On May 3, the Intel Corporation named Lynbrook as one of 18 finalists in the 2011 Intel Schools of Distinc-tion Award (SODA) program.

Each year, Intel recognizes various U.S. schools for their achievements in providing exceptional math and science programs through innovative teaching methods. The Foundation judges each school based on a combina-tion of student achievements, involvement and support from parents and the community, overall school learning environment and more.

Three schools are selected as finalists in their respec-tive levels—elementary school, middle school and high school, in the areas of math and science. The Schools of

The girls crouch down close to the floor. “Hike!” screams the quarterback, and the ball is snapped to her. Meanwhile on the sidelines, guys holding pom-poms scream out chants to support the teams. What may seem

like a fantasy to some has become a reality at Lynbrook through the tournament called Powderpuff football.

Powderpuff is a traditional girls’ football game which originated in Connecticut in 1972. The week-long tourna

Kicking off new traditions

Clockwise from top: Dana Rothwein (10) punts the ball to the seniors, Sameer Kausar (11) is tossed in the air for a stunt, Liane Wang (12) and Jessica Huang (12) runs the ball for a first down, Jennifer Youm (11) rushes down the field, sophomores and seniors line up for the snap, Anna Bechley (9) kicks a field goal.

School receives “Intel School of Distinction Award”

by austinYU & sonikaSUBRAMANIAN

by joySHEN Distinction winners are recognized for their outstanding contributions towards preparing the next generation of innovative leaders.

The 18 finalist schools will compete in a final judg-ing in Sept. at Washington D.C., to determine the six category winners. All finalists will receive a cash grant of $5,000, with the winning schools receiving double the amount. In addition, one school will be chosen as the “Star Innovator,” and will receive $25,000 from the In-tel Foundation, as well as additional prizes and services from the corporation.

Earlier in the year, science teachers Amanda Alonzo, Joanne Quan and Assistant Principal of School Climate Sydney March gathered and began assembling the grant application.

Past Intel Schools of Distinction Award winners and finalists have been math and science magnet schools—schools with specialized courses in the two particular subjects.

Principal Gail Davidson says, “To me it is just a phe-nomenal accomplishment as a public school in a com-munity, with all the kids being able to be recognized like this.”

In Sept., a team consisting of Davidson, Alonzo a school board member and Superintendent Polly Bove will travel to Washington D.C. to meet other Schools of Distinction finalists, politicians, and various science leaders. The team will attend also attend an Awards Pre-sentation on the last day where the final winners in each category will be announced.

see POWDERPUFF pg 14

PHOTO SECTION—EPIC

Classes compete in reinstated Powderpuff tournament

While Lynbrook is often recognized for its achieve-ments in math and science, this year, a campus business club has something to be proud of as well.

Of the 14 Distributive Education Club of America (DECA) students who attended the International Career Development Conference (ICDC) this spring in Orlando, Florida, senior Jason Jia placed first in the Principles of Business Administration and Management division. Fi-nalist senior officer Dennis Zhao and senior Quentin Hsu placed in the top 20 in the Principles of Finance and En-trepreneurship and Participating-Independent divisions respectively. All competed with over 160 other people in each of their divisions.

DECA focuses on marketing, finance, hospitality and management development for high school students through an annual convention and competitions.

Three annual competitions take place each competition season: a non-qualifying Northern California convention, a States level convention, which determines the qualify-ing of members to participate in the last convention of the season: ICDC.

Jia says placing first in the Principles of Business Administration and Management division for first year members, which includes taking a written test covering the basic concepts of management and an impromptu role play for a randomly given scenario, was an unexpected surprise. “However, as they called my name as first place the initial surprise turned into excitement and a sense of accomplishment,” he says.

Jia’s preparation for ICDC included attending the study sessions, taking classes, multiple practice tests and listen-ing to advice given by their Fremont advisor, Daryl Ol-sen. Reflecting upon the competition atmosphere, Jia says, “Everyone I met was supportive as we all wished each other good luck and showed mutual respect since we all worked hard and deserved to be there.”

Next school year, Mike Pakaluk will replace band di-rector John Felder, who will be retiring after 19 years of teaching. Pakaluk, who is currently the band director at Cabrillo High School in Lompoc, California, was chosen after the administration looked through 68 applications.

“We were looking for someone with experience and somebody who would be able to direct all the bands at Lynbrook,” says Principal Gail Davidson. After an inter-view with a panel of administrators, it became clear that Pakaluk was very qualified for the job. Says Davidson, “He’s absolutely passionate about music, and he’s very much a practicing trumpeter.”

Felder decided to opt out of the decision making pro-cess; “I was afraid that there might be some friends of mine applying, and I didn’t feel comfortable with that,” he says. But Felder made sure that someone with musical knowledge was involved in choosing his successor. “I rec-ommended to Ms. Davidson another band director [to help with the process] and she was great,” says Felder.

To help ease the transition between band directors, Pakaluk has met with band students several times. His initial impressions of Lynbrook were very positive. “I was extremely impressed by the level of talent and excellent

DECA students place at international tournament

Pakaluk to succeed Felder as new band director

by laurenTAI Zhao competed in the Entrepreneurship Participating-Independent business branch division while placing as a top 16 finalist. Zhao’s competition included writing an 11 page business plan and delivering a 15 minute presenta-tion to a panel of judges.

President of DECA, senior Robert Kang, says that the club is structured in partnership with Fremont High School’s DECA. Kang says, “We only have an in-room advisor and travel with Fremont.”

Kang travels between the Fremont and Lynbrook in order to bring back information to the Lynbrook DECA club. Training, studying and practice events are also held at Fremont High School. Club officers contribute by sit-ting down with each first year member and mentoring them throughout the season.

With the help of the Olsen, Zhao says, “I started from a blank word document and worked my way from there to the powerpoint and presentation.” Zhao finds ways to uti-lize the benefits of the experience and says, “It doesn’t fo-cus on your ability to memorize facts, but instead the thrill of the moment and competition. I use the skills I learned in other places such as negotiating, meeting other people and socializing.”

Hsu, who is also a first-year member of Lynbrook’s DECA, says he joined the club because “DECA offers role-play events, which is a different approach in testing business knowledge,” compared to other business clubs on campus. Hsu competed in the Principles of Finance divi-sion at the ICDC.

Hsu was assigned the same test as Jia, as all other principle events. He says, “My role-play scenario was explaining accounting statements and their importance to the company. The combined score of these two events are what is used to determine top 20 finalists.”

This year completes DECA’s third year on campus. Kang, a three year member, says, “Building the club was hard; it was built from nothing. I am most proud of being able to see the club grow.”

training students displayed. They were very respectful, po-lite and attentive, and I appreciate that,” he says.

The Band Department is very optimistic about the com-ing years under the new band director. Juniors Allison Tani and Daniel Nishijima had a chance to eat lunch with Paka-luk. Says Tani, “I’m really excited. I think having a new, young director is a way to give life to band.” Nishijima adds, “He’s like a younger Doc.”

Although Pakaluk has many goals for band, he plans to focus on transitioning next year to keep the band program strong. “This first year I’m going to take things where Doc left off,” he says. In the future, however, he may start an AP Music Theory class (he started such a class at Cabrillo High School three years ago), and also hopes to become more involved in jazz band. “I’m really into jazz,” he says, “The jazz band at my school has gotten pretty good, and I would love to get more involved in the band here.”

Whatever changes come in the future, Pakaluk, who has a Masters degree in trumpet performance, is ready to take over for Felder. He says, “My program will be based on what I believe will help the students and what the students want, based on their feedback.” Felder is confident that Pakaluk will continue to pursue excellence, saying “He’s very intent on having a great program, and that’s what I wish for Lynbrook.”

by yasmineMORTAZAVI

New band director Pakaluk vists his future students.

DANIELLE LERNER—EPIC

DANIELLE LERNER—EPIC

Whooping cough vaccination to be required for 2011-2012 school year

California is now seeing the worst whooping cough epidemic in 50 years, which has prompted the state to pass AB 354 in Sept. 2010, requiring all students in grades 7-12 to produce proof of immunization for whooping cough in order to attend the 2011-2012 school year.

Whooping cough usually starts with a sore throat with a mild feeling of tiredness and being unwell. Within two or three days, it turns into a dry cough. Major symptoms include choking coughs that last from one to two minutes. “Whooping” is a noise that comes from the voice box when the sufferer is suddenly able to take a breath in again.

“AB 354 was passed in an effort to help reduce the spread of Pertussis among California’s youth. The new legislation responds to a rise in reported cases of Pertussis in California and across the U.S.,” says Bettylu Smith, the Public Information Officer for the Fremont Union High School District.

The state of California will be enforcing the law strict-ly. However, in many districts statewide, only 1 out of 10 students are vaccinated.

It was discovered that a Lynbrook student had con-tracted whooping cough before spring break. Notices were mailed out to the classmates of the student. According to the letter, this may be the first incident of whooping cough at Lynbrook.

In the case of Pertussis, Smith says, “the school prompt-ly reports this to the county. The county then confirms the report through contact with the student and family and/or the student’s family physician. If Pertussis is confirmed, the individual is prescribed antibiotics, as are other mem-bers of the household.”

Students should turn in the required documentation to the office by the first day of school next year. There will be no grace period and the regulations will be strictly en-forced. Exemptions will only be granted for verified medi-cal conditions or personal beliefs, but official documenta-tion should still be completed.

Drama department visits Ashland

Reller resigns for following year

by eeshaKHARE

by noorsherAHMED

Standing in front of the Leadership class a few weeks ago, Lynbrook’s current Assistant Principal of Activities for three years, Ellen Reller, announced her decision to leave her current position at the end of the school year.

Though it came as a surprise to many, Reller says that the decision was made after much deliberation. “I wanted to change jobs so I could work closer to [home in San Francisco] and not commute so much,” she says.

As her last mark on Lynbrook histo-ry, Reller plans on finalizing some proj-ects, including creating a staff hand-book for advising clubs and finalizing club leadership and advisers for the next school year. However, Reller says, “The work of an Assistant Principal is never quite done; there’s always something else to do. That’s something my replacement should remember,”

Although many will remember her best as the per-son to go to for Lynbrook events, Reller is most proud of creating a 35-member Leadership class. She says, “Before, we only had 11 people on Leadership repre-

This year, the Drama Department attended the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon from May 20 to 22 to learn more about various theater techniques, visit workshops, go on tours, and watch full scale live produc-tions. “There are so many wonderful productions around the Bay Area that students rarely find time to see. Why see these productions? Simple, because they are beneficial,” says junior Helen Cassel.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is an internation-ally acclaimed theater festival that has been around since 1935. Drama students joined many other theater enthusi-asts to watch many of Shakespeare’s plays on an Elizabe-than stage including Measure for Measure, Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid, Tony Award winning August Osage County and a new play called The Language Archive. Dra-

ma Department head Laurel Cohen says, “Our students can learn theater appreciation [because] they are exposed to both classical and modern productions and experience workshops lead by the actors and directors themselves.”

Drama students learned about various aspects of theater such as lighting, stage direction, dialogue and many other techniques. They hope to implement what they learned in their future drama productions.

Sophomore Neha Venkatesh, a member of the Thespian society and advanced drama class, says, “One of the best parts was to watch professional actors, which taught me how to truly embody the character I am portraying.”

Many other students used this trip not only as an oppor-tunity to experience first class theater, but also, as fresh-man Barbara Jackson puts it, “to build new relationships to drama. When I bonded with and got to know all my fellow drama people, I started to love drama at a different level.”

senting the entire school, but as Lynbrook grew, that number wasn’t enough to represent all of our students. Now we can tackle many more issues and try more new things at Lynbrook that we weren’t able to do before.”

Junior Alan Chung, currently a member of Leader-ship and next year’s ASB Social Manager, says that the

class Reller helped to create will be quite different without the “knowledge and experience that she is able to input upon our daily decisions and plans.”

An interview panel, which will have representation from school, district staff and the student body, will be the next stage in screening the 96 candicates who have applied to the position. Principal Gail Davidson says, “We are searching for someone with the passion and expe-rience to work with student leaders, and the vision to acknowledge the many dif-ferent ways that all students can be ac-

tively involved at school.”Reller understands the importance of dedication

to the student body. She says she will miss “so many things [about Lynbrook], especially the students,” but she hopes to continue serving students no matter where her job takes her.

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY EESHA KHARE & IRENE HSU

by candyCHANG & gloriaLIN

Pops Concert

The Music Department will be hosting the annual Pops Concert on Wednesday, May 25, and Thurs-day, May 26, starting at 7:30 pm in the auditorium and ending at 9 pm. The seniors will perform a skit with a secret theme at the end of the night. A small selection of the many songs the bands will play in-cludes Wildnights, Ride and Symphonic Dances.

Alumnus visit

This Friday, May 27, Lynbook alumnus from the class of 2010 Kavya Shankar will be visiting Lyn-brook and will be putting on an informal presen-tation in the College and Career Center. This pre-sentation will be held during 2nd period, and is for students who are interested in learning her personal perspective on Ivy League education and Harvard University, of where she just finished her first year.

USAMO qualifiers

Out of the 64 students who qualified for the American Invitational Mathematic Examination (AIME), there were eight qualifiers for the United States of America Mathematics Olympiad (USAMO) and eight qualifiers for the United State of America Junior Mathematics Olympiad (USAJMO).

Students took this test on April 26 and April 27 in the Lynbrook library and freshman Julia Huang qualified for the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program, which will be held in Nebraska.

43rd Junior Photography Contest

At the 43rd Junior Photography Contest, spon-sored by the Photographic Guild of Los Gatos Junior Photography, five Lynbrook students won awards.

Senior Alex Drabovskiy won first place for senior portfolio; sophomore Frank Wang won second place for photojournalism; sophomore Jack Takahashi won second place for animals and honorable men-tion for nature; senior Ashley Tsai won third place and honorable mention for architecture; and junior Danielle Lerner won third place for photojournal-ism. These entries and other winning entries can be seen at www.pglgef.org.

ISEF

Seniors Raymond Yu and Linda Xu qualified for the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) after winning first place in the category of Environmental Sciences and Physics and Astrono-my respectively.

Additionally, Yu qualified for International Sustainable World Energy, Engineering and Envi-ronment Project Olympiad (I-SWEEEP), another international science fair in Houston in which 70 countries participated and won a silver medal. At ISEF, which was held in Los Angeles, Xu won third place and $1000.

By Saumya Kumar & Vicky Ro

At approximately 10:42 pm last Tuesday night, you made a status update on Facebook, and I was there to see it. You did the same on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evening, and I saw those too.

While I don’t remember the content in each and ev-ery single status, I’m pretty sure I’ve witnessed every single cyber-move you’ve made for the past year or so, and probably will continue to do so from now until

shortly before the Apocalypse.Call me the creepiest person alive, and you probably

won’t be too far off from the truth. Label this column as the oddest one you’ll ever read, and I won’t beg to differ either. According to what society thinks and says, you’d be absolutely correct on both counts—and the only problem I have with this at all is that I completely disagree with such norms advocating these beliefs.

While I am a person who likes and respects privacy in general, what is known as Facebook, Tumblr and perhaps even Formspring-stalking is where I’d happily cross the line. I’ve heard a countless number of people see this prac-tice as an invasion of privacy; I’ve been called a creeper for unashamedly proclaiming a fact about a peer I learned via his or her Facebook page, but still I hold my head up high and deny all charges against me. Frankly, I feel that I and others like me have done absolutely nothing wrong.

Using the Internet as a means of learning about others has definitely provided me with more benefits than it has harmed anyone. One of them, for example, would be in the case of an upcoming interview, when you can always give the interviewer’s blog a quick read or two to figure out

what kind of person you’ll be talking to. It’s fast and harmless and it also allows you to gain an upper hand in a way that neither breaks rules nor hurts a soul.

People might argue that Facebook stalking is a vio-lation of a person’s privacy, but look at it this way: that information was provided by the page-owner. He or she probably knows (or should know) that this is the Internet, and everything on it is fair game for being viewed. If you wanted something to be private, then you shouldn’t post it online!

So it truly puzzles me when I admit to having seen something on someone’s wall or Tumblr and am ac-cused of being a creep. The way I see it, if you post it, you’re asking for it, and as these are all social network-ing sites we’re speaking of, this is just another way of letting people stay connected with you.

In reality, so-called Facebook stalking isn’t even on the same level as true stalking—take a look at what the definition of “cyberstalking,” or using the Internet to harass a person or group, is, and you’ll see that in com-parison, the act of reading a wall-to-wall here and there is so innocent, it’s laughable.

FB Stalking: I like this

AUSTIN YU—EPIC

As Penner puts it: “Students have about a week to make up a major exam, and a few days if it is a lab or other homework.”

However, he echoes Taylor’s sentiments on make-up work and adds that “[his] honors stu-dents have missed a lot of class time this semes-ter; going on field trips, taking math contest ex-ams…the list is endless. It creates huge problems for the students and the teachers, and typically the students’ grade goes down when they miss more than a couple of days of class.”

While some teachers have defined policies, which they make clear to their students, others have none at all, which makes it hard for students to understand what to do after a long absence.

The main problem remains that there are too many different policies which range from teachers not letting students make up tests to them waiting till the end of the semester to have students make up missed tests and quizzes.

As stated in the school board policy, which re-flects the California state educational code, “stu-dents with excused absences shall be accorded the opportunity to complete all assignments and tests during the absence within a reasonable period of time determined by the teacher.” This stance, however, is too vague, and does not provide strict enough standards for making up work.

While circumstances do vary, there should be a stricter policy to which staff and students can refer for guidance in setting final guidelines for making up work.

Staff and students should collaborate to form a solution to this conundrum on campus. A single policy for make-up work would benefit everyone, and should be created as soon as possible. At the same time, students should also take initiative. If absences are planned, students should meet with their teachers beforehand to figure out schedules for making up work. Students should also adhere to these schedules in order to honor the chance teachers are giving them to make up work.

If students have unplanned absences, or cir-cumstances cause them to miss school for long periods of time, they should have one meeting with all their teachers after returning to school to plan out how they are going to make up the work. This solution would avoid overloading and hassle for both students and teachers.

One uniform make-up policy is a long overdue change at Lynbrook and should be implemented as soon as possible.

Hint: it’s not there.As recently sick students open up their School

Loop pages to check their grades, their jaws drop. Out of nowhere, all their grades are in the tank! This is an all-too-common scenario for kids who miss school due to reasons that include poor health, extra-curriculars and family emergencies.

To prevent further distress from occurring among students, teachers need to address the problem of discrepancies in make-up work poli-cies, and work together to create one uniform policy for all students who miss school.

Junior Viveka Jagadeesan, who has missed large amounts of school because of her devotion to competitive debate as well as frequent bouts of serious sickness, says, “At some point, it becomes impossible to make up everything. It’s reasonable for teachers to expect you to make stuff up on time, but what they don’t seem to realize is that you’re making stuff up for all your other classes as well as doing the normal coursework.”

Jagadeesan is just one among the many stu-dents each school year who have legitimate ex-cuses for missing school, but are put through a strenuous, ill-coordinated system of making up work that ends up benefiting no one. Not only do students loathe missing school, they endanger the health of their peers if they do attend.

Another student who has missed long pe-riods of school, going up to full weeks, mainly due to asthma and other illnesses, is junior Lasya Kuchibhotla. As she recalls, “Due to my heavy course load, I had to make up a lot of work whenever I missed school. It was very stressful because most teachers wanted make-up work fin-ished upon returning to school and sometimes, I wasn’t fully recovered.”

Physics teacher David Taylor is also aware of the difficulties. “For the few students that are absent a lot, it is a serious problem. It is difficult for those students to keep up and it usually has an adverse effect on their grade,” he says.

His make-up policy dictates that students are given the same number of days they were absent to make up the work they missed. Any legal ab-sences in his class allow for make-up work when the student returns. This policy is fair, clear and something that more teachers should strive to do.

Other teachers, such as Jon Penner, are slightly more relaxed when it comes to making up work.

by charuMEHRA

I SPY a uniform make up policy...

its own “Mat Shack” which is dedicated solely to selling school apparel, and even Miller Middle School has its simplified store on a cart.

“You can go there whenever you want, take what you want, pay them and go so it’s pretty fast,” says Miller eighth grader Derrick Du.

According to Du, the only problem is that the store constantly has long lines. This phenomenon, however, could in fact be viewed as a positive sign, as the lines represent the continued usefulness of the store and the potential success of a similar one at Lynbrook.

With some careful consideration and planning, Lynbrook’s potential student store could bring a myriad of positive changes to our campus, directly helping students and bolstering funds.

Eclectic exams curb cheating

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School store necessary for campusby aliceZHANG

With the craze of efficiency that has graced the past decade, many institutions across the nation have chosen to imple-ment a student store on campus. Such stores have proved practical, where everything from alma mater sweatshirts to lip balms are stocked on shelves. With school-related products on the high, Lynbrook too, should consider adding a student store.

Adding such a store would provide a factor of convenience, especially in the fall when school starts. Mundane school supplies would be easily available, saving multiple trips to the store, and would gen-erate revenue for the school. Teachers who require very specific supplies could also directly communicate with the store to pro-vide these supplies that could be otherwise

troublesome to find.In addition, consolidating Lynbrook

apparel and accessories in one location would improve the purchasing process. At the moment, sweatshirts and sweatpants are sold in the locker rooms and Lynbrook lanyards used to be sold in the ASB Den.

The increased accessibility could lead to more sales and school spirit through branded items. With the revenue made from the store, ASB could direct these funds towards boosting school-wide ac-tivities and executive council committees.

Fremont High School, which is in the same district, sells a myriad of supplies such as binder paper, notebooks, CDs and t-shirts. Fremont’s student store also serves as the primary source for students to order their boutonnières and corsages for proms and balls. Likewise, Monta Vista also has

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY NOORSHER AHMED & YUNQING CHEN

Though the students groaned and complained over having to take another final due to cheating, they have no one to blame but themselves. An AP science teacher gave his or her students a copy of an AP test that Col-legeboard released to teachers as a resource for their classes. However, students from last year found the test online after taking the final and told this year’s students about it. In doing so, most students were likely unaware that they were violating the last point on the Academic Honesty Policy: students cannot use materials intended for teachers’ use only.

A similar problem arose earlier in the year in an AP Literature class during winter finals. One student found the book from which the multiple-choice portion was taken and attempted to purchase it on Amazon. The plan was foiled when the teacher caught the student in the act; subsequently, the teacher had to obtain a different test and become more vigilant regarding her tests.

Incidents such as these have become increasingly com-mon as more and more students obtain access to various test materials online. Teachers should not be blamed for the dishonesty of their students. After all, it takes hours, if not days, to create completely original tests. In addi-tion, teachers cannot perfectly emulate the style of Col-legeboard tests; thus, it is only natural for them to rely on professionally written practice exams in order to test their students on material that is relevant and in a style similar to Collegeboard tests.

In order to reduce the number of incidents of obtain-ing tests from online, questions should not come from one exam source. Instead, exams should consist of a syn-thesis of different, professionally written tests, as well as a fraction of original questions invented by the teacher. This allows teachers to adhere to Collegeboard guide-lines. Meanwhile, utilizing multiple sources decreases

the possibility of students discovering and memorizing all test questions. Finally, creating original questions lets teachers maintain a section that can be tailored to include material specific to their class.

Teachers should also take into account the large possi-bility of online availability. For example, an exam taken from Collegeboard should be weighted much less than an original test would be weighted, since students may have the opportunity to view the exam online prior to the test, giving them an unfair advantage.

Cheating may be habits that are difficult to stop but with this small tweak in the way tests are weighted, cheating may become slightly easier to prevent.

Collaborate with feeder school

Engage students on a new level

It is Tuesday, April 26, 2011. A horde of students is invading a local burrito joint, armed with flyers that are waiting to be handed over to the tired cashier. Welcome to the scene of a typical school fundraiser at Chipotle Mexican Grill.

This time, the fundraiser was actually organized by Miller Middle School’s Parent-Teacher Association in order to raise the $1500 necessary for the eighth grade class’ graduation party entertainment.

Middle school fundraisers and social events are becoming increasingly more popular, evident through activities such as the Chipotle fundraiser, corrals and graduation parties. However, younger students may not have the expertise to understand how to success-fully organize and execute larger, more complex activities that will become common in their high school lives.

Thus, it is important that Lynbrook students make efforts to try to get more involved with middle school students and their activities in order to help them transition into high school more successfully.

Often, middle school students are exposed to many confusing rumors about high school. Miller student body president eighth grader Amit Pasupathy says, “From what I’ve heard, Lynbrook events are pretty intense! I’ve heard that rallies and Homecoming are fun, but quite hard to plan.”

Since younger students have not experienced high school for themselves, they can really only make guesses and assumptions after asking around for different high school students’ opinions. These unconfirmed rumors can lead to unnecessary fears. Miller stu-dent body vice president eighth grader Jessica Pai says, “My biggest worry about high school events is that they might not be very well organized. We’ve done a few events that weren’t planned very well and just turned into chaos. So, hopefully we won’t have to go through that again next year.” Additionally, Pasupathy says, “I’m worried about planning

events that are too big, they fail, or fundraisers that no one participates in.”In order to calm eighth grade students’ fears about what high school might be like, it

would be helpful for upperclassmen to reach out to their local middle schools. Pasupathy says, “One way I think will really help us transition into high school is to show us videos of previous Homecoming skits and rallies, just so we can see how they’re executed. Also, if ASB officers could show us their written plans for how they scheduled and planned events in the past, it would be much easier to plan successfully.”

ASB shares this same mindset, as social officer, senior Leesa Li, says, “Actually, this year, each commission in the leadership class is creating a legacy binder with everything from job descriptions to planned events that pertain to each specific commission. The purpose of these is ultimately to help future leadership students in those designated com-missions to prepare for their responsibilities and roles.”

Freshman class president Divya Saha adds, “When I was in middle school, it would have been nice if upperclassmen came to Miller. Having an orientation before August would have been nice because I know many incoming freshmen were nervous about their first year in high school.”

Lynbrook students are already making good progress in welcoming eighth graders into high school through activities such as the letter to a freshman PTSA senior award and freshman orientation day in August. However, there are plenty of new and improved methods that can be implemented, such as having more interactions with Miller branches of popular clubs or, as Pasupathy suggests, “some sort of a program that gives eighth graders at Miller a taste of what Lynbrook events are like, maybe something like a video presentation assembly, to get them really pumped for high school.”

Rather than mocking underclassmen for their inexperience, it is time for upperclass-men to showcase true maturity and contribute to a middle school cause. In the long run, helping out underclassmen will benefit the entire school and student body by making each class at Lynbrook as successful as it can be.

by shannonCHAI

Eighty-five percent of those who apply to En-gage are accepted. Although this statistic is far bet-ter than that of a usual Lynbrook organization, it should actually be one hundred percent.

Unfortunately, the Engage program has not reached its capacity for helping all students who need it, as it is currently limited only to one class-room for one period. Even with tutorial, homework center and STTAR tutoring in place, there are still some students at sea in terms of academics. This indicates that the tutoring system needs to be re-formed by centralizing of the process.

Engage is a relatively new tutoring system that currently takes place during fifth period. Students having trouble academically can apply for the class, and tutors, who are nominated by teachers, are motivated to join the program as it not only gives them a chance to give back to the school but offers community service hours as well.

To maximize the potential of this idea and reach out to more students in need of academic assistance, more teachers should open up similar programs in their own classrooms. The objective would be to use qualified student as tutors along with closely attentive teacher overseers. This way, students practice being independent while teachers fulfill their roles as advisors.

The advantages of a program like Engage are clear and numerous. First of all, it is able to pro-vide greater attention to each student. For example, an orderly classroom with one tutor for every cou-ple tutees, compared to swarms of students over-flowing around a teacher’s desk every Monday and Thursday morning, should be enough incentive to implement this program during tutorial.

French instructor Valerie Amzallag says, “There’s always at least four, five things going on all at once during tutorial.” Teachers are just not able to address all their students’ needs in a mere 35 minutes, so they should want to create an orga-nized system where students tutor one another for all subjects. This is not to say that teachers would be shirking their duties. On the contrary, teachers would actually help their students practice a whole new set of abilities: students would learn sacrifice

and service if a peer-to-peer tutoring system were to be developed. Furthermore, many students are just more comfortable with their peers, no matter how accommodating teahcers try to be. “I don’t feel like I have any advisors or mentors [outside of Engage],” says sophomore Karthik Vayyala.

Currently, Amzallag directs each member of the French Honor Society to partner with a stu-dent who needs assistance during tutorial for a few weeks. Teachers should get involved is so they can ensure the right partnership between students when tutoring programs are initiated. “It has to be real communication, and not just one student giv-ing information. If I see it doesn’t work, I switch the students,” says Amzallag.

Other teachers should follow suit and strongly encourage the students of academic special-interest clubs such as Science Club, Math Club and Verti-go to do the same whenever possible, and those tu-tors should be awarded with service hours. During tutorial, those committed club members would, along with their pupils, meet briefly together with the teacher to set a short-term goal for that period. Both teachers and tutors would become more pro-ductive, and, more importantly, students in need would get the attention they deserve.

Vayyala, for one, says he would feel comfort-able with this system: “I would trust that [the tu-tors] know what they are teaching. It would make me more confident to learn, because it is pretty much the same thing as having a teacher.”

If endeavoring students are not presented with a clear tutoring system organized by those in au-thority, they will not feel as motivated to study and improve themselves. Junior Kunaal Goel, who was a student of the STARR program last year and a tutor this year, says, “I think it’s good for teachers to get involved and check up on the student be-cause it means a lot to the student if you feel that a teacher cares about you in that sense.”

Many know of the shortcomings of tutorial and the STTAR program: they are unmoderated or too impersonal. Few know that a system like Engage, if modified along with existing club policies to occur during tutorial, can address those problems by providing a productive, effective and engaging learning environment.

by brianZHAO

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY NOORSHER AHMED & YUNQING CHEN

by shannonCHAI

Five gals have a go atFive reporters try out popular hamburger joint

My hamburger with everything was pleasantly reminiscent of a res-taurant burger. Grilled mushrooms and onions made the burger feel more sophisticated and provided a nice texture. However, there was too much of all three sauces, which made it messy and hard to eat. The patties were also a little too well done. In retrospect, I would have gone for the little hamburger, as two patties were a bit too much, but the atmosphere of Five Guys combined with a so-so quality burger make for a good Friday night hangout!

The little hamburger is exactly what it implies, but I actually found the small size to be perfect for my taste. It leaves you comfortably satisfied, not nauseatingly full, like many fast food meals can be. My favorite part of the burger was the vegetables because they were surprisingly crisp and fresh. However, the grilled mushrooms and onions were pretty much tasteless, and I didn’t even notice they were there. But overall, I enjoyed the burger and found that it tasted more like a restaurant-style burger than a fast food burger.

For those who prefer just the basics, I ordered a hamburger with ev-erything except onions and mushrooms. Even with ketchup, mustard, may-onnaise, lettuce, pickles and tomatoes, the burger stood out. The double-stacked patties were grilled to perfection. The texture, however, was slightly crumbly. This minor annoyance was overshadowed by the impeccable taste of the burger. An advantage to getting just the basics is that the burger itself is able to stand out better; even with just the “basics,” this burger was not boring.

Five Guys took the ordinary grilled cheese to a whole new level. The presentation was nothing fancy; in fact, when I first saw it, I was pretty turned off, but as soon as I took the first bite of the cheesy creation, I in-stantly became a fan. The soft flat bread was a great balance for the flavors of the grilled cheese. With unlimited toppings available, I decided to try out the olives, mayo, ketchup, grilled onions and peppers. Grilled cheese is usually extremely bland, but the peppers added a lot of flavor and some spice.

As soon as I entered Five Guys, I was greeted by the bustling crowd and happy, animated shouts announcing finished orders. I ordered a veg-gie cheese sandwich, which was customizable, so I could choose my own choice of vegetables out of a selection of toppings such as mushrooms, let-tuce and tomatoes. The Five Guys’ signature onions and mushrooms were juicy and the lettuce fairly fresh, which was impressive for a fast food re-stuarant. However, there was too much cheese and too little vegetables for my taste.

A farewell to the sweet lifeAfter making it onto the college ship with the rest of

my classmates, I have barely had enough time to real-ize that in a few short months, I’ll be moving out of the place I’ve called home for the last seven years, and into a completely new world, full of wonderful strangers. I’m sure life is only going to go uphill from here.

1. Making friends

Although I’m probably never going to see my friends of over 10 years again (shout out to Alan Kao and Roger Chen!), I’m going to Eleanor Roosevelt College at UC San Diego, which is supposedly filled with over 70 per-cent females. I’m probably going to be picking up so many girls that it’ll be tough to make time to come home. I’ll definitely be partying it up and playing Maple Story and DOTA with all my new friends. On second thought, there probably aren’t many girls playing those games. But hey, I’m sure I’ll be a master of French manicures and the fishtail braid before the first quarter ends.

2. Healthy dietI’ll be in charge of my own diet, which means no

more mushroom and spinach dishes every week. From here on out, I’m going to be eating Shin Ramen, ham and cheese hot pockets and Cheez-its everyday! This is going to suck compared to the hot pancakes and fresh organic fruit my mom prepares for me in the morning. If things do turn out for the worse, I’m willing to shell out priority shipping so that my mom can mail me food.

3. LaundryEven today, I still don’t know how a stack of clean

clothes always appears on my dresser that is sufficient for the next week. I also don’t understand what wiz-ardry goes on in the garage, with the loud rumbling magic box known as a washing machine. My mom has told me that I can either go to the ocean to wash my clothes by hand, or find some way to conserve and re-use dirty clothes over and over. I’ve decided to go with the latter. After wearing a pair of clean underwear, I can turn it backwards, then inside out, and then backwards after it is inside out, making a grand total of four days with one pair of underwear! To all you disbelievers, I’m confident I’ll survive the quarter without doing any laundry.

As manly as I am, I’m unsure if I can survive with-out Gossip Mom by my side. I probably have a grand total of five friends in my life, and I can’t cook or clean. Maybe going off to college isn’t such a good idea af-ter all. If anyone would like to be my honorary mother while I’m in college, you know where to reach me!

xoxo Gossip Boy for the last time,The Jake Lu

by janeJUN

by charuMEHRA

by namrataSINGH

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY SHANNON CHAI & LAUREN TAI

and dish out their opinions on the chain’s variety of distinctive, trademark toppings

by danielleLERNER

From the Bay to Tibet

This coming summer, along with several other select stu-dents from all over the United States and China, Lynbrook sophomores Matthew Lee, Noorsher Ahmed, Frank Wang and Albert Chang, as well as freshman Mark Lee, are catch-ing a plane to China and taking a train to Tibet for what they all expect to be “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that cannot be ignored.”

From July 6 to July 16, the students plan to visit and vol-unteer at orphanages and schools and will also visit famous landmarks and sites of Tibet.

It all started out with a journal packed along on a trip to Tibet two summers ago. After visiting multiple famous land-marks, Tibetan orphanages, schools and facilities, Matthew Lee and his two siblings, freshman Mark Lee and eighth-grader Jane Lee, compiled their experiences into a book, Bridge to Tibet, a collection of photographs, notes and jour-nal entries.

Matthew Lee says, “We hear cliché phrases about children dying in Africa, but when I saw poverty first-hand, I realized that everything is all too real. Personally, my experiences with the Tibetan children made me question if materialism equals happiness.”

After exhibiting Bridge to Tibet at the Hong Kong Book Fair of 2010, the Lees, with support from their father, formed a youth organization called Youth Impact.

They are planning to return to Tibet to distribute the funds

Students ready for trip to Tibet to document the culture and offer community service

by ireneHSUthey received from showcasing the book to the orphanages and schools they visited in the past summer. They also will be tak-ing along five other students in total from around the world to experience the culture with them.

Through a literary competition which had asked partici-pants to discuss how youth could impact the world, several students were chosen to accompany Lee to Tibet, with first and second place winners having all or half of their costs covered by Youth Impact. Ahmed will be writing for the program, and sophomores Chang and Wang will also attend the trip to docu-ment the journey in Tibet through photography though they did not partake in the competition.

After learning of receiving third place in the competition, which allowed him to join the Lees on their expedition to Ti-bet, Ahmed says, “This trip is a way for me to bring my words to life—I’m really looking forward to this, and I’ve always wanted to experience something completely different from life as I’ve known it here.”

Another book will be published following the trip and will be exhibited in the annual Hong Kong Book Fair, though Lee also hopes to impact the lives of children with the funds they donate to provide opportunities they would other-wise not have.

“This is not a one-time project,” he says. “We plan to do this trip every year while we’re still considered as ‘youth,’ and we look forward to passing the entire proj-ect onto the next generation of youth. When [Mark, Albert, Frank, and I are] all eighty years old, we still expect to see this entire project in operation.”

DESIGNERS MODELS

SCRIPT WRITERSDANCERS

CHOREOGRAPHERS

ASB

SOC IAL

Start-ing in late February, social committee begins choreographer tryouts. Choreographer of a jazz and contemporary routine, senior Kath-leen Sun, says, “I love the fact that my music pieces do not hold to a certain style from a specific time period; instead my routine is not influenced by not just one time period, but multiple.” Styles of dances include lyrical, hip-hop, b-boy, jazz and contemporary. Pictured right is choreographer of a lyrical routine, senior Anna Ning, teach-ing others her dance rou-tine.

In between modeling and skit, dances are also incorporated throughout the fashion show. Dances range from all different styles while all captur-

ing the unique feel of each time era. Dancers, who range from all grades, went through a mandatory week long au-

dition process in early March where they learned a try-out routine for their respective style of dancing. After choreog-

raphers select dancers, practices are held weekly to piece together the final showcase. Pictured above is sopho-

more Shirley Fang as she practices at a rehearsal for Ning’s lyrical dance.

This year, the skit includes a main character traveling back through different time periods to find the perfect girl

for him. When reflecting on the development of the script, senior writer Bhaumik Kotecha says, “The first thing we got

was the theme.Then we started with a skeleton outline and started fitting in the rest of the story. We sat down with social committee and representatives to plot out what we wanted to do.” Pictured above are Kotecha and Thomas Okamoto working on the script.

T h e social com-

mittee decides the theme, which is A Trip Through Time. The Bhangra team and You-Tube star Joey Diamond will be performing. So-cial manager Leesa Li, pictured left with junior Jocelyn Chen as they discuss logistics, says, “Since fashion show has the same structure each year, we wanted to make it more appealing this year...to the [Lynbrook] neighborhood.” The show is on May 27 in the quad. Pre-sale tick-ets will be sold the day of during brunch and lunch for $10; they will be $15 at the door. Pre-

show starts at 6:30 pm.

Models are required to undergo a selective audition pro-cess. In Design officers judged applicants based on their runway walk in heels and pose and chose the top 20-30 models based on

their audition. “We were measured immediately after the officers let us know we had been selected,” says sophomore model Lisa

Doong. A directory of each model’s sizes was compiled after the final models had been chosen. Designers then select ed

their own models on a first come first serve basis after viewing the directory. Pictured to the left is

freshman model, Amy Khalil, be-ing fitted by one of her

designers.

After In Design asked designers to submit sketches of their fashion show pieces, the club got an idea of whom

to feature in the fashion show. There are no restrictions regard-ing the types of material designers must use to produce their

original pieces. Junior Richard Wei says, “It feels refreshing because it’s a new way for me to produce art. Fashion de-

sign has a lot of dimensions to it. There are so many ways to structure a dress, arrange the colors, make a certain

look, and it’s not even limited to that.” Pictured below is senior Alyssa Look, sewing

one of her pieces to be fea-tured in the upcom-

ing show.

by joySHEN & laurenTAI

Reporters go behind-the-scenesof A Trip Through Time, the annual spring fashion show

PHOTO ILLU

STRATION BY FEATURES SECTIO

N

I, Aditi Chandra, bequeath Namrata Singh all the com-fort food hidden on the bottom shelf of my pantry and 16 and prego shows on my DVR, Vaijayanti Duraphe my muni skills, Sandeep Pedadda my raging parties, Vik Waghray my unbeatable Super Mario Kart skills, and my tennis girls my unforgettable vocal expressions on the court.

I, Aditya Majumdar, bequeath the responsibilities of Speech and Debate to Kunal Rathi, the spirit of speech to Joseph Wei, the ability to find humor in oneself to Bri-an Axelrod, and the endless craziness of Robotics and the blue jacket’s reputation to Michael Chang, Michael Lin, and Miles Chan.

I, Alex C. Tanner, bequeath my band jacket to my broth-er, George.

I, Alex Zhu, bequeath my dripping scalpel to James Ma whether he wants it or not. I bequeath some of my artis-tic skill to Gavriela Fine; not that much, just enough to get our little (gigantic) future stripper through whatever path (or pole) of life she may choose to take.

I, Alexander Lin, bequeath my awesome badminton skills to the upcoming mixed doubles players, my stats skills to my sister, Mandy Lin, my terrific coaching skills and luck to Brian Axlerod and Alric Siu, with the hopes of winning championships, and a bit of my amaz-ing driving to Angela Tu.

I, Alick Xu, bequeath to Matthew Deng, a lifetime sup-ply of skittles; to Diane Wang, a new pair of pants; to Michael Park, a heart; and to Darren Shim, the ability to spell.

I, Aliya Karimi, bequeath to Namrata Singh my abil-ity to constantly injure myself, Myles Cai and Jared Kim my nonexistent Spanish skills, Katie, Jocelyn, and Alan my growing obsession over Joey Diamond, and to my amazing hockey ladies: “Shoot, score, pass, KICK SOME BUTT!” Love you all & live it up!

I, Allison Tsai, bequeath +100 each wits, skills, guts, and charm to my super smart, cool, and fabulous brother David Tsai.

I, Amber Danae Villa, bequeath my love for Cristiano Ronaldo to Anjana Rao, my dresses-which-no-longer-fit to Lisa Doong, and the ability to endure tyranny to my brother Derek.

I, Amy Tang, bequeath to Chengyi Lee the strength to get through a year of orchestra alone and the willpower to fight off senioritis. I also bequeath David Lu with the power of science and Pikachus.

I, Ana Ficovich, bequeath my good behavior and over-thinking to Casey Ficovich.

I, Andrew Ma, bequeath Science Club to Marcus Schorow, useful (or perhaps useless) biology facts to Aaron Yuan, a sincere apology to Keegan Mendonca, the “Seat” of a particular land to Alexandra Cong, and an extra last name to James Ma.

I, Anna Ning, bequeath my peanut butter and apples to Karen, my rhinestones and cool dance moves to Shany, Candace, Shirley, and Cheryl, my stress ball to Kathy, my wealth of advice (jk) to Kevin, my chem notes to Jamie, and the best of luck to the 11-12 Valks.

I, Annie Li, bequeath Ray Chen, Tiffany Ko, Ramya Sel-vam, Candace Liu, Shirley Kiang, Louise Zhou, Kathy Dong, Albert Chang, Ethan Chiou, Frank Wang, and Sunaina Aluru the yearbook room, the Valhalla staff, the fun times, and, most important, the 2011-2012 Year-book. Don’t let the apocalypse beat you!

I, Anthony Ding, bequeath nothing to Matthew Deng. To Vicky Ro, I bequeath, when I get one, the latest edi-tion of the AP style guide. To Jasmine Mireshghi, my vitamin C tablets. To Austin Yu, Brian Zhao, Clay Song, Noorsher Ahmed, and Michael Park, the skills to survive in a female-dominated 5th period. To the Epic juniors, I bequeath my spot on the couch. To Edward Ding, I bequeath my disdain for Matthew Deng. Just kidding, to Matthew Deng, I bequeath a lifetime of tickles.

I, Apurva Kulkarni, bequeath Candy Chang, Ashley Wu, Alice Tang, Jenny Xie, Jefferine Li, and Teja Muva my badminton AWESOMENESS (and all other baddy un-derclassmen), to Karthika my textbooks, to William and Clay naiveness because they ned that, to Arwind good luck and Chengyi exclsuvie rights to my college stats.

I, Arman Rahbar, bequeath my Hispanic comedy to Kyle Williams, my ability to eat high intensity poul-try to Aneesh Samudrala, my ability to lift up weight in high amounts to Daniel Truckai,my Latino accent to Chris Doi. Lastly, my ability to be a large Persian kid to Ali Zarrabi.

I, Ashley Huang, bequeath Yoko Matsuda my manly arm muscles. To Angie Lee, the ability to lock out at all times and never get butt cramps. To Geeta and Sunaina, the Salvatore brothers, Damon and Stefan. And to Kevin Liou, the ability to not have to be happy every day.

I, Ashley Tsai, bequeath to Samantha & Tommy the duties of the C1 folder; to Emily & Natalie, memories of Wilcox; to Eileen, Kate, & Kelly the responsibility of using the spare dimes/nickels wisely; to Tiffani, my legs; & to Alex, the ability to stay up late and a relatively stress-free junior year!

I, Aviad Shani, bequeath perfect diction unto all drama students - may you never speak unclearly again.

I, Ayushi Neogi, bequeath all of my senior second so-prano love, although it’s sometimes tough love, and of course, my impeccable French speaking skills to Soumya Kandukuri. Hope your cheesnoots ahr roosting uhn an ooop-uhn fah-yure!

I, Barry Cheng, bequeath my skills at staying up at night to Galen Cheng, my annoyingness to Mark and Gabriel Lee, and my awesomeness to Karen Lee because she isn’t cool enough right now... JUST KIDDING. :)

I, Benson Tang, bequeath to: Shirley my “eloquence,” whistling, and superior Chinese. The throwers: my nur-turing. Michael and Daniel: how to be straight. Chris Kim: my jokes. Erika: social problem solving skills. Erica: dress and profile picture picking abilities. Jen-nifer: being loud at games and candies. Kimberly my wit. Elle my funniness. To everyone else at Lynbrook, mah swag!

I, Bhaumik Kotecha, bequeath my love of having chill football seasons to AustinB, ChrisD, DanielS, ArshanO and Neeraj J. My love for Link Crew to Jocelyn, Dar-ren, Gavi, and Will, and last but not least, my spirit and love for Lynbrook to whoever wants it! Live it up Senior year!

I, Brian Szymanski, bequeath Sue, CJ, Mei, Karen, Lin-da to the Lynbrook Basketball team because CJ indeed does have a lot of ones and well its just Sue and the rest of ladies mentioned are just overall great people. Erica Wang a cardigan. Sara Wen the title of biggest loner.

I Carly Bratt bequeath my awesome flips to Selin and Trena, and numerous Wednesday coffees with Jake and Connor.

I, Carolyn Yen, bequeath the area next to the library to Chengyi Li and all her friends.

I, Catherine Lin, bequeath to: Eliza - that I will be your bestest friend. Grace - that I will come back to visit, my best sister! Harrison - best drama buddy! Brian - thanks for the chocolate :)

I, Cathy Kim, bequeath inside jokes and shopping trips to Christine Lee, Caroline Dinh, and Nimitha Kommoju, glomps and frequent visits to Wingstop to Barbara Lam, extended hours of work in yearbook to Tiffany Ko and Ethan Chiou, cake to my nihongo class, and sleep depri-vation the class of 2012.

I, Celina Nanbara, bequeath my super golf MANPOW-ER to my lovely ladies: Joyce Chen, Evelyn Chu, Liz Liao, Sammy Tseng, and Kimberly Vaz! I bequeath my car and my competence to the Park brothers (John and TJ) under one condition that they would not annoy me for the rest of the school year :)

I, Chelsea Zimmermann, bequeath my position as sweeper on the varsity field hockey team to Katie Chon. Good luck next year ladies, RAH HOCKEY!

I, Chen Yu Chang, bequeath my idiotic smile, stupid brain, small eyes, and my love to Babo Park. :)

I, Christina Lee, bequeath my awesome comments to Amy Wei, my Harry Potter obsession to Karen Lee, Vic-toria Li, and Candace Liu, and my texting mastery to Lauren Tai.

I, Christina Sun, bequeath my incredible procrastina-tion, lay judge skills, and GDS to Viveka Jagadeesan, Chinmayi Manjunath, Kimberly Tan, Christine Wang, and Eric Wu, sensible-ness to Justin Liu and Alex Sireci, diplomacy to Vishy (Vishal) Kaly, and finally, AWE-SOME taste in music and literature to Jesse Chou.

I, Cindy Huang, bequeath AndrewRollerKuoster my angry face making skills, Jennifer my scaredness/screaming, Jindiesel my lame jokes, Joshua all of my old coursework/prep books, Myles my bad girl swag and creepiness, Shaelyn my Arcadia fruits, Silvia my body rolls and sexiness, and the XC girls a sports bra buddy.

I, Claudia Lin, bequeath all my black hair dyes to Sam-uel Chang, my hilariously bad jokes to Allie Young, and my hatred for AP testing to Austin Chen so he will stop taking every AP test that has been written.

I, Connor Brunmeir, bequeath my #2 cap and starting position on the waterpolo team to my brother Adam Brunmeir.

I, Daniel Li, bequeath my pretty boy swag to Bryan Le, my inspirational speeches to Kevin Tu, my assists to Paul Kim, my one-handed digs to Darren Shim, my homework to Sandeep Peddada and Alex Lee, and of course, my nonchalance and ability to take photos with-out blushing to Carrina Dong.

I, Dennis Zhao, bequeath my S&S magic to Carrina Dong, my best-est-ests DECA skills (92) and my cool creative candyland poster making to Diane Wang, and my laughter and knee-slapping funniness to Divya Saha and her dad.

I, Derek Lin, bequeath my ability to not be late to Philip, the sanity of the altos to Winnie, my “Rolex” to Eton, my way of getting lost to Alicyn, my love for K-pop dances to Stacy and Jennifer, and my alto swag to the entire alto sax section.

I, Diana Ding, bequeath to Namrata Singh my eye for design, my sixth period, two minute parties in the library parking lot, a razor, my shady lifestyle, Two and a Half Indians, and socks for your Uggs. To Jasmine Mireshghi a closetful of turtlenecks and medicine. To Joseph Wei

my unmatched mancala skills and the future of CSF. To Diane Wang, my congrats dang india poster and my spot on your bed. To Karen Wang, foobs. To Charlene Sun, I bequeath Alejandro, Fernando and Roberto. To Matthew Deng, I bequeath peanuts, dust, tickles, green skittles, and friends from your own grade. To Irene Hsu, 55 minutes of motel lovin’. To Michael Park, tons of fun with Starburst, the twilight zone, Ms. Chen’s college magic, and a trouble-free senior year. To Edward Ding, I bequeath the honor of the Ding name, the dog, and my beloved van.

I, Diane Chao, bequeath my fun track memories to all the hurdlers (you too Elle Kagimoto), my senior drill spot to Nick Ferrario, and my coveted and all-powerful blackness to Chris Kim.

I, Dina Tzonev, bequeath all my Hello Kitty love to Casey Ficovich.

I, Eesha Jagtap, bequeath Tiffany Tsai, my ability to spot out boys from a distance and Yoko Matsuda, my large appetite (I hope you eat a lot during Engage next year). I bequeath all my spirit, motivation, dedication and an amazing year to my cheer family who has been through it all with me and still stood by my side, I couldnt have asked for a better team. I love you all!

I, Elliot Kang, bequeath Stephen Abeshima and Allison Tani the fun (and sometimes stress) of my Music Depart-ment and Blue Pearl duties. To Jamie Lo, the knowledge that starting early on AP Lit work keeps you happy and healthy. Use it. And to Kathy Li, remebering that play is just as important as work.

I, Elsina Deng, bequeath all my track boys & little Elle my discus princess title and continuing the throwers’ tradition & being our own team. I also bequeath Casey Ficovich my love for baking in the rain and my dance abilities/routine to Tik Tok.

I, Emily Shieh bequeath Christine Lee my brownie mak-ing skills, our love for food and all our memorable times together. Caroline Dinh to be my future hairdresser who got spunk. Have a great senior year and I’ll never forget that day when we went shopping at valley fair. Barbara Lam and Nimitha the best senior year ever! Thank you guys for everything.

I, Emmeline Tsen, bequeath my brother, Hubert Tsen, with my support as well as my exceptional procrastina-tion skills and whiny nature, Alex Lin with all the child-hood memories we’ve had, Tiffani Lau with my awe-some toe sock for fingers, and Emily Fong and Natalie Popescu with my naivety.

I, Erin Chastain, bequeath my awesome soccer skillage to all of my underclassmen on lady vikes varsity soccer. I also bequeath my awesome accents to Yasmine Mor-tazavi (long live Scotland!)

I, Evan Sheh, bequeath the water polo and swim team with my epic sprinting skills and my bench in the in the team room. Use them both with caution.

I, George Song, bequeath my love for food to Aaron and Stephanie, my loud voice to the entire badminton team, my perverted mind to Anna, my awesome grades and high metabolism to anyone who would be willing to take it.

I, Glen Takahashi, bequeath Jack my perfection, Keegan my awesomeness, Tanmay my BSing skills, and Davis my exploding dinosaurs.

I, Howard Jiang, bequeath my Mellophone ability to Ryan Burtzlaff, Jesse Chou, Carl Hansen, my Blue Pearl Bar to my three stooges, Kevin Chu, Edward Yeh, Bruce Zhang, my sheer awesomeness to Izumi Shimanouchi and Christopher Wong, and my luscious hair as well my sporting senses to Tilly Nguyen.

I, Indranil Bora, bequeath the Ox to Victor Xu.

I, Iris Wang, bequeath to Diane Wang my SAT books and good looks. To Molly Chou, her worn out sweatpants and creeping skills. To Tyler Hsieh, my “hi!” waves. To Ja-son Feng, ALL MY LOVE. To Divya Dhar, success with YouthAct. To robotics underclassman, “WINNING!” and loads of fun (I know it’ll be hard without me)!

I, Iris Yuan, bequeath a fresh stack of pen pal letters to Gloria, Kathy, Carrina, and all future YAKers; design inspiration and a table of legit-non-popcorn food to Ray, Tiffany, Ramya, and Candace; and the best of luck to Diane, Daryl, Madhu, and Sindhu.

I, Jackie Lee, bequeath to Christine Lee my youtube guru status makeup skills, to Michelle Xu my legit Rus-sian accent, to Caroline Lee, my fiery kimchi breath, su-per fly violin playing, and my claim to James Hu. And to James Hu, I bequeath my heart. Just kidding.

I Jake Lu, bequeath all of my Epic minions, Alice, Clay, and Kathy my minion slave driving abilities, Edward Ding my half of the butts secret handshake to continue with someone else, Tejas Konduru all the officer posi-tions I’ve ever had, Matthew Deng my legendary Maple Story career, Michael Park my status as the Epic senior with no friends and my Words with Friends guru abili-ties, and all of Gossip Boy’s fans to the next features columnist.

I, Jared Wong, bequeath: my room to my sister, Jamie, for any purposes she sees fit; my nocturnalism, aka sleeping at 6pm and waking at midnight, to Kevin Lei; and my love of all things media-related (photo/audio stuff) to Jesse Chou.

I, Jasmine Yang bequeath Emily Chao, Jamie Chen, and Amanda Zhang my love for pmt, Rachael Rodriguez my laziness, Aditi Gangurde my HILARIOUS sense of humor, Amanda Tam my knowledge of her secrets (aka nothing!),and Howard and Rebecca Yang my Senioritis and best wishes for next year.

I, Jason Huang, bequeath Eric his “cut” of future spoils, Jared: free range balls, Molly: a lifetime supply of “dile-ade”, Stephanie: a 1million $ giftcard to armorgeddon, Nathan: a chastity ring, and Andrew: the glee of those who surround you.

I, Jason Jia, bequeath to Nathan Toh the better looks I was born with. I bequeath to Divya Saha my capabil-ity of attracting Brodie Kaster. And, I bequeath to Diane Wang the awesome stories about my personal life and my ability to beat all her high scores.

I, Jefferson Hsu. bequeath, a bike and a hundred momos to Justine.

I, Jeffrey Fan, bequeath my love for hurdling and my creeping skills to my hurdle family, driving skills to Amanda, my ability to shoot people first to Grace and Cheryl, all my whatsups to Franklin, my pink book get-ting skills to Charlene, and to Ethan my skills at getting girls.

I, Jeffrey Young, bequeath Christine Lee to have my skills at blopping and hopefully become a master blop-per. I hope she has a time during Senior year and I wish her a good luck. Have a great Senior year my favorite blopper :).

I, Jennifer Chen, bequeath to Cecily creepy winks; to Abhishek the desire to switch to the BETTER instru-ment; to Jeff, MG, and Eric delightful carpools; to Jon buffer-related questions; to Kunal optimal bone struc-ture; to Aaron countless ponderings; and to Joyce, Emily, Chengyi, and Stacy the unbounded potential of WiSTEM.

I, Jennifer Huang, bequeath Cynthia Day 1,337 pokes; Vicky Ro, lots of love; Virup Gubba, my paranoia; Al-bert Chang, my 11:11 wishes; Karen Ouyang, an infi-nite number of hugs; Leo Chen, my “ninja” skills; Rohit Sarathy, my sqrt(179)-ness; and my sister Julia, my gull-ibility and all my high school stress.

I, Jessica Huang, bequeath my 20+ nail polishes to Bar-bara, my Funky Monkey spirit to Irene and Aneesh, my “lahv” to the Michaels (WINNING!), my common sense to Nikhil, green bubbles to Reo, my laughter to Sensei’s 5th period class, and my love for music to Danielle.

I, Jessica Mao, bequeath my love and encouragement to my awesome sisters, Esther and Kathy Mao. As well as Agape Christian Club to Daniel Kao, Vivian Chan, and Irene Hong.

I, Jessie Liyi Peng, bequeath Teja M., Sara H., Monisha K., Neeti A., Steph M., Gina C., Chesley M., Janli G., Karen W., and ALL the Girls Choir girls with my pink-ness. <3 I’ll always remember and look back to this last year with you all! Keep singing!

I, Jiminy Sugino, bequeath my viking-ness to my sister Yuka. Good luck with junior and senior year sister! I also bequeath my MUN “humor” to all the underclass-men in LHSMUN. Tim Horton’s FOSHO!

I, Joanne Liang, bequeath to Angela Tu, ‘You got “ONE MORE” year to go!’ Emily Pang and Leslie Ou, stay cute and beasty. Tiffany Lin and Betty Kuo stop obsess-ing over PMT. Good luck next year. And thank you guys for making my senior year fun and memorable. <3

I, Jocelyn Wu, bequeath my closet and fashion sense, rapping skills, responsibility of our brother to Jessica Wu. I, Jocelyn Wu, bequeath my Justin Bieber belong-ings to Kevin Schoenfeld.

I, Jonathan Chang, bequeath Eileen Chien with my awe-some swagger and good looks, to Jenny Sung with my non-flakiness, to Geeta Bharathi my Cat Daddy dancing skills, to Irene Hsu my genius knowledge, and to Jason Feng my over-powering starcraft strategies.

I, Jonathan Zhang, bequeath my non-existent gavel and my ability to impersonate Bush to my MUN family, my love of food to Fat Jack, my tuxedo to Brian, my swing dance “skills” to Liz, my Trojan pride to Tejas and Glo-ria, and my high tolerance of shady Berkeley hotels to Erica.

I, Joseph Lin, bequeath to Kazu Otani my punctuality (when it comes to 1st period and soccer practice), my Celtic pride to Chris Kim, my awkwardness to Sara Wen, my Halo SWAT DMR swag to Zach Mirth, and hopefully the ability to drive a G35 to Michael Park.

I, Joy Lin, bequeath all my CS knowledge to Aishwarya Borkar and my concentration skills to Karen Ouyang; Amanda Lu, Girl’s Singles pride; Emily Pang and An-gela Tu, some matching t-shirt madness.

I, Joy Zhou, bequeath Matthew Deng to Sandeep Ped-dada so that Sandeep can feed the thing every Monday and Thursday at lunch. See you both on the east coast in a year!

I, Julian Huang, bequeath to Jonathan Uesato mangoes, Eric Xu a concert E and D, Jeff Liu a pair of googly eyes, Jane Kwon advancement to the final screenings, Yoko Matsuda my Japanese skills, Mayu Nishimura

and Tyler Hsieh Paul Hewitt’s hypnotic voice, and the class of 2012 Kevin Lei.

I, Karen Chew, bequeath to Alvin Chew the abilities to cram like a boss when needed, an increasing tendency for procrastination, school spirit, and above everything else, access to my amazing CD collection [but only to love, and not to hate ;D].

I, Karena Cai, bequeath Caity Prada my big appetite, Alicyn Otoshi my love for softball, Michael Chang spaaace, Vicky Ro peace, love, and Interact, and my love for Robotics and stress-free days to Alric Siu.

I, Kartik Vempati, bequeath being a Pokémon master to Michael Park, my undying love for the Lakers to Jason Feng, my jumpshot to Victor Xu, and my dashing good looks to Darren Shim.

I, Katherine Cai, bequeath my awesome pitching skills and sense of humor to Helen Li, my athletic ability to my tan twin Alicyn Otoshi, my wonderful graphic de-sign skills to Diane Wang and my ability to make objec-tions to Soumya Kandukuri and Weian Wang.

I, Kathleen Sun, bequeath my crazy dancing to Valkies, wild memories to Daniel/Andy/Stephanie and JSA fam-bam, luck to PreMed officers, sunshine to “Sun Sistahs” Cheryl/Madd/Shany, sick high-fives to Lauren, gang-sterness to Amy, Chinese to Alex, xoxos to Kimberly, dance/film inspirations to Ethan, AP/SAT books/advice to Kathy, greetings to Victor Xu, and homecoming spir-it/awesomeness to Dandan.

I, Kevin Yeh, bequeath to Ethan, Daniel and their fel-low “men” my secrets to a great dance routine and, to my dearest hurdle family, my utmost appreciation, con-fidence, and hopes of a rubber track next year. You all are amazing, keep it up and don’t ever forget your ’11 seniors!

I, Kirstie Yu, bequeath my KINDNESS and THOUGHT-FULNESS to my seastar Gloria and Ewija, my luck on college applications to xiaomei Alexandra, my undying love for tennis to D.Um and C.Dong, my passion for Interact to Srinija, and my impatient driving skills, fly-ing Prius anglia, and overall bamfness to my babybro Austin. Never lose hope, and I love you all, my under-classmen babies! <3

I, Kristen Richardson, bequeath Shannon Jones my strong(er) arms and ability to park within the lines on the first try, Emily Fong and Paige Song my “har hars” after any unsatisfactory joke said at practice, and Can-dace Liu my unconditional love and superiority over Carrina Dong.

I, Kritika Sah, bequeath to Neeti Angal my naturally better looks, humor, and basically everything else. To Geeta Bharathi and Sunaina Aluru, my fast-like-a-na-scar driving, awk-ness, and LO-LO-LO’s. To Danielle Lerner, invincible love for Zac Efron. To Alan Chung, my spot on the Hanford couch. And to my tennis girlies, my Taylor Swift lyrics belching, crazy dance parties, and seasons of 1-0ve, laughter, and w1nn1ng.

I, Laboni Bagchi, bequeath all the members of GSA the power to make change in this community and the LHS Bhangra team my catch phrase “What the bloody?”

I, Larry Shen, bequeath sugar and rainbows to the un-derclassmen of the LHS marching band. Have fun next year! In addition, I bequeath imaginary Front-of-the-Line lunch passes to all prospective LHS students with just one catch: No cutting anyone who has the same pass as you. Ciao!

I, Laurel Anderson, bequeath my stubbornness for tradi-tion to Emily Su; and my Swedish Viking intensity to all past, present, and future members of the bass line.

I, Lauren Tang, bequeath to Tiffani Lau, Sabrina Shie, Eileen Wang, Kelly Zhao, Natalie Popescu, Erica Wang, Kate Yu and the rest of the swim team, my photography skills and the ability to “drop dimes and nickels”, and to Sarah, the chance to no longer be called “little Lauren”.

I, Leesa O. Li, bequeath Katie Chon, Alan Chung, and Jocelyn Chen all my ghetto-ness, and love for gettin’ jiggy ;). To Gavriela Fine, William Cheng, Darren Shim, and Jocelyn Chen, my love for Link Crew. To the swim team girls, my sneaky slacker skills. To everyone, all my love :)

I, Lesley Peng, bequeath my immunity to caffeine to Joseph Chang, my pro-gaming skills at Power Stone 2 to Jonathan Chang, and my hair to Jennifer Tan who shouldn’t have cut her pretty long hair.

I, Liane Wang, bequeath my dance skills to Candace/Madd/Michelle+youtube<3, hurdle mama to Ethan, the “struggles as a team” to my hurdle family, my piano prowess to Ayako, bullying to Holly, work treats to Jar-ed, mei love to Amy, bf of Amanda to Jason, and 100% of my heart to Amanda.

I, Linda Xu, bequeath: to Julia Huang, my sleeping hab-its; to Karen Ouyang my identity; to Virup Gubba my place beside Westmont’s 14 inch; to Marcus Schorow all explosives within 5 miles; to Keegan Mendonca my diligence which will go nicely with his utter legitness. Others, there’s always Science to do.

I, Manasa Hari, bequeath Tiffany Nguyen my crazi-ness and loudness to keep drama amazing, Areej Haq and Yueseo Pak my awesome physics skills, and Ara-vind Bhamidipati whatever you want, since you are my amazing brother! I’ll miss all my underclassmen!

I, Matthew Faris, bequeath my wit (or lack thereof) to Rohit Sarathy. My weirdness, which I inherited from Kirk Akimoto to Davis, Rohit and all the new members of the XC and Track Distance teams. My sarcasm to Madhav Sri. It’s a subtle form of humor, use it well.

I, Matthew Shepherd, bequeath Zoe Pennington all the skills to drive around a red minivan and not look like a dork. Lots of love!

I, Megan Lee, bequeath Vaijayanti and Anjana an AMAZING senior year, any of my prep books, and a WONDERFUL love life. ;D I also bequeath Andy an EXCITING and non-stressful junior year, as well as my dislike for the excessive use of semi-colons. Thanks for being the best underclassmen ever!

I, Melody Tan, bequeath my care and advice to Jenni-fer Tan and Tiffany Lin, and my love to my water polo/swimming buddies, Tiffany Lau, Natalie Popescu, Emily Fong, Anamika Kumpawat, Yunqing Chen, Brita Sand-ers, Kelly Zhao, Eileen Wang, and others, who made my high school experience unforgettable. Love you guys!

I, Mercedeh Sabeti, bequeath my awesome French-speaking skills to Rashmi, my creativity & ability to buy macarons to Jeremy, and my great sense of humor to Joyce. To Alex/Carina, I bequeath my beautiful ballet technique and to Molly, I bequeath the serious face that I walk around at school with.

I, “Denver” Michael Fang, bequeath my high expecta-tions and weirdness to next year’s drumline. I hope any subterfuge from practicing used last season will be de-funct and that you all will assimilate and accommodate to next season’s ambitions by taking advantage of your crystallized intelligence and counterconditioning any bad habits.

I, Michael Ninh, bequeath Elsie Wang the power to spin on her head.

I, Min Choi, bequeath along with seven others, the bench that we spent all our senior year at. Also, on the behalf of Amnesty International and National Honor Society, I entrust the two clubs’ bright future to the 2011 - 2012 officer teams (you know who you are). :)

I, Mitchell Song, bequeath my height to Myles Cai, my muscles to AJ Zavala, my appetite and love for food to Erica Wang, and my brown hair to Paige Song. Have a good one guys!

I, Mona Fulambarkar, bequeath Geeta Bharathi, aka mini-me, my dashing good looks; Suniana Aluru, the ability to capture the heart of every single guy she meets; Ziqi Chen, the coolest freshmen ever, all my beastly badminton skills, and of course Sai Goutham the ability to smash like a pro :)

I, Nancy Nan, bequeath Ring Ding Dong and Barney Y. Chen to Yunqing Chen; “na lang jal lae,” massive dino-saur organs and my lock and locker combination to John Park; my derpiness, Naruto ninja running, and more ugly red sweats to Kevin Chen; hump20mph to all the jumpers; my Columbia t-shirt and Blair Waldorf-esque headbands to go with it to Alice Zhang; creeper looks and annyongs to my haseyos to Gloria Lin; Taeyeon and my house to Richard Wei; a shirt to Noorsher Ahmed; a chamber pot and the title of the Original Bro of Bro-pinion to Brian Zhao; two more semesters of 4.0s to Kathy Li; more college apparel to Sucheta Korwar; a nun’s habit and lots of meds to Jasmine Mireshghi; my NYU-inspired hipster fashion to Namrata Singh; and my shadiness and the Doc to Austin Yu.

I, Neesha Nadkarni, bequeath my loud voice to Jamie Lo. You’re going to need to speak up during guard next year! To the rest of the Guard, I bequeath any guard skills I have because I’m not going to need them any-more. Good luck, and make the 2011 seniors proud!

I, Nicole Batino, bequeath my Bieber soundtrack to Alex Sireci. I know you’ll love it! I’ll never forget the times. Thanks for the memories. To Jamie Lo, my crazi-ness and leadership skills, Carl Hansen my great driving and the team my passion for guard. I love you guys!

I, Nicole Concepcion, bequeath to anyone and everyone lots of love, hope and faith and strenght to always finish strong. Oh! And this :)

I, Nisha Hjartoy, bequeath my ability to laugh at any-thing and everything, including insults, to Casey Ficovich. My derfiness, squirrel imitations, and hockey god traditions to Katie Chon, Namrata Singh, and Shan-non Jones. And all the hockey love I have to all my Lyn-brook Field Hockey ladies. <3

I, Pargat Singh, bequeath my spot as lazy concert choir tenor to Reo Sato. I bequeath my humorous and witty attitude during debates, to Harish Rajaram and Sidarth Conjeevaram and hope for them to always work hard but have fun. And I bequeath my heart to Rachael Chambers, MARMARMAR!

I, Patrick Lin, bequeath: to Julia Huang, my penchant for procrastination, since you apparently don’t have one and I won’t need mine in college; to Austin Chen and Karthika Pai (and any other future officers), the Com-puter and Technology Club, just make sure to keep it running!

I, Paul Chang, bequeath my sanity to Carrina, my op-timism to Myles, my incredibly good looks to Tiffani, my fruity pmt to Diane, a free pass to bake me red vel-vet cupcakes to Madd, some rich shrimp filled with the monies to Jack, and my clean windows to Irene.

I, Peggy Shaw, bequeath most, but not all of my love and memories to Der-Wei Li. Only because I definitely can-not forget about my choir girls Mina Sohrabi, Monica Chen, Eugenie Zhu, Nila Gupta, and Barbara Jackson. Good luck to making every year memorable.

I, Peter Tang, bequeath my political skills to Sandeep Peddada as Youth Commissioner, my passion and ac-tivism for the community to Dennis Cui, love for in-ternational relations to Vishy Kaly, and leadership for all three. I also bequeath upon Lucy Matveeva my awesomeness, well-deserved appreciation, and British accent.

I, Philip Hofman, bequeath my love to Kavitha Aravind-han. May you forever cherish it. :)

I, Polly Lal, bequeath all my libero pride and Physics class sleeping skills to Eliza Tsai (You might need it in AP Physics!) To Gloria Lin, I bequeath my grammar OCD and love for cheese puffs. To William Cheng, I bequeath crazy cell group and worship team memories - past, present, and future - and GO TIMMYYYYY!

I, Pooja Kurse, bequeath to Valerie Cuculiza car gossip and the ability to avoid eye contact with youknowwho, to Namrata Singh dance critiques and rishta with my cousin, and to Bill Lee my kangaroo fighting skills.

I, Raymond Yu, bequeath the scientific aspect of my brain to Chung Hao (Allen) Yu. May he reap success in his academic endeavors wherever his interests lie.

I, Robert Kang, bequeath to Tejas, Vaijayanti, and Diane my awesome DECA skillzzz. I bequeath to Candace my trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I bequeath to Stephanie my deep life stories and love advice.

I, Ruicong Yan, bequeath my on-time French homework to Samuel Paul, Kunaal Goel, and Etienne Flamant, amazing bio puns to Nivedita Choudhuri and Ashley Wu, eternal optimism to Jonathan Uesato, Rogerness and Fredness to Shany Sun and Joyce Chen, chem prow-ess to Mounika Kandalam, and hipsterness to Vishal Ka-lyanasundaram.

I, Ryan Wen, bequeath to Andrew Kuo the bboy club and west side dominance of MFX, Matthew Deng The Business, Gamblers, and my general ability to win, to Philip Chen my SAXiness, and finally to Connor Wen my Jack of all trades, way with women, and the Wen Legacy.

I, Ryan Young, bequeath Harrison Wang cheating rights, all the DIC./nai form verbs in the dictionary, the 5-shot handgun, and the fact that I am always right and bet-ter than you. I also bequeath Jack Wang all the slapping techniques we made for him to deal out the justice.

I, Sahila Jorapur, bequeath the ability to juggle both bas-ketball and Epic to Joy Shen, scandalous shirts and lots of hugs to Jasmine Mireshghi, title of headline queen to Sabrina Shie, an amazing senior year to Sonika Sub-ramanian, an unspoken bond with tons of inside jokes to Namrata Singh, my love for Modern Family and the ”what to do” song to Yasmine Moratazavi, gold stars to Austin Yu, and a memorable season full of laughing and bonding to the ‘11-’12 girls’ basketball team.

I, Sanjana Gopinath, bequeath summer fun and ice cream to Manasa Padmanabhan. To Brian Su, endless amounts of candy, to keep up him sugar high after sur-gery. To Fareeha Ahmed, Harry Potter jokes, to Kathy Dong, two more years of yearbook fun and a great time at Malibu! To VP Annie Ho, a wonderful senior year filled with quirkyness and laughter!

I, Sarah Lin, bequeath my crazy adventures to Angie Lee,my bad case of senioritis to Chaitu Sankuratri, my love for food to Aneesh Samudrala, my story telling skills to Silvia Signore and Richard Jang, my sweet tea addiction to Joseph Chang, and the AP class overload to Ryan Lin!

I, Saumya Kumar, bequeath to Neeti Angal too-awk-ward-to-handle moments, mustache jokes, the upstairs “hotel game” bedroom, and the name on the wall story. To Namrata Singh, heartfelt, late-night, over coffee, while dancing, while studying bio and eating quesa-dillas with lemonade in water-cup conversations that I’ll miss about Epic, college, and LHS Jalwa, and her favorite people gux and anuwhiner. To Michael Park, my clean laptop and a deadline extension for life. To Vaijayanti Duraphe, my sense of direction and munni winks To Vicky Ro my favorite words: incompetence, elementary and totes. To Kathy Li, the birthday-buddy present I have yet to give her. To TJ and John Park, cur-ry-smelling pineapples. To Nancy Yang, love for baker-ella and gh3tto music. To Sandeep Pedadda, awkward waves. To Jasmine Mireshghi, love for all of the hugs she has given me. To the Epic staff, the witty papers I post on the walls, my glares and eye-rolls and an amaz-ing next year! <3

I, Sebastian Liu, bequeath Kevin Tu my presidency, Michael Park my epicness, Howard Yang my nerdiness, Ethan Chiou my passion for hurdling, Daniel Sun my creepiness, Jennifer Tan my height, Stephanie Hahm my appetite, Edward Ding my webcam probing skills and Divya Saha my awesome accent.

I, Serena Lee, bequeath Kay my indelible taste for rich foods- most of which I crave during 5th period- and my love for Japanese culture. Hope you spend a wonderful senior year finding the perfect balance between good old facebook and cramming Kanji :).

I, Shalmali Joshi, bequeath to my Model UN-ers, my abilities to find random facts and write research papers at the last minute. To my freshman buddies, both fresh-man and not, I rescind your title and request you pass it on to future freshman buddies.

I, Sherry Xu, bequeath the art of procrastination and fun fun fun fun to Rashmi Raviprasad, Clarence Ma, Carole Wang, Chengyi Li, David Liu, and Diane Kim. Love you 2012 Juniors!

I, Souma Kundu, bequeath my Yearbookians my DJ-ing abilities, future APLitters a Peet’s Coffee card, Candace Liu my Beeper Fever, Alison Ngo my fantabulous ro-mantic advice, Disha lots of funny stories so the world can hear you laugh.

I, Stacey Liang, bequeath all the Valkyries a dollop of my love, Candace and Madd a dollop of success in ce-lebrity stalking endeavors, Cheryl a dollop of my sis-terly love, Karen a dollop of laughter, Shirley a dollop of nerd power, and Victoria a dollop of fascination with artistic blogs.

I, Stephanie Wolf, bequeath Miranda Ashland with my entertaining of the softball team through song for the next three years.

I, Swon Kimn, bequeath my procrastination skills to Daniel Sun, that he’ll be able to do essays/assignments on the day of with finesse.To Sirisha Sakhamuru I be-queath my opera-singing abilities. To Daniel Nishijima I bequeath “ninjin.” To Jessica Wu I bequeath my love, that she will enjoy her four years at Lynbrook.

I, Tammy Luan, bequeath the special desk and athletic love to Gavi, Kobe Bryant and (im)maturity to Paige, my stargazing abilities and Kobe’s phone number to my twin, Emily, and limited love and yearbook luck for Candace.

I, Ted Kang, bequeath my vaginitus track shoes to Daniel Sun in hopes that he will be faster next year. To Amanda Tam I bequeath the necessary protection for next year’s track season.

I, Teresa Lin, bequeath my senpai responsibilities to Cathy Wang. To Amanda Lu and Stephanie Kao, I be-queath my badminton skills and swag.

I, Teresa Liu, bequeath to Angela Tu “bagels” with cream cheese and my amazing college advice, to Nancy Yang one matching dried seahorse, and to Tiffani Lau midnight blue nail polish. To Lauren Tai a shared love for Threadless tees and earth tones, to Alice Zhang a cute sense of style, to Namrata Singh The Penultimate Peril and bland grilled cheese, to Jane Jun a memorable MOSAIC experience, to Gloria Lin my lovely eye for contenting, to Candy Chang an infinite supply of staff ed ideas, and to Michael Park my apparently intimidating facial expressions. Finally, I bequeath to the staff my pica radar, healthy Production snacks, and lots of hand sanitizer! <3

I, Tina Tran, bequeath GFINE, title of libero, so dig it good next year, KTCHON ugly prom dresses, AC-HUNG, off key karaoke-ing, MPARK and DSHIM, my enthusiasm in ASB class, CKIM, allergies to dog fur, so I can steal dogs, JENNIFER YOUM, my everything!

I, Tony Hsu, bequeath my ability to stand up to bullies to jerome chung and to my teachers who supported my love for squirrels.

I, Troy Tsui, bequeath my love for Homecoming to Di-vya Saha, to Andrew Huang I bequeath my Troy Status and iTouch abilities, to Alexandra Cong, I bequeath be-ing favorite science club officer. To Kunal Rathi I be-queath my homework etiquette.

I, Veena Bansal, bequeath my witty comebacks and insightful comments, my professional drawing abili-ties, and my sheer amazingness to Angela Tu and my excellent (not really & not that you need them) Spanish speaking abilities to Irene Hong.

I, Victoria Liang, bequeath my questionable intimida-tion tactics to Allison and Jamie. To Carl, Grace, An-drea, Ann, Tasha, and Sharon, I hereby bequeath my rifle/sabre skills and whatever sanity I possess, ‘cause y’all are crazy enough as it is.

I, Vinay Nittur, bequeath my mom jokes to the varsity juniors, my driving skills to Rishabh, my size 7 WNBA signed basketball shoes to Yamu, my Halo talents to Austin, and my awesome possum/T-Mac poster to Christopher Whiskens Kim. safeway soda + chicken @ John Muir reunions next year, hollaaaa!

I, Wailam Wong, bequeath Jia Gao my athletic beastli-ness, sarcasm, and individuality. I also concede one inch, so as to settle the matter. Give your all on the volleyball court, enjoy your remaining years of high school, and avoid rolled ankles!

I, Wendy Chan, bequeath my awesome dyed hair to Chris Kang and American Cancer Society Club to my fellow officers Elif Erturk and Tejas Konduru.

I, William Chiu, bequeath unto Gloria Lin my passion for writing and interest in the art of witty wordplay. I also bequeath my love, respect, and adoration of Bhan-gra unto the Lynbrook Bhangra team.

I, Yifen Jen, bequeath to Yiming everything I don’t take to college-- including the monster under the bed. Jk. :) I leave the winning position in Monopoly to Joseph Chang, and happiness to my twin :3

After six-and-a-half seasons of hilarity, The Office’s beloved Michael Scott (Steve Carell) left his paper sales home to move out west to Colorado to follow his love Holly Flax. Carell decided to leave the show after fulfilling his seven-season contract to move on to big-ger projects. The last episode with Carell, “Goodbye, Michael,” aired on April 28 and was a fitting tribute to Michael’s sometimes uncomfortably close relationship with his employees. Michael’s personal goodbyes to each of his employees throughout his last episode re-flected the personal and unique relationships Michael shared that made The Office special. Carell’s departure left many viewers anxious about the future of Dunder Mifflin without its leader, but the rest of the cast eventu-ally proved that they can keep the show entertaining.

The first episode without Carell featuring Will Fer-rell as Dunder Mifflin’s temporary manager, Deangelo Vickers, was sorely unfunny. Ferrell ran around the of-fice, choosing favorite employees, cracking stale jokes and pulling a final self-injury gag that landed him in the hospital and left Dunder Mifflin without a manag-er. Luckily, Ferrell only had a four-episode arc, so view-ers didn’t have to suffer through much of the dullness that he introduced to the show. The episode following

Keeping the Viking boat afloat

“Lynbrook would not function without her because she is a key figure in the foundation of our school,” says senior class president Pavan Upadhyayula. These words clearly describe Judy Boehm’s role at Lynbrook. She is the person whom everyone, students, ad-ministrators and teachers alike, go to for anything and everything.

Her love, joy and passion for Lynbrook are exhibited as she does much more than what her job description states. As the ASB Finan-cial Technician, Boehm describes the “basics” of her job as ranging “from small things like lost text books and ID cards to AP and PSAT registration, in addition to managing all the funds affiliated with ASB, clubs, sports, art and any association regarding students.”

Junior class president Anika Dhamodharan says, “In the leader-ship class everyone interacts with Ms. Boehm at some point because she does so much for our school and helps us out. She also has be-come part of our everyday lives making it so that she is like our sec-ond mother.” ASB commissioner senior Kristen Richardson says, “Ms. Boehm definitely deserves a lot more appreciation than what she gets because of all the things she does for the whole school.”

For Boehm, “The fun part of my job is interacting with students about activities, [like] dances and Homecoming.” One memory that she constantly is touched by is her birthday last year when the 2010 senior class dedicated its Homecoming to her and sang to her.

With memories trailing way back in Lynbrook’s history, Boehm feels at home because of all of the connections she has with this school. “Being around Lynbrook is energizing. My own kids went here and from my first day till now, every day in every year has been different,” Boehm says. Although she has some habitual procedures such as cutting checks and managing the financial accounts, Boehm stays here at Lynbrook because her love for the school and the stu-dents. She says, “I have only run into two rude students in the past 10 years. Lynbrook is such an amazing place that it has kept me coming back each year.”

Although her office is situated on top of the quad and is separate from the main office, she takes this as an opportunity to get involved with the students more and help them out. Boehm sees hundreds of different students everyday and she remembers most of them. All of her hard work over the years has accumulated and changed the school as a whole in hopes of allowing Lynbrook to be a place where extraordinary does happen.

As PE teacher Ray Wright sums it up, “Ms. Boehm is sent from somewhere up above. She is an amazing woman and does a great deal to benefit our school.”

by michaelPARK

DANIELLE LERNER—EPIC

Ferrell’s departure featured Dwight Schrute’s (Rainn Wilson) ascent to power as Dunder Mifflin’s acting manager. This episode managed to successfully and humorously portray Dwight’s overzeal-ousness in carrying out his dream job and sole goal for the past few years. However, Dwight cuts his managing days short after firing a gun in the of-fice, forcing Jim, Toby and Gabe to search for another new manager.

The season finale detailed the in-terviewing team’s trials with the appli-cants for the job. The slew of guest stars, including Ray Romano and Ricky Gervais were all hilarious as eccentric job-seekers. How-ever, none seemed like serious candidates for the job because they were laughably arrogant or unqualified. Despite his previous mishaps, Dwight seems like the forerunner for manager because of his sincerity and passion. The cast members of The Office still made the episode interesting, with Creed as a hilariously appall-ing interim manager. Although the first episode of The Office without Michael Scott fell short, the strength of The Office’s cast in subsequent episodes proved that the show can survive and thrive in its eighth season without Steve Carell or other guest stars.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY DANIELLE LERNER

by yunqingCHEN & suchetaKORWAR

Mixed SensesMany have heard phrases such as “a sharp smell” or

“a loud shirt,” but only few understand these cross-sen-sational metaphors in their most literal sense.

Those who are able to experience these have a rare neurological condition called synesthesia, in which stimulation of one sense spontaneously signals that of another. While most perceptive differences are due to sensory deficit, synesthesia enhances the senses.

To a synesthete, for example, a voice may not only be heard, but also tasted or seen. “Whenever a new piece of sensory input is present, you need to attach meaning to it to make sense of it. For people with synesthesia, this association is different from others, and it is not a matter of choice,” explains school psychologist Gail Waxman.

When senior Alyssa Zhang sees the word “Lynbrook,” it evokes in her mind shades of bright pink, lavender, mauve, light yellow, burnt orange, blue and navy. Zhang has the most common form of synesthesia, which relates letters to colors. Zhang automatically sees, in the form of flashes in her mind’s peripheral eye, a certain color after glancing upon each number and letter. The color of a whole word is overshadowed by the color of its first letter; however, she still sees each color distinctly.

“My favorite words are ones like ‘apple’ and ‘ocean’ because the colors of the things happen to match the col-ors I associate them with,” comments Zhang.

Not only is this sensation pleasurable, it can be also practical. “It helps me in spelling, since I have an idea of what colors words are supposed to have,” says Zhang.

For the most part, Zhang believes that she is quite ordinary. In fact, because all synesthetes are born with this perceptual difference, Zhang did not realize that her synesthesia was anything unusual until she read a maga-zine article describing it in the eighth grade.

Junior Karthika Pai has also had a similar history with discovering the condition.

Upon hearing “Lynbrook,” Pai has her mouth filled with a sugary taste because of her lexical-gustatory synesthesia. Select concepts and words, especially pro-nouns, cause her to immediately and involuntarily taste

flavors ranging from caramel—which she associates with the Mona Lisa—to frosted grass, having to do with Ire-land.

Because tastes can be vulgar and delicious, Pai’s syn-esthesia frequently causes her to make decisions based around it. To illustrate this effect, she explains, “The word ‘Berkeley’ for example tastes like cardboard; perhaps this connotation indicates a bias on whether or not I want to go there.” She also prefers science to math because the textbooks taste of brownies and lemons respectively.

Zhang and Pai both appreciate their condition and partly attribute their successes as writers to their unique experiences. Pai says, “[As writers], our condition helps us write and expose our characters to a wide variety of senses, resulting in a greater emphasis in senses and feel-ings than perhaps what normal writers depict.” In Pai’s case, her condition allows her to literally “savor” words.

There are as many types of synesthesia as there are combinations of senses, and each response to the condi-tion, whether it is linking the letter “o” to the color blue or “Stanford University” to oatmeal, is as unique to a per-son as his or her fingerprint.

Although the effects of it have been described for cen-turies, synesthesia was only recently rediscovered and named by scientists. An interesting phenomenon show-ing how widespread the characteristics of it are is the Bouba/Kiki effect, observed by the German psychologist Wolfgang Kohler in 1929, which causes almost 100% of people tested to associate a shape with jagged edges as a “kiki” and a shape with smooth edges as a “bouba.”

Zhang concludes, “I think all people experience synes-thetic associations to some degree.” Some, like these stu-dents once were, are merely unaware of it.

by brianZHAO

Vibrantly experiencing life with synesthesia

ART BY KATHY LI, CLAY SONG & ALICE ZHANG

Underage crisis: forging false identitiesby jasmineMIRESHGHI & sonikaSUBRAMANIAN

The rhythmic thumping of the bass echoes outside the club. A seventeen year old girl bobs on the tip of her toes eagerly peering over the bouncer to see inside the club. Handing over her ID that reads her age as 21, the bouncer scrutinizes it for a few seconds before letting her in with a nod of the head. Unfortunately this scene that most would expect to be part of a television show has become quite a reality in today’s community.

The use of fake identification cards allows students to act like adults and get away with it. There are two methods to using a fake ID: purchasing a fake ID from a vendor or company or “borrowing” someone else’s ID and using it as one’s own. Purchasing a fake ID is more popular as people see it as the more fail-safe method.

In fact, it is surprising how simple it is to obtain one. By a quick search on the Internet, thousands of overseas com-panies are made available for the purchase of fake card, freely advertising and producing fake identification cards for any individual who can pay for it. Prices can range anywhere from a hundred dollars to thousands of dollars, depending on the quality of the card.

Despite the easy availability of fake ids, it is peer pres-sure that tops the list of reasons to get a fake id. “Once one person gets it, and then all your friends have to get one. Because if you think about it, you can’t go clubbing or drinking by yourself,” says senior Jane Lamore*.

Most people believe that underage drinking and club-bing is a result of the selling of fake identification cards when in fact, real ids are commonly distributed to minors. The reason real IDs are used as covers for minors is that they are difficult to identify as a fake because the card is valid and therefore can be swiped on the machine. The only drawback is that a minor would need to get an ID with a picture that closely resembles their own.

“Even when they match up, we still can find ways to catch them. Police officers are trained to tell by the way someone acts,” says Santa Clara County Deputy Sheriff Aaron Baker. Fake IDs are not fool-proof, but due to ad-vanced technological capabilities, they have steadily be-come more accurate. The common misconception is that students using fake IDs rarely get caught. “It’s pretty easy these days to get away with using fake ids, no one really gets caught for it,” says senior Angela Adams*. Deputy Baker however states that generally police officers catch about one to two minors using fake IDs a month, which amounts to ten to twenty minors total each month.

When a minor is caught using a fake form of identifica-tion, a police officer will initially issue a citation and then a court date where a judge will determine the fine they have to pay and the amount of probation.

Clubs are assumed to be an easy way to use fake IDs be-cause minors assume that bouncers can’t tell the difference between a real or fake ID under the strobe lights. “Actu-ally, bouncers at clubs catch more fake IDs,” says Deputy

Baker. California’s Alcoholic Beverage Control has strict rules on selling alcohol to minors and if a club is caught doing that, their liquor license could be revoked. “Selling alcohol is a club’s main source of revenue, so they’re very protective of it,” says Deputy Baker.

Recently California has created a top-of-the-line ID card. Cards issued to minors under 21 will be vertical. Adult IDs will be horizontal and will have multiple holo-grams that are only visible under a UV light. The govern-ment hopes that this new form of ID will make them easier to detect and deter minors from trying to create fake IDs.

Ten years ago, a student being discovereod carrying a fake ID would have created a large commotion. Today, it’s nearly as common as minor’s consuming illegal substance and getting in trouble. “I’ve never really felt guilty about getting a fake, sometimes you don’t even remember that it’s breaking the law,” says junior Clark Anderson*. Some say this lack of concern comes from our culture. Televi-sion now sexualizes drinking alcohol and partying in clubs underage. Deputy Baker believes that this is true but the real reason is the lack of emphasis placed on the severity of crimes no matter how minor. “When I was younger, a kid getting caught with weed in the back of his trunk was crazy, but now, it’s just normal,” says Deputy Baker.

“If you continue to use [a fake ID], you will get caught for it,” says Baker, “it is inevitable.”

*Names have been changed

With the health craze sweeping the nation, it’s no surprise that this “fashionable” sensation is especially prevalent in high school. In the past few years, a new solution has emerged, as more teens turn to one of the medical world’s fastest expand-ing industries: diet pills.

Diet pills work differently than traditional weight loss methods do by targeting the areas of the body responsible for hunger, rather than dietary methods that rely on calorie intake. There are three sub-categories of diet pills: appetite suppres-sants, fat burners and carbohydrate blockers.

Diet pills are used for a variety of reasons, not only to satisfy a personal weight goal. Some are used to treat pre-existing medical conditions such as severe obesity. Many of these pills are prescription only, but many are also available over the counter (OTC), which in turn makes them easily ac-cessible to adolescents.

Junior Laura Chang* fits the above category. Last summer, Chang began using Phentermine, a common OTC appetite suppressant. She says, “I started [using diet pills] because I was self-conscious about my weight… I tried to convince my-self that I simply wanted to improve my overall health, but it was more about my appearance.”

Chang decided to try the pill after a friend referenced “Phen” as the cause for her extreme weight loss. In addition to taking one capsule three times per day, before meals, Chang adhered to the directions on the bottle, which stated that the

pills are most effective “when used in conjunction with exercise and diet.” She lost eleven pounds in three months, saying, “I’d like to think it was the pills, but who knows? It could have been just my eating habits and exercise.”

Although diet pills can help shed unwanted weight, they come with their fair share of risks. In addition to the possibility of physical and emotional addiction, taking the pills comes with a variety of symptoms, including: irri-tability, insomnia and high blood pressure. Overdose can even result in renal failure and death.

Chang comments, “I knew about all the possible side effects, but every medicine has some side effects. They rarely happen except for in extreme cases, so I’m not re-ally worried about that.” She did experience nausea, but attributes it to “trying to adjust to taking the pills.”

However, diet pills are not required by law to be tested by the FDA prior to public release. Pediatrician Dr. Doug-las Kaye says, “I have seen a number of teenagers who are not obese come in with extreme intestinal problems result-ing from incorrect dosages for their respective weights. It is very dangerous to alter dosage, as this can negatively affect BMI (body mass index).”

Chang acknowledges the tragedies, saying with a shrug, “It is a terrible thing, but I think that the possible outcome of losing weight and becoming a healthier person over-shadows the risk. I guess I’m just one of the lucky ones.”

*Name has been changed

by danielleLERNER

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY KATHY LI & ALICE ZHANG

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY AUSTIN YU

Underage crisis: forging false identitiesby jasmineMIRESHGHI & sonikaSUBRAMANIAN

The rhythmic thumping of the bass echoes outside the club. A seventeen year old girl bobs on the tip of her toes eagerly peering over the bouncer to see inside the club. Handing over her ID that reads her age as 21, the bouncer scrutinizes it for a few seconds before letting her in with a nod of the head. Unfortunately this scene that most would expect to be part of a television show has become quite a reality in today’s community.

The use of fake identification cards allows students to act like adults and get away with it. There are two methods to using a fake ID: purchasing a fake ID from a vendor or company or “borrowing” someone else’s ID and using it as one’s own. Purchasing a fake ID is more popular as people see it as the more fail-safe method.

In fact, it is surprising how simple it is to obtain one. By a quick search on the Internet, thousands of overseas com-panies are made available for the purchase of fake card, freely advertising and producing fake identification cards for any individual who can pay for it. Prices can range anywhere from a hundred dollars to thousands of dollars, depending on the quality of the card.

Despite the easy availability of fake ids, it is peer pres-sure that tops the list of reasons to get a fake id. “Once one person gets it, and then all your friends have to get one. Because if you think about it, you can’t go clubbing or drinking by yourself,” says senior Jane Lamore*.

Most people believe that underage drinking and club-bing is a result of the selling of fake identification cards when in fact, real ids are commonly distributed to minors. The reason real IDs are used as covers for minors is that they are difficult to identify as a fake because the card is valid and therefore can be swiped on the machine. The only drawback is that a minor would need to get an ID with a picture that closely resembles their own.

“Even when they match up, we still can find ways to catch them. Police officers are trained to tell by the way someone acts,” says Santa Clara County Deputy Sheriff Aaron Baker. Fake IDs are not fool-proof, but due to ad-vanced technological capabilities, they have steadily be-come more accurate. The common misconception is that students using fake IDs rarely get caught. “It’s pretty easy these days to get away with using fake ids, no one really gets caught for it,” says senior Angela Adams*. Deputy Baker however states that generally police officers catch about one to two minors using fake IDs a month, which amounts to ten to twenty minors total each month.

When a minor is caught using a fake form of identifica-tion, a police officer will initially issue a citation and then a court date where a judge will determine the fine they have to pay and the amount of probation.

Clubs are assumed to be an easy way to use fake IDs be-cause minors assume that bouncers can’t tell the difference between a real or fake ID under the strobe lights. “Actu-ally, bouncers at clubs catch more fake IDs,” says Deputy

Baker. California’s Alcoholic Beverage Control has strict rules on selling alcohol to minors and if a club is caught doing that, their liquor license could be revoked. “Selling alcohol is a club’s main source of revenue, so they’re very protective of it,” says Deputy Baker.

Recently California has created a top-of-the-line ID card. Cards issued to minors under 21 will be vertical. Adult IDs will be horizontal and will have multiple holo-grams that are only visible under a UV light. The govern-ment hopes that this new form of ID will make them easier to detect and deter minors from trying to create fake IDs.

Ten years ago, a student being discovereod carrying a fake ID would have created a large commotion. Today, it’s nearly as common as minor’s consuming illegal substance and getting in trouble. “I’ve never really felt guilty about getting a fake, sometimes you don’t even remember that it’s breaking the law,” says junior Clark Anderson*. Some say this lack of concern comes from our culture. Televi-sion now sexualizes drinking alcohol and partying in clubs underage. Deputy Baker believes that this is true but the real reason is the lack of emphasis placed on the severity of crimes no matter how minor. “When I was younger, a kid getting caught with weed in the back of his trunk was crazy, but now, it’s just normal,” says Deputy Baker.

“If you continue to use [a fake ID], you will get caught for it,” says Baker, “it is inevitable.”

*Names have been changed

With the health craze sweeping the nation, it’s no surprise that this “fashionable” sensation is especially prevalent in high school. In the past few years, a new solution has emerged, as more teens turn to one of the medical world’s fastest expand-ing industries: diet pills.

Diet pills work differently than traditional weight loss methods do by targeting the areas of the body responsible for hunger, rather than dietary methods that rely on calorie intake. There are three sub-categories of diet pills: appetite suppres-sants, fat burners and carbohydrate blockers.

Diet pills are used for a variety of reasons, not only to satisfy a personal weight goal. Some are used to treat pre-existing medical conditions such as severe obesity. Many of these pills are prescription only, but many are also available over the counter (OTC), which in turn makes them easily ac-cessible to adolescents.

Junior Laura Chang* fits the above category. Last summer, Chang began using Phentermine, a common OTC appetite suppressant. She says, “I started [using diet pills] because I was self-conscious about my weight… I tried to convince my-self that I simply wanted to improve my overall health, but it was more about my appearance.”

Chang decided to try the pill after a friend referenced “Phen” as the cause for her extreme weight loss. In addition to taking one capsule three times per day, before meals, Chang adhered to the directions on the bottle, which stated that the

pills are most effective “when used in conjunction with exercise and diet.” She lost eleven pounds in three months, saying, “I’d like to think it was the pills, but who knows? It could have been just my eating habits and exercise.”

Although diet pills can help shed unwanted weight, they come with their fair share of risks. In addition to the possibility of physical and emotional addiction, taking the pills comes with a variety of symptoms, including: irri-tability, insomnia and high blood pressure. Overdose can even result in renal failure and death.

Chang comments, “I knew about all the possible side effects, but every medicine has some side effects. They rarely happen except for in extreme cases, so I’m not re-ally worried about that.” She did experience nausea, but attributes it to “trying to adjust to taking the pills.”

However, diet pills are not required by law to be tested by the FDA prior to public release. Pediatrician Dr. Doug-las Kaye says, “I have seen a number of teenagers who are not obese come in with extreme intestinal problems result-ing from incorrect dosages for their respective weights. It is very dangerous to alter dosage, as this can negatively affect BMI (body mass index).”

Chang acknowledges the tragedies, saying with a shrug, “It is a terrible thing, but I think that the possible outcome of losing weight and becoming a healthier person over-shadows the risk. I guess I’m just one of the lucky ones.”

*Name has been changed

by danielleLERNER

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY KATHY LI & ALICE ZHANG

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY AUSTIN YU

Sophomore Michelle Shieh successfully completes a triple jump during the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League Finals on Friday May 13 at Santa Clara High. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY AUSTIN YU

“I didn’t really expect to make [CCS] but I’m re-ally glad I did. This year was really competitive, a lot people from Lynbrook who should’ve made it didn’t, so I’m really happy.”

by charuMEHRA

ted kang (12) cindy huang (12) shaelyn silverman (10)

Track and field leaps forward to qualify for CCS

DANIELLE LERNER—EPIC SAHILA JORAPUR—EPIC SAHILA JORAPUR—EPIC

“I never gave up and pushed myself to my limit during SCVALs. I feel privileged [to have made CCS], but last year as a freshman I made [CCS] running faster times, so I am a bit disappointed.”

As a slightly disappointing season comes to a close, the Track and Field team is sending the few qualified represen-tatives to the annual CCS tournament. CCS 2011 will take place at Gilroy High School at the end of May.

Sophomores Shaelyn Silverman and Jacqueline Hude-pohl, junior Amanda Tam and seniors Cindy Huang and Ted Kang will be upholding the Lynbrook name in their respec-tive events.

In order to qualify for CCS, athletes were required to place in the top three at the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League Finals (SCVALs), which was held on May 13.

Although the team as a whole did not do as well as hoped, the girls’ 4x4 relay, made up of Cindy Huang, Amanda Tam, Jacqueline Hudepohl and Shaelyn Silverman, placed first at

SCVALs, securing a spot at CCS this year. Senior Cindy Huang talks about her personal expe-

rience and states, “As an individual, I’ve been running kind of the same times this whole season, and I’m hop-ing that I’ll be able to break that trend at CCS.”

Another member of the team, senior Ted Kang, com-ments on the mediocre performance of the track team this year and says, “I know that the only way we’re go-ing to get better is if we have a rubber track. We had a lot of injuries this year that disabled our top athletes, which seriously jeopardized our meets.”

On his own performance, Kang says “I think it was more difficult this season. I specialize in the 100 meter but I didn’t make it to CCS for that this year. I made it in the 200 meter instead.”

Although two of the five track and field members at

CCS will be sophomores, they don’t feel odd about qualify-ing as underclassmen.

Silverman says, “I feel privileged, but last year as a freshman I made it running faster times, so I’m a bit disap-pointed.” Hudepohl adds, “I’m excited to qualify as an un-derclassman, but I still feel like I need to continue to work hard because I think I can run a lot faster.”

“On the other hand, however,” she continues, “I started track about a month and a half late because of basketball, and despite being in really bad shape for track, I started to really improve my times after a month, especially in the 400. Luckily, they were good enough to make CCS.”

Despite moving up to a higher league, the track and field team has managed to maintain a high level of achievement this season The CCS events will be held at Gilroy High School on May 27.

“This year our relay team was pretty good, girls 4x4 usually gets dropped because we don’t make it very far, but this year we were able to make it all the way to CCS.”

Softball stays positive despite a rough seasonby shannonCHAI

Senior Katherine Cai winds up to pitch ball during the home game against Los Altos High on May 11.

DANIELLE LERNER—EPIC

Powderpuff: a way to increase school spirit

The cold weather of last week reminded ev-eryone of the fall season, and with that came back the sport that goes with it—football, with a twist.

As a junior, I admit, I’m still a little bummed out that we lost the final game, but that’s not the point here. It was one of the first events in a while that really brought the school together for a week of spirit-filled fun.The Powderpuff games were a thrill to watch and it was refresh-ing to see girls running and tackling, at times, ferociously on the green while guys cheered them on.

Even though this event had been publicized a lot, I was still amazed at the amount of stu-dents that trickled into the stands to cheer on their class and their fellow classes. Apart from the rallies, it was one of the most successful school activities that I had seen in a while. Why is that?

The biggest reason was probably that the whole thing revolved around girls playing foot-ball. Even though it wasn’t tackle, it was still new and fresh enough to capture most people’s interest. Seeing as Powderpuff is a big deal in other schools, even in our district, it was inter-esting to see what the hubbub was about. And who can resist the guy cheerleaders who tried their best to rally the crowds with their cheer moves and lifts.

This fun twist should be brought into the other activities of Lynbrook. Organizers and coordinators should seek new angles and try to make outlandish and fun activities that are en-gaging and exciting, and hold them in locations that are easily accessible for the whole school.

Activities that involve fitness and teamwork are especially popular, such as March Madness, where students can form a dream team with their friends and spectators can watch. It is always fun to take a part of an activity such as this, especially for those students who aren’t able to participate in a school team of that sport. And it is always a bonus to see your friends launching each other into the air and shaking their hips.

A severe illness, a debilitating knee injury and seniori-tis—it is clear that the girls’ softball team has been through a rough season.

It has been a season full of unfore-seen circumstances. One of the varsity coaches, Steve Benzing says, “We an-ticipated a good season, what with ten returning seniors, but there have been a lot of frustrations.”

For instance, one of the varsity pitch-ers, senior Ana Ficovich, came down with an illness for four weeks, leav-ing the team with only one remaining pitcher: senior Katherine Cai. Benzing says, “[Cai] did very well handling the amount of work, but our biggest prob-lem was that without a second pitcher, we had no one to fall back on if anything went wrong.”

In addition to the illness, the team was also struck with an injury to one of their players: senior Kaitlyn Kiefel suf-fered a knee injury that that forced her to stay out of prac-tices and games until May 1. Kiefel says, “I got injured during one of our practices. I was running from third to home base and slid in. Then our catcher jumped for the ball and landed on my knee.”

Furthermore, the team, which is made up of mainly

seniors, inevitably faced a problem with senioritis—al-though not the laziness, but rather the hectic springtime that is typical for seniors.

As expected, most of the seniors spent spring break vis-iting colleges, and the distractions took a significant toll

on the team’s performance during games. Benzing says, “The girls do show up to practice, but the problem lies in execution on the actual game day. Sometimes it’s like they forgot everything we did during prac-tice.”

According to Benzing, conditions are probably not getting any better next year, considering the team is only expecting one returning varsity senior.

However, Benzing says, “I have heard about the possibility that a new girl who plays travel ball will be transferring in next year from Las Vegas. Travel ball is a kind of softball where players—or most often,

their parents—pay lots of money and sometimes travel around the U.S. in these teams in order to play in competi-tive tournaments.”

Despite all the hardships the team has faced this season, they have managed to stay positive and most importantly, maintained close bonds throughout the entire process. Benzing says, “We try to stay positive and focus on not giving up. Bottom line is that if the kids have fun, learn-something new and no one gets hurt, it’s a great year.”

Badminton team gets off to a good start by smashing into SCVAL matches

After playing SCVALs on Thursday, May 19 and Fri-day, May 20, the badminton team’s status at CCS is looking good. As of May 20, all of Lynbrook’s players were to proceed to SCVAL finals on May 21 where the players proceeding to CCS were determined.

Head coach Karen Christensen says, “Some of our varsity played undefeated during the singles games on Thursday, and we are trying to get as many players as possible to the SCVAL finals on Saturday, so that we have a better chance of getting more players to CCS.”

14 schools from around the Santa Clara Valley area played at SCVALs, each represented by two to three players in each event—boys’ single, girls’ single and mixed doubles on Thurs-day and boys’ and girls’ doubles on Friday. Players could lose two games before being knocked out of the competition, and could lose one game before being pushed into the losers brack-et, in which players have to play more games against relatively easier competitors.

Christensen says, “The brackets sometimes determine how well players do because when you play tougher teams in the winners bracket you can get out of the competition more eas-ily, but after playing several teams in the losers bracket you tire out more.”

The teams that played on Friday also had a slimmer chance of making it to the finals due to the extra number of matches they had to play. However, the brackets and competitors have not yet proved to be a problem for the team as everyone who played at SCVALs as of print time is moving on to the finals on Saturday.

Players with the potential to move on to CCS after SCVAL finals on Saturday include seniors Teresa Lin and Lisa Scaria who play girls doubles together and placed 5th at CCS last year. Senior Mona Fulambarkar and junior Patrick Wen were undefeated in girls’ singles and boys’ singles respectively as of Friday night, and both also have good chances of making it to CCS.

There were also several underclassmen who played at SCVALs this year and did well while gaining experience for future SCVALs and CCS. Junior Angela Tu, who played girls’ doubles at SCVALs with sophomore Emily Pang says, “We have been doing well at SCVALs and it’s nice to support other team members here. It doesn’t matter how well we do from now on because the experience we’ve gained by playing other teams is invaluable and will help us next year’s SCVALs.”

by suchetaKORWAR

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SAHILA JORAPUR

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY SONIKA SUBRAMANIAN

Pictured above:Junior Patrick Wen smashes the birdie over the net.

Freshman Katherine Tatley braces herself against junior Casey Ficovich’s tackle during the Powderpuff football game on Monday.

POWDERPUFF|The final kick of the school yearcontinued from pg 1 as a Lynbrook tradition.”

On Wednesday, the seniors played against the freshmen. Although many might have expected to do poorly against the seniors, the freshmen held their own, leading to the game ending in a stalemate. This led to the overtime kickoff and the seniors defeated the freshman.

On Thursday, the juniors and sophomores faced each other for the title of Powderpuff champions. Throughout the tense but exhila-rating match, the juniors and sophomores each scored one touchdown. The game was led into the overtime kick off. After three rounds, the sophomores won the tournament. Although dis-appointment abounded for the juniors, the over-all sentiment remained positive.

Generally, Powderpuff has been a positive experience on campus, giving a reason to come together under the umbrella of school spirit.

“It was an overall very good experience. It should be kept as a tradition, but in the future with more set rules and regulations,” says sopho-more Emily Fong.

Initially, the cheer competition that concluded the tournament was to be held on Friday dur-ing lunch. But due to a scheduling conflict the cheer competition was moved to Thursday and Friday during brunch. The freshmen preformed on Thursday, but due to technical difficulties, the seniors did not preform. The juniors and sopho-mores preformed on Friday during brunch.

The results were announced on Friday. The sophomores came in first place, the juniors in second, the seniors in third and the freshmen in fourth.

“If everything goes smoothly this year and we prove that it is an enjoyable event for the stu-dents, it will definitely be carried over into future years,” says ASB president elect Kevin Tu.

DANIELLE LERNER—EPIC

ment includes having girls from different classes face off against each other while playing the tra-ditionally male-dominated game of football.

“We saw Monta Vista’s boys’ cheerleading routine [during Powderpuff] and we were like, ‘We have got to bring that to Lynbrook!’ And so here we are, in May, with our first Powderpuff tournament,” says Athletics committee member senior Tammy Luan.

Unlike Monta Vista, who incorporates their Powderpuff games into their Homecoming fes-tivities, Lynbrook’s ASB Athletics Committee has decided to dedicate a whole week for the tournament that is separate from Homecoming.

Keeping safety as their number one concern, the girls are playing flag football, a non-contact version of football. “We are crossing our fingers that none of the girls get injured from flag foot-ball and the boys are safe doing their flips and stunts,” says Luan.

On Monday, the freshmen played the juniors, kicking off the week-long event. The fresh-men began offense and the juniors on defense. The juniors scored a touchdown. At the end of the twenty minute game, the juniors won with a score of 6-0. Junior Jason Sternad, one of the coaches for the junior team, says, “Our strategy is to be original and think outside the box.”

On Tuesday, the sophomores played the se-niors in a heated, but non-scoring game. After two halves of exchanged possessions up and down the field. The game was decided as the sophomores successfully defeated the seniors in a field goal kickoff competition. “It was a great game,” commented sophomore Aneesh Sreedhar, the coach of the sophomore team, “the seniors played amazingly and it should definitely be kept

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Performers show off dance feverby danielleLERNER

The lights dimmed and music slowly began to swell as various sil-houettes struck their poses in front of the overflowing gym bleachers. As the music grew louder, the forms suddenly burst into movement, inspiring applause and cheers from the audience. This was the scene at IDC’s Best Dance Crew on May 13, featuring many performances by Lynbrook’s own students. Ryan Wen (12), middle left, shows off his breakdancing while performing with Motion FX. Joining them were Emiri Sakuri (12), Amy Wei (9) and Angie Lee (11) of the Dope Di-

nosaurs of Destruction, center. Taejin Park (11) offered comedic re-lief with his body rolling, middle right. Similar activites took place at the Valkyries Spring Showcase on May 20. The Valks, top, performed many of their routines. Shany Sun (11) and Stacey Liang (12), bottom left, perform their nationally awarded routine “Nerds and Bullies.” The Valkyries were also accompanied by John Chow (12), bottom right, as he demonstrated his skills on the yo-yo. Overall, Lynbrook students have surely shown their passions for dance.