156 students responded to a Facebook survey:

At what time do you go to sleep on a school night?

Raven ReportVolume V, Issue 6 1201 Brewster Ave. Redwood City, CA 94062 March 21, 2012

Sequoia High School

By LAYNE DIENERStaff Reporter

Feature: Opinion:Tattoos Revealed

44% Between 9 and 11 p.m.

Reality of the R-word 47% Between midnight and 2 a.m.

9% After 2 a.m.

Photo Courtesy of ashley dever

Seniors win first place at Bay Area science fair

See GOOGLE, page 2

Google sponsors girls’ Iridescent challenge

ene oxide (a syrupy liquid) into a bath of sugar water from different heights to see the different shapes the drops would make in the water. “The idea is that you can do this with different ma-terials--organic materials, electricity conducting ma-terials--and create wire that thin,” Logia said. Pablo’s experiment ex-posed new bacteria to nanoparticles at different conditions; the absence and presence of light, which is thought to be a variable that affects the toxicity of nanoparticles. He also mea-sured the concentration of zinc ions over time because these ions have shown to be toxic to bacteria. “As I did that, I counted how many cells were killed at different time points,” Pablo said. “I’m interested in the expression of a pro-tein, and understanding its role in the regulation of the cell cycle because this has implications with how can-cer works.”

Sophomores Elizabeth Sarabia and Briceida Garcia, and junior Bianca Miani are learning how to create a mobile application at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Sequoia receives a glowing WASC report this year

By COLE DUNBARStaff Reporter

imagine; the only criteria is that the apps must relate to science. The girls are divided into two teams; five of the girls are creating an instructive game in which the player unloads trash from a conveyor belt into recycling bins to prevent it from going to a land fill. The others are making an

app that relates to animal sci-ence. Making the app is part of the Google Technovation Challenge, an annual pro-gram in which groups of girls work together to create a pro-totype app for the Google Android market.

Every Monday ceramics

By LILY HARTZELLStaff Reporter

Imagine being able to go to Google once a week for nine weeks and design your own mobile application. A group of ten Sequoia girls led by biotech teacher Ashley Dever have been creating two apps that can be anything they

The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) visited Sequoia from Feb. 26-29 to review the school for accreditation. They gave a very positive report which is included in student’s college applications. "Sequoia is a wonderful school, with a strong and committed staff, and ex-traordinarily supportive administra-tion. There is a strong sense of com-munity, genuine caring, and will to ensure student success that seldom exists in high schools today,” said their report. The report congratulated our school on our strong sense of community,

Seniors Alison Logia and Roberto Pablo placed first and fourth respectively at the San Francisco Bay Area Science Fair March 12-14. Both seniors won first place earlier this year at the San Mateo County Science Fair Jan. 30-Feb. 3. Logia won the Physical Science Divi-sion with her experiment on polyethylene oxide, and Pablo won the Biological Science Division with his experiment on zinc oxide nanoparticles. The seniors are now quali-fied for the California State Fair, April 30, as well as the Intel International Science Fair. The Intel International Science Fair offers college scholarships, and interna-tional recognition. “International recogni-tion is really impressive in the scientific community for resumes and college ap-plications,” Logia said. Logia’s experiment in-volved dropping polyethyl-

Page 3 Page 4

our staff ’s commitment and our diver-sity. The committee suggested that the school works to close the gap between IB and English-language learners, es-pecially in math. “Overall, the visit could not have gone better. It was very positive with clear direction,” said principal Bonnie Hansen. The committee of seven was made up of educators from nearby schools. “They were figuring out whether our diploma means anything,” said Eng-lish teacher Alissa Talesnick, the visit coordinator. Before the committee ar-rived, Talesnick worked with Hansen to write a report about our school. “We included lots of data, lots of information like test scores, survey re-

sults, and demographics. It basically tells them what we’re doing, and they come to make sure we’re doing the stuff we say we’re doing,” said Talesn-ick. One part of the report is the action plan. “The action plan is what we’re going to do with the information we put in the report.” said Hansen. The main goals covered were to im-prove test scores, improve writing, and increase the number of students meet-ing the A-G requirements. During the week committee met with teachers, administrators, and stu-dents in small groups. Senior Amanda Torres was one of the students who participated in the

WASC focus groups. “It wasn’t too formal, they just want-ed examples, so they wanted a student to give their take on the school” said Torres. “They asked about real world applications and the balance between IB and regular classes.” “We didn’t try to pretend we’re do-ing what we’re not. We put our best foot forward and we were honest,” said Talesnick. WASC has put Sequoia on a six-year accreditation cycle, which is the high-est possible. “The committee told me that they felt like, with the people here, and the respect we have for each other, it would have been hard for us to do badly,” said Hansen.

news2

The Sequoia Speech and Debate team hosted its first ever debate tournament at Sequoia on Feb. 25 with over 375 students, 25 coaches, and 100 judges attending the tour-nament for the Fall Coast Forensic League (CFL) Super Debate Tour-nament.

Despite being only one year old, the Speech and Debate team has already competed against well dis-tinguished teams.

The Speech and Debate team features very important current events and speeches from a wide variety of topics such as politics. The debaters at the tournament covered topics such as “Should the United States make China re-eval-uate its currency?”

On average the Speech and De-bate tem spends two hours a week preparing for their issues.

“They have a passion,” said math teaacher Kelley O’Hern, the Speech and Debate team coach. “It is inspiring to learn from them.”

teacher Z Becker helps drive the girls to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View to listen to lectures and to learn how to create apps.

They listen to female entrepreneurs lecture about their work. Junior Bi-anca Miani, who participates in the program, said, “Speakers tell us about their experiences and how they got to where they are.”

One of the focuses of the program is diversity. Participants are encour-aged to contribute their ideas and im-prove existing ones.

“I like that there is always some-thing to add to an idea that allows it to grow,” said Miani. “I also really like the diversity and motivation that is in the class each day.”

This is the first year that Sequoia has its own team. The girls are sepa-rated into two groups who are both working on different apps. At the end of more than nine weeks, on April 28, the girls will pitch their idea to a re-gional board of professionals from the high tech industry.

The Sequoia team is competing with other teams in the Bay Area. If their app prototype does well in the competition, they will be able to move on to the next level of the competition, the national level, in San Francisco.

They learn how to work as a team and present their ideas. “I hope girls

work on creativity, teamwork, and I hope they make friends,” said Dever.

One of the parts of the challenge is deciding how to present your app. “We have been learning about mar-keting, business techniques, how to benefit our consumers, and starting an entrepreneurship,” said Miani.

Junior Sarah Ciambrone was part of an indepen-dent team last year and is now work-ing with a group of venture capitalists to create an app. After her team got second place in the challenge, an in-vestment firm approached them and invited them to work as interns at the

Got a smartphone? An iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone or even an Android? If so, be warned.

More and more users of smart gad-gets are getting hacked while surfing the Web or using an app that con-nects to the Internet. The recent ex-plosion of gadgets has made it much more lucrative and easier for hackers to hack into your device.

Smartphones

Established smartphones have pretty good hacker protection systems. Take the iPhone apps , for example. Ev-ery app is inspected by Apple, so the chance of getting hacked is pretty small. But manufactures make mis-takes too. On Google’s Android system there are plenty of ways to get hacked.

Debate team hosts firsttournament

“I like that there is always something to add to an idea that allows it to grow. I also really like the diversity and motivation that is in the class each day.”

—Junior Bianca Miani

GOOGLE (continued from Page 1)

By MATTHEW MORROWStaff Reporter

530 El Camino Real, P.O. Box 5413, Redwood City (650) 366-7777Serving employees and their families in the following districts:

Redwood City Sequoia San Carlos Belmont Ravenswood Las Lomitas Menlo Park Portola Valley Woodside Canada College

Gadget HackingHundreds of companies develop apps for the system, and although Google is pretty fanatic about security, it’s definitely pos-sible for crooks to attack an app.

So what happens if they hack into your phone?

A hacker might gain access to financial information or passwords you may have on your gadget, or even worse, continu-ally track your financial dealings online. Bingo, your accounts are drained and your credit cards maxed out before you can speed dial your best buddy.

Hackers are also kidnapping phone num-bers and accounts and running up thou-sands of dollars of charges. You may not have to pay for these calls but it could take you weeks or months to get your account straight. In the meantime your credit can

get slammed because some phone com-panies automatically report large unpaid phone bills until you prove the calls weren’t your responsibility.

How do you know which apps or phones are good?

Whatever you do, before you purchase a phone or even download an app, do a little research. See if the phone has a good user review when it comes to security. Check if your app comes from a legit company and if there have been security issues. Easy tip: do a web search of the app name, and normally you’ll pull up tons of reviews.

Go high-tech! Think about adding a fingerprint scanner or a face recognition to your gadget. security options for scan-ners and recognition systems.

firm. They are currently working on developing their app.

The program is only for women, and its goal is to give experience to women interested in becoming entre-preneurs in the field of computer sci-ence and engineering.

“It is a field that is underrepresented by women,” said Dever.

According to the Iridescent website, before taking part in the program, only 11 percent of par-ticipants had worked

with a female mentor in the science or engineering field. Iridescent is the host, which makes the program hap-pen.

A group of Sequoia students work hands-on with Google technology every week.Photo courtesy of Ashley Dever

For most teenagers, doing something illegal or rebel-lious is an enticing thought – teenagers often do things that make them feel older: they sneak into rated R movies or try to get into 18 and over music venues. A tattoo can be a visual representation of this.

Some parents allow tattoos because they already have tat-toos, or they are getting the tattoos done together.

“For my first tattoo, it was a family tattoo that we all got done in Greece,” said senior Stephanie Michelsen.

“My dad got M1, my mom M2, my older sister M3, I got M4 and my younger brother has M5. It stands for Mi-chelsen (our last name) and then the number is the ‘order’ of the family. I plan to carry on the tradition if and when I have kids.”

Traditional tattoos are nothing new; in Native American tribes, they used to tattoo themselves as a rite of passage. While that may not

feature 3The school with the dragon tattoos

By TIFFANY AH TYEOpinion Editor

be the case now, some families like to get tattooed together as a familial bonding activity.

“We wanted to do some-thing together that would last forever, something to remind us of that no matter what, we will always have each other,” said Michelsen.

Some people get tattoos in remembrance of their loved ones who are gone, or who have moved away.

“My tattoo reads Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna in Hindi, which translates to ‘Never Say Goodbye,’” said senior Seema Chaudry. “It was for my sis-ter who is away and for my dad who passed away. It’s a reminder for me not to forget them or ever say goodbye to them.”

Tattoos can be a reminder of someone or just a piece of art, but in California, you

must be at least 16 to be tat-tooed, and your parent must be with you while you are getting the tattoo. However, most tattoo parlors refuse to tattoo minors because the le-

gal issues are too compli-cated – if par-ents say that they were not with the teen while they were getting tattooed, it would be the tattoo parlor that would re-ceive the pun-ishment, not

the minor nor the parent.

“For the sec-ond [tattoo],

a rose, I asked my mom, she said no, and then the next day I went out and got it anyways”, said Michelsen, who got her second tattoo done in Swe-den, where the rules are the same as they are here. “The tattoo guy didn’t even ask for an ID.”

People thinking about get-

ting tattooed can check the background and reviews of tattoo artists. Unchecked, tat-too artists might use unsteril-ized needles or the wrong ink and give a serious infection.

“I knew that my mom would be pissed but I also knew this was something I wanted and was going to do,” said Chaudry. “My conse-quences were a little differ-ent, because I didn’t get it in a shop. I had to think about possibly getting a disease and the actual tattoo not coming out right.”

Still, there are a surpris-ing amount of students with tattoos at Sequoia. The most favored places seem to be the hips, shoulders, arms, and wrists.

Tattoos are like accessories: they make people stand out. Tattoos, however, are not re-movable, and they can’t be thrown away once they are out of fashion.

People can regret their tat-toos because they were spur-of-the-moment designs

Go to TATTOO, page 6

SEQUOIA SAYS...

Rudy Sanjuan Junior

“I would get a foot on my face. If people asked about it I would say some-

one stepped on me.”

What tattoo would you get?

Carolina Gastelum Junior

“All of the planets lined up on my back, and

Feburary 16, 2008 on my side because that was the

date my dad died.”

Braulio GarciaFreshman

“My mom’s name tatted on my chest because she’s

the queen of my heart.”

Vanessa Tinoco Junior

“A breast cancer symbol on my side because my aunt passed away of breast cancer.”

Teachers and students reveal their body art

The tattoos pictured belong to both teachers and stu-dents; can you guess who each tattoo belongs to? Teach-ers Lauren Reibstein, Z Becker, Katie Karlin, Stacy Morell, Daniel Broome, and senior Susanna Serrano all sport body art.

Stephanie Michelsen got her rose tattoo done without parental consent in Sweden.

Photos by Alsace Patrone

—Compiled by Araceli Efigenio

and Cole Dunbar

OPINION4

“ Wa t c h it, f***tard.” “What, are you retarded or some-thing?” “He’s such a re-tard.”

The “R” word is casu-ally tossed around in our regular con-v e r s a t i o n s , yet few stop to think of the effect it has on our peers. Me-

lissa*, a Sequoia senior, shared the im-pact the word has had on her growing up. As a kid, she and her father were constantly made fun of for his cerebral palsy.

“The kids prob-ably didn’t know the impact words had on my dad and I,” said Me-lissa.

This is the cen-ter of the prob-lem. The offen-siveness of the word stems from the misconcep-tion that place-ment in a special ed class reflects the student’s in-telligence.

“Being placed in special ed is not about the students IQ, but about how they learn,” said Special Education teacher Karol-Ann Coleman.

Students in her fourth period class have been doing projects to bring awareness to these stereotypes and the

By CAROLINE LEMPERT and JARRETT CROWELLLayout Editor and Staff Reporter

Students respond to the reality of the r-word

use of the “R” word and to line up with a national movement to end the use of the R word nationwide.

These students would like to show Sequoia that being in special ed does not mean that one is retarded.

Brandon Chase, a senior in Cole-man’s class, even wrote a rap about his personal story and to educate and stop people at Sequoia to stop using the R word.

There is also a website that went viral on March 7 called “Spread the Word to End the Word,” its purpose is to stop people using the r-word at high schools.

Students in Coleman’s class wore matching t-shirts and bracelets on the day of awareness.

Students here use this term very loosely; when you do something stu-pid or trip in the hallway, being called a “retard” is not out of the ordinary.

However, many students do not re-alize the power of this word.

“I showed my friend my grades and she said wow you only have good grades because you’re in special ed, it hurt a lot,” said Elaine*, a se-nior.

D o m i n i c * , a senior at Se-quoia has had many hurtful ex-periences: “My friend said to me, I saw you walk-ing out of the dumbass english class, are you retarted?Theres no point in us-ing it to describe people in RSP classes, its imma-ture”.

“I stopped caring around 7th or 8th grade, but it is still really insulting,” said a senior, Jose*.* Names have been changed to re-spect student privacy.

Staff Editorial

Rap by senior Brandon Chase The r-word. Hurts souls, children and adultsAll the other problems in world has been

brought up to the surface, our generation needs to be taughtSeems like the truth behind it all

is being croppedDon’t let the word pass your ears

Don’t let the word be preached to peers.Open your eyes,

we live in a world full of ignorance. Our vocabulary has hurtful words.

We must replenish it.Think about others you share this word with

Think about the people who are disabled and sick

It’s not a joke stop this from slipping your lip

Think before you say; disability can happen to your kids

Sequoia High School

Raven Report2011-2012

Editor-in-Chief Sarina GrossLayout Editor Caroline Lempert News Editor Laurel Dearborn

Feature Editors Anna Dagum and Lauren KirkpatrickOpinion Editor Tiffany Ah Tye

Staff ReportersHanna Bolaños Peter Bugos Erick Castro Jarrett Crowell Ty Dewes Cole Dunbar Araceli Efigenio Taisha Griffie

Hagop Narkizian Sophie Miller Matthew Morrow Alsace Patrone Bogie Sandoval Daniel Black

AdviserKim Vinh

Mission StatementThe Raven Report strives to provide Sequoia High School with

informative, engaging, and relevant news. The staff will exercise integrity and adaptability while promoting justice and transparency through

professional reporting about the school, the community, and the world.Letters to the Editor

The Raven Report welcomes letters to the editor from students, parents, or community members, sent to Room 308 or by email to

ravenreport09@gmail.com. Letters must include the writer’s full name and ID number, and the staff reserves the right

to edit for space and style.

How many bubbles are in a bar of soap? In what year did the congress gain the right to prohibit migration of persons to the states? If you can answer both of those questions to my satisfaction, you can register to vote. However, because of the color of your skin, I’m probably not going to let you register to vote no matter how good of an answer you give me.

If you are not registered to vote, you can’t serve on a jury. If you and people of your race can’t serve on a jury, then you can never be truly judged by a jury of your peers. The cycle of racial discrimination in the 20th century was completely tied to voting rights: those who could vote had the power. This story is still true today.

While I wish I could say that dis-crimination due to skin color is no longer a prevalent issue in American society, this story occurred count-less times in our parent’s lives. When my mother was four years old, a black man, or any person of color in the southern states, would most likely be prevented from vot-ing or registering to vote. This was done through a variety of means: in-timidation, violence, poll taxes, and literacy tests. A poll tax was a fee that had to be paid at each attempt to register to vote. This often pre-vented economically disadvantaged people from registering to vote—imagine making 5 dollars each week and having to pay 2 dollars for attempting to register to vote. A lit-eracy test was a 20 question test that included questions like ‘how many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?’ and ‘In what year did the congress gain the right to prohibit migration of persons to the states?’.

During the ten days I spent in the deep south with Sojourn to the

Past, I learned of the various ways people of color were prevented from voting or registering to vote. One story I found particularly disturbing was that of a man named Vernon Dahmer Sr., who had his house firebombed by the KKK because he was a NAACP member and an outspoken advocate for black voting rights. Dahmer died 12 hours after his attack, due to smoke inhalation. His voter registration card arrived a few weeks later.

It was hard for me to believe that, years later, the Dahmer family forgave one of the men who par-ticipated in the firebombing that led to their father’s death and the destruction of their home. Instead, the Dahmer family tries to continue their father’s legacy—they are still strong advocates for voting rights and local political involvement. They don’t get angry or become vio-lent because of their father’s mur-der. Instead, they use his message to inspire people to become more active and involved.

Even if you’re not 18 or you’re not a US citizen, there are still ways to stay active in your community’s own political process, including your school’s political process. Par-ticipating in school elections may seem pointless, but it lets you decide who makes the decisions for your class or your student body.

If you are a US citizen and you will be 18 by November 2012, please register to vote. It takes very little time and guarantees that you will be able to vote in the next presi-dential election. As we enter some of the most crucial years of our life, I think it’s important to keep in mind what Vernon Dahmer Sr. stood for and remember that “if you don’t vote, you don’t count.”

By Guest Reporter Alessandra Saluti

www.r-word.org

King Wong checks all

By HANNA BOLAÑOSStaff Reporter

Feature 5

Tumblr makes student bloggers famous

The bear that never hibernates: Papa Bear runs Carrington Hall night and day for over 40 years

By ARACELI EFIGENIOStaff Reporter

Sophomore Rachel Hoke is “Tumblr famous”; she has 17,232 followers. That’s al-most as many followers as George Clooney has on Twit-ter.

Tumblr has emerged as the latest social networking trend, particularly among teens. Accord-ing to Tumblr’s website, as of March 2012, there have been more than 18 billion total posts on Tum-blr, on 47 mil-lion total blogs, averaging 55 million posts a day. Tumblr describes itself as a tool that “lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, pho-tos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be.” Tumblr claims that using their site is “the easiest way to blog,” and maybe they’re right, as ev-idenced by the number of stu-

Papa Bear, who began working at Sequoia in 1972, stands outside of his workshop with sophomore Emma Peyton.

Photo by Araceli Efigenio

Having lost approximately 500 games out of 10,000 that he’s played over his ca-reer at Sequoia, Mathematics and Chess instructor Steven Wong has about a 95 percent chance of winning every game. This is why over 40 students regularly come to Wong’s room at lunch: the chal-lenge of trying to beat the unbeatable.

“Chess is hard because you have to use a lot of strategies,” said senior Jacob Hur-wits. Because of strategic quality, chess has gained popularity.

Students come to Wong’s room to receive help on math or socialize, and, more specifically, to wait for their turn at the board.

“I like how many types of games there can be in chess because you force your opponent and take sacrifices to do better. It is also distracting from things I should be doing like homework and such,” said Chess Club junior participant Elliot Stern.

The people that have or have had Wong as an instructor agree that he is a great person to be with.

“Mr. Wong is a cool guy, if it was an-other class with another chess instructor the club would not be so fun,” said junior Derek Vargas.

Tumblr DictionaryPromo — When one blogger tells all their followers to fol-

low a blogger and that blogger does the same.

Follower — Someone who subscribes to a blog so they can see when things are added to it.

Heart — Similar to ‘liking’ something on Facebook.

Dashboard — It’s like the newsfeed on Facebook, where all the things from the blogs you follow end up.

Re-blog — The action of re-posting a photo, video, text etc. that you find on Tumblr to your blog.

By BOGART SANDOVALStaff Reporter

At age 11, his voice changed to a deep tone. In sixth grade, he towered at stunning six feet tall. By age 14, he had a full grown beard. As an incoming freshman, he worked on his first production of Bye Bye Birdie. Ever since, Se-quoia’s theater manager and tech-nical director Dave Briggs, better known as Papa Bear, has worked on at least 100 productions at Se-quoia for over 40 years.

Because he is a bearded six feet four inch tall man at a “svelte 330 pounds”, it is understandable how the nickname “Papa Bear” may be a bit confusing to some.

“I had a girlfriend for several years who lived with my family. She called my father Papa Bear and when he died she decided I would become the new Papa Bear,” said Briggs.

Papa Bear works at Carrington an average of 50 hours a week, and he once worked continuous-ly from seven in the morning to three in the morning of the next day.

“The amount of time he spends at school is incredible. When you

dents, like Hoke, who main-tain Tumblr pages.

People can become “Tum-blr famous” overnight, if they hunt, search, and dig through the right blogs for the right amount of time. Tumblr us-ers will tell you that the key to building your blog’s popular-ity is to strategically re-blog the best photos, text, videos, etc. Once someone re-blogs

what you’ve re-blogged, your blog could potentially go vi-ral. Although, most agree it doesn’t happen to everyone. With all those photos you’ve re-blogged circling about 47 million other blogs, followers will come.

“For a while I didn’t really care about getting a lot of fol-

lowers,” said Hoke, “but once I got to 10,000 followers all I could think about was getting to 20,000. For some people, Tumblr is just a blogging site, but at some point you start to think ‘I just have to be more popular than the other people on there’.”

Compared to other Tum-blr users, however, Hoke isn’t as famous as she could be.

“ There were some people I knew on T u m b l r whom I did a pro-mo with, back when we all had a r o u n d 3000 fol-l o w e r s ,” Hoke said.

“Now one of them has 72,000 followers, and the other has around 140,000. That’s what I would consider ‘Tumblr Fa-mous’.”

For a majority of bloggers, gaining popularity on the In-ternet is the ultimate goal. “Tumblr is like the cafeteria scene from the movie ‘Mean

Girls’,” Hoke said. “There’s the really popular blogs, the aver-age blogs, the nobody blogs, boho blogs, hipster blogs, beach blogs, anime blogs, party blogs, and photography blogs. The amount of follow-ers for each ranges from about 100,000 for the popular blogs to around two for the nobod-ies.”

To Hoke, the “popular blogs” are nothing special. They’re just more glamorous looking than the rest.

“People who own the ‘popular blogs’ are really full of themselves, to be honest,” Hoke said. “A lot of Tumblr famous people I know of ac-tually use their blogs to raise money for themselves, or sell promos to people for money. Their blogs are always filled with ‘photography pictures’.” Photography pictures are the glamorous and glossy pictures that look like they’re straight from a professional photo shoot. These types of photos can be anything from an Ur-ban Outfitters ad look-alike, to a picture of someone skate-boarding.

Not all people on Tumblr strive solely to gain the larg-

est fan base, though. Some people use Tumblr as a means of self expression. People who prefer to convey things about themselves via the Internet find re-blogging photos to be an easy and satisfying outlet for such a purpose.

“Tumblr is a way of com-municating things to people about yourself,” junior Me-lissa Chatelain said. “It dem-onstrates to others how you want to be perceived.”

Others embrace Tumblr as a welcome change from Face-book. Tumblr offers some-thing different than a contin-uous stream of your friends’ thoughts.

Junior Favi Renkel uses to Tumblr to try and make other people happy and “just be-cause it’s cool.”

“Whenever I see a cool picture on Tumblr it makes me happy,” Renkel said, “and when people re-blog my stuff it makes me feel really good because it means they liked it.”

Renkel’s Tumblr isn’t a di-rect representation of himself, but more of his interests or what he’d like to be.

“Tumblr can be a lot of

pass by in the morning you’ll see his truck parked next to Carrington, and when you come back from wherever you were you’ll probably see his truck still there,” said Daniel Broome, the director of all of Sequoia’s plays and musicals, who has been working with Briggs for over four years.

Not only does he run the sound, lighting boards, and build sets for all

of Sequoia’s plays, musicals, and dance shows, he also runs all of John Gill Elementary School, Kennedy Middle School, and Redwood City Community Theater shows as well.

“It’s not the money, the-ater kind of saved my life,” said Briggs. “I suffer from depres-sion and the thing that keeps you alive is having something to do that you love.”

Additionally, Papa Bear teach-es students how to hoist scenery, maneuver the lighting system, and assemble sets.

“I learned that there’s a lot more that goes into plays that we see. That opened my eyes and gave me profound respect,” said senior William Bussing, who has worked with Papa Bear since his sophomore year.

There is more to Papa Bear than what one sees at first glance like the ability he had to re-build a piano organ for Neil Young or his love for breeding 100 to 150 pound Bull Mastiff dogs.

“I’m not really mean and dan-gerous. I look like a renegade biker, but I haven’t killed any-body in weeks now,” said Briggs sarcastically.

Go to TUMBLR, page 6

FEATURE

By ERICK CASTROStaff Reporter

Student band rocks the playground6

When Will Bell, Evan Foss, and Jar-ed Solomon leave behind their books and homework, they become part of the alternative rock band, Toxic Play-ground.

Bell, Foss, and Soloman started the band in the summer of 2009. Solo-mon, who plays the guitar and sings vocals, was in another band before helping start Toxic Playground.

“We weren’t doing anything. [My old band] was full of jocks that didn’t know anything about music, and I was actually taking music seriously,” said Solomon.

Solomon talked to Foss, the current drummer, about forming a new band in eight grade, and, in July 2009, Solo-mon invited Foss over to jam. Foss in-vited Bell, the now bassist, to come play as well.

“We were all pretty good friends be-fore, but now we hang out a lot more,” Bell said. “We can do more things and go more places with the gigs we play.”

Coming up with the band name took several at-tempts. Suggestions ranged from “Jared and the Rabbis” to “Bad Trip”.

“Everyone liked ‘play-ground’ but I wanted a cool adjective to go with it,” Foss said. All the members liked Toxic Playground best.

Despite their success in forming the band quickly, Toxic Playground did not start off performing pub-

licly. “ W e

d i d n ’ t even have any [origi-nal] songs for five months,” said Foss.

I t wasn’t un-til April 2010, eight months after the band was

formed, that Toxic Playground played

their first public gig.“Whether it’s a hole-in-the-wall

dump or a giant battle of the bands, we just want to get our name out,” said Bell.

Since then, Toxic Playground has played at many public events, includ-ing the 2011 San Mateo County Fair and the Redwood City Hometown Holidays.

The band also participated in the Sequoia High School talent show last year and won the San Carlos Battle of

Photos courtesy of Toxic Playground

Junior Will Bell jams on the electric guitar.

TATTOOS (continued from page 3)

that they regret later in lifePlacement of a tattoo is also impor-

tant; many choose to get one it in a place that’s easy to hide at a job inter-view, or somewhere where tattoos are taboo.

“For certain jobs you can’t show your tattoos,” said senior Susanna Serrano. “When I had job interviews I would hide [my tattoo] because it’s more professional that way.”

Removing a tattoo can be costly, painful, and time consuming - often, the tattoo removal process can take up to 6 weeks, and the tattoo may not even be fully removed.

Students who get parent permis-sion for their tattoos often take liber-ties with what they can get.

the Bands.Toxic Playground

also played at the DNA Lounge in San Fransisco on Feb 12. The DNA Lounge has hosted many fa-mous bands, includ-ing Green Day and the Misfits.

“That was our greatest show, I’d have to say,” Solo-mon said.

Recently, Toxic Playground released an EP on iTunes, with four original tracks. Solomon and Foss collaborate to produce the songs, Foss writes the lyrics, and Solomon cre-ates the music that will accompany the

songs.Toxic Playground is

currently working on an album, which will be released on iTunes shortly.

If you can’t wait until then, go to www.toxicplaygroundmusic.com to listen to their music, see pictures, and watch videos of their past perfor-mances.

“My mom told me that I could get a small tattoo, somewhere discreet” said sophomore Graciela Delgado. “When I came home with a crown and my last name tattooed on my upper arm, she was furious... she stayed mad at me for a month.”

Tattoos can be beautiful if they’re well thought-through; Serrano de-signed her own tattoo, and fell in love with it.

“I think the special meaning to my tattoo is that it’s something I created on my own. Not something I got off Google,” said Serrano. “I did think about the consequences. I thought about how permanent it was and how it’s not removable. I made my decision based on what I believe a tattoo should be. I believe that they’re meant on a persons body to express themselves and their creativity...Tattoo[s] [are] art, and I’ve just started my painting.”

Senior Seema Chaudry’s tattoo reads “Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna in Hindi. It translated to “never say goodbye.”

Photo courtesy of Seema Chaudry

7FEATUREFlorian Shasky is more than the school librarian By SARINA GROSSEditor-in-Chief

He metal sculpts in his free time, provides classified texts to IB His-tory students, has traveled and stud-ied around the world, and is known for being somewhat r e t i c e n t about his a r c a n e past. Every student has c h e c k e d out a text-book from him or hidden a cell phone from his ea g le-l ike watch, but many do not know that Flo-rian Shasky is much more than the school librarian.

As I sat down and turned on my re-corder, Shasky informed me this was the first interview with the press he has allowed in over 20 years.

“I normally don’t go after publicity,” Shasky said. “I’m very private. I don’t twitter. Unless I’m very cold, and then I tweet.” History teacher Karin Zar-cone said Shasky is an enigmatic man.

Shasky works with Zarcone every year to assist IB History seniors with their historical investigations and to teach a seminar about advanced re-search methodologies.

Zarcone said Shasky has a wealth of information. Shasky, who said he

has a “house-ful” of books, photos, manu-scripts, letters and other texts, often shares articles of his personal collec-tion with stu-dents. Shasky, an avid reader, is currently bal-ancing Suzanne Collin’s young adult novel The Hunger Games and Richard Muller’s Phys-ics for Future Presidents.

“I wanted to find out what

students are reading and learn more about what they are interested in,” Shasky said. “I’m a curious reader.”

Shasky is also a modern and ab-stract sculptor, art teacher Mozy da Costa Pinto said.

For the past two years Shasky has led a two-day metal sculpting work-shop for da Costa Pinto’s art class, in which he also shares his personal

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supplies and tools with students. “His help and his connection to IB

Art, and not just IB Art but also the art department, goes beyond these workshops,” da Costa Pinto said. “He is one of our strongest advocates for art education and art involvement at Sequoia.” Shasky started metal sculp-turing when he was nineteen years old and said he has a lot of fun teaching the workshop.

“Here are some [pictures] of the metal sculptures that the students made. . . we had them in a case here in the library,” Shasky said with a smile as he showed me the pictures on his

Blackberry. “Arn’t they nice? The stu-dents are very talented.” In addition to being a talented metal sculptor, Shasky also has a knack for words. He teach-es a seminar on etymology and has a word-of-the-day. Shasky said he tries to pick an unusual word-of-the-day to add to the entertainment of learn-ing new words. Shasky said working with teenagers is a happy challenge. “He treats them like they are adults and like they are sophisticated,” Zar-cone said. “He holds them with very high regard. Sometimes the students don’t realize that themselves, but that’s what’s going on.”

Florian Shasky has taught a metal sculpting seminar to IB Art for the past two years.

once you see one picture you like, you scroll down the page to try and find another picture you like.” Despite that, Tumblr can be twisted, tweaked, and designed to suit everyone’s desires whether it be a place to vent your soul or a place to waste time. “Some people say [Tumblr] is just a place to pointlessly re-blog pictures,” Hoke said, “but I actually think it’s a pretty productive way to pass time while pointlessly re-blogging pic-tures.” Indeed.

things depending on the person,” Renkel said. “It could be a place to look at cool pictures or it could be a representation of your dreams.” However, like with most social networking sites, it’s easy to become sucked into Tumblr for hours on end. “It’s a procrastinator’s best friend,” Renkel said. “It’s addicting because

Tumblr(continued from page 5)

Shasky helps senior David Burt with an art project. Photos courtesy of Mozy da Costa Pinto

SPORTS8

Alex Ruhlman Mile and Two-Mile Runner

Is your event difficult?It’s difficult... [it has] a bigger mental aspect, but I

enjoy the challenge because I improve more.

Do you do any other sports besides track and field?I swim and run cross country.

Why did you choose your event?I’m not a very good sprinter, but my parents like to run.

After crushing Woodside in their first meet of the year, Sequoia’s swim team is reaching for the Bay League Title.

This year the boys varsity team has downsized to four swimmers, and 18 swimmers overall. “This year is defi-nitely a growing year,” junior Josh Pit-kofsky said.

Similar to the boys, the girls have 65 swimmers on the girl’s team compared with last years larger team of 90 girls.

“Because we graduated so many last year, the team is younger and smaller,” sophomore Helena Larsen said.

Despite losing some great swim-mers, junior Lilly Nelson, and sopho-mores Helena Larsen, Analisa Bau-haus, Laurel Dearborn, and Morgan Park all went to CCS last year, and are returning this year. However, some teams still pose a challenge to Sequoia.

“MA and Burlingame are definitely the teams to look out for. They’ve got some really fast swimmers on their team, but they better be ready to eat our bubbles” Larsen said.

Because of their small team every-one needs to work hard in order to achieve their goal, and through this they have achieved a close knit com-munity.

“My best memories have been the time I’ve spent with the teammates throughout the years. I feel like I’ve been able to make great friends from swimming and the bond between us is so strong,” said Larsen. “ I can always count on them to have fun whether it be dancing the Hoedown Throw down or coming up with silly cheers.”

Even though the season just started, their intensity and dedication are vis-ible. “It’s turned on, but by the end of the season we will be fine tuned” said Coach Rob Griffin.

By PETER BUGOSStaff Reporter

With spring sports in full swing, the track and field program has already attracted over 130 athletes. Track features events which range from the dangerous (propelling yourself through the air using a piece of PVC pipe in the pole vault) to the exhausting (running eight laps nonstop in the two-mile race) which appeal to an array of athletes.

Claire SaittaVarsity 200 Sprinter, 4x1 Relay Runner and Long Jumper

What do you love about track overall?I love the meets because you feel the rush when you’re starting to [run]... it’s exciting.

Do you find your event difficult or easy?I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s easy, but learning technique is difficult and sometimes it’s frustrating.

When did you start track?I started in sixth grade, I did track at Mt. Carmel.

Abhineet RamVarsity Discus and Shot Put Thrower

What got you interested in throwing?[Coach] Dilley told me to go to track, and other seniors asked too.

Do you find throwing a challenge?It’s hard; there’s lots of technique. Last year I was #1 at discus in PALS and #2 for the shot put.

Are you interested in doing track and field in college? I want to, I think that it would be really fun.

Track sprints to finish

I’ve never been one for contact sports. I went through the AYSO soccer phase, the basketball roundup, and the fencing

phase. However, when I turned ten, I became extremely dedicated to the sport that has changed my life.

I love swimming. I don’t want to ramble on and on about how much chlorine intake my skin has endured, but instead let me explain what par-ticipating in a sport means.

Last week we swam against Wood-side. We arrived, changed, and then hopped in for warm up. Getting out of the pool is hard. The water is warm

and the outside temperature leaves little to be desired. Nonetheless, we all end up on the deck.

When it’s time for me to swim, I always get butterflies. No matter how many meets I swim in, they never dis-appear. It’s because this is my one shot to get what I have been working for.

I don’t want to touch the wall at the end of my race and look up at the scoreboard only to find that I’ve gained seconds, lost it for my team, or worst of all, been disqualified. There is nothing worse than not reaching that goal.

If it were always like this, no one would swim, but the reason that we endure the kicking sets, the distance swims, and all the early Saturday mornings, isn’t because of the mo-ments of disappointment, it’s because of the moments of triumph. It is for the movie moments and the “feel

good” endings. I had one of those moments on

Thursday. I got my best time in the 200 free and my best time in the 500 free. I don’t pretend to be the fastest on the team or the star swimmer. I just try and help us win. I know that there are people who are better than me. I am not saying that I always smile about that and that I don’t feel jealous. I’m competitive. I want to do well and be the best. It’s as simple as that.

But in this moment I thought I could be something more.

I was put on the “A” relay. One of our swimmers got sick and so I got bumped up to take her place.

When we went over to talk to our Coach, he told us we had made CCS.

CCS is a big deal. Basically, it is an exclusive championship tournament or meet. It is what all athletes aim to make. In swimming it is a little differ-

ent, in order to attend these “champi-onships” you must qualify by making a certain time. We made that time.

I was a part of this. I did it. I helped our team.

This is what sports are all about. This is what swimming is all about. It’s about success, cheering on your team-mates and patting them on the back.

It gives you an immediate family, people in the hall that understand the hours that you put in, the late nights, and the pain of the hard workouts. You don’t have to explain why your hair is wet and why you smell like a locker room more often than not. We all just get it.

Being a swimmer is so much more than just having green hair. It’s about being together and working hard in order to reach a common goal.

That’s why I swim.—As published for Redwood City Patch

Swimmers surge in Bay division

Domination in chlorination: life as a swimmer By LAUREL DEARBORNNews Editor

Don’t back downKeeping your back

straight will help you keep your form and

balance.

Tippy toesLand on the balls of your

feet while running to minimize

energy use, and to increase

push-off.

Find your angleRemember to keep your

elbows at no less than a 90 degree angle to ensure that you don’t cross your body

with your arms, which wastes energy.

Use those driving skillsBy driving your knee forward and up while you are running, you will be able to gain more momentum going forward. By driving your knee, your arms will begin to drive as

well, and you will speed up.

—Compiled by Sophie Miller

Compiled by Peter Bugos and Ty Dewes

Four steps to running efficiently