Staff

Freshman Aarushi Rohatgi is an active Girl Scout who is completing her Silver Award. She has an older brother, Ashwin, who attends Country Day. In her spare time, she enjoys practicing piano, baking desserts and reading. But her favorite thing to do is play with her dog, Cuddles, who recently turned five years old and still loves to bark. Contact at arohatgi24@scdsstudent.org.

Adam Akins is a junior working as a first-year staffer hailing from the swamps of everyone's favorite port city: Norfolk, Virginia. He is super fun to hang out with, totally, he’s sure of it. In his free time, he poorly juggles playing three instruments and is eyeing three more. He yells too much at soccer games and is too quiet in almost every other environment, which he hopes to fix this year as he adds more fun activities. Contact him at aakins23@scdsstudent.org

Freshman Alex Zinn is 14 and has attended Country Day since kindergarten. Having grown up so close to the mountains, Zinn loves action sports such as mountain biking and snowboarding. One of Zinn’s most impressive talents is being able to both snowboard and ski (not at the same time unfortunately). When not doing those two things he enjoys being a regular teenager: sleeping in late, playing video games and hanging out with friends. Zinn joined The Octagon because he thought it would be fun and interesting. Zinn is excited for high school and becoming a reporter for The Octagon. You can contact him at @azinn25@scdsstudent.org

Contact at aburr25@scdsstudent.org.

“Senior Arijit Trivedi has returned from his excursion to Mars, where he successfully planted a pineapple plant,” wrote senior online co-editor-in-chief Arijit Trivedi as he reclined in his weathered Ikea chair — he had a particular hankering for pineapples. “Arijit spends his time thinking about that one time he ran out of a dark room so fast he smacked into a wall in the hallway.” No...that wouldn’t be the best information to put in his staff bio. Besides, using “spends his time thinking about” was a full step toward cringeworthy. Arijit got up and went to his kitchen to dine on some pineapple. There he found his dog, Cosmo, eating pineapple on the table. It was an odd occurrence to most people for sure, but Arijit was used to it — his mom would regularly serve Cosmo fruit as he sat on the dining chair during supper. A look into the fridge confirmed Arijit’s suspicions: the last of the pineapple was currently being transported to his dog’s belly. Arijit snapped his fingers, clucked his tongue and returned to his desk to finish his bio. Spoiler alert: he— Contact at arijtrivedi22@scdsstudent.org.

Without Netflix and her two dogs, senior Arikta Trivedi would probably be bored out of her mind. When her dog isn’t keeping her busy, she fills her time being on the Student Council. She’s been on campus since third grade and has spent most of her time procrastinating, which is her favorite activity. While procrastinating, she likes to watch her favorite show, “Grey’s Anatomy.” Contact at ariktrivedi22@scdsstudent.org

Senior Arjin Claire has attended Country Day since kindergarten and is in his fourth year on the Octagon. He is an avid soccer player and enjoys watching “Liverpool FC.” Arjin loves reading, spending time with family and friends, playing video games, drawing, celebrating Christmas and sleeping. Arjin is also a passionate “Harry Potter” fan and would love to discuss the series with anyone. Contact at aclaire22@scdsstudent.org.

Contact at aeberhart25@scdsstudent.org.

Sophomore Callister Misquitta has been attending Country Day since his freshman year. He spends his winter skiing on the weekends with his family. He’s your go to person to talk about anything skiing or snowboarding related. When he isn’t skiing, you can find him practicing the piano or playing with his friends. Every morning he goes on runs to ensure that he’s ready for cross country and track. Contact at cmisquitta23@scdsstudent.org.

Dylan James Margolis is a junior at the ripe age of 17. This is his fourth year reporting for the Octagon. He is a pretty big fan of “Star Wars.” He correctly predicted the return of Endor in episode 9. Lastly, Dylan always has the best story ideas and should get points for all of them. Contact at dmargolis22@scdsstudent.org.

Junior Elise Sommerhaug has been attending SCDS since fourth grade. She has participated in the Octagon since freshman year, starting out as a writer but moving to photography one year later. She enjoys playing volleyball and the violin inside and outside of school. Contact at esommerhaug21@scdssrudent.org.

When not at the pool or in school, freshman Emily Asperger loves eating and scrolling through Tik Tok. She has attended Country Day for seven years and is a first-year Octagon staffer. She swims competitively year round and has a passion for eating ice cream. She enjoys playing the violin and walking her two dogs. She is definitely still trying to figure out high school. Contact at easperger23@scdsstudent.org

Senior Emily Cook is a page editor for the Octagon. She enjoys playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, all while waiting impatiently for the next Marvel project to release. She likes writing feature and opinion stories. Her goals for the year are to figure out how to get accepted to college and wake up when her alarm rings without sleeping through it. Contact her via email at emilycook23@scdsstudent.org.

As the sun rises on her last year of high school, senior Emma Boersma has slowly become less flesh and blood and more ice cream and coffee. Also — fun fact — she has used that same gross pencil case since she found it on the ground in Staples in sixth grade. One can often find her correcting people who pronounce La Croix like “Lah Kur-Oi,” promoting her YouTube channel, and defending the Oxford comma. Contact at eboersma20@scdsstudent.org.

Eric Lechpammer is a freshman at Country Day who pretends to know what he’s doing. He makes editorial cartoons for the Octagon. He has a younger sibling named Laura (age 8) who also attends Country Day. When he isn’t in class or spending time with his friends, he can be found drawing, participating in Mock Trial, playing video games, running long distances or having long conversations with his cats. Contact at elechpammer23@scdsstudent.org

Senior Ethan Monasa loves his four cats. He has full-on conversations with them — they can totally understand him! Legend has it that he crochets little mittens and hats for his cats and sits with them by the fireplace feeding them way too many treats. Sleeping without a cat snuggling against him? He would never! What’s that you say? He’s a crazy cat lady? How dare you! If you ever want some cat pictures, contact at emonasa22@scdsstudent.org

Much to his adviser’s dismay, junior Garman Xu enjoys engaging in self-destructive schedules and is a renowned gold medalist of juggling too many activities to count. He is slowly progressing on his journey from being a “jack of all trades, master of none” to his ultimate goal of being a Renaissance Man. If he is not in a rambling mess studying for classes, he can be seen practicing the piano and drawing (very Renaissance, yes). In his free time, Garman also likes to play video games, binge-watch anime, and write autobiographies. Contact at gxu23@scdsstudent.org

Contact at gxu25@sccdsstudent.org.

Senior Héloïse Schep is a trilingual Dutch expat and stressed out by relaxing. Thus, she’s a four-year member of the Octagon and the Glass Knife; a Mock Trial team captain; the vice president of the a capella club; a member of the Robotics and Book clubs and too many others; and an amateur coder and astrologist. She loves teaching, taking copy-editing quizzes, designing pages and using semicolons. Contact at hschep20@scdsstudent.org.

This is senior Hermione Xian’s third year at Country Day and second year on the Octagon. She is addicted to Japanese anime, enjoys collecting cute anime figures and loves taking photos. Seemingly quiet and poker-faced, she always has weird and interesting photo ideas to share. She looks forward to contributing good stories and learning page design. Contact at hxian21@scdsstudent.org

Contact at isekhon24@scdsstudent.org.

It’s senior Jackson Crawford’s ninth year at Country Day and second year on the Octagon. He has a younger brother, Peyton, and sister, Makena, who also attend Country Day. He enjoys playing sports, hanging out with friends and waiting until the last minute to finish that paper that was assigned three months ago (just in case someone dare finish it early). However, his patented technique is not for sale. Contact at jcrawford20@scdsstudent.org.

Junior Jacob Chand will be spending his 13th year at Country Day, dedicating his life to the best newspaper in California. When he’s not writing stories or being nagged by the editors-in-chief on why he’s not working, Jacob enjoys what every other 16-year-old boy likes to do — studying for APs and preparing for Mock Trial. Fair warning, meeting Jacob in person may lead you to be swept off your feet due to his insane grammar and writing skills. Contact him at jchand23@scdsstudent.org if you want any tips.

Jonah David (aka “Mr. President”) is going into his second year at Country Day and first year in the Octagon. In his spare time out of office, he enjoys flexing his video game skills and building computers and keyboards for the ultimate gaming experience. You might even see him on or off-campus running or frolicking on the field. Otherwise, you can find him in the basketball gym dribbling or watching rom-coms or superhero movies. He hopes he can be the next Tony Stark or some other type of “genius billionaire playboy philanthropist” (Tony Stark, The Avengers). Contact at jdavid23@scdsstudent.org

Kali Wells is a senior — hopefully graduating with the class of 2022. No, she’s not related to Brooke Wells. Also, please just ask before petting her hair, it’s starting to get weird. She’s been successfully not-drowning (also known as swimming) for about seven years. She likes to punch people in the face during MMA fights but usually freaks out if she thinks she hurt them. Her obsession with anime has driven her to utter madness. Please send help. While many have tried, nobody has been able to hold her attention for more than 45 seconds at a time. On that note, good luck contacting her at kwells22@scdsstudent.org.

Freshman Katie Espinoza is starting her first year on the Octagon, social distancing. When she’s not drowning in schoolwork, she spends her time bullet-journaling, watching “Avatar: The Last Airbender” on Netflix and drawing. Katie is a full-time K-pop stan, and will gladly argue with you if you make fun of it. She also hopes that her freshman year won’t burn to shreds like 2020 has so far. Contact at kespinoza@scdsstudent.org

Senior Larkin Barnard-Bahn enjoys singing — both in the a cappella club she founded and in the Sacramento Children’s Chorus — baking and finding grammar and spelling mistakes. Such errors in professional situations — such as Planet Fitness’ unhyphenated compound adjective in its “judgment free zone” marketing — are her pet peeves. Her favorite punctuation is the em dash — it’s clear and powerful! Contact at lbarnard-bahn20@scdsstudent.org.

Contact at llu24@scdsstudent.org.

Miles Morrow is a senior at Country Day and a fourth-year Octagon staffer. This is his 14th year at Country Day. In his free time, Miles enjoys playing Minecraft with his friends. His summer consisted of travel and sports and a lot of relaxing and video games — because that’s what it’s for, right? Miles is nervous and excited for his senior year. Contact at mmorrow22@scdsstudent.org.

Senior Ming Zhu enjoys snowboarding, ten-, oh, wait, none of this is going to be possible, huh. To prevent crying from depression in quarantine, Zhu plays video games, records clarinet and continues to try new things as quarantine slowly pushes him to insanity. He is interested in anything tech-related, enjoys classical music and — thanks to the quarantine — rekindled his love for video games. Contact at mzhu21@scdsstudent.org

Sophomore Natalie Park loves stickers, bad fashion, and generally being an overenthusiastic tea lover. Rumor has it she also likes to draw, and may or may not share if you ask her. When not holed up in her run-down cabin in the middle of the woods, she can be contacted at npark23@scdsstudent.org

Nihal Gulati is a rising senior who’s entirely too clever for his own good. As the resident chaotic-neutral Tech Lord of the Octagon, he’s as equally likely to hack your computer as he is to fix all your tech problems. (He’s gotten to the AI section in his coding skill tree so he’s twice as dangerous now.) Coding is not all, though. The tales around campus tell of his hard-fought skill in physics and engineering and math. If you ever face him in battle, remember that Nihal is easily distracted, so tossing any interesting fantasy/sci-fi books or Wikipedia links at him should serve to fend him off. Contact at ngulati22@scdsstudent.org

Senior Rebecca Waterson always has wet hair since she’s a year-round swimmer. Most of her days are spent at the pool, while the rest of her time is split between daydreaming, attempting to sing to her dogs and trying to find time to read her favorite books. She loves all food except seafood, her dislike blossoming from a traumatic experience involving clams. Plus, she could never eat her fish friends! Contact at rwaterson20@scdsstudent.org.

Junior Rod Azghadi has been on The Octagon for 1 1/2 years — don’t ask about the ½, it’s complicated. Rod enjoys going to the gym, playing basketball and studying geography with his buddies during late-night pasteups. He’s also a big fan of having a trendy lifestyle, so don’t be surprised if he has a new hairstyle every week or wears intricate pieces of clothing. Contact at razghadi23@scdsstudent.org

Ryan Xu is a 14-year-old sophomore at SCDS. This is Ryan's 4th year at Country Day. If you’re reading this, he is most likely procrastinating. In fact, it took him over two hours just to write this paragraph. When he isn’t procrastinating, Ryan is an avid classical violinist and enjoys music and politics, two slightly unrelated things. Contact him at rxu25@scdsstudent.org

Contact at sgulati25@scdsstudent.org.

As a child, senior Samhita Kumar used to dream of being an international agent of espionage — until she learned about waterboarding. She now focuses on safer pursuits like reading, writing, listening to true crime podcasts and waxing eloquent about the underappreciated value of the Oxford Comma. Contact at skumar23@scdsstudent.org.

Hardworking sophomore Samrath Pannu is a new reporter for his first year on the Octagon. When he isn’t studying or procrastinating for a pop quiz in English, you can find him on the blacktop or in the gym perfecting his craft in basketball. In his free time, he plays NBA 2K20 and spends time with his baby sister, Sameera. He often scrolls through TikTok at full volume in the quad. Contact at: spannu23@scdsstudent.org

Senior Sanjana Anand’s lack of sleep and coffee addiction isn’t only the Octagon’s fault. When she isn’t writing, designing or editing (a very rare occurrence), she spends her time participating in mock trial, taking an absurd amount of AP classes (not to everyone’s disbelief), napping, playing tennis, FaceTiming her friends for an unhealthy amount of time (her parents can vouch for that) and watching Netflix. Contact at sanand22@scdsstudent.org

This is senior Shimin Zhang’s third year on the Octagon as a photographer and first year as a Co-Photo Editor. She enjoys photography and reading during her free time. She also loves classical music and plays piano in the high school chamber group. Her favorite composers are Haydn and Shostakovich. She looks forward to contributing more photos to the print and online edition of Octagon this year. Contact at szhang20@scdsstudent.org.

Sophomore Sicily Schroeder has been at Country Day since kindergarten, and this is her first year on the Octagon. When she isn’t doing homework, Sicily likes to read multiple books at once and begin watching random Netflix shows. She plays volleyball and tennis, although tennis is a work in progress — so far she hasn’t managed to do much more than hit the ball out of bounds. Contact at sschroeder22@scdsstudent.org.

Contact at sdeberry23@scdsstudent.org

Now a junior, William Holz is starting his third year at the Octagon. If he’s not at a national fencing tournament, you can find him cramming for the next test or on the basketball court missing free throws.