Five years ago, the Associated Student Body (ASB) drafted a constitution that would provide a strong framework for

how ASB functioned. And for five years, it lay forgotten in the ASB den until ASB treasurer Andrew Wong found it. “No one knew it existed,” says Wong, “But we reviewed it, and found a lot of things that were just outdated, like the executive council, which is now the leadership class.”

With changing school policies, it became clear that it was time to revise the constitution. It will be a transparent process-written by and for the students. Students are now allowed to submit ideas via email.

The goals are to increase awareness of the way ASB functions and to create a set of guidelines, not rules, that everyone can agree upon. Sophomore Eloy Fernandez supports this process, saying, “If students see something they don’t like in the constitution, they’ll say something.” A large part of the constitution’s revisions will focus on Intra-District Council (IDC), Homecoming and clubs at Lynbrook. Assistant Principal David Erwin says, “It’s about following rules…the clubs help

[the school], and we’ll help clubs operate better.” With separate sections dedicated

to club bylaws and a club constitution almost completed, the committee is looking to “tighten regulations and paperwork that people have to go through when they want to create a club,” says club commissioner Candance Liu. “We want to make the procedures clearer

for clubs doing activities [...]the previous constitution was just too vague.”

On Feb. 13, club presidents held a meeting

Committee formed to redraft ASB ConstitutionBY JACOB ANTONY

Assassin’s new creedTraditional senior game, Assassin, is revised with new rules and regula-tions after administration and teachers voice certain concernsBY NIKITA DHESIKAN & IRENE HSU

No more “targets” huddling behind sticker sheets, no more “killing” with spoons and no more “assas-

sins” lurking on campus: Assassin is now Some Wicked Awesome Game (SWAG) involving “assignments” rather than “tar-gets,” “tagging” rather than “killing” and “SWAGgers” rather than “assassins.”

On Feb. 8, senior class president Sa-meer Kausar and treasurer Jared Kim met with principal Gail Davidson and assistant principal David Erwin to dis-cuss what was once Assassin, a senior game run by officers. The switch to running the game with ad-m i n i s t ra t i o n began as an accident when the senior class officers sold tickets in the Associated Student Body (ASB) den. Kim says, “There are very spe-cific rules sur-rounding usage of the den and the cash box. We were not aware of the rules, and our officers and advisors were informed that SWAG had become a school-sanctioned activity after we had sold the tickets.” By selling in the den, the officers had inadvertently involved the adminis-trators.

In addition, Cupertino High School (CHS) went in a Code Red lockdown on Feb. 6 due to confusing a Nerf gun brought to the school for Assassins with a real gun. Davidson says, “If we had just gone on with the game, it wouldn’t have been respectful to their situation, and we wouldn’t have learned from the experience.” The name change from “Assassin” to “SWAG” by se-nior class secretary Vishal Kal was also due to the mishap at CHS.

Senior Jay Park expresses the senti-ment of many seniors, saying, “I was definitely frustrated since we, as seniors,

won’t get the chance to partake in the same game as the seniors of previous years had.”

In past years, teachers designated “safe zones” in their classrooms, deciding whether or not students could play the game during class; due to teacher complaints in previous years that the game caused commotions, tar-dies, and even absences, “safe zones” have changed to “safe times,” which are all instruc-tional periods. SWAG is scheduled to end in April before standardized testing, cutting the game short by two months.

By awarding cash to winners, the game

had technically been a form of gambling. The game will now fund prom, and winners will receive bids to the senior prom and picnic. However, many students are dissatisfied with the new rules. Senior Marcus Yee says, “In past years, we’ve seen people hiding be-hind bushes to ‘kill’ others and people run-ning after each other, but we won’t get to see that this year.” Sophomore Sharon Pneh also adds, “It’s now going to be hard for under-classmen to witness [SWAG].”

Davidson says, “I’m glad that Lynbrook is a place where administrators, teachers, and students can come together to create some-thing fun and classy. We are stepping up and showing the way.”

Lynbrook’s SWAG is expected to be used as a model in the coming years for interested schools, though as of now, no other schools in the Fremont Union High School District are playing any version of it.

to discuss the changes. “Hopefully [the clubs] have already fulfill most of the [new] requirements,” says club commissioner Anika Dhamodharan, “Club bylaws will affect how clubs govern themselves, while the club constitution will dictate how ASB supports [them].” There will also be active member quotas and increased auditing.

“My hope is that whatever result we have in writing this constitution is [...] meaningful and [will help us] continually improve,” Erwin says. Fernandez says of student participation in redrafting, “Students are a majority in this school compared to ASB members, so the odds of a genius idea for the constitution will be a lot higher if students are able to participate.”

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY SHANNON CHAI & AUSTIN YU

Letter from the editorsAmid a school overflowing with love po-

tions, handmade necklaces and music grams, the Epic has been busy capturing the scenes behind every single moment.

From the recent Assassin controversy (pg. 1) to the issue of students bypassing school-hosted Internet filters through un-warranted means (pg. 11), there are numer-ous matters to be covered. In addition, we have also investigated in our centerspread the effect of competition (pg. 8) on Lyn-brook students

Overall, we hope you’ll find this issue full of stories! Please let us know what you think by contacting us at enc_epic@yahoo.com.

Enjoy your break,

Candy Chang & Namrata Singh

Swim team donates misprinted apparelBY KATHY LI

CANDY CHANG & NAMRATA SINGHWhen the Lynbrook swim team

received its order of 100 sweat-shirts and 100 long-sleeve t-

shirts with “LSH” printed on them instead of “LHS,” the members wondered what to do with such a large stock of misprinted clothing. Fortunately, a positive solution was reached when the swim team decid-ed to donate the clothing, which vendor Valley Images gifted to Lynbrook because of the mistake, to the Waka Charity Home, an orphanage in Tibet.

After the misprinted order arrived, math teacher and swim coach Patrick Ellington went to Principal Gail David-son with the idea of donating the shirts. Davidson, who is familiar with a few stu-dents’ work with the Waka Charity Home, referred him to siblings junior Matthew, sophomore Mark and freshman Jane Lee.

Over the past two summers, the Lee siblings did projects in Tibet and the Yun-nan province of China to fundraise for some rural orphanages. “Across the many orphanages that we visited, I discussed possible funding solutions with the or-

phanage administrators,” says Matthew. “In-variably, one of the urgent needs was warm clothes for the winter.”

The high altitude of the Tibetan plateau, along with lack of proper insulation in the or-phanages, makes for especially cold winters. “I noticed on my visits there that some of the clothes the children wore are in fact not as bad as we imagine them to look, but they didn’t buy the clothes themselves. They need as much as we can give them,” says Matthew.

The donation was an executive decision, made with good intentions but without team discussion. Based on what little she heard about the shirts, senior Kate Yu expressed that “it may have made more sense economi-cally to donate the misprinted shirts to Good-will or another local charity, but at least the clothes will be put to good use.” Altogether, the swim team will donate approximately $5000 worth of clothes to the orphanages. The shirts have been packed and will be shipped to Tibet in the upcoming weeks.

“With 200 sweatshirts and t-shirts, we can manage to fit all the children of several orphanages with brand new clothes,” says Matthew. “Hopefully that’ll serve as a nice present from the Lynbrook swim team!”

Accelerando for the RitardsBY GLORIA LIN & BRIAN ZHAO

They’ve hardly begun high school, yet already are more well-known than some adults can ever hope to become.

Last week, this self-run a capella group was invited to audition for reality television show America’s Got Talent. This doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary, except for one: the group is called the Ritards, and two: it com-prises seven local high school boys, includ-ing two of Lynbrook’s very own: freshman Anderson Ju and sophomore Eric Wu. As the

boys did not plan to audition until they were personally invited, the opportunity was a great honor for them. Even before this, how-ever, the group had already developed a posi-tive reputation for themselves.

During their first performance in 2004, the group didn’t have an official name, so “when the original members were asked backstage what they wanted to be called, they decided to name themselves ‘the Ritards’ based on the musical term ‘Ritardando’ because they were trying to make it funny,” explains Ju. The group first consisted entirely of mem-

bers of Crystal Children’s Choir (CCC), but now expands by recommendation; potential CCC boys are recommended to try out, then the Ritards select new members.

The Ritards have had a busy last two months. “When we got invited to perform at a Lunar New Year’s celebration at Reno, it re-ally increased our bro-ness. The performance was a really good bonding experience,” says Wu, who joined the group six months ago. From there, they were recruited by a talent scout for one of their greatest accomplish-ments yet, and so the boys auditioned in San

Francisco on Feb. 12 and performed songs including Craig David’s “Insomnia” and Ne-Yo’s “Closer.”

Their time together, however, is limit-ed. “We are strictly a high school group, so when people graduate, they become college Ritards and are no longer part of the per-forming group,” says Wu. None of them are striving to be professional musicians, either. Nonetheless, ending one’s career as a Ritard is not entirely sad: the eldest bears the honor of organizing all group activities, his last leg-acy before saying goodbye.

Q. Why did you decide to join the Ritards?

A. We started as part of one choir group, and I used to be part of another a capella group. However, things happened and our group broke up, so I moved to the Ritards.

Q. How do your parents feel regarding your activities as part of the Ritards?

A. My parents like that I’m being proactive outside of school. They see it as a good way to perform and see the world before getting out of high school and getting a career.

Q. How do you balance school, other ex-tracurricular activies and the Ritards?

Thankfully, things haven’t collided yet so it’s not too hard to balance the rehearsals. Gigs are the main problem, though, because we have to put aside a whole day.

Q. Where do you see the Ritards going?

A. I think in the next few years, we’re going to get big and gain a lot of recognition. That’s all I really hope for; if we can be recognized, that’s good enough for me.

SAM CHANG—EPIC

SAM CHANG—EPIC

MISPRINTED| The swim team, upon receiving the incorrectly produced apparel, shipped the clothing to the Waka Charity Home, an orphanage in Tibet.

Q. What happens during a typical training session?

A. We usually practice three hours a week, but for America’s Got Talent, we practiced for a total of seven hours. Usually, we practice on a Friday or Saturday night, and we rehearse for an hour or two. We’ll eat dinner and train at somebody’s house; we take turns going to people’s houses to train, and the hosts cook dinner. After we eat, we go and practice.

Q. What has been your most memorable experience so far?

A. We went to Reno to perform for [the or-

ganizations,] Taiwanese American Profes-sionals (TAP) and (Chinese television sta-tion) KTSF on Feb. 4 and 5. We gave two performances, one a day. We got free hotel rooms, meal tickets and entertainment tick-ets, which went to the arcade for us and for gambling for our parents. It was my favorite experience because it was basically like a family road trip.

Q. What has been the most valuable part of being in the Ritards?

A. I’ve really enjoyed being a Ritard because it’s taught me a lot about working as part of and being in a team.

USED WITH PERMISSION OF PATRICK ELLINGTON

San Jose proposes merging council branches

Over 75 percent of San Jose’s District 1 Youth Advisory Council consists of students from Lynbrook. Many Lyn-

brook students play an active role in deter-mining policies for this region of San Jose. However, this may soon change due to a cost-savings initiative recently proposed by the San Jose Community meeting. city clerk Dennis Hawkins. A plan was announced to consolidate city boards and commissions to improve efficiency and help cut costs, which will include minimizing the youth commis-sion member count. Community members are currently considering whether efficiency or equal representation of San Jose’s large population should take pre-cedence in deciding the consolida-tion of commissions.

Under the new budget plan, Youth, Human Rights, and Senior Citizens Commissions will be consolidated into the Hu-man Ser-vices Com-m i s s i o n . Currently, the city is divided into ten dis-tricts, each with a council of youth in the area. Districts have one chair who attend meetings for the Youth Com-mission. If the plan goes underway, only one or two students from the city will be chosen to represent 180,000 youth city-wide; the Youth Advisory Council may also be cut completely.

Many students are unhappy with this decision because of the benefits the com-mission offers. Youth Advisory Council has launched many initiatives in the past years, including a homework-tutoring center for at-risk youth in District 1 and drunk driving

forum in District 10. Senior Aditi Pradhan who is on the Youth Advisory Council, says, “It would be deconstructive to cut the youth advisory council because our proposals have proved vital when making the city budget because we know which resources and fa-cilities that youth need and which we can live

without.” Many people, like Pradhan, believe that “a few representa-

tives from a city of so many youth simply does not

give us any repre-sentation at all.”

Freshman Ed-ward Hu,

Service clubs unite to build healthy club relationships

To unify the major service clubs at Lynbrook, junior Yu Lin Chen is form-ing the Lynbrook High School Service

Committee (LHSSC). The committee consists of representatives from major service clubs like the Leadership Experience Opportunity club, Key Club, Octagon, Interact, Amnesty International, Red Cross Club and Ameri-can Cancer Society in order to “unite all of the service clubs of Lynbrook into one large organization and work together for a cause to build a healthy relationship between the clubs,” says junior Grace Miao, who aided Chen in forming the LHSSC.

Chen and Miao were inspired to create LHSCC after realizing “that most people at

BY EESHA KHARE

BY NOORSHER AHMED Lynbrook lost sight of what service clubs are really for [...]. The organization is designed to minimize club competition and instead tar-get a single goal and help make a difference

in society,” says Miao. The two hope that the LHSSC will foster cooperation between clubs

for larger, more effective projects.The LHSCC will operate independently

from the leaderships of member clubs to create an atmosphere independent from the current feuding tensions. “Every club has their own deal and desire. There must be a central leadership that takes into account [of this] in order to create harmony among the clubs, fortify cooperation, and put Lynbrook service at its maximum strength,” says Chen.

The first LHSSC Invitational Conference will be on Monday, Feb. 20 in the Cupertino Li-brary, for representatives from invited clubs to meet and create projects that all clubs can work on. They will create one main goal that all clubs will cooperate to work toward, and hold large joint events to determine leader-ship positions within the committee.

New alumni network introduced

Lynbrook’s new alumni network is proof that the Viking spirit lives long after one’s four short years of high school. The network is dedicated to bringing together fellow Lynbrook alumni in order to cel-ebrate various major occasions, such as Lynbrook’s 50th anniversary in 2015, as well as the first Homecoming on the home field. The network’s leadership team has had four meetings so far in order to dis-cuss ways to connect with and inform fel-low past graduates.

Ken-ya Dance NorCal 2012 IaMmE (America’s Best Dance Crew Sea-son 6 Champions) will be headlining at the charity dance showcase, Ken-ya Dance NorCal 2012, on Feb. 18. Over 20 dance crews will be performing at the San Jose Center for Performing Arts, located at 255 Almaden Blvd. Tickets are $20 if purchased before Feb. 18, and $25 at the door. While doors open at 4 p.m., the show starts at 4:30 p.m. and ends at 7:30 p.m. All proceeds will go to Kenya Dream, a charity dedicated to improving educa-tional facilities in Kenya.

Memorial tree to be planted

A Chinese Fringe Tree is to be planted in front of the ASB den in honor of Lyn-brook’s former attendance clerk, Marie SanAntonio, who passed away last spring. The Lynbrook administration hopes to exalt her many contributions to Lynbrook by planting a tree in her memory. San An-tonio was a revered staff member whose influence will never be forgotten. The tree is ready to be planted any day now; all that remains to be done is a plaque to properly honor San Antonio, which will be completed by faculty members.

Amnesty Microloans Event

The Amnesty International club will soon lend out a microloan to a needy or-ganization as they see fit. This is in ac-cordance with part of one of three major projects the club is taking on to tackle global human rights issues, including poverty and genocide. Members will use and track the loan to determine whether they will continue to give out loans in the future, and whether doing so is a sound decision for tackling poverty.

By Jessica Cao & Sarah Tarter

Newsin Brief

In the Jan. 24 issue, it was incorrectly stated that English teacher Robert Richmond teaches British literature (pg. 1). In actuality, Richmond teaches Contemporary Literature and American Literature.

In addition, sophomore Julia Huang was reported to have won the MIT Math Prize (pg. 2), when the actual title of her award is the Advantage Testing Math Prize for Girls.

Lastly, sophomore wrestler Anna Naylor was reported as a junior (pg. 13). the Epic strives to report with accuracy and detail; we apologize for each of these mistakes.

recently selected to join the youth council, looks forward to the experience because meetings are “eye opening and enriching [as to] how government works.” He adds that youth council is essential because “the suc-cess of California is determined by the new generation, us.”

Speaking as a citizen of San Jose, Youth Commissions Manager Betty Montoya agrees that “consolidating the youth commission is a huge step backwards in a progressive city such as ours.” She says that youth are an es-

sential part of the community and keep-ing the youth commission intact is necessary so that “the baton of prog-ress may continue to go forward as we

progress together as a city.”Some, however, do not mind the con-

solidation efforts. Although Senior Clar-ence Mah appreciates the

i d e a , h e

says, “It isn’t well

i m p l e -mented to

serve its need. Therefore, it is a

waste of resources to both our govern-

ment and the students.”The decision is left to the San Jose com-

munity to weigh the benefits and losses in-volved with the consolidation plans.

The Youth, Senior and Hu-man Rights Commissions

may be consolidated into the Human Services Commission

under the mentioned proposal.GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY NEWS SECTION

Issue FourCorrections:

Numerous modifications as to how the Associated Stu-dent Body (ASB) functions have been made in the past five years. The updates, however, have not extended

to the ASB Constitution, also known as club bylaws, a docu-ment that outlines guiding principles so that ASB officers can lead the student body properly and effectively. With the opening of a committee dedicated to reviewing the Constitu-tion and initiating modifications, this may soon change. The real problem, however, is that many students are overlooking the opportunity out of apathy or lack of understanding of the services provided by ASB. This needs to change.

Students should be more directly involved in the writing process by joining the committee, currently open to all grade levels, because the Constitution impacts the way the student body is governed, major decisions are made and how activi-ties and clubs are approved. In order to prevent loopholes, it is important that the Constitution receive feedback from different perspectives of a variety of students. The more stu-dents contribute, the better the Constitution will represent all student groups.

The Constitution outlines the powers of the ASB offi-cers so that they cannot overstep boundaries in leading the school, and oversees matters such as publications, conces-sions, impeachments, elections and fundraising—a mouthful in speech, and an even greater responsibility in action. In ad-dition, as Lynbrook ASB is expected to align with district and state mandates for the student body in order to be allowed

A student sits at home, crossing off one task after another from a “Be Your-self!” planner square. Especially for

Lynbrook AP and Honors students, home-work is a constant presence in their lives. It is important then, that homework best help a student learn as it possibly can. Teachers are reconsidering homework guidelines, but they should still continue not requir-ing a time restriction for AP and Honors classes. At the same time, AP and Honors teachers should try to make homework a review of concepts and allow students to have more freedom with their assignments.

Pre-calculus Honors teacher James Bra-dac says, “[Current homework guidelines] seem to be working for most students and staff here at Lynbrook. I think that the guidelines are fine.”

The guidelines, which can be found in the 2011-2012 Lynbrook planner, say that “homework should be able to be completed by most students in 30 minutes per class” though “Advanced Placement and Honors classes often requires more out of class study and homework than suggested in these guidelines.” This policy definitely ought to be continued, despite the constant complaint that these classes assign too much homework. It is the students’ respon-

sibility to sign up for college-level classes and if they cannot handle the workload, they should reconsider taking as many AP’s and Honors classes next year. It is undeni-able that these classes require a deeper and wider level of understanding than regular classes; their concepts cannot possibly be comprehended in 30 minutes per night.

Junior Hyun Kang, who is currently taking four AP classes, agrees. “AP classes shouldn’t have a time limit, as [they are] college cours-es. When I signed up for my AP classes I knew the workload and projects that comes with it. I took responsibility for my de-cisions,” says Kang.

Furthermore, the purpose of homework is not to learn entirely new material, but rather to reinforce concepts already taught during class time.

Kang says, “It’s a lot easier to do a cer-tain chapter or concept before my teacher actually lectures on it because it’s a lot eas-ier for me to actually understand in class.”

Freshman Grace Ling disagrees and says that homework should be a review of already-taught concepts. “I‘d rather have the teacher teach us first before giving us homework... it’ll be easier to understand when I do my homework,” she says.

The central ideas should be taught be-forehand, though minute details can be left for home. This way, when students complete their home-work, they would have a comprehensive theme and a bigger picture tying together the bits of information

they are learning. The only exception would be English classes, in which the purpose of the class is to challenge individuals to read and interpret text for themselves.

Also, since AP classes are college cours-es, and the general consensus is that stu-dents already know their learning style and

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY EESHA KHARE & JANE JUN

BY JANE JUN

therefore should have more to say as to how to learn. For example, AP Biology teacher Nicole Della Santina assigns a portion of the textbook for the night’s reading, and it is up to individual students to bring proof that they read the material—whether it be notes, online activities or answering ques-tions from the end of the section. Students choose their homework, tailored to fit how each learns best. This also will prevent the habit that is so rampant on Lynbrook cam-pus: doing busy work just for the grades. If students are not given a strict formula and worksheet to fill out, but are instead told to create their own methods of learning, they will be forced to actually think and process the subject at hand.

Current homework policies are fine the way they are. However, AP and Honors teachers could consider helping students grasp broad ideas before assigning home-work and give them the freedom to learn in a way that helps them best.

to function—lack of an organized ASB may mean no dances, sports, clubs or school-sponsored scholarships or any fund-ing whatsoever for these activities–the Constitution serves to set rules and standards on how the school functions. People should be aware of their rights in their own government without any form of concealment.

ASB has already seen the problems that come with lack of a clear outline. Club Commissioner Anika Dhamodharan says, “I personally was involved in several instances this year when we were trying to figure out how things were run in the past. There were no written guidelines or requirements for what we were looking for and the policies that were outlined were limited and vague. When new ASB commissioners and ad-ministration come in to office they have no manual with the duties and procedures to follow.” This should not continue; there is no excuse for lack of clarity.

Additionally, context needs to be provided for rules that students may not clearly understand their purpose. When participants of this year’s upcoming March Madness were

forbidden from donning colors beside those which represent Lynbrook, not being able to understand the rule’s purpose caused quite a bit of conflict.

“This rule restricts the creativity of the Athletics Commis-sion. We, as the Lynbrook students, have to take the rules of the Constitution and make them personalized to Lynbrook so that we can meet the wants and needs of all parts of Lynbrook addressed,” says Community Link Commissioner sophomore Arnav Mishra. “Had such a rule been outlined more clearly in the Constitution itself, there would be no need to spend time on such discussion.”

In order for the Constitution to be updated to avoid mis-communication and improve ASB to its full potential, as many participants as possible are needed to revamp it. Assistant principal David Erwin hopes for a high member count, as “[ASB] doesn’t want to be the only people contributing to the process of writing a Constitution. I really feel like it is impor-tant to gather as much information and insight as possible, and make the committee open to all students,” he says.

After the Constitution is rewritten, it will be printed and posted online, further contributing to its overall accessibility and effectiveness. People will be able to reference to it and know exactly how the school functions. With effective stu-dent participation, the Constitution will hopefully be as ASB Treasurer senior Andrew Wong aspires it to be: a document that “can provide guidelines and a set of bylaws that the en-tire school agrees on down on paper.”

AP homework should be...

Care for your Constitution

Discover the roots of your passions

As I have discovered over the past few weeks, tracing the routes of our arts and passions does provide quite a few

benefits. For me, it was the purchase of a $70 film camera and a few rolls of film that start-ed me out upon this road of rediscovery.

With a recent resurgence in the popular-ity of vintage clothes, art, music, style and culture in general, it became only natural for me, as a photographer, to try to incorporate these elements into my photographs. How-ever, when I tried to reproduce the colors and grain of old-school 35mm film, I ended up frustrated by the fact that no matter what I did, my photos were still obviously digital.

After counting what little I had in my wallet, I decided to buy an inexpensive film camera and a few rolls of film to experiment and play around with. What I ended up with, however, was much more than just a replica-tion of vintage film photography, but a new perception of photography in general.

By forcing myself to explore alternative routes of creating art without the convenient keystrokes of a keyboard, I was actually able to produce brighter and more vibrant color tones and smoother grain were far supe-rior to the images my state-of-the-art 18 megapixel Canon 7D produced. I’ve become considerate of all of the elements of a photo-graph instead of just blindly jamming down the shutter release button.

While it’s definitely a lot harder to use, shooting film has taught me more about my art and about the fundamentals of photog-raphy. With considerably less automation involved in the actual photographical pro-cess, I began to rely more on touch-and-feel instincts. Every shot became precious, as I no longer had an unlimited memory card at my disposal. There was no going back to instantly checking my photo and deleting if necessary; everything, including the lighting composition and framing of each shot, had to be right the first time. When I went back to digital after a few weeks of shooting strictly film, I was considerably faster with camera adjustments and also more in tune with my inner artist.

Although the majority of my experiences stem from my extensive background in pho-tography, practicing retired forms of arts is applicable in other fields as well. While many modern artists use the automated layers and infinite colorscapes of software such as Photoshop, there are still those who express themselves with traditional paints and physi-cal canvases. Despite the convenience of digi-tal art, traditional methods force you to use practiced physical abilities and a trained aes-thetic eye instead of falling back on the short cuts that technology offers.

This doesn’t apply to just art, either. Due to a revived interest in denim, many com-panies are returning to a traditional form of denim known as raw selvedge or selvage denim.

Woven on old-fashioned shuttle looms as opposed to modern projectile looms, raw sel-vedge denim is reinforced with a thicker edge, adding to the strength and durability of the denim. Though raw selvedge denim is worn primarily for cosmetic effect, the throwback to such a modern form of the age-old fabric of denim has resulted in an increased attention to quality and diversity in the denim industry.

The takeaway from this is simple: delve into the history of your art or trade, and you will definitely learn a useful thing or two. If anything, the absence of the shortcuts that technology provides will benefit and aid the speed and efficiency in which you work.

The goal of community service is to help the less fortunate. Although Lynbrook students reside in an area that is well to do, our com-

munity is no longer restricted to any geographical or social constraints. In the modern age, we live in a global community. Since the local community is relatively well off, Lynbrook community service clubs should commit more of their resources to helping global causes.

“I feel that Lynbrook is doing an excellent job with [community service]. However, it would be a good idea if we spread out farther than the San Jose and Cupertino areas. Our neighborhoods are very developed and there are lots of volunteers to help out. There are many other places that require assistance and it is important that we are always there and ready to support them at any time, place, and condition,” says junior Arvind Bhamidipati.

Currently, the majority of the eight large com-munity service clubs at Lynbrook only invest their resources to local causes and local organizations. These events, such as benefit concerts or mara-thons, are certainly important, but by participating in global causes, Lynbrook service clubs would be helping the people who need it the most.

One example of a club engages in this kind of community service is Lynbrook’s Interact Club. Ev-ery year, Interact decides on one main internation-al project to work on, and hold events to fundraise for these causes.

For their project this year, Free the Youth, Inter-act held an event where they made Water Pasteuri-zation Indicators (WAPI’s) that indicate if water is potable and sent them to third world countries.

Other Lynbrook community service clubs also engage in a few international causes, but these clubs are a minority. Our local community only re-quires the service of a few clubs. The resources of the majority of the clubs is needed for internation-al causes to help Lynbrook students participate and contribute to the international community as they will be doing in the future as adults.

“I think by organizing events to help interna-tional causes, students will become better global citizens as they will have a better perspective of the world,” says junior Max Dunn.

International projects for community service are not very hard to organize and do not have to be very large in order to make an impact. One exam-ple of a small international project is Lynbrook’s Amnesty’s idea of offering micro financing to indi-viduals in third world countries. Other past exam-ples include Japanese National Honor Society’s fundraising for tsunami relief.

“Last year JNHS raised $200 sell-ing wristbands and t-shirts for the tsunami fundraiser. We donated all of it to the Red Cross Tsu-nami relief program,” says JNHS president, senior Karen Wang. Larger international or-ga n i z a t i o n s provide a forum for Lyn-

brook community service clubs to more easily help internation-al communities by fundraising.

Clubs can engage in many different small service proj-ects that can help communities in need, whether it be Oakland or Somalia. The easiest way for clubs to help is to fundraise.

There are already many international or-ganizations such as the Red Cross that are more than willing to accept help, includ-ing money, from local communities. Clubs can also engage in collecting or purchasing much needed equip-ment and products and ship them to communities in need, just like Inter-act’s WAPI’s.

Lynbrook service clubs don’t even have to look very far to find communi-ties and organizations that need their help. There are many impoverished communities, such as those in Oakland, that need a lot of help, including educa-tion, food and proper shelter. All major international organizations have branches in the Bay area that Lynbrook clubs could contact to offer their help.

By engaging in international service proj-ects, Lynbrook students would place them-selves on the global map and increase their awareness of the unfortunate individuals and communities of the world. Helping these people who are in more need than our own wealthy com-munity will be a more effective use of the resourc-es of Lynbrook service clubs.

Unawareness of global issues is a big problem in modern society. Many students are completely oblivous to the conditions and events of other nations, making them somewhat insensitive to their plight. By helping solve these prob-lems, Lynbrook students would have an emotional attachment to these issues, making them more aware of the misfortune of millions around the world. All of this can be easily solved if Lynbrook service clubs dedicate more of their re-sources to help-ing inter-n a t i o n a l causes.

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY THE OPINION SECTION

Service clubs ought to help communities that need it

BY NOORSHER AHMED

You’d think with puppy love blossoming as early as kindergarten when we flirtatious-ly traded Dr. Grips and shared a pack of chips, we would have decoded the other gender by now, but the female case still remains un-cracked. Because men have refused to ask for directions since the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, here is a handy guide in dealing with the most common lovebugs:

Handling a PMS-ing girlEven though girls on their “moon-time”

gush tears at the sight of anything from ex-pensive cantaloupes at Safeway to Chuck’s unrequited love for Blair, use the week as an excuse to “get out of jail free” for their whiny behavior (“Oh my cramps. My teeth. My cel-lulite”) and her hormones, as my friend puts it, “stage a coup d’état, which throws out any of her traditional feminine traits such as gentleness, virtue and sandwich-making tal-ent,” deep, deep down she is still that bird-chirp-harmonizing Sleeping Beauty you once chanced upon in the dark Romantic woods (now if only you could learn that spell to knock her out again). Even though you’re Pretty Much Screwed, be sure to respond sweetly to Pass My Sweatpants and Provide Me Sweets, remembering that the Pissy Mood Syndrome ends Post Menopause (which ain’t very Soon). After handing her the chocolate, be prepared for a “LOOK AT MY THUNDER THIGHS...THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT” rant in a few hours. Try Midol if all else fails.

Dealing with PDAWhen it comes to public displays of af-

fection, I draw my line at “Lola and Mick, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” which to say, is already a gutsy line. There are just some couples on campus who think they’re wear-ing an invisibility cloak when it’s clear that I (and every other Muggle on campus) can see the frisky action going on. While giving a play-by-play of the action might be enticing, I’ve found the best solution is to just ignore and look at the floor as you walk by (like at the live lobster aisle at Marina Foods or dur-ing the Snow White’s Scary Adventures ride at Disneyland). Trust me, we’re not getting cooties but annoyed at having to assert our dominance over our lockers. If we wanted to see your salivary glands at their maximum potential, we’d go for round two of The Vow instead of watching you guys go at it...again. Keep it PG; anything beyond hand-holding and a goodbye kiss merits eyebrow raising.

Watching chick flicks, againThe eighth wonder of the world is a girl’s

ability to watch chick flicks like Mean Girls over and over (and over) again. Try to be excited when she suggests another Nicholas Sparks film for Friday movie night. If your manliness can’t take all the emotions appear-ing on screen, you can at least cuddle with your lover and enjoy the scent of her flow-ery-scented hair while she gushes tears and hides in your chest during The Notebook, even though she knows Allie and Noah will end up together again. Make sure to compli-ment her hair after; her oxytocin (the cuddle chemical) levels will be so high she’ll finally agree to your (immature) date idea of going to a bridge and blowing boba pearls at the drivers below.

Cheerio & Adieu,Alice

It’s just a girl thing

Best bang for your buck! Except they only have one size, which is a good medium out of all these places but still, variety is the spice of life. I liked the taste of their boba best, but the liq-uid wasn’t as smooth as it could have been.

There’s a good strong tea flavor to the TapEx milk tea, but it’s a little too sweet and the liquid is thicker than desirable. The boba themselves don’t really have much flavor but are won-derfully chewy. However, the drink is gross when warm.

Their large size is intimidat-ingly huge, but the regular is a good deal. Their milk tea is cream-colored, without even a hint of brown, and tastes very artificial. The boba are very chewy and the best of all places I reviewed.

For some reason after a few hours, the tea tasted much better than when I bought it in the morning. I guess it ages well? The pearls were absolutely tasteless; the outside layer was slimy, but the inside was rather dry, as if the pearls hadn’t been cooked thoroughly enough.

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY ALICE ZHANG

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Y KA

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LI, J

OY

SHEN

& A

LICE

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Two weeks on tofu and soy

How Maple Story set a young man’s graphics into motionused Windows Movie Maker program while learning basic effects such as black and white and slow motion. “As video sharing became more popular, I wanted to learn video edit-ing to improve the quality of my work and get more views,” explains Hsiu. His determina-tion would eventually bring him to use pro-fessional grade soft-ware. A whole new world opened when he self taught himself Adobe After Effects in sophomore year.

It was not until his junior year that peo-ple noticed the fruits of his labor. “A few people began to ask me to make [promotion-al] posters for them after they saw a few test projects I uploaded online,” Hsiu explains. With his skills, Hsiu started to help his fellow students with events such as ASB elections and club events. As more people became in-terested in Hsiu’s work, some advised him to

apply to be an ASB Histo-rian because of his unique skill of motion graphics.

His work is everywhere: a Facebook profile picture advertising an ASB event, a video shown during rallies to introduce the theme or a custom-made 30 second

advertising spot for a state-level

c l u b

This hobby has now turned into a serious career possibility, prompting Hsiu to take the ROP Studio Art course this year to make his work even more creative and profes-sional than before. Unlike many other video editors, Hsiu is interested in learning other

art mediums rather than just focusing on technique. “Experiment a lot. If you’re into photography, don’t just stick to photography; maybe try stop motion. Try to make the things you do have meaning, and eventu-ally you’ll gain a variety of skills and you’ll find what you love to do in the end,” advises Hsiu.

As Hsiu is nearing the end of his time at Lynbrook, he has a clear idea as to what he wants to do in the future. “I would love to work for a company such as Buck. They make commercials for famous companies and brands such as Coca-Cola and Google.”

His interest in video editing is as strong as ever. The road to a successful career may be time consuming and stressful, but for now, Hsiu is happier than ever doing what he does.

convention (just ask junior Tejas Konduru). And if you still don’t know who is being fea-tured in this story, it’s because you weren’t at the Intel rally and didn’t see his video. The mastermind behind these movies and graph-ics, senior Michael Hsiu, cannot channel the amount of passion he has for video editing through ASB Historian projects alone. This is a guy who goes to the mall just to learn typography from advertisements, watches movie trailers to observe how music is paired with scene cuts, built a computer solely for motion graphics and believe it or not, found what he considers to be his life goal by killing mushrooms all day.

“I played a game called Maple Story in seventh grade, and I was inspired by seeing

a lot of people uploading videos of themselves playing to Youtube,” says Hsiu. Starting with simple vid-eos of himself playing, Hsiu

BY SAMUEL CHANG & NIKITA DHESIKAN

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY CLAY SONG

On Sunday, Feb. 29, I committed to swapping bacon and eggs for tofu and soy milk. I won’t lie, I did cheat now

and then. Spending 14 days as a vegan was hard, but I’m glad I did it.

The first day wasn’t tough at all. My meals weren’t that different, and it seemed like avoiding animal products was almost coin-cidental. As the week progressed, I tip-toed out of my comfort zone by trying foods like roasted red bell pepper stuffed with brown rice, Kashi cereal with soy milk and rasp-berry-coconut water, which is supposed to help acquire nutrients without consuming meat, but wasn’t very beneficial given that I couldn’t muscle down more than one sip.

I was hit by the first brutal slap of real-ity when I was wandering the aisles of Whole Foods, searching for vegan food that didn’t taste like cardboard. It seemed that every item contained some hidden animal product. Going vegan on a budget would be especially difficult because the food is pretty pricey.

In the second week I realized that in order to be a healthy vegan, I needed to set aside my picky eating habits. One day, I came home from a run feeling light-headed, and that was when I saw how desperately my body needed nutrients. I finally manned up and tried some new forms of vegan foods.

By day ten, my taste buds were still in-tolerant of vegan food, and I had reached my breaking point. After a tough volleyball practice, I felt I would die if I didn’t have some meat. I’d been strong up until now, but I caved, and had a steak burrito from Chipo-tle. Then I figured while I was at it, I might as well treat myself to a 16 oz. glass of milk… followed by two more glasses.

Overall I learned to try new things, but I can’t see myself becoming a full time vegan. I just love milk too much.

When I was first told that I had to be vegan for two weeks, I reacted with a mixture of distress and as-

tonishment. I thought of all the meat that I would be missing. I also realized that I would miss out on chilidogs and wings for Supuer-Bowl Sunday. Overall, I had a very pessimis-tic outlook on going vegan for 14 days.

However, after only two days of the diet, I actually began to like it. I felt healthier since my diet hardly included any processed foods, and it was also much easier for me to main-tain my weight for wrestling. I have even con-sidered permanently implementing some as-pects of a vegan diet into my lifestyle once I complete the challenge.

My breakfast was the same pretty much every day: oatmeal with almond milk, dried cranberries, walnuts and almonds. Since a vegan diet lacks a substantial amount of Vi-tamin B12, I’ve also begun taking a multivita-min tablet every morning.

Lunch was when I could be a little more creative. I had a variety of sandwiches (us-ing whole wheat bread, since white bread contains milk), with either peanut or almond butter with honey and bananas. Additionally, I would have a salad containing arugula, kale, or spinach with quinoa and dressing.

I will admit, however, that I did cheat a few times. While I tried my best to be dis-ciplined about my diet, I occasionally ate a few Cheez-Its and chips. I was also exempted from being vegan for Super Bowl Sunday, although I ended up losing my appetite be-cause of the result of the game.

Overall, I was happy to find that my food choices were not as restricted as I thought they would be. I was still able to eat most of my usual snacks, such as pretzelsnd fruit, and I did not let the limits of being vegan pre-vent me from enjoying the food I did eat.

BY VIK WAGHRAY BY SARAH TARTER

Two staff members take on the challenge of becoming vegans

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY AUSTIN YU

Vik’s conclusion: Being vegan was an enriching experience for me, it forced me to try new foods. While I do not think that I will become vegan again anytime soon (I missed meat too much) it has certainly made my usual diet a lot healthier.

Sarah’s conclusion: My experi-ence as a vegan became progressively more difficult as time passed, but I ended up eating a lot healthier. Vegan-ism was a good challenge, but I don’t have the willpower to maintain it full time.

THE SOURCE| Where does competition originate? Stu-

dents were given the option of choosing up to three fac-

tors.

competition: a lonely climbPE

ERS

818

SELF

76

6

FRIE

NDS

704

PARE

NTS

448

SIBL

INGS

314

WRITTEN BY CANDY CHANG, NAMRATA SINGH, SONIKA SUBRAMANIAN & AUSTIN YU GRAPHICS BY CANDY CHANG , VICKY RO & AUSTIN YU

Parents and teachers always say ‘Just do your best!’ But sometimes that isn’t enough. To me, those words sound empty,” says jun-

ior Samantha Tseng. The competitive drive at Lynbrook seems to be accepted as the norm, but underneath half-hearted recitations of platitudes like “do your best” are more complex emotions. The line between healthy competition and an ob-session with coming out on top is thin, blurred, and for some, nonexistent.

“The competition we feel here is made of a confluence of factors,” says school psychologist Brittany Stevens. “We have a staff with high ex-pectations, parents who wish for their kids to be high-achieving and successful and students who want to meet these expectations and want to ac-complish a lot for themselves.”

Lynbrook is undoubtedly a school with high standards; often times a “B” is not seen as “above average” but as a sign of failure. “At Lynbrook, a student who is strong in both academics and ex-tracurriculars is highly respected,” says Stevens. “This isn’t typical of all high schools, and it’s part of why the environment is more competitive. When anything is valued highly there’s always more competition for it.”

These high expectations drive students to ex-cel in all areas, but also push them to the breaking point by making the idea of academic dishonesty a tempting one. “Competition has not driven me to cheat at all, but rather increased my need for a better score…even if I did cheat I wouldn’t be bet-ter than anyone else,” says junior Nikhil Ganesh.

There are students like Ganesh who let the competition over grades motivate them to do bet-ter, but sometimes motivation does not lead to the desired results. At that point, students are left with ambition but seemingly no way to achieve them through normal means. “There were times when I felt that no matter how hard I tried, I would never reach the standard, which is why I considered cheating,” says Tseng. “Cheating is like a fast-pass to the front. Though I knew what would happen to me if I got caught, thanks to the pressure from all around, being able to reach my academic goal became more important than my honor or morals.”

The uglier side of this competition is that stu-dents end up defining themselves, and others, largely by grades and test scores. “The Lynbrooki-an mental hierarchy is just ridiculous. We’re all aware of our infamous reputation as one of the top high schools in California and our vigorously demanding courses and fierce academic competi-tion. The former is reasonable, the latter is under-standable, but bringing in the element of judging others by their grades is just plain unnecessary,” says senior Lillian Li.

Competition doesn’t only come from Lyn-brook’s environment, but also from home. Par-ents want their children to have the easiest pos-sible path to success, but this often translates into demands to excel in all areas. Most parents can only compare their children to what they know, which is often secondhand information about outstanding achievements from a select few at school. It skews their opinions of what their children should be able to accomplish.

For senior Amy Hill*, whose name has been changed because of the possible reper-cussions of this article, paren-tal pressure has been a con-stant in her life ever since she was little. “I was a pretty mis-erable kid because any second my parents would whip out some sort of test such as count-ing change or memorizing my times tables. I’m not exactly exaggerating when I say I lived in a state of constant apprehension,” she says.

“Ultimately, this damaged my relationship with my parents. When I talk to them, 40% of the time it’s about their coworker’s or friend’s kids who became president of some math club or won a science bowl or other things like that.”

The tensions caused by competition can creep out beyond just family life and affect students’ relations with their friends. Says Hill, “I had a childhood friend who was always better at me than everything (and recently got into Harvard). I mostly cut off all contact with her because I can’t stand how my parents react to her. I don’t doubt that my mom would rather have her as a daughter than me. At least, that is what I would conclude after seeing the disgusted way she treats me after my friend comes over.”

the Epic sent out surveys

to all English classes; the

results are comprised

of data from 1236 student

responses

EFFECTS| In what areas of your life does competition end up having a negative impact?

grades

clubs

sports

friends

49.3%

17.7%22.4%

10.6%

competition: a lonely climbCHEATIN

G|

Have you

ever cheated

to get ahead

of others?

GRAPHICS BY CANDY CHANG , VICKY RO & AUSTIN YU

The uglier side of this competition is that stu-dents end up defining themselves, and others, largely by grades and test scores. “The Lynbrooki-an mental hierarchy is just ridiculous. We’re all aware of our infamous reputation as one of the top high schools in California and our vigorously demanding courses and fierce academic competi-tion. The former is reasonable, the latter is under-standable, but bringing in the element of judging others by their grades is just plain unnecessary,” says senior Lillian Li.

Competition doesn’t only come from Lyn-brook’s environment, but also from home. Par-ents want their children to have the easiest pos-sible path to success, but this often translates into demands to excel in all areas. Most parents can only compare their children to what they know, which is often secondhand information about outstanding achievements from a select few at school. It skews their opinions of what their children should be able to accomplish.

For senior Amy Hill*, whose name has been changed because of the possible reper-cussions of this article, paren-tal pressure has been a con-stant in her life ever since she was little. “I was a pretty mis-erable kid because any second my parents would whip out some sort of test such as count-ing change or memorizing my times tables. I’m not exactly exaggerating when I say I lived in a state of constant apprehension,” she says.

“Ultimately, this damaged my relationship with my parents. When I talk to them, 40% of the time it’s about their coworker’s or friend’s kids who became president of some math club or won a science bowl or other things like that.”

The tensions caused by competition can creep out beyond just family life and affect students’ relations with their friends. Says Hill, “I had a childhood friend who was always better at me than everything (and recently got into Harvard). I mostly cut off all contact with her because I can’t stand how my parents react to her. I don’t doubt that my mom would rather have her as a daughter than me. At least, that is what I would conclude after seeing the disgusted way she treats me after my friend comes over.”

White is not an anomaly. There are many stu-dents like her who feel that valuable relationships have been damaged due to competition, but can’t even voice that openly because they fear widen-ing the rifts that are already there.

Junior Amanda Su* is one such student. In-stead of family, though, competition has taken away friendships. “I used to have so much fun with dance because it was the place I went to destress,” she says. “But then people became ob-sessed with getting the best solos. I used to have this close friend in dance, but as we got older, she was upset with me all the time. I then realized that she was upset with me because I was doing better than her at dance. I hate that she hates me now, and I can’t do anything about it.”

Although Stevens acknowledges that competi-tion can often be stressful, she offers a silver lin-ing. “In some respects, competition in high school

is preparation for the fu-ture. For example, applying for colleges is comparable to what students will face as adults when they’re searching for jobs or aim-ing for a promotion,” she says.

Some students see the positive side of competi-tion, crediting it with keep-ing them on their toes. Sen-

ior Alexandra Cong says, “I think that competition doesn’t necessarily have to be negative because there’s always someone above you that you can look towards and say ‘I wanna be like them’. It can help you be better yourself instead of just letting yourself fall into ‘y’know, I’m good enough anyway’.”

Sophomore Lilian Chen, a self-proclaimed perfectionist, struggled for a long time to figure out why she was doing so much to be competi-tive. “Now I finally realized that everything hap-pens for a reason,” she says. “Taking ‘useless’ classes [will get] me prepared to handle classes in college. Campaigning for a club officer position [has] taught me how politics work. Even spending time taking extra notes [helps] me develop better study habits. The main purpose of competition is not to beat everyone else in your class, but to im-prove your old self and make it better.”

In the end, there are those who take issue with

Lynbrook’s competitive atmosphere and those who thrive in it. “Everything depends on the in-dividual,” says Stevens. “Competition can be pow-erfully motivating, or it can be powerfully debili-tating. There’s really no defined ‘level’ at which it becomes unhealthy.”

What complicates the matter is that most students choose not to share their problems, or even admit to them. This makes it hard to iden-tify those who are really struggling under the burdens of competition and those who just need a little bit of guidance. “Around sophomore or junior year I almost did get sucked into the ob-session with grades and whatnot. During that time, I had very fragile self-esteem and was eas-ily depressed and overworked. I chose some of my friends outside of Lynbrook to talk to them about my emotional troubles, because I felt that they would be more ready to sympathize with me rather than judge me for being a ‘weak student’,” says Li. “Even though we didn’t know each other too well, it still helped being able to articulate my feelings to someone that was completely out of Lynbrook’s competitive loop.”

The reluctance to open up about being pres-sured or stressed by competition stems from both external and internal factors. One of them, according to Li, is the predominantly Asian mind-set. “It’s in our culture to not blatantly bring top-ics like this up,” she says. Emotional problems are intensely private; sharing them can be seen as an attempt to escape from the responsibility of deal-ing with them.

Senior Anika Dhamodharan agrees that cul-ture propagates this stigma, but emphasizes the pressure that people place on themselves. “Peo-ple don’t like to admit that they can’t cope and handle, and this ideology of being weak and unfit originates from the self,” she says. “I’m not sure it’s always fear of seeming weak, but rather denial that you’re in over your head.”

Competition is so rooted in every part of our life that it cannot just disappear. At the same time, it doesn’t have to become all-consuming. “When a beautiful woman walks into the room, everyone else gets jealous,” says Stevens. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. She doesn’t change you physi-cally and make you any uglier. What’s important to take away is that just because someone is more successful than you doesn’t make your achieve-ments any less.”

I have never felt competition in school be-fore because I am a huge (insert synonym for scaredy-cat here).It might be because I didn’t have a com-

petitive background growing up. I am an only child, so I don’t have to compete for food, shelter, or my parent’s love. There wasn’t much of the last one to go around, anyway, but I still didn’t have to compete for it.

I imagine that being in an overly competi-tive environment is stressful and causes un-happiness, and that somewhere in the mid-dle of always being relaxed and always being focused would be optimal. As a guy who is at the opposite end of the spectrum from most people at this school, I am starting to realize the importance of competition.

Once, this Indian girl in the library told me, “Oh, I hate my friends because we came together through dance class and now we’re all trying to beat each other.” I thought this was horrible at first, but then I thought about my own life. My friends and I have this re-lationship: they win awards, get respect and hook up with chicks, and I make jokes. I think they like me, but maybe it’s only be-cause they have no reason to hate me. I’m not a threat to anybody at anything, and I’m not

good at anything because I’m not competitive and choose not to work hard. Honestly, you shouldn’t feel bad when someone is jealous of you and you feel pressure from competi-tion. At least you have something that they can be jealous of!

Don’t be like me, a person who starts things but never finishes them. I have quit violin, art, and most recently, tennis.

Each of those activities I had started out in front of everyone else, but quickly became discouraged when my peers’ skill levels caught up to mine. I wasn’t willing to face the pressure, to put in the time to get better, to compete.

Although I’m very conscious of what oth-er people think of me, I’m not willing to work hard to earn respect. I have only myself to blame for the unhappiness I feel.

In the end, competition really just de-pends on yourself: it’s up to you to make the decision of whether or not you want to compete. And maybe if people changed their attitudes about it, that competition is purely internal, and not external, then it would only be used for good.

Competition really is less about hating others and more about hating yourself, see-ing your own weaknesses and vowing to im-prove yourself no matter what other people may think of you.

I have to step it up. As for the rest of you, keep it up.

BY BRIAN ZHAO

I am a coward

WHY NOT?| What keeps stu-dents from per-forming acts of

academic dis-honesty?

the origins and effects of the fight to succeed

NEVER

SOMETIMES

RARELY

FREQUENTLY

28.0%

25.0%

19.9%

4.0%

44.5%

26.5%

fearmorals

pride41.1%

11.0%other

The video gamer mentality

First-person Shooter (FPS)Shooting missions where the player has a first-person per-

spective of the screen as the protagonist gunman

Real-time Strategy (RST)Depend on critical thinking and strategy-oriented fea-tures that rely heavily on a

player’s manual dexterity in clicking and building struc-

tures and armies in the game

Role-play Games (RPG)Follow a main storyline that

is advanced through the com-pletion of a variety of quests

and tasks

THE TERMS

The Assortment

The modern types of video games typically played by high school stu-dents each bring unique elements

of a mission experience, whether through collaborative shooting missions, defense of an army base or fantasy adventures.

FPS games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Halo usually focus on the number of kills attained and require fast hand-eye coordination reflexes. Generally, FPS games are popular for their straight-forward, fast-paced action.

RST games, according to senior Ian Wilson, an avid StarCraft II player, “are the best in a competitive sense. It takes much more skill to out control, outma-neuver and outthink your opponent in a strategy game than it does to twitch your finger and shoot a guy.”

A third category of popular video games are RPGs, which Wilson says are “more for the single player cinematic ex-perience.” In RPGs, players generally ex-perience more tasks than just the weapon firing, army-building missions.

No matter what video game genre, ju-nior Pranav Singh expresses quite an uni-versal sentiment about the virtual experi-ence when gaming. “It’s the thrill of being able to control a character that pushes the boundaries of reality. The idea that in a sense you are the character, you are the chosen one; you are the marine on the

BY ALICE ZHANG battlefield. It gives an escape for people because you control exactly what your destiny is and how you go about accom-plishing that goal. So in a sense I guess it’s the rush of adrenaline you feel from experiencing absolute freedom.”

Above & Beyond

While students who seek a break from homework find leisure through a match or two, many gamers took it a step farther and legitimized their hob-bies. Lynbrook, in fact, boasts its own StarCraft II team, which is currently undefeated and ranked first in the high school flash player league across North America. Although an official campus club was never created, the team was started about a year ago and currently plays a best-out-of-five match every Sat-urday night against another Northern California team. Says Wilson, one of the founders of the team “Last season, we lost in the finals, but we are currently undefeated and looking to do well again.”

Additionally, freshman Warren Otoshi, who plays an assortment of FPS games, entered in a national gaming competition for the game Call of Duty, placing seventh. Otoshi played for mon-etary rewards and also a chance to im-prove his gaming skills. “When you enter a tournament, you are playing against some of the best players rather than just a random person online,” he says.

When a Game Becomes an Addiction

For many avid gamers, the fanaticism starts early in small doses. Singh says, “I used to stay up all night under the covers playing Pokemon on my Gameboy SP, and I guess that has spilled over into my cur-rent Zelda obsession.”

Unlike Wilson, Wu and Gehry who av-erage 13 to 20 hours of playtime a week, over the mid-year recess Singh underwent a video game passion-period, focused on only one goal of beating the newly-re-leased game Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Says Singh, “After I started playing, I couldn’t stop until I had reached a major milestone in the game. The game went by so fast I remember eating while playing and having my sister bring me water from time to time.” On one of those days, Singh played for 13 hours straight.

Wilson believes that upon crossing a certain line, repercussions reflect not only in mental fatigue but also in disadvantag-es game-wise. “If you play competitively, you would realize that there is a limit to what you can handle in terms of stress due to gaming. If you go on past that limit, you probably won’t be improving, or hav-ing fun for that matter.”

For Otoshi, video games are his prima-ry outlet during tense days, not an activ-ity that is unhealthy in excess. “It’s pretty much the same as watching TV or going to a movie. If I had a bad day, I feel better when I’m playing my game,” he says.

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY IN-DEPTH SECTION

Four students reveal attitudes of varying intensity toward gaming

Nature calls; students do not answerStudents discuss their experiences regarding the public bathroom facilities

When one must answer the call of nature, the bathrooms on campus are there as a solution. However, many students find the bathrooms

unhygienicand repulsive. Such situations bring into ques-tion the manner in which students use the restrooms and how custodial services must deal with them.

Many students encounter the same inhospitable situ-ations– urine splattered over the toilet seats, feces un-flushed, toilet paper soiled, even appearing on the ceil-ing. It is an unquestionably disrespectful sight. “My first impression of the bathrooms was one of disgust. In the boys locker room, someone like took a [excretion] on the toilet seat and some was covered on the seat. It was dis-gusting,” says freshman Eunoh Shin.

Junior Ethan Chiou feels the problem and conditions of such public utilities are left by students themselves. “I feel that people trash the bathrooms in a process simi-

lar to bacteria poisoning themselves to death in biology experiments. The habitat is simply too small to contain some people, and, with no regard for it, and feeling trapped, they feel that they have to express their emo-tions in a destructive way,” he says.

Some students simply refuse to enter such a “habi-tat” due to awkward experiences with the restroomsat school. “Once, I ran into the bathroom and went into a stall after seeing the other one full of [waste]. This [stall] was also dirty inside it too but I had no choice so I flushed it. After I had finished, I realized that the toilet paper was peed on. I just sat there waiting. After I heard the door, I called out saying ‘excuse me, could you hand me the toi-let paper in the stall next to mine?’ and a hand rolled the toilet paper down. I started using it but realized it was also wet. Since then, I try to never go into the bathroom again,” says sophomore John Park.

The foul predicament of high school bathrooms is not unique to our generation. Math teacher Jeremy Dybdahl

BY NOORSHER AHMED & LAUREN TAI recalls that he did not really know how his high school bathrooms were because, “I refused to use them. You just knew you didn’t want to go in.” However, they became better as he progressed from a high school student to an adult, but, “there are still issues.”

The custodians, on the other hand, cannot simply avoid the issue. Custodian Asefa Asmara recalls seeing students leave apples in the sink and vandalism on the walls, even saying he once changed six soap dispensers that were supposed to last three months, but ended up lasting three weeks. Asmara says, “Even though some of the students may leave the facilities messy does not mean they are bad kids.” He believes that if students like the clean up the custodians do, they will respect the job. “Ultimately, I want the best for the students and keeping the facilities clean is what I can do to help.”

Bathrooms are provided at school for students to use when the need arises. Whether or not the students re-spect them, however, is another question entirely.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY AUSTIN YU TAKEN WITH SCHOOL PERMISSION

Everyone deals with iPrism, which con-trols all network traffic to and from the internet. “Where there’s a will, there’s

a way,” states an old proverb; it comes as no surprise various students on campus have found different methods of bypassing iPrism during their time on campus.

iPrism blocks sites not through IP ad-dresses, but instead filters them by their specific URL names. Students have been caught sneaking around iPrism many times throughout recent years.

According to Assistant Principal of Curric-ulum and Instruction Maria Jackson, on Feb. 10, approximately 22 students were caught using a proxy called Ultrasurf after “teach-ers saw students on sites which should have been blocked.”

Having been made aware of this proxy, the administration permanently blocked Ul-trasurf throughout the entire Fremont Union High School District. Jackson adds, “We’re just trying to get students to make wise choices and to respect the [Technology User] agreement that they signed.”

Among the students caught, is junior George Shim* who has been bypassing the server for roughly two months. Shim, who used Ultrasurf to get around iPrism, says that in order to keep his actions on the down low, “I only run the proxy on my own laptop, not openly on the school desktops.” The main reason Shim utilizes the proxy is to view vid-eos on Youtube and stay connected on Face-

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Students uncover ways to bypass the school internet filterbook. “It’s mainly out of boredom, or when I have free time at school,” Shim says.

Though the number of students caught at one time was significantly high last Friday, students bypassing iPrism isn’t all that out of the ordinary.

Junior Martin Kim* has also overrode iPrism in the past. Using a different method, Kim downloads a Russian proxy onto a USB stick at home and then runs the program while on campus. Kim justifies himself by saying, “we live in a modern era where every-thing has to be instant. If you want to know something you need to know it now—not later, not in ten minutes, now.”

A c c o r d -ing to Toan P h u o n g , the school’s N e t w o r k and Com-puter Sup-port Special-ist, iPrism is updated sev-eral times a year. Phuong states that b y p a s s i n g iPrism violates the Technology User Agree-ment every student should have signed at the beginning of the year, and therefore students face punishment if caught. However, Phuong adds, “we don’t keep a count of the number of students who have been caught circum-venting the filter.”

Sophomore Jerry Luo is one of the students on campus who is currently “locked-out” from the li-brary due to desktop-usage violations; his experience with iPrim is somewhat different compared to most. Midway through first semester, Luo began bypassing iPrism through the usage of an application file which connected him to a

proxy server. However, an alternate form of entertain-ment pre-sented itself to Luo one day. “The person that used the computer be-fore me forgot to log off, and they had Halo on the desk-

top. I copied the files into my account.” Luo continued to play Halo at school until he was caught, and was later informed his game had overloaded the school server, causing people to have trouble saving files as well as logging into their accounts.

With the contents from the blocked web-

sites being acces-sible to students on cam-pus, the existence of a web filter appears to be pointless to some. Sophomore Annie Cheng says, “I just don’t think iPrism should be there in the first place, because students are bound to find ways to bypass it anyways.”

On the contrary, there are also students who take the opposing stance and feel that iPrism is still effective. Senior Candace Liu believes that iPrism is effective in that it helps keep students focused at school, how-ever, “as a student, I would like the freedom to be able to go on the blocked websites be-cause sometimes when I’m waiting for peo-ple after school, or have spare time.”

Jackson acknowledges that students know how to find ways to bypass iPrism, saying “We want students to have the free-dom they need to learn,” but also urges that students not abuse this privilege.

*Names have been changed

Just kidding. I’m not saying we should actually make Star-craft a sport, but if golf or chess are, then you might as well

pass off Starcraft as one, or any other activity for that matter. But before I make any arguments let me first define what a sport is (as provided by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary):

Sport (noun): an athletic activity requiring skill or physi-cal prowess.

And let us agree that in every sport there are athletes.Athlete (noun): a person trained or gifted in exercises or

contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength. So how do you explain golf being a sport? After all, even

the most basic form of exercise, walking, is not a require-ment. In PGA (Professional Golfer’s Association of America) Tour v. Martin (2001), the Supreme Court ordered the PGA to allow disabled golfer Casey Martin to use a golf cart between holes. The Court supported its decision by stating that walk-ing between holes does not “fundamentally alter the nature” of the game. How can you call something a sport when walk-ing is not a basic minimum physical requirement? In a sport you’d expect the players to at least jog, or break into a sweat. A “sport” requires athleticism. Golfers aren’t even required to

Golf is a sport? Why not Starcraft?

The boys’ basketball team is experiencing various ups and downs this season. After moving into the lower El Camino division, the boys are coming out with more

league wins compared to last year. With the season coming to an end, the boys continue to fight through their final matches with a 5-5 record in leagues and 12-10 record overall as of Tuesday, Feb. 14. At this point in time, it is still uncertain as to whether or not the boys have earned a spot in the Cali-fornia Central Section (CCS) tournament. The team originally possessed high hopes of making it to CCS after, once again, defeating the Los Altos Eagles in a close match on Wednes-day Feb. 8 with a final score of 55-53. After the match, Junior Daniel Sun stated, “We’re on a four-game winning streak and we’ve been making plays at the end of games to get the wins. I feel pretty confident for CCS because we’ve improved our standings in our division with these four wins in league play.” However, the team’s six point loss to the Santa Clara Bruins during last Friday’s quad game once again created an air of uncertainty regarding their spot in the playoffs.

According to the CCS website, a team needs to win at least half their games during preseason or during league season. A

team may also qualify automatically for CCS if they are des-ignated as the “League Champions” of their particular league. Once a team successfully qualifies, the CCS Seeding Commit-tee, selected representatives for each league, then selects the top 16 qualifiers through a nomination and voting process. It is possible for teams to statistically qualify for CCS, but not as as one of the top 16; those teams would not be able to participate in the tournament. Currently, the boys qualify for CCS through both their preseason as well as league records. However, it is still unclear as to whether or not the team is part of the top 16 qualifiers; a meeting on Saturday Feb. 18 will be held by the CCS Seeding Committee to decide on the final 16 teams.

Although the team is primarily made up of returning se-niors, a few of the underclassmen have stepped up through-out the course of the season and demonstrated both knowl-edge and skills which contributed towards the success of the team overall, and aide in the Vikings’ hopeful journey towards CCS.

Sophomore starter Kevin Qian is one of the underclass-men who received ample playing time this season. Qian says, “Being a starter on varsity has been a great experience. Varsi-ty is definitely a lot more competitive than JV, but that’s what

BY JOY SHEN makes playing at varsity level a lot more fun.” Coming off the bench, sophomore Gary Chen is another

underclassman who has also received solid minutes through-out the season, as well as contributing major baskets and aid-ing the team overall. “Being an underclassmen and receiving a good amount of playing time pushes me to work harder during practice in order to gain the respect of the upperclass-men,” says Chen.

Although the team’s success from preseason did not carry over into leagues, the varsity boys’ still have a few more shots at redemption left in their season. Although at this point the boys’ status in the CCS playoffs is unknown, the team con-tinues to move forward with playoffs in mind. Senior Alan Chung says, “It’s been a tough season for our team, but we’re still fighting hard for a chance at CCS. Hopefully all our hard work and determination will pay off in the end.”

The Viking boys will have to play solid games against up-coming opponents in order to safely secure a seed in the play-offs. The next home game will be a pivotal one for the boys. Being senior night as well as the final league game of the season, the outcome could very likely solve the uncertainty regarding playoff spots. Be sure to come out for the last quad game of the season tonight at 7:45 P.M. against Saratoga High.

FIRING SHOTS| Senior Alex Ma battles a Santa Clara opponent in preparation to take a shot during their game on Feb. 10th.

MAKING A MOVE| Senior Brandon Yamauchi gets fancy on court while taking a skilled shot during the boys’ 42-47 loss to Santa Clara.

walk, yet somehow, golf is categorized as a sport. Same goes for chess. I only see two people sitting at a table engaged in mental combat. So if no intense exercise or physical training is required, why are golf and chess considered sports? One of the most common explanations I get is, “Because it’s dif-ficult.” Well, brain surgery is ridiculously difficult but that doesn’t make it an Olympic sport.

“But golf is a competition!” Heck, thumb war is a competition. What makes golf differ-

ent? To me, golf and chess are recreational activities; things to pass the time, like minesweeper. Yes, I’ll admit, golf does burn a lot of calories. But I don’t think that alone constitutes it as a sport. How is chess a sport? Are any calories burnt at all? I don’t think calories burnt by the brain processes count, otherwise we’d see competitive AP exams on ESPN.

Maybe I’ll take up clubs and golf when I can no longer run or jump. But I guess for now, it doesn’t matter. We all find our own ways of staying fit, so whether it’s golf or chess, wres-tling or Starcraft, game on.

AUSTIN YU—EPIC AUSTIN YU—EPIC

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY JACOB ANTONY & SONIKA SUBRAMANIAN

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SPORTS SECTION & SAM CHANG

AS OF FEB. 14

“We have players from all grades so...we’ve been doing a lot of team bonding activities because ...without a bond we wouldn’t play as well, ” says Alicyn Otoshi (12) of the team’s dynamics.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT| Senior Alicyn Otoshi perfects her swing during softball practice on Feb. 9. Due to the construction, the girls have been relo-cated to Murdock Park. Their first pre-season game is Friday, March 2.

“We have a lot of longer swim sets this year. we also go to the weight room every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday,” Daniel Tsai (11) says of the swim team’s prac-tices to prepare for the upcoming season.

GOING UNDER| Junior Daniel Tsai pushes off the wall during the team’s practice on Feb. 9. The swim and dive team is pre-paring for its first meet on March 2 against Harker.

“Everyone on the team is practicing hard for the season and get-ting training from my coach helps out a lot,” says John Kim (12) of preparing for the season ahead. The badminton team is looking forward to competing once again in the De Anza Division.

SAM CHANG—EPIC

JUMP, JUMP| Senior John Kim smashes the birdie during a practice on Feb. 10. Badminton is currently holding tryouts in preparation for their first match on Thursday, March 15 at home versus Gunn.

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Last Friday, the girls’ soccer team had their final game against Cupertino, ending their season with a 0-3 loss. Overall, their team record was 4-7-1, a result culminat-

ed from various triumphs and setbacks the team experienced over the last four months.

Sophomore Rebecca Hatton says, “This season was a roll-er coaster. We did well in preseason and we did okay during the regular season, but some games and practices were full of drama and we didn’t play as well as we could have.”

Some of the difficulties the team experienced were due to a harsher attendance policy, while other factors included the new coaching staff. Junior Amy Lien says, “With new coaches inexperienced with coaching varsity level soccer, all the play-ers did their best to accommodate the new changes made. [Also,] the domi-neering attendance policy strictly en-forced by the new coaches resulted in the loss of playing time for some players greatly needed on the field and the ejection of one very valuable player from the team due to missing some practices.”

Various injuries throughout the season, including three concussions and two ankle injuries, were also ma-jor setbacks for the team. Yet despite this, the girls as a whole were able to bond together and even benefit from some of the different changes. Sophomore Marnie Chang says, “The injuries forced our team to come together even more [and]

LET’S PLAY KEEP AWAY | Sophomores Sarah Wong and Rebecca Hatton drive the ball up the field against Fremont during their senior game.

A shoot and a miss for girls’ soccer teamFOUR ON ONE| Senior Leslie Ou dribbles the ball down the field, evading four Fremont players in the girls’ 1-2 loss on February 1 .

PIVOT AND RUN| Junior Theresa Moffet quickly changes direction after encountering a Fremont defender close to the sideline.

Naylor wins wrestling CCS

The wrestling team went through a tough season this year with only two returning upperclassmen. Despite these difficulties, sophomore Anna Naylor has won a

girls’ CCS title, and the team is sending two wrestlers (sopho-mores Jared Jacoby and Brian Esquivel) and two alternates (junior James Otani and freshman Kenneth Vaz) to boys’ CCS on February 24 and 25. Naylor, who became a CCS champion two weeks ago, is the only female wrestler on the Lynbrook team. A week from today she will go to the CIF Girls State championship. On CCS Naylor says, “I did expect to do well, because I was ranked number one [in the league]. I didn’t re-ally expect to get first, though. I thought I would choke under pressure like last year.” Last year, she says, “I cut more weight than I should have, and got beaten by lighter, faster girls. Also, I was so incredibly nervous I didn’t wrestle to my ability.”

To prepare for CCS, Naylor came to practices an hour earlier to train with coach Bill Fatjo in the weight room. “I probably wouldn’t have won CCS without him,” she says. In the finals, Naylor wrestled a girl she had already beaten, and pinned her in the second period.

Naylor began wrestling in eighth grade and was initially intimidated about being a girl in a male dominated sport. She says, “I almost didn’t wrestle in eighth grade because my friend was busy the first day of practice and I was scared to go alone.” Today, being the only girl on the team does not bother her, and she wrestles both boys and girls during prac-tice and at competitions.

At State Championships next week, her goal is to win. She says, “I’d rather set my goals really high, because even if I fail, third or fourth in the state isn’t too bad.”

Girls’ basketball goes to CCSBY YUNQING CHEN

With the season coming to a close, the fact that the girls’ basketball team is going to CCS should be no surprise. However, since their spot in CCS has

been secured since midseason, they have spent a majority of the season focused on technical improvements, raising their game statistics along the way.

Although the team knows they are going to CCS early, that does not compromise practice quality. According to coach Jeremy Kitchen, “We knew we were going to CCS, but that wasn’t the goal.” The top 16 teams are guaranteed a spot, and the girls have placed consistently for the past couple years, so qualifying was never the end goal. “The goal is how far we get in CCS,” says Kitchen.

In order to get far in CCS, the girls have had to change their practice techniques. “We’ve improved on our defense,” says junior Lakshana Senthilkumar. “It used to be man-on-man, but that wasn’t working, so we switched to 2-3 zone.” The change didn’t come immediately. “We worked hard to get to that point,” she says, and their improvement was not missed.

Early on in the season, the first time the girls played Gunn, they lost by a margin of 10 points. Their game on February 10th against Gunn ended with a loss of three points in over-time, showing progress. “Since it was the second time we played them, we focused more on details and nailing every aspect of our game,” says sophomore Paige Song.

“We worked on taking better care of the ball, not forcing passes, being more detail-oriented,” Kitchen reiterates. With better control of the court, the girls went on to their second round of games with much better outcomes.

Their first CCS game is next Thursday, Feb. 23. Their op-ponents have yet to be determined.

BY SABRINA SHIE

JOEY LI—EPIC

BY YASMINE MORTAZAVI

gave us a chance to play with people we don’t normally play with.” Gaining more experiences like these, as well as throwing various pasta parties and sleepovers, has given the team further opportunities to bond.

Senior Nancy Yang says this allowed the team to ulti-mately “pick up on each other’s strengths and preferences, know when to hit the outside midfielders for their speed, know when to play tighter defense, and know which play-ers work well together.”

This improved cohesiveness gave way to various high-lights throughout the season—the greatest of which was the team’s game against Milpitas on Jan. 25. Lien remi-nisces, “Milpitas has always had really good, strong and fast players, and during that game sophomore Monica Ou scored a header goal on a beautiful cross by junior The-

resa Moffet. We all fought hard until the whistle blew, and some-how came out with a win. The fact that the Milpitas coach was quite upset was rewarding.”

Yang sums up the season, saying, “I think there were some times when we just had frustrat-ing games, or something was off — it’s easy for one negative vibe to have a ripple effect, but I’m re-ally proud of the team for being

able to pick up from past mistakes and take something positive away from each game, win or loss. Nobody takes things personally on the field—I think that’s so important, to be able to communicate openly and shake things off.”

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UNORTHODOX HEALING METHODS | Aleternative medicines have been around for centuries, but recently high school students have joined in, employing techniques such as acupuncture, coining and suction cupping.

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY KELSEY HURWITZ

After sustaining an in-jury, athletes often rely on techniques like ic-

ing, stretching, or medications to relieve pains; a commonly used acronym to sum up ba-sic injury treatments is RICE: Rest, Ice, Compress and Ele-vate. Some students, however, choose to turn to unconven-tional techniques to remedy their sports-related ails.

Alternative medicines are defined as healing methods that do not fall within the realms of conventional West-ern medicine, and are more often cultural or traditional rather than scientific.

Nevertheless, many ath-letes have used these methods to great effect, including some Lynbrook students who look to Asian-rooted medicines for their physical injuries for a va-riety of reasons.

Most of these medicines are based around the idea that pain is caused by chi or blood channels that are not flowing properly; different medicinal methods are used to straight-en out these channels, reduc-ing swelling and pain while improving the rate of healing.

“When something hurts, it means that a chi pathway is blocked; we use acupuncture or other techniques to clear it,” says Dr. Jun Zhou, a certi-fied acupuncturist and Chi-nese medicine specialist.

These techniques have

recently spread to be used in conjunction with West-ern methods as well. Athletic trainer Lauren Dykema, who uses methods such as cup-ping and scraping, says, “After several treatments in conjunc-tion with other therapy tech-niques, most athletes have noticeably improved.”

Cupping involves us-ing suction to draw fluids to the skin, while scraping also brings such substances up and out of the body. The methods are often used together with other treatments.

“For example”, Dykema says, “if I were to use a cup-ping technique on an athlete, that technique would not do the athlete any good if the athlete was not put through some kind of movement ther-apy after receiving treatment because all of the loose fluid that was just freed up from the cupping would stay in the same area instead of being moved out of the area.”

Zhou advises that, “[Asian medicines] are best for soft or muscle wounds. There is a saying that it cures three things: hong (inflammation), zhong (swelling) and tong (pain).” Western medicine, however, she believes is best for any bone-related injuries. “It’s best to ensure that you haven’t broken anything be-fore you start using an alter-native medicine.”

Acupuncture is a common-ly utilized alternative treat-

BY JOEY LI ment, useful for many injuries. In this technique, special nee-dles are inserted at specific pressure points on a patient in order to relieve pain, and are often used in conjunction with other methods like moxibus-tion and cupping.

“I get it if I pull a muscle,” comments freshman David Kim of acupuncture. “You won’t notice [the effects] right away, but after two or three times it kicks in.”

He says that he started acu-puncture because he “didn’t need to take medicine or any-thing else—it’s simple and [he] was able to trust it.”

Sophomore David Hsu, a nationally-ranked tennis play-er, adds that “[acupuncture] helps a lot for muscle injuries. For some stuff nothing else worked and for other injuries I had had previous successes with the treatment.”

He says, however, that one should be sure to find a good acupuncturist: “It hurts if they don’t do it right.”

Sophomore swimmer Cheryl Chang uses the scrap-ing technique, known as “gua sha” in Chinese, to deal with sickness. This technique in-volves scraping a flat object like a coin or spoon against one’s skin, believed to draw out the “poison” in one’s bloodstream which causes the illness or other issues. In some cultures the coin is placed in a hard-boiled egg; at the end of the therapy the egg

is said to turn black. “It’s better than nothing,”

comments Chang, “but it’s not as effective compared to tak-ing medicine.” She also says that it “can be viewed as a form of massage.”

Junior and Valkyrie Jackie Lin has used a variety of dif-ferent methods to treat dance injuries such as pulled liga-ments, citing techniques like massage and electroacupunc-ture, a method that uses small doses of electricity used to stimulate the area delivered through small pads that ad-here to the skin.

“It takes a really long time—I am seeing [my doc-tor] every single day—but at least my injuries seem to be healing,” she says. Lin has also undergone the cupping meth-od once, though she says that “it doesn’t work as well as the other methods. and leaves a huge, hideous bruise.”

As with any conventional medicine, one should always be careful trying out new methods of healing. Although some methods have been found to be safe to try at home, Zhou cautions that, “Different methods, like acupuncture, cupping, or coining, are used for different purposes.”

Finally, Dykema concludes, “I feel that it is important to understand that one type of therapy cannot fix a problem. It is important to utilize all of the possible tools to help an athlete recover.”

If you were injured playing a sport, would you consider alternative medicine as a viable way to heal?

“I don’t believe in any alternative med-icines at all. I don’t even use ice when I get injured. For me the best way to heal is really just leaving the injury alone,” says junior runner Jeffrey Pea.

“I would go to the doctor first...but if they can’t do any-thing about it I would probably go see an alternative medicine expert,” says freshman soccer player Claire Yuan, who sprained her ankle midseason.

“My mom uses Ayurvedic home remedies all the time, so I would def-initely consider any alternative medicine except acupuncture, which kind of freaks me out,” says senior Megha Pokhriyal.

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Your life, yourdaily essentials Those who have an interest in photography carried

around items such as the Canon T1i digital camera, while others who are interested in cinematography

presented such items as clapperboards. Lynbrook students carry and possess a variety of items that parallel their

interests and define their very essence.

Jack Wang (12)Areej Haq (12)Roger Chen (9)

Connor Wen (10) Rishi Debnath (11) Michael Sheng (10)

Sarah Tang (10) Neil Thekdi (10) Emily Chen (9)

Katie Walker (11)Ana Yon (9)Angela Hu (12)

BY SAMUEL CHANG & AUSTIN YUBesides interest-related items, everyday essentials

owned by Lynbrook students are prevalent. From a cellular mobile device to a pack of 5 Gum, every item has purpose in a student’s life. Below is an assortment of items that different Lynbrook students feel define them or always have close by.