An Independent Publication of Leigh High School

February 16, 2012Volume 50 Issue No. 4

Pictured in Longhorn: Various lockers were torn asunder at the beginning of April.

Spreading the loveThe Leadership class brings the spirit of Valentine’s Day to the quad with its second annual Lovefest

Amanda CendejasFeatures Editor

Food Challenge, page 15

On Tuesday, Feb. 14th, leadership hosted their second annual “Love Fest” at lunch in honor of Valentine’s Day. Whether students had been thinking of Valen-tine’s Day as a day to please their significant other, or a depress-ing one filled with too many Hal lmark gift tags and sweets, L e i g h ’ s l e a d e r -ship class set out to bring some more casu-al fun to the day. L e a d -e r s h i p students w o r k e d for three weeks in p r e p a -r a t i o n for the event by organizing game groups and leaders, making game posters, buying supplies, setting decoration times, and publicizing the event. They arrived at seven in the morn-ing to decorate the quad from ev-ery angle in red, pink, and white. The fully decorated quad, which seemed to have lots of Leigh students surprised, definitely added a spirit that had been lacking in previ-ous rallies. The grass was lined with red, pink, and white balloons, the con-crete was lines with Xs and Os, a backdrops and color-ful posters were hung up on the stage, and a balloon arch spanned the length of the quad and the music booth as well. “It was really well-dec-orated!” said freshman Anais Seddouki. “Defi-

n i t e -

ly one of the most-deco-rated holidays at school.”

At lunch, s t u -d e n t s w e r e a b l e to grab a bite to eat, play games, and en- joy a special

p e r f o r -m a n c e by Leigh’s

v e r y o w n b o y

b a n d !

The sugar booth was host to many desserts. Students swarmed the ta-

ble at the beginning of lunch. “I got a cupcake and a lollipop with a brownie in-side it…what’s it called?” said freshman Pero Batinic. The brownie-filled lollipops were cakepops. And in addi-

tion to those cakepops, made my junior Krystal Soltani, the table was an assortment of truffles, frosted cupcakes, and sprinkled cookies.Students were also

a b l e

t o p u r c h a s e

glitter tat-toos for

o n e dol-l a r , and

breast cancer pins for two dollars. Pink hearts were seen on cheeks, arms, and hands throughout the lunch period. There were many differ-ent games available for Leigh stu-dents to participate in, also, for couples and single souls alike.Balloon pop leaders took couples and had them pop balloons between the two of them, while senior Kelly Phil-

lips manned the plunger game, where students raced to the middle of the quad pushing themselves on a skate-board with a plunger. Other games included “Citrus Kiss,” where stu-dents had to transfer an orange from their legs to their neck using no hands, a three-legged race, and donut-on-a-string. Senior Jackie Jensen said, “I played the balloon pop game! It was fun, but they should make the games a little more clear because I didn’t know about the other ones.” Lunch was wrapped up by a special performance by “Lust,” a

boy band consisting of seven boys from Leighdership representing all of the grades. Lust performed for the first time at last year’s Lovefest, and made a spe-cial comeback appearance at this year’s.The boys performing were seniors Dan-ny Davis and Matt Duell, junior Gabe Davis, sophomores Jackson Pellegrini, Michael Hannigan, and Josh Ap-plebaum, and freshman Matt Vargas. The boys came out wearing 90s-boy-bandesque clothing and dancing

on chairs. They danced to songs such as “Sexyback,” by Justin Timberlake and “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction to serenade Leigh’s female population, but the boys felt that the performance was a bit to risqué to please the general public. “I’m a guy, and so I thought it was kind of funny, but I didn’t like the outfits because… well, I’m not into that kind of stuff. Maybe next time they should use the same ideas, but with the females!” said junior Sean Nakabayashi. “Yeah… the outfits were pretty weird. And they did too much walking around,” said freshman Brandon Burchett. While the male population at Leigh seemed a little apprehensive to the entertainment feature, Leigh’s fe-males were very impressed with the performance, saying it was “sexy,” “funny,” and “VERY entertaining!” Overall, Leigh students were pleased with what Lovefest had to of-fer, whether they had one of the treats, participated in games, or just watched Lust’s performance. “It was fun, and it didn’t make you feel alone on Valentine’s Day,” said freshman Amber Ruzic.“There was fun, food, different, games, and entertainment. It wasn’t a boring

l unch o r a n y -thing. And I th ink things a r e a lot cooler w h e n they’re m o r e

decked out!” said fresh-man Quinn Malaccorto.It seems that Leigh High School has officially embarked on a new tradi-tion, an annual Lovefest and perfor-mance by their own pop sensations. Lovefest succeeded in bringing a little bit of cheer and light-hearted fun to a holiday that is usually re-garded with many mixed feelings. Senior James Eakes said, “The rally was Lovefest-tastic!”

From the top, clockwise: 1. Red velvet cupcakes, some of many confections passed out during the Lovefest. 2. A student partaking in the donut-on-a-string game. 3. Leadership students handing out free Hershey’s kisses. 4. Leadership’s boyband, LUST, striking a pose at the end of their performance during lunch.

photos by Sadie Williams

Singing Valentines, page 3

Mock Trial, page 3 In-Depth, page 10New coach in town, page 14

On Saturday, Feb. 4, Leigh High School’s annual Crab Feed began un-shelling guest’s wallets to raise funds for the Band, Drama and Choir De-partments. Beginning at 6:00p.m., about 400 guests began sitting at their desig-nated tables in the cafeteria. Although the evening started gradually because of the seating and feeding arrange-ments, that soon changed, and the tempo quickly picked up. The raffles began with over eighty prizes. Each performing group had a theme and brought in prizes accord-ingly. Concert Band’s theme was Ital-ian and Home Entertainment, Sym-phonic Band used Family Fun and Games as their theme and The Wind Ensemble’s theme was Garden and BBQ. Musical Theater, Drama and Choir sponsored a Beach Day. The Color Guard, Winter Guard and Winter Percussion’s theme was Chocolate, Coffee and Tea.

Performing art student volun-teers waited tables, mostly to receive lab by arrangement hours for helping out the Performing Arts Department. The servers received crab necklac-es which were purchased by the guests seated at their tables. The server with the most necklaces won the title King or Queen Crab at the end of the event.

Bring in the dancing crabs!

When you wish upon a STAR:

band an opportunity to sing,

so you might have heard this song be-

The servers were kept very busy rushing between the kitchen and the tables, while other student volun-teers walked around the tables selling crab cookies, crab neck-laces, crab shell crackers, and other fun items. Volunteering students dressed in mascot costumes as Crabby and Leighroy and walked around tak-ing pictures with the guests. “People are thrilled to be here including me and we sold out which is great!” said sophomore Kali Bigliardi, a drama student who wore the Crabby suit this year. At 7:00 p.m., the Jazz Band’s instruments be-gan to sound. Their first song was “The Lady is a Tramp” by Frank Sinatra. The band was accompanied in singing by Thea Kwan who normal-ly plays trombone with the band. Next Calvin Cot-ton sang with the band “Till There Was You” from “The Music Man”. Following that, Su-zie Royer, Leigh’s Musical Director who said, “We wanted to give the whole

Leigh PAPA organization raises money with the 12th an-Dominic Guidry

Staff Writer

news 2.16.12page 02

Brianna HoustonNews Editor

Every spring, students in grades two through eleven take part in the Standardized Test and Report-ing (STAR) testing, but recently gov-enor Jerry Brown has asked lawmakers to reduce the load of statewide tests students are required to take each year. A school year’s curriculum is designed to prepare students for the California-wide test. The Common Core Stan-dards, which are the standards that students are expected to learn, will be the next big change for the entire state. California state governor Jerry Brown wants the lawmakers to reshape K-12 education by eliminating certain traits from the school’s programs and redefining the state’s overall agenda for the educational performance of Cali-fornia. The California State Testing will be changed significantly and those changes are taking place in 2014. The STAR test is viewed like any other test here at Leigh. When asked what she thought of tests and the common core change proposals for the 2014 school year, junior Lauren Eklund said, “I hate taking tests and they give everyone anxiety. Fewer tests would relieve everyone of a lot of un-wanted stress.” The entire test itself contains various subjects such as English–language arts (ELA), mathematics, science, and history–social science. The purpose of the test is to de-scribe the goals that students should be able to know and achieve based on their grade and the subject tested that’s being tested. “Tests should not measure factoids as much as under-standing,” said Governor Jerry Brown

fore.” At

that

moment some knew the song was “Hey

Baby”, often played by the Marching Band during football games. Finally the Jazz band ended the evening with KC and the Sunshine Band’s famous “Boo-gie Shoes” and “That’s the Way I Like It.”

The band hurried off as junior Jer-emy Pack, the night’s host, came back on stage to announce more raffle winners while the choir prepared to go on next.

The Madrigals choir started off at 8 p.m. with all the guys singing “Oldest Established” from the musi-cal “Guys and Dolls”. Soloists included junior Gabe Manly, junior Aren El-lithorpe and senior Michael Morris. The Madgrigals performance conclud-ed with the girls singing “Raise Your Voice” from “Sister Act” the musical.

The night ended with prizes in the hands of many people and a look on everyone’s face that showed that the night was suc-cessful and the meal was satisfying.

“It went really, re-ally well! We had an awesome grand prize to Hawaii, the jazz band and choir were both amazing. Hope-fully the outcome will be as good as this next

year too,” said junior Rachel Melo.

Standardized tests may be cut down in the future

photo by Mikayla Druhan

from his own campaigning website. California’s governor believes it’s more important to take the time to learn the concepts rather than be tested upon them.

According to Vice Principal Dave Walters, “There are no significant changes to the STAR test this year.” Leigh students in grades nine through eleven will be taking their STARs this

spring in the various subjects above. Although there are a number of seniors re-taking courses that the STAR provides testing for, all seniors are always exempt from taking the

photo by Kendra Wood

STAR test. Each student’s test is independent to another’s and solely depends upon grade-level and course. V i c e Principal Dave Walters also tells us that the only sig-nificant change for Leigh, as of now, will be the length of the test taking pro-cess. In previous years testing has taken place over the course of three days, but this year there will be a total of four days for the entire test-tak-ing process.This year’s testing will be taking place April 23 through April 26.

A s spring roles around in the next few months we’ll see what the

Governor and law-makers have decided to do for the changes. Leigh’s STAR will

take place this coming spring as usual and our goals will remain high as the students await to view their scores over the summer.

The effectiveness of standardized testing is being called into question, due to the anxiety it causes and the time it takes to ad-minister them.

news2.16.12 page03

Nothing exemplifies the spirit of Valentine’s Day more than serenading your loved ones with a romantic bal-lad. On Jan. 14, Leigh’s Madrigals students travelled around campus to vicariously spread the love through Singing Valentine’s. On the week of Feb. 6 through Feb. 10, Leigh students were given the opportunity to purchase a Singing Valentine for their friends , crushes, and even their favor-ite teachers. Singing Va l en t ine s are group p r o j e c t s that the M a d r i -gals choir works on for around a month, jug-gling it between vari-ous concerts. As the name implies, Singing Valentines are a group of choir students rang-ing from three to five members . The

group picks a romantic bal-lad that is relatively short to perform and conjures up their own arrangement of it. Most Singing Valentines are usually completely a’capella with generally up to four

harmonic parts, though stu-dents some-

times add their own in-

s t r u m e n t a t i o n . “The songs are usually pretty modern or classics with a cheesy 80’s

ballad thrown in, we try to appeal to ev-

e r y o n e . Everyone p i c k s t h e i r o w n

g r o u p and the song they want

to perform,” said junior Rachel Melo. A s many students saw in their first, second,

and third periods on Feb. 14, the fun

of Singing Valen-tines is found in embarassing your friends by making them sit in the front of the class as their

ears are filled with romantic prose. M a d r i g a l s students are grate-ful that t h e i r e f f o r t s were re-c e i v e d

w e l l . “ T h e

[Singing Val-entines] were divine,”

said junior Jon Estiva. “I was looking forward to embarassing and serenad-ing people with my friends, and it’s

S.O.S and JSA are some of the more popular groups Leigh students hear being talked about. Less known is the Leigh Mock Trial team. Mock Trial is an opportu-nity for students to develop their pub-lic speaking and acting skills in a court setting. “Mock trial is also something that teaches great life skills [such as] dedication and team work, without it the team cant function,” said mock trial coach Meredith Moseley. The Mock trial process starts in mid October and does not come to a close until early to mid February. The team in made up of two sides, prosecution and defence on both sides they consist of three attorneys, four witnesses and also one pretrial at-torney, The performance of the students is judged by three real attor-neys on a score of 1-5. T h e first part of the trial is the p r e t r i a l in which one attor-ney from each team argues a constitu-tional issue regarding the case. T h e trial then begins and attorneys are scored based on their delivery of the opening and closing statements as well

as their examinations of the witnesses. Witnesses are scored based on how well they can com-mand the facts, and how well they per-form under pressure. All of this is done in at the Santa Clara County court-house. Although there is a judge who presides over the trial, the verdict is not factored into the score. “[This years Mock trial team is] very strong, with a lot of experience,” says Moseley. In the first round of Mock trial finals the team went 2-0, beating Saratoga and Gunderson High School. In the second round of the Mock trial finals the team

went against the defending mock trial county winners and lost, by a slim mar-

gin of 4 points. Leigh’s defense team competed in the second round against Archbishop

Mitty’s prosecu-tion. “ T h e team looks awe-some, we have phenomenal wit-nesses and attor-neys with experi-ence and are really strong this season” said Senior co-captain Tiffany Mensah, who is completing her fourth season with the Leigh Mock Trial team.

B sharp, B flat, B natural, B mine

Order in the court

fun to share my talents while putting smiles on peoples’ faces. I also had the op-portunity to give a Valentine of my own, so I can’t complain.” T h o u g h most recipients shy away when asked to sit on the “love stools”, the major-ity of students en-joy watching them. “I always enjoy Singing Valen-

tines,” said s e n i o r C h r i s t a Sa -

dler. “ I t ’ s

a great way to entertain s t u -d e n t s and dis-

play all of the talented people that we have at Leigh,

and raise money at the s a m e t ime.”

“I al-w a y s get re-a l l y excited

for Sing-ing Valentines,” said junior Dominique C l e m e n t s . “There is

so much talent, and I am amazed by how a small group of four people can have such a wide variety of voic-es, and sing different tunes/words at different times with it still sound-ing really good. My favorite perfor-mances come form the people who get really into it, or add some humor.” Though it was his first year running Singing Valentines, new choir director Bill Burkhead , with the help of junior Vanessa Zim-merman, organized wit succesfully.

Zachary TatarSports Editor

Kylie BrownEditor-in-Chief

For many high school students, getting to class on time presents a challenge. The line to get into the parking lot is seemingly endless as parents drop off their kids and stu-dent drivers struggle to get a spot. To top it all off, late comers are left with two choices entering the park-ing lot: either ten miles down the first row, or way off in the boonies behind the big green construction area that appears to be inhabit-ing the center of our parking lot. So what is it that is mak-ing our morning lateness even more inconvenient? Solar Panels. Schools

across Campbell Union High School District are receiving these solar pan-els. Schools like Branham have also started the process in their parking lot, and schools like Leland and Pioneer have already completed the process. The solar panels will serve as major energy savers and are expected to greatly benefit Leigh High School. “The energy that we save, instead of having to pay PG&E for it, we save all that money and we put it back into the school. So that over time, we will save millions and millions of dollars,” said Principal Donna Hope. The solar panel project also will be benefiting Leigh High School in other ways. When any other pub-lic agency or school buys our solar panel project plans, the money that

the district makes will go to a senior scholarship fund that is to be divided amongst the schools in the Camp-bell Union High School District. “Over time the district ex-pects to be getting two things, a very nice scholarship fund (hope-fully), and we’re getting recogni-tion for coming up with a new pro-cess that actually saves the district much more money,” said Hope. As for the student body, kids only concern really seems to be the construction that is taking place on and off in the parking lot. “I don’t really mind it, the construction is pretty annoying but hopefully it will be over quicker than the quad. And hopefully they

will save my car from unwanted bird poop,” said senior Mary Gintz. Schools in other districts have also previously installed solar panels in their parking lots as well. “Well, they aren’t a huge prob-lem because they don’t interfere with my day because they are on the top of the shade structures cov-ering our parking lot and i know they are there for a good cause,” said Leland senior Rebecca Olson. These new posts in our park-ing lot may stand as an obstacle for all the inexperienced drivers trying to get a little practice in, but overall the solar panel project will hopefully do great things for the environment and for Leigh High School. Let’s see if it works!

Leigh goes greenKatherine MacQuarrie

Staff Writer

Madrigals sells Singing Valentines to raise money for the Performing Arts Dept.

Solar panels save energy at Leigh

Pioneer High has already installed solar panels. Photo by Nikita Zakladnyi

From bottom left to top left: Tiffany Mensah, Jonathon Yu, Emma Batmazian, Robin Curtis, Michelle Luu,

Wellington Chang, Arianna Nuri, Nanxi Tang, Lea Finato

Leigh’s Mock Trial team pits their wits against like minds

photos courtesy of Meredith Moseley

Senior Tiffany Mensah referring to evidence.

Christopher WymanBusiness Manager

Road trip to freedom

Walking for a cure

features 2.16.12page04

Essentially, this entire month is about Hallmark shoving the commercialized version of love down our throats. They tell us that we should show our love by buy-ing it. Thus, you can’t walk into nearly any store without sales on teddy bears or heart-shaped candy. Around this “season of love”, two types of people emerge: those who gush over all the cutesy stuff with their significant other and those who mourn their singleness. Honestly, both groups of people begin to get irritating. Those who are dating don’t shut up about their romantic en-deavors while single people complain about how they’re “forever alone”. It doesn’t seem like either side wins. The people dating get guilt-tripped by the single people for be-ing cheesy, and the single people get upset seeing all the couples. In the end, it doesn’t even seem to be about love any-more and more about displays. So if love isn’t about the Disney ending or the Hall-mark card, then what is it? I am certainly no expert, considering I am only 16, but I at least know it’s anything but the roses and the “happily ever after”. Now when I speak of love, I’m not simply talking about ro-mantic relationships. We don’t usu-ally relate love with friendships and family ties, but that’s probably where love is the most prevalent in our lives. Yet, we continue to label love as purely a romantic emotion. But today, we’re going to explore love in its entirety. You may be reading this and assuming I have a clear bias because I am in a relationship. I won’t lie; I adore all the cute, romantic things just as much as the next girl. And I am fully aware that the sweet gestures are a great—if not important—part of relationships. But I promise you I hold no bias. I have had my “forever alone” seasons just like everyone else. But through enduring both being single and a rela-tionship, I have learned many different things about love. Love, unfortunately, is not fundamental and black and white. It’s complex and messier more than we can say. But de-spite its depth and mystery, love is one of the most basic things that connect humans together. I guess at this point the only certainty we can as-sume about love is that it exists. Sometimes it’s spoken and some-times we can see it. Sometimes, you really have to look for it. But it’s there. We have been looking for love our whole lives, trying to dis-cover its true meaning, whether we know it consciously or not. It starts from when we are children and seems

to infinitely continue on. Personally, I thought love was approval. I believed that love was something you had to earn, something you had to deserve. This thought had been engrained in my mind since I was a kid. In school, I was a classic “teach-er’s pet”. I did whatever I could for that pat on the back or the good grade. I thought I had to be perfect in order to be loved. I could only possibly be loved if I was “good”. I guess on some level I fought for approval constantly so I could be good, therefore, I could be loved. It wasn’t until recently I realized that this idea of love was very incorrect.

I had a conversation once with a very wise woman on this subject. I told her that I couldn’t possibly under-stand why someone would love me… “…I don’t understand what I did to deserve it.” She stopped me, “And why do you need to do something to ‘deserve it’? Why can’t someone just love you because they can? When you have children, are your children going to have to do something to receive your love or are you just going to love them because of how they are?” After she said that, it was like I had been hit square in the head. Love is not something you earn. Love is something you re-ceive simply by being yourself. And if someone doesn’t love you because they don’t like who you are, because they judge you on your actions…well, maybe that’s not love. And why would you want a knock-off anyways? Another thing I learned about love is that sometimes you’re not always going to be happy. This is something we’ve all bought into at one point: this concept of “we’re supposed to be perfectly happy all the time if we love someone”. No. Not at all. Sometimes, love is bru-tal and it’s about doing the right thing. S o m e t i m e s , that means you have to say to your significant other, “Hey that wasn’t very cool, but let’s work through it”. Sometimes, that means having to lose a friend in or-der to make sure they’re safe. Love is sacrificial. And it doesn’t always make us feel good. But when you really love some-one, you would do nearly any-thing in your means to help them. But of course, love has its magical moments as well. Love is that hug at the end of the bad day. Love is holding open the door for a stranger because you can tell they’re in a rush. Love is that random text from an old friend asking how you’ve been doing lately. Love is just being in a room with someone and smiling just because you know you care for one another. Love is looking at yourself in the mirror and complimenting yourself. Love is giving your friend your lunch because they left their lunch at home. Love is respecting other people. And most important-ly, love is what you make of it. So sure, teddy bears are cute and roses smell nice. And everything looks perfect on the front of the Hallmark card, but sometimes, it’s what is writ-ten inside that means the most.

Matt DuellStaff Writer

Relay for Life is an extraordinary event that gives everyone in communi-ties across the globe a chance to celebrate those who have overcome cancer; or an opportunity to commemo-rate lost loved ones afflicted by the disease. Dur ing the Relay for Life, groups of eight to twen-ty members will gather in the Union Middle School grass area to fight back against can-cer by earning pledges, donating, and honoring those who have been victimized by cancer. “My main motivation for partici-pating in the walk would be my mother, who survived breast cancer twice. Every time I walk in the Relay for Life, I rep-resent her and all those who have had or still have breast cancer,” said senior Jar-ed Nelson about his love for the event.The Relay for Life for 2012 will take place on April 27 at 6:00 p.m., and continue into the following day until 6:00 p.m. Anyone can come and join

At Leigh, clubs and groups around the campus have already begun forming their Relay for Life groups. Clubs such as the Sisters of Society, Leadership, and the music department of Leigh are two of the most prominent Relay for

Life groups on campus. “ T h i s year, Sisters of Society will have a booth at Relay for Life because it is a great way to bond with our club mem-bers, fund-raise for the club, and make a gen-erous contri-bution to a great cause,” said Sisters of Society

co-President, Kelly Phillips, about her club’s in-volvement in Relay for life this year. Last year the Cambrian Relay for Life was the #8 Relay for Life pro-gram out of over 400 in California alone, raising over $290,000. Help the Cambrian community fight back against cancer and help surpass last year’s donations by creating your own Relay team, or signing up with one at cambrianrelayforlife.com.

the walk to end cancer, but staying the night, (a time known as the Luminaria Ceremony) requires a minimum of $100 to be raised by each member of a team. “My favorite part of the Re-lay for Life is a tradition I have every

year where I run a mile at two in the morning, which is surprisingly more fun than it sounds. And, of course, a midnight snack is essential to my Relay for Life experience,” said ju-nior Kendra Schultz about her over-night experience in the Relay for Life. This year, the Cambrian Re-lay for Life theme is will be “Around the World”. Each team in the com-munity will be required to pick a team name that incorporates a city, country, or continent of the world.

Photo by Steve Berger

Planning for Relay for Life takes over Leigh

The Hallmark CardInformation on getting your driver’s license

A group of participants holding a banner lead the Relay for Life.

Each year more and more teens have the privilege to get behind the wheel and start their f r e e d o m . Many teens think they know every-thing there is to know about driv-ing, while in reality we don’t. Stu-dents between the ages of fifteen-and-a-half and eighteen need to first ob-tain a provi-sional permit. Now you may be asking yourself, “What ex-actly is a provisional permit?” A Provisional permit is a document with your age, name, and the proof that you have the ability to drive. There is a long process of studying hard for your permit test as well as your driver test. Many “DMVs” (Departments of Motor Ve-hicles) have online courses to help and train you through your process. The courses aren’t cheap but in the end you’ll be glad you took the time to learn about the skills of driving.

Online classes aren’t the only source to help you. Many DMVs may give you a booklet or you may buy one that teaches and guides

you through driving. Before go-ing to the DMV you must complete drivers education, that is where the online courses come in. Most courses expect you to score a 75% or higher which is basically a C to pass. Drivers Ed is exactly what it sounds like, driving education. They are your own private driving lessons. They can pick you up from school or go to your house. With your driv-ing instructor you need to complete a total of 6 hours of drivers ed before you are qualified to take a driving test.

Fifteen-and-a-half is the age you may get your permit, but if you want your license, you must be sixteen. There are many local DMVs.

Closest to most Leigh students are the DMVs in Los Ga-tos, San Jose, Santa Teresa, Santa Clara and Capitola. Drivers ed may be the biggest factor in help-ing you since it is preparing you for actual driving portion of the test.. “What-ever you do, do not pro-c r a s t i n a t e ,” said sopho-more Court-ney Donlon. “If you study

and wait a long time to take the ac-tual test, you will forget the answers. I probably studied the booklet for one hour before the actual test and still failed, so I had to retake it.” What many people don’t know is it is not like retaking school tests. If you fail your permit test, you must wait seven days until you can retake it. The process is long, and there is definitely a lot to learn, but remember that in the end, you will be taking your first steps toward freedom and independence.

Luke WeinbergJunior Editor

Photo by Rajashree Bhattacharya

This teenager is one step closer to freedom after passing his theory test.

features2.16.12 page05

17-year old Chicken Nugget fan, Stacey Irvine, has been warned by numerous doctors that her be-loved addiction to the divine 6 piece chicken nugget meal from McDon-ald’s (no toy) has done nothing but slowly begin to immerse her body with unnecessary fats and preserva-tives. Horrified doctors learned of the teenager’s chronic 15-year addiction after she collapsed and was rushed to the hospital struggling to breathe. Stacey, who flinches at the sight of vegetables or fruits, was found to have anemia and swol-len veins in her tongue after she collapsed on February 4, 2012. Al-though her nugget meal has become her, as Chris Brown would say, “ride or die chick,” she also enjoys sharing the 20 piece nugget meal with her boyfriend (shocker) as well as the boneless barbeque wings from KFC. Irvine says that the only varia-tion in her diet is her occasional slice of toast for breakfast and her other favorite fast food chain, KFC. In this case, think of KFC and the toast as Shrek 1: neglected, for-gotten, abandoned, and a heck of a lot better than Shrek 2 and 3. Now, think of the McDonald’s Chicken Nugget meal as Shrek 2 and 3: overrated, over-used, and a lower quality than that of Shrek 1. Stacey’s mom is the most concerned out of all. “It breaks my heart to see her eating those damned nug-gets,” said Irvine’s mom, Evonne. Golly gee Evonne, your words truly spark the deepest sense of inspi-ration within my small heart. You are a true hero in the world of mother’s battling against the golden arches and their daughter’s 15-year chronic chicken nugget addiction (I can’t imagine that world being very big). Stacey Irvine has been told, in no uncertain terms, that she’ll die if she carries on like this. But she says she can’t eat any-thing else, and I don’t blame her. To be truthful, I have had a secret love affair with Mc-Donald’s for my whole life. McDonald’s and I just under-stand each other (which is surpris-ing because we met on eHarmony and I was really skeptical at first) and the #1 (Big Mac meal) provides me with the 10 minutes of sun-

shine and happiness I need to get me through the day (until I feel ex-hausted afterward and immediately have to take a nap). Despite the documentary Supersize Me and the fact that fast food has been medically proven to potentially lead to type 2 diabetes, asthma, liver disease, cancer, car-diovascular disease, and strokes, my love still runs deep for McDonald’s. There is nothing better or more American than the warm and savory taste of those hockey puck sized, mysterious pieces of sausage atop three unusually delicious hot cakes accompanied by a cup of orange juice which is undoubtedly 99% sugar and 1% orange. Or, that unexplain-able feeling of joy that comes from receiving the toy you had hoped to get as you open your Happy Meal and then immediately begin savoring the thinly cut, golden-brown slithers of salvation (the French fries). (Da McFluRrY’s arE hEcKa go0d ToO). Poor Stacey, it is not hard to see why she yearns for those irre-sistible Christmas stocking-shaped nuggets day after day (after day). In fact, recent scientific studies have shown that high-calorie foods rich in fats, refined sugars, and salt could reconfigure the hormones in the body in such a way that they make you crave for such foods and always leave you asking for more. In other words fast food is VERY addictive; you get hooked on to it and continue consum-ing it in an uncontrolled way even though you know of the po-tential health risks that it carries. Stacey Irvine is not the only one with this problem; our whole nation struggles to find a healthy balance in their diets with about ap-proximately one-third of U.S. adults (33.8%) who are obese or overweight. Looking into the bigger pic-ture, what is our nation going to look like ten years from now? Will fast food rule the scene? Or will fresh and sanitary substitutes save us from a downward spiral into health complications and physical inactivity? If I was Raven from That’s So Raven, I would use my visions to provide you with the answers to these questions, but my name is Matt, and the coolest thing I can do, as of right now, is flare my nostrils and ears at the same time (sorry). For now, if you need help find-ing inspiration for losing weight or staying healthy, you can always: 1) Search on Google images for “results of eating too much junk food” (take the safe-search off if you really want to get motivated). 2) There usually is no other way because the first way always works.

Seriously though, make sure to diversify your diet, avoid eating fast food on a regular basis, and stay active. Live healthy, be happy. <That’s the motto, and I’m bout it every day, every day, every day.

Spring Musical Preview

Ah the month February; by now, the new year is in full swing. Our reso-l u t i o n s h a v e been left b e h i n d and we’re on to the e x c i t e -m e n t (or pure h a t r e d ) of Valen-tines Day.One thing has been consistent since the new year, and that is the hard work of the cast of Leigh High School’s spring musical “Fiddler on the Roof”. The cast, which consists of fifty-seven members, has been practicing since Jan. 2 for two and a half hours a day, four days a week. “I believe our hard work is paying off. Elizabeth Neipp [or Mrs. Neipp] is a very efficient director, and this musical is incredibly complex. To get it done in two and half month’s time is quite a feat, but I believe that with our director, the show will be com-

plete and fantastic!” said junior Jeremy Pack who plays Tevye in the musical. “Fiddler on the Roof” centers around the character Tevye, who is a traditional and old-fashioned dairy-man. When his five daughters begin

to grow into in-dividuals and want to follow their own

rules rather than tradi-tion, Tevye is challenged to open his mind and ac-cept new things. That, along with the threat of Tevye’s town being taken over by Russians, proves to be hard for Te-vya to deal with. “It is a very mature musical, with many serious elements. It asks the question of tradition: to be

kept, or to be changed.” said Pack.The musical takes us on Tevye’s journey of change through song, dance, and acts which are sure to satisfy viewers. “I think what people will take away from this play is the fact that sometimes change is needed, and that change can be good”, said se-nior Kitt Ynchausti who plays a Russian dancer in the musical. Leigh High School’s production of “Fiddler on the Roof”, directed by

Elizabeth Neipp, will be s h o w -ing on Mar. 8, 9, and 10 at 7 p.m. T h e r e w i l l be a special m a t i -nee at 2 p.m. o n March

9, and the musical will also be showing the following weekend on Mar. 15, 16, and 17 at 7 p.m.. Tickets will be ten dollars and everyone is encouraged to come.

Cheating in Class

Whether you do it or not, it h a p p e n s everyday; as time passes and technology progresses, p e o p l e ’ s techniques for cheat-ing have b e c o m e more com-plex. Not to say that the “old-fashioned” ways of c h e a t i n g such as w r i t i n g answers on your hand no lon-ger occur. O n e of the most c o m m o n forms of cheating is one that most don’t even consider to be cheating, which is borrowing assignments. One of the main reasons that this even happens is mostly due to peer pressure, because students feel that they have to help their friends out. Though borrowing assign-ments is rather common students have come up with their own more creative ways of cheating. Some of the more interesting ways people

have come up with are writing ‘cheat sheets’ on the inside of the wrapper on their water bottles. Another way students have snuck an-swers into their classroom on test day is by programming their graphing cal-

culators to store answers to questions or even step-by-step guides on how to go about doing certain equations. “I’ve cheated in the past and I would do it again if my teach-ers assigned so much work that it would be hard to complete hav-ing such a hectic schedule that it would just be easier to copy,” said an anonymous student from Leigh. This shows how some students, although they do cheat, only do

it when absolutely necessary. But it also proves the case that students no longer care about what they are learning so long as they get a good grade on it. The lengths that students willgo to do well on an exam or assign-

ment are just ridiculous. A student’s high school career has veered from actually wanting to learn the sub-jects they are being taught, to just want-ing a high GPA so they have some-thing to show for when a p p l y i n g to colleges.The competi-tion for get-ting into a reputable col-lege has be-come so fierce that students will ultimately do anything to boost their GPAs, cheat-ing included.

Although the cons seem to out-weigh the pros students continue to risk more than they could ever gain from cheating. Even though if caught, their chances of getting into any college could be completely di-minished students still choose to gamble everything just to do well on a portion of their grade that may or may not effect their GPA majorly.

Nicollette EiliaStaff Writer

Sarah MowadStaff Writer

An inside look at Leigh’s upcoming production

Is it really worth it?

infographic by Jinny Jung

Photo by Jinny Jung

For more stories, check us out on the web at: www.theeleight.org

features 2.16.12page 06Editors-in-Chief

Marissa Rodriguez, Kylie Brown

Section EditorsNews: Brianna Houston

Opinion: Caitlyn NurnbergFeatures: Amanda Cendejas

Politics: Nanxi TangSports: Zachary Tatar

Entertainment: Blayke LeachIn-Depth: Nanxi Tang

Visuals EditorKylie Brown

Online EditorMichael Rea

Business ManagersChristopher Wyman, Nathan Keenan, Jeannie Ceglar

Copy EditorNicole Hamilton

Staff WritersRajashree Bahttacharya, Kylie Brown, Jeannie Ceglar, Amanda Cendejas, Mikayla Druhan,

Matthew Duell, Nicollette Eilia, Michelle Fitzsimmons, Dominic Guidry,Nicole Hamilton, Sean Hiller, Brianna Houston, Katrina Jabbari, Jinny Jung, Nathan Keenan

Blayke Leach, Katherine MacQuarrie, Alassandra Marquez, Caitlyn Nurnberg, Kayla PavlicevichEmily Ransom, Michael Rea, Heyinn Rho, Marissa Rodriguez, Anna Schwarz, Adam Soret,

Chloe Tamaro, Nanxi Tang, Zachary Tatar, Julie Thompson, Sunna Thorkelsdottir, Andrew van Brunt, Joseph Vasquez, Thomas Viola, Makena Volzing, Luke Weinberg, Sadie Williams, Angel

Wilson, Kendra Wood, Christopher Wyman, Nikita Zakladnyi

Design StaffKylie Brown, Nicollette Eilia, Michelle Fitzsimmons, Dominic Guidry, Sean Hiller, Katrina Jab-

bari, Katherine MacQuarrie, Alassandra Marquez, Kayla Pavlicevich, Emily Ransom, Heyinn Rho, Marissa Rodriguez, Adam Soret, Chloe Tamaro, Julie Thompson, Sunna

Thorkelsdottir, Andrew van Brunt, Joseph Vasquez, Makena Volzing, Luke Weinberg, Angel Wilson

Visuals StaffRajashree Bhattacharya, Mikayla Druhan, Jinny Jung, Anna Schwarz, Sadie Williams, Kendra

Wood, Nikita Zakladnyi

Online StaffMichael Rea, Matthew Duell, Thomas Viola

AdviserElizabeth Nakamura

The Eleight is an independent publication of the Journalism class at Leigh High School. Its content reflects the opinion of the Writing Staff and does not necessarily reflect the views of Leigh

High School, its Board of Trustees, faculty, administration or student body.

If you feel that The Eleight improperly or insufficiently represents any part of the Leigh High community, or have any other questions,

suggestions or comments, please email Leigh’s Journalism class via the_eleight@yahoo.com.

Juniors: College info you need

College. The seven letter word that evokes an endless amount of fear in many high school juniors and se-niors. No worries, the hardest part is starting the application. It’s important for students to start during their junior year; after all the prep work is done, much of the stress dissipates.Be sure to take your ACT or SAT as early as possible, preferably in your junior year. Noth-ing is worse than having to cram for an exam a few weeks before your college apps are due. Also, be sure to research the testing requirements for schools you’re in-terested in. Some schools require SAT II’s or for the ACT, they may require the writing section. It is rec-o m m e n d e d that you take both the SAT and ACT since students often find that one is easier than the other. Students who are better at math and science may find that their ACT scores are better than their SAT scores. Of course it all depends on the student, but this is something to think about. Each test takes about three hours and 45 minutes, and you can take each one multiple times. Students should ensure they have their test scores sent to their respective colleges. Although it is not required by all schools, another way to help strengthen

your application is to take SAT subject tests. Each test takes about an hour and you can pick from a variety of subjects in the language, math, history, and sci-ence departments. Students can take up to three tests in one sitting, and they are helpful to colleges to grasp where a student’s strengths are. Not sure what to look for in a school? The best way is to go out and tour multiple colleges and to take note

about what features seem appealing or appalling. Some relatively close colleges that could be good to tour: Santa Clara University, San Jose State University, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and West Val-ley. Letters of recommendation are needed for students applying to pri-vate colleges. Students should consider asking two of their junior year teach-ers. These teachers should preferably have a good opinion of the student, as they will be writing a letter directly to

the admissions departments of various schools. Of course, if the teacher is the bane of their students’ existence, then a polyjuice potion or a “generous dona-tion to Mr. White’s Ducati fund” could be the way to go. Today, everything involved in college applications is electronic. Ap-plications generally begin a couple months into a student’s senior year, but Marna Taylor of Got College? advises

seniors to be done with their applica-tions before Thanksgiv-ing of their senior year. Most colleg-es are signed up to allow you to ap-ply through C o m m o n App, with the exception of community colleges, Cal-ifornia State Universities, U n i v e r s i -ties of Cali-fornia, and some private colleges. Filling out the ap-plication can be a long and grueling pro-cess, but the application is composed of

a variety of ques-tions focusing on

general information, academics, and volunteer work. One essay is required for the common application but two are required for UCs. The essay top-ics vary year to year, but once they are done the last thing to do is to hit submit and wait for the acceptances to roll in. Once you do, good job, you just completed one of the more diffi-cult tasks that you will have had to face so far in life, and you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.

Michael ReaOnline Editor

Apps and deadlines and tours, oh my!

Photo by Jinny Jung

AP test booklets and collegeboard page are junior year necessities.

The Eleight is an independent publication dedicated to honest, ethical, accurate and complete

coverage of the Leigh High student body and its surrounding community.

Dear Readers, Winter ball has come and gone, and 2012 is in full swing. Spring sports have already finished tryouts, and college acceptance letters are starting to roll in for all the second-semester seniors. Winter may not officially end for several more weeks, but spring is on the horizon all over campus. With underclassmen choosing their schedules for next year, this year’s prom theme being revealed, and ASB elections in the coming weeks, everything is changing almost as quickly as the weather. You might have noticed that The Eleight has changed as well. Our paper has gotten a little bigger, and we’ve added a new section: Politics (see pages 08 and 09). We hope you make a few changes in your life as well. Clean your room, hang out with someone new over break, or change your haircut. Whatever you do, finish reading this paper and go out and enjoy your break! Your Editors-in-Chief, Kylie Brown and Marissa Rodriguez

Ads2.16.12 page07

politics 2.16.12page 08

“Imagine a world without free knowledge.” That was all that Ameri-can users could see Jan. 18 on Wikipe-dia, a website depended on by many as an easily accessible storehouse of infor-mation. Other participants of this web “blackout” included Google, Wired, and Mozilla, in attempts to raise awareness about SOPA and PIPA, bills awaiting approval in the House of Rep-resentatives and Senate, respectively.SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is an act drafted in an attempt to reduce piracy and copyright infringement. A similar act is PIPA, also known as the Protect IP Act (which stands for Pre-vent Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act). Both of these acts are supported mainly by large-scale copyright holders such as movie and music companies.

Among the opponents to these acts are Internet sites that depend on the cre-ative products of their members to be successful, such as Youtube. The goal of SOPA and PIPA is a worthwhile one. With the advent of widespread Internet access, copyright holders, large and small, have seen an increased scale of copyright infringe-ment by “rogue sites”. For example, movies are being streamed online with-out permission from the movie own-ers. According to a study made by the BSA (Business Software Alliance) in 2010, the United States has one of the lowest levels of piracy around the world. In Georgia, 93 percent of com-mercial digital media is pirated, while in America 20-21 percent is found to be sold illegally. However, this 20 percent piracy has led to an approxi-mated loss of $ 9.5 billion to copyright holders, the highest loss of commercial value worldwide. To get the money and credit due to copyright holders is extremely hard, because many of these copyright in-fringements occur at servers outside the US border, such as the site Pirate Bay. This makes it difficult and expensive for American copyright holders to file lawsuits against the numerous online sites. As a solution, SOPA and PIPA, in essence, allows for these copyright holders to request Internet providers to block sites that spread copyrighted material.However the fine print reveals state-

ments in the bills that many people find far too radical and place far too much power in the hands of large businesses. For starters, the vaguely defined “copyright infringement” would encompass such

sites as YouTube and Wikipedia. While it is true that there is a great deal of infringement currently on these sites, both YouTube and Wiki-pedia work daily to take down pirated movies and information. These acts of removing copyrighted material have been brought about by an already ex-isting law called Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998. This law allows for a company to request a site to take down copyrighted mate-rial. The uploader of the material is in-formed of the request and may appeal their side. “If we were responsible, from the moment everything was uploaded, for everything everybody does, we would have to pre-read everything. It would take hundreds of employees, we couldn’t afford it. Wikipedia would not exist,” said Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales. But the text of SOPA could force sites to do just that. The most con-troversial portion of the SOPA bill is the provision that a company could “blacklist” entire sites rather than tar-get copyrighted material. The sites on the hit list would have only five days to remove pirated material otherwise the entire site would be shut down. Engraged Internet users have filed mil-lions of petitions in the past month or so, calling for Congress to “STOP SOPA”. Many people do not have an is-sue with the right of creators to protect

their mate-rials; it is the ease with which they can affect Internet sites that worries people. According to the SOPA/ PIPA text, there need only be “good faith” that

a site is promoting infringement to enforce the law on them. Included in the definition of promoting infringe-

ment is a link to another site that sells copyrighted material. In addition, the accused sites do not necessarily get a chance to defend themselves in court. A solution to the gaping holes in these bills could be to tighten the pro-vision’s definitions, or simply to throw out the bills. In America there has been a massive movement to stop the pass-ing of the SOPA and PIPA bills. As of Jan. 20, the SOPA and PIPA bills have been stalled in Washington indefinite-ly. “SOPA’s radioactive. Whether or not somebody wants to handle ura-

n i u m and pay the price that comes with holding it, the odds are no,” said Cali-fornia Congressman Darrel Issa. Besides SOPA and PIPA, other

bills of inter-est that combat piracy include OPEN and ACTA. OPEN was originally s u b m i t t e d by Issa, who had opposed SOPA. It allows for the accused site to defend itself before an i n d e p e n d e n t party, the Inter-national Trade Commis s ion . However, sup-porters of SOPA claim that OPEN is not strict enough and that the ITC does not have sufficient resources to deal with the mass of copyright in-fringement. O n

the other hand, opponents of SOPA may have found their compromise in OPEN. “Follow the money (that fuels

piracy sites), and get at actually what’s sustaining them, either through ad net-works or payment systems. And that’s what the OPEN act goes after. And it doesn’t have all of these other lawsuit capabilities and most importantly, all of these censorship capabilities,” said Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond. Another act is the Anti-Coun-terfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. This act is better known as the Europe-an SOPA, which could be a dangerous misconception. What is unknown by many Americans is that it is an inter-

national trade agreement signed by President Obama on

Oct. 11, 2011, alongside seven other countries. The provisions of ACTA could possibly become effective in the USA, although what influence it will have is not definite yet. ACTA does not only govern Internet and media material but also trademarked symbols and brands such as General Motors. Its goal is to create a universal copyright system. ACTA initial drafts were intro-duced four years ago, and the large world powers negotiated together the consequent versions. Now that the final draft of the agreement has been written it is evidently slightly better than the originals. ACTA now includes protection for the accused. However, it is “a more dangerous threat to Internet freedoms (than SOPA)”, said Lance Ulanoff, a writer at mashable.com. In the past, not much had been released about ACTA’s secretive ne-gotiations, which had enraged many Europeans into active protest. They demanded to know what was going on and to be informed of the changes made to the law. On Jan. 27, Kader Arif, a European Union Member of Parliament resigned in protest of the non-inclusive nature of the ACTA pro-ceedings. “This agreement may have a ma-jor impact on the lives of our citizens. Yet everything is being done to ensure the European Parliament has no say...

So today, in submitting this report in my charge, I would send a strong signal and alert the public about this unacceptable situation.” said Arif. Recently, Polish citizens attempt-ed to stop Poland from signing into ACTA through live and organized protests by both the public and Polish parliamentarians, who wore Guy Fawkes masks (the symbol of Anonymous). Of the already established provi-sions of the treaty is its statement allowing copyright holders to gain a warrant, pursue, and seize back goods from copyright infringers at and within the border of their respective countries. But what has also sparked protest of this treaty is that it does not provide a definite section for fair use.

Fair use, a system used in America but not the EU, is a person’s ability to take a copyrighted material, comment or draw inspiration from it, and share that comment with others, as long as he gives due credit to the original own-ers. An action that would fall under fair use is covering a song by an artist. Under ACTA, such actions are not defined as fair use and the vague provisions of the act could possible be abused by copyright holders or misin-terpreted by participating countries to form a style of censorship similar to the one feared from SOPA.

Continuing the fight for internet rightsHigh profile organizations protest SOPA and PIPA bills in nationwide internet “blackout”

Rajashree BhattacharyaStaff Writer

Photo by Jinny Jung

Supporters of free speech worry that, if the SOPA , PIPA, and related bills are put into effect, the first amendment rights of American citizens will be in peril.

The homepage of Wikipedia during the internet blackout.

politics2.16.12 page09

Romney’s decisive victory in Florida has swung the race around as it reestablishes him as the favorite for the Republican nomination, thus re-deeming Romney from his poor de-bate skills. It also places additional pressure on the other three GOP can-didates to reestablish their platforms in order to convince the American people that they can beat Romney.

What exactly does Romney sup-port, though? A candidate that has made himself well-known for his em-phasis on strong family values, Rom-ney has cast himself as pro-life in the exception of incest, rape, or when hav-ing the baby would come at a serious risk at the mother’s health. As for education, Romney sup-ports increasing standards for edu-cation as well as reforming schools that are performing below standards

into charter schools. On the other hand, he opposes teaching creation-ism in schools and instead believes that family values should be more emphasized in the educational system. Romney has opposed both same-sex marriage and civil unions, although he does support anti-discrimination laws to protect LBGTs in the work-place. In regard to healthcare and im-migration, Romney opposes provid-ing non-emergency health coverage for illegal immigrants, and supports increased health insurance portabil-ity and an emphasis on preventative care. He favors increased legal immi-

Jinny JungStaff Writer

The 57th presidential election will be held Nov. 6, 2012. So far, it is ex-pected to pit Democratic incumbent Barack Obama against an undecided Republican candidate. The GOP can-didates as of now include: Mitt Rom-ney, Newt G i n g r i c h , Rick San-torum, and Ron Paul. G O P C a n d i d a t e Mitt Rom-ney has been engaged in a neck-to-neck race with GOP candidate Newt Ging-rich; Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has spent millions attacking Gingrich, his chief rival, and he is also backed by super PACs. PACs, or political action com-mittees, are committees organized for the sole purpose of raising unlimited sums of money from private individu-als and large entities (corporations, unions, associations, etc,). The money can be spent to cam-paign for or against political opponents. Romney spent nearly $7 million on television ads prior to the Florida pri-mary, as opposed to Gingrich, who spent about $1 million. However, the super PACs supporting ei-ther candidates have spent a significant amount as well – Restore Our Future, the group supporting Romney, has spent $8.5 million, while Winning our Future, the group support-ing Gingrich, has spent $2.2 million. Romney’s Florida victory has turned the race into a wildly unpre-dictable one, as Romney defeated Gin-grich 46 percent to 32 percent. For-mer Senator Rick Santorum won 13 percent, and Representative Ron Paul fell far behind with only 7 percent. “It is now clear that this will be a two-person race between the conserva-tive leader, Newt Gingrich, and the Mas-sachusetts moderate,” quoted Gingrich in an interview with the Sun Times. Despite his defeat in Florida, Gingrich has shown no signs of dropping out.

The GOP presidential race heats up in the final months before the election

gration but wants to crack down on illegal immigration; he plans to de-port illegals, secure our borders, and refuse granting amnesty to illegals. On the other hand, Newt Gin-grich is more unorthodox, as he has established himself as a Republican that takes stances that differ from the traditional Republican positions. A sharp critic of the health care reform

bill signed by Obama in 2009, Gingrich de-nounces it as “social-ism” and favors a pri-vate reform approach which would reduce costs through less regulation, reduced

malpractice costs, and tax credits for the unemployed. In regards to taxes and deficit spending, Gingrich favors a reduction in government spending as well as reduced taxes on businesses. He also supports ending unemployment ben-efits in favor of replacing such benefits with worker training. On immigration, Gingrich supports increased border se-curity and has hinted at introducing some sort of guest worker program which would grant citizenship to

some immigrants. As for educa-tion, Gingrich has pushed for reform, calling for more accountability on teachers as well as more funding for science and math-ematics in order to keep Ameri-can competitive-ness growing. Regarding LGBT rights and abor-tion, Gingrich opposes gay marriage, gay adoption, and is

pro-life, although he shares Rom-ney’s belief that abortion should only be allowed in case of incest, rape, or when having the baby would bring significant risk to the mother. Now that the Florida primary has been completed, the Republican presidential race is about to become national. In February, seven states are going to vote, and Romney is well on track to win most of them. His oppo-nents have less money and resources, and will be forced to look for victories in other states before March, when twenty four states will cast their ballots.

Let’s Get Political

*Data compiled from only the AP Government and AP U.S. History classes on campus/all visuals credit to Nanxi Tang and Jinny Jung

daily

once a weeknever

2.16.12page 10 in-depth

-by Sunna Thorkelsdottir

in-depth2.16.12 page11

-by Katrina Jabbari

opinion 2.16.12page 12

Diaper Daze

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” As a child, what was your answer? Maybe it was something along the lines of a princess, an astronaut, an artist, a singer, an actor, and so on. I remember that for the longest time, whenever somebody asked me that renowned question that we all answered so as-suredly, I had always said I wanted to be an “explorer.” No specifica-tions, no details. It is what it is. I wanted to make a career out of literally roaming various jungles, forests, and other wild ecosystems. I watched a ridiculous amount of episodes of “The Jeff Corwin Expe-rience” as a child- what can I say? Now, that same question is brought upon us in the form of, “what do you plan on mak-ing a career of?” or “what do you want to do for a living?” Instead of answering with that sense of self-assuredness and a twinkle in our eye that we once possessed, we actually have to put thought into it and take many fac-tors into consideration. It’s not all about what would make us happi-est. That’s what it was about when we were kids; solely our happiness. Now that we are already begin-ning to form the foundations of what we will spend the rest of our lives doing, things are getting real- since when are we almost “adults?” Now we usually base our deci-sions off of income. It’s all about the money. Maybe you’re going to major in business and take it from there, maybe you want to be some sort of accountant or engineer. These careers are vital to the world, but what ever happened to adventure? Life is supposed to be this crazy story that you tell to your grandchildren when you’re older; what’s so crazy about being an ac-countant? What ever happened to being an astronaut or exploring jungles and finding new species of animals? What happened is, we entered the real world. The real world where taking risks can often be a little too risky for our own good. The real world where hav-ing a good life is for the most part, sadly based on how wealthy you are. Nobody wants it to be this way (unless you’re filthy rich, then you probably don’t mind), but it is, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We are forced to conform. Having our dreams come true would be freaking awesome, but it involves us taking that chance- the chance that we end up with nothing. As kids, we placed no limit on our dreams. We had so much con-fidence in ourselves, and we just knew we could make them come

true. As we get older, we don’t want to lose sight of what our heart de-sires, but we do simply because there’s always an obstacle or excuse. We limit ourselves. Something we are too afraid, or even too lazy, to try to overcome. Not to mention the chance that failure is a pos-sibility. Failure and rejection: the two things that really know how to make you feel like complete poop. Here’s another scenario you might have found yourself in as a kid. You’re chillin’ at the play-ground just doing what a kid does. Drinking juice, maybe sliding on some slides and what not. Sud-denly, from the corner of your eye, you see a kid who looks about your age approach the playground. You eye the kid from afar for a couple minutes, and you confidently walk on over. No introductions are nec-cessary; you are blunt and straight-to-the-point. “Do you want to play with me?” Just like that, you have made a wonderful new friend in less than 5 minutes. You dog, you. The concept of “friends” was so easy back in the day. We met someone, we were nice to them, we enjoyed their company, and we shared mutual trust in one another. That is what a friend was when we were kids, and that was that. No dif-ficulties, no strings-attached; nada. As for today, I can’t quite say the same applies. If we went up to ran-dom people and asked to be friends with them, we’d probably just get some really strange stares. These days, the concept of friendship and trust is a very sensitive thing. You’re considered lucky to have a couple of true friends, and they are the only people you run to. Why would you trust a stranger? Friends are select-ed wisely these days, and for good reason. Oh, time. How you have a way of complicating everything. Adults and children have their own distinct qualities. So what does that make us? Well. Most of us are just confused. We’re trapped in-between. We don’t con-sider ourselves children any lon-ger, but sub-consciously, we’re still transitioning. I am not a girl, not yet a woman (if you get this refer-ence, I love you). Personally, I feel like the teenage years are a con-stant struggle between wanting to be a light-hearted, worry-free kid again, and wanting to be an adult already, living on my own with as much freedom as my heart desires. What is most important to me, however, is channeling my inner kid. I am well aware that a teenager who acts like a kid is not considered mature or appropriate, and in many ways I agree. Picture yourself throwing a tantrum in a grocery store because your mom didn’t let you buy ice cream. You get on the floor and start bawl-ing, your world has come to an end. Yeah, not really what you want to be seen as is it? What I mean is, channel the good part of being a child, which is sometimes overlooked. Who says you can’t be mature but stay a kid at heart? I’ve come to the conclusion that both involuntarily and willingly, I will always remain somewhat of a kid, and I will have no regrets with this decision. So go on, bathe in the fountain of youth, dream limitless dreams, do not fear rejection; live like a kid.

Anna SchwarzStaff Writer

Katrina JabbariStaff Writer

As the long hours of the night pass the flickering comput-er screen becomes more attractive than the company of a close friend. It is due to the attractiveness of this machine that websites like Tumblr and Facebook were made as an attempt to replicate the feeling of be-ing connected and important among your peers. Never-theless there is no way to deny the usefulness of a network that connects e v e r y b o d y . When Fa-cebook was first created it was meant to be an online com-munity for the small Harvard population; how-ever, it has now grown and become so much larger than founder, Mark Zuckerberg, would have ever imag-ined. Throughout this explosive growth of Facebook the website has stayed true to its purpose to connect people. “I mostly use Facebook to con-nect with my friends online. I spend a lot of time chatting with them over the web,” said freshman Alejandra Planes. However, some stu-dents feel that Tumblr has just

as much to offer as Facebook. Tumblr is a social network-ing site where users can create blogs. Blogs do not necessarily have to be about yourself, and many pre-fer to base their blog on an interest. “I find tumblr to be better because you can express your feelings more or reblog pictures that picture how

y o u’r e f e e l -

ing,” said senior Aoi Shoda. And this is true. Facebook can be very restricting sometimes.“Facebook is a social networking site that I use to talk to others while I feel that I can talk about myself more on Tumblr. Tumblr is a blog that I can use to express myself,” said sophmore Chelsea Widjaja.Some examples of Tumblr sites include a blog called “Tastefully Offensive” that shares funny pictures, and blogs

by fans featuring their favorite idols. “Tumblr is where someone can connect outside of their small circle in real life and instead find someone with a blog that has similar interests or is just really funny, ” said sophmore Lucy Tang. Tumblr blogs can become a lot more widespread among the public than a Facebook page. Not everybody

uses it for this purpose, but many Tumblr web-sites are not solely for the purpose of sharing with friends. They can also be for sharing with the gen-eral public and finding different opinions or peo-ple with similar interests. H o w e v e r , some people decide to not use Facebook and Tumblr altogether. “Social Network-ing sites are not worth the time to sign up. There is not much to do on them, and a phone can contact friends just as easily as Fa-cebook.” said sophmore Tommy Seymour-Cozzini. There are a few disadvantages to social net-

working sites. One disadvantage that has affected almost every student at least once in their life is procrastination that comes with being on Facbook. Just talking with friends or posting sta-tuses can be really addicting sometimes and keep a student from doing his/ her homework for hours.Overall, social networking sites are really great for finding people with similar interests or sharing more about yourself, but they can often be addic-tive and divert from the real things that matter.

Every Feb. 14, people across the globe gather cards, candy, and gifts for their loved ones in celebration of the one and only, Valentine’s Day. But what exactly is too much as far as the lengths that people go to in order to show that special someone exact-ly how much they care? “I think Americans use Valentine’s Day as another way for us to over-spend. If you are a couple and you’re in love, why would you need a significant day to prove to a person you love them with a ridiculously expen-sive gift?” said senior Sierra Fleck. Each February alone, the U.S. sells approximately $2,000,000-3,000,000 worth of jewelry and $359,000,000 worth of flowers. Gifts on this holiday range from simple to intricate, cliché to creative, and cheap to expensive. A creative and heartfelt gift does a much better job at displaying your affection than generic objects that any-one could simply go out and by. Mate-rial things are nice, but Valentine’s Day is about communicating your love. “Creative gifts and dates mean

more to a girl than just a gift because you put more than just 15 minutes into it. It took you multiple days to set up the date, or have a creative gift, and make the experience for her a memory she will never forget,” said

junior Gabe Davis,

w h o plans on

taking his girl-friend out to dinner and taking her to watch “The Vow.” The biggest Valentine’s Day crowd-pleaser is clearly not an object. It is an experience. Most girls would take a date, or just being with that certain person, instead of a gift. Be passionate and get imaginative. Take that person’s interests and transform them into an

e x p e -r i e n c e . “Valentine’s day should be a day to enhance your love the most important way- the ways

money can’t buy,” said Fleck. If you don’t have a

special someone in your life, that doesn’t mean you have to spend the holiday alone with your cats. You can still work with what you have to make it a successful day. Hang

out with your friends Ben & Jerry and vent

about how much you loathe all the cute couples

doing cute things on this particular day. Just kidding-

but really, love isn’t specified to being only in a romantic sense;

people love their friends and family. “I plan on hanging out with friends and still making the day fun, although I think it’s a hall-mark holiday- you should show certain people you love them every-day,” said senior Christina Valdez. Express your love to them on this day by telling them why you love them, because you can never say that enough. The point is that whatever you choose to do, make it meaningful. It really is the thought that counts and whether you decide to just buy some-thing, or spend a romantic evening with your love- if it’s from the heart, it will do the job wonderfully.

Everyday I’m

Tumblin’How much do

Facebook and Tumblr

consume our lives?

Life ain’t just a box of chocolatesConsumerism going too far on Valentines Day

Visual

by K

endra

Woo

d and A

nna Sch

warz

Visual by Kendra WoodStudents around the world are consumed with thoughts of Social Media websites.

opinion2.16.12 page13A California conundrum

Marisa RodriguezEditor-in-Chief

Every year, around 400 seniors graduate from Leigh High School and move on to various 2-year and 4-year universities. Many students choose to stay in-state to cut down on col-lege tuition costs and the price of traveling back-and-forth from school. But with rising tuition prices for the University of California and Cali-fornia State University systems, go-ing to a public college in California is is not as cost affective as it seems. The price of tuition to attend a UC this school year was $12, 686, which is among the highest in the country. (The most expensive pub-lic university tuition in the country is $15,250 for in-state students at Penn-sylvania State University). The state of Cali-fornia spends around 52 to 55 percent of their an-nual budget on education (from pre-Kindergarten to Graduate school), which is a little hard to believe con-sidering how high tuition is for public universities. While researching possible schools to attend next year, it is evident that other states have more ef-ficient ways of spending their state budget, given that California public university tuition is among the highest in the country. Many states have cre-ated programs to help combat the ris-ing price of tuition, but the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs has awarded the state of Georgia the number one ranking in ac-ademic-based student aid since 1997. In 1993, the Governor of Georgia, Zell Miller created the HOPE Schol-arship (Helping Outstanding Pupils

Educationally) program to aid Georgia students in paying for their college tu-ition. The program has evolved heavily over the y e a r s , but as it currently s t a n d s , any stu-dent that g r a d u -a t e s from a HOPE-e l ig ib le h i g h

school in the state of Georgia with a 3.0 un-weight-ed overall GPA will have 90 percent of their tuition, room and board, and books paid for at any public university in the state. The program is funded by Georgia’s state lottery, which calls into question: why isn’t California using our lottery money for something like this? The California Lottery website states that 63 percent of the revenue is used to “attract and retain teachers,” but doesn’t specify what that actually constitutes. The California Lottery has given

about 23 billion dollars to public edu-cation since it was started in 1985. Of that money, the UC and CSU systems

have received only 7 percent. The lottery cur-rently contrib-utes to about 1.5 percent of the California public educa-tion budget. Why is it that a state like Georgia can af-ford to send a large majority of its students to college at al-most no cost, yet the Uni-versity of Cali-

fornia is strug-gling to stay afloat even with the raised price of tuition that seems to skyrocket each semester? The problem seems to lay in mismanagement of state money, which is much more far-reaching that just college tuition prices. None of the California state government websites were ex-tremely clear about where tax and lottery revenue exactly goes, which is certainly questionable. Instead of creating programs and

using state funding to help college stu-dents and their families with the hefty tuition prices that come with higher education, most California students rely on FAFSA (the Federal Applica-tion for Student Aid) for tuition-re-lated assistance from the government. For students who are choosing to attend a public university outside of the state of California, it is clear the state’s budget plan for education needs to be revamped—and quickly—before UC and CSU financial woes start to negatively affect the education that students pay so much to gain.

Alright, I feel like this is necessary. I’m not going to rant about how high school bullying is big right now and it’s terrible, we all know that, but the ones who do it aren’t going to change any time soon, point blank. But Jesus, people, can’t you be supportive of the people at your own school? Yes, I’m a leadership kid, and for those of you who hate on this, we DO call ourselves LEIGHdership, pun intended. And I’m proud. When this whole “anonymous” tumblr thing happened, we knew we needed to do something, anything, to at least address the situation so that people knew the leaders of their campus weren’t ignoring or, worse, avoiding the inevitable issue that is cyberbullying. We wanted people to know we cared. We spent the first fifteen min-utes of class discussing which road to take on all of this. We could be cliché. Make post-ers saying, “Keep your head up,” and “You’re beautiful!” But the sad truth was that people were angry and upset and confused as to who would do all of this, and we decided to embrace that and use it. Our posters actually had a lot of thought put into them. We used puns such as “Get off anon,” and other things that we thought related to the mood. They were simple, yet to the point. Nothing was too cheesy, and we were so proud of that. The nametag idea was thrown in maybe twenty minutes before lunch. We found the stickers, made the poster, and taped everything and set up tables and made a new music playlist all within an hour and a half. All of this so that a few people could appreciate what effort was be-ing made by our school to address a problem. All of this so that just a few girls could feel like they weren’t the only ones being bullied. All of this so that people realized they have more self respect and worth than ANYONE who is anonymous.We put thought and effort in to at least TRY to make an impact on some Leigh students.That night, I got home and went onto Facebook. At first, statuses were generally positive about the day, but then there were the rude ones.“Sorry, but stickers won’t change anything.” “If Leighdership wants to pretend they can make a differ-ence, let them.” “A rally isn’t going to change cyberbullying.” “That just made the issue even bigger, not bet-ter.” (And yes, I purposely misquoted these to a point so that I didn’t have to include names.)Well, you know what?I’d rather people say that what we did was ineffective rather than say we did nothing at all. Honestly, can’t we all just sup-port each other when we try to do something? I know somehow students from “other” schools will get this newspa-per and read this column and will try to be sarcastic about it or rub it in our faces, but I’m honestly sick of this, and it needs to be said: We have a great school. We suc-ceed academically, athletically, and socially we have so many amazing and diverse people. I’ve met some of the most talented and unique people ever at Leigh. So why don’t we have the school pride that we should? I know there are people who are just not interested in high school, and I accept that. But what about the people who have had so many oppor-tunities given to them at Leigh and

still say they hate high school?Be appreciative of everything Leigh has to offer.And speaking as a leadership student, we try so hard to get other people involved. When you get a notice from us in class to play a game at a rally or participate in an off-campus event, it’s because we respect you. We think you’re a great role model of our school and want you to inspire others to become involved as well.We don’t plan spirit days and weeks for attention or for recognition. We do it for you. For tradition at our school. To give kids a chance to come to school and look forward to some-thing, not just float from class to class aimlessly.Do you know how much it hurts when people diss on us for that? Just think about that. We’re do-ing all of this for YOU, stressing for months and months for YOU, and all for you to turn around and slap every effort we’ve made in the face. I know some of you aren’t inter-ested in what Leadership is trying to offer, but does that really mean you need to insult us? What part of you feels the need to lash out toward oth-er people when they’ve been nothing but nice to you? Seriously. I’m sorry. I know my columns are usually happy-go-lucky and in-spire people to do something they’ve never done before, etc, but this is what Leigh needs right now: a wake up call. It’s not just leadership. It’s ev-eryone. Start supporting people when they need it. Stop the stupid anony-mous cyberbullying. It’s not appreci-ated by anyone, and what are you get-ting out of it? Does it really make you feel that cool? By yourself, at your keyboard, with nothing better to do in your life than harass someone and not even own up to what you’re say-ing. Yeah, you’re super cool, dude. I’m lit-erally so jealous of you. And as my last words, I would like to say this: To anyone who was mentioned on that horrible Tumblr, whether what was said of you was true or not, you’re only human. We’re teenagers. We’re going to make mistakes. People will hook up with other people, go to parties and look stupid, get a bad grade in a class (or several), and you know what? That’s okay. No one’s perfect. We all mess up. So stop living in the past and caring about what other people say. Just do you. And now my challenge to all of you: Go home tonight and post a status about one thing, just one thing that you love about Leigh. Because pride has to start some-where.

Letter to the Editor Although routinely an ardent patron of student activism and achievement, I re-gret to write that I found December's edition of the Eleight to be overbearing, inac-curate, and not representative of the expectations of the Leigh High Community. The column "Boom, Roasted" has become a space for rants and attacks against Republicans and GOP Presidential Candidates. It is truly sad to see the newspaper adopt such a biased tone which has sounded through this column as it, since conception, has only ridiculed Republi-cans with satirical bits and remarks and has made no attempt at valid criticism of politicians. This column should either be relocated to the opinion page under a new title, one that asserts its purpose of mocking conservative politicians, or be revamped to perhaps alternate criticism from liberal to conservative politicians in order to achieve a balanced view. I believe that the newspaper fails in its mission to provide "honest, ethical, and accurate" coverage of the world with this column in its current form. I am not against mocking politicians, however, I believe that it should be done in a non-biased way that reflects a professional pose for a newspaper that could truly be exemplary if not for columns like this that provide no honest coverage and only propagate yellow journalism and contribute to misinformation in Leigh's student body. I thank you for hearing my concerns about the direction that the Eleight has tak-en and I hope that you can usher it back to a road of prosperity that does not go against its mission of "honest, ethical, and accurate" coverage and can gain acclaim as an honest source of news with diverse prospective and factual reporting.

Thank you for your concern regarding our December issue of The Eleight. We would like to address a few of the concerns you pointed out in your letter. The opinions expressed in Boom Roasted each month are meant to be satirical. It is not meant to be taken as “honest coverage” of Rick Perry’s campaign, or that of any of the GOP candidates. Because of the concern raised over the writer’s opinions expressed in Boom Roasted, we have decided to dedicate a section of The Eleight to reporting and analyzing equal views of the political landscape (see Politics, pages 08 and 09). Both liberal and conservative biases will be present in the Political section in order to “achieve a balanced view” that was believed to be lacking in the December Boom Roasted column.

Dear Travis,

Thank you.A concerned reader, Travis Lanham

Sincerely, The Editors-In-Chief of The Eleight

Dear Eleight Adviser, Editors, and Staff,

Visuals courtesy of Brittany Locke

Photos of University of Georgia

opinion 2.16.12page 14

Gotta get that good feeling Nicole Hamilton

Copy Editor

It’s no secret that listening to music can have a strong pull on the emotions on the listener. Listening to music with happy, uplifting lyrics will often improve one’s mood, while mu-sic portraying bleak or angry ideals can bring someone down. For some, crank-ing on their tunes is a way for them to calm down, and for others, it’s a method of moti-v a t i o n .

What is of-ten debat-ed, though, is whether music can also hold beneficial effects for education. At Leigh, s o m e t e a c h e r s believe that p l a y i n g music dur-ing tests and other periods of class helps the students to perform well.

“I strongly agree with that idea -- especially classical music.

It enhances critical thinking,” said English teacher Mike White. Clas-sical music has also shown to have a calming effect on students, as well.

“I think it keeps the students a little more focused,” said English teach-er Carol Leah-Martin. “I was supervis-ing detention, and I have to give some credit to Mr. White. We could hear his [classical] music through the walls, and it kept the detention kids quite calm.”

Many students also enjoy listening to music while doing their school-work, as well, as both a way to boost

their mood, and as a learning tool, granted that it’s the right kind of music.

“ S o m e t i m e s it helps me concen-trate, but other times it will distract me if it’s a song I really like. I’ll just want to dance around to it,” said sophomore Do-

minique Kelso.

In language classes, teach-ers will often play songs in the language the stu-dents are learn-ing in order to help them with their listening comprehension. Spanish teacher April Maiten, for example, would play Spanish songs for the class, not only for fun, but because of the e d u c a t i o n a l benefits, as well.

“I think it does, if you pick mu-

sic that won’t distract you, that you won’t just bop around to, and if it will help you do your work,” said Spanish teacher Martha Landeros.

For some students, listening to

music is vital for them, in order to help them concentrate on their schoolwork. A student with attention deficit disor-der (ADHD), for example, can often

use music to help them concentrate.

F o r some teach-ers, though, the clear benefits of music for their stu-dents often will not o u t w e i g h the risks in-volved due to the in-creased tech-n o l o g i c a l abilities of music play-ers in this day and age.

“There’s just too much opportunity for skulldug-gery,” said math teacher John Mote.

O v e r -all, it’s clear that

listening to music can have a posi-tive effect on the scholastic experi-ence of the students at Leigh. Be it a study tool, a mood helper, or simply for enjoyment, music has an intense pull on the attitudes and emotions of its listeners, and often for the better.

How music can influence your thoughts and attitude

Love and Lustin High School

How high school relationships define your high school career.

visuals by Mikayla Druhan

Chloe TamaroStaff Writer

college applications, li-cense tests, and all impor-tant final exams weighing on the mind of nearly every student, is jumping into a serious relation-ship while still in high school really worth it?Not only is high school stressful, but it is also a time of exploration and rebirth. Freshmen come from middle school still in the grips of hormonal mood swings and with a minimum level of maturity, and it is this very lack of maturity which the majority of high school students suffer

from that can result in the most serious consequences of being in a committed relationship while still in high school. “Having a serious relation-ship in high school is like build-ing a house without a foundation,” said junior Jeremy Pack, who would classify himself as a “casual dater.”An unstable foundation can lead to a troubled relationship, and while parents usually consider domestic violence a very adult concept, they ought to look more often for signs

of abuse in their adolescent children. According to “Choose Respect,” a nation wide program aimed at helping

visual by Anna Schwarz and Rajashree Bhattacharya

Senior Isabel Barrerra jams to her favorite tunes while writing down her homework in art class.

Music helps you stay focused and get work done.

adolescents prevent dating violence and develop healthy relationships, one in five high school girls has been physically or sexually abused by a dating partner.Most teen aged girls search for their “Prince Charming” when seeking a suitable high school sweetheart, a dream partner with whom they can cuddle and share hopes and dreams, while the majority of teenage boys hunt for a mate. The popular MTV show “16 and Pregnant” as well as the follow

up counterpart “Teen Mom” acutely depicts a negative consequence that can result from an overzealous high school relationship when the individuals involved are not fully mature and yet unable to be respon-sible in their actions. As for those cou-ples who do survive the tumultuous uncer-tainty a high school relationship? James C. Jobson author of “Seven Keys to Life-long Love” states in his book that “those who wed between 14 and 17 years of age are twice as likely to divorce as

couples who wait until their 20’s.”

and novels, which al-most singu-larly portray fairy tale re-lationships and happy e n d i n g s . What these movies don’t gener-ally depict, are the neg-ative conse-

quence s of being “ h i g h s c h o o l s w e e t -h e a r t s ,” with ev-erything f r o m p u p p y love to p romi se rings each s t u d e n t

defines the authenticity of their relation-ship and commitment level differently. However, with the pressure of

Walking through the overcrowd-ed hallways of school, it’s nearly impos-sible to not take notice of the seemingly star-crossed lovers at every turn. These couples seem oblivious to the world around them, gazing into each oth-ers eyes while leaning lazily against a locker as if their significant other is the only other person in the entire school. From “Twilight” to “Grease,”

these high school relationships have been the cornerstone of fascination for countless movies, television dramas,

2.16.12 entertainment page 15

Thunder roared through the air and lightening streaked across the dark Romanian sky. Rain came down in sheets, beating hard upon our bare rain drenched backs. Our breathing was heavy and our pants were snug against our muscular thighs. “We’ve been riding for one night more than sixty-eight nights! How much longer must we endure this torrential down-pour?!” cried out Little Piglet An-drew. Iron Belly Adam looked out on the stormy horizon and rubbed his belly in agony. His belly yearned for savory Roma-nian delicatessen beef. “We’re approaching the sur-rounding forest as we speak” said Iron Belly Adam. “The Evil Meatball Mistress can’t be far off!” I pronounced . We had been following her scat for almost three months. We finally had her trapped in a remote village and had been hiding in the outskirts of a forest since mid-night. Our plan was simple. We were to strike at dawn, for we had found her location: Togo’s Eateries. Our stom-achs were growling, but there was no time for that now. Our hunger would have to wait. Finally, the darkness came to an end, and we set out on our hunt. We crept slowly toward the entrance to the restaurant, trying with all our might to be silent. At the entrance of the sandwich

shop lay three tantalizing, meaty twen-ty-four inch pastrami subs, filled with over a pound of meat, with shredded lettuce, juicy tomatoes, and rough, bumpy pickled cucumbers. Not being able to ignore our hunger any longer we all lunged at the sandwiches. Sud-

denly the evil meatball mistress enchanted the sandwiches. Standing be-fore us stood three large, horrible hairy-fanged pas-trami minotaurs; pastramitaurs. They charged at us angrily while violently grasping their horns, grunting heavily. We drew our harpoons with haste and launched them straight into their sternums, rendering them completely decimated. Their enchantment wore off quickly which caused the pastrami-taurs to revert back to their original form. The witchtress was hunched in the corner, angry as a sloth with no knee caps or ears. “It seems you finally have me.

How about a little game almighty food warriors? If any of you can finish one of these monstrous pastrami subs in the allotted time (thirty minutes) I will give you a free t-shirt and a cer-tificate saying ‘I survived the Pastrami Pounder’ ...BUT, if you fail then you

each must pay me $22 and let me go.”

This seemed like a reasonable deal to us champions; we were still suffering from hunger pains. So we accepted the mean lady’s challenge and dug right in. To start off, we each cut our two foot sandwich into four six inch pieces and began eating. Each of us had a sim-ilar strategy to battle this monstrosity; just straight up eat it like any regular sandwich. While Iron Belly Soret is easily the

most consistent eater of our trio, Little Piglet and I are a little more radical. Van Brunt is all over the map, with his velocity coming and going in waves. I, on the other hand, eat at incredible speeds for a little while, but die quickly, with my speed plummet-

ing to zero. I r o n belly was struggl ing with the sandwich , constantly chomping away at the beast. Cheeks

bulging and jaw grinding, he reached out for water in despair...the sub had him parched. Little Piglet’s strategy was an interesting one. He first soak all the bread in lemonade and stuffed as much pastrami as possible in his mouth, si-multaneously. This lasted about fifteen minutes until he fell asleep. My strategy was all

mental as I moved the entire sandwich out of my view, and eat the pieces one by one. That way, I told my mind that I was only eating a six inch, and not to worry.But, after quite a while, we were all devastated. “Maaaaan, screw that evil sand-wich lady. I can’t have another bite!” said Iron Belly Adam. “Let her go...it’s not worth our lives. We will track her another day.” With only half the sandwich eat-en, he packed it up in its original paper wrapping and threw in the towel. Little Piglet and I were pretty even with how much we ate, both slightly more than half of the sandwich, with

Van Brunt narrowly squeaking out a win. We then went to release the lady, because we, as gentlemen, hold up our end of bar-gains. But before we could even let the witch go, we found that she had escaped our clutches and snuck out the back while we were eating. We were thwarted! For the first time, we as incredible food challengers, had failed. And

to make matters worse, we had been duped worse then the tale of Bottomless Pit Pete Dupin III. We had to catch her and find out why she loved to torment us and turn innocent beings into gnarly sandwich-es. The trilogy of the SandWitch ends...next month in the Eleight.

Adam SoretStaff Writer

Blayke LeachEntertainment Editor

Andrew Van BruntStaff Writer

Oh, the good ‘ol days, the days of “Boy Meets World”, “Courage the Cowardly Dog” and “Rugrats”. As we start a new chapter in the year 2012, it’s nice to stop and reflect on the past; childhood memories like nap time and boys being from Mars while girls are from Venus. Some of our generation’s fondest memories are from the hilarious, if not slightly cheesy television shows that we all grew up watching. All of these shows were a huge part of our childhood, we spent our time laughing along with them and learning things without even realizing it. Who can forget “Boy Meets World”? This hilarious show por-trayed a group of childhood friends growing up together from a young age all the way to adulthood. It was the kind of show you don’t see too often nowadays. It had best friends, a grumpy teacher/neigh-bor, and of course the ever present love interest. Back them it was the norm for shows to be like this, but for a lot of us it was a glimpse at something we all wanted. No one had a greater friendship than Cory and Shawn, a better relation-

ship than Cory and Topanga, or greater teacher than Mr. George Feeny. The Amanda Show taught kids that it was okay to be a little bit weird and to make fun of yourself every now and again ( not to mention it has one of the most said quotes “Meh-heh!”). All That was another good example of

kids just being fun and goofy. These actors and actresses did not take them-selves too seriously, and that was pos-sibly the best thing about them. “The shows these days show teenagers and kids using technology to have fun. The shows that we watched

as kids used imagination,” said junior Jessie Erickson Who can forget the hilarity that was Rugrats? This completely ridiculous show depicted tod-dlers, with bigger imaginations that some teenagers nowadays, going about their lives as only

toddlers can but always having an ad-venture. Back in the day the show young kids didn’t dare to watch by themselves was none other than Courage the Cow-ardly Dog. Other than the irony that is his

name, that most children probably did not get until they were older, this dog did the craziest things to save the

people he loved. Courage was always facing his fears to save his beloved mas-ter Muriel and her grump of a husband Eustice from all the supernaturals and monsters that tend to show up in at their house in Nowhere, Kansas. “...now Disney Channel and Nickelodeon don’t have any sentimen-tal meaning. We grew up watching these old shows but now the channels are so different we don’t bother watch-ing them [anymore],” said senior Hay-ley Wilson People who grew up in the nine-

ties are brought together by one com-mon factor, and no it’s not there age. This generational love for all that

is 90’s bring us together. It sounds so ridiculous but when you think about it these shows are such a vital part of our childhood, we all would have a complete differ-ent outlook on every-thing we do. “Even when I come home from school [now] I still watch [Spongebob]... From the first episode I saw I was hooked,” said Wilson We are the kids of the nineties. Most likely the last generation who

will remember all of these fantastic shows that were such a huge part of all of our childhoods. Reminiscing about early morning cartoons, and feeling nostalgic is something that this genera-tion will never lose. Next time you need a childhood pick me up, TeenNick plays reruns of all the classics in the wee hours of the morning. Record it and share it with your younger siblings or cousins, that way these timeless shows have a chance of living through another generation.

Caitlyn NurnbergOpinion Editor

Pastrami palooza

Rewind... Back to the 90’s

The 24 inch sandwich faces it’s best challengers yet

Cartoons from when we were kids: what we miss and what we learned

Photos by Kendra Wood

film since it began so abruptly. As Paige and Leo struggle throughout the film to recover her memory of their past re-lationship, the two fail to realize that they are developing a relationship that’s even stronger than before. As Tatum attempts to remake their once beautiful love story, he be-gins to question if she is capable of ever remembering the love she once had for him. Paige’s family relationships and high school ambitions deter her from Leo and back to her old life, which consists of her ex fiance Jeremy, a cor-porate tool. As she begins to push Leo away and return to her straight and

narrow ways, Paige uncovers a family secret that turns every-thing around. The story continues as the

troubled and mixed up

pair find their way back to each other once again. The movie has a much anticipated ending

entertainment 2.16.12page 16

Andrew Van BruntStaff Writer

Joseph VasquezStaff Writer

Alassandra MarquezStaff Writer

theflicks

ME CUS IM SWEET!

Maddy Kirsch

Staff Writer

YAY MOVIE!

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On February 7, 2012, three years after their Grammy-nominated, self-titled album came out, the band The Fray released their long-awaited fourth CD titled “Scars and Stories.” With Billboard Top 10 hits like “Over My Head (Cable Car),” “How to Save a Life,” and “Never Say Never,” the Christian rock band, made up of Isaac Slade (vocals and piano), Joe King (backup vocals, rhythm guitar, and bass guitar), Dave Welsh (lead guitar), and Ben Wysocki (drums), has once again succeeded in creating beautiful music with hard-hitting lyrics. The album consists of twelve different tracks with universal messages about love, loss, and adventure. It includes the addicting single “Heartbeat” which came out back in October. The chorus is catchy and the

“Scars and Stories”by The Fray lyrics are deep. Inspired by the Slade’s,

travels to the Rwandan genocide muse-um, the songs meaning of facing heart-ache and finding new love will touch you. Besides the bands most famous hits, I hadn’t listened to any of The Fray’s other music (hearing their song “You Found Me” repeatedly being played on the radio kind of turned me off) and I’m impressed with their work on this album. My initial feel-ings when hearing the album the first time around were kind of unsure, but I learned to enjoy the music more and more with each minute. Slade’s vocals travel through your ears and into your entire body and you get this wonderful surge of hope.A great thing about this CD is that it’s so easy to get caught up in the music; you can sit back, relax and shut the rest of the world out. You find yourself nodding your head to the relatable lyr-ics and catchy tunes. The lyrics are sim-ple yet genius and packed with deeper meanings about things that people ac-

tually go through in life, not like the pop songs about partying all the time that are brainwashing our generation. My personal favorites on the CD are “1961” and “Mu-nich”. The song 1961 is one of the faster songs and tells a story of a loss. Munich has such a seductive melody, the lyrics “hold my hand and now you’re not alone,” and “there you go, you’re paralyzing me and I don’t know why…the walls are shaking when you’re touching me, changes everything, when you’re close to me” are so allur-ing and you can’t help but want to sing along. Other great songs are “Run for Your Life,” “Rainy Zurich,” “The Fighter,” and “48 to Go.” My least favorite song is “Be Still,” simply because it is so sad, but even then it’s still a pretty good song. The piano-rock genre music is melancholic but also upbeat. The use of sound and

instrument variation in each song will keep you mesmerized. You get a sort of tingling sensation down your spine when hearing the allusive words and perfect rhythms. I think all teens could relate to most of the songs on this album. Growing up is a hard time and The Fray shows that they understand that

through their music with positive mes-sages. The band says they titled the al-bum so because physical and emotion-al scars are a map of what a person has gone or wants to go through. “People need experiences to write great stories” said the bands guitarist and back up vocalist, Joe King. Stories are conceived

through adventure, love, and loss, basi-cally really living life and not letting it pass by, and that is shown through-out the album. If you enjoy bands like Life-house, Augustana, Dashboard Con-fessional, etc., then “Scars and Stories” is for you; stop by any Target store and grab it for only $10, or even better, see the band live when they come to the Fox Theater in Oakland on Feb-ruary 20.

“The Vow”Directed by

Michael Sucsy

A love story to remember, or a marriage to forget? “The Vow” is a romantic melodrama that tries to make the audience fall in love with a couple in which the husband has to make his wife fall in love with him all over again. The movie stars Rachel Mc-Adams as Paige, a young aspiring sculptor, who is married to Leo, a recording studio owner played by Channing Tatum. It begins with the couple emerging from a Chi-cago movie theatre and continuing their night, driving along the icy and snow piled roads. The audience tends to anticipate the accident because pre-view for the movie revealed this scene.

A large semi-truck hits the couple’s car from the behind sending Paige fly-ing through the wind shield. The next scene cuts to four years earlier and be-gins to tell the story of Paige and Leo’s beautiful relationship. I found t h e r e l a t i o n - ship quite cute, particularly

when they marry spontaneously in the art institute of Chicago where Paige is currently a student. The use of flash-backs by, Mi-chael Sucsy were a good set-up for the

much like many others love stories, but it still has an original and heart wrenching style. The amazing chem-istry between Rachel McAdams and Chan-ning Tatum made the movie fun to watch and created a relation-ship between actor and audience, causing the viewer to yearn for them to fall back in love. The only down-fall to the movie is that at times it felt very forced and cheesy, which is to be expected from a heavily roman-tic movie. This caused

a lack of in-

terest on my part for a portion of the story. Overall its a solid chick flick, and guys, if you don’t want to see it, chances are that special someone will, so make it a date night.

“Safehouse”Directed by

Daniel Espinosa

The action thriller, “Safehouse” staring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynold debuted on Friday Feb. 10 and is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. The movie is about a rookie CIA agent, Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) finally getting his chance to prove him-

self when a rogue agent, Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), turns himself in after years on the run. During the interrogation, the safehouse is attacked and Weston is given new instructions: to keep Frost alive at all cost. In the film, Weston, after bond-ing with Frost, has to look at his own life and decide whether or not he wants to end up like Frost. Since Weston has the same job that Frost had when he went rogue it is made clear that the rookie is supposed to be a younger ver-sion of Frost. This part of the screen play gives the movie substance and makes it more than just your classic in your face action flick. Since its release the movie has been compared to the “Bourne” tril-ogy, but in my opinion it lacks the creativity and new style. “Safehouse” is more of an old-school thriller that uses car chases and gun fights to keep the audience captivated. As far as acting goes in this movie it is as close to perfect as it gets. Wash-ington and Reynolds work extremely well together in both the action scenes and in their witty dialogue. Both men are veterans in the action department and the experience shows. By using an older actor and a relatively young actor, two different generations

are connected. The movie almost sym-bolized a passing of the torch from Washington to Reynolds. This theory is backed up by the older brother fig-ure that Washington becomes, in the movie. A part of the film that is lack-ing is the psychological aspect that was hyped up in the trailer. Washington’s character is supposed to be a master of psychology and interrogation, but there are only a few scenes where he displays his skills. The movie moves fast and does not feel like the one hour and fifty-five minutes that it is. There are no dull moments and once the action starts, it doesn’t stop until the movie is over. While “Safehouse” isn’t the most origi-nal movie, it is still exciting and is well worth a trip to the movies to see it. The combination of great actors, an exciting plot, and an old school style of action make this film a true cin-ematic adventure. Overall, the movie was an above average action movie, but even though it is made for an enjoy-able time, it lacked originality in the plot and the intensity that we have seen Washington bring before. So if entertainment is all your looking for in a movie then this is the perfect movie for you.

2.16.12 entertainment page 17

Red Hot Chili Peppers Burn Out

When this year’s Red Hot Chili Peppers tour was announced, fans were overjoyed and ecstatic.Then things hit rock bottom for the con-cert and ticket holders got queasy stomachs. S u p p o s e d l y, lead singer Anthony Kiedis had injured his foot and it might affect the concert. More and more tears were being shed across the Bay Area as news spread. On Jan. 11, the official Red Hot Chili Peppers website posted a short notice: “Red Hot Chili Pep-pers regret to announce that they must postpone the start of their upcoming U.S. tour due to multiple foot injuries sustained by Anthony Kiedis. Anthony recently underwent surgery to remove a crushed sesamoid bone and correct a detached flexor tendon in his foot and is expected to make a full recovery.” For us Bay folk, that means that the concert scheduled for Feb. 17-18 would now take place late August. This

Adam SoretStaff Writer

“Chronicle”“A Different Kind of Truth”

as “You Really Got Me” and “Dance The Night Away.” Of course, no vin-tage Van Halen track is complete without hearing Eddie rip into one of his signature guitar solos, and he hap-pily abides, showing off an expertise with the instrument that can only be matched by the likes of Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton. “Blood and Fire” has less of the Van Halen trademark, instead pulling heavily from David Lee Roth’s solo work, very reminiscent of his 1985 solo album Crazy From the Heat. Roth’s vocals stand front and center during this piece, sounding much akin to the way they did in the 80’s (raising the question of exactly how

much touching up the album went through before being released). The song is clearly meant to feature Dave, as he even says during one lull, “I told you I was coming back, say you missed me,” alluding to his almost 30 year absence from the band’s record-ings. The band turns to a more acoustic note in the song “Stay Frosty” which can best be described as “Ice Cream Man” Part 2. It starts off with Roth

telling a story of a journey across the country in search of the answer to dealing with the world while plucking away on his acoustic guitar before Ed-die rips in with his own electric riffs, just as the duo did on “Ice Cream Man” 34 years ago. Van Halen faced a steep challenge living up to their own legacy, and in their first album release in 12 years does not disappoint. Roth’s vocals, despite his age, sound superb, and Eddie’s guitar sounds as good as it ever has. A Different Kind of Truth is the perfect way to get psyched up for the band’s tour, and is a must-have for any Van Halen fan.

A-

Thomas ViolaStaff Writer

From the mind of young direc-tor Josh Trank comes a supernatural movie much unlike any before it, es-pecially in recent years. No it does not include vam-pires, werewolves, or wizards, and it does not directly involve superhe-roes. But what it does have are superpowers, sus-pense, and a teen-age sense of fun. “Chronicle” primarily follows Andrew Detmer, a senior in high school who has a troubled home life with an ail-ing mother and an abusive father. He struggles with being the strange “loner kid” at school, and is continuously picked on. Andrew begins to hide behind his new found hobby, film-ing, and his cousin, Matt, attempts to break his defenses and open him up to the world. One night, at a huge party, Matt and Steve Montgomery, the “big guy on campus”, rope Andrew into coming with them into a myste-rious underground hole. Inside, what they find surprises them all and the audience does not get to see anything further, as Andrew breaks his camera. The film picks back up weeks later as the three boys find out that somehow, they have received some sort of telekinesis, allowing them to move

objects around them with their minds. At first, they try to hone the powers, pushing themselves as far as they can go before overuse causes severe nose bleeds. The more they use their gift, the stronger they get, soon allowing for much more freedom and much more responsibilities to themselves,

and to everyone around them. Emo-tions flare, and the struggle to hold back the strong powers they have been given begins to sever their relation-ships with others and even themselves. With a cast of mostly unknown actors, save maybe Michael B. Jor-dan from “Friday Night Lights” and other TV series, the acting is pretty spectacular. When a movie can instill several completely different emotions throughout its eighty- three minute plot (which by the way, sounds much short-er than it feels), either you’re a wreck, or the actors are doing their jobs well. This can also be attributed to Trank, whom, at 26-years-old, has had his first ever film debut at num-ber one around the world. Whether

it is a fluke or not is yet to be seen, but all eyes will be on him when his next project comes around. One major aspect of the movie that must be touched on is its rare, but not quite unique, style of filming. Shot from the perspective of Andrew’s vid-eo camera, the whole movie is filmed

through the lens. It was very interest-ing and believable throughout most of the movie, es-pecially as Andrew begins using his powers to float his camera to get a wider, “bird’s eye view” shot. Near the end, Trank starts to show the movie from other video lenses around the action, but this makes it, at times, hard to follow. But, in

my personal opinion, he found a way to better the “found footage” style, made famous by movies such as “Clo-verfield” and “Paranormal Activity”, and not only made it his own, but actually made it interesting to watch. Overall, I would recommend see-ing “Chronicle”, no matter who’s read-ing this. It cannot be strapped down to one genre and because of this, it appeals to many audiences, especially those of our age. The story, the action, and the actors bring about a fresh movie expe-rience that is worth watching whether you are into drama, suspense, super-natural, or just action packed films.

B+

Blayke LeachEntertainment Editor

Andrew struggles with containing his power.

Directed By Josh Trank

Visual courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Chili Peppers postpone entire tour due to a surgical procedure

by Van Halen

On Feb. 7, 1980’s rock ‘n’ roll icons Van Halen released their new-est original album since Van Halen III in 1998, titled A Different Kind of Truth. The album features original frontman David Lee Roth, recording with the band for the first time since the release of 1984. The album’s release coincides with the start of Van Halen’s 2012 World Tour, which will be coming to the Oracle Arena on June 3, and the

HP Pavilion on June 5. Like the up-coming tour, the album does not fea-ture original bassist Michael Anthony, opting instead for guitarist Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen. The album comes in two edi-tions: the standard edition, which features a 13 track set of entirely new original Van Halen jams, and the de-luxe edition, which also includes 4 “Downtown Sessions,” of the band’s hit songs “Panama,” “You and Your Blues,” “Beauti-ful Girls,” and “You Really Got Me.” A Different Kind of Truth is a brilliant exam-ple of classic Van Halen. When producing the album, the band returned to their roots, with blaz-ing riffs from Ed-die’s guitar, and Diamond Dave’s classic vocal sounds, some are even going as far as saying that it is the best sound the band has had since the release of their self-titled debut album. The setlist displays the wide vari-ety of musical talent Van Halen pos-sesses. From the raging solos of “Beats Workin’” to the classic harmonies of “Tattoo,” the band sounds like they are still in the shape they were in back in their heyday. The song “She’s The Woman” might as well have been recorded in 1979, as it perfectly captures the sound that made the band into a rock legend. The backup vocals of Eddie Van Halen sound identical to those he provided on famous tracks such

was awful news and for many was the source for much depression and violent behavior. “I was like ‘what the f#$%’ and pretty bummed at first, but then I viewed it as something to look forward

to in August, a good way to end my summer,” said junior Ellie Rizlenjani. Not everyone handled the news as well and in fact others were over-whelmed. “Oh, I was pretty upset. I entered hibernation for three days and nights, only leaving my bed to use the rest-room and drink protein shakes,” said senior Cooper Wilce. Although it is hard to react any

other way than hibernation, trauma-tized fans might find comfort in find-ing the silver lining to this dark storm cloud. “I was upset at first, but after thinking about it for a bit, I didn’t

mind because it gives me something to look forward to. And the summertime vibe will be nice, too,” said junior Sydney Clark. The short post was vague about the condition of the be-loved Kiedis’s injury. Why was he in need of surgery? What is a sesamoid bone? Why is this happening to us now of all times? The sesamoid bone that he shat-tered is the bone

connected to his big toe. If you’re a true fan, it shouldn’t be much of a sur-prise that this happened. His foot has been bothering him since the Stadium Arcadium tour in 2007. Basically AK goes “ham” on stage, jumps off of the drums, and it was only a matter of time before his poor sesamoid bone blew up. So mark your calendars because this August the Oracle is only going to be that much sweeter.

Photo courtesy of Dena Flows

sports 2.16.12page 18Call me “danger”

Every sport is dangerous to a cer-tain degree, but what classifies a sport as being at the top of this list? Many factors, such as the potential for injury and power of an engine or participant, contribute to the fatality of a sport. When it comes to how danger-ous a sport is, a great potential for injury is im-portant but so is the amount of power behind the vehicle or partici-pant. The speed and equipment used for protec-tion are also key. F o o t b a l l players are often faced with in-jury because of impact between players and the power behind this impact. This ag-gression can result in spine, neck, head and many other injuries. Some sports may not be con-sidered dangerous, or even con-sidered a sport, but they also can have a harmful aftermath. Cheerleading for example is viewed by few people as being a dan-gerous sport. However some experts would argue that cheerleading is the sport that causes most danger for wom-en. The height to fall from being tossed in the air could cause head and spine in-juries, and ankle injuries are common. Diving would not be viewed as a particularly dangerous sport, but it has its own dangers. According to Kim Bartel, Leigh High School art teacher and diving coach, div-

ing isn’t the most dangerous sport, but does have its own downfalls. “It’s a head trip,” said Bartel. “The biggest danger in diving is fear,” said Gabriela Taccir, a Junior who of-ten talks with Bartel about diving. Diving sometimes results in a bash of the head on the diving board, or wrist injuries from water im-pact. But according to Bartel the real danger is the fear of falling off that board, which could cause some-

one to second guess themselves and be injured in some dramatic mishap. A sport largely seen as dangerous is motocross. Motorcycle racing has branched off into many different forms, such as supermoto, motocross, super-cross, and freestyle, all dangerous sports due to their high speeds and some due to the potential heights to fall from. For motocross racer James “Bubba” Stewart injuries are common throughout the season. In fact, research has shown that 95% of Motocross rid-ers have sustained an injury. These in-juries are also related to the fact there is little protection for the rider. Although they wear helmets and protective gear,

impact sometimes overpowers this and causes terrible injury. Some com-mon injuries are broken collar bones, broken wrists, and broken ankles. Soccer is also seen as a danger-ous sport by most people. According to Michele Kennedy, Leigh’s girl soccer coach, the key ingredients for a sport to be dangerous are for it to be a contact sport and depending on the conditions of the field. Kennedy started playing soccer at age five and continues to play

today. She also played softball and volleyball. “I have broken three different bones, and I have torn my meniscus and medial col-lateral ligament. I have had three surgeries,” said Kennedy. B e -cause, like many others, Kennedy loves playing soc-cer, she overlooks the dangers and injuries of it in order to continue what she loves.

A large part of danger for an ath-lete is the constant want to play or ride or race even after injury. But the amount of injuries for a sport is not the only thing to be con-sidered because that amount relates with the popularity of the sport as well. The more dangerous the sport, the least amount of average citizens should be participating. The sport should rely on a large amount of sacrifice to do what you love no matter the circumstances. What do the more dangerous sports have in common? A danger-ous sport has up-front competi-tion with other players, causing the aggression which leads to injury.

Julie ThompsonStaff Writer

Just keep swimming:

On Tuesday, Feb. 28, from 3:30p.m. to 5:30p.m., the Leigh Swim team will be holding a “swim-a-thon” to raise funds for the team. Swimmers are being asked to collect “pledges”, or promises via signatures from friends, family members, or com-munity members to donate a certain amount to the team; this amount be-ing based on the number of laps that the team member swam that day.

Christopher WymanBusiness Manager

Redefining risk when it comes to sports

On Feb. 5, 2012, the New York Giants became NFL Cham-pions, defeating the New Eng-land Patriots to win the famous Vince Lombardi Trophy…again. 4 years ago, the Giants journeyed to the desert of Glendale Arizona to take on an undefeated Patri-ots team that many believed were destined to complete the second perfect season in NFL history. The Giants were 16 point underdogs, and had fallen to the Patriots in Week 17, 38-35. In the final minutes of the game, Eli Manning drove the Giants down the field, connecting with wide re-ceiver Plaxico Burress to gain a 17-14 lead over New England, earn-ing them the NFL Championship.Watching Super Bowl XLVI, I couldn’t help but succumb to a feel-ing of deja vu. Manning got the ball back with around 3 minutes to play, and had to drive the Giants down-field for the winning score again? Couple it with a spectacular catch by Mario Manningham that kept the drive alive (although not quite as amazing as David Tyree’s helmet grab in the first meeting) and I almost thought NBC had sim-ply decided to replay the old game. This time however, there is more to the game than there was 4 years ago. The story of this game was ac-tually a combination of many smaller threads, woven together to create the fabric of one of the greatest Su-per Bowl tales in recent memory. While in 2008, Patriots quar-terback Tom Brady was playing for a chance at history: the first 19 win season in NFL history. This time, it was Manning play-ing for history. With the win, and his second Super Bowl MVP award, Eli now has double the amount of rings as his brother, Peyton, who is argu-ably the greatest quarterback ever to play professional football. At the start of the season, Eli was asked if he thought of himself as an elite quarter-back. On Sunday he finished proving it. His critics have gone from asking if he was elite, to asking when he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. But a championship caliber team is not built around a quarterback alone (one of the reasons Peyton only has one ring). The story of the Giants team as a whole this season is one lit-

tered with strife and hardship, which would cripple most teams. By the time they made it to the Super Bowl, the Giants had 12 players from their start-ing line up on the injured reserve list. Their season very much re-minded me of the run the Green Bay Packers made to get to the Super Bowl last year. The Packers had 15 play-ers on the injured reserve list, and limped into the playoffs as a bottom seeded wild card team. In the last few weeks of the season, they suddenly managed to get hot, and they rode that success all the way to victory. The Giants found themselves staring down the barrel of a 7 game losing streak, going into a game against their co-tenants in MetLife Stadium, the New York Jets. One play, a 99-yard touchdown by wide receiver Victor Cruz, changed their season. They defeated the Jets, and launched their way to a 3 game win streak, cul-minating with a showdown against the Dallas Cowboys for a playoff spot. The Giant’s success continued through the playoffs, and they proved themselves to be the best team in the league, defeating the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers on the road, ending their journey in stunning fash-ion against the Patriots in Indianapolis.But with every game, there is a winner, and a loser. For New England, this is the second time they have fallen to the Giants in the championship game. Last time, it marked the begin-ning of three seasons without a play-off victory. This time, I believe the consequences will be much worse. This season, Tom Brady and the offense, particularly tight ends Aaron Hernan-dez and Rob Gronkowski, carried the Patriots throughout the year. They sported the worst ranked defense in the league, and were stretched so thin they actually had to start wide receiver Julian Edelman as their #3 cornerback. If they want to have any hope of remaining dominant in a pass-heavy NFL, New England’s front office has to make some major changes on the defensive side of the ball immediately.It is entirely possible that this loss has marked the beginning of the end for the dynasty the Patriots have built over the last decade. If the New York Jets can solve their in-house problems this off-season, or the Miami Dolphins can figure out how to play more than just half of a season, the Patriots could find themselves fighting for a wild card spot next season, or even watching the playoffs from home. Nonetheless, another astounding NFL season has come to a close, and free agency is about to begin, prompting questions such as: where will Peyton Manning play next year? Who will come out as winners of the NFL Draft? Which team will become a dominant force in the NFL next season? Nothing left to do now except wait and see where things go in the first post-lockout offseason.

Leigh’s 2012 Swim-a-thon plans to make a splash “I’m really excited, because this is a great opportunity to raise some much needed funds for the team. The equipment we have now defi-nitely could be replaced and raising this money will help us get some new equipment, and it will help to pay for our parkas,” said junior Evan Foote. Last year, the swim-a-thon raised more than three hun-dred dollars for the swim team. This money goes towards buy-ing new equipment to replace the aging swim team equipment. It will

also go towards buying warm parkas, perfect for cold swim meet mornings. This type of event has been fairly popular amongst the team members. “I really enjoyed doing the swim-a-thon when I was on the team. It was a great bonding experience for the swimmers on the team, and the com-munity support to help us raise the money was amazing, I think that if I hadn’t enjoyed swimming in high school because of things like this I wouldn’t swim in college now,” said former Varisty swimmer Jamie Ricklin.

Photo by Nikita ZakladnyiMotorcross is a sport that is often seen as being incredibly dangerous.

Bandwagon Fans: sports2.16.12 page19

Look up “faithful fan” in the dic-tionary and you’ll see a picture of me. Being a fan of a sports team is more than telling people you like the 49ers or the Raiders. It’s living and breathing that team every day of your life. Win or lose, you are faithful to that team. Faithful fans truly care about their team and it pains them when their team loses. Then there are bandwag-on fans. The scum of the sports world. Living off the highs of any sports team they can find. All faithful fans resent them. Faithful Raiders fan Jonathan Son said, “They piss me off,honestly. Its like now all of a sudden they like a team just because they’re winning and just because kids around them like the team. I mean I’m a loyal raiders fan and I didn’t cheer for the 49ers or jump on their bandwagon. Its sad that kids just jump from team to team like that, and then they have thousands of excuses. And then in 2013 when the Raiders win the Su-perbowl they’re all gonna like the Raiders.” Raiders in the Superbowl? That’s a little far fetched but Jona-

than’s point is still clear. When the idea of bandwagon fans is even men-tioned faithful fans begin to see red. They despise the vermin that crawl

from one team to the next. Faithful San Francisco Giants fan Alexandria Canales said, “They annoy me, because most of them or a good majority root for the teams that constantly win. For ex-

new found team to friends. Then when the terrible happened and the 49er’s lost to the New York Giants the bandwagon fans disappeared

leaving only the true fans to mourn the loss of their beloved team. I have been a faithful 49ers fan way before the bandwagon fans infested them, back when they had a .500 and be-low record eight years in a row. Now

ample, there were so many 49er fans this year. Where were they last season when they sucked?!” Precisely, the 49er’s sported a

6-10 record last year and turned their play around to reach a surprising 13-3 record this year. Naturally the plague of bandwagon fans swarmed the flourishing team, posting Face-book status’s and talking about their

that the season has come to a heart wrenching end I still remain faithful. At times it sucks being a faithful fan, but in the end it is always worth it. No matter how long it takes for your team to reach greatness, the wait makes the victories so much sweeter. This makes one wonder what drives bandwagon fans to do the un-speakable. To have no confidence and no morals. Senior Sassan Caspiani, a Saints fan, said: “ Because they like to have the good feeling of winning but they can’t handle the feeling of losing. They want to conform to whats popular because they think it will make them cooler.” Bandwagon fans are a rampant problem in all sports ranging from Baseball to Soccer. They are exiled by faithful fans and yet they hide in the ranks of all fan bases. Slithering around from team to team hoping they will not be seen as the fake fans they are. If there is a solution to stop bandwagon fans from infesting every successful team it can not be found soon enough.Philadelphia Eagles fan and Bra-nham senior Nicholas Silva said:“They make me feel like punching them square in the nose because they weren’t cheering for them when they weren’t winning.”Well said. Bandwagon fans may never be understood, but there is one thing that is for sure. All faithful fans de-spise them in ways unimaginable.

Sean HillerStaff Writer

Pride in the bay, or fans for the day...

Caption for these other pictchaaaas Visual by: Anna

Spring in full swing Spring has sprung, and with warm weather comes a plethora of new sports for the spring season at Leigh. Dust off your cleats and slip on your swimgear, because eight new warm-weather sports are just around the corner this semester. Our spring sports this year are the same as they have been in past years. The roster consists of coed varsity bad-minton, boys JV and varsity baseball, coed varsity golf, girls JV and varsity soft-ball, coed JV and varsity swim and dive, boys varsity tennis, coed varsity track and field, and last but not least,

boys frosh/soph and varsity volleyball. Swim and dive meets will be start-ing on Feb. 18 after the conclusion of the girls soccer season on Feb. 17. Students making the switch

from win-ter to spring sports have enjoyed play-ing on winter sport teams, but are in general eager to start anew. “The school doesn’t al-low us to participate in practice for one sport if we are al-ready in another, so if you made the dive team but

are already on the soc-cer team, like me, you can’t take part in dive practice until soccer ends,”

explained sophomore Whitney Sasao. “Soccer is a lot of hard

work, but it’s fun. I’ll miss soc-cer, but I’m excited to start dive,” said sophomore Makenzie Mankin. Boys baseball started playing games on Feb. 14. When they are not on the field competing against other schools’ teams, the team is quite preoc-cupied with a rigorous practice schedule.

They are required to practice every day of the week from 2:30p.m. to 5:30p.m..

“Prac -tice is a good workout; it’s pretty in-tense,” said

s o p h o m o r e Paul Hall. “We definitely have a strong team this year.” With as large of a team as ever with between forty and fifty athletes begins practice for the track and field

team. Track and field started practices on Monday, Jan. 30, and will continue to meet until the end of April. Practices are every week day, and sometimes Sat-urdays, from 2:30p.m. To 5:30p.m. “We have lots of different events during meets for people with different

talents. For ex-ample, we have separate events for sprinters and long-dis-tance runners,” said sophomore Claudia Haidet. “We have lots of meets, and someone can get kicked off the team for miss-ing just one.” A l -though most sports have

already started at this point, stu-dents are encouraged to try out for those that have not started yet.

A diver performs a backwards flip off of the diving board.

Aoi Shoda practices her badmit-ton serve.

Badmitton players work to perfect their playing during prac-tice in the gym.

The spring sports season takes off

“Bandwagon fans” jump in on the hype around teams that are doing well simply to bask in the glory of a popular, success-ful team, and are often scorned by long-time fans.

Visual by Anna Schwarz

Kylie BrownEditor-in-Chief

Photo by Anna SchwarzPhoto by Rajashree Bhattacharya

Photo by Rajashree Bhattacharya

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