Irza Waraich – Managing Editor

Favorite Albums: “The Art of Loving” and “Love letters”

Of all of the artists I discovered this year, Olivia Dean is one I’m so glad to have come across. Her album “The Art of Loving,” captures the spirit of someone who simply loves love and finds a way to romanticize anything. My favorite song in the album is “A Couple of Minutes,” a slow, vibey song about wanting closure in her past relationships. “Loud” is another track that makes one stop to just cherish the melancholic lyrics. Dean may be a new artist in my personal playlist, but she’s been acing this genre for years.

“Love Letters” by Saint Levant, whose real name is Marwan Abdelhamid, is another album that I grew addicted to this summer while exploring multiple Arab artists. “Kalamantina” is the most addicting track on the album, and  had many different TikTok trends surrounding it and even prompted a collaboration with Huda Beauty to make an orange flavored lip gloss. Abdelhamid’s songs about love and Arab identity in this album truly stand out with lyrics that are a mix of English, French and Arabic.

Reagan Rawner – Advertising Director

Favorite Book: “Self-Portraits” by Osamu Dazai

“Self-Portraits” is like if you took all of Dazai’s writing throughout his books and put a little bit of it across a number of short-form stories. The book explores themes very present in Dazai’s life, like addiction, suicide, homelessness and the effects of World War II on Japan. I found how honest Dazai is about his depravity throughout the book and how he doesn’t shy away from writing about his lowest lows very interesting.

 Favorite Album: “The New Abnormal”

This album by The Strokes was my most listened to album of the year, and that can definitely be attributed to my love for the Mets and how much I like the songs “The Adults Are Talking” and “Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus.” “The New Abnormal” is one of my very few no-skip albums. All of the songs are very cohesive and sound like they’re from the same album, but they have very different moods, so they’re all around my playlists. I’m also a little biased toward The Strokes since they’re from New York City. 

Favorite Song: “House Tour”

I love how silly and unserious Sabrina Carpenter made this song. All the innuendos are interesting, and finding all of them made the first few listens extremely interesting. I think there should be more music that’s just silly and sounds good.

Favorite Movie: “The Warriors” 

My parents showed me “The Warriors” earlier this year, and I haven’t stopped forcing people to watch it since. The costumes for the different gangs are all so funny and not at all functional. I love that they’re constantly taking trains that do not go to the places they’re trying to go. It is a very silly and enjoyable late 70s movie. 

Favorite Show: “Solar Opposites” season 6

The Wall is the best part of the show, and I enjoy how it ended. 

Favorite Trend: Labubus 

How to identify a real Labubu: A key way to tell if your Labubu is a fake is to count the number of teeth it has; a genuine Labubu has nine teeth. You can also tell by looking at the Labubu’s skin tone; a Labubu should have a peachy skin tone with blush on the cheeks above the smile. A genuine Labubu will seem like it’s looking at you if you’re looking into its eyes; it will also have a stamp on its foot that says Pop Mart. 

Richard Wen – Graphics Editor

Favorite album: “Hurry Up Tomorrow”

I really enjoyed listening to The Weeknd’s album “Hurry Up Tomorrow.” According to my Spotify Wrapped, I listened to it for 4,633 minutes. THAT’S A LOOONGGG TIME!!!! The album itself and Abel’s vocals were always so soothing to me and I loved the instrumentals so much. Every single song was a BANGER and listening to the entire album for the first time was such an immersive experience. The Weeknd was my top artist this year and honestly, I’m not surprised. His music says a lot about his character and personal struggles which he was able to convey  into one album. 

Jumaane Millette – Photography Editor

Favorite video game: Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut

“Slay the Princess” is a beautifully crafted visual novel where almost every single choice you make will have influence on what happens. Its pencil sketch art, voice acting for every line and great soundtrack kept me hooked.

Most importantly, “Slay the Princess” is a game with high replayability; one playthrough will leave you craving to see every ending possible. 

I was introduced to the game a while back by my brother and it sat on my wish list until I finally decided to purchase it — and I don’t regret my purchase.

Josephine Lau – Copy Chief

Favorite book: “Four Thousand Weeks”

I picked up a copy of “Four Thousand Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman in the middle of my graduate school applications, a highly stressful period filled with research on different programs and repackaging my personal statements for different schools. It was with this book’s guidance, which felt like a slap in the face at times, that I realized something: everything I needed to get done wouldn’t be done in just one day, no matter how much I wanted to be done with them and no matter how quickly the deadlines marched closer. “Four Thousand Weeks” is an exceptional wakeup call for anyone feeling overwhelmed by endless to-do lists and tasks. It touches on topics like finitude, rest and productivity, patience, the art of letting things unfold uninterrupted, procrastination and my personal favorite: Cosmic Insignificance Therapy.

More importantly, Burkeman’s writing is anything but bland. There’s always something new to learn from a new philosopher, ancient or modern, in each chapter, and insights are often paired with an anecdote from Burkeman. A human’s lifespan averages only 4,000 weeks, but I hope this book, should you choose to read it, will be worth every second.

Karizma Jernigan – News Editor

Favorite Show: “My Life with the Walter Boys”

Before the semester got stressful, I picked up “My Life With the Walter Boys” again. I watched the initial season when it came out in 2023 and I loosely remembered the ending, so I felt no need to rewatch. The recap given at the start was able to summarize everything well enough to jog my memory. Honestly, the show is super corny and the plot is very cliché, but I’m a sucker for those kinds of things. I haven’t finished season two yet because…life…and I’m honestly team Cole, but Ms. Jackie still doesn’t know what she wants. I don’t blame her. The show focuses primarily on Jackie Howard, a girl who moves from New York City to Colorado to live with her mother’s best friend and her ten sons (the Walter boys). After Jackie suffers a major tragedy, she has to adjust to life in the mountain state as she navigates grief, growing feelings and being a teenager.

Joonwoo Kim – Opinions Editor

Favorite song: “Now or Never”

Tkandz – “Now or Never” is probably my favorite song this year. It’s definitely overused in edits, but I don’t care. I listen to it when I go to the gym or go on a run. Every time I hear it, it pushes me to go just a little bit harder to exhaustion, which is exactly what I need. Perfect hype song. Any song that gets you off the couch and ready to fight is a banger; this is a banger.

Zoe Del Percio-Evans – Arts & Culture Editor

Favorite Book Series: “The Hunger Games”

While this wasn’t the first time I’ve read the series, I had to reread the entire thing this year in preparation for the newest book in the series “Sunrise on the Reaping.” I give this series the credit for getting me into reading in the first place when I was in my early teens and I also give it much of the credit for making me want to become an author. 

In my many rereads of this series I always loved it like it was the first time, always crying even though I knew exactly what was about to happen, but this year was largely different. Now as an adult reading some of the other books that inspired certain story arcs such as George Orwell’s “1984” and William Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus,” I have so much more appreciation for this series than I thought I could ever have. 

I told myself at the beginning of this year that I had to get on a dystopian novel reading grind just because I needed something scarier to read than the news. I reread all three original books and the one prequel in less than a month, lining me up perfectly for a midnight book release for “Sunrise on the Reaping.” I dreaded getting to the end of this book. Every chapter had me taking a break just because there was so much going on between getting to know older characters from the original series and brutal tragedies. This was the first ever “Hunger Games” book I had to take my time to finish because of the state it had put me in. 

I think Suzanne Collins is a literary genius. Despite being books rated for young adults, as I grow older the books just feel darker because of all the hidden little details that snake throughout the books that I simply couldn’t catch as a teenager. I’m really hoping the movie releasing next year for this book does it justice, and if it doesn’t, you will be reading about it.

Favorite Artists: Laufey and Sabrina Carpenter

I wasn’t surprised when Laufey and Sabrina Carpenter showed up as my top two artists in my Spotify Wrapped for this year. Carpenter has always been one of my favorite artists ever since her 2022 album “emails i can’t send” and her Maya character in “Girl Meets World” happened to always be my favorite growing up. She represents both childhood nostalgia and adulthood chaos for me. This year I was finally lucky enough to see her in concert. Despite being in a happy and stable relationship, my boyfriend and I had the time of our lives singing about questionable relationships and toxic men. 

Laufey tends to properly reflect the more romantic side of my life, although I discovered her more recently in relation to Carpenter. By her classical training, Laufey instantly puts me in this extremely vulnerable setting as I spent almost the entirety of my childhood training to become a professional ballerina, even performing multiple times at the Metropolitan Opera House. Listening to her songs puts me in an emotional state, leading to me crying multiple times when seeing her live in October. Laufey has meant so much to me this past year as I’ve really spent time getting to know myself and just growing my relationship overall, that when my boyfriend and I found a stray kitten, I named her “Misty” from Laufey’s 2024 “Bewitched” album.