An Independent Publication of Leigh High School

May 31, 2012Volume 50 Issue No. 7

Pictured in Longhorn: Junior Lauren Mitchell performing a clarinet solo at Literaleigh’s Open Mic Night on May 17.

The Avengers, page 15

Camp Everytown, page 2 Senior Map, page 10 To post or not to post, page 12

Senior summer, page 8

Congratulations on finishing one of the easiest parts of your life, seniors. High school, in a word, is tumultuous. It’s a roller-coaster ride of emotional exhaustion, for better or for worse. You can educate yourself on the unspoken laws of high school and try to prepare yourself for the stereotypical high school experiences through watching campy straight-to-TV Disney movies, but nothing can really arm you for those four years.

Each and every one of us, like hundreds of pubescent, demanding snowflakes, has a dif-ferent high school story unique to ourselves. Some of us claimed the Homecoming crown, others of us quietly cruised through our four years. Regardless of whether you leave with the legacy of being the life of the party, always having a book in your hands, or for playing Warhammer 40K in your dungeon with your fellow warlocks and dwarf priests until the wee hours of the dawn, everyone is embarrassed of their freshman self and wishes they had been wiser.

No matter how committed you are to denying high school’s affect on your life, everyone is molded into who they are by the things they experience and the people they meet during high school. Nobody ever comes out of high school the same way they went in. After all, four years is a relatively long time in human years, and 15 times longer in turtle years. A lot of fac-tors can change a person’s entire world view over the course of four years (or 60 turtle years).

So The Eleight asked the seniors of 2012-- since nobody can really give better advice to your freshman self than your senior self,

-Marissa Rodriguez and Kylie Brown

news 5.31.12page 02

Amanda CendejasFeatures Editor

As the 2011-2012 school year comes to an end, the Leigh com-munity is still buzzing about the upcoming 50th year celebration. The celebration will be on Fri-day, Nov. 9 at Leigh’s homecoming football game. Everyone is invited to the celebration. The only thing you have to do to get in is get your ticket for the game. Students only need their ASB card for admission. The football game will be filled with festivities, students, and community members. “The ‘festivities’ will be held at halftime during the homecoming game, although we don’t know ex-

actly what those festivities are yet,” said activities director Gina Nico-letta. “Those are being decided on by a group of community members who are planning the 50th year celebration.” Some students have also helped to plan the event over the past few years. Senior Nyssa Wickemeyer said, “I remember sophomore year in lead-ership, we were looking through year-books finding homecoming queens and kings, the kids who were the most photographed, the ‘most likely to’s,’ star athletes, and etc. We wrote down all of the names on a piece of paper. Mrs. Nicoletta said they would use those names to contact people to invite to the celebration.” Traditionally during homecom-

ing football games, attendees have sat through a halftime filled with cheerleading performances, march-ing band songs, and the crowning of Homecoming queen and king. However, with the festivities for the 50th year celebration taking place during halftime of the football game, these traditional performances and even a Powder Puff game will be held dur-ing a night rally on Thursday, Nov. 9. The class of 2013 has the honor of being Leigh’s 50th graduating class, but when Nicoletta was asked to address the rumor that they will be receiving different colored robes for graduation, she said, “No, there are no plans for that.”

A stranger is simply a friend you haven’t met

Chloe TamaroStaff Writer

On Thursday, May 10, 35 spe-cially selected Leigh students and seven Leigh staff members got on a bus, eager to attend a camp which they had very little knowledge about. These selected students were chosen by their teachers, who were told to choose charismatic, influential teenagers whom they be-lieved had the ability to make a differ-ence at Leigh after returning from the camp. To represent Leigh as a whole, juniors, sophomores, and one fresh-man were taken from different social circles in order to have the most pro-found affect on the culture of Leigh. The bus ride consisted of friendly chatter, the gentle melodies of a uku-lele, and a symphony of teenage voices humming along to “I’m Yours” by Ja-son Mraz. Many students didn’t know what to expect when they arrived at the camp and the anticipation was palpable. The students soon after arrived at Camp May Mac, located in Felton, California, to participate in a program sponsored by Silicon Valley Faces, known simply as “Camp Everytown.” Although now they at least had knowledge of the location of the camp, they still had no idea what was in store for them. They had no clue this experi-ence would change their lives forever. During the Camp Everytown program, Leigh students underwent an intensive four-day sensitivity program during which they addressed the big-

gest social divides in modern society: race, religion, gender, ethnicity, cul-ture, income, ability, and age. Although these topics had always lingered on the surface and lived as the white elephant in the room, students were now given the opportunity to dig deeper, and get down to the heart of the matter. The students arrived at Camp Everytown as strangers for the most part, many having had little to no interaction with one another prior to

camp. They were strategically placed in cabins where racial, social, and cultural groups were mixed. By the end of the weekend, camp-ers felt closer to one another than they felt with many of their close friends. The catalyst of this bond was the ex-ercises and simulations which worked to address key issues at Leigh such as racism and sexism. Many people wit-nessed that tears bring people closer. “The generalizations most people

scrutinize other people for were a com-mon trend in the simulations we did, but through each one came insight into other peoples lives, struggles, and what makes them who they are in order for us to feel empathetic toward their situ-ations,” said junior Kyle Brinkman. In the beginning, students were forced to sit next to people they didn’t know so that cliques would be elimi-nated and new friendships would de-velop. By Sunday afternoon, there was

no one that camp-ers hadn’t been ac-quainted with. After returning, the students unani-mously agreed that the Everytown pro-gram had had a pro-found effect on their lives. “[Camp Every-town] has made me appreciate what I have in life and who I have in life there for me when I’m down, and for that I am grateful,” said ju-nior Gabe Manley. Although faced with criticism from their somewhat dubious peers, the Camp Everytown at-tendees plan on cre-ating a peer support and awareness club open for any Leigh student to join next fall. “I’ve had more

negative feedback than positive, but I do feel over time some people, the ones willing to make a difference, will join us in making one,” said sophomore Courtney Reno. The club will likely be called LoveLeigh and will have similar in-tentions as the current club at Leigh: TOPS. The Camp Everytown program will now be attended by a new batch of students each school year.

Emily RansomStaff Writer

Leigh students attend Camp Everytown to break down social and racial barriers

Photo courtesy of Camp Everytown

Campers showing off their pearly whites while repping their Camp Everytown attire.

GoldenAnniversary:

Leigh High School celebrates its 50th year and bids farewell to its 49th graduating class

Left: Commemorative plaques line the entrance to the school, and this year, the class of 2012, the 50th gradu-ating class, will be joining them. Photo by Mikayla Druhan

news5.31.12 page03

Leigh senior heroically rescues ducklings from sewerKylie Brown

Editor-in-Chief

Most high school students con-jure up platitudes to explain why they a r r i v e d late to s c h o o l , s u c h as hav-ing car t roub l e or hit-ting traf-fic. But s e n i o r L a c e y Co l l in s had a cur ious and en-t i r e l y truthful e x c u s e for be-ing late to her sixth pe-riod on Wednes-day, May 9-- she was busy rescuing a brood of ducklings from being swept down a manhole to their doom. Collins was riding her bike to

school when she noticed a mama duck wildly quacking on the side of the road. Concerned, Col-lins pulled over to investigate. “I could hear the babies, and I thought the mom was trying to cross

the street so I wanted to help them out,” recalled Collins. “I couldn’t see the babies anywhere. I looked down the sewer drain where the

Photos courtesy of Lacey Collins

The great duckling rescuemom was standing and there they were, chirping and freaking out!” Collins desperately began calling authorities, being trans-ferred between 911, the San Jose Police

Depar t -m e n t , The Hu-mane So-ciety, and eventu-ally San-ta Clara A n i m a l C o n -trol. In t h e m e a n -t i m e , C o l l i n s f l a g g e d down a p a s s i n g Cal Train e m -p l o y e e to help her take the grat-

ing off of the sewer opening. At last, Ani-mal Control arrived, but the crew encountered a problem.

“They didn’t have a net long enough to get [the ducklings], so we fashioned one by duct taping the net to

some dog-catching things,” explained

Collins. “We got [the ducklings] out of the hole and put them all in a cage. The mama wouldn’t budge from their side!”

T h e m o t h e r d u c k and her d u c k -l i n g s w e r e released into a n e a r b y c r e e k , w h e r e t h e y are all safe and s o u n d and far a w a y f r o m m a n -holes and o t h e r perilous s e w e r openings.

Collins with the grateful rescued ducklings.

Double

In one of the hottest issues in Con-gress, both Republicans and Democrats agree that it would be a mistake to let interest rates on Stafford student loans double from 3.4 to 6.8 percent effective July, especially during an election year. Stafford loans are either sub-sidized or unsubsidized. Subsidized loans alleviate the cost of borrowing for low-income students because the government pays the interest on the loan while the student is enrolled; eligi-bility is based on financial need. With unsubsidized loans, however, interest accrues effective immediately so the loan balance grows while the student is in school. The current debate re-volves only around subsidized Stafford loans; the Education Department esti-mates that about 30 percent of under-graduates take out this kind of loan. The issue is that Republicans and Democrats in Congress cannot agree on how to fund a one-year freeze on the current interest rate on Stafford loans, which would cost an estimated $6 billion. Despite their not being able to compromise, both are stead-fast on not allowing interest rates to double from 3.4 to 6.8 percent in July. The Republican solution would be to slice into Obama’s health care

reform program. By abolishing the preventative health program created by Obama’s 2010 health care reform, the move would save the necessary $6 billion. During a press conference on Capitol Hill, Speaker of the House John Boehner said that by cutting

“one of the slush funds” in the health program, money could be put to bet-ter use by aiding struggling students. Although political strategists say they are confident both parties

will find a compromise as they would be hurt politically by an increase in the interest rate, neither party ap-pears to be budging on how they think the $6 billion should be raised. On May 8, Republican senators blocked a Democratic bill because they

opposed how the Democrats would subsidize the freeze on interest rates. If the bill had passed, Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes would in-crease on high-earning stockholders

of some privately owned corpora-tions in order to increase cash flow. The more controversial aspect of the debate stems from the fact that it shines the light on the increasing prob-lem of college tuition and ever-growing student debt. According to College

Board, the average in-state tuition and fees at a four-year public college rose about 8 percent from a year ago. Currently, 7.4 million under-graduate students rely on subsidized

Stafford loans, which are need-based loans targeted at low-to-moderate in-come students and families. However, if interest rates double this summer, the change will cost the average under-graduate about $1,000 more per year of school. At the current interest rate, 3.4 percent, it takes graduated students an estimated decade in order to pay off their loan. Tacking on another $1,000 would further increase that time period. This increases the financial bur-den on both parents and student as tu-ition is already rising at about 8 percent per year at four-year public school. Fac-tor in the extra cost in interest, and the overall cost of college will jump about 20 percent next year for the typical student relying on the Stafford loan. When asked about how the po-tential hike in interest would affect her, an anonymous senior said “My parents are paying for my loans while I’m in college, but if Congress is go-ing to increase the interest rate, they’ll probably be upset. I’m not getting any other aids or grants - just loans.” If the rate does end up being doubled, the higher rate would not ap-ply to existing loans; only students who take out subsidized federal loans after July 1 would be subject to the new rate.

Subsidized loans, or loans supported by the government for some time, are the subject of a heated debate.

Visual by Rajashree Bhattacharya

Jinny JungStaff Writer

Interest rates on student loans are to be doubled Trouble:

news 5.31.12page 04

After 38 years of being a well-loved foods teacher and recently re-ceiving the Teacher of the Year Award, Pam Wheeler has decided it is time to retire. While here, Wheeler fulfilled her dream of being a teacher that she has had ever since she was a little girl. “I’ve loved coming here every single day,” she said, “There is not one day in the last 38 years that I’ve wished I did not have this job. If I could give all my students one gift, it would be that they’ll enjoy their careers as much as I do.” Wheeler’s love for her job cer-tainly reflects in her teaching in such a way that even students who don’t have her as a teacher take good note of it. “I’ve never had Ms. Wheeler before,” says senior Alex Ngo, “but my locker is right next to her class-room. Every day she still says hello to me and wishes me a good morning.” Wheeler’s noted friendliness to students goes further than just her classroom doorstep. Wheeler is the head of Leigh High School’s “Save Our Students” a.k.a “S.O.S” program that offer coun-seling to students. It’s a place where kids can feel safe to share their feelings and receive

guidance. P r i n -cipal Donna Hope says that something that makes Wheeler stand out is “her heart; her lov-ing, caring at-titude.” Because of its quality, Leigh’s counsel-ing program has been offered ad-ditional funds. In her years of teach-ing, Wheeler has seen hundreds of students come through her doors, of-ten followed by younger sib-lings, and even their own chil-dren. She has seen many changes over the course of time, but one thing stands out to her. “The tech-nology is amaz-ing! Back then,

we didn’t even dream of what we have now,” she said. S h e voiced par-ticular thank-fulness for the m i c r o w a v e oven, the ice maker, and computers. “ M s . Wheeler is one of the kindest, most caring teachers I’ve ever had. In her classroom you never had to worry about being judged; you knew it was a safe place. She is the rare type of teacher who treated each and every one of her stu-dents like they are one of her very own chil-dren,” says senior, Tom Viola, who

had Wheeler this year for Foods 1. Wheeler completed her stu-dent teaching in a semester of Palo Alto High School, and then quickly began teaching at Leigh. She hasn’t taught at any other school since. Even so, she never saw the Teach-er of the Year Award coming her way. “Students were congratulating me and I didn’t know what for,” said Wheeler who was completely taken by surprise in receiving the award, “Then I finally read about [the award]! When they made the announcement, I lost it”. She described her reaction as “ugly tears”. Wheeler has a true love for this high school. She said, “Students and teachers alike are all trying to find their way and this is just a nice place to find it. […] It’s all about the people in this community. The students and faculty are all very decent human beings. That makes it a pleasure to come to school every-day.” As she looks forward to a tran-sition into retirement, her words to her beloved students and school are “Continue to be the wonderful place for people that it always has been.” The nurturing friend to many will be missed on our campus, but her theme of open-heartedness will be up-held and remembered by any student who has had the pleasure of being taught by her (or been waved to from her doorway for that matter).

And the teacher of the year is...

Battle of the BandsLeigh students show off their musicality

Luke WeinbergJunior Editor

Ms. Wheeler is chosen as Leigh’s bestSadie WilliamsVisuals Editor

Friday, May 4 was a thrilling ex-perience for those who came to watch Leigh students perform in the one and only Battle of the Bands. With that evening of drum rolls, guitar riffs and vocal harmonies the audience cheered on and enjoyed the music. Each band was so diverse with different band members and music genres. Vocalists expressed their voices, as some could break glass with their screams. Although the doors opened at five-thirty and bands didn’t perform till six, the atmosphere seemed nothing like that of the school cafeteria, where this event was taking place. Audience members paid a small fee to enter and there they saw the stage of drums, mics, and guitars. The environment as well as just the bands just seemed all too magi-cal. To think that our very own Leigh students had that power in the voices, had that ability to switch from chord

to chord instantly, and the hand speed to just whack those drums may make

others think what other talent is out there. Truthfully, not all audience mem-bers seemed totally interested in what

was going on, though. At one point the audience seemed like they were in

a high school math class, falling asleep and playing on their phones. Yes, An-gry Birds and Words With Friends is addicting, but please save it for inter-

mission. This is not a theater where you can text during each performance.

W i t h bands per-forming more than one song, and a DJ spinning his records, the night defi-nitely went on. Since there were only first and second place awards, the stakes were high as you could tell bands sang their hearts and souls out. According to s o p h o m o r e

Andy Bridger, who played drums and is in the band Three Face (which is actually this symbol “:3”) said, “The experience was fun, and the reaction

from the audience [he believes] was that they like what we did, although the first song had a delayed ending.” He recommends that people should go to Battle of the bands be-cause it is a really cool experience and you get to meet great people. He met with the band of Conversions, which was the band that won 1st place, and 2nd went to a band named the 4 O’clock Heroes. While talking to Sophomore Na-talia Merill she stated, “Overall, Battle of the Bands was good, but the music wasn’t as good.” She and her friends actually dressed up, while other students just wore something casual. She dressed up just for fun. Merill would recommend going to this event to others because she believed that Battle of the Bands was a place where you could go hang out and chill with your friends. And of course also for the experience. She also stated, “Even if the music isn’t that good.” Battle of the bands, a night of extreme rock, screams and all around music to make you move and groove.

Photo by Sadie Williams

Ms. Wheeler who has taught foods for 38 years is finally and justly honored with Teacher of the Year. This summer she will begin to enjoy a long and event-ful retirement.

Photo by Sadie Williams

Students came ready to play, bringing a multitude of instruments just like this guitar.

features5.31.12 page05Wishing you a happy retirement

As the 2012-2013 school year comes to an end, students and staff alike are buzzing with excitement for the summer vacation ahead. But a few Leigh teachers are looking to a much more extended vaca-tion to come, the end of their teaching ca-reers and the begin-ning of retirement years.

The Eleight: How long have you worked here?Martha Landeros: 13 yearsJohn Mote: 9 yearsLarry Schembri: 21 years

TE: Have you taught at other schools?Landeros: Yes, I have taught at a pri-vate school, Catholic school, for two years, and a necessary small school of 135 kids for 10 years. At the nec-essary small school I taught all subjects, such as, Spanish, Eng-lish, life skills, speech, marriage and family, and pregnant minors.Mote: I taught adults, undergraduate pro-grams, graduate programs, and at the University of San Francisco. I had not taught teenagers ever before, other than from my student teaching.Schembri: Yes, I started at prospect high school in 1976 and I was there for 15 years, so I have taught 36 years total.

TE: Why did you become a teacher?Landeros: I wanted to work with chil-dren and I didn’t have the math skills to become a doctor. I wanted to be a pediatrician all my life.Mote: I had never looked at teaching as a primary job. I was working for IBM 33 years and I just got really tired of computer business. I had taught sort of as a hobby and I had never really thought of doing it full time. And then I got to thinking, I love math, I loved it in college and basically after college I walked away from math, so it was a chance to get back into it. I think if I had gotten into high school teaching first of all I probably never would’ve kept going. Schembri: In college I had a profes-sor, who thought I would make a good teacher, and I started to think about it and as I went through Santa Clara I thought, “You know she might be right.” So I was interested in teaching got a credential and I have been teach-ing ever since.

TE: What is your favorite memory?Landeros: I don’t have a one favorite memory. It’s just nice when former students come back and talk to you and tell you that something you taught

per say, not having to get up at five ev-ery morning, and just to see what the next part of my life is going to be like. I’m excited.Mote: Just having total freedom to get up in the morning and do what I really want to do. If I’m feeling sick I can stay in bed and not feel guilty.Schembri: Not having to go by a bell schedule, just getting up when I want to get up, eating what I want to eat, and just not having to go by bells. I can’t wait.

TE: When did you decide to retire and why?Landeros: I decided to retire last year that this was going to be my last year, because I’m 62 and that’s long enough for anyone to work.Mote: In the beginning of this year I had no idea I was going to retire. The district office has overloaded, I think all the teachers, but math especially. I got three full classes and it’s just a ter-rible drain. I don’t think we’re working in a situation where teaching is valued. You see comments that certain people make about education, how bad it is,

and how we have these bad teachers we have to get rid of, and who needs it. I wasn’t really aware of the fact that I could retire and I got some financial advice and it turned out I was in better shape than I thought I was so I could do it.Schembri: I decided basically at the end of last year, during the summer, and I just felt like I still enjoyed my job and while I still did I should probably get out before I became disgruntled. So I thought at the beginning of this year that this would be my last year.

Mote: They do, and I chat with quite a few of them on Facebook now. One of the best moments I had was when this kid I had had for two or three years, and he just had a very hard time with math and a very hard time applying himself didn’t work very hard, came back in his dress army uniform and he was so proud of himself and I was proud of him. Kids will come by just to let you know they’re okay especially the ones who didn’t do very well in your class. A lot of them stop by and visit and I love that. They never stop being my kids. They’re graduated from col-lege and out having families and I still feel that connection. Schembri: Yes, it is always interesting. I had a student come back a couple days ago who graduated in 1995, and he bought me a card, and it was touch-ing because I hadn’t seen him in almost 20 years. They come back to see me which I think is kind of neat.

TE: What will you miss most?Landeros: I will miss the interaction between myself and the students and my colleagues. I’ll miss the kids and the

people I work with.Mote: The kids.Schembri: It is probably a tie between the kids and working with such a fan-tastic faculty. The faculty here is tre-mendous. They are professional, they are friendly, they help me out, and I think I am going to miss them a ton. And I am going to miss working with my wife.

TE: What are you looking forward to?Landeros: I am looking forward to the new adventure of getting to know my granddaughter, of not being employed

South California in systems manage-ment.Schembri: I have two degrees. I have a BA from Santa Clara, from 1976. And I have two teaching credentials, one in English and one in special education.

TE: What are you planning to do after you retire?Landeros: My plans have changed; I was going to move back to Sonora. But now I’m going to stay here in San Jose and take care of my new grand-daughter because my daughter-in-law teaches school so I’m excited.Mote: My plan, short term, is as little as pos-sible. I’ll take on read-ing and a little travel and things like that. There are things to do like volunteering at the church. I don’t want to go get yet another job I don’t need to, I worked it all out. But there are always things I would like to do more of, like doing charity, helping out with other people, and things like giving some back.Schembri: Continue to run; I like to run between 25 and 30 miles a week. Maybe

I will sub a little at Leigh a couple days a week and just relax, kind of decom-press after 36 years.

TE: What has been your most reward-ing moment?Landeros: There are a lot of little re-warding moments. When see that someone has that little “ah-ha” mo-ment and they get it, that’s rewarding--when you see the light go on.Mote: There is that moment when a kid who is really trying hard gets it, and you see it on their eyes. It is not always me who gives it to them, you know, sometimes they get it on their own, sometimes their friend will say something, I don’t care I don’t have a real big ego, but it’s just seeing that light go on in their eyes when they re-ally get it and they didn’t have it before. I’ve spent a lot of time with kids, but it still comes down to that one moment when the light bulb goes on over their head and it really makes it worth it for you.Schembri: I think just talking to stu-dents who come back and see me and tell me that I have made a difference in their lives, I think that’s kind of cool. So I think that, in general, that is my most rewarding moment. TE: Do students come back to visit you?Landeros: Yes, I taught AVID for four years here and I’m close to those kids. They come back and visit me all the time or we’ll meet somewhere for lunch. They keep in touch with Face-book or email.

them, whether in the class or outside of class, actually has helped them during life and they remember that or some-thing you said made an impact.Mote: I had a lot of fun this year with the girls’ soccer team; they sort of ad-opted me and I adopted them. I went to all their games and at the end of the

year they gave me a soccer ball they’d all signed. It’s the kind of thing you don’t really think of is being related di-rectly to teaching, but getting to meet and get to know students, besides just as students, but as people with interests and talents.Schembri: Recently, right now, my son is teaching at Westmont, so teaching with him in the same field in my last year is probably my favorite memory. And I think working with my wife here, Mrs. Schembri, is also a good memory. Another favorite moment of mine now is teaching with my daughter who is subbing in special education for the rest of the school year, so I am able to work with my daughter on a daily basis. So I think those are all tied.

TE: What other careers have you had?Landeros: I was an after school child care provider at a school. I also helped cut down brush and burn it, I worked at Penny’s for six years, I worked in an office as a receptionist file clerk for 3 years, I worked in a movie theatre, and I was a house cleaner. Mote: I spent six years in the Navy and 33 years at IBM.Schembri: I have had just one other job. I worked at a delicatessen making sandwiches all through college, and I was hired right after college to be a teacher, so I’ve just had two jobs my whole life. TE: What did you get your degree in?Landeros: Liberal arts with a major in Spanish and reading.Mote: Math and a master’s degree from

Saying goodbye to staff members Sra. Landeros, Mr. Mote, and Mr. Schembri

Sra. Landeros retires after thirteen years at Leigh.

Mr. Mote retires after nine years at Leigh. Photos by Sadie Williams

Julie ThompsonStaff Writer

features 5.31.12page 06

ASB President: Kendra Schultz“Next year I definitely want to see in-novation and I want our school to break from the status quo of what we have done in previous years. Next year is Leigh’s 50th graduating class and 50th homecoming and I hope to make the rest of the year equally as memorable. I especially want to make the Leader-ship class more accessible to anyone who has input, and I have a few ideas up my sleeve but I think they are better kept as a surprise.”

ASB Vice President: Krystal Soltani: “I hope to accomplish more than just the average “make our school a better place.” I plan to inspire people to not just come to Leigh as a part of their every day routine but to truly come to school for a purpose, whether it’s expressed through being in clubs, raising awareness for causes like bully-ing or even simply showing the spirit Leigh High School has during rallies while supporting our school. I plan to accomplish my goal and that goal is to go through next year with making

an impact on our school while leaving cemented footprints for future leaders to follow.”

ASB Secretary: Jessica Hauck“I hope to make all the rallies of next year, specifically our 50th anniversary night rally, as amazing as possible while being as organized as possible!”

ASB Treasurer: Emma Batmazian“As ASB treasurer I hope to spend and earn money more efficiently for the

school. This includes giving money to clubs so they can put on awesome events and spread themselves to differ-ent parts of campus and raising money and spending money on Homecoming and other rallies/events so that they are bigger and better than ever. The main

goal is to raise more money and to use the money that we have as best we can to make next year amazing.”

Senior President: Hannah Lynch“As senior class president I hope to make our senior year something spe-cial that people will remember beyond their high school years. We are the 50th graduating class which is already spe-cial. I just hope its the class of 2013’s best year yet at Leigh.”

Junior President: Mag-da Abdel Wahab“I plan on having more suggestions to make people satisfied with their class and the ac-tivities that they will be involved in.”

Sophomore President: Matt Vargas“I jut want to be a father figure. I want anyone to ask me for advice or just to be there to listen. I want to be the glue that binds the new (fresh) sophomores together.”

Other Newly Elected Officers:Senior VP: Robby CabriSenior Sec-Treas: Sydney ClarkJunior VP: Michael HanniganJunior Sec-Treas: Courtney DonlonSoph. VP: Sara DavisSoph. Sec-Treas: MacKenzie Daly

An Early Thanksgiving

“No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident ac-knowledge this help with gratitude.” -Unknown This is my last column, and it’s assumed your last column is supposed to bring some form of closure to every-thing. But as I thought about what to put into this last column, I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to conclude. I’ve exhausted most of the top-ics I’ve wanted to address this year. I’ve talked things that are near to my heart. I’ve shed a more personal per-spective on my life and all the lessons I’ve learned. But now reflecting on ev-erything as whole, I’ve realized some-thing I’ve omitted. Wisdom is not simply granted to people as a birthright nor can one create it out of nothing. Wisdom is accumulated from the people closest to us. Therefore, I cannot claim all this wisdom to be purely of my own genius. There are so many people that have positively influenced my life and helped me in ways I cannot possibly express. I have a lot of wonderful friends and each of them is worthy of their own column, but unfortunately, I only have about 1000 words to express ev-erything I want. So let me begin with my best friend Whitney Chrisman. Whitney and I have been best friends since the eighth grade. We played on the Union eighth grade soc-cer team together and one day, Whit-ney ended up popping her knee out in a game, and I stayed with her in the ER for three hours. We just instantly clicked then. Whitney is one of those people who are fearless and totally her-self. If you ever see her on a spirit day at school, I can guarantee you she is the most spirited person you will encoun-ter. She just doesn’t care what people think. She just loves to have fun, and I can’t think of a time we didn’t laugh together. She is also one of the nicest people. She’s been there for every mile-stone in my life in the past four years and is the person I tell absolutely ev-erything to. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know if I’d be in the good place I am today. Then there’s my other best friend Mickey. I met her my freshman year in our French 1 class. She was this super bubbly girl, and we got along really well. Then we found out the two of us only live about three blocks away from each other, and ever since, we’ve spent a ton of time at each other’s houses. Mickey is literally the most giving person I know. Whether it’s her time or one of her many Coca-Colas, she is always there. If she can’t rush over to my house to comfort me, she spends

at least an hour apologizing and offer-ing anything else she can possibly do. She is really one of those remarkable people who you can spill your soul to, and she just listens. I trust her com-pletely with anything and everything. She is also one of those people who has a hard time seeing how amazing of a person she is. I love her to death. And broski, I promise I will return your tie-dye shirt one day. And there’s Kim. I met Kim at my boyfriend’s party in the summer, and we instantly clicked. Even though we haven’t been friends for even a full year, I feel like I’ve known her forever. She is one of the most fun friends I have, and I admire her adventurous nature and open-mindedness. We constantly joke about how she is my “mom” (it’s on Facebook, yo). She is one of the few people who can tol-erate my extreme weirdness. I have more than once charged down the hall at her, screaming, “MOMMY!!!” and then leaped into her arms. She’s one of those people I never get bored of. But she’s also very easy to talk to about anything, and I appreciate that more than anything. And I can’t—of course—not talk about Ryan. I met him at the end of my sophomore year, and we hung out all summer. He asked me out soon after his 16th birthday and ever since, I’ve spent almost 11 wonderful months with him. Ryan is one of the most positive people I know. He is a genuinely nice person and does not have a mean bone in his body. He makes me laugh like none other and is supportive of me in everything I do. He tries his best no matter what he does and doesn’t let anything stop him from reaching his goals. He’s made me feel so incredibly good about my-self and reminds me daily that being confident is the most attractive thing I can do. He never fails to make me smile. And of course, those are just a few of the people in my life who have impacted me. But I would still like to mention Vanessa (thanks for the 11pm phone calls that kept me sane), Sunna for always baking me delicious food and listening to my whiny texts, Chloe for the note she gave me on the first day of school even though we were strangers, Jessie Manley for al-ways bringing me extra food, Domi-nique Kelso for always dancing with me in the hallway to my iPod, Ashley (the girl I’m so jealous of because of her pretty eyes), Emi for sending me the most hilarious text after I didn’t get cast in Les Mis, Sean for staying with me while I vomited backstage at Fiddler and helping me study for the SAT, Nick Karkas (I pray for you in church…), and Nick Fabiano for the funniest texts ever! Becuz Y010 #hugsnotdrugs. Also I have to—of course—mention my mom who found me a boutonniere last min-ute for prom and always makes me laugh, my dad for always giving the best hugs and being understanding, and my brother for being the most inspirational person I know. And also Ryan’s parents for always welcoming me into their home. So kids, I guess my final lesson of the year for you is this: sometimes, we take for granted the people who have really been there for us. So once in a while, you have to say “thanks”.

Next year’s elected leaders an-swer the question: What do you hope to accomplish next year?

Nicollette EiliaStaff Writer

Eleight names new Editors-In-Chief

ASB Left to right: Schultz, Soltani, Hauck, and Batmazian

Amanda CendejasFeatures Editor

Meet Caitlyn Nurnberg (top right) and Chris Wyman (bottom right), your new Editors-in-Chief for the 2012-2013 school year!

Photo by Amanda Cendejas

Photos by Sadie Williams

features5.31.12 page07

bear, as opposed to the multi-level flats constructed for the more major pro-ductions. The senior showcase gives seniors one last chance to perform their talents in front of an audience at Leigh High

School. Auditions were held May 1 and those selected to per-form attended rehearsals mul-tiple times in the weeks leading up to the final performance. Although underclassmen were invited to perform in the show-case, each piece had to feature at least one senior to keep with the nature of the showcase. Because the showcase did not require as intricate of sets or as many rehearsals as full-length plays, admission was free of charge, although donations were welcomed. In addition, various drinks and snacks were served before, during, and after performances. Concessions were primarily supplied by volun-teers. As the final performance of the senior showcase came to a close, the seniors on stage experi-enced a change. This change was

a graduation from the “little leagues” of acting. The showcase was the seniors’ final high school performance and whether or not the actors will continue their acting career in college is up to them to decide.

most appropriate for the showcase. In the true nature of showcases, the setting was minimalist in nature when compared to more major produc-tions like the fall play “The Foreigner” and the spring musical “Fiddler on the

Roof”. Nonetheless, the two perfor-mances had their own set and props laid out backstage for quick scene changes between performances. Props were only items easily carried out on to stage, such as a table, chair, or teddy

In addition to the fall play and spring musical, the drama department held a showcase in the winter and spring, as well as a senior showcase at the end of the year. This year the spring showcase, which featured two plays by advanced drama stu-dents and musical performances, was held on May 17-18 at 7 p.m in the Performing Arts Center. The senior showcase was on May 21 at 7 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center as well. The spring showcase gives ad-vanced drama students a chance to have their original dramatic works performed. After each work is pitched, the top two are picked and the authors work with the head of the drama department, Bryan Ring-sted, until the work is perfected. This year the two performances were “Scribbles” by Sophomore Kimi Schiefer and “Scaredy Cats” by Ju-nior Vaughn Mayer. “This showcase has been in the works since January. There is no such thing as a quick production,” said Ringsted. In addition to the two short plays, both days of the spring showcase featured performances from Musical Theater 1 and 2 students following in-termission. The performances included song and dance that Ringsted deemed

Putting on a showMichael ReaOnline Editor

Leigh’s Drama program showcases plays open to the public

Photo by Michael ReaJunior Emily Grochowsk singing at the drama showcase.

On May 19, the Leigh upperclassmen and their respective guests embarked upon the magical, expense-filled jour-ney known as Prom. The destination for this year’s wondrous adventure was the Hyatt Hotel in Santa Clara. As the sharply dressed men, clad in suits and tuxedos of every variety led their dates off of the respective buses and limos the lobby of the Hyatt start-ed to fill up quickly. After a profession-al picture and a quick coat check, ev-eryone was ready to hit the dance floor. For many, the process for Prom started weeks ago. Buying dresses, getting fitted for a tuxedo, and find-ing reservations for dinner and a limo are some of the many details that go into a night like this. But at 9 o’clock that night, everything was worth it. The dance floor was packed as people all danced to the bumping mu-sic, even slowing it down with “Some-one Like You” by Adele. The intense heat in the ballroom led to the shedding of many vests and ties, but the rolled up sleeves eventually did the trick.

Waiting outside for those wanting a break was a lavish table filled with fruit and desserts waiting to be devoured by the hungry guests. And slowly yet sure-ly the disposable cups for water were found at almost every table as everyone tried to quench the intolerable heat. The dance floor was packed all four hours and eventually the night had to come to an end. As it neared midnight, the DJ gave everyone a last great dance and the cat daddy was done by all. People filed out of the hotel and back onto their limos or buses, ready to leave a night that they’ll never forget. It may have been late but to ev-eryone there it felt like the day had just begun. No one cared that they’ve been getting ready since 9 in the morn-ing or that the shoes they wore would leave blisters that would never heal, be-cause this was a night worth the pain and planning. This night everyone got spend time with the friends they’ve made it through high school with, and get to celebrate their years together one last time.

Nathan KeenanStaff Writer

A Leigh-ttle taste of ItalyA look into Leigh’s Venetian Masquerade-themed prom

Nicole HamiltonCopy Editor

For most of Leigh’s seniors, head-ing off to college means traveling to some far off city to live in a dorm, to finally be a little freer of the vice grip of their guardians’ watchful eye. It’s a blossom-ing time for a stu-dent’s independence, and many are look-ing forward to this grand new adventure with bated breath. But for many of Leigh’s graduating class, this feeling may be a touch dimmed by the fact they’re going to community college. Unfortunately, there is a stigma at-tached to the stu-dents who go to community college – that it isn’t the same as a “real” col-lege, that they aren’t smart enough to go to a four-year school, or that they’re simply drop-outs who don’t care about their education.

And this can be a huge damper on one’s enthusiasm.

However, these are all blatant ex-aggerations! Community college may be a hamper to some, but that isn’t a reason to accept it as being a bore.

If you branch out, embrace your goals, and take a few steps beyond your comfort zone, there’s no need to feel trapped by the negative stigma

around going to community college.

For the social butterflies, think of experimenting with one of the clubs on campus, or reach out and look for an outside orga-nization to be a part of. Attend a free movie screening at West Val-ley, or learn how to do tournament rifle shooting at the San Jose Munici-pal Firing Range, what have you! Staying local is no reason to re-treat back into a shell out of disap-pointment or nervousness – there’s certain to be plenty of new experi-ences to encounter if you take the ef-fort to look for them. Reach out to others in your class and try and make some new friends -- your social and academic life will thank you in the long run.

“Well, hopefully, I’m going to get a job so that I can actually do stuff,” said senior Cory Biggs. “I’m probably going to meet new people, hopefully make some

more friends, and genuinely en-joy some of the classes I’m taking.”

If you’re looking to find that

feeling of independence students have when living in a dorm room off of cam-pus, look into renting an apartment for your community college stay. Silicon Valley is not a cheap place to live, true, but if you band together with a roommate and split a one-room apartment, the rent and utility cost can become quite manageable. Find a job either on your own or through your college, and prove to your parents that you’re able enough to take care of yourself. It’ll be a rewarding feeling when you stand on your own and think, wow, I’m doing all of this, all by myself.

Lastly, if the blossoming social

It takes a community:

How to have fun attending junior college and staying local after high school

aspects and potential apartment she-nanigans can’t spark a positive flame, then simply think of how much mon-ey one saves when they complete their

first years at a community college. University of Cal-ifornia (UC) schools esti-mated a $31,200 cost for students living on cam-pus in the 2011 – 2012 school year, while Cali-fornia State University (CSU) schools estimated a $22,577 cost. By comparison,

community colleges cost only hun-dreds of dollars per unit, which will amount to a much cheaper cost once you graduate, or decide to transfer.

All in all, the important thing about going to community college is to not let the judgments of others get you down. There’s no reason to feel ashamed or like you’ve failed in some way if you’re going to West Valley next year, or De Anza, or Mission, or Foothill. Let go of your negativity and al-low yourself to enjoy the experience, and you’ll find community college to be quite rewarding indeed.

Congrats grad! You’ve made it to your last hoorah. This is the prime time, the summer between high school and college. Your life begins now. Let’s make this summer the most memorable. It’s easy to say that your last sum-mer is going to be the best. But how will it be? What are you going to do to make it any different? Sure, you hang out with your friends, you go to the beach, you buy a new swimsuit, you go camping, maybe you go to a party or two. I can help you out ya know? That is the point of this. I’ll tell you what is going to make the most of your summer. The answer is simple: no fear. Don’t be afraid to try something new, a food, an adventure. Don’t be afraid to meet new people, go to that party, be outgoing, stop caring what others think of you. Just stop fearing others. That is what is most important and what is most vital to your own en-joyment. If you’ve ever said “I wish I had” or any other version of the phrase you’re missing out bro. You’re afraid

you’ll trip, you’ll fall, you’ll laugh so hard you fart. So what if you do? Yes, people will laugh at you, but you laughing with them will give you the power to share that experience togeth-er. Being afraid only lets you down. In-stead, going for it will allow you to say “I did it.” or “Hey I tried.” Trying and winning or trying and failing are both renditions of success. At least you’ve tried. This way there is no regret. Honestly, for you to make the most of this summer, I would suggest you say yes to everything. Don’t miss out any opportunity that comes your way. This summer should not consist of any dull moments. Don’t let money be an issue. In fact, blow your bank account. Who cares about the cost? It isn’t about how much money you spend, if any at all. This summer is about who you spend your time with and the moments that you’ll share with those people. Planning a vacation: It could be something as simple as a weekend camping trip with friends. There are great places such as, Tahoe, Bass Lake, Lake Shasta, or Don Pedro to go camp-ing, fishing, and/or boating at. I also

know Pebble Beach offers wonderful accommodations to camp or reside at a nearby hotel that’s not too pricey. Pismo Beach also provides the oppor-tunity to go dune buggying! Why not try something new? Now, you know that I know that you probably don’t want to spend much time with your parents, but forget it. If they want to go to Hawaii or Cancun as a fam-ily for a week, GO! So what if you’re missing a few trips to Santa Cruz or a couple parties that weekend, you have all summer to do these things and basically whatever you want. Random moments: Get off the couch and out of your box. submerge yourself into a new atmosphere. For you boys who sit around all day with your eyes glued to the tube go outside and play some ball. Take off your shirt, get tan and invite some vitamin D into your life. Girls: don’t think I’m going to let you slide with swhopping every-day. Do something productive with your friends. Your friends shop with you? Well then stop shopping! Go on a bike ride on the hottest day of sum-mer (yes you may look like the Brady

Bunch...but who cares!). Sure you’ll sweat all your makeup off, but it’s not about looking nice, it’s about spend-ing time with your favorite people. For everyone, just don’t spend too much time in the air conditioning, soak up the sun while you can, because this first year of college will be a long one. Hanging out: Obviously you’re going to be with your best friends more than anyone. BUT if you get asked to go to lunch by a classmate you’ve never hung out with outside of your fifth pe-riod english class, then go. you never know what could potentially come from this one lunch date. Maybe you guys have more in common than you thought. But who’s to know, if you don’t try. As ironic as it may sound, fel-low senior, Cooper Wilce said, “My fa-vorite spot to hang out in the summer is at an empty high school’s football field at night.” When asked wouldn’t you want to be as far away from a school as possible he said, “No because no one being there makes it that much more exhilarating for you and your friends.” My point is Seniors don’t let any-

thing hold you back. Take pictures ev-eryday. Do something memorable. This summer should never be forgotten. Now when I say say yes to everything, I don’t literally mean say yes to every-thing. In Ian Franklin’s case he took his 2011 summer to the next level. He said, “Coming back to California from Arizona made a huge difference. This summer I’m going to reclaim the two and a half years of California fun I’ve missed.” Lucky Ian is going to spend more time with old friends and recon-necting. Seniors, don’t be afraid to do something out of the ordinary or some-thing that is out of your comfort zone. While many seniors will be spending a lot of their time partying Jordan Nunes said, “I’m going to make this summer better than the last by interning for a congressman.” That’s so cool and ex-tremely exciting! My hat goes off you to Jordan! That is the point, get weird, get real, and be unstoppable. I promise you that it’ll make this summer that much more enjoyable. It’s one-hun-dred percent worth every day to make the most by accepting opportunity.

Jeannie CeglarStaff Writer

It started when you were just a child. Your imaginative, innocent thoughts of wanting to grow up to be an astronaut, a medical labora-tory scientist, or even a fashion de-signer, were simply a dream which seemed so far away but exception-able. Whether it’s still a thought to-day, senior year is the year you have a more credible idea for your future. Though there are millions of majors to choose from, even Aerospace engineer-ing, only a few make the top choice. According to Princeton and Stanford University, the following are the top ten college majors on the list. Even though these majors don’t necessar-ily have the biggest demand in the job market, or lock you into a set ca-reer path, they offer intellectual chal-lenges and help develop skills that will be beneficial to many careers later. The list of popular majors include: Computer and information science, communications studies/speech com-munication and Rhetoric, English Language and Literature, Biology/ Bio-logical Sciences, Psychology, Nursing, Business Administration and Manage-ment, Education, Economics, and Political Science/ Government. And so what are Leigh High School seniors looking to major in? You prob-ably guessed it, Business. It is some-times known as the “play it safe” major because it is a practical choice for al-most anyone. Business majors will al-ways be high in demand because there are just endless number of career op-

portunities available with a good busi-ness education. Which is why many people that are interested in business are usually planning to start a business

on their own. Senior Nyssa Wickemey-er has the same idea. “I was undecided at first but when I heard my mom’s friend talk about event planning, it got me interested. I want to eventu-ally start a business in it,” said Whick-emeyer. What some people may not

know about business is that you don’t even need a Business degree to work in it. A survey that was conducted by the National Association of Colleges

and Employers shows that workplaces most value communication, analytic, and teamwork skills that you will more likely find with a liberal arts degree. But if you’re leaning towards business to make big bucks, you need a big wake up call. Just so we’re clear, business is

NOT one of the best paying college degree. It’s in fact the 56th best paying college degree. It fared worse than such “impractical” college degrees as philos-ophy, history, and American studies. If you’re looking to make money, simply

go with an economics degree. On Pay Scales lists of the highest paying college majors, economics came in number 10. Engineering majors pretty much domi-nated the rest of the top-paying degrees. But on the plus side, there are tons

Which major will you choose?of opportunities to specialize in dif-ferent fields with business. Business majors can choose to specialize in ac-counting, finance, human resources, marketing, non-profits, management, real estate, or any path that relates to business an industry. If you aren’t sure what you want to do for the rest of your life, but you need to pick a ma-jor, business is a good option. You can always choose a specialization that fits your personality and career goals later. Besides Business, Leigh seniors also have other interesting choices of ma-jors around campus. Ricardo Gutier-rey, 12, will be going into the marines June 4. “I won’t be able to participate in graduation, because I’m leaving for boot camp in June. I’m going to be a linguist.” For those of you who don’t know, a marine linguist is a person who is extremely skilled in foreign languages; which he already has the talent for. He can speak in Eng-lish, German, Spanish, and French. Whether you want to major in Busi-ness, the marines, or set a career as an astronaut, I would say do it if it makes you happy. Choosing a major based on the pay grade or the career that you will undoubtedly hate is a terrible way to go through college. It may seem like a good idea at first, but when you are out in the “real world” looking for employ-ment, you will probably find nothing that satisfies your desires. Study what you love so that you will be happy for the rest of your life. Believing that ma-joring in something you love will mean being successful at whatever you choose.

Visuals by Nikita Zakladnyi

Popular majors might not be the best choice

Summer after graduation:How to enjoy your last summer before college to the fullest

Brianna HoustonNews Editor

seniors 5.31.12page 08

Photograph by Nikita Zakladnyi

The college freshman’s guide to the galaxy

Blayke LeachEntertainment EditorJeff Peterson

Guest Writer

Food, water, air, clothing (for some...). We all know the necessities to live, or at least live comfortably. But for those of us that are leaving the safety of our homes next fall, one big question is what do we bring? Well, other than the obvious (bed and bath items, school supplies, any and

all electronics that you need to survive in today’s society, etc.), what should we

bring to sustain ourselves on our various collegiate campuses? Well, for those of you worried, you are in luck because assembled here is a variety of items that one may not expect to need in college, but definitely might.

1. A means of transportation, whether it be a bike, skateboard, scooter (please don’t), roller-blades/rollerskates (ehh), or a car.

2. Toiletries, but that is probably pretty obvious. 3. Different kinds of shoes (and I do not mean 400 heels and flats and Toms, ladies); i.e. some sort of athletic shoes, casuals, “comfortables”, dressy, and any others deemed necessary. 4. Formal/dressy wear. If you own any type of suit or business attire, you never know when you might need it. 5. Room necessities: important little things such as a clothes hamper, power strips, silverware/dishes (you never know), etc. 6. Any and all important docu-ments including but not limited to: health insurance, social security, any health records, etc.sewing kit...again, you never know... 7. Flip-flops. even if you are not a sandal/flip-flop person, they are use-ful for many reasons, including show-er time. Nobody likes fungi... 8. Electronic accessories such as electrical cords, printers, speakers, usb

drives, chargers (obviously). 9. Flashlight. Nothing is worse than needing a light and not having one. and I know phones are used as flashlights nowadays, but you might regret not having a backup plan. 10. Mini-fridge. ‘Nuff said. 11. Extra hangers, at least enough for all of your clothes that you are bringing, plus a few more for any future clothes you might purchase.

So, I, Jeff Peterson, am writ-ing an article about my experiences at Leigh. It seems odd to me that the student chosen for this would be a student who has had little to no in-volvement in nearly any of the school’s clubs or extra curricular activities, the only exception being the short-lived Mountain Bike Club and Cultural Consumption Club. But nevertheless, I am sitting here before my computer frantically writing and eating cookies. Strangely enough, I feel like my high school story has been a more ap-propriate one to share than what could be written by someone more involved in Leigh’s community. I say this because my story involves me reaching out into the world and searching for salvation and culture in communities that most wouldn’t have even known existed. As many people already know, I have been defined by my hobby of mountain biking since elementary school. I spent most of high school try-ing to ride my way to the professional ranks only to suddenly quit half way through junior year because having a girlfriend takes an enormous amount of effort. Despite that momentary setback, I’ve used the connections and skills that I’ve learned from my hobby to push me to become the person I am today. My freshman year, all I did was ride my bike. Everyday, I’d ride to and from school, and as soon as I got home, I’d go out riding until the sun went down. Rarely would there be a day on which I actually did my homework or sat around and talked to people. The entire year was pretty much just my friends and I picking up shovels, digging jumps, and huck-ing ourselves off of them. Because of how routine that year was, all the memories have kind of meshed them-selves into one in my brain. So unfor-tunately, if learning what the freshman Jeff was like is the whole reason you’re reading this, I’m sorry to disappoint. On the contrary, my sopho-more year was a bit more exciting. As I progressed into the world of moun-tain biking, the trails I needed to ride became more and more intense, and slowly, I outgrew what the local trail systems could allow. So from about

October 2009 until May 2010, I spent every Friday after school taking the highway 17 express over to Santa Cruz, where I would then meet up with my friends and stay with them all the way through to Sunday evening. This is because the riding scene in Santa Cruz (more specifically, Aptos) is enor-mous. I’ve literally met people who came from South Africa just to ride the trails that Santa Cruz has to offer. Honestly, I feel blessed to live even this close to the epicenter of pretty much the entire mountain bik-ing community. Which is why it’s a bit of a shame what junior year brought. Although many great things happened my junior year, one of my biggest re-grets in high school has been the lack of effort I put into my riding junior year. After falling out of the scene for many months, I began to lose many of the connections I made and even-tually began to feel like a cave dweller. In a similar vein, senior year has brought its own interesting experi-ences. As I began to focus on my stud-ies more and more, hoping to undo some of the damage to my GPA that had resulted from three years of mess-ing around in school, I began to slowly go insane. Passing off the raised stress as not a big deal, I just kept plugging away at school and at home thinking I was just growing up. Upon reflection, this was a stupid rationalization. But then again, hindsight is 20/20, a fact that I now see as true given some of the rash decisions I’ve made this year. Of course, not all rash deci-sions are bad ones. In fact, one of the best recent decisions I’ve made was a rash decision. I bought myself a bike again. Since then, my head has been one hundred times clearer, I’ve been way less stressed out, and I’ve gone back to being a much more relaxed person. Now, I know that this story in itself seems somewhat pointless, but there is a bit of a moral to it. Ultimate-ly, the balance between work and play is a matter that not many people ever accept as one of importance. I’ve seen my GPA tumble from a lack of work and I’ve seen my sanity fly out the door due to a lack of play. If I could go back and redo high school, the big-gest thing I’d change would be the way I approached this balance. I only hope that any underclassmen reading this will take my words to heart and think about the way they use their time.

From the outside looking in:The Leigh experience from the point of view of a grad-uating guest writer

How to successfully make your mark around campus

photos by Nikita Zakladnyi

seniors5.31.12 page09

Matt BerkleyHaydon Weinberg

Zoe DemertzisMatt KatawiczJordan NunesJoey Vasquez

Kimberly Ramirez

Sarah Crosby

Broderick BakerConnor BengstonGunnas BiersdorffCory BriggsAlex BlairKylie BrownBen BachignaniTaylor BuckelewBobby BuschMaria BustamanteBrandon ClarkeLacey CollinsTapan DaveTejas DaveTyler DominickMcKenzie DonatoSean DonohoeShea DrljacaJames EakesAcline FarelasIan FranklinJacob GemetteAaron GolabAlex GutierrezJensine HalesNicole HamiltonJuliet HavenerBrandon Hickman

Jenna AbedBlake AnselowitzMark AsmarIsabel BarreraSam BaumanAndres CarmonaIrene LeeYi-Fu ChouGiovanni CordigliaTyler CrawfordMikayla DruhanAlex EcklesSamantha FernandezSierra FleckMike ForcierBallesdy GuerreroScott GuyonFrankie HenriksCarlos JaimezDanielle KelsoArezov KermanshananiNabeel KhatibLauren KilesSanjay King

Annie KempskiScott Mercer

Brittaney BarnettJessica CruzRebekah HassenAmanda RodriguezKarl RosalesElliot WeilMelissa Baxter

Kris Walker

Jiwon Kim Grace KoDanielle KoehneBrett NakanoMichael Rea

Alec EklundTyler Torrecillas

Masha Demianova

Haley FlorenceTravis McQueenYuna NishimuraKate SchubertAoi ShodaRachel Stein

Danny Davis

Natalie Lyndon

Jillian Vega

Courtney Pangborn

Linda Pattison

Bridget Monroe

Lauren SmithKristen Yu

Alistair MaxwellRebecca Patterson

Trevor FoxChristin JanickiNikki LougeeRyan MalabedAmy UnruhTyler Weiss

Madison DeMarquezJackie JensenDallan MalcomsonRyan MickelsonAlexa Wise

Miranda BlanksJennifer BuckNyssa Wickemeyer

Ryan ChoiMike Kim

Rayan Aoun

Andrew Jerrom

Tae Okamura

Marko Vojvodic

Sassan Caspiani Jinny Jung

Sun Park

Jasper KolpDanielle LampredaRocio LaraOlivia LawsNick LewisValinda LopezJacob LuskKyle BaxterRicky McDiarmidJustin OlthofJeff Peterson

Sam ReyesBriteal RohaniKiely RorausJessica RuleArmon SanienejadKim SharpeAlvin SinghBehzod TabeshTaylor TuriRyan VermontNikita Zakladnyi

Matt BurnhamCourtney FloresSoraya SoltaniAbdolaziz HosseiniAlex JaramilloJammar LeeColin LefrancoisJennifer LewisSean McIntyreSaida MudlerTom NelsonAkshara RainaJazmine RamirezRachel RobellMichael RobertsEric RudawskiAdrian SiloRyan TanakaKitt Ynchausti

Adriel BontilaoMikayla Dempsey-WilliamsBrett HaidetSamantha LaTelleGabrielle Robles

Issa SapguianJuan SilveyraMarcelina SotoAdilene SuarezAndrew Verdi

Aimee HoppinsSarah HowardDanica HuntMichelle KeplingerDaniel KidmanGarrett KingKelsey KnottGabe LaresMegan LeachMelissa LeamanKayla LindemanRichard LopezRyan MalinskyBrianna MilazzoQuinly SuinerTony MontevaldoManuel MorenoMichael MorrisNick MoryChad MouraJared NelsonAlex NgoAli NolanVinny PassafaroSteven ParkmanJosh PattenKayla PavlicevichDavid Presley

Cierra PrielAllora RaspPreston RaynorKatie RevillaJason ReyesEJ RodriguesAshley SaindonDanny SalazarTravis SandellJory CuenLindsey SextonHeather ShepardsonJeremy SherwoodChad ShifferKrystal SierraJessica SpinkSpencer StibbeAriana SwagertySara TabriziBen ThurmannJosh ThompsonSavannah TrudeauAutumn TyrrellAna Carolina VasconcelosBrandon VelezNick VelezKelsey WahlDerek Zimmerman

Stephanie HuertaCharlie Knoth

CJ MeisenbachEdgard MendezAnthony Silva

Asha AnooshehEmma CanepaMichael HandaNicky HuffmanEmily Sakaguchi

Gerald Dooley

Amanda CendejasGabby EikSojeong Jay KimZarette Munoz-AguilarNancy Tang

Michelle FitzsimmonsDeirdre GuthmannBlayke LeachKatie MacQuarrieSara McGuireDanny RoseAdam SoretAndrew Van BruntCooper Wilce

Dylan FozardJulia Loper

Tobias BleischSusie CaldwellAnthony DinhDrew DonlonJoyce KimJustine Kwan

Nic LeKarolina LuckiewiczPaulina LuckiewiczPatrick McDonnalMelissa Schwartz

Shawn Nguyen

Lindsey Simonsen

11 seniors10 seniors 5.31.12 5.31.12

Scott Murphy

Jake Erickson

Jessica ClarkKathryn Sramek

Emily Hill

Calvin Cotton

Ryan White

Annie KempskiScott MercerKelly Phillips

Danny Davis

Miranda BlanksJennifer BuckNyssa Wickemeyer

Darren AnthonyBilly CungOliver PhiCatherine Stevenson

Shawn Nguyen

Nick ElsbreeJeffrey CarrilloRicardo Gutierrez

Tara Holderman

Lindsey Simonsen

Andrea Goeke

Claire Hardester

Josh Bowen

Anna Pyzel

Alexa DavisMeagan MichaelKyle StanleySadie Williams Chas Grimm

Marissa Rodriguez

David AhmadianSean Maiwald

Jeremy Verbin

Rain Zhou

Sarah Goodwin

Lizzie Hogan

Brad Hartsell

Rylan Andersen

Rachel Yankey

11 seniors10 seniors 5.31.12 5.31.12

Scott Murphy

Jessica ClarkKathryn Sramek

Rachel HansenJeremy Verbin

Christa Sadler

Gabby Dickey

Jenna FabianoSean Hiller

Mary GintzKelsey JohnsonJames Williams

Austin O’Connor

Emily Porter

Emily Hill

Calvin Cotton

Hayley Wilson

Shannon KeenerTaylor Shapiro

Brianna Houston

Mycaela Avila-TerraBrolin BahbahelehBrent BallingerAlondra ZunigaSarah ClineBarsin EshaghiAndrew FarnamRobert Field

Hailey GammaAlex GiEgor GlebovPaulius JureviciusSean LaveryYerin LeeRobin NickellTrevor Peterson

Marissa SalazarVidal SantellanoMerha SeyoumDanelia SianezJoseph SnellDaniel SongSimon Sundberg

Rebecca Kirby

Josh LartigueChris Chitwood

Jocelyn Shyong

opinion 5.31.12page 12

To post or not to post Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you can take your pick. Each was created for a similar purpose: to con-nect with your friends and keep them updated on fun things you are doing, people you are with, or places you are seeing. They are also an easy way to meet new people and keep in touch with friends. Not to mention they give us something to do in times of extreme boredom or in place of homework. We often look to them to keep ourselves entertained, enlighten our friends with our excellent insight, and maybe the occasional stalking of a person of our choice. But there are a few things, no, many things, that make us far from happy when we’re scrolling through our newsfeeds. Let’s start with Facebook. Clever status’ that instigate a giggle are prime, links to songs (good songs) are great, random life updates and picture posts/check ins are good, observations are acceptable, quotes and song lyrics are pushing it, everything else is usually just wrong. Never should a status be over ten words. Never should we have to hear about how you can’t trust any-one or how everyone is trying to hurt you. NEVER SHOULD WORDS BE EMPHASIZED LIKE SO. We also don’t really care at all about how “shady” your friends are. You just sound foolish; pick better friends. It is also far from okay to com-ment on pictures of people you don’t know and under no circumstances should you add someone whose name contains more than one z,x or q if you

have never heard it before. They will only like comment on your pictures and message you, then we have to hear about how creeped out you are. Also, it is against Facebook law for two people to have an argument or conversation on someone’s status or picture when the person who the status or picture belongs to is not in-volved in said conversa-tion. Y O -LO’s a r e also a no

go.

“When p e o p l e say YOLO, f that. You deserve bad things to happen to you,” says senior Zac Healy. Lastly, it’s necessary to point out that hashtags should not be used on Facebook. In case of emer-gency and a hashtag is absolutely nec-essary, still don’t do it. Go on Twitter. Twitter. First of all, I urge all of you to get on the Twitter hype. It’s a

Katherine MacQuarrieStaff Writer

new found network in my life that has brought me much joy and I heavily suggest you all join in the fun. For ev-eryone who can’t refrain from posting more than one status

at a

time o n F a c e b o o k , Twitter is for you. There is a lot more freedom on Twitter. You have full rights to tell everybody your hon-est opinion and really no one can get

Kendra WoodStaff Writer

Whether you’re getting paid minimum wage, or $15/hour un-der the table, having a job to ac-quire some extra cash is a nice ad-vantage of having responsibilities. Responsibilities and loss of free-dom come with having a job. Teenag-ers are now learning how precious those two days out of the month are: Paydays. A new job has its ups and downs. For starters, most jobs that hire teen-agers make their employees work weekends. That means giving up your Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights for work. As if going to school wasn’t hard enough to do five days a week, you’ll have an added work schedule to accommodate on top of that stress. What little time you have in be-tween will be dedicated to schoolwork, and if you’re not careful you may even find yourself letting your grades slip. Maybe it won’t be so slowly, but you will surely feel a bit isolated, and you

may start to feel overwhelmed as the free time almost completely disappears.It may seem like a dreadful com-mitment, but take a moment to think about the positives. You’ll be working hard on something, and you’ll be rewarded with a paycheck at the end of ev-ery two weeks. Your co-workers will make great friends, who you may have never met otherwise. Plus, em-ployee discounts are an ultimate plus in the job world. Being able to buy things for half off gives such a strong feeling of satisfaction as you watch oth-ers look at price tags and walk away. “I do wish I had a job because

I believe it’s a great way to escape from your normal everyday friends

and acquaintances at school. I want to be able to start working and cre-ate a resume and a name for my-self,” said senior Annie Kempski. For those who aren’t given mon-ey for every little thing in life, or just

photo courtesy of kendra wood

mad. And for all those that do get mad, the unfollow button is extremely easy to access. There are still a few things that should not be done though. For example, complaining. Constantly griping about this and that doesn’t accomplish anything

and is honestly just annoying and you just earned yourself an un-

follow from @katiemaaac. Another great thing about

Twitter is that there’s a limit. Each tweet can

only contain 140 characters. It lim-

its the “educated people” with “higher opin-ions” from go-ing on for too long. And for those of you who feel it necessary to make your tweet two tweets because of lack of space,

you should look into email, be-

cause you don’t belong here.

Pictures can also be appreciated on Twit-

ter. But that means Twit-ter pictures, not links to In-

stagram pictures. We prefer to keep our networks separate.

Instagram is a beautiful thing. The creator deserves every dol-lar of the billions he just made sell-ing it to Facebook. It is a great place to update your homies with funny or creative pictures of what you are up to right now. Unfortunately this is

where people get confused. Your ins-tagram picture should not be a profile picture. It should not be a body shot of your new “hipster” outfit, and it is definitely not a place for screenshots of quotes or notes that you took on your phone. It’s for on-the-go pictures of what you are up to or who you are with or what just happened. The latest acceptable is pictures of the night before, unless of course it is #throwbackthursday. In this case you have full permission to post pictures from as long ago as you please. Also, “photo challenges” are completely in-appropriate. Again, instagram is a place for in-the-moment photos, much like a tweet. It shouldn’t be pointless pictures of your “favorite color” or “up”. What the guan is that about? Social networking sites aren’t a bad thing. They keep us connected and in the loop through the ridiculous world of technology. No doubt they are a fun way to express ourselves and keep up with what’s going on in our community and in others. But there are guidelines, these simple rules are for your own good, they will help you maintain your on-line friends and followers, and hopeful-ly save your reputation at Leigh High School and beyond. Fortunately, for the few (many) of you that just don’t know if you can control yourselves from committing one of the online sins, there is a place for you too. This place is the unrefined, anything-goes, Tumblr. I give you my blessing to say and post whatever your little heart desires on Tumblr. Just don’t expect a follow from me.

want a stepping stone to reality, a job will serve you well. Jobs teach you

responsibilities, and the value of money. When every minute counts towards your paychecks, it’ll teach you to come on time, and to understand the hard work that comes with a large sum of money. To see the number in your bank account go up after every single pay-check is will without a doubt will make you proud of what you’ve chosen to spend your time doing. Not to mention you’re

helping out your parents. “I’m thankful that I have money to do the things I want through my parents. But over the summer when schools out I’ll be working for sure and I’m actually really excited to fi-nally be employed,” said Kempski.

Ultimately, having a job is worth the time. It’s worth the social isolation sometimes, and it’s worth every penny saved. It’s worth meeting those fantas-tic people who get to make your long shifts that much more enjoyable. It’s worth the experience for the future. It’s worth having the title of “Sales Associate of Macy’s”, or “In n Out Crew Member”. It’s worth the good feeling of value and responsibility. And it’s worth that great feeling to know that you can spend what-ever money you want without feeling guilty because you worked hard for it.The choice is yours; you can sit at home and spend all the time in the world with your friends, have your parents buy you a car, pay for your gas, and then have you included in their money issues; or you can work towards those goals and have something to look forward to. To provide for yourself, to learn a lesson, to build up responsibility and to do something with your time while you’re young, and to be proud of something.

How to behave on social networking websites

It’s more than a salary

Students under 18 have to get a permit from the school before they can work.

Having a job in high school is not always worth the time and effort

photo by Kendra Wood

By Amanda Cendejas

One who? One two!

Lessons Learned

I could make my final high school column something cliché and trying at inspirational, but a woman needs closure! I’ve changed so much throughout high school, and I have fallen in love with Leigh and its com-munity. Throughout the last four years, I’ve made so many memories both on and off this campus. And while there’s a lot of ways I could write this column to sum four years up in 1,000 words, I can’t help but think that a rant of all the things I’ve learned would be the best thing to enlighten you all with. Enoy! When you’re a senior, you realize how immature people in high school really are. Once you’re ready for college, you start acting a lot more independent, and ev-eryone starts to bug you. Just hear-ing someone say something stupid or immature grinds your gears… The best thing to do is get your license, and become the offi-cial chauffer for all of your friends. You’re automatically invited to every fun event, and will never feel left out. “Uniconing” is solely the funni-est thing you will ever witness in your entire life, and a current freshman named Kyle is the best at doing it. It’s okay to stand up for your-self. You might want to be friends with everyone, but some people are just ones you want to steer away from. Don’t be naïve. Realize who those people are, and if they steer you the wrong way, let it be known. You’ll be better off in the long run. If people think you’re wrong, but you KNOW you’re right, leave. Them. Alone. Either reality or karma will eventually slap them in the face. Befriend at least one of your parents. Be completely honest with them at all times, and confide in them when you need someone. That parent for me was my mom, and it gave me a lot more freedom in high school than I ever would have had otherwise. And I wouldn’t trade our relationship for anything. Once you’re an upperclassmen, you’ll realize how unclassy it is to drink or smoke when you’re a fresh-men/sophomore. Especially if you’re a girl. Guys don’t like it, sorry to break it to ya. Also, it makes the youn-gins seem like they are trying much too hard to grow up much too fast. Teachers like the kids who care. If a teacher hates you, that’s your fault… with the exception of two teachers at Leigh whose names will remain anonymous... Mrs. Nicoletta is the driving

force behind everything that goes on at Leigh, and she’s impacted a lot of lives. If you’re in need of a teacher you can go to for anything and who writes killer letters of rec, join leadership and become best friends with her. A lot of people have some harsh judge-ments about her. But she really is an amazingly dedicated and kind person. Mr. Mason is the smartest man alive, and the best teacher you will ever have at Leigh High School. Se-riously. He cares about his students, treats you like an adult, and has a way of making things easy to grasp and interesting to learn. He knows how to engage students by using the simplest methods. I highly recom-mend his AP Government course. Underclassmen: DO NOT, NOT, NOT take honors courses in subject you will not be taking AP classes for. Classes like honors chem-istry and honors world history are only going to stress you out and make your GPA diminish into teeny tiny numbers. There is no benefit in doing them, none whatsoever. Most people realize this when it’s too late, dur-ing senior year. But I am telling you this now. Don’t take honors courses. Remember to look nice and write a beautiful signature on the day of your permit test. Both your picture and signature will be the ones you see on your license. Paying for your own ex-penses might be hard, but it makes you a whole hell of a lot more in-dependent than other people in high school. And while it is stress-ful, people will respect you for it. Playing on your status as a minority in college and scholarship applications makes you ten times more likely to receive free money. How you know you’ve found your group of friends: You can say something that other people would think is stupid, but they find it hilarious, just like you. The economy sucks, but you should never let that get in the way of your dreams. Food is always better in class, when it satisfies both your hunger and boredom, and every-one else wants it but can’t have it! Google has all the answers. Being invloved is the key to loving high school. Embrace things that are un-derrated, i.e. uniconing, random trips to Sonic, going to a carni-val, and etc., because those ran-dom times will be your favorite. We all have the weirdest health issues ever, and everyone has that “I just wish Dr. House was a real doctor, and not a British actor,” moment. Leigh is the best school in need of a lot more spirit.Make me proud next year! High school can be the worst time of your life, or the best. It’s up to you to make it worth while. Get involved, stick to your guns, and don’t let anything get in your way. And with that being said, goodbye Leigh High School. Thank you for allowing me a place to laugh, cry, dance, hide, smile, and find myself over the past four years. My experience was more than I could have ever asked for.

An obese America:

It’s not uncommon for a school lunch to contain up to 1400 calories- nearly 3/4 of average daily needs

Nearly 34% or Americans are now classified as morbidly obese.

Who is to blame for the child obesity crisis?Sadie WilliamsVisuals Editor

Californians take pride in their cutting-edge trends. We are known for being the front-runners in technology, fashion, entertainment, and top-of-the-line cuisine. And, according to the 2011 “State of the State” results, we rank 4th among states with the lowest obesity rates. Not too shabby, but that number is deceiving. The real telltale number lies in percentage. Twenty-two percent of Californians are considered obese. That’s nearly one out of every four Californians! The Gallup Poll points out that even though as a nation the numbers are on the rise, Cal-ifornia has seen its numbers go down from 22.6%. – a .6% decline. And what about adoles-cents? When my parents were teen-agers, only 4.6% of adolescents were overweight. In 2007-08, that number jumped to 18.1%.

What has contributed to this number? Of course diet and exercise are the two main factors that determine a person’s health. But who is responsible for what we eat? Our parents? Our schools?

The Institute of Medicine states “food advertising to children affects their preferences, purchase behaviors, and consumption habits for different food and beverage categories, as well as for different product brands.” California schools are required to meet certain standards in exercise and nutrition. A lot of effort goes into deciding which foods will be offered to students.

For example, schools are

positioned to reinforce healthful eating behaviors by eliminating sugar drinks and calorie-dense foods from the selection of foods offered on the school campus.

Although sodas are prohibited in an increasing number of schools, other sugary drinks that may not be commonly perceived as sources of added sugar and excess calories may be available, such as sports drinks and fruit-flavored drinks that are not 100% juice.

Schools should consider adopting policies that limit access to all sugar drinks in vending machines and

school stores.But even though schools

have a responsibility to offer healthful food choices, they are not responsible for what we decide. And it may not work.

Recently, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) revamped their school lunches, which won awards, by offering choices like vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles, and doing away with chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk. But students were throwing the healthy food away, bringing junk food from home and buying food from other sources.

Sure, a few organicly-raised

students would love to have curried noodles and pad Thai, but it would just be because they grew up eating a variety of food items and was taught to shun junk food. But most of the students at Leigh would prefer a processed burger over a quinoa salad.

Yes, our parents are responsible for teaching us good habits and ingraining a healthy lifestyle into us as youngins’. And yes, schools need to offer a variety of healthful choices and eliminate as many junk food items as they can, but honestly – if cafeterias offered mostly healthful food, that doesn’t ensure that it would be eaten.

P e r h a p s Leigh would rejoice in their new choices, but perhaps they would head to the gas station across the street and buy muffins, candy bars, and soda.

We may not have had many choices in what we ate as children, but as teenagers we have a TON of choices. WE are responsible for learning good eating habits. We are old enough to take responsibility for ourselves when it comes to what we put in our

mouths. We can’t blame

our parents, and we can’t blame the restaurants, and we can’t blame the schools for offering junk food when we have a myriad of other choices.

California is known for its vast amount of fresh produce & fresh fish. We can pack our own lunches. With very little effort we can plan ahead.

We have much work to do to begin to tackle our obesity problem. The current childhood obesity epidemic is the result of many factors and may not be resolved by any single action.

Resolution of the epidemic will require effort across many sectors such as communities and schools, but most of the effort will be ours.

Photo by Kendra Wood

Photo by Rajashree Bhattacharya

opinion5.31.12 page13

opinion 5.31.12page 14

The value of an education

Ever since we were young we were told that we absolutely must get a college degree in order to be success-ful. Our parents grew up in a time when nobody really cared what they did after high school as long as they were still being productive. Our parents were free to do what-ever they wanted to do after graduating high school with little help or guidance from anyone else; they were essentially on their own. When our parents were our age it was perfectly acceptable for high school graduates to go straight into the workforce; but the truth is, in our gen-eration this strategy is frowned upon because most people can’t go straight into the workforce and get a high pay-ing job. In our generation college is a huge ordeal; it takes a lot of time to find the schools you want to apply to, write essays and get letters of recom-mendation, months and sometimes even years in advance.

One Direction infection

With more and more people get-ting a college degree, and the economy being what it is, job competition will be even more intense than it already is by the time we reach adulthood. As statistics revealed in the Cen-sus Bureau in March 2011, 30 percent of the 60 million Americans over the age of 25 have a bachelor’s degree com-pared to less than 5 percent of Ameri-cans in 1940 and 17 percent in 1980. The amount of people earning a college degree has been exponentially increasing ever since the mid-1990s, as more and more high school gradu-ates opted to attend college, making it more important than ever to have one in a competive work force. “Advanced degrees above a bach-elor’s wasn’t required back then to get a high paying job in the workforce,” said Greg Wolf; but now they are. With more people competing to get a college degree, colleges are more impacted than ever, which will make it more difficult to not only go to college but to get a degree that will lead to a well paying job in the future. Many universities include severly impacted

majors often in the medical and science fields. Even college graduates with a degree are forced to take jobs at small resteraunts and coffee shops Starbucks or AppleBee’s while they look for jobs that will lead to fufilling careers nowa-days.

However, employers expect to hire 10.2 percent more new college graduates this year than they did last year, according to the National Asso-ciation of Colleges and Employers Job Outlook update. Which should help lower unemplyment for new college graduates but will increase competition for those who chose to not opt for a college degree. Median starting salaries for the class of 2012 are up 4.5 percent to $42,569 a year, NACE reports. Engi-neering jobs pay the most — a median of $58,581. However, as student debt climbs tto six figures, even this respect-able salary may not be enough to wipe out a new graduates debt. College degrees in any major will prove crucial to being successful in the

years to come, but that won’t be the only important factor. E x p e r i e n c e in the area that you wish to have a career in will also be very impor -t a n t t o o b -

t a i n -ing a job, be-cause it will give you an edge over the other college g r a d u a t e s c o m p e t i n g for the same job as you. Ta k i n g

on part time jobs or internships in the

field you plan to go into is im-

portant to later being hired because

it shows dedication and self motivation.

West Valley student Nick Arietta, plans on transferring to San Diego State after complet-ing his general education. He

plans on getting a degree in busi-ness marketing and said that, “A college degree is a must unless you’re a professional athlete or actor.” Even if you do be-come a professional athlete or actor you won’t know that until you make it,

so everyone should go to college and get a college degree to help them become successful in their career!

From the Beatles to N*sync to the Jonas Brothers, the boy band epi-demic has always been prominent in our culture, with the newest craze be-ing focused on British-Irish boy band One Direction. Put together on the British television show the X Factor the band consists of five members; Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson. While many people stay true to their hatred of boy bands, the point of the matter is that boy bands, along with their catchy tunes and faces that honestly are not hard to look at, are a huge part of pop culture today.Although the audience that One Di-rection is not necessarily aimed at the younger people in this generation, teens and preteens alike are jumping at the chance to see these boy wonders in concert (although it is hard to call them boys with the youngest being 18). “I like them a lot because they are not from Disney or Nickelodeon so they are real teenage boys and are not perceived to have a certain goody-goody image. They have good non-cheesy music and they have…British accents.” said junior Candace Moya.

One Direction has taken the big leap over the pond, and has received a warm welcome here in the states. Girls from all over not only fall-

ing over themselves for the boys, but they love the music too. Girls, espe-cially the younger ones, look up to them.

“They are so real and act like any other

guy at Leigh, the fame definitely does not go to their head,” said sophomore Autra Namvar.

These boys are as down to earth as they come and they are driv-ing the girls not only in America, but all over the world wild. With a sold out U.S. tour in May/June of 2012, and upcoming tour in 2013 the boys are not going anywhere. Most ‘boy bands’ nowadays have a target audience of pre-teenage girls, and they get their music and their message out via television shows on Nickelodeon and Dis-ney Channel. From the beginning One Direction has made it clear that, although they are thankful to all of their fans, their target audi-ence are girls in their older teens. “Their original fan base is made up of high school and college aged girls (unlike fan bases for American boy bands.) so because management knows that the tar-get audience is older, it gives One Direction the leeway to mess up steps on stage, make up silly sto-ries, and tell inappropriate jokes, making them stand out from the cookie cutter type of boy bands.” said junior Jugleen Sandhu. All in all this boy band is here to stay. Between their creative songs

and likable personalities, there will never be a shortage of One Direction lovers.

Michelle FitzsimmonsStaff Writer

Caitlyn NurnbergOpinion Editor

How important is it to get a college degree?

One Direction has made a total of 232000 debut album sales in America for Up All Night.

The newest boy band charms a different demographic

Photo by Rajashree Bhattacharya

photo by Rajashree Bhattacharya

On Friday May 4 the long await-ed “Marvel’s The Avengers” opened in theaters. Hints were given in five other

films, “Iron Man”, “Iron Man 2”, “The Hulk”, “Thor”, and “Captain Ameri-

ca”, that a team was being assembled and was then confirmed when “The Avengers” trailer was released.

The movie starts in S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters with the tesseract, a blue cube that holds tremendous energy, being stolen by none other than the villain of the movie and Thor’s brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston). With that kind of power in the wrong hands it

is seen as a threat to the world, so Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jack-son) is forced to assemble his team in order to save it.

The Avengers initiative is comprised of Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Rob-ert Downey Jr.), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).

Each character is given their own individual introduction to show where they are now, which I think is very smart in a super-hero movie. Most of them jump right into the action without properly introducing the charac-ters. “The Avengers” does it right and eases its way into the action.

A big concern when mul-tiple famous actors are placed as

leading roles together is how to evenly split up screen time in order to make

a connection with each of them. This problem is solved through internal con-flicts with each character that doesn’t have to do with them saving the world.

The show is stolen once again by Robert Downey Jr.’s wit and humor in the film. His acting is so consistent that it’s often difficult to tell if he is just pre-tending to be Tony Stark or if his real life personality is seeping through. Ei-ther way we are given that comforting humor that is expected with Iron Man.

Something I thought the direc-tors and writers did particularly well was making Black Widow and Hawk-eye believable as superheroes. I was skeptical at first when I saw that they only had basic weapons with noth-ing to make them “super”, but was pleas-

antly sur-prised to see that they’re

i m -

p o r t a n c e to the team was shown in other ways along with f i g h t i n g .

T h e movie is appropriate ly long at two hours and t w e n t y two minutes. With so many characters and stories

going on, it was necessary to make it this long. Despite the length, the film still manages to be engaging the en-tire time through the plot and action.

The film also may have single handedly saved the character, The Hulk. After the first Hulk released, fans weren’t pleased with the movie and deemed it a failure. The next Hulk was released and was a success, but then it was announced that the actor, Edward Norton, who played The Hulk would not be returning in “The Aveng-ers”. The skepticism about The Hulk disappeared after his first ac-tion scene in the new movie. His ruthless behavior and often humorous antics make him a crowd favorite next to Iron Man.

Overall “The Avengers” is a must see. It doesn’t matter if you are a fan of the comic book or even the other Marvel super-hero movies.This movie goes beyond what other

superhero movies have done by tak-ing out all cheesy aspects. The movie is completely believable and leaves you with nothing negative to say. In order to enjoy this movie all you have to like is comedy, action, quality films, amaz-ing plot, attractive men, or attractive women. Chances are that everyone can choose at least one of those and thus will be satisfied with the movie.

The Marvel franchise is now known for their scenes after the credits that reveal plot points such as villains, heroes, and the next upcoming Marvel movie. “The Avengers” continues this tradition and even takes it further by adding two extra scenes instead of just

one, so be sure to stay until the lights come on.

“Protecting the earth from the scum of the universe.” Almost fifteen years after the first “Men in Black” movie was released, and ten years since its sequel “Men in Black 2”, the agents are back again in a movie worth your time. D i -rected by Barry Son-n e n f e l d , who had prev ious ly d i r e c t e d both “MIB” movies, as well as “The A d d a m s Family” and p r o d u c e d “ L e m o n y S n i c k e t ’ s A Series of Unfortunate E v e n t s ” , viewers can expect an odd, but funny fam-ily flick. Undoubtedly, he knows how to create a great action/ comedy/ sci-fi movie.“Men in Black 3”, follows Agent J, played effortlessly by the seemingly never-aging Will Smith, and Agent K, played by the surly Tommy Lee Jones, as they yet again try to save planet

Earth from being demolished by un-ruly creatures. Boris the Animal, excellently portrayed by Jemaine Clement, escapes from Lunar Max Prison to go back in time to the 1960s, on the day Agent K took his arm and arrested him. The premise of the movie is that Smith has to follow Clement back in time to stop him from killing Jones and ultimately save the world. Because the majority of the mov-ie takes place in 1969, the viewers get

to see the young and less serious Agent K, perfectly played by Josh Brolin. See-ing Agent K in a new light gives the audience a feeling of empathy for him and everything he’s been through in his long and unusual life. The setting and costumes of the movie are much similar to those of

the other “MIB” movies: casual and fun. The outfits weren’t too attention grabbing but the viewer could tell the difference when the movie flashed be-tween modern day to the late ‘60s. New York City looked more or less the same. The coolest part of the movie though was definitely the in-tricate makeup and special effects for

the aliens. The aliens were looking as slimy/crusty, hairy/scaly, and freakier than ever. The goofy encounters with non-threatening aliens of “MIB” are still fun because the movies have been made over long periods of time that

they’re reminders of the past and it’s nice to sit back and watch a movie that is somewhat familiar. The angle of the movie and the

special effects make this film great to see in 3D. Even on a regular screen the viewer sees parts of the movie as if they are flying or falling and things are pop-

ping out at them. One thing I personally thought was funny is that in this day and age, with such impressively advanced tech-

nology, the “Men in Black” still use weapons that look like shiny plastic toy guns for kids but they’re not child friendly at all. Throughout the movie there are subtle jokes and laughable re-marks; it wasn’t as funny as one might expect but it still beat my ex-pectations. They didn’t try too hard but they also didn’t try hard enough.The mov-ie flowed really well but it seemed as if in some parts the viewer is wait-ing awhile for it to get interesting again. N o spoilers here, but the end of the movie does bring the past and pres-ent full circle and the viewer may or may not get a lit-

tle teary eyed. Don’t worry, it’s not corny at all.

Marvel’s The Avengers

Men In Black 3

5.31.12 entertainment page 15

Joseph VasquezStaff Writer

Alassandra MarquezStaff Writer

Directed by Joss Whedon

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

The movie made $1 billion world wide

A

Photos courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Photos courtesy of Columbia Pictures

B+

entertainment 5.31.12page 16

The Dictator

Strange Clouds

Born & Raised

John Mayer knows he’s talented: he has won multiple Grammys and his four previous albums have been successful, all certifying platinum and reaching top 10 of the Billboard 200. However, what sets his new album, “Born and Raised”, apart is that May-er has finally found his humility.

“Born and Raised” was released on May 22, 2012 after Mayer’s two-year hiatus from the temptations of Hol-lywood. Back then, following Mayer’s fall from grace as a result of a couple years of bad publicity coupled with the consequences of his devil-may-

care attitude, he retreated to the coun-tryside in Montana. His return from isolation produced an honest offering of tracks, with its roots in the flavor of the 70’s: soft rock, country blues, and acoustics. “Born and Raised” is the story of Mayer’s rediscovery of self, inspiring an album of reflective and soul-searching tunes. With his first single off the al-bum, “Shadow Days,” Mayer is able to deliver the underlying theme of his new work: “I’m a good man with a good heart/Had a tough time, got a rough start,” Mayer sings. “But my shadow days are over now.” Mayer is apologetic, defending his past choices while also acknowledging his mis-steps. He also reminisces on the past; in his track “If I Ever Get Around to Living,” he sings of his teenage evenings spent playing guitar in his room. The songs reflect both an im-pulse to move forward into the future while looking back into the past; this new album is overall softer, slower, and more acoustic-oriented than any

Sean HillerStaff Writer

Nikita ZakladnyiStaff Writer

Nanxi TangIn-Depth Editor

If you are looking for another “Borat” then unfortunately “The Dic-tator” is not going to meet your expec-tations. This is not saying that “The Dictator” is bad, in fact it was surpris-ingly decent. Sacha Baron Cohen, the comedic mastermind behind “Borat” and “Bruno”, creates a comedic satire of dictators that will have you crack-ing up as well as cringing in disgust constantly throughout the film. Need-less to say, like most of Baron Cohen’s films, “The Dictator” is NOT for the faint of heart or easily upset. “The Dictator” is the story about ruthless Dictator Aladeen played by Sacha Baron Cohen that, through the pressure of the United Nations, visits the United States for peace talks. While he is there, he is betrayed by his second in command who then, through the use of a Aladeen double, begins to strike oil deals with other dictatorships and communist regimes that will take all power away from Aladeen’s beautiful country of Waadeya. Aladeen, who is presumed dead by his betrayer, is actually on the streets, beardless and unrecognizable. He soon befriends a hippie activist named Zoey, played by Anna Faris. Although their

B . o . B . s h o u l d ’ v e crashed his air-plane along with his shipload of CDs for his new album when he had the chance. Unfortunately, B.o.B. was able to land safely to spew his sewage on the music in-dustry with his new instrument of pollution titled “Strange Clouds”. This al-bum is a mashed and compressed product of all the generic rap/pop noise that gets ejaculated as a package for distasteful rap and hip hop listeners. Heck, they even slapped Nicki Minaj’s ever so featured squeaky voice on it. This album is a scad pile of rent-an-orchestra and overused tone pat-terns. B.o.B. does switch up his rap-ping, so this murky pool of bad and

horrible does have some variation. The lyrics are simple and don’t have much meaning to them and the deepest line one could find is about “lighting up” or “drinking up” . B.o.B. even does the “heyyyyuu” and the incompre-

hensible slurring in the beginning of his songs that so many rap artists do. This album is indeed a gasp of air from all the Rack City wannabe rap-pers and the repetitive RnB musicians crying a river about the same girl who

took his money and is now apparently some ho-fo-sho who broke his heart. Maybe we can just pretend that airplanes in the night sky are taking his new album away somewhere cold and dark to some place that no one

knows about ex-cept for a man in Uzebekistan who is sick with a terminal illness. This album was conceived from a cesspool of Mi-naj, Weezy, simple song structures that had a miscar-riage, and brought to life by necro-mancer B.o.B. that was later dropped down the tree of awful and landed in the laps of ea-ger listeners who cannot tell a piano chord from a fart. It’s understand-able how someone could like this artist, but com-pared to other rappers nowa-days this album

is no good, don’t buy it, listen to Earl instead.

Performed by B.o.B.

Directed by Larry Charles

Performed by John Mayerstances on politics are completely on different sides of the spectrum they be-gin to fall for each other. Aladeen while in the city of New York meets a scien-tist that used to work for him and who he had presumed dead due to the fact Aladeen had him executed. Together they figure out a plan to get Aladeen back into the U.N. headquarters so he can regain his power. Where “The Dictator” differs from Sacha Baron Cohen’s films is that it actually has a plot. This, of course, is because it is not done in a docu-mentary style filming, which is why some people who did not like Cohen’s o t h e r films might e n - joy this

o n e . I t

has a beginning, a middle, and an end, not just a bunch of nonsense bunched together. What this film does have in common with Cohen’s other films is its over the top, raunchy, and at times in-credibly distasteful humor. For exam-ple, there is one scene in the film where Aladeen is forced to help a woman give birth in the grocery store he is living above. This scene is extremely wrong, and for some might be too much. This film has a great deal of nasty humor but it also has a lot of clever jokes and situations. Cohen sticks to his roots and lays down racist joke after racist joke, and while some were clever and some were not, most were hilari-ous. Cohen took a shot at every race imaginable so at least it was fair. And just as every other one of Cohen’s films, there is uncalled for nudity. If you were disgusted by seeing Cohen naked in “Borat” and “Bruno” then get ready because it is going to happen again, and when you least expect it.

Overall this film is actually pretty good. It has some really stupid mo-

ments, but it also has a great deal of hilarious ones. All of the actors do a

great job of portraying their charac-ters and add to the hilarity of

the strange situations they find themselves in. This film is by no means a “21 Jump Street” caliber com-edy, but by no means does this movie fall short.

Courtesy of huffingpost.com

Courtesy of blog.zap2it.com

D

of his former CDs, reflecting his in-tent to draw listeners into his intimate and revealing tracks. Unfortunately, this is the first album release that Mayer won’t be able to support with a live tour. Last fall, Mayer had undergone surgery for a granuloma that had grown on his vocal chords. As luck would have it, Mayer had announced in March that his granuloma had grown back, prompting Mayer to indefinitely can-

cel his previously upcoming tour. Critics of Mayer contend that his personal retreat from the city doesn’t make the epiphanies that drove this album unique by any means; his story is one as old as the ages. Also, Mayer’s lack of talent as a lyricist are

said to detract from his album, with the cheesy song “Love is a verb” and almost turn-of-phase “A Face to Call Home.” What critics of Mayer can agree on, however, is that Mayer’s new al-bum offers expert musicality filled with charm, honesty and a peaceful easy melody, backed by appropriate instrumental touches. His 12 tracks feature primarily blues and folk ele-ments: violins, slide guitars, pedal steel guides, blues harp. His guitar prowess, accompanied by his increasing har-monica talent are evidenced and shine through to blend into Mayer’s most diverse and exploratory album yet.

Photos courtesy of photos.jasondunn.com

B+

5.31.12 entertainment page 17

California Roots

Dark Shadowster plaguing their family for centuries. Out of nowhere, in the middle of the scene, in comes Elizabeth’s daughter Carolyn as a werewolf for no apparent reason . Carolyn contributes to the ex-cess of cheesy one-liners that ravaged the ending, in conjunction with the Disneyland Haunted Mansion-esque effects of the house coming to life. Following werewolf Carolyn’s awful entrance, 10-year-old David, whose mother Angelique killed in spite of the Collins family, summons the ghost of his mom. At this part, I was expecting some serious poltergeist buttkicking or something. What does she do? She floats in, sits there for a second, and lets out a big shriek that brings a whopping chandelier down over Angelique, and leaves. Talk about anticlimactic. Despite unnecessary scenes that don’t even propel the plot (I’m look-ing at you, Barnabas and Angelique sex scene) and inconsistencies between comedy and a gothic flare, “Dark Shadows” had a generally witty script and lovely aesthetics. I wouldn’t advise rushing to the theaters and shelling out $13 to see this horror comedy, but it’s definitely a fun movie with entertain-ment value.

is meant to mirror Josette (and both roles are actually played by the same actress, Bella Heathcote), Barnabas’ fi-ancee who Angelique casts a spell on, sending her over a cliff to her death.

O b v i o u s l y, the relation-ship between Victoria and Barnabus is an important facet of the film, but it was hardly explored at all during the movie. T h e ending took the cake, however. The movie was g e n e r a l l y well-scripted throughout, but the end-ing is where that all went

out the window. At the climax of the film,

Barnabus and Elizabeth face Angelique once and for all to finally kill her af-

Perhaps one of the most irritating points about the movie was the relation-ship between Barnabas and Victoria. It was evident that the two actors had at least a trace of chemistry, but there was

really no build-up to their relationship throughout the entire movie. Victoria

raphy for the most part was nice, as well as the CGI effects. “Dark Shad-ows” sported a cast with a few shining stars, but really only Depp and Carter with the addition of Michelle Pfeiffer

as Elizabeth Collins, the current family matriarch.

Kylie BrownEditor-in-Chief

Katrina JabbariStaff Writer

With the release of “Dark Shad-ows”, inspired by the hit TV soap op-era of 1966, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are at it again (and of course, the lovely Helena Bonham Carter, because what is a Tim Burton movie featuring Johnny Depp without Helena Bonham Carter?). Once again, Depp takes on the role of an odd, pasty-skinned fel-low with weird hair in “Dark Shadows” as Barnabas Collins, an 18th century aristocrat who is cursed to be a vam-pire by his jilted girlfriend, the witch Angelique, and is freed from his coffin prison 198 years later in 1972. Now, my expectations were low going into this movie. I’ve been a fan of bothTim Burton and Johnny Depp since childhood, but “Dark Shadows” just struck me as hokey from the pre-views, and hokey is what I received. The movie had some redeeming qualities; for example, the cinematog-

Fan-favorite reggae and art festival takes Monterey by storm

Top reggae-rock artists SOJA and Pepper scheduled to head-line the festival

Johnny Depp continues his legacy of whimsical, interesting roles as Barnabas Collins, the vampire

Photo courtesy of Tim Burton Films

Directed byTim Burton

B-

On Sunday, May 27, my best friend Daisy and I ventured to Monterey, California for the 3rd annual Califor-nia Roots Art and Music Festival pre-sented by California Roots Clothing. After a hearty hour and a half drive from San Jose to the Monterey County Fairgrounds, we had arrived at about 11 a.m.. Our favorite bands would not begin until about 5 p.m. later that evening, but we wanted to ensure that we would have a solid spot. So yes, we did go stand at the very front of the area where the soon-to-be enormous crowd would admire their favorite artists. We were front and cen-ter, and in order to be there by the time our favorite bands would come on, we had to stand there for 6 hours. A little crazy? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely. We walked around for a bit. The fairgrounds were filled with tents set up by merchants and vendors. They sold food, drinks, art, t-shirts, bracelets, hip-pie-esque skirts and scarves, and more. The general atmosphere was very pleasant. The venue was nice; it was decorated with big fountains and small wooden bridges, and lots of trees and wide grassy areas. Everyone was very friendly and generous, as you might imagine (if you catch my drift). People were very kind and as far as I could see, no real violence broke out at any point. Before we could enjoy the best of the best when it comes to white-boy reggae music, we had to go through hours of listening to the dreaded open-ing acts. And I don't mean dreaded as in we dreaded listening to their music. I mean literally dreaded-- as in they had dreadlocks. Although I usually find opening acts to be very amateur and disappointing, I was pleasantly sur-prised with those featured at Cali Roots. The lineup was as follows: The Closeouts, Just Chill, Katastro, Seedless, Iration, The Expendables, and Pepper.

Alongside each and every act on stage were two featured painters doing their thing. Easels were set-up downstage left and two artists at a time would be on stage painting during the musical performances. They painted everything from abstract pieces involv-ing elements of nature (trees, waves) to Bob Marley's face, to simple expressive pieces. This was a nice addition to the per-formances and gave artists the chance to spotlight their talents. The Closeouts from Monterey were first and definitely the youngest and probably least experienced, but I found myself impressed with their musical tal-ents. For being teenag-ers, they were ridicu-lously good at playing their instruments. They had a cool vibe and it was nice to see how ec-static they were to be playing their music at such a popular festival. Just Chill is a lo-cal band from Morgan Hill who I have seen perform twice now. They are very at ease on stage and I have thoroughly enjoyed both performances. The lead singer has a beautiful voice and although some of their songs are a little too repetitive for my taste, they're for the most part, quality songs with positive lyrics. The performance was successful and got the crowd sway-ing along to their island melodies. Katastro came out all the way from Tempe, Arizona. Their perfor-mance was cool and all, but I can't say they belonged at a reggae festival. They seemed very out of place and their music would fit more under the rock genre. Not even reggae-rock, just

rock. The lead singer was a scruffy, attractive fellow who managed to use his clever rhymes to get everyone pretty pumped. They did not seem too stoked to be on stage to be com-pletely honest, but at least the mu-sic came across with some passion. Seedless is a band from Orange,

CA and I was very pleased with their performance. They used basic reg-gae rhythms and added their own individual rock twist using an electric guitar and for a couple songs, an elec-tric violin. The delivery felt very pas-sionate and genuine, and you could tell these guys are true music lovers. They also held a large fan base in the audience which is always nice to see. At last, Iration was up to per-form. They were the first band that you could see were truly comfortable

on-stage, which made sense consider-ing they were one of the most popu-lar. Their set was about an hour long, while the previous acts only got to play for about half an hour. Iration is from Santa Barbara but live in Hawaii, and you could tell considering the members consisted of a bulky Hawaiian man,

and 4 white guys who were impeccably tanned. They got the crowd going wild by playing all of their fan favorite songs, such as "Summer Nights," "Time Bomb," and "Falling." They were very casual but really seemed to enjoy playing their music. In-struments were basic; gui-tar, bass, drums. Certain songs were accompanied by a tambourine, however. They ended the set with a cover of "Say It Ain't So" by Weezer, which oddly enough, was probably the song they performed best. Then the set-up for the Expendables began. Stage volunteers brought out instruments and what not, and people were beginning to get anx-ious. Being pushed against the cattle fencing with the force of thousands of peo-ple isn't exactly fun, but it would be worth it. Finally,

the band is introduced and the stage is graced by four

30-somethings; three hearty looking men with beards and tattoos, and a slender, tall asian/islander looking man with a black mustache and an A's cap on. They played a set of new songs, as well as all of the classics such as "Sac-rifice," "Let Her Go," and "Down, Down, Down." The Santa Cruz na-tives completely and utterly killed it. They rocked so hard and had every-one jamming right along with them. In fact, they may have rocked it a little too hard. With sporadic mini on-

stage electric guitar jam sessions held by lead singer Geof Weers, mosh pits were forming among the crowd. What did that mean for us front-of-the-audience folks? Pretty much that the cattle fences were bending down and would eventually collapse, along with all of us in the front row. I have a gi-ant bruise on my left leg and I'm pretty sure I broke my kneecap or some-thing but hey, It was awesome. They completely blew everyone away and were by far my favorite performance of the night. Kudos, Expendables. Ah, at last it was time for Pep-per. Being one of my all time favorite bands, I was about to explode from ex-citement. The trio came on stage and immediately I could tell they'd put on a great show. The bassistvocalist (Bret Bollinger) and the guitarist/vocalist (Kaleo Wassman) were probably the best, of all of the performers at the fes-tival, at pumping up the crowd. They talked just as much as they actually sang songs, which was fine consider-ing how witty and beautifully sculpted they are. Eye candy for sure. Anyways, when they weren't cracking inappro-priate jokes, or talking about how the mainland (they're hawaiian natives) is the land of liberation, they were play-ing a set of classic songs. They rocked out on stage and I was impressed with how accurate their stage voices were to their recording studio voices, a rare find this day in age. These guys do what they do with intense pas-sion and I give them props for that. Wasn't too crazy about the set-list, but regardless they put on a wild show. My ears are still ringing from the bass, and I may have an enormous bruise on my leg and will feel tired for the next month straight, but it was all worth it. This event was put together ex-tremely well and I was a happy camp-er to say the least. As far as I could see, everyone enjoyed themselves. If you like island melodies, and good vibes, I definitely recommend you go next year. I will undoubtably be attending for many years to come.

sports 5.31.12page 18

What to expect for 2012-2013 cheerleadingCheerleading 101

High school cheerleaders have been around for as long as anyone can remember. They’re at every football and basketball game primped in glit-tery uniforms, high ponytails, winning smiles, and undying spirit for their teams. However, cheerleading is not as simple as just waving around pom-poms and yelling out cheers. Few know how much effort it takes to put together and then polish the teams. Cheer try-outs start in April and show all the cheerleader hopefuls a taste of how the teams operate. “Try outs are always testing the basic skills,” said junior Emi-lee Grochowski. “The seniors who are graduating usually run the try outs as well as the coaches and our on staff coordinator. The seniors put together a dance--a cheer--and teach us how to improve our jumps. We do those workshops for 3-4 days and then on [the] final day, we are judged by real UCA [professional cheerleaders] judges so the whole pro-cess isn’t unfair.”

Once try-outs are finished, the girls are split up into one of four teams: one of the two competition teams or one of the two game teams. Compe-tition teams do stunting and tum-bling and compete against other high schools, while game teams only cheer

at football and basketball games with limited stunting. Due to the purpose of the indi-vidual teams, the practices greatly dif-ferentiate. “Each practice is different because

there is a game team and a competi-tion team. At game time practice, we stretch, warm up, practice our jumps, stunt, and practice anything we will be doing at the game that week. For com-petition, we stretch, warm up, run or learn our routine, and then condition. Each practice is different and unpre-dictable,” said Grochowski. Cheerleading, having originally begun in the United States in the 1880’s, has come a long way in sophis-tication and technique. With about 3 million cheerleaders in the US to-day—and counting—cheerleading has become one of the most popular and dangerous activities to participate in.In fact, according to ABC News, it is estimated that “16,000 cheerleaders are injured seriously every year in ac-cidents involving dramatic stunts and tumble”.This shows that cheerleaders are far from just peppy supporters. They take their work very seriously. In fact, Leigh has won several National Champion-ship cheer competitions and typically places first at Regionals every year. So the fact of the matter is that Leigh cheerleaders not only support the sport teams that represent our school, but also represent Leigh in their own forte as well.

Makena VolzingStaff Writer

Remembering Junior Seau

Junior Seau will forever be re-membered as a terror in the San Di-ego Chargers’ secondary. In his 20 year career, Seau recorded 1,849 tackles, 56.5 sacks, 18 interceptions, 3 forced fumbles, and 21 Pro Bowl selections. He had a career that will no doubt earn him a place in the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, and reached the pinnacle of his professional career as a member of the 1994 San Diego Chargers, which competed in Super Bowl XXIX, but lost to the San Fran-cisco 49ers, 49-26. This was the fran-chise’s sole Super Bowl appearance. This Chargers team has earned an-other place in sports lore: not only has the city of San Diego never had a team win a national championship, re-gardless of the sport, but they also have seen several players from their most successful teams pass away before their time. This curse is locally known an infamous in the San Diego area. Since the 1994 season, 7 other Chargers play-ers have died, all before the age of 44. Seau’s death carries much more meaning in the world of football than simply an addition to San Diego ur-ban lore. It is believed, albeit not con-firmed, that Seau’s suicide was linked to the numerous concussions he sustained playing as a linebacker in the National Football League. He is not the only player experience debilitating problems stemming from concussions. Wayne Chrebet, former New York Jets receiv-er, also experiences problems described medically as post concussion syndrome. As more former NFL play-ers are reaching the middle years of their lives, more and more health is-sues linked to their careers as football players have started to appear. This prompts the question: Is a football ca-reer worth the level of punishment it puts on your body? Some NFL play-ers, such as Troy Polamalu, Free Safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers, say that it absolutely is. Their love for the game far outweighs the risks they undertake by playing. Jets Head Coach Rex Ryan told ESPN, after his son sustained a concussion playing football in high school this year, that he is “absolutely” OK with his son continuing to play. Others in the NFL, such as for-mer quarterback Kurt Warner, say that they do not want their kids playing the

game, that it has become too violent as players have become bigger and faster. Even with rule changes to protect quarterbacks and defenseless receiv-ers, as well as new advances in helmet safety technology, football is still, by its very nature, a dangerous game. Every player who steps onto a field knows that one day, maybe soon, maybe far in the future, will sustain an injury, regardless of whether they are a profes-sional, collegiate, or high school player. An injury playing football is inevitable, and the question players have to ask themselves is: Is it worth it? Am I will-ing to risk my body, and health in the future, in order to play the game I love? For some, such as Ray Lewis, Baltimore Ravens linebacker and fu-ture Hall of Famer, the answer is an obvious yes. Players like Lewis are infi-nitely passionate in their love for foot-ball, and fully accept the risks they un-dertake in order to do what they love. However, as players get bigger and faster with every draft class (try finding a player with the same measurements as Calvin Johnson on a roster in 1972), it is possible that the game of football as we know it will not be around in say, twenty years. It is possible that the pub-lic may deem it too violent of a sport, and begin to shun it until its popularity fizzles out, and the billion dollar busi-ness the NFL has become ceases to be. For lovers of the game, such as myself, this is a scary prospect. This outcome is possible though. Even as people read this article, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is contemplating ways to try and make the game safer for players, without losing the spirit of the game. It will be impossible to ever eliminate injuries from football, or any sport for that matter. As long as there are sports, there will be sports injuries. The goal is not to eliminate these injuries, it is to reduce their se-verity, and the frequency at which these injuries occur. No one will ever invent the perfect helmet, that totally protects players from concussions and other head injuries, even helmet manufacturers admit that. No protec-tive equipment designer will ever make a set of pads that completely protects players, it is just an impossible task. Baseball pitchers will always experience devastating wear and tear on their pitching shoulder, catch-ers are doomed to have terrible knees later in life, most football players will have some degree of mental impair-ment due to head trauma, and hockey players, well, they will probably never have a hope of keeping all of their teeth, unless of course, they finally figure out that a facemask would solve some of their facial injury problems. Junior Seau’s death is a tragedy for the world of sports. He was a great man whose time on earth ended too soon. What remains to be seen is how games like football react to events like this, and if they can work to try and re-duce the effects of such damaging inju-ries as concussions. Time will only tell.

Fighting the freshman 15How to maintain a healthy weight in college

When most seniors think about college they think of freedom, inde-pendence, lust, and outlandish esca-pades. What they don’t realize is that there is a hairy bellied monster waiting in their dorm closet. This dark inces-tous beast is the dreaded freshman 15. An odd phenomenon likened to the Bermuda Triangle and the chupa-cabra, the “freshman 15” strikes you when you’re down. For those of you who live under a rock, the freshman 15 is when freshman gain 15 pounds of weight their first year at college. Look around a college campus and signs of the dreaded beast can be seen everywhere. It’s lurking in your beverage can, it’s hiding in the pizza being served in the cafeteria, it’s crouched in your cup of coffee, it’s get-ting weird in your mini fridge...real weird. The freshman 15 is everywhere! Some like to say I’m crazy. “The Fifteen isn’t real!” they sneer. Oh how naive they are, hiding in their web of lies and denial. It’s true what they say, ignorance is bliss. Step one foot in a frat house how-ever and you too will realize, ain’t no joke, the fifteen is real. This is why I’m here. To help herd the innocent sheep away from the scary wolf of weight gain. The key to destroying any opponent is knowing your opponent. You must

learn everything about this beast, where he sleeps, where he eats, what his farts smell like, what he wears, what cologne he wears and on what days he wears it; you shall become one with the beast in order to defeat the fiend. More than that you must know what to do if you find yourself in a face to face encounter with the beast. If you really want to stab the beast through the heart with a wooden steak go to the gym, don’t be a bum. If you find yourself pouting in the mirror grabbing your muffin top and saying “Why wont you leave me alone?!” , slap yourself. You can eat anything you want if you work it off at the gym. Look at Michael Phelps, that man eats 12,000 calories a day, elopes with water pipes, and still looks like Jet Li. I mean seriously he doesn’t have an ounce of body fat. You don’t have to be that extreme but just get some ex-ercise into your weekly routine. Don’t say you don’t have time, you’re lying to everyone else and you’re lying to yourself! It only takes 15 minutes to light jog a mile. If you say you don’t have time to run a mile twice a week...a whole whop-ping 30 minutes you’re a chowderhead! The key to using exercise to thwart the freshman 15 with ease is balance. If you spend a lot of time studying and drinking coffee, match that with a little bit of exercise. If you had a lot of pizza and high calorie food throughout the week, match that with some exercise. If you drank a lot of high calorie bev-

erages, guess what, match that with some exercise! I can’t stress enough that diet must match exercise or else you will start to gain a couple LB’s.It is much easier to avoid the Fifteen than it is to have a head on fight with the fifteen; stronger men than you have died trying to go toe to toe with the beast of the fifteen. There are three en-vironments where the beast thrives. The cafeteria, the Frat house, and the library. College life is a big change when it comes to diet. You no longer have your parents there to cook your meals, make sure you eat your vegetables, and slap that third custard doughnut out of your greasy hand. Freshman can easily be identified in the college cafeteria, grabbing second helpings of pizza, drowning a sugar cone in soft serve ice cream, rolling around nude in the desert section. DONT BE THAT FRESHMAN! Make sure you visit the salad bar at least once a day and have lots of fruit, your bowels will get down on their knees and thank you. Also it helps stave the pounds away. You will most likely spend time on the internet at college, spend some of that time researching which veg-etables and fruits help you the most. Some freshman find the culprit isn’t what they eat, rather what they drink. If you’re drinking a lot of coffee, try to cut back, try an espresso shot instead. If you’re ignoring your studies and go-ing out to do shenanigans, try drink-ing a light instead. It’s important to watch what you put into your body.

Adam SoretStaff Writer

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Athletes of the month

Spring sports compete in CCSAngel WilsonStaff Writer

Sarah Cline is probably one of the most underrated and accom-plished athletes at Leigh High.Not only is she ranked 1st in the CCS, but is ranked 5th in the state of California, and 20th in the nation as a whole. “My biggest achievement was probably making it to the state meet for my first year doing track,” said Cline about her best memory of track so far. On top of track, Sarah manages to maintain a 4.0 grade point average on top of all of her training and time spent in the gym, and still has time for friends. “I usually try and get a ma-jority of my homework done on the days that I do not have practice, but most of the time I don’t even do my homework. I honestly don’t know how my grades are still decent,” said Cline. Sarah comes across as a normal, vivacious, and determined in-dividual. Sarah trains every day for her own private track club, known as the Heritage Track Club, and, addition-

Sarah Cline, Brad Hartsell: senior track athletes

Leigh’s track, swimming, and badmin-ton school season ended strong but it’s not over just yet. All three sports pick players to qualify in CCS, but first players must go through different stag-es to enter. For track runners with the best times were selected to move on to CCS, but before reaching CCS runners must enter a series of qualifiers. First is the mount hamilton league trials, bval, CCS, and lastly the CCS finals. “Our track team did excellent ,and re-ally tried their best. Im really proud of what we accomplished this year.” said sophomore Rahul Siraso. Running a 11.9 in the 800 meter , senior Sarah Cline has made top ten CCS all time. Her, and her relay team are now moving on to CCS finals. Even though the guys are out of the race, the girls 4 by 1 which includes, Sarah Cline, Sarah Williams, June, Lani tran, is running towards victory this year. These girls meet for CCS finals friday the 25th, racing against the best re-lays teams around. Only the top seven times will be qualified to move on to state. Leighs track team showed endurance and great athleticism to reach their goals. They hurdled their way through obstacles, shot put the other teams to shame, and raced towards victory. Track had an over all success, leaving us for great anticipation for next year. After fourteen team matches

Leigh High School’s badminton team has ended their season with third place, however; for some the season is not over yet. In high school badminton the varsity is divided into five catego-ries, mixed(one boy and one girl), boys doubles, girls doubles, girls singles, and boys singles. Each high school has three pairs or individu-als from each cat-egories. Those ranked one and two in their cate-gory must win half of their games to move onto League Finals while those in rank three can only have one loss. “The hardest challenge at league finals wasn’t actu-ally physical prob-lems like endurance, but more mentality.During my bad-minton game, it was all about concen-tration, letting go of my mistakes, and not letting the audience affect me.” said girls singles Aoi Shoda. In the end however, only three groups placed first or second at League

Finals and proceeded to CCS. Girls singles Aoi Shoda, boys singles Patrick Mcdonald, and boys doubles Anthony Dinh and Eiji Shoda.

CCS was a three day double elimination tournament at Monta Vis-ta from May 22 to the 24, however the competition at CCS cannot be com-pared to the competition at League FInals. Most players who make it to League play year round and train with

famous coaches and players. “At CCS, I’ll be facing players who are nowhere near my level, and I’ll just have to enjoy getting the experi-ence in playing against crazy badmin-

ton people.”said Shoda. CCS proved a huge chal-lenge as boys singles one, Patrick Mcdonald got eliminated imme-diately with two losses, and boys doubles one got one default win and then got eliminated after two more lost games. Aoi Shoda, girls singles one, however won one game lost her second, and then could not continue due to a sprained ankle. This year the badminton team and players improved a lot compared to past years. Three groups making it to CCS was already an accomplishment, and just making it to the second day for some great. “ Our team has definitely become stronger over the years. For the past 10 years we’ve come up from C division. The first couple years after moving up we were struggling, but now we came in third nearly second

place. Just hope the team will keep up with their training in off season to ensure we don’t fall to the bottom.” said badminton coach Kevin Yamaguchi. Overall, the badminton team had a very good season placing third in the B League, and almost making a new record of players to have gone to

CCS. Swimming has been a major success this year with many students making it to CCS. Students such as Courtney Markel, Michael Hannigan, Justin Lok, Josh Applebaum, Jenni-fer Huynh, Hannah Liddle, Martin Krushernov had high enough times to qualify for CCS. “The competition was fierce, but we over all i thought we did really well. Every year we get better and better” said sophomore Amanda Jensen. CCS was held at Santa Clara’s swim center may 11th and 12th. Stu-dents swam the 200 medley relay, 200 I.M 200 free, 50 free, 100 free, 100 fly, 200 free relay, 100 breaststroke, and 400 free relay. The boys placed 13th in the 200 free relay with Michael Hanningan, Josh Appelbaum, Martin Kushnerov, and Justin Lock on the team. “ Swimming is great because it engages your whole body , and its nice to know you control your own time, whatever you get it solely based on yourself. Plus because im swimming outdoors 24/7 i dont even need to go tanning.” said sophomore Josh Ap-plebaum. Swimming ended on a high note, with higher times and more focus than ever before. “As a team we performed better this year because practice attendance was better and our times at CCS im-proved by over 90 percent.” said swim coach Ben Bethune.

Matthew DuellStaff Writer

ally, trains and competes for the Leigh team.Sarah trains intensely and consistently year round for nation-al track competi-tions that occur in both winter and spring. “Now, when Sarah races in the 100M, 200M, or 400M Sprints, I don’t even pay atten-tion to the race because I already know who will be getting first: Sarah Cline,” said To-bias Bleisch about Sarah’s perfor-mance during the Leigh track meets.Cline has been of-fered innumerable athletic scholarships to schools such as Harvard, Stanford, UCSD, and Washington State, but it still remains unclear as to where she

will be competing next year.“I’m not sure where I am going yet,

but I

still have a couple months to decide. It’s really complicated,” said Cline about her college options.

Wherever Sarah ends up, make sure to look for her on ESPN, or in the

Junior Olympics of 2016.Brad Hartsell, in addition playing on Leigh’s football team, is an energetic

and accomplished shot put and discus thrower who is ranked 10th in the CCS overall.Brad also trains with the Leigh track team as well as the Heritage Track team alongside accomplished athletes such as Sarah Cline, Casey Buck, and Sarah Williams.“Track has always been something that I have enjoyed, and I have met so many unique and awesome people through track. I just love the throwing events because it is a sweet way to show your strength!” said Brad Hart-sell about his track experiences.Brad has also been offered various ath-letic scholarships for both football and track & field, but has set his sights on one school in particular.“I will be attending Idaho State Uni-versity next year on an athletic schol-arship for track, and I will be playing football there as well. I am so stoked and ready for college!” said Hartsell about his college decisions.Hartsell and Cline, or the dynamic duo, have been nominated for athlete of the month for their natural talents, hard work, determination, and dedica-tion to track and field throughout their career at Leigh High School.

Sarah Cline typically competes in the 100M, 200M, 400M races, Brad Hartsell typically competes in the shotput and the discus events

The first open badminton champtionships were in 1899

visual by Mikayla Druhana

visual by Mikayla Druhana

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Well Seniors, this is it. Graduation announcements have been mailed out, tickets have been purchased, and we have our caps and gowns ready to go for the big day. It’s crazy to think that the day we’ve been anticipating for the past four years (and maybe even longer) is only a week away. To-morrow is our last “real” day of high school... ever. And here at “The Eleight”, we can’t believe that this our final edition of the year. It’s been a long journey, but I think most of us can agree that it’s been more than worthwhile. As the next week is filled with celebratory parties, senior sunsets, graduation practice, and enough photographic op-portunities to make your jaw hurt just thinking about it, we encourage you to take a step back to appreciate it all. It’s terribly cliche, we know, but when is the next time you’re going to graduate high school? This our last chance to make positive high school memories; do you really want to waste it away by wishing for it all to be over? We hope you can appreciate the next seven days with us, all the way until we hear the last “Congratulations, Class of 2012!” uttered on Thurs-day evening in the bowl. But until then, enjoy your very last high school newspaper (the senior map is pretty awesome, don’t you think?) and your very last week as a high schooler.

Thanks for reading our newspaper, and be sure to look out for the October 2012 edition (have your younger sibling mail a copy to your dorm room!) and our website (www.theeleight.com). We can’t wait to see what the Class of 2013 brings us!

(Signing out for the last time)Your Editors-in-Chief,Kylie Brown and Marissa Rodriguez