This week, Seniors shared a few of their favorite things with the Arts & Leisure section.

Diana Reiss

Favorite…

• Color: Any shade of blue!
• Book: Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger 
• Song: “The Only Living Boy in New York” by Simon & Garfunkel 
• Art Piece: Mulholland Drive by David Hockney
• Time at Hotchkiss: The beginning of fall is the best feeling on campus!

Lucy Haswell

Favorite…

• Color: Lilac
• Book: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Song: “Watch” by Billie Eilish
• Art Piece: Primavera by Sandro Botticelli
• Time at Hotchkiss: The Spring Holiday

Deb Adeyemi

Favorite…

• Color: Blue
• Book: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (don’t really have one but this is the best one I’ve read this year)
• Song: “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire
• Art Piece: Pixar Short Film Day and Night
• Time at Hotchkiss: Spring Holiday last year

Mitra Kardestuncer

Favorite…

• Color: Pink
• Book: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• Song: “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd
• Art Piece: Poppy Field by Claude Monet
• Time at Hotchkiss: All of it

Elexis Diaz

Favorite…

• Color: Yellow
• Book: The Awakening by Charlotte Bronte
• Song: “Flesh without Blood” by Grimes 
• Art Piece: Pandora’s Box by Rene Magritte
• Time at Hotchkiss: When student activities organized a dance party in a pit of foam for the student body during my Prep year. 

Luke Kalaydijan

Favorite…

• Color: Sunshine yellow. Unfortunately, I cannot pull it off though, so you’ll never see me wearing it.
• Book: Definitely The World According to Garp by John Irving. It tells the entire life-story of a boarding school wrestler who becomes a writer. A brutal and honest book… I highly recommend it.
• Song: I’m sorry… I’m putting three: “Pretty Girl” by Clairo, “Last Day On Earth” by Los Retros, and “Looking Out for You” by Joy Again.
• Art Piece: Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Greatest film ever. Harrison Ford drives like 12 different vehicles throughout the movie, including a horse vs. tank scene.
• Time at Hotchkiss: Probably Camp Hotchkiss – that two-three week period right at the beginning when everyone is so excited and pumped up to be together. If not then, I’d have to say wrestling season. All of it.

Kostia Howard

Favorite…

• Color: Red
• Book: Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle 
• Song: “Alice in Wonderland” by Charles Mingus 
• Art Piece: I’m really proud of what we were able to put together with SMS this year. It was by far the best musical production I’ve worked on at Hotchkiss, and the performance was a fitting way to spend what turned out to be my last night on campus.
• Time at Hotchkiss: Springtime –  when campus comes back to life and people care less about their work and more about spending time with each other – this is the best time at Hotchkiss.

Jennifer Li

Favorite…

• Color: This isn’t a color, more of a shade, but my favorite color is gray. I like yellow too.
• Book: The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak
• Song: It changes with time but my current favorite is “Tusa” by Karol G.
• Art Piece: My Lower Mid year humanities final project for visual art. It was a boxed self-portrait of myself which showed the relationship between humans and nature. The portrait consisted of two layers that created an illusion of depth between the layers. Using an X-Acto knife, I took hours to carve out sections from both layers in order to make the second layer visible under the first one. The end result was amazing and earned a National Gold Medal from the Scholastics Arts & Writing Awards. 
• Time at Hotchkiss: My favorite time at Hotchkiss was going down to the lake in the middle of classes with my friend while it was frozen. It was the first time that I heard ice “moan” as it cracked and melted, and it was a beautiful sound.

YY Cher

Favorite…

• Color: Green
• Book: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick
• Song: “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay
• Art Piece: Starry Night by Van Gogh
• Time at Hotchkiss: Snack bar/the lake

Jiahua Chen

Favorite…

• Color: I suppose I have to say Hotchkiss Blue. Otherwise it’s probably yellow-green.
• Book: Recently – “Go Home,” an anthology of short stories.
• Song: (I have to go with an album sorry) All This Bad Blood by Bastille
• Art Piece: (I’m assuming at Hotchkiss) My own – the chicken. Someone else’s – that tree outside of Walker.
• Time at Hotchkiss: When there was a spring day in March last year and it felt so good. Also went out to Millerton that day. Then it snowed again…

Billy Burns

Favorite…

• Color: Blue
• Book: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• Song: “Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits
• Art Piece: My favorite production at Hotchkiss was Fuddy Meers directed by Zayba Qamar. It was fun to watch a combination of my theatre classmates, ex-cast mates, and people I had never known as actors come together in the Black Box and put on a fantastic hour and a half performance.
• Time at Hotchkiss: Watching The Conjuring with Rock Zhu, Mr. Drake and some other people one Saturday night in VS during my Upper Mid year.