BY KATHY JANG

body rolls, grinding, roaming hands and bending over in favor of: upright, vertical dancing, hands on waists and side to side swaying.

“It wasn’t that difficult,” said ASB Social Manager senior Caitlin Lee about creat-ing the policy. “The admin really wanted to find that middle ground and we really understood each [other’s needs].”

The meeting heads took into account

ASB and administration explain their rea-soning for the implementation of the dance policy reinforced this year.

In the works since last fall, Lynbrook’s new dance policy was finally implemented at the Welcome Back Bash on Aug. 23 in an

effort to promote dance safety. It has been a work in progress since the Homecoming Dance last year when students and parents alike voiced concerns over student safety.

The new dance policy, authored by ASB and the administration during the sum-mer and beginning of the school year, bans:

evaluatory notes that arose in the past from dance attendees. The policy was also influenced by other schools in the district.

“The purpose of the policy was to keep people safe emotionally and physically. A lot of kids have reported that [dances are] kind of a turn-off,” said Assistant Principal of Activities David Erwin, “I’d say about 20 to 30 kids have come to me person-ally since my time here to complain about

D a n c e P o l i c y

[dances] being ‘gross’.”Over the past few years, the name “freshman

rape dance,” used to describe upperclassmen trying to dance with freshmen, has colloqui-ally replaced the welcome back dance’s of-ficial title. Although primarily used by up-perclassmen, the popularity of the phrase has spread to the rest of the student body and provoked a considerable amount of uncertainty about attending the dance.

“I think all the freshmen knew about the term ‘freshman rape dance’“ said freshman Leanza Martin. “That’s why so many [were reluctant] to go.”

Prior to the dance, the ASB Social Com-missioners sent out an online survey to the Class of 2017 in order to gauge their inter-est in the Welcome Back Bash. According to ASB Social Commissioner and freshman Mira Thekdi, “Almost 60 percent of [freshmen] said they wouldn’t come to the dance out of concern for their safety.”

As a result, safety became ASB’s primary concern, and the Social Committee launched a new advertising campaign to increase awareness of the dance policy and to en-courage freshmen to attend. The policy was intended to prevent upperclassmen from dancing as provocatively as they had in past years, and demonstrate to freshmen that they would be safe and protected. The guide-lines were sent out via School Loop, shared through Facebook, and posted at the dance.

An official Lynbrook dance policy has always existed, though the rules were not publicized until recently. Aside from pub-lishing this policy in the planner, neither the administration nor ASB made much effort to advertise it, resulting in student confusion when these rules were sporadically enforced during dances.

“It was always there. It was actually made a long time ago,”said ASB Social Commis-sioner Meera Trisal. “We just decided to step up this year and change it because of student safety and for the staff volunteers.”

Aside from alleviating freshman safety concerns, this year’s dance was designed to be more activity-based and included ele-ments aside from just dancing to, as Thekdi puts it, provide “something for everyone.” In fact, the name “Welcome Back Dance” was changed to “Welcome Back Bash” to empha-size this shift.

“If you only look at one angle, you’re only serving one small portion of the population. If we don’t provide other activities, we’d be losing out on a population that could experi-ence those other activities as well as seeing a

dance and real-izing that ‘there’s kind of cool things hap-pening on the dance floor; I think I want to dance,’”said Erwin, “It’s like going to a football game. You’re watching football, but you’re also there for the band, the dance team, the cheer team, and the whole atmo-sphere.”

Taking into account the changes in policy and activities, ASB considered the dance a success in terms of attendance.

Trisal said, “There was huge freshman at-tendance, and they loved the other activities. And the upperclassmen actually asked them to dance instead of just grabbing them like they’d expected; they were pretty surprised about that.”

Responses to the dance policy and alter-nate activities varied from student to stu-dent, but attendance of the Welcome Back Bash still matches last year’s in number.

Revenue, however, does not. In ASB’s effort to provide dance goers with alterna-tive activities, funds were spent on a Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament, air hockey, arcade games, a photo booth, free cotton candy, free snow cones and various class fundraisers, among others. Although the Welcome Back dance has historically been the cheapest of all school dances, this bash cost approximately $400 more than previ-ous years’ dances.

“There was not as much profit as we could have had, but it was worth it in the long run because with this dance we really just wanted to set that tone [of safety],”said Lee on the heightened expenses.

Not all students, however, look kind-ly toward the alternative activities, lik-ening the Welcome Back Bash to Miller Middle School Corrals, resembling a social more than an actual dance. ASB tried not let the alternative activities take away from the actual dancing, but many students hold different opinions.

“We go to school five days a week and get stressed by homework, tests, and projects,” said senior Eric Chuu. “Don’t interfere with the main event with strategically-placed elements to get people off the dance floor. Nobody gets ‘harmed’ at these dances. People aren’t wrenching you off the bench and forcing you to dance with them.”

Based on student and administra-tion responses to the Welcome Back Bash, no modifications will be made to the dance policy or inclusion of al-ternate activities. The Homecoming Dance, which will take place on Oct. 12, will still be subject to the same dance policy.

As for the alternate activities, their presence will remain in the Homecom-ing Dance, at the very least. Although no specific spoilers can be given at this moment, Lee stated that activities will be of a similar type. Students can expect these activities to be separated more commodiously throughout the dance venue so as to not interfere with the dancing.

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY KATHY JANG

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MONEY NOT FOR CLUB USE

Although this requirement of free public education for all is only now being seriously enforced, AB 1575 actually reiterates Article 9, Section 5 of the California Constitution, which has guaranteed a free public education for all children since 1879. AB 1575’s man-date that all core educational activities must be free for students has far-reaching implica-tions for Lynbrook classrooms, athletic teams and clubs.

Breaking Down the BillAt the most basic level, Lynbrook must

allow all students to partake in all core cur-ricular and extracurricular activities, regard-less of their ability to contribute financially. The school is still allowed to seek donations to help cover costs of enrichment or supple-mental activities but must provide students with any services or materials that are deemed to be part of the core program.

In the context of the classroom, the school must provide students with all required ma-terials free of charge if they do not wish to purchase their own.

“It comes down to what the school offers as its core program. Sports, for example, are an integral part of the school’s program. You can’t exclude somebody from competition, and you can’t exclude them by giving them a different uniform, if that’s what the school says is its offering for its program,” said Dw-yer. “That pretty much goes for clubs as well.”

Erwin stated that as a result of AB 1575, charging for the school’s core activities, but making scholarships available to those in fi-

nancial need, would not be permitted.“We don’t know who can and can’t afford

something,” said Erwin. “By saying, ‘If you can’t afford it, don’t worry, we’ll pay for you,’ it puts them in a precarious situation.”

Senior Attorney at Legal Advocates for Children and Youth Suzanne Yang also said that AB 1575 explicitly prohibits the use of fee waivers for these activities, which would allow students with demonstrated financial need to participate at a reduced or no charge.

The new law does, however, does allow fees for activities not integral to the school’s curriculum, such as dances and football games. Organizations may also continue to charge for elements not integral to participa-tion in their programs.

“If you’re on the volleyball team, for ex-ample, you need a volleyball uniform, but you don’t necessarily need warm-ups, match-ing bags, or t-shirts,” said FUHSD Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services Graham Clark. “If students want to go and do that, they can. But that’s not a fee – it’s an op-tional thing.”

Define “Extracurricular”A l t h o u g h

some stu-dents question whether clubs fall under the umbrella of the school’s core curricu-lum, and thus whether they should be bound by AB 1575’s man-dates, the defi-nition is quite clear.

“Any after school club or sport is extra-curricular but also consid-ered integral to the curriculum and to the idea of being a stu-

A NEW DILEMMA: SCHOOL FEES

BY STEPHANIE LU AND HENRY SHANGGUAN

Last October, Gov. Jerry Brown signed California Assembly Bill 1575 (AB 1575) into law, which keeps all California

public school classes and activi-ties free to students by providing a uniform complaint procedure.

“It’s really addressing the issue of equity for all students in edu-cation,” said Principal John Dwyer. “The law tries to make sure that regardless of . . . socioeconomic status, all students get the same access to education.”

AB 1575THE NEW LAWKEEPING ALL CLASSES AND

ACTIVITIES FREE FOR ALL

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dent at that school,” said Yang.Thus, school organizations will be re-

quired to cover all costs of member partici-pation in their core activities, including travel and lodging for travel competitions.

“If we have, for example, a Robotics club here as part of our program, and we have a supervisor who receives a stipend paid for by the district, and they’re using school class-rooms at no cost to the club, then it’s part of our program,” said Dwyer.

AB 1575 also specifies that schools may charge for class field trips, so long as students are not prevented from going because they can not pay.

“If somebody can’t pay the fee, they still are entitled to go,” said Dwyer. “If we can’t make the total amount, then everyone goes, or no one goes.”

Facing the Consequences

By and large, AB 1575 will force teachers, sports teams, and clubs alike to drop their fee mandates and request donations instead. Many, such as Robotics Club Co-President senior Miles Chan, have indicated concerns over how this may affect their clubs.

“Students might lose the ability to make robot parts on campus because our machines will not be maintained,” said Chan. “We might not be able to build a robot of the same qual-ity due to a lack of raw materials.”

Chan also expressed worry that some stu-dents may take advantage of Robotics Club’s now-free resources.

“If we want to go to an away regional and a student decides to demand that the team

gives him a free ride the entire team will lose the opportunity to attend that event if there aren’t enough funds to go around,” said Chan.

If students or parents choose to take ad-vantage of the new law, organizations will have little choice but to accommodate them.

“You would hope there’s not going to be anybody who says ‘I want my kid to go and I’m not going to pay,’ but the law allows for that,” said Clark. “And that’s where the prob-lem comes in.”

In response to these concerns, Dwyer said, “We can discuss how, with some minor changes in their wording and expectations, they can ensure that we have access for as many people as possible.”

Furthermore, teachers and organizations may still set requirements for students to participate in their activities, as long as meet-ing these requirements is not contingent on financial contributions.

Filing an Appeal

If teachers or organizations do charge il-legal fees, students can utilize AB 1575’s uni-form complaint procedure to quickly resolve the issue.

“The first appeal would go to the principal of the high school,” said Clark. “If the princi-pal can’t resolve it, you would take it to the District Office. If you can’t resolve it there it goes to the county, and if you can’t resolve it there it goes to the state.”

If it is determined that impermissible fees were levied, the organization will be responsible for refunding the fee to all who are charged, not just those who file the com-

plaint.“The problem was

that nobody had the re-sources to go to court every time there was a problem,” said Yang. “Technically, AB 1575 is not a new law, it’s just a way to enforce it. And it’s a statement that public education must be free.”

To the Future and Be-yond

In order to avoid com-plaints and instances of inequity among stu-dents, the administra-tion will be working with all organizations to make sure they comply with the rules.

According to AB 1575, teachers and or-

ganizations are allowed to solicit voluntary donations from students and parents.

Erwin also suggested that clubs be as transparent as possible when raising funds to encourage more donations.

“Itemize what the donations are going to be used for, because I do feel that people would be more comfortable writing a check to a club that states how the money is going to be used,” said Erwin.

Beyond just soliciting donations, Erwin and Dwyer both said that teachers and clubs alike could look to the school’s many fund-raising groups, such as the PTSA or Lynbrook Excellence in Education Foundation, for ad-ditional revenue.

In spite of AB 1575, Dwyer is optimistic about the situation, even suggesting the pos-sibility of increasing the activities available to students.

“I’m hopeful that we’ll expand our oppor-tunities,” said Dwyer. “We have a very gen-erous, very supportive community, and we have great teachers who are looking for ways to expand what they’re doing in class and enrich the activi-ties for kids.”

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Iris Zhao takes the first steps to beat bullying

Freshman Iris Zhao’s mother was going through the mail when she opened a stan-dard FedEx envelope, read “$5000” on

the enclosed letter, assumed a scam was in-volved, and made to toss the package away. Her daughter had in fact just won Epiduo*Gel, PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Cen-ter and Seventeen magazine’s Banish Bullying contest, and the $5000 in prize money would be donated to Lynbrook. If Zhao had not curi-ously picked up the discarded mail, she may have been extremely confused upon reading Principal John Dwyer’s congratulatory email.

“I was in denial until an hour after I read the letter,” said Zhao. “Actually, I’m still kind of in denial.” Her 150-word tip on banish-ing bullying will be printed in the Decem-ber 2013/January 2014 issue of Seventeen.

Zhao, who was bullied from second through

eighth grade about her appearance,

writes about teen issues such as de-pression and stress in her spare time.

“People would always tell me how weird and gross I apparently looked,” Zhao said. “There was more impor-tance placed on popularity at my old schools, and I wasn’t exactly at the top.”

She saw a full-page ad in the Au-gust 2013 issue of Seventeen and thought submitting for the contest would be fun and that it would be JOEY LI — EPIC

cool if her tip was posted on the website. “I just truthfully wrote about what I

experienced and everything I’d learned over the years from teachers, friends and speakers at school, so it came pretty easily--I finished in about ten minutes,” Zhao said. “Then I just submitted it to the entry form on their website about two days before the contest ended.”

Dana DiStefano, Senior Promotion Manager at Seventeen, said, “Seventeen received over 300 entries for the Banish Bullying contest but were drawn to Iris’s tip due to the heartfelt, genuine advice she provided along with the originality of her confidence-boosting plan to Banish Bul-lying in her social circles and networks.”

Although a decision has not yet been made about spending the prize money,

the official contest rules state that the money must “be used toward various initiatives, such as a new gym floor, new march-ing band uniforms, etc.” Dwyer suggested inviting an anti-bul-

lying speaker to come to Lynbrook, since Zhao believed her experience with an anti-bullying speaker event held at Miller Middle School helped bring classmates together. Students who had been bullied were asked to share their experiences.

“I really related to them, and I think the bullies understood better what they’d done to their victims,” said Zhao. “I haven’t experienced bullying [at Lynbrook] and everyone’s been pretty nice, but I think in many places it’s an underground is-sue that should be talked about.”

“Offer a smile to let them know you care, a shoulder to lean or cry on if they ever need anything, and be their friend.”

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Over the past 30 months, the Middle Eastern nation of Syria has been en-trenched in a bloody civil war, with

over 100,000 deaths and counting. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been ac-cused of using chemical warfare against his own people, and has resisted frequent calls for him to abdicate.

“Bashar al-Assad has been in power since 2000 after succeeding his father Hafez al-Assad, during which he has exercised a com-plete dictatorship under the guise of “free elections.” After the Arab Spring took off in the spring of 2010, Syrian citizens decided to rise up and follow in the footsteps of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt among others, and oust al-Assad, who has been exacerbating the situation by committing human rights violations, includ-ing civilian rape, assaults and murders against his own people. The protests started mostly peacefully, but al-Assad ordered his army to fire upon the peaceful protesters. This out-raged many civilians, which lead to the Free Syrian Army being assembled. This has led to multiple clashes with Assad’s forces which has escalated to a bloody civil war which has claimed over 100,000 lives. A messy internal aftermath without a clear leader and party to step up has ensued. In a crude way, it’s similar to what happened to America in the beginning years of democracy and it’s to be expected for the next couple years.”

Since late May, Turkey has been subject to protesters irate with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s management

of the country.

“The people of Turkey have been upset with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan since early 2013 as a result of actions they disagree with. The first protests took place in Gezi Park, a historical Turkish landmark, on which Erdo-gan had constructed a mall. Eventually, thou-sands joined the protests; Gezi Park was just a trigger. Protesters are generally unhappy with Erdoğan’s string of broken promises. He got elected in 2003 by promising to the public that Turkey will finally be accepted into the EU, but 10 years later he has yet to come through. Ad-ditionally, six protesters have lost their lives during the Gezi Park protests because of po-lice brutality, and Erdoğan has not condemned this. As first steps, Erdogan needs to put an end to police brutality, and fix the broken ju-dicial system. However, unless he undergoes a transformation, the protests won’t end.”

COUNTER: Erdogan, however, has had suc-cess with the Turkish economy, reducing inflation by 80 percent during his term,

In wake of expensive international events, Brazil has been overwrought with protesters, demands ranging

from lower bus fares to greater eco-nomic equality.

“Large-scale demonstrations have oc-curred in Brazil throughout 2013, stun-ning the Brazilian government. Although the economy has grown rapidly, mass poverty and a wide class divide still exist. Protesters want money spent on infra-structure, public services and education rather than events that bolster Brazil’s ‘brand’; Brazil will host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. This has left protesters feeling as if money is more important than they are. Brazil must first clean up the corruption in the govern-ment, and eventually, the government will initiate reforms to avoid further em-barrassment.”

COUNTER: The Brazilian govern-ment is largely credited with a boom-ing economy, with domestic produc-tion and agriculture growing by 32.3

COUNTER: Bashar al-Assad denies com-mitting human rights atrocities, and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has as-certained that both sides are guilty of human rights violations. Many of the emerging political factions in the rebel government are accused of being Al Qa-eda affiliates.

and nearly repaying all of Turkey’s in-ternational debt. Furthermore, Turkey has not been accepted into the EU due to opposition from some EU members.

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The Egyptian people have expe-rienced two consecutive revolu-tions, overthrowing long-time

dictator Hosni Mubarak, as well as his replacement Mohamed Morsi two years later.

“The Egyptian youth have been trying to use their influence to establish a govern-ment that is representative of their beliefs. The recently elected Mohamed Morsi, who replaced Mubarak, adopted policies that failed to gain favor. The Egyptian public generally dislikes Morsi because as it was becoming more progressive, he was lean-ing toward traditionalism. Additionally, Morsi seems to have taken on dictator-like characteristics. For example, when criti-cized, he gave a dismissive speech that fur-ther created a divide. This is why we have witnessed two revolutions. Overall, the best thing to do is to let the Egyptian peo-ple figure out who their candidate is and draft a Constitution that accurately rep-resents them. Only after that may Egypt come out of the turmoil.”

Greece was hit hard by the inter-national financial collapse of 2008, forcing the government to

cut back on services. This has angered many citizens who do not feel respon-sible for the collapse, resulting in a na-tionwide series of protests.

“All Greek parties have been attempt-ing to satisfy voters by delivering various social benefits to workers. When the coun-try was hit by the recession, the govern-ment lost its ability to pay off international debts, but continued borrowing money to come through on current obligations. By 2010 it became clear that the process was not sustainable, and Greece was forced to accept a bailout package from the Inter-national Monetary Fund, contingencies of which included severe austerity mea-sures, meaning that the government could not be as generous toward its people as it used to be. Greek citizens, who were used to a good standard of living before, were suddenly asked to cut back on every-thing. The people were feeling entitled to maintain their existing standard of living and did not feel that they were in any way responsible for actions that resulted in fi-nancial insolvency even though they had benefited from them. This has resulted in protests all across the nation.”

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COUNTER: As hard hit as it has been, the Greek economy is showing its first signs of life in years, as its GDP has virtually stopped contracting as of late. Optimistic economists believe that the nation has a solid chance of pulling out of the crisis.

COUNTER: Drafting a Constitution may prove difficult, however, as the Egyptian public embodies a variety of groups with different agendas, ranging from pro-Westerners to Islamic militants.

and 47 percent respectively.

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BY AMANDA CHANG

ready properly supervised because admin-istrators have been certified by the district. This rule has caused some teachers who wish to be anonymous to be upset about the extra time they have to spend on clubs. As a result, at least five clubs have lost their advisors. One of them, American Cancer Society (ACS), has had difficulty finding a new advisor. The Public Relations officer of ACS, junior Jamie Wong, asked around twenty teachers before finding a new advisor.

“We asked all the teachers in the Histo-ry, Art, and Music Departments,” said Wong. “Some of them flat out said no, and others said they were unable to handle attending the club events.”

If this rule is not changed to allow any cer-tified adult to be a supervisor, more clubs will be disbanded or start offering fewer events, causing students to have fewer chances to serve the community, meet people from oth-er schools or build life-lasting connections with fellow club members.

English teacher Rick Hanford, head of the Lynbrook Teacher Association, acknowledg-es that some teachers will have trouble abid-ing by this rule. Although the rule does not greatly affect Hanford and his involvement with Vertigo Literary Magazine, he recogniz-es that other club advisors will have to attend many events outside of official work hours.

“I can’t see how any advisor could go to all the events and stay sane and healthy,” said Hanford. “No teacher has to agree to advising a club. Teachers aren’t going to volunteer to advise clubs if they physically can’t meet the requirements.”

If advisors were to oversee all club events, which could be as often as twice a week, in addition to their teacher duties, they would not have time left in their personal lives.

“As a teacher, I need to allocate the hours I’m able to spend in a way that least affects my students’ overall learning,” said Kenny Iams, advisor of Photography Club. “There-fore, some of these club activities will be the first to go.”

Already, Iams has had to let go of NOTQ to focus on what is most important to him: his class. To prevent the loss of more clubs, the administration should, as the CCR allows, permit any certified adult to be a supervisor, instead of requiring an FUHSD employee. To be certified, adults have to take a tuberculo-sis test and go through a background check. These adults are not district employees, they have gone through the extensive process of being certified and can devote their time in place of teachers.

With some teachers already unable to meet these additional club requirements, the administration should modify its policies so that certified parents and non-FUHSD em-ployees may supervise events independently. This provision would allow parents to split the time commitment of supervision and lighten the burden of teacher advisors. Al-though the new policy is an understandable attempt to ensure proper supervision and in-form students and teachers of advisor duties, it is not effective, and must be appropriately adjusted so that students do not lose some of their most cherished clubs.

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At the beginning of the school year, the Lynbrook administration put the di-versity of clubs on campus at risk by

enforcing a rule that requires an advisor or other FUHSD employee to be present at all club events. The policy change also provides that even if adults or other volunteers are certified by the district, they are not allowed to be the sole supervisors of club events if they are not paid district employees.

The district policy behind this new rule is based off of the California Code of Regulations (5 CCR 5552), which

states, “A school is liable if it fails to provide adequate supervision by certificated person-nel if the school allows students on campus before or after school.” Although the policy has existed for at least eighteen years, the administration has not seriously enforced it until this year.

“We started implementing the rule be-cause many teachers were asking about advisors’ duties, and we wanted to ensure that students were properly supervised at all times,” said Assistant Principal David Er-win. “If clubs want to have events outside the classroom, advisors are responsible for find-ing an FUHSD employee to supervise them.”

Although it is reasonable to expect that underage students should be supervised, most club events already have legal super-visors. Many administrators are present at events like Night on the Quad (NOTQ), and according to the CCR, these events are al-

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY AUDREY ZHENG

Entering this year, I knew I’d be in for a wild ride; after all, AP English Litera-ture and Composition, notorious for its

blasphemously long study guides and mul-tifaceted curriculum, is highly advertised as one of Lynbrook’s most challenging cours-es. But I had no idea just how outrageous-ly mind-baffling it would be.

Not so long ago, my class began reading Oedipus Rex, and, to properly brace our class’ eager senior minds with befitting knowl-edge, we each received a handout on Greek tragedy—and it was tragic indeed. I gaped in mad incredulity at the handout before me and an ineffable tremor of dismay swelled through my body. Comic Sans. As I struggled to make it through the page, conflicting emo-tions struck me, and I lost all sense of right and wrong.

The playful and fun curves of the font con-trasted so strikingly with the topic at hand. After years of using Microsoft Word, I knew that Comic Sans was the premier party font, which meant that perhaps, just perhaps, tragedy wasn’t so tragic after all. Inner tur-moil overcame my coherence, and I left class a perplexed glassy-eyed student with no sense of morality.

After a good deal of exposure to good ole Cambria—and I cannot stress enough the overwhelming sense of relief that it in-duced—I gathered my bearings and came to the following conclusion: fonts are abso-lutely integral to the function of life, and play a sublimely central role in determining our individual livelihoods.

Society is prone to complaint about the decline of class and the demise of propri-ety. The solution lies in choosing the cor-rect fonts. There are two categories of fonts: serif and sans-serif fonts, or, more crudely put, fonts with and without the little lines attached to the stroke of each letter. Serif fonts are the basis of decency, so elegantly and intricately carved. On the other side of the spectrum, the sans-serif fonts lie in au-dacious fervor, endorsing the #yoloswaglyfe.

If we are a breed of animals drawn to beauty and art, then the written word is to expression what Beethoven’s 9th is to mu-

sic. Writing is the most common form of art. Therefore, adding onto every pitifully lacking Arial and Calibri letter in the world a mea-ger little line would measurably force some degree of dignity back into the slums. Imag-ine driving through Compton, and seeing the graffiti spelled out in Times New Roman. Out-standing. Home prices are rising already!

If vanity and beauty are not your area of expertise, let its impact on education sway you. Using the wrong font can potentially in-hibit learning. Case in point: I personally find myself greatly limited by sans-serif fonts be-cause I cannot tell the difference between I, l, and 1, no matter how hard I try to broaden my perceptions on detail. The ensuing headache really isn’t worth the effort.

Aside from discerning between appear-ances, fonts are a telltale sign of character. I am more predisposed to serif-lovers than to Comic Sans and Wingdings-lovers (winds). While Times New Roman and Cambria are the eldest children in their families with de-grees in business from Harvard and law from Yale, Comic Sans is the youngest failure of a child endowed with perpetual spaghetti sauce stains. It’s like the difference between that one kid with fifty Silly Bandz and every-one else. One is just infinitely better than the other.

These stunning serif fonts have the po-tential to transform the world into a place of respectability. Perhaps, if society does put enough effort into eradicating Comic Sans and posse, the world will rid itself of the poor, confused students who associate tragedy with fun. Crime rates will steadily decrease, and the utopia which society is headed for will suffer no shortcoming in little lines attached to strokes.

Next time, give some credit to these serif typefaces, so breathtakingly beautiful that Johannes Gutenberg himself is cheering from his grave (which is etched in Georgia, not Pa-pyrus). Here’s a thought: come second semes-ter, ask that special someone to prom with a poster in typed and printed Times New Ro-man; nothing, after all, shouts “I’m romantic and a catch” quite as well as something typed by hand.

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE SU

IMMIGRANTS:What their contributions mean to us and why we should learn about them

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 38.6 percent of the San Jose population is composed of foreign born persons: immigrants. Several students at

Lynbrook can claim ancestry from at least one immigrant relative, and many are first generation immigrants them-selves. American culture is made of interwoven customs, beliefs and values brought to the United States by these immigrants—they have always been, and remain today, major contributors to pivotal changes in American histo-ry. In order to truly respect the significance of immigrants in the United States, the contributions of immigrants should be made a substantial part of the U.S. History cur-riculum, both at state and national levels.

Currently, immigration is not a major part of 11th grade U.S. History and AP U.S. History curriculums. The textbook approach to immigration is over generalized, merely providing an on the surface look at the integra-tion and role of immigrants in America.

“When I read my U.S. History book growing up, I no-ticed that there was a perspective of African-Americans and those with Caucasian backgrounds. However, Asian-American history seemed like a footnote, for it only said that Chinese immigrants worked on the railroads,” said U.S. and World History teacher Esther Lee.

BY PRACHI LAUD

Modern day immigration—from the 1980s to the present—especially is largely excluded from the curriculum.

Learning about the history behind im-migration helps students comprehend their cultural identities as Americans of multicul-tural descent.

“I think it’s really important for Lynbrook students to know where they came from,” said Lee. “I don’t think you can fully grasp your racial identity until you know your ra-cial history.”

Oftentimes, the motivation for immigra-tion is the same in the past and the present. By learning about immigrants of the past, students with immigrant families are more capable of comprehending the factors that went into their families’ immigration and how it affects their lives today.

“It puts them in context, like, why am I here?” said Social Studies Department Chair and U.S. History teacher Mike Williams.

Students benefit from learning about im-migrants from all walks of life because the comprehension of these people’s histories helps them answer questions such as “Where do I come from? Who am I? Where am I go-ing?” said Lee. “You really can’t get a sense of who are you are until you understand that you’re part of other people’s stories.”

By developing a more comprehensive understanding of immigration in the United States and the diverse prejudices and reac-tions surrounding it, students will be ex-posed to a completely different view of im-migrants than they have known. While they may be isolated from these views now in the Bay Area, such bigotry and negative reac-tions are factors they will have to contend with in many parts of the country after high school.

Such factors were recently brought into the national limelight after the 2013 Miss America Pageant in which the crowning of Indian-American Nina Davuluri as Miss America ignited racist reactions through-out the country. Many of these reactions took the form of attacks on Twitter. Tweets called Davuluri an Arab as a slur, suggested that she was affiliated with terrorist groups, and expressed shock that an Indian-Ameri-can could win Miss America because “this is America.”

“I find it an outrage that these people have the nerve to be racist, let alone on a social networking page,” said junior Aditi Phadke. The amalgamation of racism and ignorance which fuels such reactions accentuates the need to include studies of immigration in the 11th grade history curriculum.

“It would benefit students across the country to study about other ethnic groups, in an attempt to curb racism,” said Phadke.

Across America, knowledge of immigra-

PepsiCo CEO since 2006

Immigrated from India to the US in 1978 to at-tend Yale for her Mas-ter’s

Named President and CFO in 2001

Under her leadership, net profits more than doubled

Ranked in World’s 100 Most Powerful Women

tion and its history are also essential for students to become better-informed citi-zens.

“If you’re ignorant about whole groups of people, then you won’t function very well in society,” said junior Sabiq Khan. Immigrants come from all over the world, and while the Bay Area is largely com-prised of Asian immigrants, there are oth-er groups of immigrants whose contribu-tions have been equally important and as necessary to learn about.

From the arrival of the French Hu-guenots to the mass Asian immigration toward the end of the twentieth century, immigrants have played integral roles in the advancement of American society and economy. According to articles published on The White House Blog, 18 percent of small businesses in America are immi-grant-owned, expanding the private sec-tor and creating jobs. Furthermore, con-trary to popular belief that immigrants are exacerbating high unemployment rates, immigrants are more likely to cre-ate their own jobs, with a 7.5 percent rate of self-employment compared to 6.6 per-cent self-employment among native-born Americans.

By acquiring knowledge beyond the current textbook curriculum, students will be better rounded and better pre-pared for the situations and diversity they will face after high school.

“The majority of the population gets the impression that immigrants are just these people who come, take our jobs, in-crease the crime rates, live off our welfare money,” said Khan. “It’s very important to talk about what contributions immigrants have made to society so that people don’t get the impression that immigration is a bad thing.”

These stereotypes are largely associ-ated with Mexican immigrants, said Khan, who also constitute a large part of the population. In reality however, Mexican immigrants are a crucial part of the work-force in California.

Since the advent of the 1990s, immi-grants have also played a crucial role in the expansion of the technology and inno-vation sector in America.

“Immigrants are our engineers, scien-tists and innovators,” The White House Blog stated. The intellectual capital that immigrants have brought to the United States has played a pivotal role in eco-nomic development.

“Silicon Valley would not have hap-pened without immigrants, and I don’t think that their contributions are estab-lished or known,” added Lee.

“Modern electronics and computer in

immigrants have brought to the United States has played a pivotal role in economic development.

“Silicon Valley would not have happened without immigrants, and I don’t think that their contributions are established or known,” added Lee.

“Modern electronics and computer in-dustry has been built by immigrants. Intel, Google, Sun Microsystems, etc. were found-ed by the first generation of immigrants,” said Sandeep Pandya, father of junior Ruchi Pandya.

Many Lynbrook immigrant parents are the ones actively making these contribu-tions, including Pandya. He founded sev-eral start ups, the most prominent of which is the Lynbrook Excellence Foundation. Lynbrook Excellence has raised over $350 thousand over the past two and a half years, said Pandya. “The funds have gone to buy lab equipment and infrastructure improve-ments with provide a rich education to the students at LHS.”

Similarly, junior Aditi Phadke’s father Sandeep Phadke began multiple start-ups in the Bay Area in the late 1990s.

“He brought a lot of jobs to the area, and being an immigrant himself, he welcomed people of all races, which contributed to the diversity of Silicon Valley employees,” said Phadke. Phadke’s father, like many other adroit immigrants, became an indispens-able part of American welfare and history, teaching her to be proud of her heritage.

“It is very unlikely that I will forget my roots,” said Phadke.

Immigrants bring with them a host of new ideas and cultures, exposing Ameri-cans to different beliefs, and thus creating a more tolerant society.

These tremendous changes that have been wrought by immigrants deserve their place in history books.

This is an opinion shared by a youth political organization, Vision New America. As a part of their 2013 project, Vision New America began a petition to the California Department of Education, demanding that the immigrants’ contributions to American history should be made a larger, mandatory part of the California 11th grade history curriculum. Many Lynbrook students, such as junior Sidney Li, have been involved with this organization.

“Immigration is a pretty big issue right now, locally because we live in a state with a high population of immigrants, and nation-ally as well,” said Li, referring to the ongo-ing national debate over illegal immigration from Mexico.

“There’s a lot of discrimination and so-

cial stigma associated with immigrants be-cause of that,” said Li. “It’s only by showing people how important immigration is in our country that we can eradicate it.” The petition is a way of showing the Depart-ment of Education “that it was the voice of the people asking for immigration in educa-tion,” said Li.

It is by supporting such organizations that students can further the movement to place greater importance on immigrant contributions, and make a statement about student attitudes toward immigration.

While Lynbrook has not completely reached the stage desired by the petition yet, the History Department is making ev-ery effort to broaden its curriculum.

The current Lynbrook curriculum puts substantial focus on immigration, “espe-cially once you hit the latter part of the nineteenth century,” said Williams. “The teachers in the U.S. History department es-pecially try to emphasize it a lot.”

The area of modern immigration, the personal struggles of immigrants and re-sulting current socioeconomic change can be expanded, however. The main issue that teachers face is time constraint.

“It’s not that we don’t want to do it; it’s trying to teach the existing curriculum and get to the modern era in the limited amount of time we have,” said Williams.

A method of incorporating immigration as a larger part of the curriculum would be to make connections between studies of im-migration in the deeper past and immigra-tion in the present.

“One way to approach it is that you’re looking at a period of history and you’re making that modern connection all the time,” said Williams.

Another method of integrating immi-gration into the history curriculum is by reading extracurricular text. Lee’s US His-tory class will be reading excerpts from the book A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki on the subject of immigration. Takaki is an ac-claimed historian who has also written the book Strangers from a Different Shore.

“[The book] was really profound be-cause the premise of the book was that ‘Will Asian immigrants always be strangers from a different shore regardless of how much we work hard? Will people always perceive us differently because we don’t look the ma-jority, and thus, treat Asian Americans as if they don’t belong?’” said Lee.

These questions have been pondered for decades. By taking the pivotal step of incor-porating immigration as a larger part of the 11th grade history curriculum, we can get closer to finding the answers.INFOGRAPHIC BY SABRINA JEN

ASB acted commendably in restruc-turing the dance policy and ac-tivities to alleviate the concerns of

freshmen, but it overcompensated and sub-sequently neglected the desires of upper-classmen. The dance policy was developed over the past year to combat inappropriate dancing, and the strategy was produced in response to a poll that revealed about 60 percent of freshmen were not interested in attending the Aug. 23 Welcome Back Bash.

Assuming that ASB and the adminis-tration have no plans to revise the new dance policy, and that the purpose of dances is to provide an entertaining environment for all students, ASB’s blueprint to entice students to attend must change accordingly. The plan as currently constituted appeals primar-ily to underclassmen and is not eco-nomically self-sustaining.

To spark interest in the dance among underclassmen and fresh-men in particular, ASB created an entirely new dance experience. Ac-cording to ASB, alternate entertain-ment such as a video game tourna-ment and an air-hockey table was put into place specifically for the younger contingent of attendees. No activities were implemented, however, with the interests of upperclassmen in mind. This, compounded with the stricter policy on dancing, caused at-tendance among upperclass-men to drop.

The efforts made by ASB to increase turnout at the Wel-come Back Bash did not ac-tually result in a significant rise in the overall number of dance-goers, but instead ex-changed one group’s inter-

ests for another’s.Furthermore, the new dance ap-

proach may not be economically fea-sible. The new aspects of the bash

caused expenses to grow $400 compared to last year’s Welcome Back Dance while only increasing attendance by 30 students. This means that it cost over $13 to attract each new participant, despite growing partici-pation by only 7 percent. Additionally, ASB lowered the ticket price to $5.

If this financial trend continues, income gains will not be able to keep up with ex-penses, and the dance system will need more external funding to stay afloat.

Despite the one-sided nature of the dance strategy as it currently exists, mea-sures can be taken to ensure that future dances attract attendees from all segments of the student body.

Distributing a school-wide survey to gauge what activities students would like at dances would be an important first step in this process. An expansion of the ASB social committee into a group which contains at least one representative from each grade level would amplify the voice of the stu-dents as well.

An equal allocation of funding for both upperclassmen and underclassmen-orient-ed activities would safeguard the balance of their interests--and achieve the goal of creating a social environment appealing to all students. After each dance, the members of the new social committee should collect reviews from students within their grade, both to facilitate continuous improvement and keep ASB in touch with the desires of students from each grade.

Faced with the issue of low freshmen at-tendance at the Welcome Back Bash, ASB overhauled its methods of attracting this demographic. While successful in increas-ing participation among underclassmen, the new strategy in tandem with the re-vamped dance policy stripped upperclass-men of reason to attend. In order to achieve its goal of making a setting enjoyable for all students, ASB needs to continue its search for a suitable compromise.

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY JACOB ANTONY

BY SANA SHARFUDDIN

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY THE OPINION SECTION

Academic pressure: weighing options

Nearly every incoming junior and se-nior has heard it: “How many APs are you taking this year?” Higher num-

bers generally come increasing hints of pride and competitive spirit, perpetuating the no-tion that AP and Honors courseloads corre-spond to a student’s intellect and success. Al-though advanced classes are only one factor in the broad scheme of a student’s academic journey, students often misuse them as indi-cators to quickly pass judgement on others’ intellectual capacities and motivations.

The fear of peer judgment often places an unwarranted amount of stress on students, compelling them to take on more AP classes than they can handle. Despite this bias in the status quo, students in regular or lower level courses should not yield to peer pressure and consider taking advanced classes simply to fit in. Instead, they should select courses most appropriate to their interests, while leaving time to pursue their extracurricular interests, which may be more beneficial in developing important life skills.

The pressure to fit a certain Lynbrook standard of high academic achievement is not just in students’ heads. According to sophomore Sierra Lee Chen, who speaks from personal experience, students in lower math classes often face insulting comments and judgmental looks from their peers.

“Some people at Lynbrook ask about math classes and once you tell them, they make faces and rude comments,” said Chen. “It isn’t fair because some students need a little more help with math, but still hold the potential to do well in other subjects.”

Many will go to great lengths just to fit

in academically, giving up their summers to take supplemental math classes instead of volunteering or pursuing internships. Chen has been told that other students considered her “smart”until her lower level of math came to light. After experiencing this disdain, Chen considered devoting her summer to a math course in order to jump ahead to a “moder-ate” level.

“I really wanted the judgment and com-ments to stop,” explained Chen, “and I wanted to fit in at Lynbrook by taking a higher level math class because a majority of the students are in that category.”

Chen, however, spent her summer vol-unteering at a preschool, knowing that she would benefit from the experience of teach-ing younger students while gaining commu-nity service hours. For those taking advanced classes simply for their supposed benefit in college admissions, pursuing their own in-terests outside of the classroom has proven to be as important as enrolling in rigorous courses. While a supplemental summer math class may boost a student’s math level, taking on an internship, volunteer position, or even part-time job may demonstrate more valu-able qualities a student possesses.

This strategy worked for class of ‘09 alum-na Alice Wu, who still recalls how challeng-ing courses drained the happiness from her classmates.

“Junior year felt like going to school with a bunch of miserable people who carried their AP Biology books around like their life depended on it. Sometimes that stress from APs carried on into other activities in their life too, making them unhappy people to be

around,” said Wu. Valuing her own happiness over fitting in

with her unhappy peers, Wu chose to pur-sue her passion for the arts. With confidence that she would become successful regardless of how many advanced classes she took, Wu journeyed through her four years without taking a single AP course. After graduating Lynbrook, she attended California College of the Arts in Oakland and San Francisco for one year before transferring to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to study industrial design.

Though she felt the pressure to take ad-vanced classes from her peers, Wu said she “knew that [she] genuinely wasn’t interested in this stuff at the time. Not to mention, I was in a bunch of extracurriculars so I wouldn’t have been able to handle it anyway.” Wu’s journey is proof that using one’s time to pur-sue their interests through extracurricular activities provides numerous benefits com-pared to simply giving in to the judgment of others.

When the prospects of better college ad-missions chances or increased peer respect, come at the price of personal happiness, students should reevaluate their academic planning decisions. By doing so, they can gain both experience and opportunities in areas that truly interest them. To be successful in life, one needs more than a genius’ knowl-edge of calculus or English: dedication and a love for one’s work is also key. Instead of giv-ing into the pressure to take strenuous high-level courses, students with other interests should rise above and let their true dreams soar.

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Intel CEO: Brian

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY KHAYA BHATIA AND FRINA REDOLOZA

Intel CEO and alumnus Bri-an Krzanich shares about his life at Lyn-brook and beyond

krzanich

Q: How was your experience at Lynbrook?A: My experience at Lynbrook was more centered around sports. I played bas-ketball at Lynbrook. It wasn’t centered around school work, and it wasn’t as competitively structured. It was a good school, but it was the kids who went to Bellarmine or Mitty who really studied hard, but I know now Lynbrook is mas-sively more around education. I think our community has changed too. I have two daughters. My oldest daughter is fifteen, she just started at St. Francis as a freshman. I would say there’s not a high level of Asian population there or any-thing, it’s pretty diverse, but her scholastic focus is so different than mine was. My younger daughter is in the sixth grade, and just the amount of homework they have, their focus on school, and grades, it is just so different. I mean, the only thing you thought about when I graduated from high school was if you could get over 1300 or something on your SAT. Because back then the SAT was out of 1600, and if you got a 1300-1400, you were set. You were going to go to college.

Q: Describe your college years. Why did you leave UC Berkeley?A: I wanted to get my hands dirty, and I was thinking that college was just getting in my way of getting into the industry. But I also knew that if I didn’t have my college degree, I’d be stuck in the lower rungs. The differ-ence between De Anza and Berkeley was the size of the classes and the amount of hands-on. When you went into the lab [at De Anza] you got to do everything yourself: you could fuddy up with the professors, maintain the equipment and do fun stuff. But at Berkeley, every class you walked into was two, three, four hundred people. Often, you never even talked to the professor. You never touched the lab equipment. You handed your sample to a lab technician who ran it for you. I re-member getting my first test back, and I think I got an 18 out of a 100. I had the high-est grade in the class. Yes, there was a curve, but that’s not learning. That’s just pummel-ing. And that was my experience at Berke-ley. I did learn, but I felt like I was just get-ting through the process, trying to graduate, and beat all the guys around me versus re-ally learn. I finished the quarter, semester, or whatever it was and then I was like, ‘I’m out of here.’ But I always knew that I’d be okay. I knew that I loved what I was doing, and I knew that would get me to someplace at the end of the day. So I just didn’t worry about it.

Q: When did you realize what you loved to do?A: Well I kind of flipped, so my high school years were all about sports. I really enjoyed it and it was fun. I took math and science but I wasn’t in the AP classes. They didn’t have that many AP classes back then. I was just a good student, not the best or anything. And then you go to college and you realize, “Well wait a second, I’m not that good at sports. This is gonna end.” And so that’s when I really focused on my studies, and I got lucky. For me, I found...you know there’s that old classic thing about do what you love, and I actu-ally found I just loved chemistry.

Q: If you were interviewing someone for a job at Intel, what would you look for in them?A: We look for people with broad, strong educations in material science, chemical engineering, chemistry, elec-trical engineering. We look for people especially with masters degrees.Q: Do you think Moore’s law can be sus-tained 10 years into the future?A: I know it can. The physics is actu-ally always solvable. If you read the paper that Gordon Moore wrote, it’s not a science paper. It’s actually an economics paper. And what it’s really saying is that Moore’s law is not about shrinking the transistor in half. It’s about reducing the cost and making electronics available to everybody.

Q: What is your advice to high school students?A: My advice to high school students today is math is the language of science, and just like in soci-ety, if you can’t speak, you can’t function, so if you don’t know math, no matter what you want to do in science, you’re not going to function.. Actually, early in your math career, you can start doing word problems, where you have to translate events and phrases into equations. And that’s what engineers do, I always do that, and in my job here, I’m always trying to figure out how to translate a problem in a simple, good way. Math. It’s all about math. No matter what you want to do.

ART ILLUSTRATION BY AUDREY ZHENG

We don’t often stop to won-der how our favorite authors became inter-

ested in writing. Like many world-renowned authors who started writing in their teenage years, some students have also taken interest in writing at a young age. Whether it be through publishing their own books, entering in competitions, or con-stantly writing at home, students have found ways to express their passion for creative writing.

In the summer of his freshman year, senior Arnav Mishra began writing a story while visiting rela-tives in India.

“I was bored with nothing else to do; I had a laptop, and I just started writing. Eventually, it turned out to be much longer than I expected, and then it became this book,” said Mishra.

Set in a fantasy world of elves, dwarves, and humans, Mishra’s fan-tasy novel, titled “Genocide: The War of Four Species” depicts the conflicts that arise when dragons destroy the peace among the three existing species.

After Mishra started his sopho-more year, he set aside the story to focus on schoolwork, and it was not until earlier this year that he de-cided to pick the book back up and publish it.

“When my family and some of my family friends found out about it, they were like ‘Oh, we would love to see the book in a real copy,’ and I thought, ‘Well, I guess that could happen,’” said Mishra. Motivated by the encouraging words of his friends and family, Mishra decided to pub-lish his book.

Instead of finding an agent to contact a publisher for him, Mishra self-published his book through a company he found.

“To work with an agent to find a publishing company, you have to first sell yourself to the agent, but that’s a lot of work and costs a lot of money. It also takes a long time for an experienced adult author to go

By (Insert-Name-Here)through that process, so as a teenag-er, it’d be extremely hard to find an agent who’d be willing to work with you,” said Mishra.

The publishing company, Out-skirts Press, worked with Mishra every step of the way. Mishra got his book published and eventually put it for sale on Amazon on Aug. 9.

“It was definitely an excellent experience getting to hold my book for the first time,” said Mishra. “In my view, one of the goals of humans in general is to leave their mark on society, and by getting a real copy of my first book published, I have be-gun doing just that.”

Junior Marian Park takes a differ-ent route to express herself, writing creative pieces for Vertigo and sub-mitting stories in writing competi-tions. Park first began creative writ-ing as an experiment.

She said, “I really liked reading, but I never really tried writing any stories, and I thought it would be cool if I could try imitating my fa-vorite author Betty Smith’s style.” She entered her first competition, the PTA Reflections Program, in 7th grade, composing a story which won in the Literature category at the school level.

After winning an award from the PTA Reflections Program, Park was pleasantly surprised, sensing an in-terest and potential in creative writ-ing. In 9th grade, she branched out with her writing and entered in the high school level category of the na-tional Jack London Foundation Writ-ing Contest, enjoying the freedom it gave her to write about anything she wanted.

“Jack London is known for his stories that follow themes on na-ture, so I decided to write a piece like that. There was a tsunami in Ja-pan that year, so I decided to write a story on natural calamities,” said Park. Her story, inspired by a news story about a young girl who was separated from her father during the disaster, was successful, receiv-ing an honorable mention.

Two esteemed student authors share their love for creative writingBY CHRISTINA LIU & MICHELLE SU

After having an instagram before, I learned everything I could about this app, or at least I thought I did.For my prior personal Instagram, I never tried to find followers - I just linked my Instagram to my Facebook account so all my Face-

book friends could follow me. Not having this ability for the challenge, however, created a bit of a problem - I had to find followers in other ways.

For the first day, I decided to start gaining the most followers possible by following as many pages and people as I possibly could and after gaining a total of 9 followers and feeling proud, I called it a night.

For Day 2, I started making my Instagram personal by posting photos of the parts of my life I love. So, I posted my first photo of field hockey sticks and hashtagged common sayings such as #love and #mylife. This way, anyone who was looking through those tags would see my photo and potentially follow me. This seemed to work because I gained two more followers that day.

For Day 3, I posted a photo of a common interest among students at Lynbrook - food. Though this post may have caused more laughter for my followers, the word spread and I had up to 15 followers that day.

Being new to this particular social network, I suffered immensely throughout the first day of the challenge. I ended up asking many people for instructions and largely did not know what I was doing. By the time the second day arrived, I felt a slightly more confident and, I was able to upload photos, view profiles, and perform key functions such as liking and following, quite smoothly. I am planning on uploading a more unique profile picture in order to provide a better first insta-pression. (sorry that was terrible). My overall goal is to maintain a balanced follower/following ratio, which es-sentially shows that I have not simply followed a countless number of people in the hopes that they will follow back out of courtesy. Continuing on, as Day 3 passed I uploaded a photo of my little sister with her dessert at Red Robin, in the hopes that the “cute younger sibling” touch would extract multiple “awhs” from my followers. On Day 4, I decided to sit back and give my two posts some time to soak up all the likes they could. I resumed posting on Day 5, this time with an image displaying the feet of myself and a fellow staffer, Yonaton Zemylak. This photo managed to accumulate five likes. By the time Day 6 arrived, I had amassed a total of 15 followers, while only following 16, just nearly pushing my ratio over 1.

18 followers20 followers

Every day, thousands of people create new Instagram accounts and join over 100 million others in sharing photos and videos of their lives. But what exactly, from posts to general profile decisions, tends to garner the largest number of followers? Staffers Khaya Bhatia (above left) and Ashwin Ravi (above right) set out to shed some light on the answer.

To read the rest of this story, go to page 26

JOEY LI—EPIC

Junior Jessica Jiang recounts a trip that “burst the Silicon Valley

bubble I’ve been living in.” Not having been exposed to cultures out-

side the U.S., Jiang developed an interest in cultural anthropology.

“I’ve been wanting to get out for a while,” Jiang said. “When I

found this program, I was given the perfect opportunity.”

The Cross Cultural Solutions for teens (CCS) sought the aid of

students 15 to 17 years of age to help guide classrooms in Ghana,

Africa. Jiang had to adapt to an entirely new environment that of-

fered little in terms of of everyday luxuries Americans have grown

to depend on. “My parents and I had to find a clinic that could give me a yellow

fever vaccine and malaria medication. Then we had to buy my really

expensive air ticket,” she said. Jiang remained firm on her initiative,

and spent her 16th birthday in the rural city of Ghana. To celebrate,

Jiang’s students did their best to sing her “Happy Birthday” in the

little English they knew.

“The CCS staff members were all natives. They did a really good

job immersing us in African culture and tending to our needs,” said

Jiang. During her stay, Jiang drank water from the village well, took

showers by pouring cold buckets of water on herself, and even in

sweltering weather wore a dress that reached her knees. Yet despite

the conditions, Jiang insisted that the life lessons she gained made

her inconveniences seem trifling.

As an instructor of students whose ages ranged from 9 to 12, Ji-

ang worked tirelessly from morning to after-

noon in hopes of finishing the lessons before

it was time to leave. At the end of each day,

she would go over various teaching methods

to try out the next time her class met.

“They learned so much with what lit-

tle they had,” she said. “I remember playing with them during

breaks and seeing their smiles. They had such positive outlooks

and they were such hard workers. My students have taught me

more than what I could ever repay them with.” Jiang’s one time

interaction with the smallest child in her group confirmed her

observation that kindness did not only have to be derived from

wealth.“This little girl was really hungry and she was asking for

some food,” said Jiang. “I wanted to help her so I asked someone

for some crackers to give to her. To my surprise, the little girl

handed the package back to me. I thought she wanted me to

unwrap it, so I did and handed it back to her. In two words, she

told me that she wanted me to have it. It shocked me because

she looked so small and I’ve probably eaten more in a day than

she had for a week.”

Jiang feels that her three-week experience has taught her

the true worth of kindness and giving. She plans to revisit

Ghana in the future and reunite with the people who have so

hugely impacted her world.

GHANA [Jessica]

AWED WHILE ABROADThree students share their experiences being overseas during the summer

BY AUDREY ZHENG

USED WITH PERMISSION OF BARBARA JACKSON, JESSICA JIANG, AND MAYA KAPILEVICH

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY MEERA KRISHNAMOORTHY

Senior Barbara Jackson attended the wedding of a close family friend just outside of Paris, France. Of the venue, Jackson said, “The wedding was in this really old church that had all of these old paintings. It was a really beautiful setting.” The reception took place in a chateau that guests were allowed to explore throughout the night. The 400 guests were able to snack on hors d’oeuvres, socialize and dance. The wedding was Jack-son’s favorite part of her European vacation because it was unlike anything she had ever experienced.

She said, “The wedding was almost like a scene from Downton Abbey or Pride and Prejudice! There was a gorgeous castle with green fields and trees, and a large fountain in the middle of the courtyard. There was a live band and a ton of people I’ve known my whole life. It was an amazing experience to be with so many people I love, dancing, eating great food and experiencing a gor-geous country. Other weddings had been fun, but not one wedding had all these elements come together like they did in this wedding. It is something I will remem-

Though she was initially reluctant to spend a cou-

ple weeks of her summer vacation away from her job

as a swim instructor, senior Maya Kapilevich ended up

having a fun and unique time with her brother and fa-

ther on her trip to Thailand. She said, “That was where

I did more tourist-y things. We went and saw temples

and the ancient cities, there was a lot of walking and

biking.” But Kapilevich’s favorite day in Thailand con-

sisted of a visit to Tiger Temple, and an elephant ride

through the jungle.

She said, “I went to a place called Tiger Temple

where they have trained tigers. There’s a bunch of

monks there and they have tiger pets. There were the

baby tigers, and the baby tigers who were already big,

and the teenager tigers, and the adult tigers, and we

got to choose which kind we wanted to play with.”

It was her favorite part because, “it was a really

unique experience, and [the tigers] were also really

cute and playful.”

ber my whole life.”The wedding was only one stop along the way. Next, Jackson took a road trip from France to Germany. When her fam-ily spent a day in the Netherlands, Jackson was surprised by an unexpected experience.

“The Netherlands is somewhere that I’d never think was a really cool place.” said Jackson, “but we stayed in a really small town and in the morning there was this huge street fair and there were all of these people selling things. It was really cool because you got to feel the culture a lot.”

Jackson learned a lot about the different culture, such as having to pay to use the restrooms, and only being able to get bottled water, instead of water from the tap. She said, “I am more thankful for the things we have in the United States.” She also appreciated how friendly most people were over-seas. She said, “No one really in the U.S. is as friendly as the people I met in the Netherlands.”Overall, Jackson feels she learned a lot from her trip to

Europe, and hopes to see more overseas travel in her future. She said, “I’m definitely more open to the idea of studying abroad, even if it’s not in Europe; it could be anywhere.”

Other than her animal adventures, Kapi-

levich enjoyed exploring Asian cuisine.

She said, “When I was in Thailand I had

pad thai everyday, it was just so good. And then in Vietnam

I just had pho and typical Vietnamese food,” adding, “Asian

food in America sucks compared to Asian food in Asia.”

Kapilevich also learned a lot about how many people

in Thailand live. She said, It’s not necessarily a third-world

country, but they’re definitely not as rich as the U.S.” She felt

the experience was humbling, saying, “You get to see how

people on the other side of the world live. It’s sort of hum-

bling because when I complain about how my friend has a

bigger house than me and then you go over there and their

houses, some people have just like bungalows. It’s interest-

ing to see. They have so little, but they’re so happy.”

As for returning to Asia, Kapilevich sees a trip in her fu-

ture. She said, “My dad works in Asia a lot, so we probably

will go back, and if not to the same place then to a different

part of Asia.” She hopes that next time she’ll be able to visit a

panda farm in China.

FRANCE [Barbara]

THAILAND [Maya]

AWED WHILE ABROAD

BY KELSEY HURWITZ

BY KELSEY HURWITZ

By Day 6, I had 15 followers while only following 16, just nearly pushing my ratio over 1. In the end, I had gained a total of 18 fol-lowers and 18 following with three posts. Although I finished with fewer followers, my follower/following ratio was higher. I feel rather accomplished with this ap-plication. I gained more experiece as the days passed, and I think with more time I might have even been able to overtake my opponent. As of today, however, I shall humbly admit defeat. Job well done Khaya.

DQICUHJLXFDQJU-DYXKWZIKHJR-RFK. To most of

us, it is an incomprehensible jumble of letters. To sopho-more Ryan Eckert, it is an enigma exercise that he must decode using the given clues.

In the summer of 2012, Eckert developed an inter-est in cryptology, the study of using logic to read en-crypted text. While searching for courses to take through the Center for Talented Youth (CTY), cryptology caught his eye.

“Cryptology stuck out as being unique, so I took the course,” said Eckert. He took CTY’s Advanced Cryptology this summer as a follow-up to the initial class.

As he advanced, calcula-

tions became more complex.“Cryptology requires a lot

of thinking out of the box,” said Eckert. “It can also be very tedious due to calculating every possibility.”

To Eckert, cryptology is like a logic puzzle. To come up with the answer, he must use the clues he is given, and most im-portantly, his brain.

“Cryptology is about the ‘ah-ha!’ moments,” said Eckert. “At first, it seems daunting. But as you start learning, the facts and observations line up.”

Eckert finds a sense of ac-complishment in doing some-thing unique and carries his cryptology notebook with pride.

“The most notable one is the Enigma,” he said, flipping through the pages. “So for the

Sophomore Ryan Eckert shares his unique interest for deciphering codes with reporter Urmila Venkataramani

Fortunately, Day 4 was #mancrushmon-day. I took advantage of this and posted a picture of the attractive Louis Tomlinson from One Direction. This worked to my ad-vantage, as I earned 4 more followers.

Day 6, was #womencrushwednesday - I didn’t want to give anyone the wrong mes-sage, but I posted a photo of Megan Fox and earned 3 male followers.

By the end, I feel as if I’m an expert of Instagram. I won the challenge with a total of 20 followers and following 33 people. It was a great game, Ashwin.

Enigma, once you have the ro-tors…” His book is filled with numbers upon numbers, but he is too caught up in his tale to ex-plain.

Learning cryptology has left an impact on Eckert, teaching him to look at things in an ana-lytical way.

“Cryptology has made me think more in-depth, and to mentally reverse-engineer many things that occur in our daily lives,” said Eckert.

Although there are opportu-nities for working in the field, a career in cryptology is more of a back-up plan.

Eckert said, “I plan to contin-ue my skills until I get to college. As for now, I’m just going to have some fun.”

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Nearly everyone these days has a smart-phone. They’re all Snapchatting, Ins-tagramming, Vine-ing (is that even a

thing??) while I stare stupidly at my LG Cos-mos from 2010 and ponder how behind the times I am. Overall, It’s a pretty sad existence if you ask me. Not that my phone looks like it belongs to an eighth grader, but because I feel out of the loop. You know how when people are in pub-lic, it’s easy to make themselves look busy by simply popping out their smartphone and begin scrolling away? Yeah, that doesn’t quite work if you have a phone that: a) lacks a touchscreen and b) only has two functions, calling and texting. So when people around me are somewhat focused on what’s happen-ing on their smartphone, I have to resort to twiddling my thumbs. ‘Cause pulling out my brick of a phone (to look through my text

messages for the third time) is pretty much a sacrifice of dignity more than anything else. And the dilemma is that if I do decide to buy a new phone, I’ll have to wait two whole years before I’m eligible for an upgrade, so I’ve resolved to stick it out with this thing un-til college comes around and I can finally get a smartphone. In the meantime, I’m gonna have to resort to finding more ways to compensate for the awkwardness I go through when my friends are scrolling away on their phones while I’m gawking at the wall. There’s this eerie silence that is difficult for me to tolerate when this happens, except I don’t do anything about it, since I’m too afraid that I’ll interrupt what-ever it is they’re doing on their phones. For those of you who are in the same situation as I am, I’m sure you understand what I’m talking about here. I also feel like I’m missing out on a whole ‘nother realm of social activity at times. The

only feature my phone has that is even re-motely similar to Instagram is that it can send and receive picture messages—which is quite remarkable for this thing, with its 2” x 1” (more or less) screen. And even then, it takes a good 15 seconds for it to receive or send these messages, while I pray frantically that it musters the power to do so. So the one upside (an exaggeration to call it that) of the phone is really a miracle when it works. Also, I have to run around like an idiot to areas with better service, while waving my phone in the air. Regardless of all these things, however, I take pride in being one of the remaining few people to not own a smartphone…Ha…Who am I kidding, I hate my phone. You really thought I was serious there, though, huh. Anyways, I hope this brought you some laughter, or at the very least my lamentations made you feel better about yourself.

NIKITA DHESIKAN—EPIC

MEGA REUNION

Lynbrook graduates reunite after 2003 Reunion

For over thirty years, Lynbrook grad-uates have built distinct lives diverg-ing from the ones they had in high

school. For over thirty years, they have been unaware of the events and changes Lynbrook has undergone. This separation ended on Aug. 10, the day that the Lyn-brook High School Mega Reunion Com-mittee held a gala at the San Jose Hilton Double Tree Hotel for Lynbrook alumni from the graduating classes of 1968 through 1979. After over thirty years of being apart, the Lynbrook alumni were finally able to reconnect with each other.

The gala had a successful turnout, with over 600 alumni present. Entertaining 600 people is quite the challenge -- one that the Mega Reunion Committee did not take lightly. This project, according to Deborah Luck ‘77 and Mega Reunion gala coordinator, had been two years in the making.

The effort was necessary because the committee understood the alumni’s need for a reunion. High school is filled with transient friendships; underclassmen of-ten form strong bonds with upperclass-men, only to them broken once those upperclassmen graduate. The reunion provided a perfect opportunity for the alumni to connect with friends they made through their high school career.

“At Lynbrook, [you were friends with] students three years ahead of you, and three years behind you; the gala is an op-portunity to try to be with all of them,” said Luck.

Though Luck and the rest of the Mega

Reunion Committee were responsible for the orga-nization of the gala, the alumni themselves were equally vital because they financed the event. Any profit made from the gala will be donated to Lyn-brook High School from the alumni.

“The costs of the gala were extensive but were covered by ticket sales and sponsorships. We were operating on a zero budget but managed to make it happen through the support of fellow alumni who came through as sponsors of the event,” said Luck.

While the main attraction at the gala was the alumni themselves, the Mega Reunion Committee organized a slew of other activities. The Joe Sharino band played from 8 to 11 p.m., giving the alumni three hours to hit the dancefloor with their former classmates.

“Joe Sharino was the ‘It’ band when we were in high school, so having him play brought back many memories for all of us,” said Luck ‘77.

The alumni were able to reminisce one-on-one, and as a group, through various speeches given by Lynbrook graduates as well as other gala attendees. For the alumni who spoke, these speeches allowed them to share their gratitude with the Mega Re-union committee for organizing the gala, as well as discuss their most treasured Lynbrook memories with all of the gala attendees.

“I really enjoyed listening to the speeches that the alumni made,” said Principal John Dwyer, one of the attendees at the gala. “I mostly enjoyed hearing them talk about how special Lynbrook is as a place, and everyone, regardless of the class they graduate, feel like this is a place that they can come back.”

Dwyer also had an opportunity to deliver a speech at the gala; he talked about Lynbrook’s con-sistently excellent reputation among other schools and how proud he is to be the principal.

Dwyer was not the only non-alumni to perform at the Mega Reunion. Former Lynbrook cheerlead-ers were delighted when the Lynbrook cheer team arrived at the gala and performed a series of rou-tines for the alumni.

“We were approached by many people who had

GALA||From top: Alumni gather in the ballroom, organizer Deborah Luck before the event, friends are reunited, and the Joe Sharino band plays.

KASTURI PANTVAIDYA—EPIC

Reporting by Khaya Bhatia and Meera Krishnamoorthy. Layout by Jessica Cao

been previous cheerleaders and Pom/Song lead-ers before the performance and during the check-in process,” said varsity cheerleader junior Ayesha Godiwala. “They all were very excited at seeing the current cheerleaders and often times reminisced and shared stories of their times on the Spirit Squad. We got many positive remarks on our per-formance of the fight song as well.”

With the numerous activities to look forward to, as well as the opportunity to reunite with several old friends, most of the alumni were eagerly antici-pating the Mega Reunion gala. Some anxious alum-ni, however, approached the Gala apprehensively.

“I dread reunions,” said Brian G. Derby ‘73. “I al-ways forget names but I recognize faces.”

Derby and the rest of the alumni, through danc-ing, eating, and reminiscing, were able to relive their carefree teenage years for one night -- an op-portunity that they all greatly enjoyed.

“The event was a tremendous success and we all had a fabulous time!” said Luck.

The Mega Reunion nostalgia carried over from the gala to the Family Day Pic-nic at Lynbrook on Aug. 11, giving the alumni an opportunity to see the cam-pus where they spent their four years of high school.

“It’s really nice to be able to come back to see all the places you’ve hung out in high school, ” said Ken Mowry ‘79.

Marching Band performed a ten minute concert in the Quad, formerly known as the “rally court.” Its repertoire consisted of six songs, including the Lynbrook fight song, the Lynbrook Alma Mater and the Hawaii 5-0 theme song. The marching band’s quad performance was especially moving to former Lynbrook musicians, like Ted Kellesey, ‘76.

“It brought back good memories seeing the band play the Hawaii 5-0 theme song because that’s what we used to play in high school,” said Kellesey.

The classic car displays were another significant part of Family Day. According to coordinator Brian Guthrie, several alumni are car collectors, and relished the opportunity to share their classic pre-1973 cars with their family and old friends.

“Like most collectors, us car collectors have a certain pas-sion for our hobby that we share,” said Guthrie. “The spectrum of car types that were there was very impressive. I am glad that I had a chance to make a contribution to my old high school by overseeing the car display.”

Other alumni were more interested in the displays in the Cove, especially the alumni memoriam and Lynbrook memo-rabilia. Among the memorabilia were seven photo albums dis-

playing pictures of the alumni as they were in high school: photos of classes, rallies, dances, and even the Epic.

“Some of the archive stuff was put together by other Lynbrook alumni,” said Er-ich Rabago ‘92, the memorabilia display coordinator. “Some of the stuff was kept by the school that we just borrowed.. The blown up pictures that were on the walls were taken from past yearbooks and we originally used them for the “Coming Home” event last year.

Scott Rule ‘69 was one among several of the alumni that appreciated the efforts of Rabago and others working on the memorabilia display.

“I remember taking this picture right here,” said Rule, pointing to a picture of himself and four other friends. “Looking at these photos is more meaningful than being at the school itself because it is pressed in a picture. It’s a special memory.”

Though the various activities and the opportunity to view Lynbrook in its cur-rent glory were bonuses, alumni flocked to the Family Day event for the same rea-sons they came to the Mega Reunion gala: to meet with old friends.

“People have the opportunity to reconnect and meet other people,” said Karen Russell, co-chair of the Mega Reunion Committee.“We are not the same people we were in high school and through these events, such as Family Day, the cliques and hostility we felt in high school evaporates.”

-Sharon Johnson ‘79

From the class of 1979, Diane Dickey describes herself in high school as a shy girl with long, straight, dark hair.

Her favorite part about high school was the Sadie Hawkins dance, where girls have the chance to ask any guy to a dance. She said, “It was fun to dress up and have a date, it was the one dance where you could ask your cute crush.” When she found out about the reunion, she was “intrigued,” but what ulti-mately pushed her to come was the oppor-tunity to reconnect with her best friend from high school. For the first time since their high school graduation, Dickey and her old best friend were able to reconnect and talk about the past 34 years.

From the class of 1972, Timothy Tyson spent all four years of high school very involved in the track and field team.

He described himself in high school as a “shy and athletic young kid”, with a special passion for track. He said, “My favorite high school memory was running track and cross country. My favorite races were the ones in the high deserts.” Tyson and his team spent many practices in high deserts, practicing in rough conditions to prepare for meets. His entire time at Lynbrook was devoted to running track; therefore, the only reason that Tyson attended the reunion was to re-connect with his old friends from track and cross country.

“I was shy and not as outgoing. High school was very cliquey and I re-member there were lots of physical fights. It is different from high schools today,” said Sharon Johnson ‘79.

back in vikingterritory

“What I missed most about Lynbrook was learning. In adult life, I use a lot of what I learned in high school. It is im-portant to value high school educa-tion because you will not be retaught it.”

“It is nice to be able to come back [to Lynbrook], it is a trip to see all the places you have hung out in high school and it brings back good memories.”

-Donald Guerland ‘77

-Ken moWRY ‘79

“We are not the same people we were in high school, it doesn’t matter who we were in highschool, it matters who we are. No matter where we go we will always be a viking, once a vi-king, always a viking.”

-Karen russell ‘72

-Larry johnson ‘72

”My favorite high school memory was cutting the cheese under the desk so by the afternoon the whole class had to be evacuated.”

NIKITA DHESIKAN—EPIC

Laura Matilla, from the graduating class of 1978, loved high school because it was “diverse and had lots of different people”.

The most memorable part of high school for Matilla was her position as a KLIV correspon-dent for Lynbrook. KLIV was a radio station in San Jose that allowed one correspondent from each high school in the area to collect the week’s most popular song choices and activities from their school and chose what to be should be played on the station. As a new student, Mattila qualified for this position and took the opportunity to meet new people. She ended up loving it and was the first correspon-dent at Lynbrook from 1974 to 1978.

Donald Guerland, from the class of 1973, recalled that he was a bit of a “geek” in high school. He was very involved in

several school clubs, including band, school plays, the Boy Scouts, and CSF. He said one of his favorite memories from high school was the CSF Trip to San Francisco, which he de-scribed as the “height of happiness.” Another special memory for Guerland was visiting Baja, California with his oceanography class. When asked what he misses the most about Lynbrook, Guerland said, “I miss the learning. In adult life, I use a lot of what I learned in high school. It is important to value high school education because you will not be retaught it.”

From the graduating class of 1974, Mary Renneke described her high school self as “loud, athletic and fun”. She claimed

that high school was “the best years of my life, different, but the best”. She played field hockey, basketball, volleyball, softball and track and field for all four years of high school. For field hockey, she played with the legendary coach, Sandi Stober and never lost a game in four years. Renneke’s team won four champion-ships in a row for women’s field hockey, and her class was therefore called the “best year for women’s athletics.” Renneke loves going to her class reunions because she “loves seeing how everyones changed and stayed the same; reunions take you back to high school”.

As Viking Day rolls around before the beginning of the school year, many stu-dents can be found excitedly comparing

schedules and chatting about which teachers they have.

Some, however, have doubts concerning their plans for the future after not receiving the classes they specifically asked for. Many stu-dents are unaware of how exactly classes are assigned and to whom priorities are given.

“Creating schedules for every student is a very strenuous task,” said Lynbrook Assistant Principal Maria Jackson. “It’s somewhat like a puzzle.” Jackson, with help from the depart-ment chairpersons and other administrators, is in charge of creating the master schedule for the whole school.

First, the administration reviews course of-ferings and diagnostic test dates with parents and students. The guidance team then informs Miller Middle School and McAuliffe Middle School of registration schedules, and readies all other registration materials for currently enrolled students.

In March, the administrators must complete the course selection process for all students and send out course verifications. Jackson, along with the Lynbrook data technicians, then produce an estimate of how many students can be in each course, and distribute the numbers to each department.

Jackson then takes teachers’ scheduling

The intricate process behind class schedules

How It Works

BY KASTURI PANTVAIDYA

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preferences into consideration, but first priority always goes to students. In April, once students have verified their choices, course selections are updated and “LAST CHANCE” course verification forms are sent out.

“Students change their minds all the time, and it’s important to give them mul-tiple chances to do so,” said Jackson. At the end of this phase, some students still have schedule conflicts. Jackson will then take these issues and produce a conflict matrix.

For example, assume that the leader-ship class and AP French are in the same period. If there are more than three or four students requesting both of those classes, Jackson must move one of those classes to another period so that those students may get the classes that they want.

Next, Jackson constructs the master schedule by seat availability, teacher and student preferences, and the conflict ma-trix. While doing this, she must abide by the student to teacher ratios set by the teachers union. Different departments have different staffing ratios: English class-es are 28:1; physical education and music are 40:1, Lit 1 and Algebra 1 are 23:1, and all other departments are 32.5:1.

If there are more requests than seats in a course, some students will receive the

alternate elective choices that they listed on their course selection forms.

Once all the student data has been en-tered, Jackson uses a computer program called Schedule Wizard to compile tenta-tive schedules. Then, student schedules are

adjusted and previously undetected course selection issues are resolved. Often, class periods have to be changed so that students do not have holes in their schedules. Jackson continues to rearrange schedules until 95 percent of the conflicts are fixed; the remain-ing conflicts are then gradually taken care of. After 95 percent, the schedule program loses its effectiveness, and it is easier to manually

address the scheduling issues. In the final phase of the process, tentative

schedules are mailed to all students. Then, final schedule adjustments begin. Administrators make changes based on summer school classes taken, math placement issues, and requests for dropping classes.

Two days before Viking Days begin, official schedules are printed out and distributed.

Jackson and the guidance team must keep working to consider requests for dropping classes and rearranging schedules, which is difficult considering that changing a student’s schedule may upset a previously balanced stu-dent to teacher ratio.

“The most difficult part of the whole process is seeing students, or even teachers, displeased with their schedules,” said Jackson. “We work so hard to make them get what they want, which is why the most difficult part is the hu-man aspect of it.”

Though the administration team tries their best to give students the classes that they re-quest, it is impossible to make everyone happy. This is due to all the different rules and regula-tions that they must follow.

“If a student doesn’t get the class that they want, we hope that they are not discouraged,” said Jackson. “We always suggest that they re-quest the class next year, since upperclassmen are given priority.”

Piecing it Together:Delving into the world of special education students

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY KASTURI PANTVAIDYA

BY IZABELLA KIPNIS & KRISTEN WONG

The walls are covered with colorful post-ers and billboards. Small, round tables are scattered throughout the room, and

the empty seats have been hastily pushed in. From the built-in kitchen, an aroma of maca-roni and cheese fills the air; in one corner of the room, a washing machine churns slowly. Unknown to most of the school population, this is the classroom of special education stu-dents in the Academic Community Transition (ACT) Program.

At Lynbrook and four other schools in the district, the ACT program has been imple-mented for special education students to flourish in a healthy, thriving environment. Each of these schools follow a standardized curriculum for special education with a com-mon objective of fostering independence in order to prepare the students for jobs in the future.

Comprised of teachers, therapists and psychologists, the ACT program helps devel-op goals for students that meet their educa-tional needs.

There are two ACT classes at Lynbrook: ACT 1 and ACT 2.

“The difference between the two classes is the independence of the student and their academic level,” Anne Greene, head of the Special Education department, said. “We have ACT programs throughout the entire district and they’re all based on the progress of the student so he or she can get the best out of it.”

Regardless of which special education class they are in, many ACT students have short attention spans and, consequently, a harder time focusing. To address these con-cerns, some classrooms have seats with med-icine balls attached to the bottom with a soft, comfortable backrest, which helps support the students’ postures and helps them stay on task.

Teachers also often work in a one to four ratio with their students; they use high-inter-est, accessible resources like magazines such as Time for Kids to keep their classes engaged.

ACT program instructor Garry DeGuzman said, “What I try to do is relate the material to something they enjoy. For example, this week, I taught them about Thomas Edison and other important inventors. We tied this

into a current event like the movie ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,’ where the main character is an inventor, so there’s some-thing in common with the subject they’re learning now.”

In room 507, ACT instructor Jim Schussler’s students generally have some consistency through six regular classes: an elective, Community Math, Community Reading, Community Life Skills, Community Social Skills, and a Career/Pre-Vocational course.

No day in the ACT program, however, is the same. Although students attend the same set of classes from Monday through Thursday, the activities done in those class-es vary from day to day. All the classes are tailored toward one common goal: for the students to learn how to be independent.

For example, Community Math stresses less on formulas and theories and more on applicable skills that the student would bet-ter benefit from in the long run.

Greene said, “Their math classes are more about money and counting skills. So when they go out to a store, restaurant, even McDonald’s, they will be able to know how much change they’re supposed to get back.”

Similarly, Community Reading embod-ies a goal not too different from Community Math. Through worksheets, handouts and small group activities, Community Reading targets basic comprehension skills that stu-dents need in everyday life.

“Reading for us is learning how to read a map, how to read the bus schedule or learn-ing how to read a menu,” said Schussler. “Most of these kids, when they go out with their families, their mom and dad will just order for them and the student never has a chance to order or pay for their meal on their own.”

Additionally, a majority of ACT students begin their morning with an elective course that is either P.E., Art, or Culinary Education. In these courses, the students are main-streamed into general education classes.

“The elective classes help them get a broader picture of the real world,” Amy Jas-per, an ACT program para-educator, said.

Toward the end of the day, most spe-

cial education students go to a Career/Pre-Vocational class where they practice appli-cation and resume writing along with other skills needed for a smooth transition into the workforce.

“It’s kind of like a training program,” DeGuzman said. “So that eventually, once they’re out of school, they have the skills to help them get jobs of their own.”

Outside the classroom, special educa-tion students operate miscellaneous tasks on campus such as working at a snack bar and taking out the recycling. Last year, they began to run their own student store in the back of the cafeteria. This year, the store will be moving the store to a room near the ASB den. This larger working space will allow for more volunteers and, instructors hope, will encourage a larger amount of students to en-ter the store.

After sufficient preparation in the ACT program, older students are allowed to go off campus two or three days a week for some career experience. These students, typically sophomore and juniors, are able to find jobs through various organizations affiliated with the district.

“We have students that work at Queen of Apostles elementary school in the cafeteria, students at Homestead high school’s smooth-ie shop, students at the district office work-ing in a coffee shop called Perks Cafe and at Canine Crunchies, a local dog biscuit busi-ness,” said Schussler.

To get to their jobs each day, students are trained to utilize public transportation. In this process, they receive a transit card from the Valley Transportation Authority.

Betty Lee, an ACT program para-educator at Lynbrook, said, “First, they get their photo ID. Then, we take them out and walk them to the bus stop. We teach them the bus route and we take them to the job site. Later, they come back taking the bus. Eventually, they will be able to do it by themselves.”

Although a long process, this kind of self-sufficiency is the focal point of the entire pro-gram.

“Independence is ultimately our goal,” Greene said.

Since its inception in 2003, Staff Home-coming has served as a prelude to the class acts, and a way to key the Lyn-

brook campus into the Homecoming spirit that envelopes the school for a single week each year. Like class Homecoming produc-tions, it is a large-scale, complex endeavor, with numerous issues and challenges of its own.

Preparation for Staff Homecoming typi-cally starts in May when the three main production coordinators, history teacher Jeffrey Bale, English teacher Fritz Torp and school psychologist Brittany Stevens and the backdrop coordinator, art teacher Paul

Willson, brainstorm ideas and decide on a the theme related to the school’s overall theme, based on possible script and aes-thetic ideas.

“We wait until all the classes have cho-sen their themes because we would never want to take a theme idea from a class. Then we meet to figure out what kind of theme would be good, what we can do from a de-sign perspective, and we eventually select something,” said Stevens.

Throughout the summer, Torp and Ste-vens work on drafting a script. Once the script is finalized in August, the entire staff is invited to a lunchtime reading of the script in Torp’s room, where staff mem-bers sign up for voice and acting roles. The

two groups of actors typically rehearse in the last three weeks before Homecoming. Simultaneously, decoration builds, staff dance and choir practices also take place. All the elements of the skit come together in a full rehearsal on the Wednesday preced-ing Homecoming week.

Any Homecoming production is a large commitment, taking hours upon hours of combined effort. For the staff, however, which does not start rehearsing until the three weaks before Homecoming Week, compared to the students, who typically begin during the summer, it is an especially difficult process. Furthemore, lack of man-power and available time in comparison to the student classes also makes the process

Behind the backdrop:The journey through staff Homecoming

BY MICHELLE SU & JEFFREY YANG

even more difficult to organize and execute for the staff.

“It’s a challenge, putting everything to-gether quickly, understanding that we all have limited time,” Torp said. “The logistics are also a challenge; it’s very difficult to get all the teachers together to rehearse be-cause they have their own duties and meet-ings to attend.”

According to Torp, part of meeting the challenge and completing the production on time comes from the sheer dedication of the staff.

“The beauty of it--what makes it work, is that so many people are willing to step up and take ownership of, be it the staff danc-es, choir, or costumes,” Torp said. “We have

a lot of people working hard.” And despite their limited numbers, the

staff have the advantage of experience; un-like each of the student classes, who will never be able to have more than a few expe-riences with Homecoming productions, the staff has gone through the process many times.

“We’ve been doing it every year, for how-ever many years it’s been since it started, and through that you learn what works and what doesn’t work, like how to distinguish who’s speaking in the skit and what makes effective humor,” Torp said. “And unlike the students, who have to set up their systems every year, we already have the systems in place. We already know who’s in charge of

Behind the backdrop: what aspect.”Teachers have other advantages as well;

unlike students, who may not always be comfortable performing in front of large crowds, teachers are already used to speak-ing in front of the student body because of what their jobs entail.

“Teachers are used to being in front of students and sort of performing, so it’s not like this huge stretch,” said European Liter-ature teacher Robert Richmond, who helps coordinate voice acting rehearsals with AP Language and Composition teacher Rick Hanford.

Students have also traditionally played a role in helping with the staff production. For this years’ production, Art 1 students helped paint the backdrop, coordinated by art teacher Paul Willson; senior Nikita Dhesikan designed the staff Homecom-ing t-shirt; senior Amy Wei, captain of the Valkyries, helped choreograph the girls’ ad-vanced dance number, headed by business teacher Andrea Badger.

“There’s been a history of the staff Homecoming coordinators asking the cap-tain of Valkyries to help choreograph the staff skit dance, so [Bale] asked me to work with Mrs. Badger,” said Wei.

After getting the music from the teach-ers, Wei worked on the choreography at home and made a video for the dancers. Badger in turn taught the staff. Wei has pre-viously worked on choreographing dances for her class’s Homecoming and the annual fashion show, which allowed her to quickly choreograph a dance simple enough to teach to the staff.

“With such limited manpower, we really couldn’t put on the production we do with-out the support and help of students,” Bale said. “Without a doubt, it’s a team effort.”

Once all the aspects are put together, the final product is completed and presented to the campus, and the staff is finally able to see the results of its work. And for many in the faculty, this is the most rewarding mo-ment: seeing their work achieve its ultimate goal, to entertain.

“The reason we do it is for that moment when we perform, and the kids laugh. They laugh so happily and loudly, it’s a great feel-ing for us,” Torp said. “It’s very rewarding, there’s nothing quite like it.”

Further emphasizing the use of Home-coming to entertain, the staff has broadened the scope of entertainment throughout the years, with their increasingly unconven-tional skits.

“One of the things that [Stevens] and [Torp] have been trying to do is to create skits that aren’t the usual abduction story

KAST

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NTV

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EPIC

CAMELOT| Both the voice and physical actors of the staff skit convene for a joint rehearsal during lunchtime in preparation for their Oct. 4 performance.

in which someone steals something and the characters spend the whole time recov-ering that lost item or finding that abducted person. What we’ve tried to do is create dif-ferent ways of telling stories from just the usual,” said Richmond.

Last year, the staff put a twist on their theme, “Honolulu, Hawaii,” by creating a storyline through four people watching tele-vision.

Instead of going through a typical se-quence of events, the characters jumped from place to place by integrating them-selves in different tele-vision channels, each with a different theme.

With each Homecoming, the staff looks to outdo their previous year’s unique perfor-mances by straying further from the tradi-tional Homecoming formula.

“The idea behind Homecoming is that it is twenty minutes of entertainment. You do not

have to have a skit, a dance, or anything, and one of these years, some class will do twen-ty minutes of magic and won’t know what’s coming but they’ll totally break the mold and Homecoming will be forever changed,” said

Bale. “We’re hoping to push a little bit every year about changing up the traditional Homecoming.”

According to Ste-vens, the fact that staff Homecoming lacks the competi-tion that exists be-tween classes has made it easier for staff Homecoming to achieve the goal of breaking the mold by giving the staff

more liberty in the creative process in its production.

“Because we don’t have the competition that the students do, it really gives us a lot more freedom to focus purely on entertain-ment, without being constrained by judging criteria. It’s a relief, really.”

The noncompetitive spirit of staff Home-coming allows staff members to use Home-coming preparations to have fun together.

According to Torp, staff Homecoming also serves the purpose of providing a way for the staff to bond.

“Almost always, when the staff gets to-gether, we’re in a faculty meeting where there’s an agenda of serious stuff we have to get through,” Torp said. “Homecoming is re-ally the only activity in the year when all of us get together purely to have fun. It’s great thing, for the staff to get together and not to talk about academics for once,” said Torp.

Staff Homecoming also presents an op-portunity for integrating new members of the staff and administration into the Lyn-brook community.

“It’s been a great way for new staff to get involved, to feel a part of the Lynbrook cul-ture,” Bale said. “We’re working hard this year to get prominent roles for our incoming administrative members, both Mr. Dwyer and Mr. Wong. We also reached out to new teach-ers and staff members to try to get them in-volved, because staff Homecoming is a way for both students and others on staff to get to know them.”

Staff members involved with Homecom-ing have felt lasting impressions from being a part of the production.

For Torp, one of the most memorable years for Homecoming was the 2009 “Wild Wild West” theme, where the entire staff wore fake mustaches.

In Stevens’s opinion, every Homecom-ing is memorable, though her favorite is the 2011 “Clue” theme, simply because she likes that particular board game.

In contrast, Bale believes that each year’s Homecoming experience is better than those of the previous years, therefore he strives to make each successive year’s production his new favorite Homecoming experience.

For the Lynbrook alumni on staff, staff Homecoming takes on an altogether unique experience: a chance to relive, and in a way, to recreate their favorite Homecoming memo-ries from their years as high school students.

“For last years’ production, I was dead set on having the giant Angry Bird prop that went over the backdrop, even though struc-turally it was difficult to build,” said Bale, who attended Lynbrook in the class of 2000. “It was a reference to something from way back in 1996, one of my favorite Homecom-ing memories, where we had something go-ing over the backdrop. I wanted to bring that feeling back.”

While memorable Homecoming produc-tions vary from staff member to staff mem-ber, one thing can be agreed on: witnessing Homecoming at Lynbrook is no ordinary ex-perience.

USED WITH PERMISSION OF PAUL WILLSON

USED WITH PERMISSION OF PAUL WILLSON

USED WITH PERMISSION OF MARIA JACKSON

THE DANCE| Business Teacher Andrea Badger, the main staff dance coordi-nator, leads the advanced staff dancers in learning the choreography.

THE DIRECTION| AP Government and Economics teacher Jeffrey Bale offers his input to the phyiscal actors during a lunchtime staff skit rehearsal.

THE BUILD| Print Techician John Hott, directs the the staff in constructing the props, which will include a giant dragon head.

THE PERFORMANCE| Art Teacher Paul Willson, who also designed the staff backdrop, delivers his lines with great passion while acting his character..

KASTURI PANTVAIDYA—EPIC

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JOEY LI

The Lynbrook’s girls’ athletic department seems to have always

been an important part of the school; from the long standing success of the girls’ field hockey team during the days of Sandi Stober to the recent successes of the girls’ basketball team at the Nor-Cal Championship last year. There was a time, however, when this was not the case.

This is the 42nd year since Title IX was put into effect, a piece of legisla-ture part of the Education Amendments of 1972 that changed the way athletics departments across the na-tion have operated since.

Title IX states, in part, that “No person in the Unit-ed States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from par-ticipation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activ-ity.” This effectively stipu-lated that girls’ athletics should be given as much im-portance in schools as boys’ athletics, thus opening new opportunities for female athletes at Lynbrook when the legislation came into ef-fect in 1976.

One such athlete that was affected by the legislation was Deborah Luck, a Lyn-brook alumna who gradu-ated from the Class of 1977. Luck was involved exten-sively in Lynbrook’s athlet-ics program, participating in gymnastics, field hockey, basketball and the cheer team. And having attended Lynbrook during the years immediately following the passage of Title IX, she was able to witness firsthand the effects of the legislation.

According to Luck, be-fore Title IX came into effect at Lynbrook, girls’ athletics were continually shunted aside in favor of boys’ teams.

“Boys’ sports were the

moneymakers, and so girls’ sports often fell by the way-side,” said Luck. “For basketball, during my freshman and sopho-more years, we weren’t allowed to practice in the gym or the weight rooms, even in inclem-ent weather, and for field hock-ey, we practiced on a small field on the edge of the campus, the furthest you could get from the rest of the school. We didn’t get the luxuries that the boys had.”

Co-Athletic Director Linda Nichols ‘72 recalled her experi-ence of the inequality between the two athletic departments.

“When it rained during bas-ketball practice, we had to try to avoid dribbling on the spots of water on the ground. Every-thing we did, it had to be out-side,” said Nichols.

But when Title IX came into effect by Luck’s junior year, it did much to even the playing field for girls’ and boys’ sports; it resulted in policies enforc-ing equal funding, number of teams, and use of facilities.

Title IX not only enforced equality within sports but in other aspects of school life as well, such as clubs. Though by 1977, most clubs were open to both sexes, Title IX removed bias from athletics-related clubs. In her senior year, Luck was among the first female members of the Varsity Letter-man’s Club, a previously all-male club for players on varsity sports teams that was opened to females as a result of Title IX.

“I was so happy to see it fi-nally pass and to see people start to recognize that girls can be competitive in athletics,” Nichols said. “Sports are benefi-cial for everyone involved: they teach teamwork, commitment, responsibility, and skills that they can use throughout their lifetime. The players bond with each other and create friend-ships that they will remember long after high school. Title IX allowed that to happen to the girls as well.”

Despite the changing poli-

cies, however, the Title IX legis-lation was not strictly adhered to. Dredges of inequality re-mained at Lynbrook for many years to follow.

“Even though girls had ac-cess to the athletic facilities, they were only able to practice at 5:30 in the morning. Prac-tices had to be worked around

the boys’ teams,” Nichols said. “It still wasn’t equal.”

Not all of this inequality was visible, though. According to Luck, even after Title IX man-date for equality passed, tradi-tional sentiments toward girls’ athletics remained.

“The guys didn’t want us in their weight room,” Luck said. “Even after we were allowed to use the room, I only went a handful of times to lift. It was very intimidating to go in there out because we could tell they didn’t want us in there. It just wasn’t the norm.”

But over time, in an effort spearheaded by Sandi Stober, girls’ and boys’ athletics are closer than ever to being equal.

“Over the years Lynbrook really has grown to become fair to everyone,” said Nichols. “The administration, the teachers, the staff, everybody is very sup-portive of female athletes. We’re all Lynbrook athletes now; the gender doesn’t matter.”

And around the campus, from the recently rededicated Stober Field to the Spirit Bus

that rode with the girls’ basketball team to the Nor-cal Championships, the evidence of a shift towards equality can be seen, a shift that athletes like Luck could have hardly envisioned.

“Back then, after Title IX passed, things were good,” Luck said. “But I don’t think

I knew how much bet-ter they could have been. I don’t think I could have imagined that having that absolutely fabulous field hockey field, one I would have died for back in the day to play on, would have ever been a possibility.”

Despite all these chang-es, however, an imbalance in popularity between the two departments still ex-ists today.

“When I talk to my friends, they comment on how girls’ sports aren’t very interesting to watch,” said

junior Kimberly Zee. “I think its a widespread sentiment, that people prefer watching the guys’ sports way more.”

According to Nichols, this sentiment is the result of traditional views towards athletics.

“It’s just people’s percep-tion of women in sports,” Nichols said. “It’s changed immensely, but sometimes, even today, its still perceived as a man’s world. With cer-tain people, those percep-tions take a while to change.”

Though Title IX did not completely solve the gap be-tween boys’ and girls’ sports, it was was the first giant step in the right direction. It began a change that took place over 40 years, pio-neered by coaches like Sandi Stober and female athletes, themselves. A change that took girls’ sports from the time basketball teams had to practice out in the rain to now, where girls’ athletics are an integral part of Lynbrook.

KASTURI PANDVAIDYA-EPIC

It’s 3:15 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon, and a familiarly long line of student athletes

has formed near the boys’ locker room. Athletes walk in and out with tightly wrapped ice packs and taped ankles, while a few quickly make their way out car-rying water, rushing to practice. In this small yet vital room nes-tled between the entrance to the locker room and the wrestling room, Sports Injury Prevention Specialist—or as many people call her: athletic trainer—Heath-er Bridges runs a solo operation. The Lynbrook athletics program has seen several changes re-cently, but one aspect that has remained constant is the quality of aid that Bridges provides.

Bridges assists countless athletes on a daily basis, tend-ing to a variety of situations, ranging from basic aches and pains, to more serious injuries. Because injuries are common-place in most sports, Bridges plays an important role in the athletic department. Her main duties include “injury preven-tion and recognition for all ath-letes in current sports, and some rehabilitation if necessary.” Ad-ditionally, she organizes all the paperwork necessary for ap-proximately 300 athletes to com-pete in their respective sports, every season.

Part of Bridges’ daily routine consists of attending practices and talking with coaches to see if there are any players that need her attention.

“I go out to practices so ath-letes can see my face and know where to find me and when to come to me,” said Bridges.

By reaching out to athletes

years ago, however, she was un-sure whether she wanted to pur-sue a career in sports medicine. In fact, her main motive to come to Lynbrook was to be a special edu-cation teacher.

Prior to Bridges’ arrival, the injury prevention specialist job at Lynbrook had been a revolv-ing door for years. When Bridges was looking to work as a special education teacher, the school des-perately needed an injury preven-tion specialist, and Bridges fit the bill. She is currently working on a masters program for special edu-cation, and seeks to pursue that career, while also serving as an athletic trainer.

For now, the minute hand has struck four, meaning that athletes have ten minutes to get to prac-tice. The teams may be out of the locker room for now, but Bridges’ work has only just begun.

Bridges to the responsibilities and importance of a trainer in a high school setting. “I had a few injuries when I played water polo, and the athletic trainer was always quite essential in helping me recover and continue to play, so I always had a lot of respect for and interest in what they did,” said Bridges.

Even then, she was not aware that having such a job was pos-sible when she entered college, admitting that, “I never realized it was something I could major in in college, but once I found out it was, I went with it, since it inter-ested me the most.”

Once Bridges did decide to pursue sports medicine, she had to meet specific requirements, such as completing 1500 intern-ship hours.

Before Bridges became the athletic trainer at Lynbrook two

and coaches alike, Bridges de-velops strong bonds to eliminate any qualms they may have in get-ting their injuries looked at. At the preseason meeting between coaches and athletic directors, Bridges explains to coaches how she operates, and her main goal of, “[having] all athletes playing and healthy.”

“Whenever athletes have something they want me to check out, we have a conversa-tion about it first and discuss how it happened before I take a look at it,” said Bridges. She is then able to create better bonds with students, who become more open with her when explaining their injuries.

“Heather is very funny and you can joke around with her, which makes her fun to be around. Also, she’s eager to lis-ten to athletes’ problems, and definitely knows her stuff,” said senior varsity football player Jo-seph Chang, who has had many injuries, and therefore has a close relationship with Bridges.

Bridges attended California Lutheran University, where she majored in sports medicine and gained plenty of experience in being an athletic trainer. Her de-cision to major in sports medi-cine, however, did not come to her until after a lot of thought.

“In my freshman year of college, I was not sure what I wanted to study. I knew I was interested in sports and medi-cine, but wasn’t looking for an intense medical education, and found out I could combine my love for sports and the human body in doing sports medicine,” said Bridges.

Playing water polo exposed

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY JOEY LI

In a world where everything from friendship to honor hinges on a game, Lynbrook stu-dents are spending hours poring over statis-tics and expert analyses to emerge victorious. This is the world of fantasy sports, a world where rivalries stand tall, and those not left standing hang their heads in shame.

It is fact that most Lynbrook students will not grow up to become owners of sports

teams. But fantasy sports, an increasingly popular activity around Lynbrook, allow students just that opportunity. From bragging rights to and inflated ego, fantasy sports are a sports wonk’s haven. With countless leagues springing up around campus, participants have been putting in the time to create the ultimate team.

In essence, fantasy sports are a virtual reality, with big-name websites like ESPN.com, CBS.com and Yahoo.com all offering free leagues. Starting a league and playing in one is free, a mod-el similar to Facebook’s: because millions of people participate, domains can offer free leagues, supporting the business with the money they receive from adver-tisement traffic. Should some-body decide to play in a league, he or she has many options to choose from. If an organized group is not an option, a fantasy sports website can automatically place a user into a random league consisting of ten players. In that sense, fantasy sports are the ul-timate connector, a link between millions of sports fans all over the globe.

Fantasy sports provide an ac-tivity for participants to enjoy in addition to watching the games. Junior Daniel Vahabi said,“I play fantasy sports because I like to follow the sports I play.”

Fantasy sports are becom-

ing more and more ubiquitous at Lynbrook, appearing in unex-pected niches and encompassing a wide variety of purposes, from entertainment to education. Pri-marily, fantasy sports are a social outlet, with different groups of friends competing in leagues for various honors.

Vahabi said, “I consider [fan-tasy sports] a good social activ-ity because I play against people I don’t see every day; it’s a good way to keep in touch.”

Junior Rahul Iyer’s tremen-dous experience has provided him with an opportunity to ex-perience many forms of play. He said, “Usually the leagues I play in are with friends,” he said. “Playing with friends is fun be-cause you can talk to them and you know who you are beating,

so you can brag. However, if you lose you may be ridiculed.”

He has also participated in leagues with strangers.

Iyer said, “With strangers, it’s a totally different mindset. They are fans from different cit-ies, which leads to some very interesting draft strategies that you must adapt to. However, you won’t ever meet them or talk to them so there isn’t any tangible gain in that sense.”

Because fantasy sports pos-sess academic value, teachers have recently been utilizing them in their curriculums. Junior Rishabh Bhasin, who is a student in Bob Blaschke’s AP Statistics class, said, “Mr. Blaschke has set up a fantasy football league and tried to get most of the students to join in. We will be analyzing

the results of games and using the results to make predictions for the future.”

Blaschke said, “Building cama-raderie builds communication. If we can be quicker and stronger at communication we can prac-tice our academic language. And we could use academic language to describe something that’s ac-tually happening.”

Bhasin believes that Blaschke’s use of fantasy sports to teach statistics is beneficial.

“It’s a win-win situation, be-cause it isn’t too complicated, yet it’s a great way to get people interested in statistics, given the ubiquity and popularity of foot-ball. The goal is for people to look and say ‘Oh wow, this is a statisti-cal application that I can use for the real world!’”

GRAPHIC BY KELSEY HURWITZSTATISTICS FROM WWW.FSTA.ORG AND WWW.NEWSGAMES.GATECH.EDU

BY YONATAN ZEMLYAK

It’s that time of year again. The time when bets are made, honor is won and

vengeance brews in everyone’s heart. This is the beginning of a new year of fantasy football.

Fantasy football is more than just a game; it is a way of life. Thus, one must be willing to eat, sleep and drink fantasy football for six months. This way of life is not easy. It will push you to your breaking point. But you will feel a sense of self-worth like noth-ing else if you have the fortitude to endure this six-month grind.

Because I care about the wellbeing of all fantasy foot-ball team owners, I am taking it upon myself to establish a set of laws that govern the world of fantasy football.

These laws will be highly ef-fective for all team owners be-cause they are written by me, a seasoned veteran of fantasy football and a jack of all trades when it comes to teambuild-ing and strategies. This guide applies not only to the inexpe-rienced rookies, but also to the perennial under achievers who wish to clear the final hurdle to attain glory their leagues.

Let’s start at the very begin-ning, at the fantasy draft. By this time of year, however, most of you league owners have com-pleted your drafts. I hope you all drafted effectively because if you didn’t, there’s nothing you can do about it now.

Evaluate your draft. Once you have drafted, evaluate your team’s strengths and weak-nesses. A common mistake that team owners make is trading away their top players for an

elite QB. That is a typical rookie move. The last player you want to trade for is a QB because your starting QB is likely going to give you at least 220 points over the season. A strong fan-tasy team always builds their offense around their running backs and wide receivers. You must trade for these players.

Propose trades early. You want to be able to address your needs before the season starts because once the players you want start racking up points, the other owners will turn a blind eye to your trade offers. Trust me, I know this from ex-perience. That being said, when you trade, it is vital to know the needs of the owner you want to trade with. That way, you can save yourself the embarrass-ment of seeing a rejected trade offer in your email inbox.

The bench is key. Remem-ber when I said load up your bench to the best of your abili-ty? Well if you did not, then pre-pare yourself for a last place fin-ish and major ribbing from your fellow league members. The bench is your best friend dur-ing the dreaded ‘bye week.’ This is the week when your some of your players do not play be-cause of a hole in their team’s schedule. And guess where you replace your starters when they have bye weeks? That’s right, the bench. For those of you who have seen the movie “Money-ball,” you know that the bench is roughly the equivalent of the Oakland A’s starting lineup dur-ing their 20-game win streak in 2002. It was an undervalued “is-land of misfit toys,” just like the

bench in fantasy football.The bench serves as your primary source for trade piece and a replacement source if a starter begins to underperform. Which reminds me, I really need to consider starting the Houston Texans’ Matt Schaub over Brady.

The all or nothing waiver-wire. There is another way to address your weaknesses and survive the bye week. That would be the waiver-wire. The waiver-wire is essentially the junkyard of fantasy football. It has plenty of decent play-ers but they are not exactly the most consistent, which is why they were not drafted. Use this to your advantage, but you will have to be willing to risk woe-fully low production. If you’re lucky, and pick the right player, he will pay dividends for your team. Take Miami Dolphins’ wide reciver Brian Hartline last year, for example. Hartline was written off early in the season, but his fantasy value boomed after consecutive 100-yard re-ceiving performances. He was critical to the rise of a fellow league member in the stand-

ings. Conversely, my acquisition of Denver Broncos’ tight-end Ja-cob Tamme was a disaster as he caught fewer than three passes per game, thus producing fewer than five points per week. Pick-ing these players is risky be-cause they can make or break

your season. Or as Kelsey Hurwitz says, “You have to risk it to get the biscuit.”

How to find players. My fellow disciples, we have now reached per-haps the most important law of fantasy football, research. If you want to find that sleeper pick in the draft or an underrated player off of the waiver-wire, you have to do your research. You could delve into the a specific player’s

stats over the past few seasons to project his fantasy value, or, you could simply Google under-rated fantasy football players. Just because your research or ESPN’s analyses say that some player might be a fantasy stud doesn’t mean he’ll perform like one. This is the point where you have to make a judgment call. This is where fantasy football winners and losers are made.

More often than not profes-sional football teams tend to scrap their game plans when games start to get out of hand. But as the saying goes: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” No matter how hard a season may turn out, never give up. You owe it not only to your league, but to yourself to strive for a legitimate victory week in and week out.

For the past five years, I have invested countless hours into a single sport.

I’ve subjected my body to nu-merous floor burns, several twisted ankles, one concussion and myriad sore muscles. I’ve sacrificed weekends, foregone school dances, travelled across the country, missed school and squandered virtually all oppor-tunities to experience a little thing known as “free time.” I have loved every minute of it and wouldn’t trade these memorable experiences for anything in the world, but this is not how I want to spend life after high school.

Choosing not to play college volleyball was a difficult and lengthy decision. When I first started playing in 7th grade, I never dreamed of being able to compete at a collegiate level. I didn’t believe I would ever reach a point where becoming a prestigious collegiate athlete would actually be a feasible goal, and was content with just playing for fun. But as I got old-er, I started to realize that play-ing volleyball in college was not as unreasonable of a goal as I had once thought. I started playing for a competitive club team where nearly all my peers were on the path to becoming collegiate athletes, and was surrounded by intense compet-itors who would do whatever it took to get ahead. I began to believe that was the norm and thought that because all my friends were planning on play-ing volleyball in college, then that’s what I should want, too.

It took me awhile to realize that my reasons for aspiring to

play collegiate volleyball had more to do with pleasing other people than with pleasing my-self. The recruiting coordina-tor for my club told me that if I wanted to pursue a career in volleyball beyond high school, I would “absolutely be able to do so” and that “we will make it happen.” While it was reassur-ing to hear that my decision to play would be supported, it was also slightly terrifying to think about how my decision not to play would be received. I want-ed to impress my teammates, coaches, friends, family and peers and worried that I would disappoint them if I concluded my volleyball career after high school. My fear of what others would think of me swayed me to believe that playing volleyball in college was the only accept-able option.

I naively upheld this belief for about two years and re-sponded to questions about my future athletic pursuits with plenty of vague, non-committal answers followed by a prompt change of subject.

Eventually, my parents grew frustrated with my inclination towards avoidance, and one night my mom sat me down and made me to come to a de-finitive resolution. Either I had to choose to devote all my time and energy into volleyball, or admit to myself that I could be content without playing in col-lege. After weighing the pros and cons of each option, my wise mother pointed out to me that if I was going to commit so much of my life to one sport, I should be truly passionate about it and shouldn’t have any

qualms over whether or not I was making the right deci-sion. I’m not sure why this was so hard for me to see before, but that conversation with my mom really opened my eyes and lifted a huge weight off of my shoulders.

Don’t get me wrong—there are lots of pros to playing sports in college, too. Volleyball has helped me grow as a person in so many ways; it has taught me the importance of discipline, teamwork, and determination, and it has majorly impacted the person I am today.

However, I’m ready to fi-nally experience new things. I want to expand my horizons and seize new opportunities. I want to go to a school because I genuinely like it, not because it’s a fit for volleyball. I want to join a sorority, sign up for a bunch of different clubs, focus on my grades and finally have some of that free time that I’ve heard such great things about. And ever since I realized this, I have been able to enjoy playing volleyball a whole lot more be-cause I finally feel like I can just play for fun.