students get their physicals done, and be a place where students could store their gear during the day. The class could be structured as an elective, giving students the “G” credit towards graduation.

Finally, the disconnect between coaches and school has become, in my opinion, a big issue for student athletes. coaches, faculty, and administrators are not to blame in this issue. Finding dedicated coaches for high school-level sports is increasingly difficult. In order to build a strong program, it takes hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars, and incredible patience. High school coaches make only a couple thousand dollars for the entire year. With the amount of work they put in, that small sum of money is absolutely under the amount they deserve. In addition,with such a limited option of coaches, most coaches don’t actually work at the school they coach for. Out of the five Lincoln Baseball coaches, none of them work at the school themselves. What that does is creates a gap between the students and coaches. My coaches don't know what goes on at the school campus, can't hold their athletes accountable, and struggle to support the athletes academically. I love my coaches, and they are some of the most dedicated people I know, but I wish they worked here at Lincoln. I truly believe that it would help all of us academically and athletically. The ALHS volleyball program is doing incredible right now, and we can accredit a lot of that success to the coach, Vincent Tang, who is a full time P.E. teacher at Lincoln. This helps him recruit, train, and support his players to the best of their ability. 

The final issue, which is a bit separate from my central argument, yet I believe is too important to neglect, is that with the current SFUSD lottery system, athletes have no priority for what school they get into. While this might seem like it would equally distribute athletes throughout the cities, it creates two key problems. The most apparent is Lowell. For baseball especially, with their unique admissions process, Lowell admits many more athletes into their program due to their selective process that caters towards a higher percentage of athletes when compared to all other schools , which gives them an unfair advantage. 

Secondly, many schools have extremely poor programs that will ruin a player’s career and chances of success. Whether due to lack of enrollment, lack of coaching, or any other factors, the majority of high school teams are not competitive. I personally know athletes who are extremely talented, just stuck at schools where they have no chances of athletic success. This represents an overall trend in declining athletics in public schools. Most of the draw for athletes is to private schools, and the ones left in the public schools get concentrated at Lowell. For the baseball world, The two best teams are by far Lowell and Lincoln, with virtually every other team seriously behind, usually with one good player and the rest lacking skills. This leads to a myriad of issues for scheduling. For example, last year Lowell beat Balboa 21-0 and The Academy with the same score. That is not good for anyone. Lowell doesn’t get any better, and neither does the losing team. What that does is force schools like Lincoln and Lowell to play an increasing amount of out-of-league games against harder competition in order to train for the games against each other, to have a good shot in winning. Connecting this back to my central argument, this issue leads to a greater lack of support. When people see a score of 21-0, they don't want to go to that game. It’s boring, uncompetitive, and frankly sucks. Then that leaves the competitive games to be played out-of-league. SFUSD cut team buses three years ago, meaning that transportation is an issue. It also means that fans are highly unlikely to attend, adding to the lack of support. 

In conclusion, I love school; I love sports, but it is so incredibly hard for students to excel in both academics and athletics. I could not become the baseball player I want to be while also excelling in school, and that is the reality hundreds of kids face. Some prioritize sports, leading to a struggle in school. I wish that in the future, the school system could find a way to give student-athletes the support they need to excel at the highest level.

By Kenny Lin

Cooking has never been more accessible. With the internet, you have access to an endless array of recipes and cuisines from various cultures. But when we over-rely on recipes, we fall into a mindless trap and become dependent on them. We see a fixed ingredient list that we need to adhere to, and even if we don’t follow it, sometimes it doesn’t taste right. Recipes fail to teach home cooks to think like a chef: how to season food, experiment, and explore cooking.

The solution: learn the fundamentals of cooking—how flavors interact, suitable ingredient substitutions, and cooking techniques.

Before going further, I’m excluding baking for the sake of argument, and I’m not saying to never follow a recipe. Do follow a recipe when cooking a dish you are unfamiliar with or a dish you simply want to try. However, don’t depend on recipes when you have ingredients to make food but don't know how to apply knowledge to cook a meal from scratch without searching for one; creating stress and lessens the desire to cook a meal for yourself. Rather, see recipes as a guideline you can follow.

Additionally, following a recipe is sometimes not possible, whether it’s missing an ingredient, not having the proper cooking equipment, or lacking experience.

Cooking should be viewed as a large number of experiments rather than a set of rules. Experimenting with different cooking techniques, ingredients, and ratios is what makes cooking enjoyable; it's the unpredictability—and when you make something extraordinary, it's rewarding.

For example, a classic spaghetti with marinara sauce will call for dried spaghetti, canned whole San Marzano tomatoes, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, salt, dried oregano, basil, and Parmigiano-Reggiano.

If I were to analyze the ingredient list and consider why each ingredient was added, you would gain a bigger picture of what other ingredients you can add or substitute. The shape of the pasta adds texture, the tomatoes serve as the sole component of flavor, and the fats and cheese complement and add depth to the sauce. Lastly, the aromatics, garlic, basil, and dried oregano, enhance the aroma, making the food taste better.

The graphic [placement in article] further illustrates this, creating numerous variations of marinara sauces. In fact, if I were to use all the same ingredients but add red chili pepper and onion, I'd create what is known in Italy as an arrabbiata sauce. And with the many other ingredients you can add, there are many different ways it’ll taste; some will range from fantastic to inedible.

This cumulative knowledge was acquired by questioning and researching why an ingredient was put in. The cookbook “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking” by Samin Nosrat goes into greater depth on how flavors interact and how to cook instinctively with four principles: salt, fat, acid, and heat.

But more important is to experiment and apply what you know about flavor and think critically about how the ingredients interact.

Knowing how ingredients interact with flavor is important, but cooking techniques are also crucial because they can transform a meal from just fine to exceptional by modifying how it’s cooked.

For example, what determines whether a chicken breast is good or bad is how it’s cooked. If a recipe only contains chicken breast and salt and is cooked to an internal temp of 165°F, you’re left with dried and tasteless stringy chicken.

However, if we tweak the cooking method by first salting the chicken generously and letting it rest for 24 hours—or more, depending on the thickness—in the fridge, we allow the salt to penetrate deeper into the muscle and break down proteins, tenderizing the chicken. Secondly, cooking it to an internal temp of 150°F and holding it for three minutes guarantees it is safe to eat, resulting in a very tender, flavorful, and juicy chicken breast.

To be more serious about cooking, season by eye, cook what's in the fridge, and personalize your cooking style. It requires curiosity and, as mentioned multiple times, experimentation. Learn and apply what you know about flavors and cooking techniques, and observe how recipes are structured, going back and forth until you're satisfied with the result. Also, read cookbooks that encourage you to think about how a dish is made; two that helped me were “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat"—as mentioned above—for understanding flavor, and “The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science” by J. Kenji López-Alt for cooking techniques explained through science.

When you begin to cook this way, there will be ups and downs. Like me and so many others learning to cook, you will under- and over-season food, burn some, and make unappetizing meals. But you’ll learn and improve. The most important thing is to stay curious and have fun. 

By Xavier Malizia

Twenty-eight games in four months. Almost three games every week. Practice on the other three days. Three AP classes. Seven periods. That was my second semester of junior year. My Thursdays were the most intense: AP Language and Composition from 8:40 to 10:10, AP US History from 10:15 to 11:45, then lunch, then AP Environmental Science—but wait, I had to leave class early to get ready for my 3:30 game against Lowell High School, the reigning city champs. Don’t even get me started on my four-hour-long AP Lang test on the exact same day as the City Championship at Oracle Park. Why was it that hard? 

Sure, I didn’t have to take three AP classes, but then maybe I wouldn’t have gotten into my dream school; I simply am not good enough to play college baseball at a college that would also fulfill my academic desires. 

As the captain of the ALHS Varsity Baseball Team, who also cares a lot about my academics, I find that the school system does a poor job of supporting student athletes in their pursuit of reaching their full potential in both academics and athletics because of a grueling schedule, lack of school support, and a distance between coaches and the school.

When someone asks me what the hardest part of being a student athlete is, the first thing that comes to my mind is the schedule. School starts at 8:40 , a reasonable time, and ends at 3:45, which, in my opinion, is far too late. For a sport like baseball, when taking into account travel time to a field and changing into uniform, practices usually don't start until 4:15- 4:30. Now, add a two to two-and-a-half hour practice, and athletes have a nearly 11-hour day just at school activities, not including hours of homework added on to that after we get home. 

What this schedule does is add an incredible amount of stress to student athletes, which affects both their abilities in the classroom and performance on the field. 

This is a contrast to a student athlete at Saint Ignatius, where they get off of school at 2:45 pm every day and practice at 3:30 pm, a whole hour earlier than us. In fact, we practice on the same field as SI’s freshman team, who either practice before us altogether or end shortly through our warmups. That extra time allows for less stress, more time off to rest, and more time for academics. 

On the public school side, Lowell High School also gives their student-athletes a free last period of the day to have more time for sports. That can be possible for students at Lincoln, but is mostly reserved for upperclassmen and is not a guarantee. 

These are just practice days. Games require early release, transportation, and a higher level of play and focus.

Secondly, support from the school side is seriously lacking. Students for the large part have to take initiative for all missing work, classes, and attendance. While this is a good and valuable life skill, it also poses lots of challenges for students. Very few tutoring resources are available for students, let alone student-athletes. The most common time student-athletes are told to make up work is during lunch, and while it is a time that students are usually free, in my opinion it is not a fair time to have to make up work. With an already long day that creates limited time to socialize, lunch becomes a very valuable time to hang out with friends amidst a busy schedule. Pair that with the fact that athletes need an especially high level of nutrition while performing at a high level, and making up work at lunch is really not a good idea.

I have a solution that would help all parties involved. Imagine an athlete-specific class (sort of like a study hall) that any student-athlete was guaranteed a spot in. It would be during the last few classes of the day, and provide benefits to all challenges student athletes face. The teacher would have a relatively small number of students and would be able to support the student-athletes. Tests and assignments could be made up during this class when needed, and when not, students could watch sports games, weightlift, or learn more about their sport. In addition, since it is towards the end of the day, it would be one fewer class that students would be behind in when missing. 

Further, I have had only a small handful of classes with my teammates, and an opportunity to interact with them more would give the opportunity to build team chemistry. The class could also help with college recruiting, help students get their physicals done, and be a place where students could store their gear during the day. The class could be structured as an elective, giving students the “G” credit towards graduation.

Finally, the disconnect between coaches and school has become, in my opinion, a big issue for student athletes. coaches, faculty, and administrators are not to blame in this issue. Finding dedicated coaches for high school-level sports is increasingly difficult. In order to build a strong program, it takes hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars, and incredible patience. High school coaches make only a couple thousand dollars for the entire year. With the amount of work they put in, that small sum of money is absolutely under the amount they deserve. In addition,with such a limited option of coaches, most coaches don’t actually work at the school they coach for. Out of the five Lincoln Baseball coaches, none of them work at the school themselves. What that does is creates a gap between the students and coaches. My coaches don't know what goes on at the school campus, can't hold their athletes accountable, and struggle to support the athletes academically. I love my coaches, and they are some of the most dedicated people I know, but I wish they worked here at Lincoln. I truly believe that it would help all of us academically and athletically. The ALHS volleyball program is doing incredible right now, and we can accredit a lot of that success to the coach, Vincent Tang, who is a full time P.E. teacher at Lincoln. This helps him recruit, train, and support his players to the best of their ability. 

The final issue, which is a bit separate from my central argument, yet I believe is too important to neglect, is that with the current SFUSD lottery system, athletes have no priority for what school they get into. While this might seem like it would equally distribute athletes throughout the cities, it creates two key problems. The most apparent is Lowell. For baseball especially, with their unique admissions process, Lowell admits many more athletes into their program due to their selective process that caters towards a higher percentage of athletes when compared to all other schools , which gives them an unfair advantage. 

Secondly, many schools have extremely poor programs that will ruin a player’s career and chances of success. Whether due to lack of enrollment, lack of coaching, or any other factors, the majority of high school teams are not competitive. I personally know athletes who are extremely talented, just stuck at schools where they have no chances of athletic success. This represents an overall trend in declining athletics in public schools. Most of the draw for athletes is to private schools, and the ones left in the public schools get concentrated at Lowell. For the baseball world, The two best teams are by far Lowell and Lincoln, with virtually every other team seriously behind, usually with one good player and the rest lacking skills. This leads to a myriad of issues for scheduling. For example, last year Lowell beat Balboa 21-0 and The Academy with the same score. That is not good for anyone. Lowell doesn’t get any better, and neither does the losing team. What that does is force schools like Lincoln and Lowell to play an increasing amount of out-of-league games against harder competition in order to train for the games against each other, to have a good shot in winning. Connecting this back to my central argument, this issue leads to a greater lack of support. When people see a score of 21-0, they don't want to go to that game. It’s boring, uncompetitive, and frankly sucks. Then that leaves the competitive games to be played out-of-league. SFUSD cut team buses three years ago, meaning that transportation is an issue. It also means that fans are highly unlikely to attend, adding to the lack of support. 

In conclusion, I love school; I love sports, but it is so incredibly hard for students to excel in both academics and athletics. I could not become the baseball player I want to be while also excelling in school, and that is the reality hundreds of kids face. Some prioritize sports, leading to a struggle in school. I wish that in the future, the school system could find a way to give student-athletes the support they need to excel at the highest level.