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ihsvoice.com Volume 18.1 October 23, 2009

The freshman class took Spirit Week to a whole new world. This year, the Class of 2013 walked all over the sophomores and juniors and stole second place in benchbuilding. The freshmen also beat the juniors by taking third for skit and dance. The freshman’s performance showed Irvington to not underestimate our younger ones. The freshmen had a scenic “Under the Sea” bench. The courtyard was filled with different scenes from The Little Mermaid and the props ranged from paintings to 3-D mermaids. This class did a great job for their first year. The skit captured the essence of the movie. To portray the homecoming game, the students got creative and made a dance battle between the Vikings and the Warriors. The winner would then be able to keep Ariel’s voice so that she could go back and save her prince charming. In the end the Vikings won and so Ariel was able to go and save prince charming. Their skit ended with a united dance. Many freshmen came down from the stands to join the dance and unite with their class. “Spirit week was a lot of work and totally exhausting but it was worth it!” said Freshmen Class President Melanie Tsoi, “Go freshmen!” Next year the incoming class will have to live up to the news par set by the Class of 2013.

News...........................1-3Opinions.....................4-5Features......................6-7 Entertainment.............8-9Sports.....................10-11Humor..........................12

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ENTERTAINMENTInterview with the homecoming king and queens

Opinions

Turn to page 10 to hear about our award-winning marching band!

SPORTS

PAGE 8 PAGE 10

Are we really America’s Favorite School?

PAGE 4

Freshmen Swim to Win

Freshmen

Skit & Dance: 3rd

Bench: 2nd

Spirit: 4th

Sophomores U n l e a s h

Their Inner Beast

Seniors Fly Away Wih Triple Crown

Seniors fittingly coined “We Don’t Ever Want to Grow Up,” in accordance with their theme, Peter Pan. Seniors ended Spirit Week with a strong show that knocked out all three other classes. Their bench was elaborate and well thought out with their theme. A particular highlight was the famous Pirates’ Ship from Peter Pan. The ship, built from wood, extended 30 feet long and was designed so that spectators could go inside and stand on the ship’s deck. Seniors blew away the dress up participation points with an astonishing 63 percent participation. The halls were bustling with Peter Pans, Wendys, little Indians, Pirates and other Peter Pan characters. The Senior skit was the journey of Peter Pan in his pursuit to rescue Tinker Bell, held hostage by Captain Hook and his pirates(representing Mission High School). Peter Pan and his crew tried everything from swordfights and Indian rain dances. Mr. Ballado played the chief Indian, who, along with his tribe, performed an Indian rain dance to a Bollywood song. In the end, Irvington’s side of Peter Pan was able to win Tinker Bell back by defeating Mission’s Captain Hook in a football game. The overall combination of skit, bench, and spirit earned seniors the much coveted prize of Triple Crown.

Seniors

Skit & Dance: 1st

Bench: 1st

Spirit: 1st

Sophomores

Skit & Dance: 2nd

Bench: 3rd

Spirit: 3th

Juniors

Skit & Dance: 4th

Bench: 4th

Spirit: 2nd

Juniors Go the

Distance

Sophomores took the stage second with their wild, colorful, jungle-like decorations in the courtyard. Their decorations included paw prints and animals scattered across the courtyard, earning them 3rd place in bench decorations, beating out the Juniors who came in 4th.

Sophomores dressed in army green, animal outfits, and other jungle attired. Their skit was shot and sweet and brought a huge turnout in sophomore class participation. It seems that everyone wanted to be a part of their circle of life. While the skit was mildly funny and fairly entertaining, the dance took a turn for the worse as a technical difficulty in the music resulted in the large group of dancing sophomores confused and flustered in the middle of the gym floor. However, they were able to regroup well enough to win a 2nd place victory in the skit and dance category. That, in combination with their 3rd place in spirit participation (beating Freshman who placed 4th), earned the roaring lions an overall 2nd place this Spirit Week. Good job, Sophomores! Hakuna matata!

Juniors tried to have Hercules help steal triple crown from the seniors, but the scores did not turn out the way they had hoped. They did the best they could in all the categories, yet only managed to place second in the spirit category. The class was presented with fourth place in both the categories bench building and skit and dance. The class had many good quality items for their bench. A great amount of effort was put in to creating props that would fill up the courtyard. Some props that were made were the three headed dragon and Hercules’ chariot. Along with these items were painted pictures of Herculean characters and Greek items. Although there was some confusion in the skit, the camaraderie of the Juniors in the final dance was commendable. Teachers were incorporated in the skit by danwcing to the song “Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer. In the end students were coming off the bleachers to join the enthusiasm down on the floor. Overall Class of 2011 worked hard to beat the Seniors. They tried the best they could in all categories, and even though they were not able to score so high, they can definitely hope for better luck next time!

By Anisha BabbarBy Karishma Patel

By Anisha Babbar

By Karishma Patel

Photos: Karishma Patel

N2 | The Voice 18.1

ewsBy Arjun Panda

Green Fair Kicks Off Greener YearEnvironmental event successful; marks beginning for similar events

Locally Stationed Non-Profit Hits Hard

Renaissance Now raises over five thousand dollarsBy Sahil Pandya

Ever since he contracted aggressive leukemia in March of 2009, Nick Glasgow has been an iconc figure for cancer patients. Nick was ¾ Caucasian and ¼ Japanese American which made it extremely difficult for him to find a potential bone marrow donor. Through Nick Glasgow’s publicized cancer battle, thousands of other Americans became aware of the need for bone-marrow transplants for leukemia patients as well as the shortage of mixed-race donors. The percentage of donors natiowide with mixed Asian/American race is less than 3%. Instead of listening to the doctors who told her that she had a 0.0% chance of finding a bone marrow donor for Nick, Nick’s mother, Carol Wiengard, publicized a series of bone marrow drives through

the Asian/American donor program, the local news, and even Japantown. Here in Fremont, Nick Glasgow donor notices were posted everywhere from the District Office to Irvington’s senior hallway. In the end, Nick had two matching donors. Thus, it is with great sadness that we learned of Nick’s passing on October 7, 2009. On September 27th, 2009, about 4 weeks after his transplant, Nick’s cancer returned. After the doctor explained that there was no more that could be done, Nick elected to have hospice care.

Colleague Mark Fredrickson said, “His memory will live on as a symbol of perseverance against the odds, and as someone who inspired countless people to make their own commitments to help others in their battles against cancer.”

Nick Glasgow had an open funeral was held October 17th. In lieu of flowers, Nick’s family requested that donations be made in Nick’s name to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Asian American Donor Program, and Be the Match. Nick Glasgow was truly a martyr for his cause giving in-spiration to cancer patients every-where. May he Rest in Peace.

On Friday, October 2nd, non-profit Renaissance Now held a charity event and raised over five thousand dollars through donations. Founded by senior Radhika Mitra and freshman Ritwika Mitra in March of 2009, Renaissance Now (RN) has grown into an international non-profit organization with over 200 members striving to provide training and supplies to underprivileged artists around the world. Their goal is to provide training and free supplies for artists without resources with no middleman sales. Inspired by their personal experiences of poverty in India, the Mitra sisters were driven to start Renaissance Now this year. Since then, they have been surprised by its rapid growth and are working hard to ensure its continuous success In an attempt to raise money to sponsor a team trip to India, RN held a charity event on Friday, October 2nd, called Starting Now 2009. There, for a “donation” price, guests were served a candlelit dinner with entertainment including performances by many new artists in Fremont. The event, held at the Palmdale Estate, also received works of art from local artists that were auctioned off to the guests.

“The food was a great accompaniment to the entertainment, including classical piano and folk music. Overall, it was a very elegant evening,” said Matthew Phillips, an attendee of Starting Now 2009. Local rapper Unity

dedicated a song to Renaissane Now. Other performances and speeches were scattered throughout the night. Donations were being collected in order to fund the tools and supplies given to artists. Although RN is partnered with local governments and organizations in the locations they work at, the airfare and supplies all have to be paid for themselves. In order to do so, the money raised from their events and donations are all proceeds towards these funds. Mitra said, “Our efforts in Kolkata seem a lot closer now.” The staff of RN travels to areas around the world and provides supplies and training to artists who are unable to fund their own practices. Their on-location services this year will be in Kolkata, India, with future hopes of going to Nigeria and Vietnam. However, as RN is a new organization, they do have up and coming troubles.

“One of the problems,” said Mitra, “is that once we are done teaching, we have to pull out of the area. We hope to eventually provide sustainable on-location training in the future.”

Despite this, Renaissance Now has been able to raise enough money to provide an abundance of tools and supplies to artists and performers around the world, all of which are sustainable and reusable. Artists around the world are giving their thanks to two Fremont teens.

Members of the green advisory monitor waste disposal

On the afternoon of Saturday, September 19th, the Irvington Energy Efficiency Committee (IEEC) and Go Green Team hosted their kickoff event for 2009, the first annual Green Fair. Headed by Irvington’s green advisor and tech administrator, Mr. Clint Johns and juniors Alex Chen and Jasper Lin, local businesses and organizations were invited to set up informational stalls throughout the IHS main courtyard for to spread their message about greenness. Stalls included a wide range of people and causes. The Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), along with several other organizations

present, spread the message of eating locally or organically grown foods. Others advocated the use of ‘green mobility’: a local Segway representative came and allowed attendees to test ride their scooter-like machines through the campus, while towards the back of the courtyard there was a raffle for a Toyota Prius, a well known hybrid sedan. The stalls, however, were not solely composed of business owners and adult community organizers; students from Fremont high schools flexed their environmental muscles as well. American High’s science club demonstrated how to recycle paper based materials in a process of pulping and drying

newspapers, while Irvington’s Green Advisory applauded every time something was recycled correctly. For junior Alex Chen, chairman of the Go Green Team, the Green Fair was a great stepping stone event. “This event was a great networking opportunity because I met with other green commissioners to discuss future conjoint events,” said Alex. Last year Irvington was donned “America’s Greenest School,” when our solar panels, recycling program, biking accommodations and efficient urinals were recognized as the best around. Irvington’s green programs intend on only strengthening our efficiency in the years ahead. With great power comes great responsibility. Mr. Johns, Go-Green Team advisor and enivornmental aficionado said, “As part of our campaign to become as green as possible...we must begin looking at ways to change our habits to further reduce our waste stream” Going beyond our current achievements as an environmentally friendly school, there are plans to continue collaborating with other schools in Fremont.

Phot

o: Jo

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.com

In Memory of Nick Glasgow

By Neetu Puranikmath

Want a fast, easy way to fundraise for your class? Earn a 25% commission and save your friends 15% off drivers ed. Visit www.DriversEd.com/Associate-Programs. *Discount for online drivers ed class only. © 2009 DriversEd.com

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SOctober 2009 | 3

NewBy Katherine Wang

: Can the Academic World Benefit?

It’s late October and to seniors in the Class of 2010 that means only one thing: college apps. Most seniors pay attention to only three pieces of information on their transcript: their GPA, their class rank, and their service learning record.

Lately, schools in the Fremont Unified School District have been faced with a choice of whether to remove class rank from the student’s transcript or whether to let it remain. Currently, class rank is unweighted in all FUSD high schools. Many students and parents alike feel that it is not an accurate representation of an AP or honor student’s high school performance.

Several weeks ago, a team of Mission San Jose parents went to the school district with a plan to remove class ranking from students’ transcripts. The district acquiesced agreeing that un-weighted class rankings were unrepresentative of the students’ true academic achievements. Unweighted class ranking weighs Bs in AP courses and regular courses as the same. Students who take mostly regular courses and receive As have a higher rank than those who take challenging

AP or honors courses and receive a mixture of As and Bs.

What trend MSJ started, American High was soon to follow. In one survey, over 80% of American parents said they wanted class ranking off their children’s transcripts. American is currently ranked 3rd (using API scores) in FUSD, behind

Irvington. American parents, however, have taken several aggressive initiatives to help improve their school. Removing class ranking is just one of them.

“It is not even used as a major criteria for college admissions. If left on transcripts, it puts students with Bs or Cs, at a disadvantage when applying to top schools,” said American High parent Carolyn Obata.0

FUSD Secondary School representative Kathy

Ashford adds, “Many colleges such as Ivy Leagues do not really need class rank.”

Of course, says Ms. Obata, colleges will look at class rank if it is there. Class rank makes the selection process for colleges easier. It allows them to quantify students into neat little boxes while not looking at a

student’s true achievements. Statistically speaking, the chance for such a student to get into an Ivy League is pretty low. Ivy Leagues like to claim that 90%+ of their class is in the top 10%. The top 10% equals the top 43 students here in Irvington.

American High parent Hiu Ng said, “The student’s chances of admission are greatly increased if only GPA is shown.”

Many Irvington High students agree. From a student’s

perspective, at least, a 3.8 un-weighted GPA looks better than a rank of, a 3.94 GPA looks better than a rank of 12.

Irvington High School’s principal Pete Murchison said, “Irvington students enjoy class rank. It allows them to see how they compare to other students. MSJ has a special situation…”

Is un-weighted class rank truly representative of honors students? Is it a true representation of their competitiveness?

“l believe that class rank gives unnecessary stress to students and really hurts our chances to go to a good college,” said Senior vice-president Karishma Patel.

One parent of a MSJ valedictorians said, “Even though my son was ranked #1, I support the removal of class rank. Students can always have their counselor or principal note that they were one of the top-GPA students in their recommendation letters and secondary school forms for college admissions.”

Parents should be quick to note that this is un-weighted class rank. For parents of students enrolled in many honors and AP courses, it can be noted that a B-

in the hardest honors pre-calculus class available is equal (in current class rank system) to a B- in Algebra I.

The decision of class rank ultimately falls to each school. Survey results passed out during advisory to Irvington students on Tuesday October 20th, 2009, passed out to approximately 650 students selected by a stratified random sample of advisory classes were as follows: 358 students wished for class rank to be eliminated 129 students wished for class rank to still be included 158 students marked that they had no opinion or did not have enough information

Out of the opinionated students, 74% were in favor of removal of class rank.

You decide: Does un-weighted class rank give a misguided picture of a student to college admissions? Or is it beneficial to students? Is it necessary to keep on our transcript?

Want to weigh in your opinion? Learn more? Go to www.ihsnoclassrank.weebly.com

Many sites are banned on school computers, a fact that is inconvenient to students who are trying to access their favorite websites – and as it turns out, to teachers who are simply trying to teach an educational lesson. One site in particular is currently part of a heated debate – the popular, video sharing website, Youtube. In fact, the Fremont school district is currently considering allowing teachers to access the website to show educational videos in class. Such a change could risk losing the funding of E-Rate, a government grant that provides discounts for telecommunication and Internet access for many schools and libraries. For many years, teachers have been complaining of the ban, stating that it censors not only the students, but the teachers as well.

Class Ranking: Will its Removal Help Your Admission into the Big Ten?The truth behind MSJ and American High’s No-Rank PolicyBy Neetu Purankimath

“Who decides what we can teach in the classroom? The fight is more about that than just YouTube,” Mission San Jose teacher Jaime Richards said, speaking out against the ban. He believed that the ban undermined teachers’ right to teach what they want in the classroom. “The district is deciding what’s good for us,” he added. Irvington high teacher Alberto Ballado also agrees that the ban on YouTube is an issue. He said that videos would be a helpful way to expose his students to the accents of Spanish speaking natives as well as teach them about Latin America, a much better alternative to the current textbook pages. Many district board members agree with the teachers. However, they’ve decided to

hold off on a decision until they can figure out whether this change could affect their eligibility for governmental funding. Each year, the Fremont school district receives around $500,000 from the government to help pay for Internet and other telecommunication services. Allowing YouTube on school computers may potentially jeopardize the school’s ability to receive these funding. Another problem that has arisen is that the current networking system used by the district doesn’t allow passwords to be set on sites. In other words, there is currently no way to allow Youtube only for teachers. If the site was unblocked, it would have to be unblocked for everyone – teachers and students alike. The chief technology officer for Fremont Unified School

Upcoming Events

Club Rush Day (10/27)

ASB Costume Parade (10/30)

Trick Or Treating (10/31)

Blood Drive (11/6)

End of 1st Quarter (11/3)

District, David Hotchkiss, said it had always been the district’s intention to allow teachers to use Youtube, but that the technology to set passwords on websites is taking longer than expected. He also said that teachers can request to unblock sites for their classroom and that these exceptions are often granted.

“It’s not the intention of the technology department nor the administration to stifle academic freedom,” Hotchkiss said. “The only intention i s to ensure that we can protect our children and continue to receive the benefits of the E-Rate funding.”

It is yet to be seen, however, whether the district will act on the idea to unblock YouTube and what it holds for our school and for both students and teachers.

Irvington Spreads the Love With the French Connexion’s Hug Line

This year’s hug line, started by Irvington’s French Connexion club, united about one hundred and fifty students in the courtyard on Friday, October 2, 2009.

The hug line was initiated last year with the intentions of uniting IHS by spreading love.

Madam Cayla, the club’s advisor, got the idea of the event from the annual San Francisco Lovefest event, whose purpose is lift people’s spirits and hopes.

“The Hug line tradition was created to show the love at Irvington High School and to get

everyone to come together and accept each other” said senior Kaylyn Sung, member of French Connexion.

The French Connexion club plans to continue this unique, loving tradition for many years to come.

By Jonathon Horng

Photo: Kim N

go

Photo: Raji Ramanathan

Opinions4 | The Voice 18.1

Does Irvington really deserve the title of Ameri-ca’s Favorite School?By Anisha Babbar

The VOICE is a student-run newspaper with the sole purpose of providing an open forum for student expression. Any-thing printed represents the opinion of the writer, but not neces-sarily that of the VOICE staff, the administration or faculty of Irvington High School, or any person affiliated with the Fremont Unified School District. The VOICE does not discriminate against race, political orientation, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orienta-tion, or disability. Although the VOICE will never refuse to publish student guest submission based on the aforementioned factors, we reserve the right to edit or not publish them.

Advisor MAtthew PhilliPs

Editors-in-ChiEf: Shilpa Sharma* Columnist: Justine Yan staff WritErs:

Sri Ravipati* BusinEss managEr: Quess Liu

nEWs Editors: Selina Mahesri*

Niveditha Puranikmath* Copy Editors: Katherine Wang

fEaturEs Editors: Anisha Babbar* Xiaoshan Bao

Kim Ngo* WEB Editors: Brian Chin

EntErtainmEnt Editors: Karishma Patel* Sahil Pandya

Raji Ramanathan* photographEr: Katherine Wang

sports Editors: Jonathan Horng* Asst. Photographer

Shajee Syed-Quadri* and Cartoonist: Shirley Lin

humor Editor: Arjun Panda*

staff@ihsvoice.comCheck out our new website! http://www.ihsvoice.com (510) 656-5711 ext. 46398

*Deadline Workers

POLICY STATEMENT:

Disagree with the writers? Bring your letters to the editor to room 223 or e-mail them to staff@ihsvoice.com. We welcome all

comments.

VOICE STAFF 2009-2010

Are We Really America’s Favorite

School?

There’s no escaping it— the pro-Irvington patriotism has been unleashed throughout every corner of our lives. It seems that anyone and everyone on campus has dedicated all of their efforts toward winning Irvington the title that has lately become nearly sa-cred: America’s Favorite School. Seeing the written phrase only conjures the men-tal image of those words etched upon a pretty plaque somewhere. Why, wouldn’t it be amazing to be called America’s Favorite School? You let your mind wan-der to the nebulous glories that would ensue from such a feat un-til a little tug of reality (or maybe a look at Irvington’s voter com-ments on the “America’s Favor-ite School” website) brings you back down to Earth. And when you float back down to the real world, you’re forced to face one minor reality most everyone else has overlooked: Are we re-ally America’s Favorite School? You might think I say this out of some deep hatred for Irvington, but quite the con-trary; I have respect for IHS. We are, in fact, a school full of diverse people and diverse op-portunities, but the people who run the America’s Favorite School contest will see none of it. They have little inter-est in whether or not we can live up to its potential title. Ironi-cally, they’re willing to hand out $20,000 to the school that best executes one of the most child-ish aspects of high school— winning a popularity contest. That, and that alone, will determine whether or not

Irvington deserves this title.And so the hunt is on: students scavenge for meaningless votes wherever they can find any, and the extent of Irvington’s “great-ness” is forever left a mystery. Am I suggesting that we forsake a $20,000 boon just because no one’s looking at how “great” a school Irvington is in this contest? No, but there is a point to be made in all this. If the America’s Fa-vorite School contest is not pay-ing attention to the true qual-ity of Irvington, those voting for us care even less. Instead of arbitrarily declaring that we are America’s greatest school, it might be worth mentioning that less effort is invested by our student body as a whole into ac-tually making it into just that. No one has ever been quite as vehement about the things that do matter (test scores, fundraising, school spirit, respecting teachers, etc.) Imagine if we invested this kind of effort in protesting budget cuts, or improving our classes, or anything else that would actually take Irvington in the direction of becom-ing America’s Favorite School. Sure, it’s nice to see that we can all unite and click a few buttons on a computer screen when we’ve all been hit over the head with “Vote Irvington!” as many times as Mission has lost a football game, but maybe the real secret to becoming Ameri-ca’s Favorite School is maintain-ing that unity even when there isn’t the enticing incentive of $20,000 dangling before us.

S o p h o m o r e bench building: at my house. Oh, the joy. I love writing essays to the sounds of ham-mers wackin’ and soph-

omores laughin’.They sure put a lot of effort into their bench building. In

By Justine YanNot just the building of benches...

fact, they worked so hard that I sometimes experienced the im-pulse to pick up a paintbrush and start working alongside them.But that would be treason. So I did not.Let me confess, though. I am a senior, and I did not attend one day of bench building. I am a little bit ashamed, because I consider bench building to be a great social experience and definitely productive and edu-

cational and all of that, really.It is difficult when your mother constantly calls bench build-ing “trash making,” and your sophomore sister claims to be “much too busy” to take ten steps out of the front door to help her friends with the building.But I guess I did participate in bench building, in a way. Af-ter all, it happened almost ev-ery day on my driveway. Not all of my family is anti-spirited.

We were there with a whole box of band-aids when a girl cut her-self with a saw. That’s what they asked for, and that’s what they got. We would totally have called 9-1-1 if they needed it, though. . And I was there to provide moral support.“Hey guys. Looking good,” I told them. So I think spirit doesn’t re-ally have to be “built.” I certainly didn’t help “build” it during spirit week, but I think I speak for many

regretful souls when I say that spirit is also embodied in things such as club activity, casting a vote for your school and lov-ing your fellow Vikings for who they are, regardless of class.I think I’ve got spir-it. How ‘bout you?And hey, scooter kid. If you’re reading this now, your mode of transportation with the or-ange handles is still parked in my driveway. Come get it.

Attention everyone who exists in the present, some-thing great has been discov-ered and it just determined the vision of our future. Three space probes have discovered chemical signs of water span-ning the surface of the moon. I’ve been hyping up this discovery for weeks, but I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t seem to be as enthusiastic as I am. Most were disappointed that I didn’t bring up the subject of aliens or spacecrafts after I mentioned the moon, but I’m talking about something bigger: being able to live on the moon. Finding water on the moon means that the extent of human life doesn’t stop on the Earth. Colonizing the moon has now become possible. Years and years from now, when Earth’s resources have depleted and

Earth can no longer serve the human race, we may be able to move ourselves into space. First the moon, then Mars! If there’s water on the moon, there’s a good chance to find water on the other planets as well. This will allow us to further travel to other plan-ets. Better yet, water elsewhere means that “life” could be out there too. The funny thing is, when we go to explore these off-world planets, we’ll be the aliens. Granted, the amount of water is quite scarce (about a bottle of water for every base-ball diamond field), but the great thing is, this is the start of end-less possibilities. The moon is more than a beat-up dry rock. At least we know our tax money used on space research is not going to waste. The billions of dollars used for our space pro-gram are being spent for the right

reasons. The great thing about studying space is that we are learning about ourselves more and more. Space research has contributed a lot to technologi-cal advances and understanding of our world. In fact, aerospace technology has led to develop-ments in airplanes, clothing military, and agriculture. If you still don’t see why space is such an awesome subject, think of it this way. Ev-erything sounds so much better when you end it with “in space”. I’m eating a pizza…in space. I’m playing golf…in space. I made a fire…in space. I just flushed the toilet…IN SPACE! Though, someone argued ending with “in a strip club” sounds cool, but that’s a whole new discussion. that I really don’t want to get into.

In the midst of a nation-wide healthcare reform and an economic depression, President Barack Obama says that he is m o v -ing to-w a r d s extend-i n g b o t h d a i l y s choo l hours and the length of the school year itself. This can only mean one thing: shorter summers, and nobody likes shorter summers. Before you start com-plaining, let’s get the facts straight. It’s well known that America is ranked as having one of the worst educational systems in the world relative to its abun-

Obama Be CrazyMr. President wants to shorten summer vacationBy Dion Wu dance of resources. Our math

and science proficiency levels are also well below the standards of other countries such as China and Japan. Thus, it’s no surprise that Obama is worried that America’s future generation will not be a competitor in the global economy with its current education status. Clearly, we kids aren’t happy with this idea. I’m defi-nitely against it. High school, as it is, is already very tiring. Wak-ing up at six a.m. and getting home until four pm to six pm is exhausting. Another issue is not only the extension of the school day, but of the entire year. Our summers could potentially be cut down to only one month long! A longer school day means more homework, more projects and less time to work on

them. As a result, kids will work later into the night and obtain less sleep. Any scientist will tell you that sleep deprivation counteracts a proper learning environment. This would contradict Obama’s main reason for extending school. Lastly is the well known fact that Americans already have longer school days than the ma-jority of countries that are beat-ing us in scores. What does this mean? It means that we shouldn’t be focusing on adding more hours, but on finding a way to better utilize the time we already have.Summer is a time for kids to relax and enjoy youth and also a time for teachers to take a break from the constant grading and lecturing. Shorter summers? Longer school days? Mr. President, you crazy.

A Slice of Spirit-Week-Awesomeness-Pie

Divya Gowthaman

Sukhbir Kaur

Ramya Kaushik

David Lo

Alexandra Perlegos

Jennifer Siew

Dion Wu

An astronomic breakthrough predicts the potential of our future

By Kim Ngo

It’s Now Possible to Live in Space

Cartoon: Shirley Lin

Photo: Justine Yan

Photo: Samad/ Getty ImagesPhoto: Katherine Wang

October 2009 | 5

opinions

Prepare yourself—a new Asian market has emerged on Warm Springs BlvdBy Ramya Kaushik

If you have driven past Warm Spring Blvd. in the past three months, you may have noticed a new shopping complex to the left of Jamba Juice. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this new complex, Barry Swenson Build-ing Company has decided to make a “Marina Complex” right next to Ross. Although some people already have their credit cards out and are eager to start spending money here, personally, I believe starting up

a new shopping center is a bad direction to go. Since when did Fremont need a Time’s Square? There are four stoplights right next to the newly built shop-ping center. As it is, people must wait two to five minutes in or-der to just get passed that area. Adding a new shopping center would only make matters worse. This complex will have about 23 stores and will con-sist of mostly Asian-American stores. The ultimate goal for this building company is to make this

90,000 square feet area, into “ Fr e m o n t ’ s Time square.” T h e City of Fre-mont has re-cently built a new bridge leading onto Mission Blvd, nearby the s h o p p i n g center. The

initial purpose of this bridge was to reduce traffic. It seems like the amount of traffic will go in the reverse direction of their goal by building this complex close to the bridge. On top of the conges-tion, this shopping center will be competing with the Lion’s food center across the street. You would think they would have learned from the Albertson-Safeway battle that went down a couple of years ago. Since people find the need to keep building new shops in Fremont, they may want to reconsider building other things than supermarkets. Currently, Americans have been criticized on their increasing weight av-erage; building food shops are only going to make it worse. But, the shopping cen-ter will be ready in two to three months, so I advise you to avoid Warm Springs Blvd. Until then, enjoy the peace and quiet.

We Were So CloseDoes Chicago have what it takes to host the Olym-pics?By Shilpa Sharma When the city of Chi-cago announced its bid last January for the 2016 Summer Olympics, some of us thought to ourselves: you’ve got to be kidding me. Chi-cago, the city notori-ous for its heavy traffic and con-stant influx of people, actually hosting the Olympics? The idea seems outlandish. However, as the bidding pro-cess continued, it turned out that Chicago’s dreams of host-ing the 2016 Summer Olympics were short-lived. On October 2, 2009, a few of us let out a sigh of relief when the Olympic Committee eliminated Chicago from the bidding process during the fourth round of selection. But honestly, I was slightly disappointed. The fact that Chicago was selected as the final bidding city for the U.S. is noteworthy. In fact, con-trary to popular belief, Chicago has a number of things work-ing in its favor to potentially host the Olympics one day. There are several sport-ing facilities near the location of where the proposed Olympic sta-dium was to be built: the United Center, Wrigley Field, Allstate Arena, Sears Centre and the McCormick Place among many others. The McCormick Place

convention center, the second largest in the world, was expected to host 11 events and would have been located nearby the Olym-pic Village, the housing units for

the ath-letes. This w o u l d h a v e been very c o n v e -nient be-cause the a t h l e t e s w o u l d h a v e

been able to quickly reach their sporting events and es-cape Chicago’s heavy traffic. It seems that Chicago’s officials know what they are do-ing. Chicago has had prior ex-perience in hosting other big sporting events, such as the Spe-cial Olympics in 1968 and the AIBA Boxing Championships in 2007. And in the future, they can hopefully host the Olym-pics with the same efficiency. The Olympics draws in the world’s most renowned ath-letes and allows them to compete center stage for coveted titles. It truly would have been an honor for the U.S. if Chicago was se-lected to host the Games. But the reality is that it lost the bid by a close margin, and despite my own protests, Chicago will not be hosting the 2016 Sum-mer Olympics--a major letdown. We can only hope that the city will make the necessary changes and reapply in the coming years.

Photo: gpchicago.com

Forget about the movie Paranormal Experience; a real-life horror film is the traf-ficking of illegal drugs like mar-ijuana. The means that people go by to attain these drugs are unbelieveabe. Whether it’s done directly through drug-trafficking or indirectly from the detrimental side-effects of this drug, thousands of lives are lost amidst this global drug war.. Perhaps the most im-portant reason to legalize medi-cal marijuana is because of eco-nomic Recession. In California, marijuana is an extremely large cash crop. As despicable as it may seem, truthfully, the marijuana industry can pull us out of the Recession. There will even be an added bo-nus left in our wallets to treat China to dinner for all of the financial help they’ve given us. What’s really the dif-ference between marijuana and drugs like tobacco or alcohol? Pot and cigarettes are both ad-dictive and overtime can cause serious damage to your insides. And overtime, mari-juana will lose its daredevil-appeal in pop-culture, just as tobacco has lost its hype. It’s simple, really. People want what they can’t have, so if you don’t want them to have it, make it available

to them! As long as we don’t have athletes smok-ing before they’re up for bat, then we’re OK. It’s unreasonable to say that marijuana shouldn’t be legalized because it’s detrimental to your health. Any substance that isn’t natural to the body will have some effect of the body—this is inevitable. The people on the streets aren’t exact-ly the cleanest, most trustworthy people either. To make the baggie seem heavi- e r than it really is, drug dealers will

mix contaminates into the pot, which often kills people. Le-galizing marijuana for medical pur-poses would cut dealers out of the equation and ensure a safe supply of marijuana to patients. From a medical standpoint, the evidence that marijuana helps to treat the symptoms of multi-ple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS is overwhelming. Hon-estly, if I had AIDS, I would take the risk and choose the weed over pain killers. I wouldn’t be too worried about dying from drug abuse because, well, I’d already be in a pretty bad shape. And psychologically, the ap-peal of marijuana would at least give the illusion that I’m carefree, like Neil Patrick Harris in Harold and Kumar, which is way better than popping pills like Dr. House M.D., and end up in a mental institution.

Cannabis. Pot. Weed. Marijuana. This single plant is one of the most controversial issues in the U.S right now. Many claim it’s completely harmless –– for “medical purposes only” –– and yet others claim that it is the gateway drug to hell on earth. But what IS the big deal with mari-juana? In reality, the drug is just as bad as the ex-perts say. Let’s take a look at the facts, shall we?

According to a recent study from Lancet, marijuana use can increase the risk of developing a psychotic illness by nearly 40 percent. It also shares all the health ailments that tobacco smoking is linked

to including cancer, lung infec-tion, heart disease, and addiction. No

doubt, this drug is poison for your system.If marijuana is legalized, we may just have a

drug epidemic in our hands. Already, around 5.4 million deaths a year are caused by to-bacco consumption. The least we can do is not add another factor to heighten this number. But weed is for medical purposes only, right? Wrong. Once it is legalized, the majority of pot addicts will be able to retrieve the drug from friends who have unlimited access to it because of health issues–– hey, all you need is that little card. And where there are addicts, what usu-ally follows is an increased crime rate. Marijuana is just as responsible for car accidents as drunk driving and someone who has had prolonged ex-

posure to marijuana is just as dangerous as someone who has been drinking all night. In addition to health concerns, the drug has also been known to be the culprit behind numer-ous property damages. Because the plant is extremely flam-mable, an influx of marijuana grow houses would be one of the main contributors to Cali-fornia fires. This, coupled with the street violence generally as-sociated with the increased con-sumption of drugs, means that the police and fire departments are going to have their work cut out for them along with the taxpayers who pay for all of it. Many supporters of the drug say that marijuana is no more harmful than alcohol and tobacco and therefore should be legalized. This is true, but when was the last time smoking has ever had a positive impact on society? How does adding another burden help us at all?Other supporters claim that it’s the only way to save the economy and that it will bring millions of dollars of revenue. But we must ask ourselves whether it is really worth it. It really comes down to one moral question. Does the health, safety and wellness of our nation come before or af-ter the wealth and prosperity?

Should Medical Marijuana be Legalized?Point Counterpoint

Let’s make money and save lifes! Yes, deliberately inhaling toxic fumes is wrong

Photo: Ramya Kaushik

Fremont’s New Times Square

By Sri Ravipati By Sukhbir Kaur

“What is really the difference between marijuana and drugs like tobac-co or alcohol?”

“... it is the gate-way drug to Hell on Earth...”

Cartoon: Shirley Lin

College PreP english 11, 9th grade reading lab, grade english standards 12, and College PreP english 12

After graduating from Irvington in 2003, Ms. Jiminez got her degree from San Francisco State. She was very athletic in high school, as she acively participated in four years of softball and basketball, but claims she wasn’t a very good basketball player. Ms. Jiminez loves Des-perate Housewives because of its “gossip, drama, and hilari-ousness.” “Bree is my favorite character,” she says, “because she goes all psycho-neurotic while trying to maintain a Martha Stewart image.” However, she can’t stand Twilight, Heroes, The Hills, Gossip Girl or Prison Break. An Irvington graduate, Ms. Jiminez is now working with some of her former teachers.

money management Ms. Veasley is entering her fourteenth year of teaching this year. She has taught at Mission Valley ROP and has also taught at Chabot and Columbia College. Her favorite TV show is Fam-ily Court with Judge Penny Reynolds and enjoys listening to jazz, gospel, some country and R&B. On Friday nights Ms. Veasley likes to catch a late night movie. Her favorite candy bar is Snickers

and she love to wake up in the morning with a nice cup of fresh squeezed juice. If there’s one thing she wants to do before she dies, its to do a lot more traveling, especially in Europe.

english 10 honors, english 11, and english language learner ConneCtions

Ms. Teboe graduated high school as class valedictorian, president of the modern dance club, Sequoia High School’s Fashion Board Rep-resentative, and also a member of her school newspaper and year-book. She likes all music except jazz and rap, but she especially loves Broadway musicals. Her fa-vorite movies are Phantom of the Opera and Austraila. Some-thing interesting about Ms. Teboe is that she never misses an episode of “Dancing with the Stars.” Her favorite book is Seabiscuit. When asked what weapon she would use to defend herself under a zombie invasion, she replied, “I don’t believe in using violence. I’d probably choose a brush and a bucket of black paint, and paint the zombies ‘out of the picture’.”

library media teChniCian

Ms. MacRae was a library media technician here at Irvington. Before coming to Irvington, she was, and still is, a lab technician at Warwick Elemen-tary. Ms. MacRae’s dream concert to attend would be the Moody Blues. When asked if she had a choice to star in a movie with any actor, she said, “Anthony Hopkins. He’s one of my favorite actors.” Her favorite ice cream flavor is Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and her dream vacation would be to spend a month tour-ing Europe, especially France and Germany. Besides that, she’d like to hit Hawaii and the Grand Canyon once in her life.

Chemistry and PhysiCs

Ms. Ghardhora is coming to Irvington with 17 years of teaching experience under her belt, including teaching at Khalsa College in India and at Vallejo Mill Elemen-tary here in Fremont. Outside of school, she enjoys going on vaca-tions with her fam-ily. They’ve been to Switzerland, England, Singapore and differ-ent parts of India. Her favorite movie is Cheaper By the Dozen. If given the opportunity to meet any famous person, Ms. Ghardora would meet Leonardo DaVinci. In high school, she liked learning languages, including Hindi, Punjabi and French, and she was also interested in drawings and paintings.

“if i had one wish, i guess it would be for PeoPle in gener-al to find what truly makes them haPPy.”

“i like to sPend time with my family whether it’s Cooking, tak-ing Care of my kids, keePing traCk of their grades, or going on va-Cations together.”

favorite friday night aCtivity: danCing at the newark hilton

“i still find it diffiCult to Call Call mrs. braCk-ett-musto by her first name!”

interviewed by arjun Panda interviewed by dion wu interviewed by brian Chin

interviewed by alexandra Perlegos interviewed by neetu Puranikmath interviewed by shirley lin

biology and intermediate sCienCe

Mr. Mann has been teach-ing for 21 years. He worked at Kennedy High School as a library media teacher, help-ing other teachers incorpo-rate technology into their classes. Mr. Mann was into

skateboarding in high school and was on the swimming and water polo team. He still participates in open swim-ming competitions and just finished doing a 5K swim. He is training for a 10K this year. If he wasn’t a teacher, he would want to be a farmer or landowner, as he’s always wanted to purchase land with a completely sustainable farm so he can grow premium class wine grapes. He envisions students working on his farm for service hours. When asked what movie he would want to be in, Mr. Mann says he would like be in Inglorious Basterds with Brad Pitt.

“my father is my idol. he not only overCame many obstaCles and suCCeeded in what he wanted, but he Passed this trait on to me.”

english 10 honors, english 11, and english language learner ConneCtions

Ms. Teboe graduated high school as class valedictorian, president of the modern dance club, Sequoia High School’s Fashion Board Rep-resentative, and also a member of her school newspaper and year-book. She likes all music except jazz and rap, but she especially loves Broadway musicals. Her fa-vorite movies are Phantom of the Opera and Austraila. Some-thing interesting about Ms. Teboe is that she never misses an episode of “Dancing with the Stars.” Her favorite book is Seabiscuit. When asked what weapon she would use to defend herself under a zombie invasion, she replied, “I don’t believe in using violence. I’d probably choose a brush and a bucket of black paint, and paint the zombies ‘out of the picture’.”

library media teChniCian

Ms. MacRae was a library media technician here at Irvington. Before coming to Irvington, she was, and still is, a lab technician at Warwick Elemen-tary. Ms. MacRae’s dream concert to attend would be the Moody Blues. When asked if she had a choice to star in a movie with any actor, she said, “Anthony Hopkins. He’s one of my favorite actors.” Her favorite ice cream flavor is Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and her dream vacation would be to spend a month tour-ing Europe, especially France and Germany. Besides that, she’d like to hit Hawaii and the Grand Canyon once in her life.

english 9 and english 11

Before coming to Irvington, Mr. Saltzman taught at Rolling Hills Middle School, Santa Teresa High Schoolwww and Evergreen Val-ley High School. As a student, Mr. Saltzman played football, basketball, and ran track and field. He was also a part of the school newspaper, The Legend. He would have loved to see Michael Jackson or Marvin Gaye in concert, but currently his dream concert is Sade. He likes to shop at Nike outlets, Best Buy, Fry’s, and Target. If he could be in a movie with any actor, he’d want to star with Denzel Washington. His favor-ite movies include 12 Angry Men and To Kill a Mockingbird. As a student, one of his goals was to become a professional sports broadcaster. His favorite fruit is peach. His most disliked band is Hansen. He doesn’t like chocolate, and he prefers dogs over cats.

english 10 CCa

Prior to coming to Irvington, Ms. Mazur worked at UC Berkeley preparing university students to be teachers. Before She also taught English at James Logan High

School. In high school, she was the school newspaper’s editor, was involved in dance and tutored elementary school students “[Tu-toring] was what made me realize why I wanted to be a teacher.” Her dream concert would be to see U2 live because they remind her of her teenage years. If she could be any-

thing but a teacher, she’d be a journalist because she loves to write. If she could be any famous person for a day, she would be Queen Elizabeth because “she was a powerful woman who stood up against a culture that treated women as weak.”

“i really love reading, writ-ing and helPing others. being a teaCher is how i Can helP others love reading and writing too.”

favorite friday night aCtivity: danCing at the newark hilton

ideal vaCation: sPending one month baCk in brazil (where she lived for 14 years) Cruising the rio negro and visiting small villages near manaus.

“my last meal would be to go to a restaurant in the great out-doors and have the old 86’er”

digital drawing, art sPeCtrum and art 1.

Mrs. Holmberg taught moral art classes in East Palo Alto before coming to Irvington. In high school, she was in the ski club, track team and swim team. She was also the Senior Class President and on homecoming court. Today, she would love to see Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Wil-lie Nelson, “X” Dead Prez and Mos Def live in concert. If she could star in a movie with any celebrity, she would choose Wynona Ryder or Lindsay Lohan. If stranded on an island with only one possession, she would choose her horse, Splash. Her number one pet peeve is when people wear slippers in public. One thing she’s always wanted to do is run in the Boston, Chicago or NYC marathons. If she was not a teacher, she would be either a gallery owner or a sword-swallowing contortionist in a travelling circus.

interviewed by brian Chin interviewed by sukhbir kaur interviewed by sri raviPati

“one of my idols is mike kelly, an la soft sCulPture film/musiC artist. he made the movie heidi with Paul mCCartney—need i say more?”

interviewed by shirley lin interviewed by jennifer siew interviewed by raji ramanathan

english 10 honors and english 12

Ms. Snell is coming to Irvington after having taught at Evergreen Valley High School where she used to coach volleyball. Her favorite hobbies are playing volleyball, wake-boarding and playing with her dog, Sydney. Ms. Snell comes from a family of teachers, but as a child she often told people she wanted to be a pediatri-cian or a magician. She went to Harker for high school, where her world revolved around volleyball. She played for her school team and for clubs during the off-season. Her team set a high standard for future teams since the Harker team was brand new. If she could be any super hero, she would want to be Wonderwoman so she could have an invisible jet.

“i used to tell PeoPle that i wanted to be a PediatriCian or a magiCian. i think i just liked the way it sounded when i said the two together!”

these PiCtures were taken by kim ngo,

raji ramanathan, brian Chin, and sukh-

ntertainmente 8 | The Voice 18.1

Which Irvington Teacher are you?Find out which IHS teacher best matches your personalityBy Anisha Babbar

You’ve just had a long day. What do you do to blow off the steam?

a. Take all that stress and put it into a song about your day.b. Take a walk in the park and admire the pretty scenery.c. Organize your desk to make you feel like you’re on top of things.d. Go eat some Chipotle.

a.Take them to SOCAHTOA Is land. b. Students will not find my letures boring if they knew what a terrible state the environment is in right now. c. I make them say really uncom fortable body parts out loud. That usually gets them goingd. Buy Chipotle for students to get their brain flowing flowing.

You’re getting ready to teach your students a boring lesson. How do you make it more interesting for them?

What kind of lunch detention would you give your students?

a. I don’t give lunch detention. Students love me enough not to cross me.b. Make them clean my tables with an eco-friendly solution.c. Scrape gum off the bottom of my table and write a report on why sticking gum is unhygienic.d. Buy me Chipotle, spin around five times and then complete a scavenger hunt around the school. I make it up as I go along.

What kind of activities do you partici-pate in right now?

a. Besides being a brilliant student, I spend time in drama/choir/etc.b. I love participating in green activities! c. I like to spend my time on school work and stay organized.d. Eh. It’s kind of what I feel like on a day-to-day basis.

1.

Check your results!

Kimmy Denne:It was totally shocking. Everyone was unique and had a chance of winning. I had wanted to hug everyone on court.

Andy Chhi:I was completely surprised. I had felt really shy, and didn't know what to do in that moment. I had prepared myself not to hear my name, not wanting to feel crushed if my name wasn't chosen.

Kimmy Denne: It's a hard decision...but David Beckham, because he's extremely good looking!

Andy Chhi: I would definitely take Mike Conol of The Lost Kids dance com-pany. He has the perfect body and perfectly developed muscles.

By Shirley Lin and Raji Ramanathan

1. Congratulations! How does it feel to win the title, Homecoming Queen/King?

Ms. Avina: Definitely Brad Pitt- he’s hot and has huge muscles.

Mr. Wu: Anyone from Girls Generation because they are my favorite girl band.

1. Congratulations! How does it feel to win the title, Homecoming Queen/King?

Ms. Avina: I feel very happy that the hard work I have put into this school has been appreciated by the student body.

Mr. Wu: I almost didn’t come back this year, so I definitely have to share this honor with the administrative team. It was also cool because it was an award Ms. Avina and I could share with our class, the junior class.2. What was your first reaction when you heard your name as the winner?Ms. Avina: I didn’t even hear it at first, and I just looked around at the other teachers, but then I noticed that they were looking at me. I was re-ally surprised and I am thankful for the student body.

Mr. Wu: I felt extremely honored and touched because it reminded me how lucky I am to be part of such an amazing community.3. If you could bring any celebrity with you to Home-coming Dance, who would you take?

Kimmy Denne: I feel that it is really an honor to have all my hard work recognized.

Andy Chhi:I feel loved, and I feel that my self esteem has gone up with receiv-ing this title.

3. If you could bring any celebrity or superhero with you to Homecoming Dance, who would you take?

2. What was your first reaction when you heard your name as the winner?

3. 4.2.

Frightful and Delightful RecipeEasy to make Halloween spider-web treats

1. Pretzel sticks2. White Frosting (in Ziploc bag) 3. 1 chocolate chip or raisin

Ingredients:

Lay out the pretzel sticks into the shape of a spider web.

Start sqeezing the frosting from the center of the web and work your way out.

Keep going... Ta-da! Now enjoy your deliciously frightful creation!

By Albert Chin

Procedure:

Mostly A’s – You are Mr. Leinweber! You’re fun loving and everyone loves you. You have an amazing stage presence and you love being singing and acting. Despite this, you’re actu-ally quite a math whiz. Congrats, you’re an all rounder!

Mostly B’s– You are Ms. Anand! You like to think and you feel strongly about the issues you take interest in. It’s no secret that you love the environment and you devote a lot of your time to protecting it.

Mostly C’s – You are Ms. Ryan! You’re super organized. And by super organized, we mean really, really, really organized. You’re all about cleanliness, neatness, and maintaining good health. You have certain goals in life and you know how to achieve them. You know how to keep students in line by being bold and authoritative, but they all love you for it

Mostly D’s – You are Mr. Phillips! Uh, you’re quite random aren’t you? We can’t exactly figure you out.

Kings and Queens

Photos: Brian Chin and Shirley Lin Top Photos: etc.usf.edu, clipartof.com

Photos: Alexandra Perlegos

entertainmenOctober 2009 | 9T

“A slot machine.” –Navtej Grewal, 9.

“The floor of a movie theater.” –Kevin Leong, 10.

“I was a toilet paper roll.” –Priyal Fadadu, 11.

“A fab lab worker in a bunny suit.” –Shilpi Mathrani, 12.

What was the most random thing you ever dressed up as on Halloween?

Paranormal Activity, a low bud-get documentary-style horror flick, has been critically acclaimed as the “scariest movie of the decade”. After experienc-ing increased disturbances by a demonic presence, young couple Katie and Micah put their theories to the test by filming the haunting presence when it is most active, in the middle of the night. Paranormal Activity has achieved what most recent horror movies have failed to do: deliver true horror. Instead of using the conventional blood and guts of mod-ern day horror films, Paranormal Activity contains a psychologically terrifying and cleverly suspenseful plot. No other movie has made me squirm in my seat from a creaking door like Paranormal Acitvity did.

A satisfying, terrifying movie experienceBy Selina Mahesri

This film, containing obvious in-fluences from 1999’s The Blair Witch Proj-ect, was filmed on a hand held camera with an ultra low budget of $11,000. It raked in $7.1 million in one weekend and has set records for the highest revenue for a lim-ited release showing. Paranormal Activ-ity, an originally low-buzz indie film, has become the biggest new movie purely by word of mouth. Instead of advertising the movie, the film producers left the advertis-ing to the viewers. It started off with small screenings in colleges and selected theaters, but due to high demand it has grown ex-ponentially since then. Paranormal Activ-ity is now scheduled for a full nationwide release after reaching 1,000,000 online demands by horror movie lovers. What sets Paranormal Activity apart from all of

the other horror films is its profound after-affect. The actual intensity of the film will come nowhere near to what the hype wants you to believe, but one thing that all view-ers have been able to report later is trouble sleeping. Once the lights go off, and your instincts kick in, you’ll almost be able to feel the same haunting presence Katie and Mi-cah felt. After all, the movie is about what happens when you’re asleep.

Photos: paranormalactivity-movie.com

Quick Costumes for CheapYour local Halloween store is now in your very own homeBy Kim Ngo

Tired of buying overpriced costumes that you know you will only wear once? There’s no need to waste time at the Halloween store anymore, when you can find everything you need at a local thrift store or even at home! Here are some quick and easy costume ideas that will surely catch some attention.

With only a ski mask, a black sweater, black pants, a sack full of pretend cash and a cardboard cut-out of a gun, you can pass as a robber any day (but let’s just keep it on Halloween). You can even have a friend dress as a police officer and chase you in the hallways.

Here’s a simple and easy way to make a western costume. All you need is a cowboy hat, a plaid shirt and a pair of jeans. You can even carry a rope as your lasso and put on a western accent. Just be creative and have fun.

Costume: Cowboy/Cowgirl

Costume: Robber

Group costume: WaldoFind red and white striped shirts, jeans, fake glass-es and red beanies, and you can have a group of Waldos walking around school. Choose which of you will be the real Waldo and post up pictures all over the school to see if anyone can find the “real” Waldo.

Carving: A Love StoryIrvington High School hosts annual pumpkin carving contestBy Anooj Desai

The annual Irvington High School pumpkin carving contest occurred on October 10, 2009 at around noon. ASB, who scheduled the contest, did not realize that the 10th was not only a Satur-day, but it was also an SAT test day. This eliminated half the students who were planning on coming to the tournament. The competition was judged by the famous Jack O. Landtern, an avid “pumpkinista” since the age of two. The participants went by the pseudo-names Myra Mains, Frank N. Stein, and Drake Yula. The first section of the competi-tion was called the knife throw. Jack made a terrible movie reference saying, “If you can dodge a knife, you can dodge a ball,” as he began to chuck knives at the three contestants. After dodging a couple knives, Frank fell to the ground and left the com-petition, claiming he had pierced a vein. The next event was the pumpkin toss where participants would pair up and toss the pumpkin to each other until one of the pumpkins broke. Myra accidentally tossed the pumpkin a little too hard, and it

hit a spectator on the head. The kid was rushed to the hospital. Only Myra and Drake made it to the main event…the pumpkin carving! The two were given tiny pumpkins and plastic knives, bought through the ten dol-lar spending limit Irvington could provide. They sawed their pumpkins for three hours with the plastic knives. Jack, who had dosed off for two and a half hours, decided three hours was more than enough time to carve a pumpkin. Myra made her way up the stage and showed the crowd, consisting of four people, a picture of President Obama with the carved phrase “Voice of a Genera-tion.” Drake came up next with a pump-kin carved into the shape of Soulja Boy’s face claiming the “rapper” was actually talented. Jack fumbled through his notes for a second or two, picked up the micro-phone and announced that Myra had won the contest. Myra went back to give her thank you speech but was interrupted by a strange man in large glasses, a fake mus-tache and a shirt that read “No Gills.”

As he ripped the mustache off, and the crowd was surprised to see none other than Kanye West himself ! He snatched the mi-crophone out of Myra’s hands and yelled, “Yo Myra I’m really happy for you and ima let you finish, but I am the greatest voice of a generation of all time….ALL TIME!” A person from the audience responded by throwing half a cup of soda at Kanye and walking out. Then, Myra kicked Kanye in the shin and walked out of the auditorium. Kanye jumped up and down on one leg, and I sat there watching.

Kings and QueensPhotos: Divya Gowthaman

Photos: Kim Ngo

Photo: Anooj Desai

Question ManBy Divya Gowthaman

PORTSS

For the first time in two years, Irvington High School’s award-winning marching band placed second at the Delta Band Review, the first competition of the year. On September 26th in Antioch, over eighty Irvington students lined up with their instruments ready to perform. With the exception of one junior high school, fifteen other high schools competed, along with the host, Antioch High School. The schools were divided into three division of A, B, C depending on the size of the marching band. Irvington was placed in the Division B this year. The marching band scored 180 points out of a total of 200, losing first place band by 1.35 points. Although

Concord High School won first place at the Delta Band Review, the band was about seven points behind the Sweepstakes winner, Golden Valley High School. The marching band placed second in their Division B and fourth overall out of the 16 schools. However, drum line and color guard did not place in the competition. “I was so excited,” said senior Andrew Lin, a flutist. “When we found out we weren’t in fourth, everyone gasped. The gasp after the third place was announced was even louder, and then we just screamed when we found out we got second.” Preparation this year was much more rigorous than that of previous years. Junior Angela Song explained how a lot of preparation and training

By Neetu Puranikmath Water polo is considered by many an underappreciated and unknown sport, but this year, players are attempting to publicize the sport more. Since Irvington doesn’t have an actual water polo pool, practices are usually held at American High. This has diminished the visibility of water polo players a lot as many other athletes do not see the team practicing on Irvington’s campus. “I only found out we had a guys water polo team during Pigskin,” says sophomore Diana Chen, a member of the girls’ tennis team. Both JV and Varsity girls defeated American, and Varsity additionally defeated Logan 7-3. Last year, the Varsity Girls team lost a devastatingly close match against main rival Logan. Each

Varsity team has only 10 players so player absences can hit the team hard. “It was a really satisfying victory for the girls,” said Senior Krista Chan, captain of Girl’s Water Polo. “This team is very unique and has a lot to offer!” said Girls’ Coach Kat Ashley. “They work so hard and everyone of these girls bring something special and valuable to this team. As a coach I couldn’t have asked for better teams.” The Boys teams aren’t doing too shabby either. Varsity Boys have won every single game, save one with JV Boys winning every single game except for Mission and Washington. This year, the Varsity Boys Team managed to defeat Mission, last year’s MVAL Champs.

Although the girls’ tennis team has been working hard, this year has been rough for them from the start. Then, it’s been injury after injury for these girls. Head Coach Dan Leon is coaching the Lady Vikings for the first time. He says, “Consistency, the big C. If we’re consistent, we can beat the other teams, girls.” However, with thirteen seniors from last year gone, and only two freshmen on the team, it’s hard to say where these girls stand. Even worse, numerous injuries have been hampering the team. Both Captain Annie Lou and Captain Lucia Wang have had ankle problems, while senior Jessica Park has been dealing with a bad knee. Other small injuries have been also plaguing the Lady Vikings. . The Lady Vikings lost in a stunning 0-7 loss against Mission on September 22, the first game of the season, with both varsity and junior varsity losing.

Water Polo proves themselves a something game

Splashing Away the Competition

were given during the Band Camp during the summer. “The majority of our band can march fairly well now, and those who are still working on it get special instruction time from our marching coach,” she said. “We are doing the best we can to gain perfection.” Senior Kenneth Phung emphasized how the strict preparation led to the band’s success. Kenneth, a flute player, believed that the practices were much stricter yet effective this year. The band, along with the drum line and color guard, practices almost everyday after school for several hours. In addition, each section of the band meets during tutorials to create perfection in every student’s performance and fix minor errors.

Marching Their Way to SuccessIrvington’s award-winning marching band places second marching band places secondBy Raji Ramanchan

The sole win was from senior Kristen Lee and sophomore Karina Uchiumi, who were at the time the junior varsity #1 doubles team. The second match was against American High School, another tough team, on September 24. The score was 2-5, a disappointing loss. The next match was against Logan High School on September 29. The first win, the girls won 5-2. The Lady Vikings had played in the Logan Tournament and lost, but as Coach Dan says, payback is sweet. Against Kennedy High School, the first away game, junior varsity and varsity players won without a single loss. Next was Washington High School, a game won 5-2. Unfortunately, both the number one singles player and the number one doubles team lost. The girls’ tennis season ends on Friday, October 30 with a home game against Newark Memorial High School.

Tennis in Trouble,Toughness is Needed

Will they pull through ?By Xiaoshan Bao

Homecoming Game lopsided as Irvington demolishes rival school MissionBy Shajee Syed-Quadri The varsity homecoming game was a success as Irvington beat Mission San Jose by a wide margin. The Irvington varsity football team was on the verge of their first shut-out game of the season. But as Mission drove down the field all the way to the six-yard line during the third quarter, the shut out we were all hoping for seemed like a fantasy. With the game already in the bag, there seemed no reason for the Varsity teams to play on. But our Vikings played with an intensity and swagger as if the game was close, even though the score was a lopsided 47-0, respectively. Mission could only

stand and watch helplessly as their only hope for a touchdown was shattered when Theo Green intercepted Mission quarterback Robin Torres and returned it for a score. On offense, we were unstoppable. With the finesse and agility of Irvington wide receiver Raeshawn Lee, to the power running of Raeshawn’s brother Roman, Mission stood no chance as the brothers combined for four touchdowns. Tyler Cyr, quarterback of Irvington, handled the game beautifully, not letting the pressure of having a few turnovers negatively affect his composure. The Varsity boys showed us the

true meaning of being a Viking by battling and battling, making you believe that each play was their last, and each second was precious despite the one-sided nature of the game. The offense and defense complemented each other perfectly, with the defense preventing big plays and delivering hard, clean hits on all of the Mission ball-carriers. This shut-out should mostly be credited to Irvington’s hard-nosed defense, who didn’t let Mission score even a field goal, holding their ground until the final buzzer sounded. JV boys didn’t disappoint either as they ousted Mission 52-7.

Photo: Umair Ahmed

Photo: Umair Ahmed

Vikings Stampede Over Warriors

Photo: Neetu Purankimath

Photo: Xiaoshan Bao

10| The Voice 18.1

SPORTOctober 2009 | 11

This year, Viking cheerleading is participating in competitions. The team has a new coach who wants the cheerleaders to showcase their skills to other schools. Varsity cheerleading attended their first competition on September 26th in Santa Cruz. The team was hoping to win first place so that they could be eligible for nationals, but still took silver for second place. The effort tmade by Varsity cheerwas well done for their first time, as they were competing against six other teams, all from different areas of California. The Junior Varsity Cheer Team is attending their

first competition o n November 8th at Washington High School. The girls are hoping to place as high as Varsity has done earlier this year.

Cheer is Soaring HighCheerleaders place in competitionBy Karishma Patel

Irvington’s varsity girl’s volleyball team finished the first half of its season with a 5-1 record.Irvington’s win over Mission San Jose, the team’s most prominent opponent, early in the season was a big encouragement to many players. Immediately after, the team focused its attention on the upcoming game against another formidable opponent, Washington. “We might actually have a chance at becoming first in the league,” said sophomore hitter Jinny Yan. On Thursday, October 1, Irvington had a home game against the Washington Huskies. Irvington was undefeated, while Washington High School had only lost to Mission San Jose.The game was a nail-biter to dozens of parents, friends, and supporters. After a close

game in which Washington’s new hitter, Konami Yokoyama, made 22 kills, Washington won. However, Irvington’s junior hitter, Katie Lopez, also had a star performance, with 22 kills and three blocks. The Huskies won the first two matches of the game, each time by a close margin. In the third match, the Vikings made a remarkable comeback and went on to win the fourth match, consistently leading by about ten points. The final match came to a close with the Huskies up by 4 points. Though the loss was a disappointment to the Viking players, it showed the team’s resilience and strength. Meanwhile, the volleyball team looks forward to a promising second half of the season.

By Justine Yan

Girl’s Volleyball off to a good start

Team’s Hard Work Paying Off

Wednesdays are the dual meets. In the races, both the male and female JV teams run a two mile race course, while Varsity runs three. This season is seeing a couple of breakout runners, including freshman Victoria Ramos, who received 3rd place at the Logan dual meet two weeks ago, completing the varsity 5k race in a time of 22:31. At the Crystal Springs invitational race on the 10th of October, the top male runner from our team was junior Connor Delang, who ran a 17:16 three mile race. All the runners are excelling, partly because of the new methods of training coach Thomson has

The Irvington High School Cross Country team is well into its season for this year, led by their new coach David Thomson. The captains for this year include Juan Coronado-Ramos and Connor Delang on the boys’ side and Renee Tran and Katie Delang on the girls’ side. According to Thomson, the team is off to a great year since the runners are working hard while having fun doing it. Mondays and Thurdays are usually “hard days” where the team runs a bit slower (but probably faster than you can) for anywhere between six and nine miles. Tuesdays are usually pre meet days, while

implemented. “The workout style is quite a bit different from what the runners are used to from previous years,” says Thomson, who is stressing dynamic stretches and intensive interval workouts. David Thomson is also infamous for his exhaustive abdomen training. Ho pefully all this hard work pays off for the team at the Mt. Sac invitational, a varsity race on the last weekend of October. Also, look forward to the November 12th MVAL championships, the final scheduled race for the 2009 cross country season.

By Arjun Panda

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Photo: Shirley Lin

Photo: Arjun Panda

Running Over The Competition

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Photo: Christa Chan

umorH12 | The Voice 18.1

Irvington Journalists Play Dirty

Due to a sudden dry spell of interesting news, Irvington High School journalists have gone to great lengths to produce stories people want to read. The first of many attempts occurred last week in the courtyard, where two journalists dressed up as “normal kids” started a fight over unknown circumstances. Stu-dents encircled the two, but it was not long before multiple students realized that the “fighters” were throwing false punch-es and making their own sound effects. Soon, an article about the “fight” was released in The Voice. Students who saw the fight recalled that the very people who started it that had written the article, using words like “intense” and “near-death” to describe it. After their first failed attempt, journalism staff spread rumors that any kids who did not show up to class had swine flu. Additionally, the whole school was supposedly going to be quarantined in a matter of days. Irvington students spread the news in panic until a feuding group (using the alias “Yearbook”) released stolen attendance slips to the public proving that the missing students were just cutting class. A couple slow news days passed by until, one day, a battered and bruised journalist arrived to school, claiming that Chris Brown had attacked him on his way to Irvington. Students knew imme-diately that this was just a publicity stunt since Chris Brown only beats women (as far as we know). Furious at the school’s retaliation to these potential story oppor-tunities, journalism staff members dressed up as police officers and gave crossing students citations for traffic violations.

This story seemed to stick with most of the school after an announcement was made discussing these traffic violations. The journalism staff was at an all-time high and decided to strike while the iron was hot by implementing a master plan to destroy Irvington’s scheduling system. “Yearbook” tells us that The Voice had a man on the inside by the name of Philips, who had planted a virus into the system just before maze day, ruining the schedules of about one hundred students. Not only did this pose as a great story opportunity, but it also forced the students in the li-brary to visit the only website that was not blocked on the computers: ihsvoice.com. Now that they had the stories, the journalism staff needed to raise popularity within school. They put posters all over the campus claiming that they had a real life

How To Maximize Halloween RevenuesRough economy hits sweet tooth hardBy Sahil Pandya

dances cooler.Admin reveal plot to make

“Panda” captive in their classroom dur-ing sixth period that could read and write. The effect this “Panda” had on the school is not yet known but “Yearbook” has been keeping us updated with the story through photographs like the one provided below.

Journalist beaten unidentifiable by “Chris Brown”

Top Ten Posts on America’s Favorite School

Sitting in advisory listening to teachers and staff lobby to us the virtues of voting for our school in the America’s Favorite School contest, who would have thought that ac-tors, cartoon characters, and even a certain famous Israelite heard our pleas? Here are a few examples of the most exemplary celebrity endorsements IHS received in the last month on the contest’s message boards:

Osama Vin Taden says, “Vote for Irvington. This is your last warning.”

The Glee Cast says, “Don’t stop believing in Irvington.”

Zac Effron says, “I want to be 17 again so i can attend this school.”

Megan Fox says, “Josh Pangelinan is hot.”

Cat Dog says, “Why did my show get canceled?”

Jesus Christ says, “Bless this school!”

Sarah Palin says, “i can see Canada fromIrvington High.”

Lenny from Of Mice and Men says, “I like rab-bits, George.”

Kanye West says, “Ima let you finish, but Irvington is the best school of all time. Of ALL TIME.”

Yes, but of course, the title says “Top 10,” but should we really ask for more? I mean, we got the big J.C.’s endorsement, do we need much else? I think not.

Have you ever won-dered why school dances are the cool-est, most highly anticipated so-cial events these days? Some say it’s be-cause the DJ’s are better this year-, while others believe those chic table-cloth screens have done the trick. How-ever, during a recent press confer-ence held with the administration, the an-swer to this burning question was revealed. “Attendance to school danc-es has been steadily decreas-ing over the years,” said anonymous dis-trict event manager spokesperson. “We want to make them cooler and more al-luring, and the only way to do that is to drastically lower nerd attendance rates. ” Their master plan? Planning the school calendar so that ev-ery dance is the day before SAT’s and ACT’s is brilliant. No one wants to dance around a bunch of losers. People who are book-smart are really spirited for no reason. There’s an influx of kids ev-ery year who don’t know the difference between a touchdown and a homerun. now is whether this uncool demographic should be allowed into danc-es, when they lack vital high school knowledge such as football fun-damentals and how to talk to So the controversial question right the opposite sex (successfully, of course). Dance atmosphere also improves when peo-ple feel more comfortable, and people feel a lot more com-fortable when the socially-awkward remain at home. “To be honest, I wouldn’t get my freak on if the kid next to me was smirk-ing instead of doin’ the stanky leg at the dances,” said Mr. Matthew Phillips. For some reason, nerds have always been the tar-get of ridicule in high school. Their mom-mies can only tell them so many times that one day the bullie-s will work for them before the comfort of the thought wears off. Due to the re-cent scheduling, these students are angrier than ever. “It’s not fair!” shouted Senior Jambu Jambulin-gam. “We do so much for this school! We raised the API scores and won a freak-ing bus; we pick up all of the slack on AP tests—when will it be OUR turn to dance?” Regardless, many teachers and students alike are pleased with this fil-tering system and believe it helps make dances more enjoy-able. You can tell that their plan is working because of the high attendance at school dances this year. Keep up the awesome job in mak-ing the dances fun for the (cooler) half of the student body!

Phot

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School Dances = Cool DancesPhoto: Sri Crabypati

Irvington cool kids rag on local nerd.

Journalists Release Pseudo-Stories and Wreak By Anooj Desai

We all find ourselves in dire need of stock-ing up on candy every Halloween, espe-cially when parents have started actually listening to dentists. But with the economy being how it is, is it really likely that any-one will give that much candy this year? Of course not! Instead, we will find old junk items being placed in little pumpkin baskets, handed to children as if they’ve come to a late night yard sale of miscella-neous items. So where exactly can you go to fulfill your desires for some sweet, tooth decaying, stomach upsetting, bowel block-ing, muck-up-your-mouth goodness? If any of you plan on traveling over to the Mission district to meet up with some friends, I would advise the op-posite. If, however, you do decide to go, watch what you eat, because Mission stu-dents have been known to hide what they refer to as “brain food,” otherwise known as crack, in small candy wrappers. In-stead, head on over to the Weibel district where—oh wait, that’s where all the rich people are. Good luck getting a decent candy bar there. The most you may get out of that is a lucky quarter and a piece of candy that says “Gong Hay Fat Choy 2004-2009” across the side. That is taking

the rough economy to a whole new level. No, indeed, the best place to go for candy this year is to not go at all. Stay at home and take advantage of the large pile your mother has created to distribute to others. Shut the porch light off, put up the “We’re Closed” signs, turn off that light-up pumpkin you have, and take that bag of assorted chocolates up to your room. No one will ever know.

Photo: Anooj Desai

By Arjun Panda (and some of you readers)

By Sri Ravipati