,QVLGH /2:(// +,*+ 6&+22/5(' (',7,2192/ 12 '(&(0%(5 ZZZWKHORZHOORUJ 6SRWOLJKW %DFNSDJH In the news 1HZV W HAT ARE you do- ing this Saturday? If it’s procrastinating on studying for finals by watching a Honey Boo Boo marathon or creating a holiday home for your Sims, how about you skedaddle down to the Lowell garden and do something meaningful for the all-powerful, all-loving Mother Nature? e largest earthbench to date is being built on campus; the team needs all the volunteers they can get! Bring friends to help the infa- mous Brennan Bird. Aer a day of volunteering, see the new release of e Hobbit on the big screen, but remember aer the lights come up to toss your soda bottle in the blue bin. QCity kids endure harsh and unfamiliar territory (school garden) and try to meet bench deadline 3DJHV Q Girls’ varsity volleyball team reassesses stategy after they fall back in third set, win champs 6SRUWV 3DJHV QSuper size me... or not? One reporter follows through on healthy New Year’s resolution What’s 2SLQLRQ 3DJHV Q Stocky varsity football player believes he is wasting his time with third year of mandatory P.E. Q &ROXPQV 3DJH Q 7LPHO\ HGXFDWLRQ RYHUUDWHG 'ULYLQJ IRU GXPPLHV at 4.0 might get you somewhere in life, but why wait to see? Take a break from book larnin’ and think gap year. T The schools will be able to avoid up to 16.5 furlough days. 3DJH QCommendatory Facebook page goes viral, gives students warm fuzzy feelings 3DJH From crosswalk to DMV to road rage, avoid a fender-bender by keeping these survival tips handy. By Tyler Perkins A CROWD OF students laughed and shouted as the events coordinator was sent splashing into the cold wa- ter of a dunk tank below. e tank was one of a number of carnival activities that ran from Mods 6-17 on Nov. 16 during co-curricular day to celebrate the school for winning a prestigious national award. Although the clubs had to squeeze their booths under the roof of the courtyard to avoid the pouring rain, students‘ spirits were not dampened. During their free mods, students rolled around in hamster balls, climbed up a wall in Velcro suits, wrestled in sumo costumes, threw balls — sending school leaders and faculty into the deep — and bounced in an inatable boxing rink, playfully punching their classmates with giant gloves. “It was really scary at rst; I must have been dunked at least 30 times,” main target and SBC events coordinator senior Hiromi Fujita said. “One of my friends called me a martyr, and I guess that’s what I am.” e celebration was a result of Lowell winning the Blue Ribbon Award, the highest See CO-CURRICULAR on Page 5 By Antonio Carmona and Joseph Kim E VERYTHING EVENTUALLY changes, and Shield and Scroll is no exception. A new ballot committee was formed in September to decide on several is- sues regarding their current elections system, resulting in one change — to limit voting for new members to seniors. At the ballot committee’s nal meeting on Nov. 7, a vote was held to decide if a new process was needed for applicants. Under discussion was whether the anonymity of S&S candidates was being given away due to the adjunct information on the student ballots for member selection. At the end of this vote, the committee unanimously agreed that no changes should be made to the current system. e only change made to the constitution by this committee See SHIELD AND SCROLL on Page 5 By Elijah Alperin T HE ADMINISTRATION has approved a new system for grouping students for entrance into Arena as a step towards two improvements — ensuring smooth processing with evenly-sized groups and decreasing the planning time of the self-scheduling process. e change will be implemented in the upcom- ing Dec. 17 Arena for this year’s freshmen, as well as all incoming classes in future Arenas. e Rotating Alphabetic Progressions system will continue to be used for the current sophomore, junior and senior classes until the class of ’15 graduates, at which point the entire school will be on the new system. Under the new system, the order of entering Arena (or pick) for ninth graders will be organized by registry, instead of by last name, according to math teacher Karl Homan, who designed the new plan. e 20 freshman registries will be assigned picks in numerical order ac- cording to the last two digits of each registry number. Registries will be paired o in alternating groups of two and one. For example, at the Dec. 17 Arena, Reg 1601 and Reg 1602 will have rst pick, Reg 1603 will have second pick, and Reg 1604 and Reg 1605 will go third, according to the two-Reg-one-Reg pattern. To accommodate 20 registries using this system based on groupings of three, Reg 1607 will be the sole exception as the only freshman registry to have h pick, a spot that otherwise would be occupied by two registries. Registries will move up in pick order accord- ing to the same system of rotation that is currently in place for the RAP system. See ARENA on Page 5 Registry groups will replace RAPs for freshmen pick at Dec. 17 Arena By Elijah Alperin T HE SCHOOL community can let out a collective sigh of relief aer the passage of a key fundraising measure preserved the education budget for the current school year. After the success of Proposi- tion 30, the San Francisco Unied School District will continue with the budget scenario planned when the district and teachers’ union agreed to a new contract in August. Especially, the schools will be able to avoid up to 16.5 furlough days, part of a contingency plan — if Prop. 30 did not pass — that would have impacted the very end of the school year, according to the United Educators of San Francisco website ( www.uesf.org ). Now, the dates for Arena, nals and graduation in the spring se- mester can be conrmed. The propo- sition is slated to generate ap- proximately $6.8 billion through sales and income tax increases, ac- cording to the Legislative Analyst Office (www.lao.ca. gov), a non- partisan organization that provides scal analysis. Eighty-nine percent of Prop 30 revenue will be allocated to K-12 education, maintaining school budgets at the base level of funding pro- vided over the last few years and preventing a further erosion of resources, but falling short of an increase in funding. In order to avoid reformulating the budget aer the election, the district hedged its bets — or hopes — and planned for Proposition 30 to pass and therefore maintain fund- ing, according to UESF member and science teacher Kathy Melvin. A provision in the contract stipulated that in the instance of the proposi- tion failing — resulting in a decit — the budget would be rebalanced solely by furlough days at the end of the year. With the success of the Prop 30 campaign, this strategy was successful, and the school will maintain consistency for the rest of the year according to the budget ap- proved most recently by the School Site Council. 3URSRVLWLRQ VDOYDJHV VFKRRO GD\V Honor society tips their hats to new rule KARA SCHERER &R&XUULFXODU 'D\ FDXVHV FDVHV RI FDUQLYDO VSLULW A Lowell student narrowly misses the target at the dunk tank on Co-Curricular Day on Nov. 16. Student Body Council events coordinator senior Hiromi Fujita is in the hot seat. Appetizing architecture? KARA SCHERER Senior Bradley Monterola (left) plays with frosting while sophomore Sopiko Kharadze (middle) and senior Arlen Pan (right) add gumdrops to their gingerbread house at the annual Gingerbread House contest on Dec. 7.
Transcript
In the news
WHAT ARE you do-ing this Saturday? If it’s procrastinating on
studying for finals by watching a Honey Boo Boo marathon or creating a holiday home for your Sims, how about you skedaddle down to the Lowell garden and do something meaningful for the all-powerful, all-loving Mother Nature?
!e largest earthbench to date is being built on campus; the team needs all the volunteers they can get! Bring friends to help the infa-mous Brennan Bird.
A"er a day of volunteering, see the new release of !e Hobbit on the big screen, but remember a"er the lights come up to toss your soda bottle in the blue bin.
City kids endure harshand unfamiliar territory (school garden) and try to meet bench deadline
Girls’ varsity volleyball team reassesses stategy after they fall back in third set, win champs
Super size me... or not? One reporter follows through on healthy New Year’s resolution
What’s
Stocky varsity football player believes he is wasting his time with third year of mandatory P.E.
!at 4.0 might get you somewhere in life, but why wait to see? Take abreak from book larnin’and think gap year.
TThe schools will be able to avoid up to 16.5 furlough days.
Commendatory Facebook page goes viral, gives students warm fuzzy feelings
From crosswalk toDMV to road rage, avoida fender-bender by keeping these survival tips handy.
By Tyler Perkins
A CROWD OF students laughed and shouted as the events coordinator was sent splashing into the cold wa-
ter of a dunk tank below. !e tank was one of a number of carnival activities that ran from Mods 6-17 on Nov. 16 during co-curricular day to celebrate the school for winning a prestigious national award.
Although the clubs had to squeeze their booths under the roof of the courtyard to avoid the pouring rain, students‘ spirits were not dampened.
During their free mods, students rolled
around in hamster balls, climbed up a wall in Velcro suits, wrestled in sumo costumes, threw balls — sending school leaders and faculty into the deep — and bounced in an in#atable boxing rink, playfully punching their classmates with giant gloves. $“It was really scary at %rst; I must have been dunked at least 30 times,” main target and SBC events coordinator senior Hiromi Fujita said. $“One of my friends called me a martyr, and I guess that’s what I am.”$
!e celebration was a result of Lowell winning the Blue Ribbon Award, the highest
See CO-CURRICULAR on Page 5
By Antonio Carmona and Joseph Kim
EVERYTHING EVENTUALLY changes, and Shield and Scroll is no exception. A new ballot committee was formed in September to decide on several is-
sues regarding their current elections system, resulting in one change — to limit voting for new members to seniors.
At the ballot committee’s %nal meeting on Nov. 7, a vote was held to decide if a new process was needed for applicants. Under discussion was whether the anonymity of S&S candidates was being given away due to the adjunct information on the student ballots for member selection. At the end of this vote, the committee unanimously agreed that no changes should be made to the current system. !e only change made to the constitution by this committee
See SHIELD AND SCROLL on Page 5
By Elijah Alperin
THE ADMINISTRATION has approved a new system for grouping students for entrance into Arena as a step towards two improvements —
ensuring smooth processing with evenly-sized groups and decreasing the planning time of the self-scheduling process. !e change will be implemented in the upcom-ing Dec. 17 Arena for this year’s freshmen, as well as all incoming classes in future Arenas. !e Rotating Alphabetic Progressions system will continue to be used for the current sophomore, junior and senior classes until the class of ’15 graduates, at which point the entire school will be on the new system.
Under the new system, the order of entering Arena (or pick) for ninth graders will be organized by registry, instead of by last name, according to math teacher Karl Ho&man, who designed the new plan. !e 20 freshman registries will be assigned picks in numerical order ac-cording to the last two digits of each registry number. Registries will be paired o& in alternating groups of two and one. For example, at the Dec. 17 Arena, Reg 1601 and Reg 1602 will have %rst pick, Reg 1603 will have second pick, and Reg 1604 and Reg 1605 will go third, according to the two-Reg-one-Reg pattern.
To accommodate 20 registries using this system based on groupings of three, Reg 1607 will be the sole exception as the only freshman registry to have %"h pick, a spot that otherwise would be occupied by two registries. Registries will move up in pick order accord-ing to the same system of rotation that is currently in place for the RAP system.
See ARENA on Page 5
Registry groups will replace RAPs for freshmen pick at Dec. 17 Arena
By Elijah Alperin
THE SCHOOL community can let out a collective sigh of relief a"er the passage of a
key fundraising measure preserved the education budget for the current school year.
After the success of Proposi-tion 30, the San Francisco Uni%ed School District will continue with the budget scenario planned when the district and teachers’ union agreed to a new contract in August. Especially, the schools will be able to avoid up to 16.5 furlough days, part of a contingency plan — if Prop. 30 did not pass — that would
have impacted the very end of the school year, according to the United Educators of San Francisco website (www.uesf.org). Now, the dates for Arena, %nals and graduation in the spring se-mester can be con%rmed.
The propo-sition is slated to generate ap-proximately $6.8 billion through sales and income tax increases, ac-cording to the Legislative Analyst Office (www.lao.ca.gov), a non-
partisan organization that provides %scal analysis. Eighty-nine percent of Prop 30 revenue will be allocated to K-12 education, maintaining
school budgets at the base level of funding pro-vided over the last few years and preventing a further erosion of resources, but falling short of an increase in
funding.In order to avoid reformulating
the budget a"er the election, the
district hedged its bets — or hopes — and planned for Proposition 30 to pass and therefore maintain fund-ing, according to UESF member and science teacher Kathy Melvin. A provision in the contract stipulated that in the instance of the proposi-tion failing — resulting in a de%cit — the budget would be rebalanced solely by furlough days at the end of the year. With the success of the Prop 30 campaign, this strategy was successful, and the school will maintain consistency for the rest of the year according to the budget ap-proved most recently by the School Site Council.
Honor societytips their hatsto new rule
KARA SCHERER
A Lowell student narrowly misses the target at the dunk tank on Co-Curricular Day on Nov. 16. Student Body Council events coordinator senior Hiromi Fujita is in the hot seat.
Appetizing architecture?
KARA SCHERER
Senior Bradley Monterola (left) plays with frosting while sophomore Sopiko Kharadze (middle) and senior Arlen Pan (right) add gumdrops to their gingerbread house at the annual Gingerbread House contest on Dec. 7.
By Eric Ye
THREE SOPHOMORES joined the ranks of Shel Silverstein and E. E. Cummings a!er their poetry was published in an annual statewide anthology that
came out this fall.Sophomores Zoe Kaiser, Anita Chen and Sharon Ma are
published poets of Turning Into Stars, the California Poets in the Schools 2012 Anthology. CPITS is a statewide non-pro"t organization that has sent professional published poets and writers into classrooms to guide students in writing original poetry since 1964. Each poet teacher throughout the state is allowed to submit ten student poems to the editors of the CPITS anthology, so the poems may have been selected from over 800 entries, according to Susan Terence, who has been teaching poetry at Lowell through CPITS for over twelve years.
Terence chose the strongest po-ems, which were written for various assignments, from each of the 9th Grade English 1 classes to submit to the editors of the CPITS anthology. “I look for outstanding metaphors and similes, in depth details, attention to cra! — sounds of words,” she said. “I listen for a student’s individual voice and style to arise. I look for very mov-ing details. #I listen for phrases I’ve never heard before and stories that transport me to new places — both geographically and emotionally.” Terence noted that some of the strongest students’ writings were their family oral history poems and poems in which they examined their own place in the world.
Ma said her parents’ divorce inspired her to write “Rough Life.” Having never formally written about it, she decided to express her feelings in the poem. “To me, it was almost like scraping out the darkness and negativity in my heart so I could be clean,” she said. “Even though I wrote about something so personal and real, I wanted people to look at my poem in their own interpretation and their own view, whether it applied to their own life or a life of a friend.”
Chen drew inspiration from old stories her family had passed down and her trips to her parents’ hometowns. Dur-ing her trips, she visited her great-great-grandfather’s church, and the rural landscape reminded her of her grandfather and his stories. “$e church, the "elds, the old houses — those were the places where part of my family grew up, loved, and lived, and it felt like escaping into a time-machine, and
I tried to re%ect that in my poem,” Chen said. “My poem re%ects myself because my history and where I come from is a big part of me.”
For Kaiser, receiving so much recognition is “gratifying but also slightly embarrassing.” She wrote her poem for the “I Am” prompt that uses imagery and metaphor to portray the writer’s self, but wanted to focus on how the world was so much bigger than her, rather than talking about herself. Most of the poem came out in a burst once she had her central idea: awe in the immensity of the universe. #
$e anthology editors commented on the sensitivity and skill in all three poems, according to Terence. Terence says she felt excited and happy that other adult writers thought highly of these students’ poetry. “$eir recognition is well
deserved,” she said. “They are all stellar writers, and I hope all of this recognition encourages each of them to continue writing.”
Kaiser and Chen won "rst and third, respectively, in the Young at Art Literary Art Contest, an annual citywide con-test sponsored by the San Francisco Uni"ed School District. Chen’s winning poem was “For the Love of Beautiful $ings that Grow on Sidewalks” for this com-petition. Both were invited to at-tend the contest ceremony at the de
Young Museum auditorium in May. In October, all three students also read their poems at Lit-
quake, a San Francisco festival for local authors that typically features only adult writers. “Hearing my own voice coming from the speakers felt really weird,” Chen said. “A!erwards, I felt relieved and accomplished at the same time because it was a new experience.”
$e 9th grade poetry sessions are funded by the Lowell Alumni Association. During the weekly sessions, students read poems from a diverse array of writers, like Langston Hughes, Carl Sandburg and Genny Lim. $ey wrote odes to gemstones modeling the odes of Chilean Pablo Neruda, poems inspired from paintings and photographs, and love poems or poems that examined their own feelings.
$e poets expressed surprise at their receiving so much attention. “I wrote it as a simple assignment, never imagin-ing it being published in a book,” Ma said. “I feel very lucky and grateful.”
N E W S B R I E F S
Lowell High SchoolDecember 14, 2012NEWS2
II wanted people to look at my poem in their own interpretation and their own view, whether it applied to their own life or a life of a friend.”
SHARON MA,sophomore
“
Sophomore poets read at local festival to reach peoples’ hearts
The Lowell on the Web
F O R T H E C O M P L E T E V E R S I O N S OF STORIES, PLEASE VISIT
www.thelowell.org
arts
As eager and anxious students search for sum-mer programs and higher education possibilities, the school’s college center officials have recently re-vamped the center’s website in hope of better inform-ing students of college and program opportunities.
The website was redesigned by VICCI center volunteers and is intended to help students discover potential colleges. Students can learn more about a school’s academic and extra-curricular programs through easy access to the visits of representatives. “The new website better shows students the VICCI Center’s calendar of presenters,” VICCI Center volun-teer Kathy Laderman said. “All college visits are drop in, and they are a great opportunity for students to discover potential schools for them.”
This improvement comes on the heels of the coun-seling department’s Twitter page, which also aims to make school and colleges admissions information more accessible to students.
Senior Julian Quilatan uses the website to help map out a timeline that will help him apply to college. “There is a PDF file on the website that specifically tells you what to do month-by-month starting in junior year,” Quilatan said. “It has helped me stay focused and not become overwhelmed by the masses of col-lege events and dates.”
— Samantha Wilcox
VICCI center redesigns website
JROTC snags second in quiz bowlThe school’s Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps
team received recognition from a high-level federal government official for their excellent performance in an annual worldwide competition.
In an October letter to SFUSD superintendent Richard Carranza, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta commended the team for achieving second place in the 2011-2012 JROTC Leadership Symposium and Academic Bowl Championship, according to JROTC teacher Colonel Doug Bullard. The team was later invited to attend a SFUSD Board of Education meeting on Nov. 13 to receive a certificate of honor for their recognition in Panetta’s letter.
The team consisted of captain senior Kegan Kawamura, senior Jordan Wong, junior Michael Desmond and sophomore Mitchell Wong.
Starting in October 2011, Lowell competed against JROTC students from over 1,000 schools around the world in two rounds of an online multiple-choice quiz. They passed the first two rounds with ease, according to Kawamura said, and later qualified for the summer championship at George Mason University in Virginia.
During the championship, the team competed head-to-head against randomly selected teams from 23 other schools with questions of increasing dif-ficulty in core subjects.
The team came in second place by two questions in the final round, according to Kawamura. “Our team won second for the past four years except last year when we lost in the quarter finals, so it is almost like a tradition now,” he jokingly said.
— Eric Ye
Secrets of the sediment, revealed
Harmonizing the holiday spirit
(Right) Senior Laureen Zouai performed “Can’t Hurry Love,” originally by The Supremes, with senior Colette Aro (not pictured) at the choir concert on Dec. 8. (Top left) Senior Enders Ng rocks out to Jason Mraz’s “Lucky” with senior Sarah Ma (not pictured). (Bottom left) Senior Ariel Perez beams at the audience before advanced choir performs.
ALL PHOTOS BY HUIMIN ZHANG
Student poetry published in statewide anthology
Heavy machinery has been dumping, then trans-forming broken concrete into large heaps of gravel behind the soccer field for the past several weeks.The dumping is part of a building project of San Francisco State University, according to Simon Lam, an SFSU construction manager. “The concrete is the product of the recent demolition of the structures on the former School of the Arts site on Font Boulevard,” Lam stated in a Nov. 14 email. The gravel will be used to create an outdoor student recreation field for SFSU.
The site will be a sports facility, featuring a two-court gym, a climbing wall and an indoor pool, among other amenities. Construction will begin in early 2014 and is set for completion in spring of 2016, according to SFSU’s website (www.sfsu.edu). However, it has not been determined it will be open to the public.Assistant principal of administration Margaret Peter-son sent out an email to faculty and staff on Nov. 15 to notify them of the construction, noting that “we are advocating on behalf of our students,” and “we are asking that they (construction workers) keep the noise and dust to the minimum levels possible.”
— Elazar Chertow
By Samantha Wilcox
AS STUDENTS ENTER the science building lobby during the last mods of the day, they o!en have to duck to
avoid "ying ping pong balls. #ere’s a serious purpose behind them — think Forrest Gump. Lowell’s Ping Pong Club has decided to play competitively, and they are stronger than ever.
On Nov. 9, the club stepped up to the table in their $rst tournament in recent years against
Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory. Consist-ing of 16 members, the club sent their top $ve — including nationally ranked sophomore Haolin Fang — to face o% against the $ve best players of Sacred Heart. “We slaughtered SH in all $ve games,” club president junior James Ueijo said.
Ping pong began as an a!er-dinner parlor game played by the upper class in the late 1800s in England, and has transitioned from
a game to a sport since its conception. Now it is an Olympic sport, and many countries compete in global competitions. Ueijo wants to bring the activity — o!en viewed as fam-ily camp fun — into the public eye at Lowell. “Having a Ping Pong Club at Lowell makes people take ping pong more seriously,” Ueijo said. “I want people to think of it more as a sport than a game.”
Although they are currently a club, upping their status could be on the horizon. “I am currently checking the steps of becoming a team,” Ueijo said. “However, Sacred Heart is the only school that has a club we could play against, since there is no league.”
Players who want to take their game to the next level can do so in college. #e National Collegiate Table Tennis Association hosts annual championships where universities from across the country compete against one another. Promising athletes are sometimes eligible for a scholarship from the NCTAA.
Fresh o% their big win against SH, Lowell is not planning another competition quite yet. “Although we have not planned our next tournament, we are de$nitely excited to get a rematch in the works,” Ueijo said. “Maybe we’ll send some of the people that didn’t get a chance to play last time.”
Fang has participated in many competitions across the country, including the Berkeley Western Open. She plans on using her connec-
tions and ping pong knowledge to help expand the club’s ability to compete.
At practices, the club focuses on honing their skills. “As a team, we all have played together for so long that we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, however, we need to work on our mechanics,” Ueijo said. “Since we only have two tables, a lot of people don’t get much practice time.” #e club purchased the tables with the money that they raised at last year’s Winterfaire.
Their practices vary between shouts of victorious laughter and groans of defeat, and many of the members have experienced playing recreation-ally and competitively. Nationally-ranked Fang brings the Lowell club to a whole di%erent level. “Haolin is amazing,” Ueijo said. “She doesn’t come to our practices and meetings very o!en due to the fact that she trains for ping pong outside of school. She takes the sport very seriously.”
Being among the top 20 girl ping pong players under the age of 18 in the United States, Fang has a very strict training regimen. “I train with my coaches once a week, since they are in San Jose,” Fang said. “However, I train every night with my dad, who is an amateur player.”
#e club practices on Mondays, Tuesdays and #ursdays on the $rst "oor of the science building. Come put the ball lightly over the net!
By Elena Bernick
THE ELECTION may be over, but the cam-paigning spirit is still alive and active in our hallways.
As part of her American Democracy classes, his-tory and English teacher Sarah Dean instructed her students to run their own presidential campaigns. Dean split her classes into three groups of approxi-mately twelve students and each group was assigned a political party to represent in a mock election. All groups were given two weeks and twenty dollars to produce a winning operation. #e money was given to each group to make sure no team had a disadvantage.
The project was designed to push students to dive head$rst into the world of politics. “#e project was to allow students to run a campaign and see what that’s like,” Dean said. “#ey had to run the campaign and solicit votes from students outside of the class.”
Dean was careful in choosing what& political personalities the students would represent. This meant the teams were as-signed parties relatively unknown among young people, including the Libertarian, Green and tea parties. “San Francisco traditionally votes Democrat, so they were not al-lowed to be Democrat or Republican, only third party candidates,” said Dean. “#ey had to go out and really learn about other parties out there.”
#e tea party is a relatively recent o%shoot of the Republican Party that stands for lower taxes, less government interference and strict observance of the Constitution. An older establishment, the Green Party, bases its platform on environmental policies and o!en emphasizes diversity and nonviolence. Lastly, the Libertarian Party stands $rmly for individual rights and minimal government.&
Every student in a group selected a speci$c job, ranging from speechwriters, debate coaches, campaign managers, promotional specialists and journalists. Within each group, a primary was held to decide who would be the presidential candidate. History teacher Charles Raznikov’s Mods 1-2 and 6-7 Modern World classes acted as the voters, and each team worked tirelessly to win over their votes.&
For Raznikov, the assignment was a fresh way to give students the opportunity to interact with other classes. “It was authentic,” Raznikov said. “I really liked how real it was. It gave students a chance to be smart.”
#e journalists also had to take on an identity unique to the viewpoint of their publication. Dean assigned each journalist a di%erent publication to represent, including !e Christian Science Monitor, !e Wall Street Journal and !e Hu"ngton Post. #en the journalists put out a short “newspaper” and distributed it to the freshmen.
#e newspaper provided the journalists a way to convey important issues to their audience. “I was thinking, ‘gear it towards our freshmen audience,’” journalist senior Cambria Chou-Freed, who wrote a mock-Wall Street Journal, said. “I wrote about issues that would interest them. #e big article was about what the candidates said in their kick-o% speech.”
#e Green Party received the most votes overall, but one party was able to claw its way up from the bottom. “#e class was skeptical that a conservative party could win at Lowell,” Dean said. “However, the tea party tied with the Green Party in one class, showing that a well-run campaign can make a di%erence.”
The presidential candi-date for one of the tea party groups was senior Heather Weiss, who was just as sur-prised with the outcome of
her election as Dean was. “I was a tea party candidate in San Francisco, and I tied with the Green Party,” said Weiss. “For me, it showed how much a campaign matters.”
Senior Danielle de Bruin was a Green Party candi-date, and like Weiss, was successful in her campaign e%orts. Her group prevailed “by a landslide,” and de Bruin walked away from the election with more than just a win. “Being a candidate was a really di'cult job,” de Bruin said. “I was the one interacting with the freshmen. It de$nitely helped me with public speaking and people skills.”
#e seniors weren’t the only ones who bene$ted from the assignment. #e young voters tasked with determining the fate of the candidates also found value in the exercise. “We got to experience what our parents are doing,” freshman Nati Phan said. “It gives us a chance to be our own person and learn to do this in the future.”
Dean was inspired by the recent presidential elec-tion and decided to bring the action to her classroom. #is was the $rst year she assigned the exercise to her classes, but she hopes it will not be her last. “I think I’d like to do the assignment even if there isn’t an election,”
Dean said. “I think it helped bring the election unit to life.”
The Lowell CAMPUSDecember 14, 2012 3
curriculum
BBeing a candidate was a really di!cult job ... It de"nitely helped me with public speaking and people skills.”
DANIELLE DE BRUIN,senior
“
Ping pong club wins friendly tournament
SALLY MA
Junior Timothy Bricker puts the ball over the net at a Dec. 6 meeting of the ping pong club.
club
s
Students play candidates and voters in mock elections
By Deidre Foley
POSTS ON A commendatory Facebook page range from plaudits to the general student population: “Together, WE are the city’s best and brightest;” to praise for teachers: “His love for his students can
only be compared with his love for Paul McCartney;” to appreciation for the campus golf carts: “Keeping us safe from evil-doers everywhere.”
#rough the Lowell Compliments Facebook page, which was created on Nov. 27, students can message a compliment about people, sta% or organizations in the Lowell community and it will be reviewed for anony-mous publication on the page. “#is page is where you can do something nice for anyone so we can all feel the love,” the page description states. “It’s important to tell each other how you feel and to be open. We’re here to help with that and make sure everyone realizes they’re loved.”
#e page was created by a student who was “sick of hearing kids com-plain about their lives” at this high-pressure school. “During my freshmen year, the Westboro Baptist Church came and protested at Lowell,” said the page administrator, who spoke to !e Lowell on the condition of anonymity due to a desire that this project re"ect the school community and not as an individual. “#e love that Lowell showed was shocking and inspiring. I wanted to $nd that love and allow people to experience it every day.”
#e page received over 950 “likes” as of Dec. 6. “I started this thinking it wouldn’t receive much of a response, but I’m "abbergasted, to say the least,” the page creator said. “I have gotten so many submissions [over 300], so much advice, and so much love that I almost felt my heart explode.”
Many students not only appreciate each other through posts, but the page as a whole. “It brightens up people’s days when they read it, even if the compliments aren’t about them,” junior Susan Li said. “And with all the stress that students probably have right now with $nals coming up, it’s just a little thing that brings your mood up.”
While the page has received much favorable feedback, some students believe its popularity will not last. “I think that whoever made the page has a brilliant idea in mind with great intentions, but I also think the hype is going to drop exponentially,” junior Kellen Liao said. “I think it might also have the e%ect of making people a bit sad and somewhat cynical if they don’t see anything about them on the page. I look through the posts and there are people who get several compliments about them, while there are many people who get none.”
#e page administrator will keep the page up as long as it does not receive any hate mail or an excess of rude “troll messages.” “I would just like to say thank you to the Lowell community for reacting so well, and for being so full of love,” the page administrator said. “#is wouldn’t have happened without you guys.”
#e page administrator said the idea came from a friend who started a similar page at Foothill High School in Pleasanton. #e idea started as a social experiment at Queen’s University in Canada in September of this year and has since been adopted by Columbia University, Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania, among other schools.
Positive Facebook page compliments community, spreads virtual love
A VERSION OF THIS STORY FIRST APPEARED ON WWW.THELOWELL.ORG
CENTER OF PAGE
By Gideon Fox
“WE ARE THE PIONEERS of waste disposal,” district custo-dial supervisor Ulises Parada
said of Lowell. Lowell was the !rst school in the district to have a compost system, composting paper towels. Now, with the support from the district, teachers and students, Lowell will continue this trend as new compost bins will soon be introduced to many classrooms.
The project, which is being led by the janitorial sta" and science teacher and envi-ronmental liaison Kathy Melvin, will begin with bins on the second #oor. When all bins have successfully been put into place, a new system of waste removal will commence. Each
week, the janitors will bring the large com-post bins into the halls to stay there through Friday. At the end of each day, the teachers, with the aid of some students, will empty out the waste from their smaller compost bins into the larger ones. This system of daily waste dis-posal prevents odors from the refuse and vermin and #ies gathering around any decaying material.
$e project is being im-plemented for a variety of reasons. First of all, the current Lowell school policy is wasting
money. According to Melvin, compostables o%en end up in the land!ll bin because of poor
sorting by students and faculty in the cafeteria or because there are no com-post bins available in class-rooms. Once the option of composting in classrooms is available, those involved hope that people will start to be more careful about what goes where.
Melvin also sees the new bins a great way to reduce
the school’s environmental impact. “Land!ll takes up space; this causes habitat disruption,
loss of land for agriculture and other negative e"ects,” Melvin said. “Even when we do our land!lls right, things go wrong. Toxic chemi-cals leach into the ground water supply; and methane comes out of the land!ll and into the atmosphere.”
According to Parada, at the beginning of the year, there was a 45 percent land!ll diver-sion at Lowell, which is the amount of waste put into recycling or compost as opposed to the amount of waste put in land!ll. Since one of the land!ll dumpsters behind the cafeteria was converted to recycling, that number has moved up to 55 percent. However, this is still not ideal. In 2008, the school had a 75 percent land!ll diversion.
By KT Kelly
DOES A MILK CARTON go in the compost bin or the recycling bin? Well, ponder no longer;
trash duty is here to save the day (By the way, lob that milk carton into the compost bin).
Two teachers assigned students to stand by trash cans and help others sort through their waste in order to promote environmental friendliness and to sup-port classroom projects.
Science teachers Kathy Melvin, who is also the environmental liason, and Catherine Christensen have appointed their students to trash duty, where stu-dents help people dispose of their trash responsibly during Mods 1-20 in desig-nated locations in the school, including the library, cafeteria and hallway near the attendance o&ce.
“We need to increase the diversion rate, or the amount of trash diverted from land!ll, at the school and organize anything that goes into recycling and compost,” Melvin said. “We also need so% plastic for the bottle brick bench.” $ere is a new trash can at each station for contribution of so% plastic, like candy wrappers.
Trash duty shi%s began on Nov. 13 and will last for the duration of the fall semester, according to Melvin, who sug-gested the trash duty to senior Nighttrain Schickele, one of her Advanced Place-ment Environmental Science students.
He proposed an extra trash bin for so% plastic to Melvin, who then approved of the project as his !eld study. Students perform trash duty during their free mods once a week.
“It was a little embarrassing at !rst,
just because I was standing by a trash can by myself,” Advanced Placement Environmental Science student junior Sophia Padilla said. “But a%er a while I sucked it up; I have to do my part for the environment.”
Other students took their police work very seriously. “I yell ‘Stop!’ before people throw their trash in the bins,” Marine Science student senior Emma Beuerman said. “Most of the time I just tell people where to put di"erent things, but one time someone asked me to throw it away myself. I thought he was really rude.”
Melvin hopes that the trash police will in#uence the way the Lowell com-munity thinks. “We’re trying to change school culture,” Melvin said. “If we have monitors there for a grading period, [en-vironmental consciousness] will expand to the rest of the school.”
By KT Kelly
WITH THE APPROACHING deadline for the completion of the outdoor classroom, students and sta" members have amped up their e"ort to divert
trash from the land!ll to the new earthbench in the school’s garden. Many classes are pitching in their support.
$e Peace on Earthbench Movement (P.O.E.M) founder, Brennan Bird, is heading the earthbench movement at Lowell (See “School community unites to create outdoor classrooms,” !e Lowell, Sept. 2012). Bird estimates that Lowell has accumulated 1,300 bottle bricks instead of the intended 2,000, but he still plans to complete the project by the beginning of the spring semester, and expressed satisfaction about the diversion of plastics from landfill. “With 1,300 bottle bricks, there could be over 500 pounds of trash,” Bird said.
With the completion of the project due by the end of January, the earthbench work force is moving into the !nal phases. “Our next step is having classes go out this week laying down bottles and covering it with cob,” biology teacher Erin Bird, Brennan Bird’s sister. Cob is a type of earthen cement made of sand, clay, water and straw.
So far, most of the biology, environmental science, health and learning resource classes are getting involved to create or beautify the school’s garden. Ceramics classes are making tiles to look like scales for the dragon-shaped bench. A gazebo-style roof made of redwood, that has not yet been made, will protect the bench. “Even though redwood is a more expensive wood, it’s a hard and durable wood,” Brennan Bird said. “We would love to engage the students in it, but it might call for machinery and other equipment that should be used by adults, for students’
safety measures.”Erin Bird hopes to include physi-
cal education classes to speed up the process, but also wants to thank people who have already supported the garden, including the Leadership Team, a group of volunteer students that work closely on the earthbench. “$e Leadership Team is doing a lot of work,” Erin Bird said. “$ey are the ones responsible for advertising about the work days and collecting and sorting bottles.”
If rainy weather persists, Erin Bird predicts that their dead-lines might be pushed back. “If it rains, we can’t work on the cob because the cob needs a speci!c amount of water in it,” Erin Bird said. “If there is too much or too little, it won’t set.”
KARA SCHERER
Marine Science student senior Eva Morgenstein and science teacher Kathy Melvin bond over a “creepy crawly” found in the garden on Dec. 7. Morgenstein, also an editor for The Lowell, described the insect as “a cool decomposer that burrows in leaf litter and looks like a long beetle.”
Student activists o!er support to willing but bewildered users
Students for Sustainability club member senior Heather Weiss sorts trash as part of a lesson on what can be recycled or composted in a reduced-waste effort.
SALLY MA
Class green bins rake in more than leaf litter
WWith 1,300 bottle bricks, there could be over 500 pounds of trash.”
BRENNAN BIRD,earthbench movement leader
“
Down-to-earth teens get dirty, help project progress
EEven when we do our land"lls right, things go wrong.”
KATHY MELVIN,science teacher
“
PHOTO COURTESY OF AMY CHAR
CENTER OF PAGE
From ARENA on Page 1Organization by registry will make the Arena
system more equitable, because the number of students competing for classes during each rotation will not be subject to !uctuations in RAP size, ac-cording to Ho"man. Historically, as the distribution by alphabetical last names varies over the years, discrepancies in the size of RAPs can accumulate until the groups are so disproportionate that the system needs to be recalibrated. In the 2009 fall Arena, some RAPs had nearly 300 students, while others had barely 100.
Ho"man recalibrated the RAPs for the #rst time in 2010 (See “School evens out next Arena lineups,” !e Lowell, December 2010), but the numbers have changed since. At the Dec. 17 Arena, where the upper three classes will continue with the present system, RAP sizes will range from 99 to 172 students, with an average size of 124, according to Yi.
Unlike the RAPs, the number of students in each registry remains relatively constant. $e district randomly assigns new students to registries, which top out at around 30-35 students for any one grade level, depending on the size of each incoming class. Students cannot change registries, so the system will remain equitable. %
$e school will also be able to cut down on Arena planning time. Under the RAP system, each RAP is divided into smaller alphabetical groups of 20 students that line up before entering the audito-rium, receiving course selection papers and being dismissed to Arena. “It’s a huge job for Shield and Scroll to divide all the green sheets into these groups a couple days before Arena,” Ho"man said. “Now the papers could be arranged in folders by registry.”
When the whole school is on the registry system, the Spring Arena time could also be shortened by 25 percent, as the 20 senior registries do not pick
classes. “It just makes more sense; I don’t know why this wasn’t done years ago,” Ho"man said.
Hoffman, who organizes each Arena as the advisor of Shield and Scroll, proposed the change at an Admin Council meeting on Wednesday Nov. 28, where it was approved by the adminis-tration and department heads, according to Yi. $e registry system for freshmen is the main change planned for the Dec. 17 Arena.
In addition to moving to the registry system for freshmen, the school has proposed and approved an additional change to Arena that will a"ect all grade levels – using stickers instead of handwritten information during class sign-ups, according to principal Andrew Ishibashi. $e complete logistics are still being discussed, but the label system is un-der consideration for the Dec. 17 Arena, according to assistant principal of student support services Michael Yi.
Students will be provided a sheet of pre-printed sticky labels to bring into Arena. As they sign up for a class, they will attach a label with their information to the class sign-up sheet and receive a con#rma-tion label with the class information, to be attached to their course selection sheet, according to Yi. While inside Arena, the number of times students can change a class they have already signed up for in response to speci#c class block closures will be limited by the number of labels they are issued. In order to avoid students running out of labels and being unable to complete a schedule, which would result in #ling incomplete, the number of labels each student will be issued is under discussion.
$is change was due to illegible handwriting on course-selection sheets, according to Yi.
See Hoffman in Room 344 with any further questions.
A VERSION OF THIS STORY FIRST APPEARED ON WWW.THELOWELL.ORG
From CO-CURRICULAR on Page 1honor given to public and private pre-collegiate schools by the U.S. De-partment of Education to recognize academic achievement, as measured by standardized testing, according to the USDE website, (www2.ed.gov).% Schools that consistently perform at a high level or show signi#cant im-provement in scores are eligible for the ribbon.
Lowell’s overall scores, and espe-cially those among speci#c student populations — English Language Learners, underrepresented ethnic groups, Learning Resource and low-income students — have improved signi#cantly over the last few years, according to Ishibashi.
For winning the award, Lowell received a commemorative plaque and banner, which are hanging at the school’s front entrance. On Nov. 13, Ishibashi and science department head Dakotah Swett traveled to Wash-ington D.C. to accept these awards, presented by Aba Kumi, director of the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program.
Ishibashi came up with the idea to have a school-wide celebration of the award on an upcoming special activity
day. “I wanted to reward the students for their hard work, so I asked one student leader about what we could do to celebrate, and this is what we came up with,” Ishibashi said. %“$e games cost a few thousand dollars, which came out of the Scholarship Fund, set aside for scholarships and student activities. %Four years ago, Lowell won the California Distinguished Award and I got in trouble for buying the whole school Krispy Kreme donuts, so I had to be careful with what I chose!”
Instead of more sumo suits and Velcro walls, the school’s sta" will be acknowledged for their contribution toward the accomplishment at the annual winter dinner party on Dec. 7, according to Ishibashi. %“I wanted to make the party bigger this year, so I asked the PTSA and LAA to help me fund the festivities,” Ishibashi said. % “We are going to have the party at a fancy restaurant, and sta" members will have the opportunity to take pictures with the plaque and banner, to thank them for teaching, supporting, challenging, caring and believing.” %
Prior to this year, Lowell has won the award in the 82-83, 94-96, and 2001-02 school years.
From SHIELD AND SCROLL on Page 1was an amendment stating that only seniors will be able to vote on incoming candidates, according to S&S advisor and math teacher Karl Ho"man.
According to Ho"man, the ballot committee was formed as a task force of members to discuss the election process, as-certain possible issues and improvements, and make changes to the constitution. $is committee was comprised of 18 people — 15 members and three o&cers — and held seven meetings totaling about seven and a half hours to discuss potential changes.
Several issues were discussed at the meetings. First, when a person applies for Shield and Scroll, their name is not avail-able on the ballot to those voting, with the aim that voting will be based on the individual’s quali#cations. However, a concern was raised that S&S members could still possibly
identify a student by viewing their extracurricular activities and services to the school. “It has been noted that the current elections process has some !aws, such as the possibility for S&S members to vote for ‘friends,’ not based on whether ap-plicants are quali#ed and deserving,” former Shield and Scroll co-secretary senior Julie Lam said.
To solve this problem, the committee proposed plac-ing extracurricular activities into more general groups. For example, soccer and basketball would be put into a “sports” category. However, this measure was not passed. $e com-mittee decided that a better solution to the problem was to allow only seniors to vote on incoming candidates. Seniors would be less likely to identify incoming members by looking at their extra curricular activities when compared to juniors, as the candidates are not part of their immediate peer group, according to the Shield and Scroll executive vice president
senior Kristie Yu. $is would decrease the possibility of bias when new members are selected.
$e voter discussion covered the issue that there is an in-equality in the number of times junior members have access to voting, contributing to the solution that only seniors would be able to vote. For example, a junior member accepted in the fall semester would be able to vote for potential members one more time than a junior member accepted in the spring semester. “$ough we have not had signi#cant problems in the past, we are always trying to make the elections process as clear and fair for everyone as possible,” Yu said.
A small change that does not a"ect the Constitution was also incorporated by the ballot committee. A list and descrip-tion of the school’s clubs and organizations is now included with each ballot, as some student and faculty voters may not be familiar with clubs that are listed on the ballot.
Freshman Arena entry order changed to registry-based rotation system
S&S constitution endures, voting process revised
Students roam the gym in giant hamster balls, provided by principal Andrew Ishibashi and the Scholarship Fund for the Nov. 16 co-curricular day. The padded balls were one of several carnival activities offered in celebration.
KARA SCHERER
NEWS December 14, 2012 Lowell High School6
By Brian Nguyen
“CIAO!” THE Italian movie direc-tor said as he greeted students at school last month.
The San Francisco Film Festival Youth Education Program invited Roan Johnson, a !lmmaker from Italy, to speak to students about his recent movie, his !rst e"ort as a director. Although filmmakers from other countries have been to world language classes, this is a !rst for Italy. As part of the program, Branzburg’s Italian 7H students watched a special, pre-premiere viewing of Johnson’s !rst directed movie in Italian, I Primi della Lista, which roughly translates to !e First on the List.
#e San Francisco Film Festival describes the movie as being set in Italy during the late 1960s, when the country was being torn apart politically by fascists and anarchists.
#e SFFS’s website (www.s"s.org) also said the movie “combines screwball comic $air underscored by political satire.” Branzburg used the !lm as a way to connect her students to contemporary Italian history and culture. “ It is a unique !lm that allows students to learn about modern Italian history,” she said.
#e !lm was well received by many stu-dents. “#e movie was di"erent from what we usually watch,” Italian 7H student senior Danielle de Bruin said. “Italian is a passionate language and culture, and because of this most of the movies we watched have been dramas.”
Johnson was originally trained as a screen-writer at the National Film Academy in Italy. “#e new director was very humble and ner-vous about his !rst directed movie when the class became his audience,” Branzburg said.
Two weeks a%er the screening, curious and
excited students greeted the young director with a barrage of questions. Talking with a !lmmaker proved to be inspirational to some students. “Talking with him about his humble beginnings made me believe that if you love something enough, then you can do it,” said Italian 7H student senior Train Schickele.
#e one-hour meeting proved to be insight-ful for both the students and the director from Italy. According to Keith Zwolfer, the Youth Education Manager at the SFFS, Johnson was amazed, telling Zwolfer in a recent email that “Just entering the building was a déjà vu be-cause of the many movies set in an American high school I have watched.”
Johnson had added that having twenty or thirty boys and girls talking about his movie and asking questions was an inspiring mo-ment. Johnson also re$ected upon the students he had met, reporting to Zwolfer in the email that he found them “curious, intelligent, with a ‘pure’ and uncontaminated look on things.”
Johnson found inspiration for his movie in an era not too far from his own: 1960s Italy. &#e movie is based on the true story of three reckless le%-wing students who become convinced that there will be a government coup in Italy.
#e three students eventually plan to seek political asylum in neighboring Austria. &Un-fortunately the hapless students are arrested and detained by Austrian border guards during their attempted escape.
#e SFFS has not only brought !lmmakers to classrooms, but also students to movie the-aters. According to Zwolfer, the SFFS’s mission is to spread awareness about !lms, so almost all of their events and programs are completely
free. Zwolfer said that, “When you start work-ing with kids, you are able to get them excited about !lm as an art form and a way to get a new perspective on the world around them.”
#ere is a possibility of many more visits from filmmakers to Lowell in the coming years. According to Zwolfer, the program will be looking into working with our foreign lan-guage teachers again. #ough it was the !rst
for the Italian program, the Spanish program has had presentations by filmmakers from Uruguay before. To become involved in the program, teachers had to contact the sta" at the program to express interest in participating in an event related to foreign cinema. Teachers who already expressed interest in having future guests include Branzburg and Spanish teacher Carole Cadoppi.
KARA SCHERER
Italian film director Roan Johnson enlivens Judith Branzburg’s Italian 7H class about his creative journey directing his first film, I Primi della Lisa, or The First on the List.
Across3. Science Dept. Head4. QB Will6. Ceramics hotspot7. The only reason you come to school on Dec. 218. Math test takers’ friend, for short9. Fire and Ice12. PE legend13. Quiet place, in theory14. Lumpia Vendors16. School safe center17. “Put that phone away!”21. ___ Scientia22. Yi, e.g.23. “Squash ____!” chant25. “Citrusy” famous alum?28. Seasick costume bash29. Official alibi31. Paul before Andrew32. Dancing department35. “Simian” science?, for short36. Patriotic junior req.37. Drama e.g.39. SAT alternative
Down1. The Chosen Club2. la belle langue3. Striped hat helpers4. We missed this popular meeting spot5. Noisome rodent tenant10. forbidden lunch spot, in theory11. Class congress, for short15. 9:15 a.m.18. college dreams19. Sweaty Req.20. Hello Kitty Connoisseur22. Amphitheater of anguish or grounds of glory, depending on your pick24. “Heavy” classes?26. Headhunters for posterity?27. Indian successor 28. Feathered rivalry, for short 30.Blocked by Blocks? 33. APUSH Music Man34. Block 2 !?36. Senior time-drain 40. Dunk tank Hiro?
the crosswordBy Elijah Alperin
David Salsa and DeLanna Studi from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival performed scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew and Richard III, focusing on women and their power in Shakespeare’s works. (Left) Salsa, as the hunchback Richard, waits for Studi, as Anne, to kill him with his dagger — or accept his marriage proposal (Richard III). (Right) Salsa, as Demetrius, tries to shoo away Studi, as the amorous Helena, after she pursues him into the forest (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). English teacher Staci Carney organized the annual event.
Salsa spices up Shakespeare
GAVIN LI
By Cooper Logan
SENIOR NICK Bourgault is one of two boys in English teacher Staci Carney’s 32-student Mods 6-7 AP Literature and
Composition class, and the only boy in his 33-student intermediate dance class. Bour-gault said that he mostly doesn’t mind the im-balance. “Women pop up a lot in discussion,” he said. “It can get a little weird.”
!e curriculum in many classes can con-nect with student and teacher anecdotes, a phenomenon that also reflects the gender di"erential. “Class discussions can get a little personal about female issues,” Bourgault said, referring to dating and other everyday ob-stacles, “but whatever.”
Regardless, Bourgault said he did not feel that the gender imbalance is a de#nitive aspect of the classes. “It doesn’t make or break it,” he said. At Lowell, 60.2 percent of the student population is female, according to the San Francisco Unified School District website (www.sfusd.edu), which can contribute to imbalanced classes.
Girls also notice the e"ects of the disparity on class atmosphere, but agree that the gender ratio occasionally impacts the curriculum. “!ere are times when we tend to go too far into the feminist realm,” senior Sophia Warren, who is also in Carney’s 6-7 class, said. “Guys can’t relate, and it can get hard for them to comment.”
She added that the individual personalities of the quieter boys impact this phenomenon. “!e guys in the class aren’t ‘I’m a big burly man and I have a strong opinion about be-ing a big burly man’ type of people.” Warren suggested that a di"erent population of boys would “refute some of the feminists when they start going too far.”
!e statistic of the Lowell gender distri-bution is often overshadowed by statistics regarding race. !e school district does not report data on gender in School Accountability Report Cards, though comparisons between the percentages of racial groups abound.
!e SFUSD policy does not take gender into consideration when assigning students to schools, from elementary to high school, which can contribute to a male/female imbalance in classes. “!e school assignment process is gen-der neutral,” executive director of the SFUSD Educational Placement Center Darlene Lim said, adding that “the way students are assigned to classrooms is at the discretion of the school.”
This classroom assignment policy does
not play a role in gender balancing at Lowell because students self-schedule, according to assistant principal of student support ser-vices Michael Yi. !e school’s self-scheduling system can lead to a higher ratio of one sex, depending on who signs up for a class. Admin-istrators do not interfere with class sign-up or how many sections of a course are o"ered on the basis of gender. “Usually, courses are not a"ected by gender,” Yi said. “If no one requests a course, it isn’t o"ered.”
No district schools, including elementary and middle schools, are balanced by sex by the district, but Lim said that in her experi-ence most complaints on the subject of gender imbalance arise when there is a majority of boys in a class at the elementary school level. !is assertion is con#rmed by a May 31, 2010 New York Times article, “Gender Gap for the Gi$ed in City Schools,” which notes the devel-opmental lag of boys at the elementary school level. “For some of the boys, ‘their social and emotional development is not at the same level as their intellectual development,’ said Donna Taylor, the principal of the Brooklyn School of Inquiry. She estimated that she spent about half her day helping her kindergarten and #rst-grade boys as they ran into trouble with issues like collaboration, self-control and sharing.”
However, the article also notes that in New York City, the trend is %ipped in academic high schools, where boys are overrepresented in all eight of the public schools that have an en-trance exam for admission. In San Francisco, Lowell is the only school to have an entrance exam, yet the demographics favor girls.
Although the overall sex ratio does exac-erbate the frequency of female-dominated classes, Yi distinguished between an imbalance in overall signup for a course and an imbal-ance because students of one gender tended to sign up for a certain period of the course by coincidence. Because of this, the gender imbalance of classes can fall either way: some courses are female-dominated, while others have more males.
Certain courses are particularly a"ected by this phenomenon. Dance and AP Literature and Composition, two of Bourgault’s classes, serve as prime examples. On the other hand, there are 23 boys and six girls in one section of AP Physics C, and 15 boys and #ve girls in another. More females in dance and certain AP English courses and more males in physics and certain other science classes is a trend repeated from year to year, according to Yi.
!e number of girls at Lowell slightly af-fects the gender balance at other schools in the district. !e schools with more males than females may also be a"ected by the fact that fe-males make up a 48.3 percent minority district wide, according to the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System.
According to Lim, the district has not looked at the gender imbalance at Lowell or in other parts of the district. As a result, she could not de#nitively explain the trend. “It might be that there are more girls applying or that more girls are accepted,” she said. “It is not something we are required to monitor, and we haven’t made the decision to try to monitor it.”
Yi said the trend cannot be explained with-out a district investigation. “We don’t know,” Yi said. “!is is research the district has to do. !ey are not doing such analysis because some schools with certain gender might appear to be more academically challenged than others, which would seem like a gender bias.”
!is trend of women being more successful academically is re%ected beyond the SFUSD, and is generally seen as indicative of the ongo-ing increase of women pursuing higher-level careers. According to a citation in a Feb. 5, 2010 New York Times article, “!e New Math on Campus,” at least 57 percent of college en-rollments since 2000 were by women.
The Lowell community weighs in on the is-sue of gender imbalance and what should be done about it.
“I think it’s a trend in education these days. For example, there are more girls at UC Berkeley, so it’s not just Lowell. There are especially more females completing high school and going on to college. The question we have to ask is: are schools serving everyone’s needs equally?”
— Alison Shepard, librarian
“It makes it harder to form groups balanced by gender. Sometimes boys get stuck by themselves with groups of girls and they might feel slightly uncomfortable, shyer or less likely to participate.”
— William Steele, social studies teacher
“Girls are just smarter.”— freshman Mina Choe
“If they started trying to even out ratios, the school would run into a lot of controversy over discriminating.”
— sophomore Julian Greenhill
“I’ve noticed it when we’re performing plays and there are a lot of guy parts, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
— freshman Olivia Whit!eld
“Consider the Peer Mentoring program. On one hand, girls can mentor boys and boys can mentor girls. At the same time, it would be good to have more male mentors, so they could be role models for younger male students.”
— Peer Resources Coordinator Adee Horn
*Source: 08/09 school pro!le data
Female percentage by school
INFOGRAPHIC BY M
ONICA CASTRO
Imbalance of the Sexes
The Lowell NEWSDecember 14, 2012 7
MONICA CASTRO
ADVERTISEMENT December 14, 2012 Lowell High School 8
ELITE PERFECT SAT SCOREStudents who need an intensive review for the January SAT Reasoning Test and students who would like to jumpstart their preparation for the March test will benefit from taking our rigorous WBC. In this challenging eight-day course held during
the winter break, students take a full-length SAT test in the morning, then attend 4.5 hours of test review and lecture in the afternoon. The course is comprehensive and covers all three sections of the SAT Reasoning Test: Critical Reading, Math, and Writing.
December 26-29 & January 2-5WBC 2-week extension discount: Contact office for more information.
PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL ELITE OFFICE FOR DETAILS.
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Northern California Branches: Southern California Branches:
WHEN THE “ON AIR” light begins to !ash, this is the time when radio personalities come
to life. Lowell class of 2010 alum and cur-rent San Diego State University KCR radio DJ Claudio Castro views his hosting duties for his radio show, 25th Hour, as a fun way to share his love of music with his friends and the rest of the community.
Currently, 25th Hour features mostly music. “Although the show is centered around music, I want to head toward a more journalistic aspect once I gain more listeners and begin to improve,” Castro said.
A current business man-agement major, Cas-tro jumped at the opportunity to join his college’s radio station. “I wanted to get involved with the college radio down here and anybody can join, so I decided to go for it,” Cas-tro said.
Castro finds ways to relate business man-agement with radio. “Promot-ing oneself and di"erent aspects of running a business can a p p l y t o DJ’ing,” Castro said. “Learning what’s in the market and what’s in demand can translate into what’s new in music and the popular music to play.”
All students can join the radio station as either a DJ, producer, host, or reporter. #e majority of students currently involved have no prior experience. “I do and don’t regret not having any radio experience,” Castro said. “It would have been nice being at a radio station before and learning the ins and outs, but having a blank slate and learning on the go is fun, too.”
Playing music for a living is a draw to the world of radio, according to Castro. “I mostly play music that I like,” Castro said. “It’s usually a ‘theme’ for the show. For ex-ample, I’ll play the ‘best of ’ of an artist one
show or a certain genre for another show.”Although he is new to the DJ scene,
Castro has long admired those who do the same work. “I’ve always been inspired by various DJs that get to play music for a living, although I have no speci$c inspira-tion,” Castro said. “I hope to learn from this experience and improve my radio and DJ skills to maybe something in the future.”
As a college student, gaining real world experience is important. “I’ve learned to not expect much early on, and to not take it personally when you don’t have many listen-ers,” Castro said. “#ere were times when I had two listeners for my show, and the most
I’ve had is seven. If I take it show by show, I will
i m p r o v e myself and gain listeners.”
Castro has not blocked out the possibil-ity of continuing with his passion. “Con-tinuing with radio is de$nitely an option,” Castro said. “If a job presents itself, I would take it. But it’s not my ideal job – something for fun on the side.”
Lowell students can listen to Castro live or through podcasts on the KCR website, or through the TuneIn Radio app that is available for most smart phones.
By Sam Tick-Raker
WHEN MOST HIGH SCHOOL graduates receive their diplomas, they are unsure of what they want to do in the world. But a former reporter for !e
Lowell and current journalist was determined to follow her passion and bring awareness to a subject many Americans are not knowledge-able about.
Juliet Linderman, class of ’04, has continued her love of journalism in her post-high school life. A%er graduating from Lowell, Linderman majored in geography and literature at the Gall-atin School of Individualized Study, a college within NYU. When she graduated, Linderman moved from Manhattan and became the editor of !e Greenpoint Gazette, a neighborhood weekly paper located in Brooklyn. “Since it was a neighborhood paper, I got to know the community,” Linderman said. “As editor I got to in!uence the way it was re!ected.”
She took what she learned from that experience to her newly found job, freelancing for !e New York Times Metro section. When there was a shooting or a murder, the paper would call on Linderman and ask her to report to the scene.
While still working in the city that never sleeps, Linderman met a photographer that travelled across the country, taking
pictures of refugees’ $rst nights in hotels across America. “I met the photographer, Gabriele Stabile, at a meeting in Greenpoint, while I was working at the Greenpoint Gazette. We were initially going to do a project about Newtown Creek, a superfund site
in Greenpoint,” Linderman said. “But as we became friends, we decided to collaborate on Refugee Hotel instead.”
As they worked together, she began to feel more passionate about the topic. “#e project was so unique and personal. I thought it was a wonderful project already,” Linderman said. “But what really struck me was how much we could do with it — the idea of following up with these refugees and recording their stories about what it’s like moving to a brand new and totally unfamiliar country, and try-ing to make sense of a whole new world.” She began travelling to the di"erent cities where
the refugees ended up and interviewing them. #e excitement of the project led to Linderman’s decision to write a book with the collections of the oral histories of the refu-gees. “We used clues that lead us to tracing two dozen people from places such as Somalia, Bhutan, Ethiopia and Burma, in six di"erent cities,” Linderman said.
#e book is called Refugee Hotel, and is being published by Voice of Witness, a branch of McSweeney’s. It is available for
sale on their website (store.mcsweeneys.net). Linderman interviewed a wide variety of people, ranging
from three brothers who grew up in a #ai refugee camp to a Sudanese man who lost his passport, increasing the di&culty of his journey to America.
Before the project she had only travelled to a handful of states, a%er the experience Linderman had more appreciation for the rest of the country. “We wanted to give a glimpse of com-munities you would never think of. Who knew there was a Chin (Burmese) population in Amarillo, Texas, or a lot of Burundian and Congolese in Mobile, Alabama?” she said. “America is a country built on immigrants and refugees. By nature, under-standing them in!uenced the way that I understand it.”
Well-versed in the topic of refugees, she travelled once again to another part of the country: the Big Easy. She just started her new job as a sta" reporter for !e New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Now that the book is coming out, Linderman is as ecstatic as she was when she $rst began talking to the refugees. “It does not feel real. I am excited, but also nervous because I love the project so much,” she said.
Linderman’s journalistic career has come a long way; she began by interviewing students at Lowell and now she has spoken to refugees about their lives in America. “#e book is about how people come to this country, what they leave, what they bring, what they pass on to their children, and what it means for the future of this country,” Linderman said.
By Elena Bernick
NON'GENRE discriminating stu" to get on with your life.
Confused? #is isn’t just a mash-up of words, it’s the tagline of Nicola Householder’s radio show “Nick’s Picks,” a two-hour music pro-gram on Barnard College’s radio station WBAR. Householder hosts the show and chooses the music to play, sharing information about artists in between songs.
Householder, a Lowell class of ‘11 alum, was as active in high school communication media as she is in college today. Her voice rang through hallways during registry every week, as she was a broadcaster on Radio Lowell for her junior and senior years. Householder was also a sta" mem-ber of !e Lowell from sophomore to senior year.(
Determined to get her voice out on the airwaves, House-
holder applied as a freshmen to be on her Bar-nard’s radio station a%er seeing !yers around the campus. She’s been broadcasting for a year and a half now, and doesn’t seem to want to stop any time soon.
#e experience Householder gained at Lowell was a helpful stepping-stone to college radio. “[Radio Lowell] de$nitely helped spark my inter-est,” Householder said. “I(knew going into college the one thing I wanted to do was radio.”
One key di"erence from Radio Lowell is the freedom allowed on-air. “You can say more of what you want,” Householder said. “You don’t have teachers standing over your shoulder. Tech-nically we can swear on the radio.”
As a self-described music enthusiast, House-holder uses the program as an outlet for her cre-ativity. “I love music,” Householder said. “I had a music blog for a while, so being on a radio show seemed to be the perfect route for me.”
While being the sole host of her own show gives Householder the chance to share her favor-ite jams, she doesn’t let her own taste monopolize the airwaves. A devoted fan of indie, folk and pro-gressive rock, Householder has used the show as a way of discovering new artists and genres. “I want [the show] to be blind to genre,” Householder said. “Whatever I think sounds good, that’s what
I’m playing.( It’s a major component of(my show to bring back the stu"
I $nd online and branch out.”One way Householder keeps
her program interesting is through weekly themes. “Every week I do a di"erent theme to center around the songs,” Householder said. “A couple weeks ago I
did a baseball theme because the Giants
had just won the World Series.”
#e theme she picks also serves as an optimal way to explore the vast
music landscape. “Since every week
I do a very periodic theme, it forces me out
of my iTunes playlist,” House-holder said.(“My theme last week was
friends, and I found songs that I would have not listen to otherwise.”Householder’s gig also gives her the op-
portunity to get a close up look at the music scene and then artists who are a part of it. She will be hosting her $rst in-studio soon, where a band comes will come in and perform live on the air. “It’s a band called Cheap Blue Yonder Come On,” Householder said. “#ey just released an album. I’m really excited about it. Just by having this radio show, I was able to reach out to them.”
As for a%er college, Householder is keeping an open mind about the future. “Radio is de$nitely an option,” Householder said. “I want to be in-volved in music somehow. My dream would be to work at a small record company.”
#e show airs every Friday from 6-8 p.m., and you can listen in by logging onto the WBAR website. (www.wbar.org)
Intrepid journalist checks in to novel career
Radio personality rocks to sound waves
Music maniac mixes genres with multi-themed show
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF KT KELLY
PHOTO COURTESY OF JULIET LINDERMAN
By Campbell Gee
I
Thrill Seekers
Survivor
www.yamnuska.com
Superb Samaritans
www.globalcitizenyear.org
Artsy Adventurers
parla italiano
www.arthistoryabroad.com
ILLLUSTRATIONS BY HOI LEUNG AND KIMBERLY LI
THE GAP LIFE
THE LOWELL SPOTLIGHTDECEMBER 14
2012
Creature CaretakersGood Samaritans that connect
to beastly species can check out the
African Conservation Experience
and spend their days caring for rare
species of wildlife in their picturesque
natural habitats in Botswana, South
Africa and Zimbabwe.
Volunteers choose to work in
different ways to save Africa’s
animal kingdom, whether it be
through wildlife conservation and
rehabilitation, marine conservation, or
veterinary experience.
The program is designed to
prepare youth fresh out of high school
for a real world job or higher level
of education relating to creatures
and critters. Those in the wildlife
projects where they observe species
in their natural environments, work
to preserve the habitats and capture
and relocate endangered animals.
protect rhinoceroses in South Africa
felines like lions.
On the other hand, marine
mammal enthusiasts spend time on
the coast of Africa and the island
of Mauritius to collect data on
cetacean species and monitor
dolphins. Volunteers also help
educate young children on
the importance of marine
conservation in the hopes of
inspiring others to become
passionate about life under
the sea.
Future veterinarians that
can see themselves bottle-
feeding an orphaned baby
leopard or cooking up tasty
meals for wildebeests can
make their dreams a reality
with ACE’s rehabilitation
and veterinary programs.
Other activities allow
participants to do hands-
on tasks like studying
drugs and medicines used
to treat African animals,
conducting blood tests on
wildlife, and caring for
wounded mammals.
For more information
on ACE’s range of projects
and application information,
visit the program online
(www.conservationafrica.net).
By Kai Matsumoto-Hines
THE GIRLS’ VARSITY volleyball team soared above the competition this season and snatched the championship trophy after a four-year
drought.!e Cardinals (12-0) defeated the Washington Eagles
(10-2) 3-1 on !ursday, Nov. 8 with set scores of 25-6, 25-16, 16-25 and 25-12. “We worked really hard this season to make sure we didn’t have a repeat of last sea-son,” junior co-captain and setter Gianna Braganza said.
In a game, Lowell has a tendency to gain the lead, fall back, but still take the win, a trademark style which has earned itself the name of the “Lowell lull.” “In that third set, we lost sight of the team we always strive to be and it felt like we needed that wake-up call to realize that we needed to get back to playing the way we know we can,” senior outside/rightside hitter and co-captain Emily Lim said. “We really cut down on our amount of errors and we didn’t let our mistakes get to us like we did in the third set. We started to have fun again and once we pulled ourselves together, we became the team we know we can be.”
Team members know where they made mistakes. “I personally need to work on consistency and communica-tion,” junior outside hitter Katie Hwang said. “Whether it be passing, hitting, or serving, I think I need to try and focus on staying consistent while still making sure I’m loud on the court. Being loud in volleyball is a must!”
Now that the season is "nally over, players rejoice and think about the past season. “My favorite mo-ment was de"nitely the overnight trip,” Hwang said. “It was so much fun because we had a tournament the whole day, then got dressed up, went to dinner, andbasically had a humongous sleepover.” !e team com-peted in the Concord Tournament on Sept. 29 against Deer Valley, Granada, Foothill, Sonoma and Las Lomas high schools. To see a complete list of scores, visit the Lowell Athletics website (www.lowellathletics.com).
Lowell High SchoolDecember 14, 2012
Page 11
Reporters profile Lowell alumni on athletics in college
By Spencer !irtyacre
THE BOYS’ VARSITY soccer team was sti#ed by the Mission Bears during the championship game on Nov. 3, emerging as co-champions in a 1-1 tie.
!e Cardinals dominated the "rst half, controlling pos-session, and keeping the ball on Mission’s side for the major-ity of the half. Around the 30-minute mark, Lowell took the lead following a goal o$ a header by senior mid"elder Zach Weisenburger, from a corner kick by senior defender Peter Harrington. Shortly a%er Weisenburger’s goal, there was a head-on collision between sophomore goalkeeper Abdul Monim and Mission junior forward Mario Mejia, forcing Monim out of the game. Lowell was forced to put in their backup goalkeeper, sophomore Aiden Powers-Riggs, who had played infrequently throughout the regular season.
It was a very physical match between the top two seeded teams, and Lowell came into the second half of the game with mixed feelings; they had a 1-0 lead, but that could be lost in seconds. !ey also had lost their starting goalie; however Powers-Riggs proved he was up for the challenge by making several spectacular saves, keeping Lowell’s lead intact for as long as possible. !ere were some question-able shoves that came from both sides, yet few of them were actually called as fouls. In addition to Monim, junior forward Aaron Moye and junior mid"elder Antonio Torres were injured in the second half, and were taken out.
With only four minutes le% in the game, the Cards had forced the Bears to kick a ball out of play. Lowell was set up for a goal kick, and was feeling fairly con"dent, going into the last minutes. !ey were en route for their third straight city title — or so they thought. !e ball was kicked into no-man’s-land, and the Bears pounced on it. Mission senior forward Marco Caballero recovered the ball and passed it up the middle to Mejia, who scored when Powers-Riggs "nally
let one past him, tying the game 1-1.Regulation time quickly came to an end, and
overtime procedures were announced. To the sur-
prise of many players and fans watching from the stands, the California Interscholastic Federation does not allow penalty kicks to break a tie, even in the championships. !is meant that if neither team scored in the two "ve minute sudden death round, following a 20-minute overtime, both teams would be crowned champions.
!roughout overtime, Mission frustrated the Cardinals, maintaining pressure by keeping the ball on the Cardinals’ side. Mission looked fresher than the Cardinals, constantly subbing out their players and in turn beating the Cards to the ball. Still, Powers-Riggs managed to keep Mission from scoring with several seemingly miraculous saves. Neither team could break the tie, and as the "nal sudden death round came to an end, both teams were announced as winners, much to the disappointment of fans and players on both sides, who demanded a single champion.
Surprisingly, the Cardinals went into the championship as underdogs. !e Bears had defeated Lowell 4-2 on Oct. 18, ending the Cards’ 48-game
undefeated streak, just two days a%er the Lincoln Mustangs ended their win streak with a 1-1 tie.
The last year the champion-ship game resulted in co-champs was 1964, when Mission tied Washington. Mission has now
been a part of all "ve co-cham-pionships. Mission head coach Scott Kennedy brought up the issue of dual winners at the coaches’ meeting on Mon-
day, Nov. 5, and is hop-ing to put an end to
the current system by installing penalty kicks.
Vars V-ball takes 1st after 3-year drought
Senior right side hitter Karin Yamazaki (center) and junior middle hitter Jaela Caston (right) rise up to reject an attack from an Eagles’ player in the championship game on Nov. 8. The girls’ varsity volleyball team defeated Washington 3-1, advancing to state.
Boys’ varsity soccer ties 1-1 with Mission in championship
CATE S
TERN
XC sends vars teams to state
Senior varsity runner Chris Chow charges forward during the first minutes of the AAA All-City race at Golden Gate Park on Nov. 14. Chow took sixth place with a time of 18:17.
By Ashley Louie
DASHING PAST THE TREES in Golden Gate Park’s Polo Fields, cross country runners endure any pain necessary as they strive to edge out their opponents
and claim the Academic Athletic Association crown.!is year the team swept the league, taking all four team
titles: boys’ varsity, girls’ varsity, boys’ frosh-soph champions and girls’ frosh-soph.
Despite not taking any individual medals on Nov. 14, the boys’ varsity team did take places fourth through tenth in the All City Championships 5k race, claiming "rst place with a total
See CROSS!COUNTRY on Page 14
PHOTO COURTESY OF LINDA MEDINA-SAM
GAVIN LI
Lowell High SchoolDecember 14, 2012SPORTS12
Reporter disappointed with championship drawBy Dylan Anderson
DUE TO AN old-fashioned technical-ity, the boys’ varsity soccer cham-pionship game between the Lowell
Cardinals and Mission Bears !nished in a 1-1 draw on Nov. 3, making it the !rst tie in a !nal in over 40 years. However the rule that permit-ted this occurrence to take place is outdated and improper. It should be altered so that one team is guaranteed to receive the ultimate satisfaction that every team dreams of at the beginning of the season — a true champion-ship all for themselves.
"e Bears and Cardinals were crowned co-champions by the Academic Ath-letic Association, a body that governs inter-school athletics in the San Francisco section of the California Interscholastic Federation. Inter-scholastic athletic competitions in the San Francisco section are governed by a nearly 200 page long constitution and by laws, i s
available online (www.cifsf.org). Section 9 in Part XII of this document discusses the rules and regulations speci!cally pertaining to soc-cer. Paragraph F in this section states, “Should playo# games be tied at the end of regula-tion, the NFHS Tie Game procedure shall be used...$However, for the championship game, co-champions shall be declared if a tie exists at the end of the second !ve-minute sudden victory overtime period set out in the NFHS Tie Game procedure.”
"e rule directly states that in the case of a tie at the end of the championship game, the competitors will be declared “co-champions.”
How can neither team win? And if neither team wins, then don’t both teams lose? All of the players took
the !eld on that sunny Saturday a%er-noon with the goal of defeating their opponent, and every single player on both teams failed to do that.
"e result of the !nal game le% the players in an unusual position:
they had failed to accomplish their primary goal, yet they were still league champions. Senior defender Peter Harrington said, “When the game ended I felt dissatis!ed. I felt like the 110 minutes of nonstop e#ort seemed to be worth less than it should’ve been.” "is rule to determine the outcome of a tie game is problematic because it allows for more failures rather than more successes. $
The rule isn’t necessarily unfair, but as we all know, life isn’t fair either. “Technically speaking, I don’t think it could be more fair,” Harrington said. “However, I don’t think it takes into account the principle of competition that drives all sports.” "e Bears and Cardinals were rewarded equally for a performance of equal ability, but they were deprived of an opportunity to prove that they were the best team in the league.
"e rule also declares that in the event of a tie in an ordinary playo# game, the game will follow the tie game procedures set out by the National Federation of State High School As-sociations. Clause 3 on Page 85 of the NFHS (www.ciysa.com) soccer rule book states that, “If the score still remains tied, the head referee shall choose the goal at which all of the kicks from the penalty mark shall be taken. Each coach will select any !ve players, including the goalkeeper, on or o# the !eld (except those who may have been disquali!ed) to take the kicks. Teams will alternate kickers. "ere is no follow-up on the kick. Following !ve kicks for each team, the team scoring on the greatest number of these kicks shall be declared the winner. Add one goal to the win-ning team score and credit the team with a victory.” Should a winner not be determined
during the !rst set of penalty kicks, the teams will choose !ve more kickers and repeat the process until one team eventually wins.
The penalty kick tiebreaker is used in elimination games by the world’s elite soccer
organizations, such as the International Fed-eration of Association Football (FIFA) and the Union Européenne de Football Association Union Européenne de Football Association (UEFA) Champions League. Some of the most important games in the history of sports have been won in a
penalty kick tiebreak, such as the 2006 World Cup !nal in which Italy prevailed over France.
Many players and coaches also support the penalty kick tiebreaker for use in champion-ship games. “If I could amend it, I de!nitely would [change it] to penalty kicks,” senior defender Avery Fisher said. “It’s always the way we’ve done it in the leagues I’ve been in growing up. Ending a championship in a tie is just not right. Nobody is happy.”
The AAA should extend the NFHS Tie Game procedure to apply to the championship game as well. “Since the tie in the soccer !nals, the soccer coaches’ committee has recom-mended using tiebreaker penalty kicks instead of declaring co-champions if a game is tied at the end of the overtime periods,” said AAA Commissioner of Athletics Donald Collins. “This recommendation will move forward through our governance structure, ultimately being voted on by our Board of Managers.” "e AAA is taking the appropriate steps to solve the problem, and hopefully the Board of Managers will vote the change into law.
HHow can neither team win? and if neither team wins, then don’t both teams lose?
KIMBERLY LI
The Lowell December 14, 2012 SPORTS 13
FALL SPORTS MVPS
By Andrew Pearce and Joey WongWith two years of commitment to the sport, senior captain Paulina Kang has been awarded !e Lowell’s choice for Most Valuable Player. Kang took second place in the San Francisco Section girls’ title this year, where she lost by 14 strokes to Lincoln senior Kristi Wong, with a !nal score of 69-83 on a par 60 course. Kang is a critical part of the team during matches. “She’s the backbone of our girls’ var-sity team,” coach Robert Ray said. “"ere isn’t a time where she doesn’t perform at a high level.”
Although not achieving her pre-season goal of taking !rst in the individual compe-tition, Kang’s work ethic has pushed her to continually look for ways to elevate her skills. “I try to make sure I work hard and commit myself,” Kang said. “I practice every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with the team. I also take golf lessons on Saturdays and sometimes Sundays at Lake Merced Golf Club to improve my golf game.”
"e team respects and appreciates her, and they hope that someone equally committed will step up and !ll her shoes next year. “She’s a great captain because she’s very organized and she’s a great motivator,” sophomore golfer Rachael No said. “She plans all of our practices and other stu# as well, like playing together for fun and the team dinner.”
Kang is currently excited to play golf rec-reationally in college.
By Spencer !irtyacreHe shoots, he scores! "e varsity soccer team tied Mission in the championship this year to bring home the trophy for the third consecu-tive year. However one thing they will not be celebrating is the loss of several key seniors, including !e Lowell’s choice for Most Valuable Player, senior defender Avery Fisher.
Fisher has served as a role model for the younger Cardinals to emulate. “It would be impossible for any underclassmen not to be impacted by the play, leadership and passion of Avery,” head coach Marcos Estebez said. “He will be remembered and held up as an example of what a leader looks like.”
During his four years on varsity Fisher has helped the Cardinals to the champion-ship three years in a row and has developed into an intelligent player as well as a strong athlete. “Avery arrived as a good player, but now he’s a smarter player,” Estebez said. “His understanding of the !eld initially only went as far as his position. Now his view is much more global, he can process more information which allows him to anticipate events before they are realized.”
Fisher encourages the team to continue to strive for success long a$er he is gone. “Con-tinue to play hard and keep the Lowell tradition of winning as a team and doing things the right way,” Fisher advises his teammates.
By Pasha StoneFor his consistent leadership and strong overall performance, !e Lowell has selected sopho-more quarterback Johann Leffler as junior varsity football’s Most Valuable Player. Le%er was planning to lead the defense as a safety along with sophomore corner and de-fensive captain Abdul Alaudi. However, during summer conditioning sophomore quarterback Zach Toy went down with a leg injury, which sidelined him for most of the season. "ough Le%er had never played quarterback before, the coaches trusted him to !ll the position for the year. “Last year the coaching sta# and I saw the potential Johan had, but he was out due to a concussion,” head coach Ronald Ng said. “Luckily this year he stayed healthy and stepped up and lead the o#ense for us. He’s a great kid, knows what to do and just does it.”
Before moving up to varsity, Le%er was the captain the JV team needed to lead them through thick and thin. “Johan did everything we knew he could do and more,” Ng said. Johan will look to this o#season training to help his team make another playo# run, and next sea-son continue his success on the varsity level.
Boys’ Varsity Soccer JV Football
By Ashley Louie!e Lowell’s pick for Most Valuable Player of the cross country season is senior co-captain Max Niehaus.
Niehaus currently holds the fastest time in the 2012 league meet races, clocking in at 17:33 for the 5k, according to the California Interscholastic Foundation’s San Francisco Section cross country standings (www.cifsf.org). On Nov.14, despite tackling a sore throat and slight fever — which resulted in Niehaus taking fourth place with a time of 18:09 — he managed to lead the boys’ varsity team to !rst overall with 30 points. Still !ghting a fever and sore throat, Niehaus ran the 5K at the state championships on Nov. 24 in Fresno with a time of 17:53.
"is season, Niehaus was an exemplary leader as one of the season’s male co-captains. “He always gave us high-!ves and asked us how we felt a$er every race — which parts of the race we felt good on or which ones we felt like we needed to work on,” freshman runner Luke Haubenstock said.
Prutz also noticed Niehaus’ leadership growing over his four years on the team. “He has contributed his maturity and experience as a runner,” Prutz said.&“He cares deeply for the team and the other runners on the team.”
In college, Niehaus plans to continue com-peting — both indoors and outdoors.
Cross-Country
Vars Girl’s Golf
By Dylan Anderson and Sam Tick-RakerA$er leading her team to an undefeated cham-pionship season, freshman middle blocker Kris Hui has been selected by !e Lowell as the Most Valuable Player on the FS Girls’ Volleyball team. Despite this being her !rst season as a Cardinal, her spirit, skill and work ethic have allowed her to become one of the most feared players in the league.
Hui stands at !ve feet eight inches tall, well above average for girls her age. “Her height is a good intimidation factor,” defensive specialist Kiersten Cheung said.
But Hui doesn’t only look like an outstand-ing athlete, she plays like one too. “She’s one of our o#ensive weapons,” Cheung said. “We can always count on her to get that important kill or make her serve over.”
Hui said she feels ecstatic that she has con-tributed to the team in such a big way. “With the amazing help of our defense in the back row and our precise setter Brandi Wong, it all helps for a good attack, which is where I !nish it o#,” she said.
Hui cannot wait for next season to begin. “"is last season was such a great experience with all the players in the program and our amazing coaches and managers,” she said. “Everyone made it so much more enjoyable so that pretty much gets me pumped to do it all again next year!”
By Kai Matsumoto-HinesGood things come in threes! The Lowell’s choices for Most Valuable Player for girls’ varsity volleyball are Gianna Braganza, Emily Lim and Melissa See. "e three co-captains fought tough competition to bring home the AAA championship trophy.
"e captains not only saw their hard work pay o#, but also appreciated their co-captains e#orts to make a better team. “I am inexpress-ibly proud of Emily and Gianna,” senior defen-sive specialist Melissa See said. “Gianna has the hardest job on the court because she has to dig, hit, set, and block, but she just makes it look so e#ortless. I’ve been playing volleyball with Emily for a long time now, and I honestly don’t know anyone who works as hard as she does. She is so incredibly consistent in all areas of her game, but more importantly she provides amazing leadership both on and o# the court whether we are losing or winning. I’m truly honored to have Emily and Gianna as captains.”
Winning the championship victory a$er a long dry streak ful!lled the players’ goals. “I’m honored to have received this recognition and I’m just really happy that we !nally ended the three-year varsity title drought,” Lim said. “It was a great way to end my Lowell Volleyball career.”
By Ray LangServe, return, smash. She delivers the kill-ing shot into the opponent’s court, securing another win for the girl’s varsity&tennis team. But more than an outstanding player, senior girls’ varsity tennis player Nancy Hong is just as much a role model o# the court as she is on which is why she is "e Lowell’s choice for Most Valuable Player. A co-captain along with fellow senior Kitty Kwan, Hong has assumed a leadership position this season.
She holds the team together, 'making sure everyone knows everyone, and that no player is le$ on the sideline. “She’s always been a captain to all of us, we automatically look up to her,” sophomore Sydney Lee said. “She’s re-ally responsible and does everything on time.”
Hong’s teammates never hesitate in coming to her with their problems. Hong’s experience o$en su(ces, but she also plays a crucial role in collaborating with coach Bryan Lee. “"e players come to me and tell me what’s wrong and I’ll tell the coach,” Hong said.
Her abilities as captain are backed by her prowess on the court. Hong’s strong hits and serves make her a force to be reckoned with and are re)ected in her perfect league season. "is season Hong and Kwan took the All-City doubles championship.
FS Volleyball
By Ian James !e Lowell’s choice for varsity football’s Most Valuable Player is senior defensive back Mi-cheal McCarthy.
McCarthy’s determination on the !eld is an inspiration for the players around him. “He’s a great leader,” senior o#ensive lineman Hiromi Fujita said. “When he’s in, he will make that crucial play every time. "e team looks up to him because he puts in his best every play. ”
"is year’s team has bene!ted from the understanding between two of their biggest o#ensive weapons, senior quarterback Will Frankel and McCarthy. “Coming into this year, we were able to develop a big connec-tion” Frankel said. “We were able to have that ‘big play’ ability Lowell teams have missed in the past.” One example of this teamwork was Lowell’s sole touchdown in their playo# game against the Mustangs, a 17-yard pass from Frankel to McCarthy.
Head coach Danny Chan is full of praise for his graduating senior. “"ere are some kids I want to clone, kids who I want to keep for a long time and Mikey is one of those kids,” Chan said. “He can do anything on the !eld — he can kick, he can run, he can catch. It’s been eight
or nine years since I’ve had a player who can catch like that. He will go down as a legend in
Varsity Football
Varsity Volleyball Girls’ Tennis
By Ian James
THE VARSITY FOOTBALL team’s roll-ercoaster ride of a season pulled into the station for the !nal time a"er a cruel
26-6 semi-!nal defeat to the Lincoln Mustangs on Nov. 15.
Finishing the regular season with a 3-3 record, the Cards went into their !nal game as un-derdogs, having lost to the Mus-tangs 54-14 in their last game of the regular sea-son. “We were weary because of the earlier game, but we made a lot of adjustments and played a good g a m e ,” s e n i o r quarterback Will Frankel said. “It was a close game but in the end the team who made the fewer mistakes won.”
#is season also held several highlights for the team’s e$orts, including a memorable 44-14 victory over Washington in the Battle of the Birds on Oct. 26. “We really clicked as a team and took over the game,” Frankel said. “#e running game worked well early on, which is important because our team relies heavily on its running game.”
Many players believe that they had the po-
tential for an even more successful season. “I really wish we had pushed as hard in the !rst week as we did in the last,” senior o$ensive line-man Hiromi Fujita said.
Varsity football coach Danny Chan is proud of the advancements his team has made. “#e whole team has gotten a lot better over the
course of the year,” Chan said. “#e of-fensive line grew well together, the leader-ship of Hiromi Fujita and Jacky Tang was key. Will Frankel im-proved each game and so did the defense. #ey were !nally get-ting what Lowell foot-ball is about.”
Still, the varsity team has much to be proud of and much to look forward to. “I have lots of trust in
our younger players. I saw a lot of potential in Ray Pheps and Dillon Easterling, Dillon played really well in the play-o$s,” senior o$ensive lineman Will Kim said.
#ese young players are looking to make their senior years as succesful as possible. “Lots of juniors started this year and the varsity expe-rience should be great for their development,” Frankel said. “Next year they should have a huge impact on the !eld, once they are able to relax on the !eld.”
Lowell High SchoolDecember 14, 2012SPORTS14
By Ashley LouieWhile some freshmen cross country runners make it
onto the varsity team, not all of them make it to the top of the varsity division.
Freshman Kristen Leung, however, is currently the fastest female cross country runner in the San Francisco Academic Athletic Association division. Her personal record in the AAA 5k course is 21:02 — 35 seconds faster than last year’s girls’ varsity division champion.
Head cross country coach Michael Prutz was surprised by her performance because of her inexperience. “A"er Kristen ran her !rst race at the Lowell Invitational, she broke out of the crowd of new runners,” Prutz said.
Leung said that she ran the most she ever had at her !rst cross country practice. “In the beginning, I never knew I was good at running,” Leung said. “Most people at my
middle school were sprinters and my coach discouraged me from running distance.”
She ran the 400m race in middle school.She is one of the very few runners
that has come in as a freshman and led the city’s girls’ division, according to
Prutz. “She has a lot of potential and natural ability,” Prutz said.
According to Prutz, the last female runner to show promise so early was Lowell alumnus Anna Li, class of ’06.
Besides Leung’s ex-ceptional performance
on the course, she is comical and contributes a light-heartedness to boost the spirits of the cross country team, according to Prutz. With her cheerful contri-bution, people are not envious, but
happy for her. “What’s really nice about having someone like that on
the team is that she brings the whole level of competition up,” Prutz said. “We’ve been having faster times this year with everybody playing catch-up with her.”
Leung won the All-City girls’ 5k var-sity championship with a time of 21:33, sending her to the 5k state champion-
ship where she ran a 19:52.
Athlete of the Month:Kristen Leung
From CROSS COUNTRY on page 11of 30 points. #is earned them a spot in the state champion-ships in Fresno on Nov. 24.
#e girls’ varsity team won with a total of 18 points. Fresh-man Kristen Leung and senior co-captain Sabrina Quinonez snatched !rst and second of the girls’ varsity 5k race respec-tively. Leung and Quinonez, along with six other Lowell runners, were within the top ten runners in the girls’ varsity division. Leung made cross country history by being the !rst freshman runner since Lowell alumnus Anna Li, class of ’06, to take the gold in the girls’ varsity division.
#e boys’ frosh-soph team also won its division title with 35 points. Sophomore Isaiah Abeyta medaled with second
place in the race. In addition to the girls’ frosh-soph win, Cardinal runners
snatched all three medals for the race. Sophomore Michelle Wong, who is a reporter for !e Lowell, freshman Annie Zhou and sophomore Serina Leung won !rst, second and third place respectively.
#is year, head coach Michael Prutz continued to put more emphasis on speed — a trend that he implemented a few years back. “We did a hill and a track sprint workout each week at the expense of more distance training,” Prutz said.
Overall, Prutz thought that the team performed very well this year and sees good prospects for the future. “We have a really young team and I look forward to coming years,” he said.
Top row (from left to right): members of the boys’ varsity team: junior Brian Nguyen (18:43, tenth place), senior co-captain Ray Lang (18:40, ninth place), senior Chris Chow (18:17, sixth place), junior John Hogan (18:18, seventh place), senior co-captain Max Niehaus (18:09, fourth place), junior Calvin Li (18:38, eighth place) and junior Donald Chen (18:16, fifth place). Bottom row (from left to right): members of the girls’ varsity team: junior Kathleen Kanaley (23:37, tenth place), senior co-captain Sabrina Quinonez (22:09, second place), senior Susan Li (22:55, fifth place), senior co-captain Emma Keenan-Grice (22:42, fourth place), freshamn Kristen Leung (21:53, first place), sophomore Sydney Gutierrez (23:04, seventh place). Also on the girls’ team but not pictured was senior Cecilia Fang (23:03, sixth place).
Vars football goes to playo!s, builds over season
Top: senior offensive lineman Micheal McCarthy evades the Lincoln defense while moving the ball upfield. Bottom: senior wingback William Kim bursts through the Lincoln line. The Cardinals lost their playoff game 26-6 to the Mustangs on Nov. 15.
XC sweeps AAA team titles
PHOTO COURTESY OF LINDA MEDINA-SAM
PHOTO COURTESY OF SYDNEY GUTIERREZ
WWe really clicked as a team and took over the game. !e running game worked out well early on, which is important because our team relies heavily on its running game.”
Will Frankel,senior quarterback
“
BOTH PHOTOS BY KARA SCHERER
The Lowell December 14, 2012 SPORTS15
By Melinda Leung and Michelle Wong
LEAVING HIS COMPETITORS in the dust with a 5:07 mile pace, Leo Harrington, sophomore at Oberlin College in Ohio and Lowell alumnus
gives it his all for the last few meters of the 8K (4.97 mile) cross country race.
Harrington, class of ’11, runs year-round with the Yeoman cross country and track teams. “!ough I’m only a DIII athlete, college sports are on a di"erent level,” Harrington said. “!e training and competi-tion are more intense, but Lowell prepared me well for that.”
At Lowell, he played as a for-ward for the soccer team during the fall and ran long distance track in the spring.
During his senior year on the soccer team, the team was unde-feated with a 16-0 record, claim-ing the AAA championship title against Balboa 3-1. Harrington was a top scorer in the league, netting 20 goals that season.
Harrington also achieved impressive times on the track team. Harrington’s high school PRs were 2:03 for the 800 meter run, 4:27 for the 1600 and 9:46 for the 3200. His personal best for the 1600 meter run was — at the time — accomplished by only six other Lowell runners in the last 40 years. It has now been accomplished by two more runners.
!is season, he was the second fastest runner on the Oberlin Cross Country team, achieving a new personal best of 25:30 for 8K. In high school com-
petitions, the cross-country team runs three miles, instead of #ve. During the track seasons at Oberlin, Harrington also runs the 3000 meters, the mile, the 1500 meters and the 5000 meters for the track and #eld team.
His motivation stems from his love of competi-tion. “I’ll always be a runner,” Harrington said. “!e competition is the best part of the sport for me, but it’s also something I just love doing. One of my favorite moments in running is when, in the middle of a dif-#cult workout or race, I break through a mental wall of fatigue and discover I actually have more to give.”
A major change in college sports is the level of competi-tion. “People tend to be more competitive here,” Harrington said. “In high school, com-petitiveness alone may set you apart from others but at the collegiate level everyone is pretty competitive. You still need that #re to race well, but at the end of the day the win-
ner is usually whoever is in the best shape.”Harrington’s training schedules throughout the
week contribute to his strong work ethic. Compared to high school cross country runners who run about 30 miles a week, Harrington averages around 60 miles a week, which can range from outdoor hill practices to indoor track practices due to snowy Ohio weather.
Spending 2-3 hours of practice every day has strengthened Harrington’s academic management skill. “I have to eat right, sleep well, and be prepared
for my practices,” he said. “In the end, the benefits make the time commitment worthwhile.”
Harrington has developed spe-cial friendships. “As runners, there is a special bond that develops a$er running all those miles together.”
In addition to running, Har-rington has also taken an inter-est in classical orchestral music. He has played the trumpet for almost ten years, and is part of a double-degree program at Oberlin where he is pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree from the Conservatory, majoring in trumpet per-formance, and a Bachelor of Arts from the College, majoring in History. One of the many reasons why he loves his trumpet is because of its versatility.“I wanted to go to a college where I could have a strong music and strong academic experience,” Harrington said. “It can be very hard to balance things out. I put 100 percent into what I’m do-ing but at times I can spread myself rather thin over the three areas; within the next few seasons I’ll probably have to stop running competitively to focus on music and academics. So far though, I just love it too much to bring myself to quit.”
By Patricia Nguy
EVEN WITH a place on a sports team, a job and a full schedule of classes, Katie Ann Tam is still a spirited and considerate
alumnus, cheerfully sharing information on col-lege sports. She plays on the Bulldogs so$ball team at the College of San Mateo as the only member from the Lowell so$ball team carrying on the spirit at San Mateo’s #eld.
During her four softball seasons at this high school, Tam, class of ’11, led her team to three champion-ships, making it onto the Academic Ath-letic Association Second Team twice and the AAA First Team once. “To me, these honors mean more than being an outstanding athlete,” Tam stated in an email on Nov. 25. “It means being a scholar athlete that represents and contributes to the history of the league.”
Lowell so$ball coach Sascha Taylor-Ray remembers Tam as a player who grew into a great athlete from freshman to senior year. “She was starting shortstop for her senior year,” said Taylor-Ray. “She could bunt and hit, but her specialty was #elding and throwing. She could ground and throw a ball faster than anyone
I’ve ever seen.”Tam credits her success in the AAA to her
dedica- tion to the sport. “I have not gone a y e a r without playing softball since
elementary school,” Tam stated in the email. Prior to Lowell so$-
ball, she played fastpitch so$ball for the San Francisco Little League and
San Bruno Girl’s So$ball League. Her consistent effort partly comes
from her aspiration to be more like her older sister and younger brother, with her brother being a former Lowell baseball player. “Both of them are hard workers and have earned everything they’ve accomplished,” Tam stated in the email. “I think earning something, rather than having it handed to you, builds character and competitiveness.”
Her will to play so$ball for “one of the top community college teams in the state” led her to CSM. “We have an intense rivalry with Ohlone Col-lege,” Tam said in an email on Dec. 2. “!e two games we have each season, we play for more than a win. Sometimes the other team is out for blood. Literally.”
CSM’s art and digital media programs helped her adjust to
the new atmosphere, be-cause she considered art
as break from so$ball. “They’re two sepa-
rate things,” Tam said. “Whenever
I ’m s t re s s e d from softball
By Elena Bernick
JESSICA PENG, a class of ’10 alum, played for the Lowell girls’ volleyball team for four years, and she has not
lost her love for the game. She currently attends UC Santa Cruz, playing for their girls’ volleyball team.
Volleyball #rst spiked Peng’s interests in the third grade, when she would see her sister — a fellow Lowell alum — jump to the net; she soon followed in her foot-steps. “My sister, who’s four years older than me, had been playing vol-leyball for a few years and I always wanted to be like her,” Peng said. “I think that was my main inspiration.”
As any Lowell athlete knows, the Battle of the Bird games are among the most anticipat-ed of the season, and Peng recalls them with enthusiasm. “My most memorable games in high school would have to be the Battle of the Birds games against Washington,” Peng said. “The rivalry always brought so much energy, #ght, and friendly hostility and competition.”
!ough Lowell taught her the value of hard work, volleyball taught Peng impor-tant social skills. “In terms of volleyball, being at Lowell taught me patience, perseverance and the value of teamwork in any given game situation,” Peng said.
When Peng graduated, she carried her dynamic style with her. As a Cardinal, Peng was able to play multiple positions,
and she hasn’t lost her touch. “!rough-out my career, I’ve been going back and forth between setting and playing libero, and I still do the same in college,” Peng said. “I #ll in the holes where my team needs me the most.”
After years of playing at all grade levels, Peng has important advice to share with future and current players. “Always have a positive attitude, treat your coaches and teammates with respect
so they can take you seriously a n d r e s p e c t you as a player and individual, and never give up on a play,” Peng said. “Al-ways strive to do your best for you and your team.”
The recent championship w i n f or t h e
Lowell girls’ volleyball team has Peng stressing the importance of balance. “!ere’s always a lot of pressure for Lowell to be at the top in both academics and sports, it’s part of what you go through being a student or athlete,” Peng said. “In this case, it seems it was a collaborative e"ort of both the coaches and team to work hard throughout the season to be at the top of their division.”
Peng has fond memories of her old team. “What I miss the most about play-ing in high school is the friends that I’ve made and the experiences,” Peng said. “I got to enjoy being part of such an amaz-ing legacy.”
Cardinal athletes compete in
Leo Harrington: Stand out runner races at Oberlin
Katie Ann Tam: Ex-Lowell softballer continues to bat
Jessica Peng: UC SC volleyballer provides a plethora of life advice
SSo far though, I just love it too much to bring myself to quit.”
Leo Harrington,runner at Oberlin College
“
TThe rivalry always brought so much energy, fight and friendly hostility and competition.”
Jessica Peng,volleyball player at UCSC
“
PHOTO COURTESY OF KATIE TAM
PHOTO COURTESY OF LEO HARRINGTON
COLLEGE
17COLUMNS Lowell High School December 14, 2012
Snackaholic learns to say goodbye to Micky D
Zealous zoologist learns the bare necessities of life By Kai Matsumoto-Hines
WHEN MY FRIENDS ASK me what I do at the zoo, they never believe me when I say I do more than just sweep up poop. When I was promoted
to Junior Zoologist status last September at the San Francisco Zoo, I was under the impression that cleaning would be a big part of my day. !e truth is, the majority of my nine to "ve shi#s at the zoo are spent loving animals, exercising and socializing with them.
I started volunteering at the SF Zoo four years ago mainly because I connect with animals, but also because my family has a history of working with animals. My animal care began in middle school when I went to !ousand Oaks to visit my aunt, who happened to be the operations supervisor of a local zoo. Moorpark College in Moorpark, California, about a 20-minute drive from !ou-sand Oaks, has a medium-sized zoo that gives college students a taste of both zoo-keeping life and they also o$er a summer zoo camp. !at was the "rst time I really got to learn about how to care for animals and understand their behaviors. I spent a week at zoo camp while my aunt was still working, then the rest of the trip hiking, camping and "shing. Although it was only one week long, attending the camp showed me that working with animals requires patience and the ability to endure smelly odors.
A typical day at the SF zoo begins when I show my badge to pass through security before the zoo opens to the public. Once inside the Animal Resource Center, a building in the children’s zoo, my co-workers and I begin the various morn-ing routines, like collecting le#overs from the animals’ din-
ners, picking greens and %owers for the tortoises, setting up Hawk Hill or other more mundane cleaning tasks. !en we start the fun part of the job. We get to pick our section for the day on a "rst-come-"rst-pick basis, but once we "nish our assigned tasks we have free time for animal bonding.
Although working there requires a lot of work, I do not mind cleaning because I am learning my responsibil-ity to care for other living creatures. All of my hard work paid o$ in the end when I was promoted last September.
I worked my way up to Junior Zoologist status a#er three years on the Nature Trail program, a summer teen volunteer program where the youth educate the public about native and non-native animals, such as their diets, habitats, and conservation status. Of course, being a part of the zoo’s workforce entitles us to some bene"ts, one of which is being able to bring in a couple of friends for free and giving them
a behind-the-scene tour of the ARC.!roughout the day, we might clean the laundry room,
be trained to handle new animals, or be tested on an ani-mal we have been trained on. I am currently being trained on the American Alligator, having recently passed a test showing that I can properly harness, hold and pack them up in the Green Iguana carriers. When we have handled an animal enough times, our supervisors test us by asking us questions relating to the animal to see if we learned our facts and can properly handle them.
I regret not starting earlier because I feel like I missed out on valuable work time, as your animals will not listen to you unless have both the right chemistry and communication
skills, all of which can take time to develop. I could have moved up the animal training ladder faster, possibly to a paid internship. Finding my passion has made me consider going into a career working with animals.
T!e truth is, the majority of my 9-5 shi"s at the zoo are spent loving animals, taking them on walks and playing with them.
The junior zoologist socializes a three-week-old baby penguin as a perk for excellent effort.
PHOTO COURTESY OF NATALIE GREER
By Dylan Anderson
AFTER BATTLING through the 95 degree heat at a state playo$ tennis match in Sacramento,
nothing seemed more appropriate than a stop at In-N-Out Burger for some juicy burgers, crispy fries and frosty drinks, especially when coach was buying. This experi-ence truly tested my desire to keep my 2012 New Year’s Resolution: abstaining from fast food. But the potential temporary pleasure I could have gained by joining my teammates in that feast has failed to exceed the long term positive ef-fects on my health that are a result of keeping the promise to myself. When I saw my doctor in November of 2011, she prescribed one year of not gaining any more weight. I was by no means un-healthy or overweight. But I had gained more than 30 pounds of fat and muscle over the previous year while growing only an inch in height, and my body mass index stood at 23. My doctor was con-cerned that the ‘O-word’ could potentially show up in the future if the trend remained. I then faced a challenge that most Americans "nd familiar: to avoid gaining weight. Ultimately, I decided that it would be worth-while to discontinue my semi-weekly visits to McDonald’s and its various competitors in the fast food market. While these fat factories added %avor and fun to my life-
style, the choice felt necessary. I had been aware of the detrimental e$ects of diabetes
and obesity on many of my relatives in addition to millions of my fellow
Americans, and I wanted to stay as far away from those as possible. As we flipped to the final year of the Mayan calendar, I formally pledged to abstain from
eating at fast food restaurants until 2013, or until the
world ends, which-ever comes "rst. Eliminating fast food from my diet enabled me to accomplish something that I failed to do in 2011: earn a
spot on the Low-ell tennis team.
Getting cut at tryouts in 2011 certainly had fueled my desire to become thinner and faster, and partially inspired my decision to say goodbye to McChicken sandwiches and Crunchwrap Supremes. Not only did I make it on the team in 2012, but I won all eight of the of-"cial matches that I played in, in-cluding a doubles match in Sacra-mento.
When I re-solved to quit one of my favorite habits, I did not decide to stop eating every type of unhealthy food. I still enjoyed chicken strips at Giants games and burgers with brats on the Fourth of July. But I have resisted the urge to try out the free promotional Doritos Locos
Taco that Taco Bell o$ered to everyone in the country when Angel Pagan stole second base in game two of the World Series. I refused to order as much as even a soda on that
May a#ernoon at In-N-Out Burger. But perhaps the most significant of all my chang-es has been my refusal to go to the Ocean Av-enue KFC/Taco Bell with my best friend from mid-dle school, a "ve
year tradition that has ended because of my resolution.
A#er seeing my doctor in a follow-up this fall, I discovered that I had lost thirteen pounds of fat since my last checkup. I am now six feet tall, and weigh 150 pounds. My BMI stands at 20, and allows me a lot of breathing room to remain in the healthy region of the
spectrum. I am proud of my resolu-tion, and I believe I can now o$er
valuable advice to others: the best and easiest way to
improve your health is not to attempt fad diets or complete lifestyle changes, but
to simply remove just one unhealthy habit from your life at a time.
MMy doctor was concerned the O-word could poten-tially show up in the future if the trend remained.
ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF KT KELLY
SALLY MA
By Pasha Stone
IF YOU’RE AN upperclassman, you remember the sup-posedly easy physical !tness test of our freshman year — anyone could pass !ve out of the six tests and avoid being
assigned a third or fourth year of P.E. Even a chubby lineman on the football team like myself could squeeze out a sub 9:30 mile (passing time for most freshmen), so a special exemption from P.E.5 to P.E.8 was not necessary.
However, a"er the 2010-2011 school year, California changed its physical !tness standards to the Fitnessgram standards, dras-tically a#ecting the passing and failing of many students and student athletes, with the application of the VO2 max to the mile test. Now, more varsity student ath-letes are being forced to take e x t r a ye ar s of P.E. How-ever, athletes should not be burdened by two daily fit-ness regimens. We always hear about ways to cut our budget, but furlough days or underpaying teachers is not the way to go. We have hundreds of thousands of student athletes in California, and they take anywhere from two to four years of physical education, which, in my opinion, is unnecessary. If these athletes spend time a"er school doing physical activity in their sport, the purpose of P.E. is negated. Some schools are even going to the extreme by cutting whole sports and elec-tives, while the truly unnecessary cost of having athletes take P.E. class remains.
$e California graduation requirement for physical educa-tion is two years of P.E., but at any high school, if you don’t pass the Physical Fitness Tests, you are required to take P.E. until you pass. $e standards are implemented by the state, even though the state does not require you to pass them. $e newly implemented standard for the mile run is no longer a %at time for every student, which varied only with age.
Each student must now pass the VO2max, which is a mea-surement of how e&ciently your muscles use oxygen. $is may
sound like you have to run on a treadmill and have several machines hooked up to you in a lab to get a accurate measurement, but VO2max can be calculated based on a simple equation with Body Mass Index, age, gender, and mile runtime. In my case, a 6 foot, 195 pound 15-year-old male (with exercise-induced asthma) failed the test with his 7:58 mile by 23 seconds. In case you aren’t familiar with the VO2max equation, if you have a high BMI, you have to run a faster mile to pass.
Some might say, “Why don’t you just work to pass the !tness tests?” $at’s a reasonable solu-tion in a lot of cases, but not mine. I am a lineman for the varsity football team, and each offseason players can gain anywhere from 10-40 pounds of weight, most of it muscle.
If I want to honor the commitment I have made to my team, and become the best football player I can be, I can’t lose weight. Right now I am 195 pounds. I would have to lose 26 pounds to “pass” BMI, which means my body mass index must meet a certain range based on my age. However, any doctor will tell you that there are some healthy youth above and below the passing BMI standard.
So all this e#ort from the P.E.5 curriculum to “help me pass the BMI test” is going against years of my e#orts to be the best football player I can be. So which is more im-portant: the narrowly interpreted P.E. standard, or a sport you live, play and love? My choice is clear, but it is not one I should be forced to make.
I spend two and a half hours every day performing an intensive workout during football practice, but I
still have to go to P.E. class every morning. So according to the Lowell P.E. rules, my 150 minutes of football practice
aren’t enough, and I should do an additional 30 minutes of a workout curriculum designed for
sedentary people. A"er all the work I do at practice, I need time for my
body to recover so I won’t be sore. $is renders morn-ing exercise harmful and unnecessary. Even during the
o#season, my coaches organize voluntary weight li"ing and have told us this is all the exercise we need for their
program. $e bottom line, is that if P.E. does not recognize the needs of athletes, but instead costs the school money — no one wins. It is time that Lowell patches up its poorly made rules on physical education by ex-empting all up-
perclassmen on a school sports team from a third and fourth year of phys-ical “education.”
Another modi-!cation that should
be considered is the state of California exempting all stu-
dent athletes from any P.E. class, allowing them to forgo the two-year requirement if they remain
on a team.$is will encourage students to join a sports
team, which will build a far better foundation for a healthier life than 45 minutes P.E. ever will.
With our state experiencing the biggest budget crisis ever, reducing P.E. classes where they are not
needed is a must.
NNow, more varsity athletes are being forced to take P.E.
Student becomes disillusioned after four years of partially-fulfilled promises
Football player frustrated by arbitrary !tness-test standards, demands varsity athlete exemption
By Henry Hammel
THE CREATION of the “super'PAC” allowed large corporations and wealthy individuals to wield
more power in the 2012 election than they should have. It also gave money even more importance in the election — something that is fundamentally wrong. Elections should be about electing the best candidate. Money should have nothing to do with it.
In the now infamous 2010 Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that organizations independent of candidates were allowed to spend without restriction, indirectly leading to the creation of the Super-PAC, allowing for even more intervention in politics by outside companies and wealthier individuals. It is still illegal for corporations and unions to contribute directly to a candidate, but now the same corporations and unions can contribute indirectly via a Super-PAC.
But corporations and unions as well as wealthy individuals should not have unlimited in%uence in elections. $e fact that they are contributing through a Super-PAC is irrelevant, they are still a#ecting the election, which they should not be able to do — they are not more important than the average person, so they should not be allowed to a#ect the election more than the average person. To !x this imbalance, the U.S. government must place a check on the amount of money going to each candidate or organizations supporting either candidate, by limiting the total amount of money from a single donor spent to support a candidate.
Super-PACs are huge political juggernauts controlling overwhelmingly large amounts of money with way too much in%uence in politics. According to the Federal Election Commission website (www.fec.gov), the two
largest Super-PACs, Romney Victory Inc. PAC and the Obama Victory Fund, raised $436,580,066.33 and $454,131,442.64 respectively. $ese numbers are disturbing — we have organizations walking around with almost half a billion dollars each at their disposal trying to manipulate the American people. Not only do these outside organizations have too much power, they also allow wealthy companies and individuals to reach in and a#ect the political game — making candidates accountable to them and not the well being of the country — lessening the need for politicians to appeal and be accountable to the people.
Sheldon G. Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Casino is a prime example of this unwanted meddling in national politics. $e Las Vegas Sands Casino was the largest donor in the election, giving $30,556,320 to Republican interests, according to an Open Secrets web page on the largest donors of the campaign (www.opensecrets.org). Adelson !rst gave money to former house speaker Newt Gingrich but later threw his support behind Romney when Romney became the nominee. $e party that he is a&liated with is irrelevant;( Adelson should not have been allowed to in%uence the election any more than the average American because of the amount of money he possesses.
$e Las Vegas Sands Casino was able to do this via Super-PACs — out of the $30,556,320 that the Las Vegas Sands Casino donated, $29,786,770 went to Super-PACs.
Super-PACs are not a positive thing — they allow companies and more privileged people to pour seemingly endless amounts of money into elections, furthering the corruption in the federal government. Adelson did not give this sum of money for
nothing — his opinions surrounding the Isreali-Middle East con%ict clearly “rubbed o# ” on Romney. Super-PACs shi" the focus
of raising money during campaigns from appealing to the masses and getting
reasonable donations from them to appealing to a select group of people and receiving a handful of gigantic donations. $e amount of money spent in support of a candidate should
be based on the number of people that support him, not on the wealth
of certain in%uential people. $e presidential campaigns
in 2012 were the most costly in American history, partially because Super-PACs cause candidates to raise even more money to counteract negative advertisements attacking
them that were sponsored by an opposed Super PAC.According to the 2012
election !nance page on the New York Times website (www.nytimes.com), President Barack Obama, along with the Democratic Party and the Priorities USA Action Super-PAC raised $934 million. In addition, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney along with the Republican Party and Restore Our Future Super-PAC raised $881.8 million, totaling a number just shy of $2 billion. And a"er all this money was spent, very little in Washington changed. $e Republicans lost two Senate seats with one going democratic and one going independent, and the Democrats gained eight seats in the House, but are still a minority. $is amount of money could have done so much more for the country and yet more than two billion dollars later, Washington is still deadlocked.
New era of Super-PACs has sabotaged our modern political system, reporter argues
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MONICA CASTRO
KIMBERLEY LI
EDITORIAL
You can now submit your letters to the editor by email to [email protected] can also deliver it in person outside of S107.
EDITORIAL AND OPINIONDecember 14, 2012The Lowell
School must cut back on wasteful spending, promote better habits
Reporter criticizes punitive policy on Giants’ parade
IMAGINE PAYING TAXES that you think are going towards useful spending, but are actually being thrown away by the people the money is supposed to support. You would most
likely be very angry with the government. Citizens in our nation are required to pay taxes, which are used to fund schools and government projects. This situation occurs every year when schools receive funds, but expend the money wastefully.
Upon closer inspection, the district and our school throw away valuable money each year due to unnecessary spending on power, water and garbage that could easily be cut down by tweaking a few habits. For example, “Powering down computers is one of the number one things Lowell could do to cut back on spending, especially when going into long weekends,” science teacher and environmental liason Kathy Melvin said.
In addition, Melvin is getting her own students involved to help with the school’s waste management. “We are trying to make all three bins (garbage, compost, recycle) available around the school,” Melvin said. “My students will help monitor bins in the last grading period of this semester to make sure students properly sort their waste. Our custodian supervisor already ordered the new bins and they are on the way.” Sorting the trash into recyclable and non-recyclable will cut down on the cost of trash.
In addition, new plastic bottle benches serve as another outlet for school waste. Science teachers, such as Erin Bird, are attempting to create an outdoor classroom, where students will sit on benches made of plastic bottles stuffed with soft plastics that cannot be recycled or composted, such as candy wrappers. (See “School community unites to create outdoor classrooms,” The Lowell Sept. 2012) “We are adding a fourth bin to help with the plastic bottle bench project,” Melvin said.
Due to the large scale of wasteful spending, the San Francisco Unified School District created a program called Shared Savings to give incentives to the schools to economize on utilities. “One of the reasons the district started Shared Savings, is because they are trying to cut down on costs,” Melvin said. “It allows schools to keep the money they saved from cutting down on water, gas, electricity and garbage.” It not only saves money for the district, but also gives money directly to the schools and helps them become more environmentally friendly.
There is clear evidence provided by the district that shows Lowell is taking positive steps forward in waste reduction. District data show an increase in cost savings over time. According to the SFUSD’s Utility Cost and Usage Savings Report, courtesy of Melvin, Lowell saved $20,702 on waste management in 15 months last year (Sept. 1, 2010 to Nov. 30, 2011). The school saw a total savings of $18,629 in eight months of the next report (Aug. 1, 2011 to March 31, 2012). This is beneficial to the school since more money can be put back into classrooms.
Still, Lowell needs to get everyone involved in the projects to fully cut back on spending. Teachers and librarians should power off the computers in their rooms at the end of each day, all members of the Lowell community should turn off lights whenever leaving a room unattended and the school gardener can also help by changing the grass sprinkler schedule. Right now the sprinklers are on in the middle of the day when it is hot. Instead, they should be on early in the morning or later in the evening, so that the sun does not dry up the water as quickly. The school should create incentives to reward students for conserving energy such as rewarding those who stay after school to turn off computers and lights with extra credit.
To be able to put more money back into our education, all members of the school community must unite. “It’s just changing small habits,” Melvin said. “If everybody helps, the dividend for the school is large.”
By Tyler Perkins
AS THE GIANTS RODE DOWN Mission Street in convertibles on Halloween, celebrating their second World Series championship in three years, thousands
of students sat in classrooms of the district, dreaming about the parade they were missing. However, it seems that the San Francisco Uni!ed School District and the Lowell faculty and administration took steps to prevent students from enjoying themselves at the parade, an event that capped o" a magical season.# Although their actions were understandable because the school loses money when students are not in class, they should have been more forgiving of the students who chose to cut.#Winning the World Series is a huge deal because 30 major league teams compete for the title. $e Giants may never win it again in our lifetimes.#You would think with all the extra hours students put in doing schoolwork, they should be able to have one nice day enjoying a victory for their city.
$e school made it clear that if students decided to miss school and the “important” Halloween rally to attend a perhaps twice-in-a-lifetime event, they would be marked as having cut.# On Oct. 30, parents received an email saying: “Classes at Lowell High School on Oct. 31, 2012 will be as they are scheduled. Student attendance is required.”#
$e email included an attachment explaining the valid reasons for an excused absence and a letter from superintendent
Richard Carranza, telling parents to send their children to school.# “We notified the students that attendance was mandatory,” assistant principal of student services Michael Yi said. “If they failed to come to school we marked it as a cut and reported it to the district.”
$e school did, however, give students the opportunity to watch the parade in the auditorium during their free blocks, according to Yi. Although many students “coincidentally” got sick on the day of the parade, others were forced by their parents to attend school. “I wanted to go to the parade really bad, but my parents were against me going,” sophomore Bob Wu said. “$ey are really concerned with my education and don’t want me to fall behind.”
Also, a number of teachers made sure to schedule tests and assignments on the special day, negatively a"ecting the cutting students’ grades.#“I was planning on going to the parade, but my math teacher scheduled a test for that day,” said sophomore Jasmine Waland.#“We were told if we missed the test we would be given the Accel version for the retake.” Science teacher Shawn Laureyns added in an email that# “I gave a short !ve point assignment that could not be made up,” #stated that “It was practice for the lab exam coming up, and if students were doing well in my class, missing it had no signi!cant impact on their grades.” Because of the parade, the normally easy Halloween day was !lled with tests and work.
Some students were unable to attend the parade because
they chose to postpone a test schedule before the Giants won it all. “My students wanted to move a test from the previous Friday to that Wednesday before the parade date was set so we did,” said math teacher $omas Chambers in an email. “A few of my students were absent during their assigned class that day, but they came in an earlier block to take the test. Later they submitted readmits for the period they missed.” Granted, the parade did cost the school a lot of money, which could have been much more if Lowell had not taken these steps to prevent cutting.
According to The San Francisco Chronicle’s website (sfgate.com), 23 percent of all high schoolers in SFUSD were marked absent, costing the district $38.27 each, and almost $160,000 in total. $is is a lot of money, but not compared to the over $1,870,000 that the district receives from attendance on a regular day.# $38.27 can get you a ticket to a Giants game and is a fair cost for the school to absorb per student absence.# Ironically, the day a%er the parade, the sign in front of Lowell &ashed “Go Giants!”, further mocking the students who were forced to miss the parade.
As Tony Bennett sang his “I Le% My Heart In San Francisco,” he was accompanied by the mass of orange and black, celebrating as one city.# $is was a priceless moment in San Francisco history that may never be repeated and, unfortunately many students were cheated out of it.
HOI LEUNG
19
THE LOL
LETTER TO THE EDITORDear Editor:
We believe it is time America stops being the world’s biggest aggressor and instead begins working toward a cause that will bene!t every-one. According to the o'cial United States Fed-eral Budget Analyst, the United States spent an estimated $902.2 billion dollars on our defense budget for this year. $at is more than the 17 next biggest spenders combined, according to !e Economist.
Not only is $902.2 billion a number humans cannot physically imagine, $902.2 billion does not even account for the 40 percent of the defense budget that is “black,” which includes the hid-den expenditures protected from the American public by the government. More information and graphics on the speci!cs of our country’s military spending can be found at our website, www.cleanpowernotgunpowder.tumblr.com.
With our wars winding down a%er the exter-mination of Osama bin Laden; we believe that these numbers need to change. We should de-
crease our military spending and instead invest in green technology, a !eld that eliminates the need to !ght over foreign oil and promotes a cleaner and safer future. By eliminating our reliance on foreign countries to provide the U.S. military, and the United States in general, with oil, the $20 billion used to plan, transport and purchase oil could be eliminated altogether, according to Candace Lombardi of CNET News. $e cost of alternative energy sources would induce price stability, unlike the price of oil and gas, which &uctuates frequently. Green technology could provide better national stability and more jobs.
As the most powerful country in the world, America has a responsibility to demonstrate democracy and justice. If we as a nation wish to promote safety and stability across the globe, we must !rst focus on our economy in order to set that example.
- Seniors Michelle Chang, Eva Dubo", Jenna Rose Fiorello, Quinn Francis, Sandy Li and Aaron Tan from Richard Girling’s Economics class.
Advisers
Red Cathy Innis Cardinal Sharn Matusek
Editors-in-Chief
Cooper Logan Eva MorgensteinAmy Char Adriana Millar
News Amy Char, Deidre Foley, Cooper LoganSports Henry Hammel, Ian JamesFeatures Kai Matsumoto-Hines, Eva Morgenstein
KT Kelly, Adriana MillarOpinion Elazar Chertow, Spencer ThirtyacreReporters Dylan Anderson, Elijah Alperin, Elena Bernick, Antonio Carmona, Celena Chang, Gideon Fox, Campbell Gee, Zoe Kaiser, KT Kelly, Joseph Kim, Raymond Lang, Rayming Liang, Mellinda Leung, Whitney C. Lim, Cooper Logan, Ashley Louie, Eva Morgenstein, Patricia Nguy, Brian Nguyen, Andrew Pearce, Tyler Perkins, Pasha Stone, Sam Tick-Raker, Samantha Wilcox, Joey Wong, Michelle Wong, Luming Yuan, Sheyda ZebarjadianArt Editor Hoi LeungIllustrator Kimberly LiPhoto Editor Huimin ZhangPhotographers Gavin Li, Sally Ma, Kara Scherer, Cate Stern,Multimedia Editor Monica CastroWeb Content Editor Eli AlperinWeb Content Staff Henry HammelWeb Master Gavin Li
Published every four weeks by the journalism classes of Lowell High School, Room S108, 1101 Eucalyptus Drive, San Francisco, CA 94132 Phone: (415) 759-2730 Internet: [email protected]; http://www.thelowell.org. All contents copyright Lowell High School journalism classes. All rights reserved.!e Lowell and !e Lowell on the Web strive to inform the public and to use their opinion sections as open forums for debate. All unsigned editorials are the opinions of the sta".!e Lowell welcomes comments on school-related issues from students, faculty and community members. Send letters to [email protected]. Letters must be signed. Names will be withheld upon request. We reserve the right to edit letters before publication.
2012 NSPA Print Pacemaker2011 NSPA All-American2011 NSPA Online Pacemaker2009 NSPA First Class Honors
Business Managers Martin Costa, Rachel Hsu, Gabe Schumm, Sophie Solomon
HOI LEUNG
OPIN
ION
By Adriana MillarF o r m e ,
crossing the street
is a constant source
of stress. My heart
races and I anxious-
ly look le! and right
multiple times before I
dare to step o" the curb and
into the path of vehicles. No
matter where I am, the threat
of being hit by a car or another
moving vehicle leaves me stuck
on the sidewalk. When I was younger, my well-
meaning mother instilled in me a
strong fear of all things potentially
dangerous. It seemed she had an endless
list of worries of what could happen to me
and my sister. In particular, whenever we
crossed the street together, she would clutch
my wrist tightly and warn me that inattentive
drivers would not see little girls crossing the
street (something she still does today). I learned
that the crosswalk was a war zone, a battle between
the pedestrian and driver, and the best way to make it
out alive would be to avoid it all together. When I began
walking to school by myself in #!h grade, I would wait until
the street was completely free of cars before venturing to cross
it. Although impractical, I did not feel safe unless I knew there
were no looming threats of being crushed by cars zooming by.
As I’ve gotten older and had to rely more on myself for transpor-
tation, I have been forced to learn to overcome my fear of crossing the
street. I realize I cannot not let it get in the way of where I want to go and
what I need to accomplish. More importantly, I realize I do have the right of
way. Even so, remnants of my paranoia remain. I get o" of my bus one stop
later than I really have to because I hate crossing the busy street with no stop
signs. My friends o!en have to drag me across the street even when I feel that
the cars are much too close for comfort. But every time I boldly step away from
the curb, it is a small step of cautious victory.
By Elazar Chertow$ere I was, sandwiched between two other jittery young people waiting to take
their dreaded permit test at the DMV. $e place stinks, it’s as loud as a war zone, and I’m tripping out about what the speed limit in an alley is. I look up from my appoint-ment card, #5217, and immediately see a tall man with long black hair all the way down to his waist. His #st is held back, getting ready to punch a dainty woman, wear-ing a pale yellow dress, three feet away from my seat. $ankfully, he keeps his cool, but instead of winding up to hurl a blow, he starts yelling and cursing at her. He said some things even I wouldn’t dare utter. Everyone in the room was watching — only a couple of digni#ed older people urged him to stop, but they couldn’t have stopped him no matter how much they yelled from their creaky chairs. By divine intervention, the loudspeaker blurted “Number 5217, 5217 please.” I jumped up as fast as I possibly could, ran to a desk, and took the test in a %urry of adrenaline from witnessing the #ght. I don’t know what they were #ghting about — a failed test, pricey insurance, or maybe even a bad I.D. picture. Regardless, I do know one thing: I bombed the test, and I haven’t been back to the DMV since. So much for driving.
DMV HORROR STORY
E
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RA
AD
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ILLU
STRA
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NS
BY H
OI L
EUN
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KIM
BERL
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By Ashley Louie Second only to the worry of a bad license picture (check out
tips on thelowell.org) is the nefarious test. Before you start studying for your permit or drivers license exam or even pick up a driving manual, make an appointment at the Daly City Department of Motor Vehicles. In late July, the earliest appointment I could make at the San Francisco DMV was not for another month or so, while the earliest spot at the Daly City DMV was only a couple of weeks away. With an appointment in hand, you can avoid the notoriously long three-hour long line that surrounds the building, and instead wait in a line of #ve to ten people who are as smart as you—smart enough to make an appointment.
A!er #lling out general information that includes your social security number (do not forget it; I did and missed my appointment while my dad drove back home to get it), taking a simple eye exam and taking a picture for either your permit or drivers license, you may have to take the written exam. If you are at the DMV with a pal, have him/her stand in the test correction line to give you a head start in line a!er #nishing your exam. You probably do not want to spend any more time than you have to at DMV.
Finally, study — yes, study! — for the written exam and use common sense to answer questions you are unsure about. Otherwise, you will have to spend another hour taking the exam and lining up again — another visit to the not-so-happiest place on earth.
SURVIVING THE
DMV
By Deidre Foley
You’re driving your snazzy car and
something annoying happens — another
driver cuts you o" or steals a parking space
that was rightfully yours — and a %ash of
rage overcomes you. Do you A) take a
deep breath and move on or B) shout a
curse out the window, %ip the driver the
bird and shake your fist angrily at the
foolish human, wondering why they are
behind the wheel in the #rst place.
Although a little frustration on the road
is perfectly normal, reacting angrily or
aggressively behind the wheel character-
izes road rage. While some reactions, like
swearing or honking, may let o" steam,
others, like tailgating, following, or even
bumping into other vehicles, can be very
dangerous. According to the National
Highway Tra&c Safety Administration, 66
percent of all annual driving fatalities are
caused by aggressive driving.
If you or someone you know often
shows excessive anger while driving, there
are a few easy ways to help you chill out:
1) When anger strikes put yourself in the
other person’s shoes, and remember that
you can only control your own actions.
2) Remind yourself that driving is a co-
operative activity and that your actions
can create a domino e"ect. 3) If you still
#nd yourself wanting to personally deliver
a knuckle sandwich to the driver who
wronged you, remember — they’re prob-
ably more insane than you are.
AUTOMATIC OR MANUAL?
See how our reportersfared with stick. Columns and videoon thelowell.org
