Issue12

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GO GREEN FOR THE GLOBE

700 Medford Dr. Annandale, VA 22003

The city-wide measure, resulting in a supreme court case, has launched a national controversy.

WEATHER TODAY Scattered Showers High: 59

14

SIX-RING PROTEST

GUN BAN RAISES DEBATE

Small endeavors in transitioning to the ecofriendly can have a big impace on the environment.

703-642-4229

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2008 Students and teachers describe their reactions to the Beijing olympics and Chinese policies.

20 SPEEDING INTO SPRING FUN Weekend provides a complete guide to the areaʼs best theme parks.

Seniors scramble for cash to pay for big night

Too Few Spaces for Too Many Drivers

Low: 45

LUNCH TODAY

Macaroni & Cheese w/ Muffin, Soft Beef Taco w/ Shredded Cheese, Deli Line, PB&J Sandwich, Pizza Line, Salads, Yogurt

NEWSBRIEFS

As the economy hits a downturn, students find Prom expenses soaring

Students and teachers prepare for 5k race

BY NATHALIE SPITA News Editor PAUL MATHIS

The 4th Annual Atoms 5k Run/ Walk will be held on May 17, starting at 8:30 a.m. Sponsored by the Atoms Boosters, the walk is identical to last year’s. The walk starts at Four Year Run and winds through the Annandale community. Prizes will be provided for the first three men and women overall. For more information, visit annandaleatoms.com

Junior Ki Lee gets into his car parked at the United Korean Church, a popular spot for students who do not have a parking space on school grounds. AHS has only 96 parking spaces to satisfy its 2,600 students and 250 faculty members, forcing many students to compete for spaces in legal public areas or illegal spots in the community.

Spring parking frenzy The following students were admitted to Governor’s School: Shriya Adhikary, Paul Bernfeld, Son Duong, Claire Garney, Twinkle Mann, Imran MacMillan, Kyle Mills, Natalia Schwien, Joel Waters, Que Le, Matt Perez, Jane Rabinovitz, Whitney Davis.

Babies welcomed in Science Department Two teachers in the Science Department recently had babies.

Xiara Davis and her husband Jermiah Davis had Jeremiah Allen Davis, Jr. on April 23. Francesca Mast and husband Brent Mast received a new addition to their family in the form of Cormac Orlando Mast who was born on April 24.

Student wins states, first in AHS history Culinary Arts student Monica Munet-Carr won the State championship for the Culinary Arts Contest on April 26. Munet-Carr has earned a seat in the National Championship for Culinary Arts Hot Foods Production in Kansas, City, MO in late June. The grand prize at the competition is a $100,000 scholarship.

Atoms athletic booster club scholarship The Atoms athletic booster club will award four graduating student athletes a $1000 scholarship to help pay for college tuitions.

The athlete must have lettered.

BY NATHALIE SPITA News Editor Students with cars have been competing for parking spaces on school and public grounds for as long as recent memory extends. However, spring finds these students in even higher competition as more and more students are granted licenses.

“It’s becoming too crowded because the sophomores are beginning to drive,” said senior Lex Layton who arrives at the church 45 minutes before school begins in order to acquire a space. “If you can’t find parking at the church, you drive aimlessly around until you can find an illegal parking spot.”

AHS is only able to allocate 96 spaces to students each year due to lack of space. These parking spaces are situated in parking lots at Ossian Park and the rear of the track, and along the length of the track. However, these spaces are not sufficient to provide for AHS’s 2,600 students, leaving hundreds of students without secured parking spaces.

The United Korean Church behind AHS, where a majority of spot-less

“PROM” continued on page 5

Online safety measures increased for teacher-surfers to address Internet safety in classrooms, school and community settings in upcoming years.

By law, passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 2006, all FCPS personnel must complete i-SAFE’s Professional Development Training Program by Oct. 1, 2008.

The training is made up of six online video training sessions on Internet safety.

“Each session should not take more than an hour to complete, so it should take less than six hours to complete the entire

BY DREW FLOWERS Staff Writer Preventive measures in Internet safety are being taught to all teachers in Fairfax County Public Schools in partnership with a non-profit foundation called i-SAFE Inc. in an effort to forestall Internet predators from taking advantage of FCPS students. i-SAFE Inc. is a leader in Internet safety education. All FCPS teachers, staff, and personnel are being asked to be prepared

training,” said Rebecca Bartelt,AHS’School Based Technology Specialist.

“I had a free weekend because it was raining, so I just knocked it out real fast,” said English teacher Nancy Grim.

Once completing the training, an electronic certificate of completion will be available as proof.

“After hearing about some of the things that happen [online], you really have to think about the information you put out there. I know that those kinds of people

are out there, but it doesn’t really hit you until you hear real life stories about it,” said Grim.

One video tells the story of a girl involved in an online FBI experience. “Imagine your playing in your soccer game for your school team and you look towards the sidelines and see a strange man staring and smiling at you. You think nothing of it and finish the game and then go home.

“Later that night, just after dinner, “ONLINE” continued on page 5

Dreary math enlivened by Calculus: The Musical!

23%

BY PAUL MATHIS Co-Editor in Chief

PAUL MATHIS

This survey was distributed on April 25 during A, C, and D lunches. Of 500 surveys distributed, 455 were completed and returned.

students park, populations. “West offers a multiPotomac has no tude of spaces. street parking and Yet, the influx they have all 175 of new drivers spots on school has made these grounds. Mount spots harder to Vernon has about come by. “I still 100 spaces, most of it think it is not street parking,” said fair how we Safety and Security only have 100 Specialist Chris Tipparking spots pins. West Potomac and our school HS and Mount Verhas over 2,600 non HS have 1,959 students,” said Many students park at the United Korean students and 1,783 Layton. students, respectively.

Church, arriving as early as 6:30 a.m.

“I feel bad “Out of the three schools that I am a junior and I have a parking I have worked at, [AHS] has the smallest space, and I feel bad because I see seniors amount of parking spaces.” competing with sophomores and juniors Coupled with AHS’s lack of space on for spaces,” said junior Tim Hepburn, school grounds is a lack of space in the who has a parking space near the track. surrounding community. “The commu“I wish we had more parking spots. A nities have tightened up and now you lot of other schools have tons of park- have to have a neighborhood permit [to ing spaces, like Lake Braddock, South park there],” said Tippins. “CommuniCounty, Woodson and Westfield.” ties don’t want the mess.”

AHS does have significantly fewer parking spaces in comparison to other “PARKING” continued on page 5 schools in regards to their student

Senior Skylar Leslie takes a look at her new prom dress in the mirror.

45%

32%

Do you think that China should be able to host the Olympics?

As juniors face higher competition for spaces, they again question why there are so few

LINDSAY JACOBS

Students admitted to Governor’s School

With Prom scheduled for May 30, seniors are beginning to finalize their plans in the hopes of making this year’s “big night” all that they had hoped it would be. However, with the economy in downturn and gas prices skyrocketing, seniors are finding themselves spending more than usual.

“I have been saving up money to pay for everything,” said senior Skylar Leslie who is in a group of 12. “I have already spent about $300.”

“I have spent around $400 to $450,” said senior Angela Siler.

Though some girls splurge for the perfect dress, guys often have to do double duty, paying for dual dinners and dual spots in limos. “I am paying for everything except [my date’s] dress,” said Senior Cameron Schlerman. “I am going to be extremely broke.”

This year’s Prom, hosted by the Class of 2008 will be at the Waterford in Springfield, following the theme “Springtime in Paris.” The expenses for this year’s prom will add up to $20,000.

The senior class has obtained money through fundraisers but the cost will primarily be paid by revenue from the selling of tickets, which will go for $45 a person this year. Tickets will be sold

COURTESY OF SKYLAR LESLIE

VOLUME #54 ISSUE 12

ANNANDALE HIGH SCHOOL

Marc Gutman, star of Calculus: The Musical!, gives a shout out to integrals through rap.

Parents of eighth grade students chatting in Clausen Hall on Thursday night, April 24, might have been taken aback by loud rapping emanating from the AHS auditorium, coupled with the sounds of cheering students. Though a faint Eminem beat was discernable within the electrified noise, the featured artists were hardly heralded

Billboard artists. In fact, they were rapping about calculus.

That ‘s right. Calculus. Matheatre’s presentation of Calculus: The Musical!, a free show attended by Fairfax County students from over eight schools, featured musical models of songs by Simon and Garfunkel, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and of course, Eminem himself, fit to lyrics associated with high school math’s pinnacle subject.

Numbers (names included “Without Rei-

mann,” the rap spoof, and “Triggy Rules”) were complete with lyrics describing some of calculus’s most important components, including the Product Rule, the Quotient Rule, and “everyone’s favorite,” L’Hopital’s Theorem.

Calculus: The Musical! is probably the first of its kind, according to creators Sadie Bowman and Marc Gutman (also the show’s stars). The unique approach to math CALCULUS” continued on page 5

2 Dems: Don’t Panic After Hillary Clinton’s ten point victory over Barack Obama in Pennsylvania, panic has set into the Democratic party. Questions over whether the length of the Democratic race have plagued the party, as well as doubts about the effectiveness of Obama’s campaign and whether the Democrats would blow their opportunity to gain the White House to John McCain. However, these prominent Democratic super-delegates need to calm down, as the Democrats are still the clear favorites to win the White House back in November.

First off, people are overlooking the obvious advantages that the Democratic nominee will have in resources and about the obvious issues that will affect the country. For example, one of the obvious flaws about McCain’s candidacy has been virtually ignored: he’s a foreign policy candidate in a presidential election that will likely be about economic policy. McCain has admitted that he does not know much about the economy. Therefore, his plans will be a carbon copy of George Bush’s plan, pledging to cut government spending and lower taxes.

EDITORIALS

—Greg Young Sports Editor

On page 1 in the story, “Spring spirit week” Angelo Hilios was misquoted as saying “that two spirit weeks were enough.” There was only one spirit week.

On page 1 in the story, “Boyfriend to debut with sass,” Vicki Farish’s name was mispelled.

Countries like Lebanon are unable to accommodate the great number of refugees, currently amounting to more than 40,000. Many of the refugees are put in prison because the country does not currently have a refugee law. Therefore the refugees are treated like illegal immigrants and given the ultimatum of returning to Iraq and risking their lives or remaining in Lebanon and staying in jail. Though the U.S. has spent billions of dollars per month on this war, the amount of money used to aid the Iraqi refugees is only in the millions.

Though small strides have been made in the area of aid the bottom line is more needs to be done. Representatives from the State and Homeland Security departments said they are committed to substantially increasing the number of Iraqi refugees admitted to the United States this year to 12,000, a small dent in the nearly 4 million who are homeless.

The strain on Iraq’s neighbors threatens to destabilize the entire region. Jordan, a strong ally of the United States with a population of 6 million, has received 500,000 Iraqi refugees for an 8 percent increase in the country’s population during a two-year period.

The U.S. administration has also increased humanitarian assistance for displaced Iraqis to $200 million in 2008, up from $43 million in 2006. The amount is laughable when compared to the billions of dollars spent on the war itself.

The U.S. needs to meet with bordering countries such as Syria and Jordan to discuss the influx of refugees and how we can help. The U.S. also needs to let more refugees into the U.S. Lastly lawmakers need to recognize what is happening and try to end the refugee problem rather than ignore it.

The number of Iraqi refugees is rising as there is no sign of an end to the war

BY SARAH SHAMI Staff Writer “Bring ‘em home” is a common phrase in the U.S., written on posters, spoken through megaphones and even alleged as a promise of action by a few candidates for political offices. However, the same phrase can also be heard thousands of miles away in Iraq, where more than 3.9 million refugees (almost 16% of the country’s population), displaced by the half decade long war, struggle to find a home. The number of Iraqi refugees admitted into the U.S. since the war began in 2003 is only 4,993.

Roughly 40% of Iraq’s middle class is believed to have fled. Most are fleeing systematic persecution and have no desire to return. The insurgents have targeted all kinds of people, from university professors to bakers. An estimated 331 schoolteachers were slain in the first four months of 2006, according to the Human Rights Watch, and at least 2,000 Iraqi doctors have been murdered and 250 kidnapped since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

The Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan live in impoverished communities with little international attention to their plight and little legal protection. The U.S. originally went into Iraq with the intention of liberating the Iraqi people from a tyrannical regime. What has instead hap-

The United Nations expects that another million Iraqis will flee their country. There are already two million Iraqis internally displaced.

pened is that there has been a fatal blow to the geopolitical balance of the region and as a result sparked the beginnings of a civil war.

Refugees International has said that the Iraqi refugee crisis is even worse than the tragedy in Darfur, Sudan, where an estimated 400,000 people have died and two million have been relocated by attacks on their villages by government backed militias.

It is thought that two million Iraqis have already fled their country; UN agencies expect another million to follow them into exile in 2007. Ethnic cleansing has internally displaced an additional two million Iraqi civilians. No one knows how many Iraqis have been killed in the war: estimates range from 250,000 to 650,000.

We can stop the hatred

BY CARLOS GALICIA Staff Writer

The media is constantly praising and admiring Latino achievements, accomplishments, traditions, foods, various cultures and the beauty of our native homelands.

But recently the media seems to be saturated with negativity and hate. With this year being an election year, there is definitely an interest in political issues. The boiling concern of the National Council of La Raza is immigration and the demonization of Latino immigrants, whether illegal or not.

The National Council of La Raza, which is the largest national non-profit Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., has decided to take a stance against the hate speech that has slowly been surfacing in the media.

This organization has taken up the task of documenting hate groups and vigilantes that are active in the anti-immigration movement.

After plenty of investigations, the National Council of La Raza has come to some startling conclusions. They claim that the debate over the immigration issue no longer exists.

They also state that the media has been infiltrated by extremists and hate groups and that the media has allowed hate and violence toward certain religions, racial groups and ethnicities to be portrayed.

Rules of Thumb Danica Patrick wins Indy Japan 300 Female racecar driver Danica Patrick won the Indy Japan 300 after passing Helio Castroneves three laps from the end of the race. Castroneves is a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner. Patrick went the last 51 laps without a pit stop.

Patrick first made news after becoming the first female racer to lead in the Indianapolis 500.

Police find 18 pounds of cocaine during traffic stop Three men in California were arrested after police found cocaine in their car. Officers found over 18 pounds of cocaine and over $5,500 in cash. The drugs were hidden in an area above a light fixture in the truck cab. The men are being held on $100,000 bail each and will be charged with posession with intent to sell. The men were pulled over for not having a license plate on the truck.

Rule: Get a license plate

Bear kills trainer after biting him in the neck The grizzly bear used in such films as Semi-Pro was pepper sprayed after biting his trainer in the neck. The 5-year-old bear, weighing 700 pounds, appeared in a scene where Will Ferrell’s character had to wrestle a bear. A stunt double was used for that portion of the film.The trainer was unable to be revived by a traumatic injury response unit.

Although many animals who attack their trainers are killed, the fate of this bear is yet to be determined.

Rule: Don’t feed the bears

boots, creating deep slashes. The attackers then drove a sharpened plastic PVC pipe into his rectum so deep that damage was caused to his internal organs. During the attack, they sputtered racial slurs at the boy.

The attack lasted for more than an hour. Ritcheson was left lying unattended for ten hours. In December 2006, the perpetrators were convicted of aggravated sexual assault.

Tuck was sentenced to life in prison and Turner was sentenced to 90 years.

Ritcheson was quoted as saying, “I shouldn’t care what people think or say. It’s just the fact that everyone knows I’m the kid. It was bigger than Houston. It was bigger than Texas. It was bigger than America. Everybody in the world knew what had happened and everybody knew the details of it.”

As if this were not enough, the story does not end there.

On July 1, 2007, Ritcheson committed suicide by jumping off the deck of a cruise ship while on a family vacation. He was unable to cope with the emotional and psychological scars thes incident and the media attention left on him.

The underlying question is how can someone gather and muster up such anger, hatred, barbarity and savagery?

Where does all of this hate come from? Latinos are not going away. They comprise 14 percent of the population and it is estimated that they will become the majority population of the U.S. by 2050.

It is up to our generation to be able to use our brains and be able to sift through the media’s garbage and manipulation of information. It is our job to stop the hatred.

The organization has recorded proof where Latino immigrants are referred to as threats to American society, subhuman and, at times, inferior. For more information on the findings, research and the study conducted by the National Council of La Raza please visit www.wecanstop thehate.org.

When the media uses words claiming that our country is being “invaded” or that we are undergoing an “invasion” or that “there is a massive moving herd of illegal aliens flooding our country” it creates an inaccurate and false depiction. History proves that such an occurance may lead to extreme civil rights abuses.

The power and influence that the media has on thoughts and opinions is immeasurable. The minds of people are like clay; when the media offers biased points of views it can mold views and opinions on issues, especially on such big and controversial issues as immigration.

People immigrate to the United States for many reasons, whether it be to escape poverty, to receive an education, to escape genocide, or flee any other unfair form of government.

The media has set loose a wave of attacks and hate speech against immigrants. They have unleashed the resentment and hatred that has never been seen within our generation before.

The media has caused the metaphor of the U.S. as a “melting pot” to be no more. It has caused the days of welcoming people with open arms to come to an end.

In 2006, David Ritcheson, 16, of Houston, Texas was dragged out from a party and beaten up by attackers David Henry Tuck, 18, and Keith Robert Turner, 17, after doing the unimaginable, kissing a “white girl.”

Ritcheson was dragged out and stripped of his clothing.

He was then kicked repeatedly in the chest with steel-toed

Carlos.Galicia@thea-blast.org

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th Annandale High School 4700 Medford Dr. Annandale, Virginia 22003

Vol. 53 No. 12 (703)642-4229 April 30, 2008 email: thea-blast@thea-blast.org fax: (703)642-4299

Staff Editors In Chief: Mohamad Elbarasse Paul Mathis

Art Editors: Nena Buck Tigist Tamir

Managing Editor: Sarah Waiter

Webmasters: Erick Vu Matt Camilli

News Editors:

Rule: Watch out, boys

Issue 11 Corrections

April 30, 2008

Refugees on the rise

The media has played a large part in the advancement of hatred and discrimination The vast majority of Americans already believe that the country’s economy is heading in the wrong direction, so why would they accept an economic plan that simply offers more of the same policies that are plunging them into a deep recession?

Also, do not forget, McCain is a vocal supporter of the Iraq war, an endeavor that despite the apparent progress of the surge, is still very unpopular among the American people.

McCain has not faced a candidate that has directly tied him to Bush’s failed Iraq policies, but when the Democratic candidate does in the fall, it could destroy his candidacy and his so-called spirit of independence, which is the main source of his popularity among voters.

The Democrats will also have a clear money advantage this fall.

This past March, Obama raised $40 million, Clinton nearly $20 million. But John McCain? Only $15 million, about a quarter of the Democrats combined total. This means that the Democrats will have more then enough resources to tie McCain to Bush’s failed policies.

To super-delegates, this message should be clear: let this process finish itself out. Even if the Democrats take this all the way to June, they will still have more than enough time to unify the party and defeat a flawed GOP candidate.

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Kelly McGarey Nathalie Spita

Editorials Editors: Lara Coulter Kat Reach In-Depth Editors: Shriya Adhikary Aya Saed Sports Editors:

Walter Smith Greg Young

Sports Xtra Editors: Lyndsay Jacobs Marisa Tordella People Editor: Waliha Gani Weekend Editor: Caroline Merz International Editors: Bewketu Tamir Annika Jessen Entertainment Editors:Avery Adcock Jeffrey Dean Health Editors: Vanessa Cerro Academics Editors: Logan Miller Amy Steinbeuchler

Graphics Editor: Adam Kasdorf Video Editor in Chief: Gus Nielsen Videographers/Editors: Michael Craig, Tim Reynolds, Kyle White, Brad Grabo and Evan McGurrin Photography Editors: Matt Johnson Laura Simpson Copy Editor: Kyle Knoche Ad Manager: Meredith Rutherford Circulation Manager: Amy Stevens Online Staff: Stacey Irwin Staff Writers/Photographers: Laith Abu-Taleb, Laura Ambrosio, Emma Whitmyre, Jerry Solomon, Adeel Shams, Charlie Simpson, Tanya Bellingham, Omar Mayassi, Carlos Galicia, Sarah Shami, Brooke Barlow, Claire Bui, Drew Flowers, and Rachel Burnette Adviser: Alan Weintraut

The A-Blast is an award winning newspaper that strives to inform, educate and entertain the student body and community. Published every three weeks, The A-Blast will not print any material that is obscene or libelous; or that which substantially disrupts the school day, or invades an individual’s right to privacy.

The A-Blast is an independent, open forum for discussion that is printed at the Springfield Plant of The Washington Post. Signed letters to the editor of 250 words or less may be submitted to room 262 or mailed to the school. The A-Blast reserves the right to refuse advertisements. All submissions become property of The A-Blast, Copyright, 2008.

OPINION

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April 30, 2008

The debate debacle to know that the candidates have a plan for what they are going to do to ameliorate our current situation. Instead we are mostly witnessing a popularity contest that includes a lot of superficial name calling.

Ahuge responsibility is placed on the moderators of the debates. In the earlier debates the public was well served by the moderators’ questions which prompted dialogue on the important issues. However, recently, the questions

BY JONAH WILLIAMS posed are simply embarrassing and no longer address the Staff Writer important issues. On the rare occasion that a legitimate HasAmerica really become this small minded and eas- question is asked, there is almost never a follow up quesily distracted? For those of us who are still patient enough tion. Without a follow up question the candidates are able to be following the Democratic primary and debates, it to gloss over their positions and never get deeper than the has become extremely frustrating because the focus of the face value of their views.

If it’s not bad enough that the moderators of these dedebates has deteriorated. Debate after debate is watched with the hope that “the next one will be better.” But the bates will not ask the pressing questions, the candidates truth is, they aren’t getting better, in fact, they are getting themselves have begun to nit pick at one another on sound bites taken out of context. Obama has actually been acmuch worse.

America tunes in to hear the answers to tough ques- cused of giving Clinton the finger for simply scratching tions about the important issues such as the Iraq war, his face. Never before have the Democratic presidential candidates gotten health care, social security, and the economy. Inthis caught up in stead, the candidates are simply drilled with the negative gossip nor same petty questions about people they once knew this distracted from that made unpatriotic remarks, or exaggerations of The questions posed are simply the real and pressing incurring sniper fire in Iraq. My point is not that issues at hand. these things are totally irrelevant, but simply that embarrassing and no longer There is, howevthese should not be the focus of America’s interest address the important issues. er, one benefit from at this critical juncture. all of this gossip and We are in a war that Senator John McCain bickering. Once a has sworn to continue if he becomes president.

Democratic candiOur national debt is now over nine trillion dollars. date is chosen and Our social security fund is predicted to run dry in begins campaigning the next several decades. Inflation is soaring. The federal government has yet to deal with the immigration against John McCain, there will be nothing for him to bring problem. Gas prices are at an all-time high. We as a up that has not already been brought up and analyzed. country are in dire straights in many areas and the only The Democratic nominees are leaving no stone unturned questions we can pose to our next presidential candidates in their epic battle of misconstrued insignificant facts.

So the question is posed, has America really become are based primarily on petty gossip. We, as voters, need

Not your typical drunken car accident

”

COURTESY OF OBAMA.SENATE.GOV

Today’s political debates lack the substance and seriousness that past debates could offer

“

3 “A recent drunk driving accident has left one dead.” When one hears this, one has to admit there isn’t much shock involved.

This story, however, stands out. While riding his bicycle along the traffic-laden Route 139 during the night hours, Gary Sanborn, 60, was tragically struck and killed by a pickup truck whose driver, Adrian MacKinnon, 44, was intoxicated.

The twist? Sanborn was riding a bicycle because his license had been taken away 10 years ago after he committed four separate drunken driving offenses.

This is further proof that, sadly, it will take a tragedy for many people to finally learn the importance of self control and not driving drunk.

Sanborn was a frequent drunk driver whose extreme luck protected him from hurting others. He neglected to learn the importance of driving sober and, ironically, became a victim of drunk driving as a result.

– Lara Coulter Editorials Editor

Barack Obama recently caused a media frenzy when he scratched his face using his middle finger during a presidential debate.

this caught up in the little things? Has gossip become more important than ideas and strategies?

Eleanor Roosevelt put it well when she said, “Great minds discuss ideas.Average minds discuss events. Small minds, discuss people.”

Its time the Democratic candidates pull it together and start acting like the presidents they hope to be.

What do you do to help the environment?

Jonahwill@aol.com

“I recycle and I use lightbulbs that conserve energy and last longer.”

Save the world: go green National issues continue to distract from more important global environment crisis

Mo’s

Mindset Opinion

By Mohamad Elbarasse In the midst of the primaries, the attention of citizens is constantly shifted from one critical issue to the next.

From the Iraq War to the economy, voters’ attention span are as fickle as a hyperactive five year old. But as usual, the environment is constantly shoved to the side. With carbon emissions reaching record highs, the time to “go green” is long overdue.

The U.S. should be leading the pack in fighting global warming and pollution. If the rest of the world is expected to act and make a significant difference, the U.S. must cut back on its emissions. Together with Australia, the U.S. is responsible for more than a quarter of the world’s carbon emissions.

It is evident that political intervention has failed. The U.S. refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which binds countries to an agreement to lower emission levels by a certain percentage each year, moving towards reducing the levels

10 Ways to Go Green 1. Recycle 2. Buy a water filter 3. Carpool/ use public transportation 4. Use compact fluorescent light bulbs 5. Don’t buy aerosols 6. Dispose properly of hazardous waste 7. Plant a tree 8. Reuse paper and plastic bags 9. Conserve energy 10. Create a compost pile to zero. And despite a tremendous effort to inform the public and influence policy by Al Gore through his film, An Inconvenient Truth, the public is still not acting out against global warming.

Alas, the power lies with the individual. Everyday people can do simple things that can ultimately make a huge difference. From filtering your own tap water instead of buying bottled to recycling, it is not that hard to help the cause.

Another new eco-friendly trend is slugging. Slugging, a phenomenon that is finding its way into many U.S. suburbs, is essentially carpooling with strangers. Drivers who wish to drive in the high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, but need more passengers to drive on the less congested lanes can go to a designated slugging spot and pick up passengers.

Slugging, for those who work in the city, is a great alternative to driving and it is free. In addition to saving money on gas, sluggers would be doing the environment a favor by carpooling. Carpooling reduces the amount of carbon emissions that are released into the atmosphere by cars.

Sluggers must abide by rules or guidelines that are specified on local websites. Slugging is most popular in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Pittsburgh.

For those who are hesitant to jump in a car with a stranger, public transportation has always been an easy alternative. Metro buses and trains are regularly running in Northern Virginia and can take one practically anywhere.

My car recently did not pass inspection, deeming it unfit to drive after the month of April. So here I am, reverted to the status of a lowly bus rider, waking up earlier and getting home later. But I know that by taking the bus I am doing something to help deter global warming, which makes my bus rides a tad bit less humiliating, but mind-numbing all the same.

As clichéd as it sounds, little things make a difference.

If everyone works together – if not everyone, then at least a significant amount – change is not impossible.

We should all be making sacrifices for our planet. Even if it is as small an act as taking the bus, walking or biking instead of driving, we can make a difference. The time has come to act and if no action is taken now, there may not be another chance.

YouTube blamed for filmed beating Shocking online video of teen fight wrongly builds further blame on Internet companies

BY LARA COULTER Editorials Editor The typical pattern of denial of personal responsibility continues.

Ringing familiarity with previous incidents of redirected blame, such as the McDonalds lawsuit made by an obese woman claiming the food chain was responsible for her eating problems, or the recent death of a Cardinals pitcher in a self-caused drunk car accident that led his family to sue the bar which supplied him drinks, or more commonly the several lawsuits that have been pressed against tobacco companies by their customers for their failing health, now the Internet site YouTube and the Internet as a whole have become the American public’s decidedly new scapegoat.

It began following the YouTube release of a grainy, 3-minute video depicting the brutal beating of Lakeland, FL, teen Victoria Lindsay. Hundreds of thousands of Internet cruisers have since witnessed the infamous chilling video of Lindsay helplessly fight for her life as several former friends trap her and beat her senseless.

Thanks to the media’s special attention, the video’s back-story is now as famous as the video itself. It has been revealed that tensions that eventually provoked the fight possibly stemmed from alleged comments Lindsay posted on her MySpace that insulted the teen girls.

In retaliation, Lindsay was attacked by six teenage girls ages 14-17 after she was lured to her friend Mer-

cedes Nichols’ home. There the girls ambushed her and always existed, even when they themselves were teens. blocked the door, beating her multiple times even after Kids have always beaten up other kids, girls have always Lindsay became unconscious. Two teenage boys acted gossiped about other girls, and teens have always sought notoriety among their teenage peers. These occurrences as lookouts during the incident.

The most horrifying detail to the attack is the girls’ happen no more often then they did before the Internet videotaping of Lindsay’s beating, to which the teens ad- existed, the only difference is that, through the Internet, mit they had intended to post on YouTube in retaliation we are made more aware of when it happens.

Regardless of their intentions following the beating, to Lindsay’s online threats.

Since the video’s release on the Internet, there has the girls who hurt Victoria Lindsay were so enraged that been a frenzy of media focus on the Landlake teens and they probably would have hurt her no matter whether the few blatantly fame-hungry and shameless families YouTube existed or not.And had they not videotaped the who have willingly spoke out. Shockingly, most of these incident, police may not have had the evidence to arrest families, Lindsay’s own parents included, blame the and prosecute them.

The genuine blame correctly lies on the girls themInternet.

“It all goes back to what the Internet is doing to selves. First, and not to say she deserved the beating, our kids…I’m very upset at these Internet companies. Lindsay should be held responsible for the threats she made to the girls. But he girls who MySpace is the anti-Christ beat Lindsay are solely responsible for children,” said Victoria for their own actions. They simply Lindsay’s father in an interwere incapable of handling the gosview. “These websites that are YouTube and the Internet sip that every high school student creating a space for criminal as a whole have become the endures. activity – beatings, fights, Ultimately, the sad reality is MTV’s Jackass and all the American public’s decidedly that everyone, especially girls, are other types of videos that are going to be talked about during out – are enticing our children new scapegoat. high school. You can either choose and desensitizing our children. to have the class to take it gracefully And now, if they create the and ignore it, or you can choose to best shock video, they are the be vindictive and immature and heroes.”

This would be accurate, if it were in the same sense wrongfully strike back. These girls chose the latter, and that the sky is brown. The reality of the situation is that as a result have been publicly embarrassed and may go the Internet is no more responsible for the actions of these to jail for the rest of their lives. girls than the constructions workers who built the house Laracoulter@cox.net that the beating occurred in.

If these parents were to think realistically for a second, they would remember that situations such as this have

— Clara Peebles sophomore

“I recycle and I’m helping the Science Honor Society with a compost bin.”

—Ariellae Pak junior

“I walk to school, take the bus to work and use those lightbulbs that conserve energy.”

—Muhammad Riaz senior

“I ride my bike and don’t accelerate when I drive.”

—Stephen Kim senior

“I don’t litter.

Instead, I find a trashcan.”

—Nick Bush senior

“

”

“I recycle paper at school, plastic and glass at home. I don’t litter and I don’t smoke.”

—Monica Bentley Business teacher

Student Elections

NEWS BRIEFS Meet the Officers

On April 24, AHS’s freshman, sophomore and junior classes conducted elections for next year’s representatives.

Each class’s newly chosen leaders will begin to take up their responsibilities at the end of the summer in preparation for the 2008-2009 school year. Their responsibilities include planning Graduation, Homecoming and the Senior Prom as well as preparing Homecoming floats and organizing fundraisers.

Though the governments of each class work together to accomplish these tasks, each member has a specific responsibility.

“The president oversees everything, the vice president does the same. Secretaries take notes at the meetings. The treasurer is in charge of fundraisers, and senators attend class meetings,” said leadership student Dyasha Arauz.

Each class representative seemed equally optimistic about his or her ability to carry out successful fundraisers, increase school spirit and plan fun and exciting pep rallies during their time in office. One difficulty in following through on these goals, however, is the requirement that the student government work through the administration to plan events and make changes in activities.

“If they [student government] want to do something then they have to go through administration and write up proposals,” said leadership student Gizem Fern. The administration has denied many of these proposals in the past, preventing a portion of the changes student government has planned from taking affect.

“The administration has disapproved of a lot of events,” said 2008 class president Laith Abu-Taleb. “The talent show we proposed about two or three times, but was rejected and we don’t know the reasons. But Mr. Ponton has been helping us a lot though, He’s really been on our side.”

Unfortunately, working with the administration is not the only difficulty for the student body. The lack of commitment to class duties seems to be frustrating many current officers.

“A lot of people [student government leaders] aren’t really dedicated,” according toAbu-Taleb. “Of the 12 officers, maybe three were dedicated this year. People do it for college applications and don’t really want to help out. We need people that have a genuine interest in their class,” he said.

Furthermore, the newly instituted voluntary election process ensured that only students truly interested in student government voted, and reduced the ‘popularity contest’ element that has been seen in past elections. This improved the odds of election for representatives that would assuredly pursue student interests. However, it still remains unclear whether the elected representatives will follow through on their responsibilities, and if they will be able to work through the school’s administration during the coming year.

President:

Samantha Wilkins

Vice President: Glenda Ngo

Secretary: Anita Obasi

Wilkins

Class of 2010 President:

Tamika Jones

Vice President: Susan Al-Suqi

Secretary: Julie Jurenas

Hope Stadulis

Jones

Class of 2011 President:

Natalie Johnson

Vice President: Carly Bouchard

Secretary:

Henlena Bolay

Treasurer: Kelsey Price

Johnson

On April 1, the Leadership Officers, who are responsible for activities involving the entire student body were elected.

SGA School Officers Dennis Monroy

Vice President: Nomin Bayarjargal Amanda Krause Monroy

BY SCOTT PLUNKETT Staff Writer “The 1920’s did exist in Europe too you know,” said senior Skylar Leslie to the audience.

Leslie, who played one of the ‘young ladies,’ along with fellow senior Jenni Patton, who played the role of the eccentric French maid Hortense, set the scene in their introduction for the AHS Theatre Department’s production of “The Boyfriend.”

The humorous lines, excellent coordination and outstanding musical numbers continued non-stop throughout the story of six girls searching for love and in some cases money, at the prestigious Madame Dubonnet’s School for Young Ladies. The cast’s effort was evident as the pit Orchestra, led by band teacher Jack Elgin, synchronized flawlessly with the actors singing.

“They [the band] practiced by themselves while we practiced by ourselves then we joined up,” said senior

BY STACEY IRWIN Staff Writer In April, for the first time ever at AHS, Islam Awareness Month occurred. Sponsored by the Muslim Student Association (MSA), the Islam Awareness Month consisted of a series of events that took place throughout the month and were held at area schools.

The objective of Islam Awareness Month was to inform the students and faculty about Islam and to “remove misconceptions about Islam in the west,” said senior public relations officer of the MSA, Nudrat Siddiqui.

Additionally, due to the great diversity of cultures and religions present atAHS, “it is important that we take every opportunity we can to educate each other and, parallel to that, to take every opportunity to know one another,” said Siddiqui.

The events took place from April 11 through April 25 in Clausen Hall and not only were informative, but entertaining as well. The first event on April 11 entitled, “Faithful Beats,” was an event made up of comedy, def poetry and Nasheeds, Islamic songs that traditionally have minimal instrumentals.

The second event, held on April 16, “20,000 Dialogues”

Annandale Atoms Athletic Boosters offer scholarships

The AHS Athletic Booster Club will be awarding their 2008 scholarships to four student athletes at the Awards Assembly later this Spring. Two male and two female seniors will be awarded the following: -Robert G. Hardage Scholarship -Robert Liebowitz Scholarship -Laura Hagan Smith Scholarship -Warren Rowlands Scholarship Applications, which are available in the Career Center andAthletic Office, are to be given to the Director of Student Activities

by May 23.

The A-blast Online takes top award at national conference

A Blast, Antenna and Filament staff members recently visited sunny Southern California, not to work on their sun tans, but rather to attend the Spring Journalism Education Association/National Scholastic Press Association National High School Journalism Convention held in Anaheim.

The online edition of the newspaper received a Pacemaker Award for online news sites, placing it among the top five in the nation, as well as a Best of Show Award.

The print edition of the paper also garnered an 8th place in Best of Show award competition for 17+ page papers, where it was named one of country’s top seven publications within that category.

“We try to continue the tradition of excellence that we’ve had in the past and build on it,” said senior Mohamad Elbarasse, co-Editor in Chief of The A Blast.

“We owe these awards to our writers and our page editors.”

Although neither Filament orAntenna won awards, next year the returning staffs of those publications hope to change that at conventions that will be held in St. Louis, Missouri, and Phoenix, Arizona.

actor Eric Jurenas.

Jurenas played Percy, a wealthy American trying to court Maisie, played by junior Natalia Schwien, one of the ladies from the school. Both performed one of several duets in “Won’t You Charleston with Me?” Another tricky part to performing this musical was learning and successfully executing the accents that the French characters had. Not only did the actors and actresses have to learn the accent, but utilize them without hesitation. Many of the songs also had to be sung using a French accent as well, which was an extremely difficult task. “We stressed watching PBS and things like that [for accents]. They worked really hard,” said Theatre Director Vicki Farish.

“I basically just listened to Jenni because she had a really good accent,” said seniorAlaina Talley, who played Madame Dubonnet.

The musical was a fitting showcase of the actors’and actresses’work of the past few months, and really proved that great effort yields good results. The cast, audience, and director all seemed to be happy with the outcome.

“I was very pleased [with the performance],” said Farish.

Brother Khalil Moore speaks of his conversion to Islam and leads a student discussion on “Branches of Faith.”

was an inter-faith discussion complete with a question and answer session. The “Fundamentals of Islam” event was held onApril 21 and featured Brother Khalil Moore discussing the basics of Islam. On April 22 there were poetry and Qur’an Recitations, in addition to hip-hop and traditional performances at the “Night of Enlightenment” event.

During the next event, “Culture v. Faith,” held on April

23, films were shown and Brother Adil Minhas aided the students, answering questions they had and facilitating discussions.

On April 24, the event “Conversion Stories” was held, for this particular event Brother Khalil Moore told the story of his conversion and the differences between life as a Christian and life as a Muslim.

Additionally, on April 25, there was a “Branches of Faith” event comprised of a dinner and a discussion about the roots of Islam Faith, which was sponsored by Sisterhood in Action.

Reflecting on the introduction of Islam Awareness Month at AHS, many think it went quite well but that there is still room for improvement in the future. “It hasn’t completely raised the awareness that I think it should, but it has started to slowly raise awareness about our religion,” said junior Karima El-Katib.

Although IslamicAwareness month has concluded, the yearly activities of the MSAhave not. On May 9 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Cafeteria, the MSAis conducting “From the Cradle to the Grave,” an annual event which “commemorates, reminisces, and showcases the work that the MSA has done for the current school year,” said senior president of the MSA, Navila Rashid. The event will consist of a catered dinner, special guest speakers, and performances

by MSA members. “From the Cradle to the Grave” aims to “unite theAHS community into understanding the Muslim population of the school without the intention of preaching,” said Rashid.

NIH educator comes to AHS To kick off DNA Week, National Institute of Health sends Genome Project speaker to inform IB Bio classes

BY BEELAN YONAS Staff Writer

NATHALIE SPITA

A-Blast, Antenna, and Filament staff members pose for a group shot in LA.

After a shaky start, the Spring musical delivers laughs

Muslim Student Association hosts series of cultural events

Secretary:

Melissa Harmouche

‘The Boyfriend’ praised

MSA celebrates Islamic Awareness

President:

Treasurer:

Senior Jenni Patton performs her role as Hortense in ‘The Boyfriend,ʼ the Theatre Departmentʼs Spring musical. She is supported by sophomore John Odom (left), senior Eric Jurenas (middle), and sophomore Spencer Leslie (right).

STACEY IRWIN

Treasurer:

COURTESTY OF JESSICA RIDDLE

BY CHARLES SIMPSON Staff Writer

Class of 2009

Bum Lee

April 30, 2008

AHS looks to the future as classes select new leadership

On April 23, the freshman, sophomore, and junior classes elected new student government officers.

Treasurer:

A

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KAT REACH

4

NEWS

Mary Read Remembered

A year after her death, this makeshift tribute to Mary Read is still maintained on Wakefield Chapel Road. A memorial service was held near her home on April 27.there

AHS’s IB Biology students were visited last week by Jeff Witherly from the National Institute of Health in Bethesda. Witherly was among the 70 educators from NIH who are traveling around area schools to inform students about the Human Genome Project. While at AHS he discussed the increased importance of genetics over the last few decades.

“When your parents were in school, they told them genetics will be important, but they didn’t believe it. And now DNA genomes are becoming important,” said Witherly.

However, because of a tight schedule, he quickly went through the PowerPoint presentation he had prepared while going over the basics of biology.

“It was really short and it kind of felt rushed.

He couldn’t tell us everything he wanted to say,” said senior Linda Nguyen.

For many of the biology students, it was more

of a refresher of what they already know. “I already learned that stuff in biology class, so it was kind of repeating what I had already been taught,” said Nguyen.

However, it was nice to have an expert’s opinion on the subject. “It was more on a professional level and he’s been in that field for a while, so he knows what’s going on in the subject of DNA,” said Nguyen.

“He was great and very informative,” said junior Rebecca Takele.

Witherly presented new advancements like personalized medicine, which uses genome scans to determine if a person could be predisposed to a hereditary condtion. He also gave the students advice and information about career and job opportunities.

“It was good to hear about internships at the NIH. I talked to him personally and he referred me to the Department of Neurobiology, since that is the field that I want to go into,” said junior Mahroo Haibari.

NEWS

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Teachers take on predator prevention

“Iʼm really proud of the fact that we built the production up to the point where we have been doing it for this long,” said Sadie Bowman one of the showʼs stars . Calculus: The Musical! introduced mathematical concepts through songs and acts in a sequential order from easiest to hardest.

Calculus equals success “Calculus” continued from page 1. education caught the eyes of math teachers across the county, so the dynamic duo was commissioned

by Fairfax to put on its brainchild for calculus students. Not knowing what to expect, many students attended to receive extra credit in their math classes; but, having packed the AHS auditorium, they were entertained by the show’s unique style of presenting complex principles, even if lyrics were difficult to make out.

“I loved the show. [The actors] were really funny and clever,” said Caitlin DiMaina, a senior at WT Woodson High School. “I have to say that I didn’t really learn that much about calculus. It wasn’t like, ‘O.K. let’s help Caitlin pull an A this quarter!’ But I really enjoyed it.”

“At first I thought this was just going to be an opportunity to get some math extra credit, but it turned out to be a great performance,” said Jason Bethke, a senior at Woodson. “The hard work of the actors really paid off.”

The musical was structured like a traditional calculus textbook, introducing mathematical concepts through songs and acts in a sequential order from easiest to hardest. Gutman and Bowman played history’s greatest mathematicians, and the plot developed as each actor embarked on various mathematical exploits within the guises of aged geniuses.

The performance incorporated music videos and other technological components, and musical numbers were sung primarily by Gutman, accompanied

by Bowman.

“It was a new way to look at Calculus,” said senior HL Math student, Lien Vu. “I definitely enjoyed it.”

The show had some pitfalls, including many technological difficulties that caused the action to stop and start; during some pauses, Gutman and Bowman broke the fourth wall, almost too frequently. The plot was largely underdeveloped as there was no real story, and each actor seemed to have only low-level collegiate experience with acting. Still, considering the show’s uniqueness, and the urging-on of hundreds of high school calculus students that had expected much less, these problems were easily overlooked.

“[The musical] presented some concepts of calculus in a different and entertaining way, which some students would find helpful to improve their understanding,” said Jim Evans, IB Higher Level Math teacher at AHS who was monitoring traffic flow in the back of the auditorium, as some students decided to check out early. “Due to high ambient noise levels in the back of the auditorium, I did not hear all the lyrics clearly. But, I found the entertainment to be fun and interesting.”

Gutman and Bowman’s journey to creating the musical is a story in itself. Gutman, by profession a high school math teacher, had been in a Minneapolis classroom for five years before he decided he needed a change of pace. As he felt he could not leave his students for another school, he decided his only legitimate excuse was to take a cross-state road trip to the Minnesota Fringe Festival with friend Bowman in order to perform Calculus: The Musical! in front of the duo’s first audience. Bowman had been the member to really push for the creation of the musical, as Gutman had already created the show’s songs as devices to help his calculus students remember key concepts.

“The initial idea was just to do the show for as long as we could at as many festivals as we could before the money ran out,” said Gutman. “When the money ran out, I guess we thought we would just go back to our old jobs in Minnesota.”

After Minnesota, Gutman and Bowman travelled to the Halifax Fringe Competition in Nova Scotia, where they built up a following of math teachers that spread the word about Calculus: The Musical! to other school systems. Gutman and Bowman stayed with friends and family as they tried to get their own popularity off the ground. “The first year we basically would do one show, and then a month would go by, and we would have nothing,” said Gutman. “Finally we might get another show.”

Of course, both actor-mathematicians succeeded far beyond their initial expectations. “I’m really proud of the fact that we built the production up to the point where we have been doing it for this long,” said Bowman. “I did not expect that at all. Like, if you asked me a year ago whether or not I would still be doing this today, I would have said ‘no way’.”

Enviromental Club to host meeting

The Enviromental Club will be hosting their next meeting today at 2:10 p.m. in room 216.

During the meeting the club will be dicussing the upcoming Manassas Gap Railroad Park just up Medford Drive on May 3 from 9 Rudney a.m. to 12 p.m. For more information see Joelle Rudney in room 216.

Princess for a Night approaches

Princess for a Night is a program created for the purpose of defraying the high cost of prom for those who cannot afford such a pricey event.

This allows all to participate in this memorable event. Dress selections will take place from Friday, May 2 through Monday May 5 at Mount Vernon High School, 8515 Old Vernon Road, Alexandria, VA 22309.

The hours will be as follows: Friday, May 2 2:15 to 8 p.m.

Monday, May 5 2:15 to 6 p.m.

Dresses are of no cost but donations will be accepted to help support the ongoing effort.

Preventive measures in Internet Safety in partnership with i-SAFE Inc. are being taken in an effort to forestall Internet predators from taking advantage of FCPS students. All FCPS personnel must complete i-SAFEʼs Professional Development Training Program by Oct. 1, 2008. “Each session should not take more than an hour to complete, so it should take less than six hours to complete the entire training,” said Rebecca Bartelt, AHSʼ School Based Technology Specialist.

For your planner!

TODAY

• Collaboration Day

Thursday

• Transitional High School Meeting in Clausen Hall (7 p.m.)

Friday

• Distribution of Graduation Announcements in Main Gym (Flexes) • Muslim Assn. Dinner/Lecture in the Cafeteria/Clausen Hall (6:30 - 10:30 p.m.)

Helpful Prom contacts

Hair Salons Positive Image Color Concept Salon 8318 Old Keene Mill Rd. Springfield, VA 22152 (703)750-0835

Shear Shack

Saturday

• SATʼs in Audit orium (8 a.m. to 1 p.m and Various Rooms .)

Mon. May 5

•IB Testing in Cla usen Hall • ESOL Drama Rehearsal in Au ditorium (2 to 4 p.m.)

•Math Honor So ciety Inductions in Clausen Hall (7:30 p.m.)

Tues. May

• IB Testing in Cla 6 • FCA weekly hu usen Hall ddles in Band Room (6:50 a.m.)

6552 Little River Turnpike Alexandria, VA 22312 (703)642-1113

Limo Retals Farifax Limo

Main Office 22054 Shaw Rd. Sterling, VA (703)229-5057

Paradise Party Buses

Falls Church, VA (703)677-0860

Dress Stores Davids Bridal

7269 Commerce St. Springfield, VA (703)912-7700

Jessica McClintock

Tysons Corner Center 1961 Chain Bridge Rd. (703)790-0016

Tux Rentals Masters Tuxedo Inc. After Hours 7036 Columbia Pike Annandale, VA (703)354-7500

Landmark Mall 5801 Duke St. Alexandria, VA 22304 (703)-914-2888

Space increasingly limited for student drivers

”

Video Farifax 2008 Awards and Awards Program sponsored by Cox Communications awarded seniors Erick Vu, Zack Sells, and Stephen Kim for their short film One of a Kind. They received a cash award of $300. Senior Bradsby Grado received third place for his short film Always Use The Correct Number of Participants For The Activities In Which You Partake. He received a $200 cash prize.

Saturday, May 3 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“Prom” continued from page 1. behind on Prom preparations. “I haven’t done much because from May 5 to May 22 during all lunches and after I am having my friends do it for me.” school in room 243.

Prom falls during a stressful time of the year with IB, High prices are not stopping some seniors from splurg- AP and Final Exams, SOLs, and college trips all occurring ing and enjoying the night. at around the same time. This can make it difficult to keep “It’s a one-time event and it’s senior year,” up with preparation, but many seniors said senior Colin Mcguire. remain undaunted.

Many seniors have already finalized their “I am really excited, getting to be with my friends and getting dressed up,” said plans for Prom, among which include finding Siler. a date, transportation, choosing a restaurant, “It will be fun. It’s the high school thing organizing a group, and finding the perfect and I like that we only have a senior Prom; outfit. it makes it special; it’s something new,” said “My group has already planned whom we Clayton. are going with, how, and where,” said Leslie.

“I am really not excited for the Prom “We are getting a limo and going to Murphy’s, partly because I don’t like to dance unless an Irish Pub.” it’s the Beatles, but I am excited to wear a “I have been watching what I eat so I don’t tux and chill at an Irish Pub with my girlie have to alter my dress,” said Siler. “I have also Nguyen who will look like a goddess,” said Schlerman. been planning what to do at my hairdresser.”

“I am hoping that everyone has a great time Of course, for some seniors it is too soon to start and a safe night,” said Spanish teacher and senior class preparations.

“I haven’t done anything,” said senior Rebecca Clayton, sponsor Maureen Hunt. who is not making Prom her top priority.

“I don’t have plans yet,” said senior Tyler Nguyen, also

“

IB Film Students place

“Online” continued from page 1. your parents call you from your room to talk to you. You go downstairs and see the same man who was staring at you during your soccer game. The man introduces himself as a man who you met on the Internet, and confessed that he was not the 14-year-old boy who he said he was. He also confessed that he was an FBI agent. He learned your name, age, sex, school, interests and hobbies all via the Internet and through online conversations with you. He found out where your soccer game was, and then followed you home; using common tools that anyone has access to.”

The state of Virginia is trying to cut down on the number of teenagers becoming victims of online predators. However, it is becoming harder to force that number to decline, with all the new online features and websites that make it easier for online predators to access children. For example, online predators usually meet their victims in public chat rooms, and then they move their conversations to private chat rooms or through instant messaging. Conversations then shift to email, telephone or even face-to-face. With each step, predators establish closer relationships with their victims. Eventually, the victims feel connected with the predator.

In one case, a seventeen-year-old girl had a sexual relationship with a 24-year-old man who had a wife and kids. The girl became too connected with the man and went missing for three days. Using her information off of her websites and emails, police gathered that she was seeing a man she met on the Internet. The police found the girl, strangled to death, in a park.

To help prevent more cases like this, starting 2009, all students will have to be trained on i-Safe.

The training will be personalized for each grade level through an integrated K-12 curriculum.

Prom puts stretch on seniors’ wallets

“Parking” continued from page 1. new the school is, the size of the school, the surrounding “They used to allow students [to park in the Church area, and the student population. parking lot] but there was so much trash in the area, “There are so many parking spaces at the back [of the they said no more,” said Safety and Security Assistant school] that students could potentially use if the buses Kenneth Williams. “The student’s weren’t there,” said junior Mary ruined it for themselves.”

Kowalczyk who arrives at school With parking becoming so scarce at 6:35 a.m. in order to find a spot. atAHS, many students wonder why In fact each day there are about 20 the school cannot make room for I don’t see any other way to spaces in the faculty parking behind more parking. “This school is too the school left vacant. put more spots.

If we had a old,” said Tippins. “The school was “The problem is the buses come built on a small piece of land. I don’t little more land it would be in and drop off there and it’s the see any other way to put more spots. only feasible place to have them,” If we had a little more land it would great. said Tippins. “I wish we could have be great. If FourYear Run was twice —ChrisTippins buses somewhere else, but we don’t as big we could have about 50 more Safety and Security Specialist have the space.” spots.”

Due to the lack of parking on When AHS was built in 1954, school grounds, the parking applicaparking was not an issue because most students rode tion process is quite competitive. “It’s almost like a college buses to and from school. Therefore, the school’s blue- application,” said Tippins. A student submits an applicaprints did not plan for many parking spaces. The amount tion for a spot based on needs, activities and grades. of parking available at a school varies depending on how Though it is mostly seniors who get the spots, some

5

NEWS BRIEFS

DREW FLOWERS

PAUL MATHIS

April 30, 2008

underclassmen are lucky enough as juniors to get spots, such as Emily Koppleman. “There is enough parking, you just have to find it. People are just too lazy to find one so they just have to deal with it,” said Koppleman.

Once a student receives a space there is a $150 fee that he or she must pay, and students still can lose parking privileges. “They can be taken away if you drive recklessly or get numerous traffic offenses,” said Tippins.

Wed. May 7

• IB Testing in Clausen Hall • Fourth Quarter Interims • ESOL Drama Rehearsal in Auditorium (2 to 4 p.m.)

Thurs. May 8

• IB Testing in Clausen Hall

Fri. May 9

• IB Testing in Clausen Hall

Mon. May 12

• IB Testing in Clausen Hall • ESOL Drama Rehearsal in Auditorium

Tues. May

• IB Testing in 13 Cla • FCA weekly hu usen Hall ddles in Band Room (6:50 a.m.)

• ESOL Drama Rehearsal in Au ditorium

Wed. May 14

• IB Testing in Cla • FBLA Meeting usen Hall in • ESOL Drama Bistro (2 to 4 p.m.)

Rehearsal in Au ditorium

Thurs. May

15 • IB Testing in Clausen Hall • ESOL Drama Production in Au ditorium (5 to 9 p.m.)

Fri. May 16

Popular parking spots - Ossian Park

- Barr Place - Heritage Drive - United Korean Church

• IB Testing in Clausen Hall

Mon. May 19

• IB Testing throughout the week the • SOLʼs in Upstairs Gym throughout week

Tues. May 20

• FCA weekly huddles in Band Room (6:50 a.m.) orium • Spring Orchestra Concert in Audit (7 p.m.)

• PTSA Meeting in Clausen Hall (7 p.m.)

6

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April 30, 2008

SPORTS XTRA

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April 30, 2008

Across the Appalachian

7

AHS sophomore Nathan Clayton hiked 2,000 miles along the east coast on the famous Appalachian Trail

and get it,” said Clayton.

Survivalists also rely solely on nature for shelter.

However Clayton said, “[We solely slept] either in our While most AHS students spend their summers tent or in a three walled shelter in the woods.”

The trail not only contains many determined relaxing and watching T.V. in their comfortable air conditioned homes, sophomore Nathan Clayton took a hikers, but also wild animals. The trail is hike, a 2,000 mile hike. Clayton traveled from Georgia mainly populated with bears and snakes.

Clayton said the most interesting thing to Maine, and no, not on an airplane, on foot.

Clayton and his father spent five months living he saw was a moose.

For Clayton, the 2,000 mile hike out his deceased grandfather’s life long dream, to completely hike the Appalachian Trail, stretching changed his life. Clayton said, “It taught me from Georgia to Maine. that anything Clayton said, “It is very time is possible if consuming but if I had the time I you put your mind to it.” would do it again.”

Since completing the hike Their hike stretched along [After the hike] I thought Clayton said, “I have been only the east coast from North to anything was possible. a few times since I finished South. An estimated three to the trail.” four million hikers have hiked The trip was not only a a portion of the trail, but in the lifetime accomplishment past 71 years only 9,583 hikers —NathanClayton but an experience that have completed the 2,000 mile sophomore many people do not trail in its entirety. get to have. Clayton’s Clayton hiked in 2006, when favorite memory there were only 488 people who hiked the full 2,000 miles. The average number of was, “Meeting the new and interesting 2,000 milers over the past five years is about 400. Many people. People that I wouldn’t meet hikers set out to complete the 2,000 mile trail but there otherwise.”

Without interesting people to talk is only a 29 percent completion rate.

Clayton also said he made the trip because his “Dad to, Clayton probably would not have told me all about the trip and it seemed exciting. Plus made the trip. They were a source I wanted to miss half the school year.” Because the trip of entertainment to him and his took five months, Clayton missed the last semester of father.

Many people do not get to his eighth grade school year.

Despite the fact that Clayton was gone for five say that they are a “2,000 months, he was still able to see his family. Clayton miler,” but this is not true said, “My mom and sister visited us like four or five for Clayton. He will be times.” Still, Clayton missed his friends, especially one of the few able to carry this accomgetting to hang out with them.

Some hikers are called survivalists, meaning they plishment with live completely off natural resources. Many hunt him throughout and scavenge for food in the wild. Instead of relying his life. on nature, Clayton and his father relied on the U.S. Postal Service. “My mom mailed us food every week or so to towns near the trail. We would go into town

BY MARISA TORDELLA AND LYNDSAY JACOBS Sports Xtra Editors

Local Parks and Campsites BURKE LAKE PARK 7315 Ox Road Fairfax Station, VA 703-323-6000

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LAKE FAIRFAX PARK 1400 Lake Fairfax Drive Reston. VA 703-471-5415 OCCOQUAN REGIONAL PARK 9751 Ox Road Lorton, VA 22079 703-690-2121

”

BULL RUN PARK 7700 Bull Run Drive Centreville, VA 20121 703-631-0550 POHICK BAY PARK 6501 Pohick Bay Drive Lorton, VA 22079 703-339-6104 CAMERON RUN REGIONAL PARK 4001 Eisenhower Avenue Alexandria, VA 22304 Pool: 703-960-0767 Batting Cage: 703-960-5714 Mini Golf: 703-960-8719 FORT WARD PARK 4401 West Braddock Road Alexandria, VA 22304 703-838-4848 HUNTLEY MEADOWS PARK 3701 Lockheed Blvd.

Alexandria, VA 22304 ORONOCO BAY PARK 701 North Lee Street Alexandria, VA 22304 GREAT FALLS PARK Old Dominion Drive McLean, VA 22101 703-285-2965

Types of Camping BACKPACKING COURTESY OF THE CLAYTON FAMILY

Gets the name because it is essential that all camping gear is carried. The tent, food, clothes and sleeping bag are carried on the back of the camper. This typically requires the camper to climb steep hills and paths to get to where the campsite is located.

Clayton roasts a marshmallow in order to make Sʼmores. Clayton said “My Mom mailed food every week or so to towns near the trail. We would go into town and get it.”

Above is a three-walled shelter located on the Appalachian trail. Clayton and his father often slept in such a shelter on their hike.

Skip the hotel and pitch a tent As summer nears, camping comes into the eyes of students who wish to take on the wild

LYNDSAY JACOBS

BY BROOKE BARLOW Staff Writer

The picture above is a standard camping set up utilizing a pitched tent, sleeping bag, chair, and fire pit.

School is slowly coming to an end and the dawn of summer is on the horizon.

It’s time to kick back, relax and spend time with friends and family. Usually over summer break, people like to go to the beach, but for the courageous and adventurous, camping could be the an alternative.

Summer is the perfect season to spend days and nights camping outside and admiring the beautiful atmosphere. Many people who live in Virginia are not aware of what the state really has to offer in terms of camping.According to the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), Virginia has over 1,500 campground sites.

These sites have a variety of activities and attractions for friends and family to experience.

There are many different types of camping. For those who prefer camping with electricity, running water and bathrooms, camping in Recreational Vehicles (RVs) and mobile homes are the way to go. For those who want a more rugged experience, sleeping in tents and roughing it out is another option. Caitlin Mcintosh is one AHS student who prefers rugged camping. “I slept in a tent and learned how to start a fire all by myself,” said senior Caitlin Macintosh.

Rocky Branch Marina is a very popular and well-liked campground located in Spotsylvania, VA. Lynn Carpenter, an employee at the campground said, “We offer boat ramps for campers to come and go on the lake as they please.”

The campground accommodates RVs and tents and includes the basic amenities such as electricity, running water and a beach for campers. Unlike other campgrounds, Rocky Branch Marina is located on a water front, Lake Anna. This is a very popular feature that the campground provides, giving patrons the opportunity to partake in water activities, which some campgrounds do not provide.

Bull Run is a campsite that does not provide a waterfront. It does however offer playgrounds, a pool and lots of shade.

After camping for the first time, senior Diana Benavides said, “It was so pretty at night time around the camp fire.”

Another campsite nearby is Cider Mountain, located in Culpepper, VA. Its features consist of a pavilion for cookouts, a pond for fishing, basketball courts and playgrounds. It allows for pets to be in the campgrounds as well. Some attractions of the site include famous Civil War sites, battlefields and Kings Dominion.

A majority of these attractions can burn a hole in your pocket. Back in the old days it was all about who could set their tent up the fastest or who would be able to find wood for the fire. While camping, Macintosh had a personal encounter. “My friends and I somehow got lost in the woods and I had to rely on my senses to find my way back,” said Macintosh.

For people who like to eat, grilling over a fire is another alternative. Hot dogs and hamburgers are commonly cooked at a campsite and usually anything else that can be grilled.Afterwards, when craving sweets, roasting marshmallows and concocting s’mores is a classic camping dessert.

To some, camping may not seem like the perfect vacation get away but if given a chance, it can be exciting. Fresh oxygen, sleeping to the calm, peaceful sounds of nature and being with friends could be just the right thing.

CAR CAMPING

Probably the most common type of camping is car camping. This camping type is for the people who don’t wish to climb to their campsite. Campers pack up their cars with as much gear as they want and are able to drive up to the campsite.

RECREATIONAL VEHICLE CAMPING

This camping is pretty self explanatory, it is similar to car camping except that the campers sleep in an RV. They are not able to park anywhere but have to park in designated campsites .

WINTER CAMPING Winter camping is a form of backpacking.

Because the snow makes hiking difficult, winter campers use skis, snowshoes and snowmobiles.

SURVIVALIST CAMPERS Survival campers are prepared for anything that may be thrown their way. Before heading out to the wilderness they learn the skills to survive in the outdoors. Some of these skills consist of getting food from the wild, emergency medical treatments and pioneering.

ADVENTURE CAMPING Common for those people who are always on the move, adventure camping is when a camper usually bikes during the day and then camps during the night.

Visitor information for the Newseum

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April 30, 2008

TIGIST TAMIR

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ARTS A World’s most interactive museum

Hours of operation: The Newseum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Ticket pricing: Adults (13 to 64): $20 Seniors (65 and older): $18 Youth (7 to 12): $13 Children (6 and younger): Free Discounts available for groups.

Tickets may also be purchased online at: www.newseum.org

TIGIST TAMIR

More Pictures Pictured, are the remains of a radio antenna that once capped the World Trade Centers. The gallery contains a theater with an award winning documentary film on the 9/11 disaster and the journalists who lost their lives.

The Newseum brings a new idea of journalism, with state of the art building design

BY NENA BUCK Arts Editor

Up-to-the-minute Exhibit

Outdoor Front Page Gallery

TIGIST TAMIR

Make notice that photography and video-taping is prohibited in designated exhibits.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Standing 74-feet-tall, these powerful words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution engraved outside the Newseum’s magnificent building, establishing the essence of journalism embraced throughout the museum.

This massive $450 million, 250,000 square foot hightech museum opened its doors merely three weeks ago, allowing the public an insight on the creation and importance of news. The Newseum consists of 14 galleries and 15 theaters with the world’s most memorable news stories, people, places and events that made the headlines in print, as well as the breaking news seen on television and read on the Internet.

Upon entrance to the 7-floor wonder, front pages of the day’s prominent newspapers from major cities in the U.S. and around the world are displayed as part of the “Today’s Front Pages Gallery.” The gallery continues its coverage on level 6, the highest level. Across from the gallery is the Pennsylvania Avenue Terrace, which overlooks the busy streets and provides an amazing view of the U.S. Capitol.

Also on the terrace is the history of what is known as “America’s Main Street” encased along the rail. Making your way down to the next level, by your choice of stairs or an elevator, you will enter the Newseum’s largest gallery.

Here, the “News History Gallery” has on display

Top: The “Internet, TV and Radio Gallery,” demonstrates the progression of the speed at which news travels through the years as technology advances.

Bottom: The “Front Pages Gallery,” provides current news from around the world.

various news from the past 500 years. In the center of the gallery is an island containing a timeline of historic newspapers dating as far back as 1545. Headlines featuring the death of Jesse James, the sinking of the Titanic, the success of Babe Ruth and the invasion of Germany capture front pages. In addition, the island has 10 touch screen monitors equipped with games testing your knowledge of famous journalists and images of numerous publications.

Along the walls of the gallery, collective artifacts and memorabilia are showcased. These walls journey through the evolution of journalism from the typewriter to the computer, and the progression of photojournalism as well as the trial and errors journalists continually encounter.

Highlighting the walls is the introduction of women to the field of broadcast journalism and the Watergate scandal.

Displaying great artifacts, these exhibits help portray the importance of reporting and the determination involved.

The sensation is equally cogent as the gallery presents humor by featuring several comedy shows on one of its many large plasma screens.

Behind the walls of the “News History Gallery” are five theaters that take a deeper, more profound look at news and different aspects of American history, such as Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. Level 5 also includes the “Big Screen Theater,” a video wall roughly 100 feet long exhibiting documentaries and news from the past and present. An additional access way to Level 4 can be found in the “Big Screen Theater.”

Level 4 holds two of the museums most powerful galleries, the “First Amendment Gallery” and the “9/11 Gallery.” The “First Amendment Gallery” explores a variety of cases demonstrating our most important freedoms: speech, press, assembly, petition and religion. A wall including videos and a collection of artifacts throughout the U.S., unveils the struggles teens and their families face in exercising their rights in school and on public grounds.

The “Freedom of Petition” wall dedicates a section to the popular advocacy group called MADD (Mothers

Against Drunk Driving), which encourages citizens to take action for their voices to make a difference. The “Five Freedoms Walkway” is a path leading to one of the museum’s most emotionally gripping galleries, the “9/11 Gallery.”

This popular gallery brings a crowded room to silence with mere images as they remember the tragic events of that day. A wall of the gallery that stretches for over the length of two floors is laminated with the top newspapers covering the attack on America. The gallery includes an antenna that used to be on top of the World Trade Center with a time line summarizing the events that took place on 9/11. In addition, the gallery includes a theater featuring the journalists who covered the calamity. The stories told in the theater brought tears to nearly every viewer and made the gallery unforgettable.

The third level includes many interactive exhibits such as the “Digital News” and “World News” sections.

This level is highly focused on the importance of the Internet, TV, and radio throughout history. Furthermore, it contains a gallery for journalists who passed away while doing their jobs. The Journalists Memorial pays tribute to the journalists as well as reminds the viewer of their contributions to the world. In addition, the Digital News gallery contains a time line of electronic news beginning in 1920 continuing to the present.

Overall the Newseum has a variety of collections that aid the visitors in understanding the chronological progress of journalism in America as well as the rest of the world.

The Newsuem, with its state-of-the-art technology and abundance of content, helps preserve history and the evolution of journalism.

For more information about the Newsuem and its contents please visit www.newseum.org or call 888/ NEWSEUM.

IB Visual Art Show

9/11 Gallery

and took self-portraits based on this theme. Thorpe brought a new idea by hanging her pictures to the ceiling in a rectangular shape.

Each of her pictures portrayed an occurrence on each day for the past five months.

“My whole theme is Identity and focuses on introspection and looking into yourself,” said Thorpe. Her pictures were accompanied with a journal entry about each picture.

Thorpe started her artwork in December and she plans to

BY TIGIST TAMIR continue until she reaches 365 days. When finished, the Arts Editor artwork will be similar to a story told with images and a On Monday April 14, 2008 artwork created by 18 stu- little description.

“I definitely think IB is a very tedious program,” said dents decorated Clausen Hall. The students gathered there to celebrate the hard work they have done throughout the Thorpe. “But it really pushes you especially in Photograyear. The IB Visual Arts program has been running for phy because you’re on your own.” Thorpe plans to attend three years atAHS. In all, the years students have brought Corcoran College of Art and Design in the fall to major in Photojournalism. different talents to the program.

Senior Jenny Phung, who did her portfolio on Texture This year the portfolio display ranged from drawings of Food, used Macro Photography to explicitly represent and wire work to photography. This display was the first her idea. part of the students’ IB grade, “We kind of take the little things for which included the studio or granted, and that is why I decided to do practical work the students did. something on food,” said Phung. On “The display involves 18 stuoccasions, Phung took more than My life is art. My art is some dents who are both diploma and 300 pictures in one day just to get the certificate [candidates] of the IB right image and effect she needed. “It my life. program,” said Art teacher Ann took me a long time to figure out that I Harper. The presentation had two really wanted to do something on food. years worth of artwork created by First, I had to experiment with toys the individual student artists. and people and other things.” Phung’s —Hannah Thorpe The artworks included wire Senior artwork was part of the brilliant display works, photography, paintings and captured viewer’s attention. “As a and cutouts. The students chose photographer, art is everything in life their theme at the beginning of the because everything in life is basically art,” said Phung. year and made every artwork based on this one theme.

Phung believes that anyone who likes art should try The display revealed many aspects of each theme.

The themes ranged from Food to Mythical Creatures. the IB Visual Arts class. As for Thorpe, she enjoyed being Senior Hannah Thorpe chose Identity as her main theme in an IB Art class. “Art is just a part of me,” said Thorpe, “my life is art. And my art is my life.” Most of the students

Students reflect on their year of hard work and progress with a portfolio display in Clausen Hall

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Great Hall of News

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JENNY PHUNG

Berlin Wall

One of the phenomenal artworks done by Phung (above) was a product of Macro Photography. “We kind of take the little things for granted, and that is why I decided to do something on food,” said Phung.

in the display share the same opinion and believe that art gave them a different perspective on the world.

Every student at the exhibition was requested to explain the theme to the guests. This was intended to allow the students to practice for the second part of the IB exam. In this part, the students gave an oral presentation about their theme, artwork and the materials they used to produce their artwork. The artworks were on display for four days and were then put away to protect them from damage.

“Its nice to see the unification of all these works displayed together,” saidArt teacher Catherine Stark; “It has more of an impact.” Art teachers were present with their students and worked hard to provide them with necessary help during the ceremony.

ACADEMICS

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April 30, 2008

True life: Saturday School

9 Third quarter All -A Honor -Roll

BY AMY STEINBUECHLER Academics Editor Saturday class was scheduled to begin at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, April 19. Slowly but surely 21 of the 31 students expected to be at Saturday School entered the cafeteria with tired and impartial looks on their faces.

They waited there patiently and quietly for the lesson to begin. This was not like the English or math lesson that a student may have skipped to earn this detention; it was a lesson in life.

By 8:30 K.W. Williams entered the cafeteria and, without raising his voice, politely asked specific students to sit up or remove their hoods. When he finally did raise his voice it was not to discipline the students but to emphasize how much he had enjoyed the new Jet Li and Jackie Chan movie, Forbidden Kingdom, the night before.

“I like to spend time talking to the kids to see where they’re coming from,” said Williams. “We talk about everything.”

Eventually the conversation turned to growing up and relationships with parents. Williams asked several students to share the first lesson they could remember their parents ever teaching them. Williams eventually shared that the first lesson he learned was not to hit his younger brother.

He summarized that individuals can learn valuable and sometimes mediocre lessons from parents and siblings, even themselves.

Williams also shared a lesson he learned about haystacks. As a child Williams decided to jump into a haystack to find a needle, what he found was that straws of hay had needles and spurs that dug into his clothes and skin. After enduring the pain of removing the spurs he learned never to jump into haystacks ever again.

Despite the sometimes arbitrariness and foolishness of the stories and lessons Williams and the students shared, enthusiasm and laughter was spread throughout the cafeteria. For thirty minutes he shared life lessons with the class, hardly taking a breath.

By 9:00 a.m., an hour into the four-hour Saturday detention, Williams left the kids to form two groups with randomly elected group leaders. Williams finds that the

kids learn from delegated responsibility.

“To whom a lot is given, a lot is expected,” said Williams about giving students responsibility in detention and elsewhere.

After separating the students into teams, Williams distributed supplies, including garbage bags and hand gloves to students and instructed them as to where they would go to pick up trash. “I want to show the kids to be sensitive and caring for the school by picking up the trash,” said Williams.

Once fully, supplied the teams headed to their destinations. Team ‘Awesome Mclovin’ decided to go to the First Presbyterian Church since one group member had parked his car there. The group headed directly to the car, while quickly scanning the grass for any trash. One individual offered his lighter while the group gathered around the car to bum a smoke. One student compared opening a pack of cigarettes to opening a pack of gum, everyone will expect you to share. “[Detention] doesn’t really help, we just meet new people, when we could be sleeping,” said senior James Thach.

After lighting up they headed out around the church picking up all the trash in the area. The students decided to visit a yard sale along the street. Realizing their garbage bags were barely filled and knowing they could not return with such a small amount of garbage the students decided to improvise.

Using a neighbor’s trashcan the group removed trash from the can to fill their bags. Once they figured they had enough trash, the students headed back to the school.

When asked about the incident Williams said, “I have my sources and I am aware of what went down. Those same kids that did that will be back in detention. Next time they won’t leave my sight [...] I give the kids a chance to prove themselves. I gave them the rope and they hung themselves.”

The groups then threw their trash in the dumpster and headed to the courtyard. In the courtyard the groups reunited to help Williams cut the grass. Two students were selected to operate the lawn mowers while the others cleared the grass of trash and moved the benches off the grass so it could be completely mowed.

Throughout the day Williams, never raised his voice and none of the students were disrespectful to him or the other students. “I can’t complain [about being in detention] because I’m the one that got myself into this,” said Junior Aminata Barrie.

Despite the relatively laid back atmosphere of this de-

AMY STEINBUECHLER

Students attend Saturday School for lessons, find time for smokes and yard sale

AMY STEINBUECHLER

Students posed together after picking up trash in Saturday school. This group, team ‘Awesome Mclovin,ʼ was led by freshman Henry Copper. The team collected trash at the First Presbyterian Church neighboring AHS but also found time to hang out and visit houses in the area.

Top: Junior Jerry Hooker and another detention attendee empty grass from lawnmowers. The students are required to clean up the court yard is hopes that they will learn to respect and take care of school property.

Above:Junior Jerry Hooker and freshman Henry Cooper take instructions from security officer K.W. Williams.

tention, it is not always laid back. Sophomore Max Turner recalls his worst experience in detention. “I went to [a detention in January and it was really cold and we had to rake leaves and I only had a thin sweat shirt,” he said.

Saturday school is designed to discipline students while teaching them valuable lessons of respect and responsibility. Mohamad Humza learned, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

SOPHOMORES Jung, Jae Hoon Mostrom, Ian Nair, Deepu Qabazard, Sammy Ramirez Daza, Cristhian JUNIORS Duong, Son Escudero Gutierrez, Eslyn Esteban Lopez, Ned Kim, Ah Reum Kynes, Cason Lam, Francis Lee, Irene Lee, Da Hye Phan, Phuc Phan, Kim Hang Rabinovitz, Jane Raza, Ahmad Romero Castellon, Julissa Salomon, Julie Tran, Kha Tran, Phuong-Nhien Tran, Phuong Mai Zaheer, Zeenat SENIORS Awan, Seemal Hoang, Kim Ngan Kwon, Daniel Mathis, Paul

AMY STEINBUECHLER

AMY STEINBUECHLER

FRESHMAN Alba Baldelomar, Ivonne Alchaar, Nadia Bhandal, Navjot Centellas, Polette Cha, Jodie Chitayapuntagul, Linda Frank, Mitchell Fruchterman, Emily Hennessey, Kristen Kavjian, Mary Kim, Se Young Nielsen, Gregory Sanborn, Jacob Singer, Lillian Tuffour, Eugene Wu, Lynn

Students attend the all-A and A-B Honor-Roll Breakfast during R1 Flex on April 19. Freshman Gessica Azzam who attended the breakfast said “I loved the danishes, they were the best. I really loved the strawberries too.”

On a scale of 1 -10 how would you rate your third quarter academic performance?

“Six, because I feel like I could have done better but I worked hard. To improve I will stay after, and study hard for tests.”

---Kelsey Knoche freshman

The offenders: the first timers and the regulars

AMY STEINBUECHLER

Q: How often do you find yourself in Saturday school?

A: This is my first time.

Q: Why are you in Saturday school this time?

A: I got caught skipping three days [of school] before Spring Break Q: How do you feel about having Saturday school?

A: I think it’s awesome based on what we did the whole first hour, I could do it all day.

Q: What did you expect to have to do in detention?

A: I was hoping we could do school work because I have a lot of homework this weekend.

Q: How do you feel about having to pick up trash?

A: I guess it’s a good opportunity to take a smoke break.

Q: What do your parents think about you having Saturday school?

A: They were disappointed, but because they were once in high school I think they understood.

Junior, Jerry Hooker Q: How often do you find yourself in Saturday school?

A: I have been here a couple of times but this is my last time.

Q: Why are you in Saturday school this time?

A: I had an incident with skipping school.

Q: How do you feel about having Saturday school?

A: It keeps you out of trouble and from making the same mistake twice.

Q: What did you expect to have to do in detention?

A: Pick up trash or do mulch Q: How do you feel about having to pick up trash?

A: It’s better than doing mulch or going to K.W.’s garden because it’s easier [ to pick up trash] and [mulch] stinks.

Q: What do your parents think about you having Saturday school?

A: [My mom] said ‘you’re always getting in to trouble, when will you learn my lesson?’

AMY STEINBUECHLER

Junior, Ethan Murray

“Seven, I didn’t get all As. Spanish was difficult.

I’m going to study harder in Spanish and pay closer attention in math class.”

“Eight, because most of my grades were Bs and above.

I could try harder and study more.”

AMY STEINBUECHLER

Q: What is the most fun you have had in detention?

A: Once a mother brought spaghetti with meatballs the size of tennis balls to [Saturday detention] for breakfast.

Q: What is the worst thing that has ever happened during detention?

A: I had two [girls] fight like dogs. They embarrassed themselves because one girl lost her weave and the other lost her top.

---Angelo Baquista sophomore

---Tim Hepburn junior

The Officer: K.W. Williams Q: How long have you been a security officer at AHS? A: I have been working here for 14 years.

Q: Do you prefer Wednesday, Thursday or Saturday detention?

A: I’d rather Thursday or Saturday. I like the kids to use their hands and minds.

Q: What is the best thing about being a security guard?

A; The best part is to see the kids go from one phase in their lives to becoming young adults.

“Five, because I didn’t do a lot of my work. I am going to start doing my work.”

---Sean Kim junior

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PEOPLE

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April 30, 2008

Hate Crimes What are they?

Hate crimes are defined as crimes committed against a particular, race, religion, sexual orientation or disability.

Incidents of hate crimes: August 10, 1999: a gunman entered a Jewish community center and opened fire hitting staff and children attending a day care, five were injured. The suspected gunman was linked to a Neo Nazi organization.

June 10, 1998: Three white men chained a disabled black man to the back of their pick up truck and dragged him along the pavement of the rode until he died.

October 31, 2006: A group of African American teenagers attacked two 19 year olds and a 20 year old by throwing lemons and pumpkins at them and kicking them to the ground. source: www.washingtonpost.com

Have you been stereotyped?

“I’ve been called a terrorist. It happens all the time.”

—Adnan Jannoun freshman

“I’ve been stereotyped for eating Ramen noodles all the time. That’s my diet. Ramen, ramen and more ramen.”

—Thao Nguyen freshmen

“People think I’m really smart because I wear glasses and I’m Asian.”

—Alan Vanfreshman

“I do jujitsu and the stronger guys think that they can beat me because I’m a girl and I’m smaller, but I can beat them with technique.”

—Arielle Pak junior

“I went to Giant and this lady who was in the same check out lane as me gave me a weird look and walked to another lane.”

Despite the diversity at AHS, many students still encounter and fight against prejudice

BY WALIHA GANI People Editor Discrimination and prejudice have always been evident in American society. From the practice of slavery in colonial times to the internment of 110,000 Japanese in 1942, stereotypes have always existed for about nearly every group, race and gender.

While some stereotypes, like “all Asians are smart” are light and do not carry heavy negativity, others like “all Muslims are terrorist” or “all Hispanics are illegal immigrants” spur intense rancor in society.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941, rampant discrimination against the Japanese permeated throughout American society. Similarly, a 2005 poll conducted by Pew Research presents that about a quarter of Americans hold negative views about Muslims living in the United States.

The Council onAmerican Islamic Relations (CAIR), anAmerican Muslim civil rights organization, released a report on anti-Muslim incidents in 2005, which presented that between 2003 and 2004, hate crimes against Muslims rose by more than 50%. The largest numbers of hate crimes were in California, while 7% of the crimes were in Virginia.

Hate crimes against Muslim women, in particular, are common, as many incidents of hijabs, or headscarves, being snatched off the heads of women have been reported.

Senior Nudrat Siddiqui wears a niqab, which is the full veil concealing the entire body except the eyes. In her first year at a public school, she has not encountered any brutal discrimination.

Still, she has been called a “terrorist” in the hallways.

Outside of school, Siddiqui is often a victim of prejudice. At Disney Land three years ago while standing in line, Siddiqui overheard a child asking her mother why she [Nudrat] was fully covered.

“She [the mother] responded, ‘Oh, she’s a terrorist. They all dress like that,’ ” said Siddiqui.

Although Siddiqui’s reaction was not one of anger, she feels dismay at how Muslims are viewed in this post 9/11 world.

“After 9/11, many Americans just judge Muslims based on one group of people. You can’t say everyone would do the same thing as the actions of only one group you may know,” said Siddiqui. She continues, “It’s like the saying, “Don’t judge a book by the cover.”

AtAHS, teachers have stereotyped Siddiqui and junior Karima El-Khatib. Recently, a student overheard a teacher speaking about Siddiqui’s dressing.Astudent overheard the teacher that Siddiqui should take her niqab off because she might be carrying a bomb.

El-Khatib faced prejudice when she went to her friend’s class with a pass from her own teacher, the teacher became skeptical of her pass. The teacher jokingly said, ‘ “How do I know who she is? She might be a terrorist, ’ ” recounted El-Khatib.

The whole class broke out into laughter. El-Khatib, taken aback by the comment, concealed her emotions.

“I was just shocked. I didn’t know what to say, so I just laughed along with the class,” said El-Khatib.

When confronted with situations where a student is a victim of prejudice, Student Director Steven Sengstack said that similar procedures as those taken in scenarios of harassment should be taken.

“If there are comments being made about stereotypes, the student should go to a trusted adult who would investigate the situation and hopefully it wouldn’t happen again. If it does, then that’s where the administration would intervene,” said Sengstak.

He continued, “The most important thing to know is that you should never keep it to

“

You can’t judge people by the actions of one group of people.

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Last Issue’s

Who am I?

• I attended State University of New York

• I majored in Communication Disorders and Sciences.

• In my spare time I like to play sports, “I’ve been labeled as a dumb cheerleader because I’m blonde and I’m a cheerleader, but I’m really not dumb.”

—Amee Jennings sophomore

—Enrique Rodriguez sophomore

”

Who am I?

• I have taught at AHS for two years

—Jimmy de la Cruz junior

“Some people think I’m illegal because I’m Spanish, but I have a green card.”

yourself. Report it to someone to help you get through.”

English teacher Augustine Twyman, an African American, shares her perspective on the teacher’s comments.

“Personally, I know what it’s like to be discriminated. Blacks are discriminated to this day and I think it’s a heinous act, but I do believe that there is an intrinsic part of us that says, “Be careful,” when we see something different,” said Twyman.

Recently, in the realm of politics, there has been uproar over Democratic Presidential nominee’s Barrack Obama’s middle name “Hussein.” Many have scoffed at Obama’s background and the idea that his middle name sounds like a Middle Eastern dictator.

Junior Mahboo Haidari [pictured above] views this as absurd.

“The slanders against him emphasize that he’s Muslim, even though he is Christian.

But then again, what if he was? Is something wrong about being Muslim? Just because his name coincides with Saddam Hussein’s doesn’t make him unfit for the presidency,” said Haidari.

Along with Muslims, Hispanics today also struggle with the stabs of stereotypes.

For many students, the labels that have been associated with their race serve as motivation to inspire them to dispel those judgments.

Senior Michelle Abanez, a Hispanic, struggles with popular stereotypes regarding Hispanics.

“As a teenage Hispanic, many people automatically assume that I’m pregnant or going to get pregnant and drop out of school. But you know I have dreams. I have my own goals to meet,” said Abanez.

ForAbanez, joining the Hispanic Leadership allowed her to realize that it is possible to overcome stereotypes. “It really opened up my eyes because we’ve met so many Hispanic leaders in our community who have fought stereotypes—doctors, lawyers. By meeting those people, I know that I too can rise above these judgments,” said Abanez.

Where do stereotypes stem from? Psychology teacher Justin Hambrick believes that the media often develops stereotypes.

“There are two arguments to this: There are studies that show that the media reflects the stereotypes, while there are other studies that show that media creates the stereotypes,” said Hambrick. He continued, “Personally, I tend to —NudratSiddiqui think that the media influences more of society. senior But I also acknowledge that this is a personal opinion,” said Hambrick.

Senior Nathalie Cladera says that the media has developed perpetual stereotypes about Hispanics that hinder Hispanic teenagers from living up to their potentials. “Media has already put a label on all Hispanics—illegal immigrants or criminals. I think that’s why most Hispanic students just give up. They’re just like ‘Why even try,’ “ said Cladera.

When huge catastrophes, such as the terrorist attacks on 9/11 or the Pearl Harbor occur, the media, history teacher John Nemeth believes, plays a significant role.

“What happens is that people, in general, are ignorant against other people’s cultures.

When you have a highly emotional event occur, like 9/11, it accentuates their ignorance,” said Nemeth.

So how can one ensure to not fall prey to stereotyping others? According to Spencer A. Rathus, author of Psychology; Principals in Practice, by contacting and interacting with different groups of people, attempting to correct other people’s prejudice attitudes and setting an example for others are ways to stop prejudice in society. By looking at people as individuals, not by race, gender or religious affiliation, it is possible to break free from acting on stereotypes.

For Twyman, stereotypes can be overcome.

“It’s being civilized and educated that we learn to distinguish between the things that are different and the things that are harmful,” said Twyman.

do outdoor activities like nature walks and read.

• I like to listen to any type of music.

• I have taught at AHS for 2 years.

• I attended James Madison University.

• I majored in English and Secondary Education.

• In my spare time I like to read, bike ride and travel.

• I like to listen to anything, but country.

• My motto is “Never give up.”

• I have traveled to Japan, Western Europe, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain, and Liechtenstein.

• I was born on Aug. 10, 1977 in Glen Head, New York.

• My motto is “Live your life with no regrets.”

•

• My favorite season is summer.

• I have traveled to London, Ireland, Paris and the Carribean Islands.

and interacting with students.

• My greatest pet peeve is blatant disrespect.

Compiled by Waliha Gani

If you know the answer to “Who am I,” come to the publications lab for a great prize.

• I was born on June 8 in Annandale, Virginia.

Kathleen Dion

• My favorite part about teaching is making learning fun— at least I try to.

• My greatest pet peeve is when people do not listen.

April 30, 2008

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How far do you think the boys lacrosse team will go in the district tournament?

The AHS Boyʼs Lacrosse team has rebounded from two tough losses to end last season to earned an 82 record this year. The Atoms are currently ranked number one in the Patriot District. They are looking forward to the regional tournament in May.

“I think they are going to win because they work hard and put a lot of effort into everything they do.”

—Zeni SaifeSelassie freshman “I think they have the potential to win the district.”

—Eunice Tchawi sophomore

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

“I think they will win districts because they have a good record and look like a strong team.”

—Smith Norton junior

Senior Jesse Kruse brings the ball down the field during the game against Edison.

Senior Dylan Volk rides a Forest Park defender as he attempts to clear the defensive zone

“I think we are going to win the district and the region.”

—Erik Etherly senior

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

“I expect them to win districts and to advance to the regional finals.”

—John Ponton principal

Several atoms advance the ball down the field against Lee. The Atoms won easily 16-3

Junior Cason Kynes dives to keep a ball from bouncing out of bounds.

More Pictures

Senior Zach Sells moves the ball down the field against Forest Park.

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

Senior Zach Flynn takes a shot against Forest Park.

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

Senior David Waiter runs the ball into the offensive zone during a game against Hayfield.

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

Senior Zach Sells bends over to take a faceoff against Edison. Sells has been the Atomʼs top faceoff middie for the past several seasons.

Senior Goalie Kevin McCracken makes a save against Edison. The atoms won the game 16-5.

Junior Cason Kynes runs the ball up the sideline against Forest Park.

Junior Tim Hepburn runs with a Forest Park middie. Hepburn has been one of the Atomʼs top defensive middies this year.

Senior Galen Dunbar applies a “hold,” a defensive move, on an Edison attacker.

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

COURTESY OF JALMER JOHNSON

The Atomsʼ offense breaks a huddle after a timeout during a game against Hayfield. The offense scored a total of 13 goals against Hayfield.

Senior Stephen Kim pokes at a Forest Park attacker.

Do you think it is fair to Olympic athletes for the US to boycott the Olympics?

“It would be unfair because of all the hard work [athletes] have put into their sports. But if we had a political reason [to boycott the games] we should.”

—Teppi Shultis freshman “It would be unfair to the athletes because they’ve been waiting 4 years, maybe even their whole lives [to compete in the games]. ”

—Mohamed Kamara sophomore “Everyone has the right to compete in the Olympics, because [the athletes] work really hard and they represent their countries by showing off their skills.”

—Dinko Badic Jr. junior “It would totally be unfair because athletes train hard for four years, it would be a waste.

The Olympics allow for countries to be represented by their athletes.”

—Lex Layton senior

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AHS students and teacher describe reactions to China’s hosting of the Olympics SHARA SHAMI Staff Writer The 2008 Olympics in Beijing will harbor the same political clout as the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, or the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Athletes will participate in games, while the host country is being chastised for political reasons. While in years past the Olympics have stood for peace among nations, this year human rights activists are using the Olympics to draw attention to the policies carried out by the host government, China.

Some of the contested policies include those initiated in China’s relationship to Sudan. Despite increasing evidence that the Sudanese government is contributing to mass genocide in Darfur, the Chinese government’s relationship with Sudan remains heavily intact. China is Sudan’s main commercial partner, buying two-thirds of the country’s oil exports. The Chinese do not show any resentment towards the people of Darfur and do not denounce the actions of the Sudanese government.

Though China has generally refused to take a stance on the internal politics of Sudan, blocking U.N. sanctions against Khartoum in recent months, China contested recent Olympics protests, taking credit for persuading Sudan to welcome U.N. and African Union peacekeeping forces into the country.

Primarily, though, protests are concerned with China’s human rights abuses in Tibet.

The country of Tibet was seized in 1951 by the Chinese military, and its history has been marked by sporadic outbursts of violence, especially within the last few decades.

The most recent event that drew attention towards the violence stricken nation occured on March 10, 2008, the anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule. The protests turned violent, and were described as the largest protests since 1989. They ended in a bloody clash with Chinese security forces and the imposition of martial law.

“Although I sympathize with Tibetan beliefs, I think the protest is too late,” said Social Studies teacher Joel Jepson.

He believes that the protests surrounding the Olympics now should have occurred when the International Olympic Committee chose Beijing to host the Olympics. He also believes that China should have never been awarded the right to host the summer Olympics in the first place.

“I think the Chinese would lose prestige in a sense if the 2008 Olympics are boycotted,” said Jepson.

“There is no free speech in China. The Chinese Government doesn’t want the people to know about them oppressing the people,” said sophomore Michelle Kinzer.

“But actually it would probably be good to host the Olympics

BEWKETU TAMIR

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INTERNATIONAL A Beijing Olympics controversy

Social Studies teacher Joel Jepson points to a map of China while explaining the sigificant human rights abuses China has committed on the region of Tibet. “I am disappointed that the IOC [International Olympic Committee] would allow the Olympics to be held in a country with a dismal human rights record,” said Jepson.

in China because it would expose the world to everything that is going on in China.”

The extent to which the U.S. is supporting the Olympics is still uncertain. While the U.S. is participating in the centuries old affair, the level at which athletes and spectators are celebrating and acknowledging the festivities remains debatable.

“I have always been a fan of the Olympics, but this year I am not so sure about whether or not I really want to support them. A lot of athletes are silently protesting different issues. Even the torch bearers are saying that they are running in honor of Tibet or Darfur,” said senior Van Pham.

Others argue that the athletes should not be forced to compete under the environmental conditions in China.

“They need to play fair. Why not find another country?” asked Jepson. He believes that the Chinese government should join the world in denouncing the atrocities that are happening in Darfur. He believes that the Chinese government should try and put pressure on the Sudanese government.

“We absolutely should not hold the Olympics in China.

The condition of the environment is very bad because China

has been trying to industrialize at such a rapid rate that they have expelled so many pollutants into the air which will cause the athletes to not perform at their best,” said freshman Will Cameron.

Students also argue that the Chinese are trying to present a pristine portrait of a country to viewers of the Olympics in hosting the games, which will hide the important political ramifications of China’s policies.

“China is taking over Tibet and they are going to use the Olympics to try and make themselves look better,” said Kinzer.

“I am disappointed that the IOC [International Olympic Committee] would allow the Olympics to be held in a country with a dismal human rights record,” said Jepson. “But I believe that we should still participate in the Olympics because the Olympics are all about peace.”

Addtional Reporting by Bewketu Tamir

April 30, 2008

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Freshman Kelly Hughes plays first base in the game against West Potomac High School

Track performs well at Dogwood As the spring track season heads into its last month, many athletes are qualifying for regionals and states. The team competed this past weekend at the Dogwood Track Classic at the University of Virginia. They have three more meets before Districts, which are held May 14 and 15 at South County with Regionals a week later at Lake Braddock. States will be held in Newport News May 30 and 31.

Some Atoms have already qualified for states including senior Daniel Ejigu who broke a school record in the 400 meter dash. Ejigu is also a part of the 4 X 800 relay, which broke another school record qualifying the relay team for States Dogwood Track Classic.

The relay is comprised of Ejigu, junior Scott Plunkett and sophomores Daniel Blasser and Michael Ejigu.

“We’re going to continue to work hard in practice throughout the remainder of the season to get prepared for states,” said Blasser.

The team’s head coach is Sean Miller, who is in his second year as head coach.

“Coach Miller is one of the best coaches in the northern region and we are really lucky to have him,” said Daniel Ejigu.

The girl’s team has also done very well this season. Junior Emily Koppelman has qualified for states in the shot put and discus events. Other key girls include senior sprinters Elise Miles and Seemal Awan, junior sprinter Laura Burton and freshmen long distance runners Natalie Johnson and Olivia and Victoria Ko. “The season has gone very well, it is one of the best in recent memory,” said Coach Zach Sykes.

“Every girl has improved immensely and it’s very likely we will continue to improve. The top girls definitely know how to perform and are extremely determined not only during races but during practice too,” said Johnson.

- by Kelsey Knoche Journalism 1 student

Girls lacrosse beats Lee to get perfect district record

BY SCOTT PLUNKETT Staff Writer

“We are the champions” softly issued from the stadium speakers as the girls varsity lacrosse team closed out a perfect Patriot District season. The team had gone 7-0 in district play and was heading into the Patriot District tournament as the number one seed.

The Atoms completed their regular season with a dominant win over the West Potomac Wolverines, 19-4. The 15 goal margin was aided by the girls‘ intense swarming defense that caused many turnovers and subsequent fast break opportunities.

“We have definitely been working on our pressure D [defense] all over the field and want to work together to force turnovers,” said head coach Cindy Hook.

Although the team only has three seniors, they have won the majority of their close games. Their closest win came against the West Springfield Spartans where the Atoms pulled out a 10-8 win, showing they can play under pressure.

The Atoms closed the season with two uncontested 17-3 and 19-4 wins over T.C. Williams and West Potomac, and are looking strong heading into the post season.

“We will draw on our experiences during the regular season and focus and

Sophomore Maggie Bermingham attempts to pick up the lacrosse ball in a game against West Potomac High School. The Atoms soundly defeated the Wolverines 19-4.

prepare for one game at a time,” said Hook. “Everyone is looking forward to the increased level of play and excitement that the District tournament brings out in every team.”

The Atoms only two losses of the season, both against Bishop O’Connell, could prove to provide necessary experience for the team on how to properly handle late game situations. The losses also made sure the Atoms stayed grounded and helped them realize that no one is

perfect. “[The loss] definitely helped us,” said varsity goalie, junior Anita Obasi. “It made us remember we’re vulnerable to losing, despite having the perfect district record.”

The Atoms begin their post season play Thurs. May 1, most likely against the number eight seeded Lee Lancers who the Atoms beat 12-4 earlier in the season. Expecting to meet a determined team facing the threat of their season be-

ing ended, the Atoms are taking nothing for granted.

“Our team knows our success totally depends on how we play, not who we play,” said Hook. “I want to help our team play better each game we play and continue to focus on how we play, not who. That has been key to our successful season and will continue to help us play our best together.”

The thoughts of teamwork and working together are instilled in all the team’s members, including Obasi.

“We work as one unit,” said Obasi.

Although the Atoms’ opponents may have had time to improve, it will be hard to match theAtoms progressively improving aspects.

“Starting with our first scrimmage, our teamwork has continued to improve every time we play,” said Hook. “Players read each other better, communicate better and work together better, in all phases of the game.”

TheAtoms have a 5-2 record outside of the Patriot District this year, showing they can beat plenty of non-district teams. With convincing early season wins over the Edison Eagles and the Yorktown Patriots, it is clear theAtoms can be a competitive team with top teams all across the Northern Region. The Atoms 15-7 win over the Patriots is especially impressive seeing as Yorktown finished atop the National District standings.

If theAtoms are able to win the Patriot District tournament on May 8 at Lee, than they will advance to the Northern Region playoffs and play at home on May 13.

Soccer falls to Lee Tennis beats Lee half-time and it took a lot of teamwork to come back,” said senior Meagan Harlowe.

“Earlier in the season if we were losing The setting was Hayfield Secondary a game it was almost as if we gave up School, and the atmosphere was an ec- hope and accepted the loss, but we’re restatic one as theAtoms girls’varsity soccer ally pulling together as a team because team celebrated a 2-0 victory in their first we believe losing isn’t an option.”

Despite the Atoms’ strong play they district win of the season. Their success continued one week later, when the believe they still need to improve their Atoms won their second district game of skills as a team in order to perform well in the district tourthe season against nament.

West Potomac by “We need to a final score of improve our in3-2. tensity from the The Atoms sit start of games. at 3-5-1 overall The other and 2-3 in the team scoring a Patriot District goal shouldn’t but are working be what wakes to improve and us up,” said win the rest of Clarke. their games.

The Lady “We had Atoms have started off really two district rocky this season games left in but we’re improvtheir regular ing each game, season and are and each game Freshman Tori Stocker punts the ball downfield looking for wins we’re just getting in a game against Robert E. Lee High School. to keep up team better and better and closer as a team,” said sophomore morale. The Atoms will be playing the West Springfield Spartans on their Nikki Clarke.

The Lady Atoms are looking to finish senior night.

The Atoms had a game yesterday their season strong and go into the Patriot against T.C. Williams high school but it District tournament with momentum.

“The West Potomac game was a huge ended too late for the results to be pubwin for us because we were down 2-0 at lished in this edition.

BY TIM REYNOLDS Videographer

BY WALTER SMITH Sports Editor

brace after ACL reconstructive surgery at the end of November, returned to singles matches as the sixth seed.

“I go to the high school trainer for both,” said Wahl. “I get my hand wrapped and do exercises for my shoulder.”

“After being off my knee, I can’t run as fast as I did before,” Volk said. “I changed my stroke so my knee is not as vulnerable.”

Yesterday, the Atoms played the T.C. Williams Titans, but the game finished too late for the results to be published in this issue. This afternoon, AHS takes on West Springfield in the final match of the regular season before starting the Patriot District Tournament on May 5. TheAtoms beat the Spartans 5-4 earlier in the season.

Boys Tennis has reached the top of its game going into the Patriot District Tournament. The Atoms have won five of their last seven matches and have had two key players fully returning from injuries in the past several weeks.

Among the recent successes, freshman David Hookey got his first win of the year, shutting out his Lee HS opponent 10-0 last week. Hookey has the toughest job on the team as the first seed, playing the best players of other high schools.

“I played really well. I hit my approach shots and put away my volleys,” said Hookey. “Support from my teammates put me over the edge.”

Head coach Mike Scott had plenty of praise for his team.

“We are playing really well and all of them have improved,” said Scott. “[During] the second time through, they’ve done better.”

As for the returning injured players, third seed junior Carson Wahl returned two weeks ago from a shoulder injury and blisters on his hand. Sophomore Connor Volk, who has been playing in Freshman Eric Morton reaches low to return a shot doubles matches with a knee against Lee. Morton, the second seed, won his match.

WALTER SMITH

-Alley Adcock Journalism 1 student

Girls conquer Districts

Boys Soccer loses to Lee by two goals

BY CHARLES SIMPSON Staff Writer The boy’s varsity soccer team currently holds a 2-7 record for the 2008 season. They started out strong, winning both of their pre-season scrimmages, but did not carry out the winning streak during the actual season. The team’s two non-scrimmage wins, against Washington-Lee and, most recently, Hayfield, have kept the team optimistic despite the seven losses.

“It’s been going downhill,” said junior goal tender Zack Manthos, “but we’ve been practicing really hard and can pull it together.”

To “pull it together” the team will need to tighten up defensively, be more aggressive and opportunistic on offense and work more cooperatively as an entire team. Defense has been described by players as lacking, as six goals were scored against the team in the game against Yorktown and five in the game against Lake Braddock.

“Our defense has some holes and that leaves it all up to us goal tenders,” says Manthos.

The offense also is looking to make improvements. Many players believe that players on offense have not taken enough opportunities for shots and have not followed through on every opportunity to score.

“We don’t open up enough chances on offense for goals,” said junior Parker Koppelman, “and that’s unfortunate because you can’t get points if you’re not taking shots.”

Offensive players will need to be more aggressive and cooperative to take these shots.

“If we got more shots we’d get more goals,” said senior Jose Valladares.

As a varsity mid-fielder he believes he will need to “support offense more, and pass more to get the ball up and when we have a shot we just need to take it.”

One way for the team to improve offense is to first improve the team’s defense. “Tightening up the defense would make it so the offense wouldn’t have to come back so much and could take more shots,” said Manthos.

“Our coach is putting different people in different positions to get the best possible team. Coach is figuring out who fits best where,” said Koppelman. He believes that these changes along side hard work at practice are noticeably improving the team’s defense.

“We’ve been working a lot on defense. We’ve given up a lot of goals but I think we’re tightening it up,” Koppelman said. The team is continuing to learn how to work together as a whole to improve.

“We have a younger team so the most important thing is to get to know each other.

It helps us to work together better,” said Koppelman, “We have good team chemistry and work well together at practice.”

The boy’s varsity soccer team clearly recognizes its problems, and will need to follow through on making the necessary improvements in the area of offense, defense and teamwork if they hope to succeed in the coming district tournament in mid-May.

JOE PANTHER

The Lady Atoms started out their season with a few tough losses but were able to dig out their first district win against T.C Williams 11-1. Their current record is 1-6 in the district with one win out of district against Falls Church by a score of 18-8. The young team looks to improve as they are coming off a loss against Hayfield 0-12.

“Alot of us are freshman and we just don’t have very much experience playing at this level,” said freshman pitcher Izzy Yaroch. The team has six freshmen this year which means a lot of the positions are being filled by younger, less experienced players. One area the team has targeted for improvement is carrying over skills from practice into games.

Sophomore infielder Rachel Turner described what they need to work on.

“We really need to work on our batting.

At practice we are strong batters but when we get on to the field we have some problems making it to the base,” said Turner.

The Atoms put up a strong fight against the Lake Braddock Bruins with the end result being a tough 2-9 loss.Another defeat followed against the West Springfield Spartans 0-7. Despite the tough losses, the Atoms are keeping their heads up with positive attitudes all around, “The season hasn’t been going as well as we would have liked, but overall we are improving and becoming closer as a team,” said Turner.

This strong, positive outlook bodes well for the rest of the season. The players say they are aware of the amount of work and effort it will take to turn their season around. “I know we can win more than we have been. Most of our games have been close and as long as we keep working hard I can see us winning a few more games,” said Turner.

The Atoms are coached by Tom Grant, Abbie Kahn, and David Kish.

They are lead by their team captains seniors Debbie McCoy, Tammy Pham, and junior Glenda Ngo. In their next game on April 24 they face the South County Stallions at 6:30 p.m. at South County.

April 30, 2008

SCOTT PLUNKETT

Softball struggles to a 2-14 record

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Freshmen Marco Hurtado kicks the ball during a free kick for the Atoms against Lee. The Atoms lost the game to the Lancers, 2-0, dropping their record to 2-7.

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LAX lands first seed

Stars of the Future

After a 14-3 win over West Potomac, the boys LAX team gets the number one seed in the Patriot District Tourney

A glance at the AHS JV sports teams

JV Boys Soccer

BY GREG YOUNG Sports Editor

Head Coach: Eddie LaTorre Record: 5-1-4

Ayala

Record: 4-4-1

“Stereotypically, [private schools] can beat public schools, so any time that public schools win, its good for the sport,” said Maglisceau. “We got out to a good start, which helped us, because I knew that O’Connell would make a run.”

However, the Atoms biggest challenge if they want to be successful in the postseason may be accepting their new role as a favorite.

“Everybody is gunning for us,” said Maglisceau. “Usually, we’re the underdog, so it’s different than what we are used to.”

The Atoms are optimistic that they can overcome their new role with guidance from their large senior class. The Atoms have 16 seniors, making up almost half of their roster.

“We have a lot of senior leadership this year on the team,” said senior Stephen Kim. “Everyone knows each other and younger guys like Nate Miller and Stephen Novak have stepped up.”

Fouche

JV Girls LAX Head Coach: Bonnie Vining

there’s an error, the whole team has got to pick up the player.”

“They’ve got to believe they can make the play,” said head coach Ron Abrigo. “They have to expect the ball, play and have fun.”

Although there has been poor defensive play, the pitching has been praised byAbrigo, the number one pitcher Bridge, and St. Clair.

“The scoreboard doesn’t tell how hard the pitchers work,” Bridge said.

“The pitching has gone very well,” Abrigo said.

“We just haven’t manufactured runs or made plays on defense.”

“Our pitchers did a tremendous job and threw really well,” said St. Clair after the loss to West Potomac HS. “Pitchers can make pitches all day long but if the defense doesn’t make plays, it’s going to be a long night.”

Coach St. Clair also mentioned the exceptional play of sophomore Ryan Schubert in the game against South County Secondary School, a team expected to compete for the Northern Region Championship.

“Bridge and Schubert have been good, but there just hasn’t been support hitting or in the field,” said Abrigo.

With three district games left in the season, the Atoms are looking to finish fourth or fifth going into the Patriot District Tournament.

The Atoms played the Lake Braddock Bruins last night, but the game concluded too late for the results to be published in this edition. Now, the Jeff Dean reacts to a swing and a miss against Atoms look ahead to Robert E. Lee, T.C. Williams, Senior West Springfield in a game the Atoms lost 5-0. and West Springfield. Of these teams, AHS has only

Final Word Sports Column

By Greg Young

I cannot believe that I am about to say this. If it were baseball, soccer, or heck, even softball, this statement would hardly be necessary. But unfortunately, because lacrosse seems to be a relatively unknown and vastly underappreciated sport, the success of our girls and boys lacrosse (also known as LAX to those newcomers) seems to be going almost unnoticed at our school these days.

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, both our girls and boys lacrosse teams have clinched the number one seed in the Patriot District Tournament. This is especially remarkable with our boys team, as they had to beat tough teams like Hayfield, South County, and Lake Braddock, all on the road, in order to clinch the title.

The boys team has improved from a .500 record last year to only having two losses, by one goal to West Springfield and by three goals to an 8-1 Forest Park team. And that’s not even considering the success that our boys JV team had in going undefeated this year.

Although the girls team lacks the competition of the boys this year, they’ve been simply dominant. Their only two losses have come to Bishop O’Connell, a private school, while they’ve romped through their Patriot District schedule.

In fact, their closest game, a two goal win over West Springfield, was probably their worst game all year by the team’s own admission.

But yet, at lacrosse games not only at AHS but throughout the county, people don’t show up. At home, fewer than 100 fans have been at most home games.

And what about attendance on the road, you may ask. Well, of the 2550 people that come to road games, the parents of the lacrosse players are the only consistent audience.

I understand that AHS is a football school, through and through. We eat, breathe and sleep football. But as a school, we need to learn to appreciate other sports and expand our horizons.

Just because we are a football-crazed school, doesn’t mean that we can’t support the amazing success that our lacrosse teams are having this year.

I get that lacrosse is a relatively new sport that doesn’t have the fan base that

“

Players to Watch: Aby Diop, Tania Ghods, Amanda Fouche, Miriam Oweis.

Player’s Outlook: “We’re better then last season,” said Fouche. “We are unified, but we don’t really have a goaltender this year so we have to keep the ball away from goal.”

Record: 4-5-2

Lord

other, more established sports have.

But that’s hardly an excuse to not go to games. The reality is that if we don’t show respect to our lacrosse teams now by going to their games, what message does that send to the players?

Simply put, we should be embarrassed by our lack of attendance at lacrosse games. But even that doesn’t fully encompass the problem. This year, more than any other year, our fans seem to not care about the outcomes of the games. The lack of caring isn’t just with lacrosse either; it showed in our boys basketball regional quarterfinal game against Madison at home two months ago.

As I filed into the game, I was actually pleasantly surprised at the attendance. However, at the end of the game, I was genuinely humiliated to say that I was an AHS student. Why? Not because our team lost the game, but because our fan section of well over 200 people produced less noise then a Madison student section of 20 people. If you looked around the gym, you couldn’t have been surprised either. People just didn’t seem interested in the outcome of the game. Conversations ranging from

AHS hasn’t just veered off course in terms of its school spirit; it’s lost its way.

”

JV Softball Head Coach: Cleveland Williamson Record: 2-7

Suchar

Players to Watch: Keri Berg, Samantha Dade, Alyssa Suchar, Cindy Zepeda

Player’s Outlook: “We can definitely do better,” said Suchar. “We need to work on our fielding and our teamwork.”

JV Baseball Head Coach: Terry Hiebert Record: 2-8

what people were going to do after the game or about their significant others were more frequent then cheering.

Contrast that with going to a game at TC Williams, West Springfield, or even the relatively new South County, where fans actually care about the outcomes of the games.

Essentially, our attendance is sending the message to the teams that are practicing for all hours of the day and dedicating considerable time and effort to their sport that it doesn’t matter.

Whether it is a boys lacrosse or a football game, it shouldn’t matter; the lack of attendance is hurting these teams in their games.

If we can generate any type of home atmosphere, our teams will, across the board, perform better. It is cyclical, too, because if people see the excitement around AHS sports, the team sizes will dramatically increase, therefore helping the team.

Perhaps I’m nostalgic for the socalled old days, the days in which school spirit and pride mattered. But those days are now gone. If the lack of interest in our lacrosse teams this year says anything, it’s that AHS hasn’t just veered off course in terms of its school spirit; it’s completely lost its way.

Author Email: gsy987@hotmail.com

Players to Watch: Jenny Richardson, Amelia Lord, Adrienne Williams

Player’s Outlook: “So far, we’ve improved a lot,” said Lord. “We have really strong scorers and key players at each position.”

Hey, fans: pay attention to lacrosse The

Head Coach: Geordy Fister

WALTER SMITH

A little less than three weeks ago, AHS varsity Baseball was coming off two straight district wins.

Five losses later, with a loss to West Potomac, whom they had defeated earlier in the season, theAtoms had fallen to 3-7 in the Patriot District.

After the 9-0 loss to West Potomac HS on Friday night, the players felt that they needed to play more efficiently on defense.

“We need to make routine plays,” said senior designated hitter Tyler Coquelin. “We’re just making errors.”

Senior pitcher and center fielder Eric Bridge was in agreement with Coquelin.

“We’ve got to make the easy plays,” Bridge said.

“The pitching has been good, but not being able to make routine plays makes the pitchers look bad.”

“The defense needs to pick up the pitchers,” said pitching coach Tim St. Clair, expanding on the defensive struggles. “We can’t give up free outs.”

Others believed that the mistakes happened due to mental lapses and lack of confidence.

“Being focused before the game and staying concentrated during the game are things we need to work on,” said Clayton. “We can’t get down and we need to keep our heads in the game if we fall behind early. If

JV Girls Soccer

Senior Matt Johnson attacks the goal against West Potomac. The Atoms won against the Wolverines, 14-3, clinching the Patriot District regular season title.

Atoms strike out vs. Hayfield

BY WALTER SMITH Sports Editor

Players to Watch: Melvin Perla, Chistian Arteaga, Manuel Ayala

Player’s Outlook: “We play OK, but we have to work harder,” said Ayala. “When we get the ball, we have to make smart decisions.”

GREG YOUNG

As the Atoms went across the field for the post-game handshakes after a 14-3 win at West Potomac, they couldn’t help but feel amazed about their situation.

They had just clinched the regular season Patriot District title for the first time in ten years, decimating the Wolverines on the road during their Senior Night.

“It feels really good [to win the District title,]” said senior Zach Sells. “We’ve worked hard this year to get to this point.”

With the victory came a number one seed in the upcoming Patriot District tournament on Thurs., May 1. If the Atoms can win their opening round game, against the 2-8 Lee Lancers, the Atoms will qualify for a sport in regionals. The Atoms defeated Lee 16-3 earlier this year.

If the Atoms can win the entire Patriot District tournament, they will get a number one seed in the regional tournament. The number one seed would be critical because it could mean that the Atoms will avoid playing undefeated Chantilly until the semifinal round, should they advance that far. All of the semifinalists in the regional tournament advance to the state tournament.

“We are going to have to eliminate our fundamental errors,” said head coach William Maglisceau. “We also have to shoot extremely well, because all goalies play well in the playoffs.”

One of the biggest questions about theAtoms going into the playoffs is whether they can compete with the traditional powerhouses of the Concorde District, including Oakton, Chantilly, Westfield and defending state champion, Robinson.

This year, the Concorde District is 8-0 vs. the Patriot district. The Atoms have scrimmaged against Chantilly early in the year, losing by an unofficial but widemargin.

“The Concorde teams are intimidating,” said Maglisceau. “When we play them, we have to play perfectly to even have a chance.”

However, theAtoms have shown some signs that this could be the year that they compete against the traditional powerhouses. One of those positive signs came in the Atoms 8-7, triple overtime win against O’Connell. O’Connell, a private school, has been having a relatively poor year by their standards at 6-9. However, it is still generally regarded as a major accomplishment when a public school can defeat a private one because private school teams generally play year-round. In the game, Sells assisted freshman Nate Miller for the game-winning goal.

“It was great to beat O’Connell,” said Sells. “They are our private school rival and coach [Maglisceau] always wants to beat them.”

5 game losing streak co ntinues with 1-11 loss to SC, 0-9 loss to WP

17

Fields

Players to Watch: Kevin Fields, Justin Robson, Greg Nielsen, Jordan Cowles

Player’s Outlook: “The season hasn’t gone as well as we would have liked,” said Fields.

“We’ve been working on hitting and charging at balls on defense.”

All records taken courtesy of www.annandaleatoms.com

JV Boys LAX Runs the Table This year, the JV boys LAX team went undefeated for their entire season, going 110. AHS has always had a relatively strong JV LAX team, but this is the first time in recent memory that the team has completed the season undefeated.

“It has been pretty nice to go undefeated,” said sophomore MichaelArmstrong. “I knew we’d do pretty well this season.”

The JV squad has been dominant in almost every single game, winning 8 of their 11 Armstrong games by at least five goals. However, there was one notable exception to that, which was against West Springfield. In the game, the JV squad was down 5-0 at the end of the first quarter, but was able to rally for an 8-7 win.

“We have a lot of players who can score,” said sophomore Jeff Huynh. “We were expecting to run the table this year.”

The success of the JV squad could have implications for the varsity squad next year.

Sixteen of the players on varsity are seniors and almost the entire starting lineup consists of seniors, so the JV players could fill in positions next year for the varsity team.

“I think that we will add a lot of depth,” said sophomore James Rosenberger.

“Because the starting line is basically all seniors, the starting line on JV will move to varsity.”

18 Latest Film Premiers

APRIL 25 ·Baby Mama ·Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay ·Deception ·Then She Found Me MAY 2 ·Made of Honor ·Iron Man ·Son of Rambow MAY 9 ·Speed Racer ·What Happens in Vegas...

MAY 16 ·The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian MAY 23 ·Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull MAY 30 ·Sex and the City: The Movie ·The Strangers

Upcoming CD Releases APRIL 29 Augustana — Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt Bun B — Il Trill LilMama—VYPVoice of the Young People Madonna— Hard Cany The Roots — Rising Down Carly Simon — This Kind of Love MAY 6 Clay Aiken — On My Way Here Gavin DeGraw— Gavin DeGraw Neil Diamond — Home Before Dark Ja Rule — The Mirror MAY 13 Death Cab for Cutie — Narrow Stairs Foxy Brown — Brooklyn’s Don Diva MAY 20 3 Doors Down — 3 Doors Down Scarlett Johnasson — Anywhere I Lay My Head Alanis Morissette — Flavors of Entanglement Teyana Taylor — From a Planet Called Harlem Julianne Hough — Julianne Hough MAY 27 Usher — Here I Stand Al Green — Lay it Down JUNE 3 Ashanti — The Declaration The Cure — (TBA) Jewel — Perfectly Clear

DVD Releases APRIL ·27 Dresses ·The Diving Bell and the Butterfly ·The Golden Compass ·Cloverfield MAY ·First Sunday ·Over Her Dead Body ·The Great Debaters ·Mad Money ·Untraceable ·NationalTreasure 2 — Book of Secrets ·The Air I Breathe ·Grace is Gone ·Rambo

ENTERTAINMENT

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April 30, 2008

Its raining on Prom Night Prom Night tanks and reaches ranks of the worst films of 2008

The

Dean’s List Movie Review

By Jeff Dean Hollywood loves to capture the hearts of teenagers throughout the country with its classic prom films. A perfect event to center a movie around, with its culmination of 18 years of memories and the turning of a new page in the lives of its participants. Pretty in Pink, 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s All That or even Never Been Kissed have all captured the essence of this eventful night. Prom Night aimed to do the same thing, but with a twist! They threw in a crazy stalker and made the joyous occasion, as the kids say these days, even more…killer.

What stood out the most in the film was how little they actually tried to fuse these two concepts together.

It was as if I was watching two different movies at once, both without beginnings or ends, and both were very bad.

When these two stories were combined into one, it created an even worse film. The writing for the scenes was far too sappy and the movie never established a background story for the characters that would make the audience even care about them.

That said, I was not expecting to fall in love with the characters in this movie, but I was hoping to hear some screams from the audience instead of snickers. For a scary movie the plot hardly established any suspense and whenever someone was murdered it happened in about five quick seconds.

The film is centered around the prom and turbulent high school career of your all-American girl Donna Keppel, played by Brittany Snow. Donna, as you learn from the opening scene of the film, had suffered through the murder of her parents and younger brother, who were all killed by

Emily Snow seems almost as scared as I was after watching this film and realizing that Hollywood actually thought this film was good.

her stalker teacher Richard Fenton, played by Johnathon have definitely notified Donna as soon as Fenton escaped Schaech. Luckily for Donna, Fenton is arrested and put prison. Fenton would have never escaped in the first place in jail for years, or so she thought. Fenton slyly escapes because no prison has a vent leading directly outside.

The police force they placed at the prom was extremely the jail by opening up a vent in the jail, which leads him weak and they only asked one person if they had seen directly outside.

Oblivious to his escape, Donna is prepping for prom, Fenton in the hotel. Yes, that person had seen Fenton. No, now living with her aunt and uncle. Donna and her best he did not identify him properly. These types of failures to make the film realistic continued to pile and pile friends go to prom and that’s when the random up as the film rolled. sappy high school story lines start to unfold.

The acting in the film, if anything, was Switching back to the horror part of the film, Prom Night forgettable because it was completely put in the Fenton gets a room at the hotel where the prom shadows by the lack of quality writing.Although, is and proceeds to kill a maid to steal her key and Johnathon Schaech did have a sufficiently creepy gain access to Donna’s room. look during the film, and had a fantastic ability Just as this is happening the police get word to kill people instantly with two stabs wounds of Fenton’s escape and send police to the hotel and minimal blood loss. where the prom is to protect all the exits and to There is no reason that you should ever waste try to protect Donna. The rest of the film plays out as the police scenes, high school drama scenes and your money or anybody else’s money for that matter on this horror scenes all jockey for screen time in a concerted effort movie. Prom Night will not be making The Dean’s List, but instead I will give it an F for lack of any semblance to help ruin the film.

As if the plot and writing of the film were not done of a good film.

Prom Night is 88 minutes long and rated PG-13 for poorly enough, many of the scenes and concepts of the film were completely implausible. This film by far has the worst violence and terror, some sexual material, underage drinkpolice department in the history of films. The police would ing, and language.

F

Green Apple Festival rocks out for awareness Green Apple concert does not let rain ruin the rock

BY OMAR MAYASSI Staff Writer On April 20 a huge event hosted by the Earth Day Network, hit eight cities, and DC was supposed to have the hottest venue out of all the cities. The other cities were New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Denver, Dallas and San Francisco.

The artists that were to perform in DC were The Roots, Will.I.Am, Ne-Yo, Talib Kweli, Wale, O.A.R. (acoustic), Blake Lewis (American Idol Finalist), Mambo Sauce and Umphrey’s McGee. The speakers included many environmentalists, including Chevy Chase.

“The concert was probably the highlight of the year so far,” said senior Zach Sells, “I wish there was another one next month. The concert was really exciting because of all the artists that were there [the environment present during the concert,] and the fact that O.A.R. was there.”

The crowd favorite surprisingly was not O.A.R, but was Mambo Sauce. Mambo Sauce is a DC rap group labeled under the go-go category, but there is a strong hip-

hop influence to their go-go genre. They opened up with their top song: “Welcome to D.C.” “I got so pumped as soon as Mambo Sauce came on,” said senior Erik Cabellos, “their song “Welcome to D.C.” was probably the highlight of the whole concert.

What made the song so great was the fact that everyone at the concert was singing the song word for word.Also Mambo Sauce gave our group in the audience a shout out, it was so cool.”

“The concert was great, until it started raining,” said senior Dylan Volk, “the rain came down so hard. The concert was supposed to be delayed for about 30 minutes, and everyone was escorted out by a police car, but soon after the concert was canceled due to a lighting storm, we were all so mad.”

The concert’s last act was by Umphrey’s McGee, for whom the whole crowd went

wild. The main acts which consisted of the Roots, Will.I.Am, Ne-Yo, Talib Kweli, and Wale were all canceled due to the lighting storm. Almost half of the crowd left due to the lighting storm and heavy rain, but the other half stayed and endured it only to find out that the whole event would be cancelled.

The concert was supposed to be teach the young public about how to make the world a better place through acknowledgement of environmental problems such as global warming and carbon dioxide emissions. Many speakers such as Jayni Chase, founder of the Center for Environmental Education, was there and spoke to the audience on the importance of acting now to save the world from carbon dioxide emissions.

Also during the concert the speakers gave out the telephone numbers for members of congress, so that everyone there

could call them on Earth day and tell them to act now and pass laws to improve the environment and the world.

“I hope that the calls to congress will help,” said Volk, “but I don’t know if it will really even make a dent in their decisions.”

Many people around the United States have this same feeling because they feel like they cannot really make a difference, but that is all a lie; each person can help.

With each individual comes groups of thousands and even millions of people.

And with that group comes a voice that needs to be preached out for everyone to hear, in this case to stop global warming.

This concert, titled the Green Apple Festival, certainly did the trick for hundreds of thousands of people around the US.

Heart of Darkness is a study of human pysche who’s only noted work is labeled quickly as “dense” and “lifeless.”

Through reading, I found that perhaps the two elements are connected. That is, HOD is noted for being a masterpiece, but that it harbors similar qualities to Conrad’s other writings that make it less than preferable to fast-paced readers. Conrad’s other works must not have a powerful message, such as that of HOD, that make them memorable, and thus are thrown into the recycle bin.

Here is the fair warning: despite Book Review Conrad’s intriguing title and adventurous cover art, very little at all happens in HOD.

By Paul Mathis Rather, Marlow, who is telling the story of his travels into the Congo (within the larger Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has been lauded story of the novel), describes reaching mulas a literary classic for more than a century now, but it is tiple African camps without any apparent perhaps the only work of the author’s to receive such indel- motive or reason, until he eventually ible fame. The magnum opus is too short to be published in reaches the dwelling of Mr. Kurtz where he confronts the fabled man book form alone, so it is often coupled with some of for equally unmotivated and Conrad’s other stories, such as The Secret Sharer, unreasoned aims. or The Shadow Line. But, overall, Heart of DarkHeart of In fact, Marlow’s only reason ness seems to be the only work worth noting.

Darkness for visiting Mr. Kurtz (which he So, setting out on reading the short novel, my sets as his aim within the first 40 main question was why this was. My copy of HOD of 130 pages) is his mention of the “darkness,” was packaged along with The Secret Sharer, which the “heart of darkness,” which has a magnetic I read as well. Carrying the book around with me pull likened to the essence of man’s instincts while reading it, I also discovered another trend: that, Conrad postulates, we cannot deny. even lovers of English were not taken by it, English Thus, Marlow’s journey ceases to be of any real value, teachers noted that it is hard for them to teach.

Thus, I had in my hands a short novel by an author and transforms into a metaphysical expedition aimed at whose 25 other works go virtually unrecognized, and discovering the meaning of being a human, a meaning

Paul on Prose

B+

that can only be found by confronting our inner beasts.

Again, it seems poetic, beautiful, and ready for devouring, but is presented in a thick and at times impenetrable fashion.

That being said, HOD is powerful enough to merit it a place in the lineage of great English language masterworks, and it is clear the short novel rose to prominence not due only to political fame. (HOD has been seen as not only a great literary work, but one of political importance, as Conrad describes many circumstances in which African “pilgrims” are starving, suffering, and dying under the oppression of Belgian colonialists).

Though it reads much like a philosophical treatise, the points it does make are investigative of human nature and required reading for those interested in the development of Western thought. Conrad describes the amorphous “darkness” as if it were the ultimate challenge for humans, to shed our civilization and come to grips with the origins of our ferocious natures.

HOD should be read as psychological and philosophical inquiry, rather than powerful story-telling, fit for college freshmen with eager minds over lackadaisical high school seniors.

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April 30, 2008

ENTERTAINMENT

You won’t forget this one Ave’s Favs

Marshall, has his life turned upside down when he learns year Old Virgin, Borat, and 10 Things I Hate About You. However, by far the most touching and rip-roaring his beloved girlfriend has left him for rocker, Aldous Snow scenes of the movie are the ones involving Bretter’s (Russell Brand.)

Dracula puppet musical. Even though Bretter is Bretter then falls into depression as he remembers the Tupperware that Marshall bought to keep Forgetting Sar- a composer on Marshall’s CSI-like show, his job his cereal fresh and the hideous shirts she bought ah Marshall basically consists of one-tone melodies. He aspires to make actual music and not just the backround for him that he wore to make her happy. It simply music to crime scenes. is the uproarious tale of a man trying to get over There is no way to describe what a Dracula the girl he thought he could not live without. puppet musical is until you see and hear it, but, Marshall’s new boyfriend, brings ,a star-power one thing is for sure: it will have you laughing that radiates throughout the film. His songs, “Inoff your seat. side of You,” and “We’ve Got to Do Something,” While vacationing in Hawaii, Bretter meets a host make fun of the propensity of rock stars to have sex with hundreds of girls, while also promoting global peace. of funny characters. The scene in which Snow teaches a Brand, a British import, is sure to have many directors newlywed couple having trouble with their sex life how to perform better is absoultuely insanely funny.After that you knocking on his door after this movie. will look at chess in an entirely differnt way.

Snow personifies the carefree rocker The appeal of this film compared to the others of this lifestyle when he responds to a request current, vulgar comedy era is that your girlfriend will enjoy to listen to a demo-cd by saying, “ I was is just as much as the guy laughing at the hysterical jokes. going to, but then I just carried on livin’ The juxtaposition of the sensitive sides of both men and my life.” The entire movie is so sexualwomen, with that of their dominant sexual nature allows intensive that it is a joke by the end. I the characters to be developed into complex people. would say this movie The first scene, the nude scene, sets the tone for as a whole, is cross the rest of the film. Even though he lets it all between Suhang out in the beginning, is not all that perbad, gets revealed. Audiences everywhere cannot help but feel for the nice-guy persona of Bretter.

I can truly say that I have not seen a movie in a long time with the appeal this one has to such a wide range of audiences.

It is easy to identify with both Bretter’s and Marshall’s experiences. It is impossible to forget Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I was laughing at every change of scene.

A

Entertainment Review

By Avery Adcock For those who thought Superbad should have nabbed an Oscar, get ready for Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Dubbed a chick flick for guys, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a breath of fresh air. Not only is the comedy original, but the actors are simply hilarious.

The first scene of the movie is a rather embarrassing one.After learning his dream girlfriend of two years, Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) wants to break things off Peter Bretter (Jason Segal) drops his towel and proceeds to cry hysterically in denial. In an attempt to find himself outside of the scripted life he lived with his actress girlfriend, Bretter decides to take a trip to Hawaii to clear his thoughts.

What he found there was the last thing he expected.

After learning that his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend are vacationing at the same hotel, Bretter thinks life could not get any worse. After spending time with Rachel Jansen (Mila Kunis) those thoughts begin to change. The question is: will a newfound love allow him to truly get over Sarah Marshall?

Many may say that this is just another vulgar comedy with no depth. However this is not true. Bretter is the character that most say finishes last: the sweet guy with a big heart. Bretter, who is attached at the hip to

40-

Simpson’s newest CD, not up to par into the rock-star that she wants to be. After a nose job she completely changed her look and recently a new red hair color, Simpson has definitely matured. Her obvious media After “Autobiography” Ashlee Simpson had a hard ploy of announcing her engagement to Fall Out Boy rocker, act to follow. Her second album, “I Am Me” debuted with Pete Wentz, was in bad taste.

Some of the tracks are actually catchy, but would get less than favorable reviews. This time around, Simpson not only transformed her voice, but also her identity. The annoying after the third or fourth listen. “Hot Stuff” is more transformation from her first punk-rocker-chick tracks of upbeat with electric tunes. The absolute worst song on the “Pieces of Me” is obvious. Now, this album boasts 80’s style album is “What I’ve Become.” There is a reason she got booed at both the Rose Bowl and Saturday Night Live: she melodies with a Gwen-Stefani-esque attitude.

Despite the artistic journey Simpson has taken, she still is not that good of a singer.

When I heard that Timbaland would be producing a is trying to be something she is not. She should have stuck majority of the album, I had high hopes for it. to the appealing punk-rock girl on a mission tracks as opposed to that of her new grunge style. Her new Bittersweet However Simpson simply missed the mark. Lyrically, the album is not anything special. Simpson boyfriend has changed her in more ways than one World is not exactly a Mariah Carey, but she could have and it is obvious with her newest album. won over some listens with her lyrics.

However, I have to commend her for trying This is obviously a party album, but it does something new that she says is her actual style. not really even accomplish that. The songs are The problem with the album is that is lacks varivery techno, without the support of a mega-star ability. The tracks barely differ from a common singer. However, “Ragdoll” does the best at acstyle.

Her other albums boast songs to dance to that kept complishing the party style. “Outta My Head” is actually listeners humming all week long. The only song on this quite techno, but it works because of the style.

The album simply does not appeal to a wide range of album you may have stuck in your head is ironically titled audiences. It has a very unique sound that only a certain “Outta My Head.”

Many critics are praising Simpson for straying away audience will appreciate. Simpson said she channeled the from the mall pop that made her famous, however I believe Neptunes in writing her most recent work, however she that was part of her appeal. The one thing I can say about was not even close. Some of the songs are good at best, but Simpson, is that now her outer appearance has developed Ashlee does get an A for originality.

Taurus (April 20-May18)

At the beginning of the month good fortune will come to you.

Things will turn worse as the month goes on, but keep a level head.

You will be rewarded in the end.

Gemini (May 19-June 20)

Your happy disposition and fun-loving carelessness catches the eye of someone that you never would have expected. Don’t read into it, just enjoy yourself!

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Don’t let a dreary day hold back your spirit. Take a walk in the park or find a good book to lift your spirits.

At the end of the month a special person will come into your life.

You will come into contact with a large amount of money. Take care in choosing how you spend it. Spending it to help others will result in never-ending benefits for you.

I guess I still remember her as the rebel girl everyone looked up to. Now, it seems she is going in a direction in which she mimics those she idolizes. Her new album is entertaining, however not for very long.

If you are into a mix between Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne, then maybe this album is for you. However, for most this album is nothing special.

“Bittersweet World” deviates from Simpson’s previous albums, however it will not capture the same feelings as listeners felt before.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

You have not been taking your responsibilities seriously and it will catch up with you this month. Make sure you are living up to your family’s expectations.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

referred to as “submarines,” into his home until they can establish themselves. Marco (Louis Cancelmi) is the more affable of the two cousins, who works solely for his family back in Italy, unlike Rodolpho (David Agranov) who wishes to become an American and live the American dream.

Rodolpho quickly woos Catherine right under Eddie’s nose, despite his stern disapproval. Even after Eddie ostracizes Rodolpho by “teaching him how to box” and humiliating him in front of his brother and Catherine, Rodolpho continues to pursue his object of affection.

Kull is as convincing as a loving daughter can be to a father figure, constantly waiting for Eddie to come home to greet him. The Delaney Williams and Virgin Kull star in A View From the epitome of a girl preserved, Bridge, written by the late Arthur Miller.

Kull stretches her heart

lawyer who swings in and out of scenes as deemed necessary by the script, intimating at the conflict that is to transpire more and more with every recurring appearance.

The conflict begins when Eddie welcomes his wife’s illegal immigrant cousins,

between Rodolpho and Eddie trying to appease her uncle but also falling in love.

Williams delivers a moving performance projecting his voice and personality from across the stage as the loving guardian who wishes for nothing more than a good name and his family’s happiness. Save for breaks in his Brooklyn accent, Williams stays true to his seemingly simple, yet complex character.

As the plot moves along and the story unfolds, the characters progress to the culminating light scene and deliver their most powerful performances. Williams, Kull and Cancelmi along with the others create an incredibly tense atmosphere, accompanied by a deafening bass sound, suitable for the apocalypse.

A View From the Bridge carries on the tradition of early America that most recognize from Death of A Salesman. The cast does the late Arthur Miller justice through its exemplary performance in addition to the venue’s setting, lighting and sound effects. The view was never better.

Take a few friends out to dinner at the end of this month. Celebrate happiness with others and you will be more joyous than ever.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

As work is continuing to pile on, make sure that you don’t leave things to the last minute. Getting started early will help tremendously.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

You are finally accomplishing the goals that you set out on at the beginning of the year.

Stay on track and don’t let outside distractions bother you.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb.18)

You have been neglecting those most close to you. In a time like this, bonding is the key. Turning to others isn’t the answer as you are moving in another direction. Be careful not to lose the one you care most about.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) Fill in the blank spaces in the grid so that every vertical column, every horizontal row and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 through 9, without repeating any. There is really only one solution to each puzzle.

This puzzle is based upon reasoning and logic. It does not require any arithmetic.

easy

WWW.DAILYSUDOKU.COM

Sudoku

Horoscopes

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sept. 22)

WWW.DAILYSUDOKU.COM

As part of the Arthur Miller festival, held in rotating repertory until May 18, Arena Stage presents an American classic, A View From the Bridge. Laden with the quintessential Miller aspects of theater, such as the façade of the American dream, the belief in hard work and most importantly, the weight carried by a man’s name, View From the Bridge, directed by Daniel Aukin, creates moments of sentiment and others of rancor.

The play is slow to start, focusing on establishing the relationships between the main characters in the first half of the first act. Eddie (Delaney Williams), the overbearing uncle with premature separation anxiety with his niece Catherine (Virginia Kull), who is ready to start a life on her own, but does not want to break her provider’s heart. This depicts the heartfelt relationship with underlying tones of “loving too much.”

The story is narrated by an ominous

1.Leona Lewis—Bleeding Love 2.Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major—Lollipop 3.Jordin Sparks Duet With Chris Brown—No Air 4. Usher Featuring Young Jeezy— Love In This Club 5.Mariah Carey—Touch My Body 6. Ray J & Yung Berg—Sexy Can I 7. Madonna Featuring Justin Timberlake—4 Minutes 8. Chris Brown—With You 9. Sara Bareilles—Love Song 10. Flo Rida Featuring T-Pain— Low

You are venturing into new territory and you might be a little scared. Don’t be afraid to try new things. Take time to keep in contact with those who matter to you most.

An astonishing View From the Bridge

BY MOHAMAD ELBARASSE Co-Editor in Chief

Download this

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

BY AVERY ADCOCK Entertainment Editor

C-

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medium

Be aware of your family’s and friend’s feelings this month.

Sometimes you forget that others are feeling the same as you are.

Take a moment to spend time with someone special.

Aries (March 21-April19)

It seems that the new love in your life will last longer than you originally thought. Take time to understand the other’s feelings. Don’t let this person go.

20 Amusement Park Facts —Fastest rollercoaster: Kingda Ka –Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson, NJ 128 mph

WEEKEND

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April 30, 2008

Riding into spring Check out the top three amusement parks for the spring season. Learn which rides are debuting this year and which classics will remain at the top of every visitor’s list. Join millions of Americans amidst some of the nation’s most prestigious roller coasters.

—Tallest rollercoaster: Kingda Ka –Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson, NJ 456 ft.

Kings Dominion

—Longest rollercoaster: Steel Dragon –Nagashima Spa Land, Nagashima, Mie, Japan 8133 ft.

Known for having one of widest variety of roller coasters, this spring, Kings Dominion will debut its fourteenth roller coaster, the Dominator. This new ride will be the longest, floorless coaster in the world with one of the largest roller coaster loops in history. Now Kings Dominion will have the largest coaster collection on the east coast with its latest debuting late this spring.

It continues to garner over 2 million guests annually to the 400-acre park that contains over 40 rides. On hot days it has an ideal 20-acre water park connected to it which is also included when guests pay admission for one day.

As many theme parks do, there is more than Food: just fun rides and food At Kings Dominion. Kings Dominion also hosts various performers, which all add to the already exciting atmosphere. This year guests will have the opportunity to see Fred Ham- Cleanliness: mond, the dance festival, fireworks and Kingsfest which features many up and coming artists.

With over 21 different parks in North America, Six Flags has become a household name when referring to theme parks. It is the world’s largest theme park chain, hosting over 24.9 million guests in 2007.

Its familiar logo, sporting the famous Bugs Bunny, is the trademark placed on it by Time Warner, signifying its relationship with the Warner Bros. animated characters.

The Six Flags park in VA, Six Flags Great America, was the first premier park to open in 1982 but was not acquired by Six Flags until 1992.

This year it will be debuting the Tony Hawk Halfpipe in the Hurricane Harbor water park. The ride was announced in December and will officially open on May 24. It sends guests down one side of the half pipe at close to 23 mph. It is trying to give riders the same effect that skateboarders feel when they are on land. The effects created with the water gives the feeling of zero gravity as well as the illusion of “no sides.”

Opening Date: March 22 for weekend operation, May 24 for daily operation. Water works Water Park will open on May 24 as well.

Price Per Ticket: Adult (ages 3-61 and under 48”) = $51.95 Junior/Senior (ages 3-61 and under 48”, ages 62+) = $29.95

Opening Date: Opened April 26 for weekend operation and will open May 23 for daily operation. On May 24, Hurricane Harbor, the water park, will be open as well.

Price Per Ticket: Adult = $49.99 (online price $39.99) Junior (under 48”) = $34.99 Child (2 and under) = free

—Biggest Drop : Kingda Ka –Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson, NJ 418 ft.

—Worldʼs oldest operating amusement park: Bakken, Klampenborg –Denmark 1583

Amusement Park Tips: —The best times to visit the park are at the beginning and end of the busy season. This includes the months of March-May and September-October.

—Carry either a fanny pack or a small backpack to carry all of your belongings in. Worst case, all parks have lockers that are available for free or for a very low fee.

—To minimize your wait time in line, check out your favorite or most popular rides either before 10 a.m. or after 5 p.m.

—Food at amusement parks can be very pricey. Instead of spending a lot of money on snacks throughout the day, which will add up very quickly, pack snacks to bring along with you and spend money on one meal during the late afternoon.

—Be prepared for all types of weather!

Early afternoon showers are not rare so it would be a good idea to pack a light rain jacket or poncho.

Upcoming Concerts

Food:

Busch Gardens There are dozens of rides and attractions to be explored at Williamsburg’s Busch Gardens. With a European theme, there is a wide variety of food and main stage shows as well as a fun children’s area. The park is owned and operated under the Anheuser-Busch Company, Inc., the world’s largest brewing company. Busch Gardens in Williamsburg is one of the ten parks run by the company, its others including Busch Gardens Africa in Tampa Bay; Sesame Place near Philadelphia; SeaWorld in San Diego, Orlando and San Antonio and Discovery Cove in Orlando.

This season the park’s latest attraction is a thrilling roller coaster named “The Griffon,” which made its debut last May. Its major selling point is its 90 degree drop in which it plummets its riders down at 70 mph. Each hour, it can accommodate 1,400 guests for a riding time of three minutes. Set in a French village, it is meant to emulate the speed and adrenaline-rush of a griffon as it dives and turns.

Six Flags Great America

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Opening Date: March 21 for weekends and the majority of weekdays until the last week in May. Price Per Ticket: Adult (ages 10+ ) = $56.95 Junior (ages 3-9) = $49.95 Child (2 and under ) = free

Katt Williams

Thurs. May 9 DAR Constitution Hall 7:30 p.m.

Price: $48.50-58.50

Kenny Chesney ft. Leann Rimes Sat. May 10 M and T Bank Stadium 2:30 p.m.

Price: $84.50-99.50

What’s On The Menu Restaurant Guide

By Caroline Merz

La Fondita

Kanye West Sat. May 10 Nissan Pavilion 7 p.m.

Price: $22.50

Erykah Badu w/ the Roots

Sat. May 10 Pier Six Concert Pavilion 7 p.m.

Price: $28-93

It is hard to distinguish the unique Mexican bakery, La Fondita, seeing as it is nestled between the McDonald’s and Wachovia bank running along Little River Turnpike, perpendicular to Hummer Rd. Recently opened, it is a surprisingly good find as far as Mexican food goes.

It is extremely rare to find an independent authentic restaurant that is not part of a chain. Close to all chains are restaurants offering the same tastes at every location.

Parking is a little tight at La Fondita, but on the weekends there should be little to no problem seeing as the crowd flow is fairly minimal.

It is evident that there are many regulars who venture in after working all day for a drink or a small bite to eat.

It has a very authentic feeling with a fun ‘after hours’ atmosphere. A jukebox keeps customers occupied, as well as various televisions playing Spanish and American channels.

Décor is a little lacking but to give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt, it is still up and coming in the area –maybe not entirely moved in yet.

There are few pictures displayed on the wall but the colors are earthy. In the far back corner is a long counter display that shows off the bakery part of the restaurant.

It displayed various dishes, pastries, and foods that are available for purchase or order.

It is confusing upon entering what customers are supposed to do but a very friendly waitress directed us towards a table that was pretty self-explanatory from there.

Though unknown to most, La Fondita is the best kept secret in the food department. After ordering a simple round of nachos and chicken quesadillas, I was taken aback by the unique taste each brought to the table.

For starters, water was brought out served with lime, as opposed to its usual partner of lemon. It switched everything up a bit and added a new flavor. This was only the first of many surprises to follow.

When asked whether we preferred chicken or beef on the nachos, we were all in agreement that we were beef people. Expecting the typical ground beef that most places serve on nachos, we were served pieces of steak. Yes, thick pieces of cut up steak atop the mound of chips and cheese which were below it.

The nachos were a little heavy on the beans but the beans could easily be scraped to the side and in my opinion they were a great addition to the dish.

With regards to the chicken quesadilla, how much fancier can you make a chicken quesadilla? There really is not much to it besides the tortilla, chicken and cheese.

Well whatever ingredient the chefs at La Fondita added to it did something great for the taste buds.

Somehow the chefs conjured up an amazing plate of chicken quesadilla. It was a large serving, worth every penny paid, but kept very simple.

Served with sour cream, guacamole, lettuce, and tomatoes it was up to the customer’s discretion how they were to dress the dish.

Each employee was very friendly and the service was good. At times it was hard to understand the waitress and it was apparent that her first language was Spanish, but it added to the authenticity of the experience.

One complaint I had was over the prices of menu items. It was surprising that they were as high as they were, but come to think of it, it is probably the same for any chain Mexican restaurant. Plus the food quality was much better.

La Fondita is a small place so it is not good for large

La Fondita is the best kept secret in Mexican food. It is tucked away between the McDonaldʼs and the bank on Little River Turnpike. Itʼs authentic food and atmosphere provides for a fun time with a small group of friends or family.

groups, but it is a great hang out place for a small group of friends or if you are simply just looking for a quick bite to eat.

It continues to have fairly slow business during the day but after work hours it livens up quite quickly.

Go and discover one of the greatest Mexican restaurants that has hit Annandale so far.

It’s authenticity and great food and service really make for a fantastic experience.

Food: Service: Decor: out of 4 stars

Locations: 7610 Little River Tpke Annandale, VA 22003 (703) 941-4377