When 260 teenagers are put in one Zoom call for a talent show, you get a lot of lag, a lot of spamming, a lot of deep concern for people’s life choices, and, of course, a lot of talent. There was a broad range of performances, some funny, some beautiful, and some just downright confusing. For example, you tell me why three boys decided to destroy their taste buds by chugging a solid two-thirds of a cup of tomato sauce.
Actually, let’s start with that act, just like the talent show did.
What an opening!
On our screens were three brave young men, pouring tomato sauce, not the juice, the sauce that you would put on pizza, into a plastic cup. Then, on the count of three, they went for it, tilting the glass back and gulping the thing like it was some sort of drinking contest. By some miracle, two of them had finished by the 10 second mark, while the last one took five more seconds after that. But, 10 seconds!! I can’t drink a glass of water in 10 seconds!
I have to say, though, that the highlight of the act might have been the aftermath. One of the tomato-sauce-drinkers started chugging water right away, and the other two looked like they were regretting every decision in their life that had led up to that point. Truly, I wonder if these three will be consuming anything tomato any time soon.
The performances that followed were relatively conventional for a talent show, including singing, dancing, instrumentals, and mixed media. Kaede wowed the audience with her beautiful voice during her “Once Upon a December Night” performance. Professor Sallie Corbin certainly left an impression, dancing on stilts to “Together Apart” (a student in the COSMOS Student Discord wondered what it would be like to run after children in them while another said they hoped the kids wouldn’t get run over). Professor Peter Weiss brought his guitar and performed a clever song from his album (with backup dancers) to raise both the general mood and awareness about the threats faced by river and sea otters. The night ended with a cheerful and creative “Under the Sea” mixed media video performance from Cluster 8.
There was singing, dancing, cheering, kudos, and laughter all around. Although it is true that we didn’t take up the full time and ended just around 8:20 PM, I think I can confidently say that all 260 of us in attendance learned a little more about our fellow students at COSMOS: about the hobbies, talents, and personalities of our peers. Of course, there were tech issues (quite a few of them), but we worked through them, as we do so often during online learning. As they say, “all’s well that ends well,” and this splendid showcase sure ended on a wonderful note.
If nothing else, we learned that there are people in this world brave enough to sing, dance, perform, and chug tomato sauce in front of an audience. (And maybe the moderators learned that allowing 260 high schoolers access to open Zoom chat wasn’t the smartest idea if they didn’t want “W” spammed for 5 minutes straight).
After all, as someone so wisely pointed out after the show, “they put 260 teens together at a mandatory talent show and expected us NOT to troll.” - April Zuo
Karaoke Night
After three hard weeks of constant lectures and a final project due date looming overhead, who would not like to have some fun? Yes, even the hardworking COSMOS students would like some recreation. Well, at Karaoke Night, there were some nice songs sung by everyone, solos and duets included. While many songs sung were nice pop songs or movie soundtracks that we all love, there were two Chinese songs, namely “Tong Hua” and “Xiao Ping Guo” (“Fairytale” and “Little Apple'' in English). All performances were simply fantastic, as many beautifully sang songs that required huge vocal ranges! After many solos, duets, and group performances, we all sang “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction. Even though it was virtual, I think we all enjoyed this night, as the music kept us all wide awake. Finally, I just have to thank Sean Melone and several COSMOS students for hosting this wonderful night. This would not have happened without him and us students. - Zhihao Qi
Cluster Lunches
You know the people in your cluster. You spend the day together, confused about the lecture. You share funny memes. And more recently, you cram your final projects together.
All in all, we’ve bonded with our cluster mates across the past four weeks.
But, Cluster 8 has taken it a step further by having cluster lunches, which take place every Friday and are hosted by our Teacher Fellow, Lindsay Shimasaki!
Our first cluster lunch started awkwardly. There’s no instruction manual on how to eat on Zoom while still looking presentable. Especially if you’re eating noodles. (Never doing that again.) But Lindsay managed to get the conversation flowing.
She asked us to chase down our pets and introduce them. We got to meet everyone’s dogs, cats, fish, and even rats! Several of us bonded over our dogs’ inability to go up stairs.
We managed to meet everyone’s pets just before class started. Yes! Saved from awkward social interaction!
Week 2 brought around another cluster lunch. But, we had a better game plan. Per my request, our cluster agreed to play Gartic Phone. In Gartic Phone, players write sentences, another player must draw the sentence, and the next must describe the sentence. Several cycles are repeated causing the sentences and drawings to become more and more distorted (and much funnier too!)
All of us started writing wacky sentences like “the quick orca swam fast” and “a pelican with too many fish in its mouth.” We were silent as we drew, concentrating on creating masterpieces.
Twenty or so minutes later, we had completed the cycle, and it was time to look through them. Everyone unmuted so we could laugh together.
Instantly we were cracking up. There were some standout artists like Alanna Magers and Victoria Setiawan. Unfortunately, some of us had subpar drawing skills. (In my defense, it’s hard to draw on a laptop). Our already wacky sentences had become more and more warped producing pure chaos. With just 2 minutes to spare, we viewed the last drawing and headed to our afternoon lecture with beaming smiles.
In Week 3, us students were the ones rallying behind cluster lunch. So, we grabbed some food and logged onto Zoom. As we waited for our clustermates to arrive, we talked about potatoes, mangos, and the Cheeto-colored COSMOS t-shirt. (In case you were wondering, Cluster 8 really likes food.)
Just like the previous week, we played Gartic Phone. And since we are all marine biologists, all of the phrases were ocean-themed. (Except for Eshna Kulshreshtha’s “dancing chickens on a potato farm”). Our game of Gartic Phone ran slightly overtime, so we got to show Dr. Shawn Noren our outstanding drawings! She got a good laugh out of them and asked to play at our next meeting! Looking back on our COSMOS experience, Cluster 8 has gotten extraordinarily close by surviving a necropsy together, performing in the talent show together, and of course, having cluster lunches. This Friday we had our last cluster lunch as COSMOS students, but we look forward to many more as COSMOS alumni. - Sharis Hsu