Well first, Happy Halloween everyone!

Today I saw so many creative costumes, and thought about writing about them, but then I remembered how rap artist T.I. is in jail for having machine guns and other weapons in his possesion. When I first heard that, I wanted to write about how tired I was of celebraties doing illegal things and thinking, or should I say knowing, that they are going to get away with it because they have alot of money. However, I decided I’ll just wait to hear what his final verdict will be, before I complain.

With that said, I would just like to leave everyone with the reminder to be SAFE today! Taken from the website, www.imsafe.com, children are four times more likely to be killed on Halloween than on any other evening of the year. So, it would be a good idea to slow down in the neighborhoods, I know I should have, I was in a rush to get home and was going 27 mph instead of the 25! Not a good idea. Next, for the teens,taken from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration FARS data, of the 239 traffic deaths on Halloween in 2004, 54% were alcohol-related, so don’t drink and drive. Lastly, all trick-or-treaters should make sure their costume is visible to other people and cars, and shouldn’t go to a door alone.

Happy Halloween again everyone, have fun tonight, but be safe!

I heard about this guy named DaVido on NPR today - he’s a singer who wants his album sold in Starbucks stores. His song, “Java Jitter” would be great publicity for Starbucks (as if they need more…) but for whatever reason Starbucks refused his music. So DaVido has taken his video camera to hundreds of Starbucks locations, where he has been thrown out because they don’t allow video cameras inside. As cheesy as DaVido might be, I think the footage he compiled is pretty entertaining. Watch it here.

-Allison Levitsky

Since Halloween is just around the corner, I thought I would share one of my favorite pastimes: horror movies. I am not sure if I have some psychotic mentality about it but when I watch horror movies I usually end up laughing.

It all started two years ago, with Nightmare on Elm Street. I watched it on Bravo and the story instantly caught me. The thought of being killed in your dreams by some powerful entity named Freddy Kruger just intrigued me. Oh, let’s not forget, the precious “nerdy-girl-next-door,” archetype. This is probably one of my favorite things about the horror genre, powerful female characters. These tend to be the most exciting scenes for me, when they finally take the monster on one-on-one.

In Nightmare on Elm Street it was Nancy who took on her night terror by setting up traps in her house before going to confront him in her sleep. She isn’t the only tough chick in town.

Laurie Strode combated Mike Myers in Halloween. (I liked both versions new and old, for different reasons. Although, I think the newer Laurie wasn’t as resourceful as Jamie Lee Curtis played her in the original.) In the original she used everything, from knitting needles to close hangers. Laurie was a force to be reckoned with.

Those are two basic’s from the teen-slasher genre, but both are good to watch for Halloween. One movie that people usually haven’t heard about is called The Reeker, yeah dumb title, but I thought it was fairly decent. Basically, teenagers stuck in the desert and an evil entity is trying to kill them. I can’t give away anything else or it would ruin the twist.

Anyway, my friends and I have been looking into Horrorfest, (http://www.horrorfestonline.com/.) It’s a grouping of horror movies that enters select theaters for a short time. Horror movie buffs might want to check it out.

The movies I am planning on watching for Halloween, or when I get to them, are: The Exorcist and Poltergeist, I need to see these old-school horrors and it’s frightening that I haven’t seen them yet.

-Sean Krimmel

I just finished my UC application last night, and I can literally feel a huge weight lifting off my shoulders. But the second I feel the stress reducing and a light at the end of the tunnel; boom! I come to school, and I have 3 tests tomorrow, an in-class essay to prepare for, and SAT II’s this Saturday. And I thought the hard part was finally over with! Where did the fun, social high school life go?

The second that college became competition and APs became class fillers. When did students stop taking classes that interest them, and start adhering to what “name-brand” colleges look for? The worst part of it is, is that I am one of these college-obsessing zombie-like students like every other person at my school.

In my UC essay addressing the prompt about my world, I talked a lot about my multifaceted personality, and how I try not to limit myself to excelling in only certain areas, particularly academia. I want to shake some of this sleep-deprived, stressed out students and ask them, plead them to realize that this isn’t worth it. Killing ourselves to be a Harvard, Yale, or Duke alumni isn’t worth it, if you don’t truly know why you want to go there. This is not to say that I don’t advocate people going to these amazing schools, but I don’t believe that people should go there if the only reason they can name for why they want to is, “because its Harvard.”

I thought the stress of my senior year would only be a phase, and I’m sure it will be, for me. But, as I look around my school during brunch or lunch, and I see freshmen stressing about college, something has to be wrong. Maybe its what their parents are telling them, or maybe it’s the need to maintain that competitive GPA right off the bat, but I think that high school should be an interpersonal experience, that should be enjoyed through the relationships you form.

So put down that text book, and ignore one AP class that you know doesn’t interest you, and enjoy high school. Besides, its only four years long, and you don’t need AP calculus or AP physics to tell you that it’s only a minute fraction of the rest of your life.
—Genevieve

I just arrived home after one of the most brutal weeks of my life. At several moments during the past five days, including right now as I attempt to write a somewhat meaningful blog post, giving up seemed like the best option.

Thankfully I didn’t.

My three main activities—choir, tennis, and the school newspaper—all clashed miserably during the week and eventually culminated simultaneously on Thursday. I spent the entire school day at a choir festival in Orinda, left the rehearsals early to play in my last varsity tennis match against Miramonte, before immediately racing to my journalism classroom to do one last-minute check of our second issue of La Puma, until finally leaving school to perform in my choir concert.

Though an extremely hellish day, everything worked out in the end and I went to bed late Thursday night feeling elated and very proud of the day’s accomplishments. Somehow, my team had managed to beat the undefeated, formidable Miramonte players in a thrilling match. My two choirs gave moving performances of the nine songs we had been working on all year. My school newspaper went to press looking polished and engaging.

My day at school was a completely different scenario. My classmates, and even more disappointing, my friends hardly blinked an eye and couldn’t seem to understand my happiness regarding yesterday. Like nothing special or of any importance had happened when, in reality, it had been an amazingly successful day.

During seventh period, I found an issue of La Puma thrown carelessly into the trash. Seeing that newspaper—representative of all my endless hard work, 6 AM layout sessions, and late nights of editing—just about killed me. The image made me feel like all the time I put into something for the sake of my peers and community went by unappreciated and unnoticed. I do things because I love them. At the same time though, a small token of gratitude or acknolwegement is always nice once in a while.

Maybe it’s pointless to expect recognition from other people who can’t comprehend the hard work that goes on behind the scenes of creating a newspaper or perfecting a piece of music. Maybe people are just ignorant about the things they haven’t experiences. It’s too bad. Why can’t we all just support our peers and congratulate one another on certain accomplishment instead of either remaining indifferent or becoming overall critical as a defense mechanism for one’s own sense of inadequacy?

I arrived home with a completely strained voice from singing all day, our team ribbons in my hair and a celebratory “Stomps the Mats” t-shit, and black newspaper ink all over my fingers. Three little visuals that show how much each activity means to me. Usually, I hate drawing attention to myself or my accomplishments, but for one it would be nice to received even the slightest recognition for what I do. Even appreciation or simply opinions, opposed to the apathetic indifference, that I’m so accustomed to.

This school year, my school district has been reformulating a lot of our curriculum, so I’ve ended up with new books in 3 classes this year. These books weren’t on campus at the end of the last school year for us to use as references for summer homework; they arrived, in fact, about three to six weeks after school had already started. Fortunately, no one was badly impacted. Teachers simply reused old textbooks (which weren’t really over 5 or 6 years old) until the new books arrived.

What I find interesting is that two of these three teachers required students to give the old textbooks back; the other teacher asked, but did not require, students to return the old textbooks. All three teachers said that these books could be sold to other districts for profit.

Granted, none of these books were older than 8 years, and all of them were in usable condition. Yet I find it frightening that my community, which is predominantly white and affluent, should be able to sell books that our schools find unacceptable to other public school districts. Free schooling is one of the great equalizers in America. Under ideal circumstances, it should provide the poorest child with the opportunity to learn at the same level as a child in a richer community. It should show that the American government does not discriminate against its youngest citizens.

I understand that poorer districts cannot always buy new books and that used books are not necessarily bad. But I can’t understand why poorer districts may be dependent on books from richer districts, suffering if administrators or teachers in a wealthier school procrastinated on ordering their books. I can’t understand what happened to the old textbooks that these school districts presumably had last year. Above all, I can’t understand why I receive pristine books, an excellent education, and numerous opportunities that an inner-city student simply cannot experience, when we are paying exactly the same amount of money to attend school.

Our public school system should never become a pecking order.

Well Goodmorning everyone!

So all yesterday I was thinking about what I was going to write here today, and I couldn’t think of anything so I thought I’d just write about a big news story or something. However, there’s something else that’s been on my mind. This concerns one of my classmates at school, who for this story I’ll call Bianca, and our schools military recruiter, who I’ll call Sergerant Blank.

Monday I was in my US Government class and we were watching the movie Farenheit 9/11. After the movie various topics were brought up and discussed concerning the movie. When the military subject came up Bianca raised her hand, and told the class she’s not anti-military at all, but that this year, the presence of the military at our school was too much, and she felt like it needed to lessen; which I agreed with completely.

The military recruiters in the past came to our school probably once or twice a week, and would around talking to students during lunch. This year it seems that every where I go I see this man! He’s not only at school, but at after school events, such as football games, dances, and bonfires! That’s way too much for me.

Well later on that day, Bianca gets a phone call from the military recruiter at our school, Sr. Blank. He says that he’s heard that she’s been talking about him in class and he wants to know if she has a problem with the military. Needless to say Bianca was shocked, and scared, and she didn’t know what to do! She told him that she hadn’t said anything about him, but that she didn’t like the presence of the military at our school. Sr. Blank then said he wanted to know what problem she had with the military, if it was anything specific, but Bianca trying to get off the phone said she had to go. Sr. Blank then said, he’s a “very approachable guy”, and that she can come talk to him at school anytime if she wanted to.

Now personally, I love our military. I know people who just got back from fighting in the war, people who are now fighting in that war, and close friends of mine who plan on fighting in the war, but what this guy did right here, was ridiculous. I don’t think it’s quite legal to use the numbers the district provides these recruiters( in order to recruite students) to call them up and say you heard they were talking about you. That was way out of line! She’s a 17 year old girl, and he’s a 20 or 30-something year old man, I don’t think that should be tolerated.

Well unfortunately I don’t know how this will all end up, since this happend just yesterday. Apparently though, she has talked to our teacher and to our principle so somethings being done. Personally, I would assign the man to another school, or maybe to another duty altogether, until he realizes he can’t be abusing his authority and resources like that.

I had a load of midterms and essays scheduled to get over with this week but Mother Nature had other plans for the residents of Southern California.

Classes at UCSD and at other schools in the area have been canceled due to the rapid spread of dozens of wildfires into residential neighborhoods. The Witch Fire and Harris Fire are two of the main ones that would affect my campus if they were ever to get that close.

As of this morning, the Harris Fire has been contained by only 5% while the Witch Fire continues to be fueled by the strong Santa Ana winds. All major TV stations have deferred regularly scheduled programming in favor of 24-hour news coverage on what is happening.

I woke up early on Monday even though my first class wasn’t scheduled to begin until 11AM. People outside my dorm room jumping and making noise, saying that there weren’t any more classes for the day. The UCSD website is regularly updated to let everyone know the school’s emergency status and evacuation procedures if those steps need to be taken.

Almost everyone was content with the extra days off from schoolwork until late last night. A number of friends started calling me as rumors spread about different parts of campus moving out, but there’s supposed to be at least a 12 hour notice before anything like that would take place.

My roommate who lives near Sacramento offered to give me a ride home at 3 this morning but I decided to go back to sleep. I still have a chance to book a plane or train ticket back to the Bay Area for the next few days but I think I’ll stay here until things calm down. By the time I wake up tomorrow, over half my building will be empty as many people plan to make a trip back home.

I think I’m beginning to get used to all the smoke and ashes flying around everywhere. The air quality is definitely getting poorer as each day passes and I find myself stuck indoors for the most part. I called my dad to let him know that I was alright and didn’t plan on coming home for the rest of the week. All I can do now is hope that the fires will eventually be contained and that classes will resume by next Monday.

- Joseph Natividad

Textbooks always seem to arrive well after the beginning of the school year at Clayton Valley. This year, however, books rolled in particularly late.

For example, in my honors physics class we only received our books a few weeks ago, much to the dismay of my teacher. We went ahead learning the material without books, but unfortunately this year’s books were different than last years. As a result, we had to relearn material previously taught in order to understand how the book explained concepts.

I realize that books don’t have to be available to students until the eighth week of school, but from a student’s perspective, I think that’s totally unacceptable. How can I be expected to learn or study efficiently on my own time if I don’t even so much as have a book to study with?

Schools tell their students to show up to class prepared to work every day, but what happens when students show up to class and the school is unprepared? If I’m going to show up to class every day, then the least the school can do is give me a textbook.
–Michelle Trosclair

Actually, just no more books.

Why does state law only require books to be provided by the end of the eighth week of the school year? While no class I have ever been in has taken this long to provide books, I personally have been subjected to my fair share of beginning-of-the-year filler class periods. Before the class is ready to begin the curriculum, we comb through the class policies, do various “getting to know you” activities, and sometimes there is a day or two when we don’t do anything at all.

This article presented the fact that many Bay Area classes are actually assigning essays and tests without books available to students - an unfair practice that needs to be stopped. This is a waste of both students’ and teachers’ time, so why does it still take so long to get books out?

The answer is probably just bureaucratic disorganization and laziness. In any case, the system by which books get from point A to point B and point B to point C (point C being the backpacks of students) is not working, so the education of thousands of students is suffering. Maybe it doesn’t seem like much, but we only have about 180 days of instruction per year. Can we really afford to miss out on up to forty days of valuable learning time just because of this inefficient system?

Sure, there is more to education than books. Teachers should only use books for a fraction of their lesson plan and present a variety of learning tools. But how can a student be expected to write a literature-response essay with no book to quote from? This was exactly the situation College Park High School senior Elliot Meme found himself in this year. He was not given a copy of T.S.Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral and therefore struggled to write an essay comparing the book to Oedipus Rex.

Such unfairness can, in extreme cases, damage a GPA.

It’s the ninth week of school now, so hopefully everyone has their books.

-Allison Levitsky