Thomas Chen: Have you ever wondered what SPA students do after school? My name is Thomas Chen. Today, on RubicOnline, I chatted with senior Zain Kizilbash and ninth-grader Eugene Gardiner about their after school routines. Kizilbash is the captain of the Science Olympiad team and is an experienced varsity debater, Gardiner is a state champion and nationally recognized figure skater. How do their routines differ? Let’s jump into it.

Zain Kizilbash: Hi, I’m Zain Kizilbash. I am in 12th grade. I use he/him pronouns.

Chen: So first question, what is the first thing you do after school?

Kizilbash: The first thing, I guess I just go to Red Leaf because normally I don’t leave for a while because I don’t have my license yet, so I can’t drive home. And oftentimes I have after school stuff, or have to wait for my brother to get done with things in the middle school. But I normally go to Red Leaf because a lot of people hang out there before sports, or just generally, and I go talk to people.

Chen: So do you think not having a license hinders what you can do after school?

Kizilbash: Um, I don’t know if it hinders what I can do after school so much as it hinders my ability to start doing things. I guess if it makes sense, like, I can do the same things, but essentially, I just end up being stuck at school a lot, which means that if I want to get home early and try and get some work done, or relax, that can be difficult because my parents have to come get us, and if they’re working—like yesterday, I think I got picked up at like 5:40 and I had nothing to do since like 3:30. So sometimes you can just be doing homework, but other times you just kind of have to cope.

Chen: What activities are you doing?

Kizilbash: So I have debate. I have captain’s practice on Wednesdays, so I have to leave that until 4:30 and then there’s going to be coach’s practice with Ms. Warren, probably on Fridays. It might be moved to a different day, and starting next week, there’s Science Olympiad, which everyone here should join, if you’re listening. And yeah, that’s going to be on Fridays, and that’s going to be till like 4:35-ish, maybe, depends. So on those days, it’ll obviously be different, because by then, normally my parents can come get me, so we’re just kind of hanging out, doing whatever extracurricular stuff, and then getting to go home and relax.

Chen: So has debate been an experience that’s really shaped your after school routine for the past four years?

Kizilbash: I think so. Yeah, I think especially before, like in ninth and tenth grade debate, you’d always spend a few hours after school every week, like five hours or so at debate. And I think it’s really nice because, just in terms of community, I think a lot of the different extracurricular spaces have their own communities. The debate community is a really kind of big thing. And especially a really big part of the first two years was the upperclassmen, getting to know them, getting to learn not just about debate, but about high school and SPA, and also just kind of life in general, while also getting to do an activity that I really like. And so, yeah, I think it was pretty impactful in that way. And then Science Olympiad as well started to trend towards that as we started to build the team up, starting primarily last year, and we started to also gain more of a team dynamic.

Chen: This might not be a question you’re gonna like, but why have you been so slow to get your license?

Kizilbash: Yeah, so there are actually valid reasons, believe it or not, but also invalid reasons. There’s both. So I got my permit really early. I got it like a month after I turned 15, and essentially, there was a lot of family stuff happening that year. And so my parents were always really busy, and so we would go driving like once every three weeks, maybe, max, and because I’d always be asking my parents, but they’d always be busy. And then, because you need someone to sit with you, right? What would end up happening is that I never—you know, people do the thing where you drive in loops around your neighborhood until you get good at driving. I never made it out of that phase for the longest time, because I would drive, and then not drive for like a month, and so I never got to that point. And then I went to DC for SEGL (The School for Ethics and Global Leadership), and then I was gone for like six months, and so I couldn’t drive during that. And then the funny thing is, apparently the law in Minnesota is, if you wait too long between getting your permit and doing your behind-the-wheels, then they reset it, and you have to reapply for your permit. And so when I learned that, and I learned that it was going to reset before I was going to be able to get all three, I was like, okay, I don’t care anymore. I’m just going to wait until I turn 18, because then I don’t need the behind-the-wheels. And so I’m just kind of stuck waiting at this point, which is unfortunate, but I think I’m gonna get it in like February, so I’ll still be able to at least use it for kind of towards the end of the year, when it’s senior year, and the end of the year people are kind of just going around all the time after school, using senior privileges, whatever, anyway, so that should be nice, hopefully. And then I’ll probably shake up my routine significantly.

Chen: Okay. And then last question, how much of your routine is taken up by homework? And do you think it’s possible or easy to have a balance between having fun doing extracurriculars and also finishing your homework?

Kizilbash: I think it’s hard. I think a really big part of my day after school is just getting work done, especially on days where there are extracurriculars. I definitely think that to do three of them, one of them has to go. So on days where I don’t have an extracurricular, I go to the gym sometimes after school, or if I do Science Olympiad or debate, and I’m also talking with people after school until like five, and I have to get all my homework done, one of them has to go. To do all three gets hard without staying up, yeah, which is sometimes something I resort to. Just like, okay, I must stay up till like 12, or maybe later to get my stuff done. But that’s not ideal, obviously. And so I think that definitely, all the teachers are always saying, “Oh, SPA students are so busy, I don’t know how you do it,” but yeah, they’re right, because we are so busy and it’s just kind of crazy, all the things. I know I don’t do sports, but I think especially with sports, I’m seeing all my friends who do sports, it’s kind of insane. I barely get all my work done, and I have no clue how any of them are awake in school.

Chen: They have games every other day until like 8pm. I know, like, they haven’t eaten, they haven’t done anything.

Kizilbash: I know some people who are on the football team who get home at 8:30 every day. I remember, I know in the basketball season, we have one basketball court, so basketball for some people starts at 6pm and it’s insane. I don’t even know. I feel like that’s an issue that SPA has to look at.

Chen: Now, I chat with ninth-grader Eugene Gardiner.

Eugene Gardiner: Hi, my name is Eugene. I’m in ninth grade, and I use he/him pronouns.

Chen: What is your usual after school routine?

Gardiner: After school, I get home for about 10 minutes, and then I come to the rink every day after school.

Chen: What do you do at the rink?

Gardiner: I figure skate, typically two and a half hours a day.

Chen: Tell me more about figure skating.

Gardiner: It’s a very challenging sport, and it’s pretty competitive. It takes a lot of effort and skill, and a lot of the elements you try are pretty hard to do.

Chen: So what does training for skating look like?

Gardiner: Usually you’ll do your program, which is what you do at competitions, and it’s a routine with music that you perform for judges. So that’s what I practice every day. I have a short program and a long program, so I have two days of events and also practice some spins and edges, and I’ll do some classes too.

Chen: So what’s the hardest part about training every day?

Gardiner: It can be tiring, especially after school, and some days you just won’t have any motivation, and you’ll kind of just be in a bad mood all day, and you might not be doing as good as you want, so it’s kind of hard to push through that.

Chen: So does your mood affect your after school routine a lot?

Gardiner: Not really. I just come here, even though I don’t really want to, doesn’t really affect how I am after school.

Chen: But how much does skating affect your schoolwork and your academic life?

Gardiner: Um, it’s a little challenging, because I’m here till six or 6:30. I sometimes have a lot of tests, maybe like two tests, and then I still have to skate, though, because I need to train. So I try to make the most of study hall, and I usually try to get at least one or two things done in that so I won’t have as much work after skating.

Chen: So do you ever sleep really late because of skating?

Gardiner: Yeah, sometimes I’ll go to bed like 11-ish or 12-ish.

Chen: Do you think your after school routine is different from other people?

Gardiner: Yeah, definitely. Well, maybe not so different for people who play sports, but if people don’t really do much after school, then yeah, because they have a lot more time to do schoolwork, and they also have a lot more free time and time with their friends and family. So I think it’s a little different than somebody who doesn’t do much after school.

Chen: What do you think you miss out on the most?

Gardiner: Definitely seeing my friends and just doing what I want after school. Sometimes I can’t do what I want or go to dinner or something, because I’ll get home and I have to eat and then do homework and then just get to bed as soon as I can, so I’m sometimes not able to do what I really want to do.

Chen: How much do you think homework affects your after school routine?

Gardiner: Homework doesn’t really—I mean, sometimes homework is really easy and I’ll be able to finish in like an hour, but if it’s like a project, it sort of affects what time I go to bed or what time I eat. So it’s not too drastic, but it affects it a little sometimes.

Chen: What is your favorite thing to do after school? And do you think it’s sometimes hard to do that because of how busy you are?

Gardiner: After school and skating, I like eating dinner because it’s pretty good and, yeah, my family makes a lot of good food, so I like eating Asian food or Thai food or Japanese food, so it’s a lot of food, and my dad likes trying different sorts of recipes, so it’s always nice to enjoy those.

Chen: What is your favorite food that your parents make for dinner?

Gardiner: I like eating udon and sushi because they’re very good, and my mom makes great sushi.

Chen: Okay, thank you, Eugene.

Chen: Thanks for listening to this podcast episode. Check out more at the multimedia section of RubicOnline.

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