Graphic by Jack Landrigan
By Andy Goldberg, Matthew Gonzalez, Aron Korsunsky, and Yono Bulis
Pro Procrastinators
Two South Students selected for Olympic Bobsled team:
Sophomores Max Marrinan and Michael Gaffney were selected to represent the USA in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and will take part in the bobsled event.
Marrinan has been bobsledding since he was eight months old, and Gaffney has been bobsledding since he was 117 months old.
Marrinan and Gaffney were watching the PyeongChang Olympics at Chili’s this past Thursday when suddenly bobsledding came on.
This inspired Marrinan and Gaffney to politely ask Team USA’s bobsled coach if they could represent the USA in the 2022 Olympics and he said yes. Thus, that’s where their journey began.
Gaffney and Marrinan walked over to the training facility in Buffalo, New York and were greeted by interim manager Vince Wilfork, who is running the facility for the duration of the Olympics.
Wilfork provided Gaffney with a hug, but only extended a polite handshake to Marrinan. This angered Marrinan, who proceeded to not speak to Wilfork or Gaffney for the remainder of the day.
That night, Gaffney and Marrinan were shown to their dorm room in the training facility, which had only one twin bed and a wooden chair.
After Gaffney reserved bed, leaving Marrinan to sleep on either the floor or the chair, Marrinan had had enough at that point, and used the wooden chair to break down the door to Wilfork’s dorm.
Wilfork was caught red-handed playing Pokemon White, the worst installment in the Pokemon series, on his Nintendo DS, but he had bigger issues when Marrinan threw a flying kick at his head.
Luckily for Wilfork, Marrinan missed and kicked a hole in the wall. After the dust cleared, somehow Marrinan, Wilfork, and Gaffney found themselves playing a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos while watching Full House.
Wilfork stated that the trio had made up and became best buddies. Hopefully, this new friendship shows up in 2022 when Gaffney and Marrinan attempt to lead Team USA to the gold.
Academy Award winner Keren Kohane, a star of South’s hit play, “She Kills Monsters,” summarizes the play:
Agnes, a 25 year old teacher whose younger sister, Tilly, a nerd, is interested in Dungeons and Dragons. On the night of her student graduation, Agnes wishes her life was less boring, but because of this wish, her family and Tilly die in car crash.
Five years later, she cleans out Tilly’s room and finds a Dungeons and Dragons module, and asks Chuck, a high school student, about it. While learning more about Tilly’s life before her abrupt death, Agnes realizes that she really did not know her sister while she was alive, and embraces the “Nerd World.”
Our Artistic Interim Development Specialist, Aron Korsunsky, gives his take on the confusing play:
This play is an English teacher’s coveted fantasy. There are symbols galore and not a spoken word goes by without you thinking “hmmm, have I done enough in this world as I’m thinking about this?”
To start off, the protagonist’s name, Agnes, comes from the Greek word agnezious, which comes from the other Greek word agnek, which comes from the Latin root nek which comes from the Chinese word 数 which comes from the Italian drawing of a horse.
In the old days, the horse was considered smart in Italy, just as Agnes embraces Tilly’s “nerd-like” world.
Countdown of the Week: Top 5 Winter Olympic Sports
5. Hockey
There’s nothing more exciting than good ol’ fashioned justice. In hockey, after committing an offense against an opposing team, the player is punished by being sentenced to a two-minute waiting period in the penalty box.
This punishments sounds like nothing, but it is during the game, forcing the team to make up for the player’s foolish act.
The penalty box prison experience unfortunately does not top Scandinavian prisons, but it is by far better than the rest of the world’s prisons.
Additionally, NHL players were not allowed to go to the PyeongChang Olympics to play hockey, so this is bound to be the most exciting tournament in a while, featuring no-name players, washed-up retired players, and more no-name players. Brilliant job NHL!
4. Bagel-Eating Contest
This event is an absolute classic. Since the first Winter Olympics (1540 B.C.) held in Oakland, California, the Bagel-Eating Contest has been a staple in each Winter Games.
Some iconic moments through the years include Pavel Pavelek’s “4 bagels at once” in 1910, Dwight Schrute’s “consumption of the masses” (finished 15 bagels in first minute of challenge) in 2024, and Fionn O’Connor’s “Comeback for the ages” in 1492, in which Campbell was down by 16 bagels going into the final five minutes and went off on the competition as he downed six pumpernickels, eight sesame seeds, and 11 asiagos while previous leader Meatlegs Johnson passed out upon seeing Campbell down the first three pumpernickels.
One demographic minority stands high above others in this event; the Apache tribal reservation bears. Competing under the United States flag at each Winter Olympic Games since 1100 (B.C), they have won 78 of the last 103 Bagel-Eating Contests.
No one has more to prove against them than Israel as legend has it that legendary bagel-eater Chaim Shlapkes downed 293 bagels in a sitting. Ever since then, Israel never regained its form and continues to lose important area battles against the Bears.
3. Figure Skating
Figure skating is super fun to watch, has a fair scoring system that definitely isn’t based off opinion, and definitely isn’t just different people attempting the same tricks over and over again.
What sets figure skating apart from the other sports is the hot buffet prepared for athletes before and after their events. Before the skaters go for their routines, they can enjoy a three-course meal consisting of a delicious sesame seed appetizer, a wonderful braised duck entree, and a delectable dessert artfully named “Casablanca.”
After their routines are over, skaters who finished in the top 10 are greeted with Kraft mac and cheese, dried out salami, and a shrimp cocktail, whereas skaters who did not fare so well are sent home with a pat on the back, a stout “get’em next time sport,” and a warm non-alcoholic Bud Light, handed to them by Bud Knight’s cousin Jeff.
2. Chowder Dodgeball
There’s two stages of chowder dodgeball. The first stage is a chowder cook-off between nations as chef-athlete hybrids compete to create the world’s best chowder in a 40-minute time period.
When the dust clears, only one chowder is deemed best and that chowder secures the gold, but the other nations have to fight it out in a dodgeball tournament for the silver and bronze.
Instead of balls, the competitors have to throw bowls of their unworthy chowders at their opponents.
Finland always has an automatic by to the finals of the dodgeball tournament, so they cannot go without a medal in the event unless they get disqualified. This travesty actually happened once, where Rusti Pellix of Finland poured tabasco sauce in the Azerbaijanian team’s chowder.
Ironically, this propelled Azerbaijan to win the cook-off, securing the gold, their 749th. Finland was kicked out of the competition, and Rusti Pellix was sentenced to 74 years in prison with a possibility of parole after 25 days.
1. Ice Karate
Let’s just be honest. Featuring legendary athletes like Bruce Lee, Sensei Rudy, and George W. Bush, Ice Karate grew to fame as a sport around the time of the Big Bang. Shortly after, Ice Karate was installed as an Olympic sport.
Competitors are assessed based on three categories: Kicks, Chops, and Undercover Cops. The Kicks category is first, as 48 competitors ranging from countries across the world stand in a line with a block of ice in front of them.
The task is simple. Last 24 people to kick the block of ice are eliminated and when 24 competitors remain, the chop stage begins.
Each competitor must go through an obstacle course in which they must karate chop a slab of ice, eat four pork chops, and karate chop a head of iceberg lettuce.
The eight fastest times advance and these eight competitors face off in the final stage: Undercover Cops.
Each competitor is flown to a random US state, and they are given a pair of sunglasses and a pair of overalls.
The competitors must convince a random person that they are an undercover cop, then take them to the police station. However, in one of the better pranks to ever be created, they actually just bring them to the closest McDonald’s and force feed them a stale McRib.
The competitors must rush to the airport and fly back to the Olympics as soon as they complete this task, and when they purchase the tickets, they must utter the words “Trae Young is overrated” or they are disqualified from the competition.
Mail from Our Readers:
Hey Weekly Update,
I’ve been hiding a secret for a while now, and I’m just gonna go ahead and say it. I’m addicted to cat food. Whether it’s ingesting it clean, swallowing each individual piece of “Purina Fancy Feast” or injecting it straight into my lungs via 5 inch needle, I cannot stop. Every night, I tell myself I’m gonna stop, but the next morning I wake up to find myself unable to stop. My cat, Mrs. Meowsers, is beginning to claw at me each time I come towards the food. How do I stop myself?
Sincerely yours,
Anonymous Student
Hey Anonymous Student,
We suggest consuming as much dog food as you consume cat food. Due to the fact that dogs are the opposite of cats, it will cancel out and you will no longer be addicted. This is due to PEMDAS.
Best,
Weekly Update
Shoutout of the Week:
This week’s shoutout of the week goes to junior Jack Tumpowsky! On Friday D-block, the last period of the week before break, Mr. Joel Stembridge was taking over the class in order to give the history midyear.
Jack refused to force himself through the grueling midyear and he harnessed Satyagraha, or Truth-force, a powerful way to protest created and used by Gandhi.
Through silent protests, Jack led all of his classmates to not answer a single question during the history midyear, except their name, date and block.
While the class average did drop to around the failing range, the students headed into February break content with the warm fuzzy feeling one gets when doing something passionate with others.
