Verde Volume 12 Issue 5 by Verde Magazine

verde

palo alto high school volume 12 edition 5

It’s not easy being GREEN

TRASH

How Paly’s three-bin system doesn’t solve the waste problem

SOLAR

Why solar power is more complicated than you think

LEARNING

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INDEX VOLUME 12 • EDITION 5 • PALO ALTO HIGH SCHOOL

NEWS Briefing 7 Compiled by Melissa Wen and Sharon Tseng

THE LAUNCH Short Features 11 Compiled by Caroline Ebinger COVER Trash Talk 15 by Sarah Jacobs and Manon von Kaenel Solar as a Symbol

by Ally Messick and Camille von Kaenel

PROFILES Traveling Teacher 23 by Sonali Sastry Music to the Power of 24 One by Sharon Tseng

Tunefully Talented

The Photographer

by Elise Bruguera by Alex Lenail

PERSPECTIVES Eco-ducation 32 by Manon von Kaenel Girls: In Low Supply by Camille von Kaenel

It Was Not Justice by Jackson Miley

33 34

FEATURES Adios, Urbina! 36 by Jaqueline Friduss On Target 38 by Mira Khanna and Emily Efland Spreading the Good

Ode to the ARC

Guiding Students or Gaming the System?

by Sharon Tseng

by Elise Bruguera

by Gadi Cohen

THE WATCH Frozen Treats 46 by Ava Dordi, Margaret Kadifa and Camille von Kaenel

Summer Movies

48 50

Summer Concerts

Froyo Fever by Emma Tucher

by Jackson Miley and Zachary StantonSavitz by Allison Chang and Mira Khanna

CULTURE Midnight Madness 54 by Ava Dordi Breaking Out the Bacon 56 by Melissa Wen Verde Vegan

It’s In the Rocks

A Smashing Good Time

by Camille Couchon

by Amanda Groziak by Allen Wu

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM >>> Music to the Power of One (pg. 24), Travelling Teacher (pg. 23), Trash Talk (pg. 15)

SENIOR SECTION Senior Section 65 Compiled by Anabel Homnack, Max Cohen, and Sarah Jacobs

Max’s Words by Max Cohen

70 june 2011

cover

by yelena kasianova

Follow Verde on Twitter at twitter.com/verdemagazine Our tweets can’t be beat!

volume 12 edition 4

verdeexcerpts “The [solar] panel at Gunn is small, and it’s for an educational purpose. It is not saving significant money. It is there symbolically”

Page 19

Robert Golton, Disctrict Chief Business Official “Solar as a Symbol”

“I’m always delighted when Julian emails me new songs because I think he’s got such an amazing ear and musical voice especially at his young age. ”

Jeff Marks, Tony-award winning co-creator of Broadway’s “Avenue Q” and mentor of Paly sophomore Julian Hornik “Tunefully Talented”

Page 26

LETTERS TO THE EDITORS Letters received in response to Verde postings on The Paly Voice at http://voice.paly.net/verde “What happens when the big one strikes?” Because the Paly community changes every year, it is extremely important for you to make this information widely available to new students, their families and the staff. Perhaps you are thinking about turning your article into a booklet? — “Redcloud1” “Paly students provide a look into the timeless nature of classical music” People have been predicting doom and gloom for the future of classical music since I was a kid back in the dark ages, yet it continues to flourish as it finds fresh young ears to appreciate it and talented young musicians to convey their love for it. — “Wiggy1770” “A campus changed: Paly in 1969” It’s difficult to accurately capture a point in history that you weren’t a part of, and the writer did it beautifully. You should consider doing more of these. — “Parent”

verde magazine

“If Paly wants to become more green, it’s time to make the long-term investment in environmental education.”

Page 32

Manon von Kaenel “Eco-ducation”

“Everyone wants to be the best, but once you actually finish your tournament sets and shake hands, everything changes and that’s what Smash is all about”

Page 64

Aristos Kemiji, a San Francisco Super Smash Brothers player. “A Smashing Good Time”

“Final Confession: I’ve never been to a tutorial.”

Page 66

Anonymous Paly Senior “Senior Section Survey”

verde

from the editors

volume 12 edition 5 june 2011 Staff List Editors-in-Chief Emily Kellison-Linn Scott Kleckner Maytal Mark Managing Editors Caroline Ebinger Allen Wu News Editors Sharon Tseng Melissa Wen

ith the impending closure of the Palo Alto landfill, Palo Alto’s process of trash disposal will soon change drastically. Most high school students don’t pay much attention to this issue, but it raises one of the most pressing environmental questions of our time: How should we deal with our waste? We have decided to ask this question about Paly. The Green Team has put in enormous effort this year to make trash, recycling, and compost bins easily available around campus, but is simply placing the bins enough? On page 15, Sarah Jacobs and Manon von Kaenel take an in-depth look at where Paly’s waste goes, and why we still have a long way to go towards waste-efficiency. Also, the current national debate over renewable energy has inspired us to examine Paly’s potential for sustainability. On page 19, Ally Messick and Camille von Kaenel question whether solar power is really the answer to our energy problems. We are also paying tribute to two teachers, Deanna Chute and Janet Urbina, who will be leaving Paly next year, with a story by Sonali Sastry on page 23 and a photo essay by Jacqueline Friduss on page 36. We will miss both of these amazing teachers and the contributions they have made to the Paly community. Also, get psyched for summer with a special extra-long Watch section dedicated to summer fun, starting on page 45. This is our first issue as editors, and we would like to thank our previous editors, Sonali Sastry, Camille von Kaenel, Max Cohen, Ally Messick, and Manon von Kaenel for helping us through this process and leading us over the past year. We’re looking forward to leading another great year of Verde when we return this August. Now it’s almost 6:00 (in the afternoon, not the morning), we’ve already passed our deadline to submit the magazine, and Mr. Kandell is just beginning to become frustrated, so we’re going to leave you with that. See you in the fall. — Emily, Scott, & Maytal

Business Managers Camille Couchon Elizabeth Silva Art Director Yelena Kasianova Photographer Jacqueline Friduss

Staff Elise Bruguera Allison Chang Gadi Cohen Emily Efland Amanda Groziak Anabel Homnack Sarah Jacobs Margaret Kadifa Mira Khanna Alex Lenail Jessica Madej Ally Messick Jackson Miley Sonali Sastry Zach Stanton-Savitz Emma Tucher Camille von Kaenel Manon von Kaenel Adviser Paul Kandell

Cartoonist Ava Dordi

Palo Alto Unified School District 25 Churchill Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94306-1099 Publication Policy Verde, a feature magazine published by the students in Palo Alto High School’s Magazine Journalism class, is an open forum for student expression and the discussion of issues of concern to its readership. Verde is distributed to its readers and the student body at no cost. Letters to the Editors The staff welcomes letters to the editor but reserves the right to edit all submissions for length, grammar, potential libel, invasion of privacy and obscenity. Send all letters to verdeds-10-11@googlegroups.com or to 50 Embarcadero Road Palo Alto, CA 94301. All Verde stories are posted online — and available for commenting — at http://voice.paly.net/verde. Advertising The staff publishes advertisements with signed contracts providing they are not deemed by the staff inappropriate for the magazine’s audience. For more information about advertising with Verde, please contact the Verde business managers Elizabeth Silva and Camille Couchon by e-mail at verde.biz.paly@gmail.com or call 650-329-3837 for more information. Printing & Distribution Services Verde is printed five times a year in October, December, February, April and June by Fricke-Parks Press in Fremont, California. The Paly PTSA mails Verde to every student’s home. All verde work is archived — and available for commenting at http://voice.paly.net/verde.

june 2011

[ OPINION ]

staff verdict Students, counselors at the CCC should work together to increase accessibility While the college stress for this year’s Palo Alto High School senior class is calming down, a new batch of rising seniors are gearing up to face the daunting task ahead of them: college applications. The importance of college guidance, specifically at Paly, has come to the attention of the Verde staff. The College and Career Center at Paly is a valuable resource that helps many students in building their college lists and editing their essays without the cost and other complications of hiring a private college counselor. However, there are some times during the year where the wait for an appointment can be extremely long. During the year some students feel they do not have sufficient access to the CCC and its resources. The availability of the CCC counselors is important to students because of the importance of the guidance they provide. Verde believes that both the students and the CCC staff should make some changes to increase the accessibility of these resources. Counselors Sandra Cernobori and Alice Erber both send out emails through Naviance to remind students to schedule CCC

appointments early in the year. However – and teacher-advisors reinforce this message repeatedly in person – many students do not pay attention to these email reminders and choose to wait. Because students postpone making appointments, they may have to wait up to a month for an opening. Although it is hard to juggle schoolwork and remember to read the email reminders, we suggest that students try to take more initiative and take responsibility for their actions. CCC counselors could also make some changes to improve the situation. Because of the fluctuating wait time for CCC appointments throughout the year, students may feel stressed that they cannot get the advice they need when they need it. Counselors should better advertise their drop-in hours they have at brunch, lunch, and after school. That way, students avoid conflicts and have more available appointments to choose from. With a little extra planning we can see these complaints decreasing in the coming year. With more initiative students will be able to get the appointment times they want and the help they need.

4th period ASB system needs improvement There’s a student job at Palo Alto High School that goes unnoticed. In every classroom, these students hold a critical position but their duties are often overlooked. They’re those lone students in fourth period classrooms who are supposed to attend Associated Student Body meetings. They’re fourth period representatives. As part of the laboriously crafted new bell schedule, the school added 10 minutes to fourth period class on Tuesdays, making it 100 instead of the usual 90 minutes. Five of these minutes are designated for InFocus and the other five are for the representatives to report back to their class, but this time is rarely used. However, in the vast majority of Verde staff member’s fourth period classes, this time is rarely, if ever, used for its intended purpose. Fourth period representatives are supposed to serve as a link between students and their student government, and not using the system results in a huge gap between ASB members and the rest of the student body. This needs to change. The system at Paly is crucial for communication between the student body and ASB. When it works, representatives inform classmates about current ASB discussions, upcoming events on campus, and general campus news, according to current ASB Vice President Uma Veerappan.

verde magazine

Junior Alex Carter, the fourth period representative for Jack Bungarden’s AP US History class, says he has attended every meeting for the representatives this year. Carter says that he does not have time to report back to his class and estimates that throughout the year ASB has called five meetings with its representatives. Launer says the attendance at the meetings has been steady. She agrees, however, that the system does have problems, saying that teachers may need to be educated on why the system is important. Verde agrees with Launer that the teachers and the school as a whole needs to give the necessary attention to the representative system. There also needs to be more accountability in the system to make sure the representatives attend meetings and report back to their classes. Fourth period teachers need to allow time for their representatives to present, and the representatives themselves need to take responsibility for attending meetings and reporting back. With the election of new ASB officers next year, we believe that the system can improve if an accountability system is put in place, and increased awareness is raised on behalf of the teachers, ASB, students, and the student representatives. - Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Verde staff

Briefing

NEWS THE LATEST AND GREATEST

Massive construction looms Summer building projects to kick off drastic campus changes Construction on the new media arts center and math and social science buildings will explode onto the Palo Alto High School campus this summer, bringing vast changes. Construction bidding for these projects was opened on May 20, according to principal Phil Winston. The bidding allows local companies to compete for the job, and a winning bid will be approved by the school board on June 28. “I have been pleased with the process,” Winston said. “My hope is that they come back with savings.” Paly’s various building projects take place primarily to provide space for the increasing class sizes expected in the coming years. In contrast to the 1,900 students currently enrolled, the new buildings will accommodate 2,300, Winston said. Funding comes from Measure A, a bond measure Palo Alto voters approved in June 2008. The measure allots $378 million to various projects, including the new Paly buildings.

Summer construction on the campus includes a long fence (in red) that will block parking areas, with an opening to the bike path. This fence may be in place for years to come.

Source: Infographic by yelena kasianova based on a Gilbane Building Co. map

Administrators say there will be minimal disturbance during the process. Although faculty members accept the implications of such a large project, they have received the news well. “I’m very excited about the new

building,” said math teacher Suzanne Antink. “I expect it will be noisy and dirty for two years. But construction is part of the adventure of growth and renewal. It must be faced with trepidation and excitement.” text by allison chang

Rising grads may face loftier requirements The Palo Alto Board of Education has tabled until fall discussion of a proposal for a new set of graduation requirements for the class of 2016. The proposal, which would raise district requirements to match the University of California and California State University entrance requirements, aims to prepare all students that graduate for college eligibility and 21st century jobs.

To match the A-G requirements, state school eligibiltiy requirements, the Palo Alto requirements currently need: a mandatory two years of a foreign language, three years of mathematics and two years of lab science. The fact that 85 percent of students complete and go beyond the A-G requirements in their course schedules, supports this proposal. However, an achievement gap also showed in the data.

Board members at a May 24 meeting raised issues about the lack of research on the 15 percent of studentswhodo not fulfill the A-G requirements, and expressed concern that these students would not graduate if the classes were made mandatory. The community raised the concerns that raising graduation standards would increase the risk for depression, and would not fix the achievement gap. text by amanda groziak

june 2011

[ NEWS ]

text by elise bruguera

Yearbook pick-up Palo Alto High School seniors can pick up their yearbooks during seventh period and after school on Thursday, June 2, in room 104, according to section editor Priya Kshirsager. Yearbooks for all other classes will be available starting Wednesday, June 1, until Friday, June 3. Kshirsager says there are some new additions to this yearbook. “[There are] better photos, more writing, better graphic design, [and] a unique theme,” she said. text by sonali sastry

verde magazine

Palo Alto High School sophomore Jeffrey Ling is taking up his next big challenge: the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program in Nebraska this summer. After winning the USA Junior Math Olympiad, which consists of the American Mathematics Contest and American Invitational Math math contests, Ling will now attend MOP to train and learn olympiad math with many other talented students and instructors, all in hopes to place in the International Math Olympiad. The IMO takes place in July in the Netherlands, and involves more than 100 countries worldwide. Each country sends six contestants to participate in a proof writing contest. To place in the US IMO, students must take a team selection test and score within the top six spots; however, Ling

sharon tseng

The 2011 Palo Alto Summer School offers new opportunities with two additional classes. The first will be a combination Spanish class for eighth graders looking to advance their learning and high school students looking to make up credits, according to Summer School Coordinator Kara Rosenberg. The other new class will be a combination English class for ninth and tenth graders who need to make up credits in order to graduate, she said. Summer school, held in two sessions at Gunn High School, includes 29 different courses. According to Rosenberg, the district holds summer school for students to advance their knowledge and to make up missed credits required for graduation. There is still time to register, although several classes have no more space. More information can be found online at www.pausd.org or at the Summer School Office in Room 8 of the Tower Building.

Sophomore wins spot at math camp

Math whiz Jeffrey Ling flashes a smile while tutoring in the ARC. feels prepared to face such odds. “I feel extremely lucky to have the opportunity to attend such a prestigious camp,” Ling said. “Everyone who does math competitions ultimately aims to make MOP, as that is where the best teaching and students in the nation are. I am greatly looking forward to going to the camp this summer. Even if it is intense it will be a lot of fun.” text by allison chang

DeSean Jackson touches down at Paly Students and faculty packed the organization directed “to help creative student center on Friday, May 20, to kids in poverty or privilege deal with the listen to talks emotional literacy from volunteer challenges brought on celebrities. by bullying, gangs, suiPrimarcide, trauma, drug adily featured were diction, LBGT issues DeSean Jackor family drama.” son, a National Jackson and his Football League brother, also one of the athlete on the speakers, discussed Philadelphia their father’s support Eagles, and Ray in both of their careers Luv, a Bay Area and the five principles rap artist. they live by: desire, The prebelief, vision, dream, DeSean Jackson performs his favorite touchdown dance. sentation was and power. organized by Ray Luv and two Alternative Intervention Models, a other rappers performed hip-hop songs. text by max cohen self-described arts and athletics based jacqueline friduss

New classes for summer school

By the

NUMBERS

Percent of Gunn and Paly waste made out of garbage p. 16

d t

Stanford accepts ROTC back on to campus, following the national trend

Future of Hanger One hangs in uncertainty

trend of increased support for the military has been spreading across the country, largely in response to the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that banned openly gay men and women from serving in the military. “This isn’t going to affect me, but I’m really happy, because it’s going to help future Stanford students who may be interested in ROTC, and it shows that Stanford is accepting the return of the military,” Rucker said.

sharon tseng

Stanford’s Faculty Senate shows a new accpetance of the military in its decision last April to invite the Reserve Officer Training Corps, a program intended to train college students as military officers, back onto campus in a 28-9 vote held in April. Stanford’s decision follows Harvard’s announcement on March 3 about welcoming the Naval ROTC onto its campus. According to Jimmy Abraham Rucker, a Stanford senior involved in the ROTC program, this

As preservationists clamor to save Hangar One from impending destruction, the future of the historic structure is under heated debate. The US Navy contractor Amec Environmental has begun removing the siding from the hanger, which contains layers of toxic PCB’s, lead and asbestos, and hope that it will be re-skinned is drying up along with funds. NASA has requested an appropriation of $32.8 million in the 2012 proposed budget to re-skin the hangar. The Moffett Field Restoration Advisory Board supports this proposal but NASA’s HangerGeneral One’s siding will be removed Inspector questions the merit of because of toxic chemicals the request.

text by allen wu

Citywide yard sale kicks waste to the curb Palo Alto residents will hold a citywide yard sale on Saturday, June 4 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. A map of houses participating in the June 4 yard sale will be available by June 1, according to Susan Caudill, who is a part of the Zero Waste organization. More than 290 households have signed up to participate in the yard sale. The sale will reduce waste by keeping sellers’ unwanted items out of the trash can and into the hands of buyers who can re-

use the goods. The Palo Alto Citywide Yard Sale is organized by Zero Waste Palo Alto, an organization trying to eliminate waste going into landfills, according to the Zero Waste website on CityofPaloAlto. org. This event has occurred since around 1992, said Caudill. In the past, buyers have made many exciting purchases, such as African artifacts, Elvis Presley plates, and a Civil War bed and dresser. text by ava dordi

Briefs from The Paly Voice New national swimming record set by student

Administration to contact parent who assisted streakers

Palo Alto High School junior Jasmine Tosky set a new national high school 100-yard butterfly time of 51.92 seconds at the Central Coast Section Swimming Championships qualifying meet in Santa Clara. Read the full story, by Ken Wattana on voice.paly.net/ node/27571.

Palo Alto High School administration plans to get in touch with a Paly parent who allegedly drove the getaway car of a group of streakers on Wednesday, May 25, during lunch. All week, adminstrators have made an effort to catch streakers. Read the full story, by Chloe Chen on http://voice.paly.net/node/27655.

Percent of AP environmental science students who want environmental science to be a required course p. 19

180

Drivers along U.S. Highway 101 will soon see a drastic change in Moffett Field’s historic landmark, Hangar One. The US Navy has begun removing the enormous hangar’s siding, leaving only its “skeleton” behind, in the midst of an outcry from preservationists who fear the hangar’s permanent destruction, according to Palo Alto Online. The current plans are to paint the hangar’s “skeleton” with a special durable paint to preserve it once the siding has been removed. NASA has made a request for an appropriation of $32.8 million in the 2012 proposed budget to re-skin the hangar, a proposal that has the support of the Moffett Field Restoration Advisory Board, but NASA Inspector General still questions the merit of the request, according to a letter from RAB. The Smithsonian Museum may consider reusing the hangar as an earth, air, and space center. In 2003, it was discovered that the hangar contained asbestos and lead, and was actually leaching toxic chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls. text by sarah jacobs

Thousands of dollars is the price of an educational solar array at Escondido p. 32

Percent of Canadians that woud choose bacon over sex p. 56 june 2011

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THELAUNCH THE SHORT STUFF

Compiled and written by CAROLINE EBINGER Photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS

Photograph by Caroline Ebinger

Traveling the World

n Verde’s second issue, Emily Kellison-Linn (read her story at http:// voice.paly.net/node/24662) explained the international mini-treasure hunt called geocaching. “Travel bugs” are dog tags with an engraved tracking code that are carried by geocachers from cache to cache. One of the three travel bugs Verde released with that story found its way to San Sebastian, Mexico, in the hands of the geocacher “CapedCavyCrusaders,” a team composed of professional editor Jennifer L. Carson and husband and Paly graduate James Keesey. What’s next for the V-Man? “If I find a good cache in Hawaii, when I go to Kauai, I will bid him farewell,” Carson says. Text by Manon and Camille von Kaenel

“

WOW! That’s the only way to describe this great day out to San Sebastian Del Oeste ... We ate family style on the patio ... And finally we viewed the very pretty church ... So there you go, a day in the life of a geocacher in San Sebastian area and your [travel bug] saw it all!”

Photograph by Jennifer L. Carson

— Jennifer L. Carson “CapedCavyCrusaders,” geocacher

uestions with freshman Kenny Vi

1. You said you are starting a National Honors Society Club at Paly. What is the National Honors Society and why are you bringing it to Paly? National Honors Society is a nation-wide organization that honors students with a GPA of above 3.0. I decided to create the National Honors Society because of how wide-spread it is. Paly currently doesn’t have one, so Elizabeth Bowman, Heather Bowman, Katy Abbott, Serena Yee and I decided to make one at Paly. It will be starting up next fall, so look for it on club day! 2. How do you enjoy being in Analysis as a freshman? Analysis this year has had its up and downs. I love being challenged, which in part is the reason why I am in Analysis. The only drawback is the amount of work involved. 3. I know you have participated in Paly Debate since you were an 8th grader. What’s your favorite part of Debate? My favorite part about debate is the tournaments. Usually there are about 10 Paly debaters reading their cases, taking notes, or checking Facebook around a table before rounds start. It creates a nice sense of community, and it gives the opportunity to connect with the other debaters. The round itself is definitely the best part, as it is 45 minutes of talking as fast as you can. 4. What is your favorite thing about Paly? My favorite part about Paly is the “open-campus” rule for lunch. It’s extremely convenient that Town and Country is so close, and that we are allowed to go during lunch.

Verde had a chat with freshman Kenny Vi about his life at Paly. june 2011

[ THE LAUNCH ] Juelle Persad, freshman

<<< Chris Ramirez, junior

CHIT-

“Go to Cabo.”

“Probably sleep ... a lot.”

CHAT

>>>

<<< Tyralyn Tran, senior

“Party all night.”

What is the ﬁrst thing you want to do when school gets out?

Post-it ARTVerde asked students to

are most illustrate what they summer, e th er excited to do ov ey drew. th at wh and this is

From top to bottom by junior Victoria Tse, senior Andy Hammer, junior Emily Chiu, freshman Eveli Mayfield.

verde magazine

rossword razy

ACROSS

DOWN

4. What activity did Andy Hammer illustrate on his Post-It note? 6. Who was the month July (and August) named after? (hint: think Roman) 7. A club Kenny Vi participates in. 8. The ______: Where Harry Potter stayed part of the summer before his second year at Hogwarts. 9. How many hundred days of summer?

1. Android 2.2 is nicknamed this tasty treat. 2. What valley does Paly’s compost end up in? (see page 15 for the answer) 3. The country that the Verde V-Man #2 travel bug traveled to most recently. 4. What are the most ‘extreme’ days of the year? 5. Italian ice cream is called what?

d, n

Kathie Laurence, Assistant Principal

o.”

Cyrus Afshar, sophomore

“I would like to sit in my living room, drink a cup of coffee, read the paper at leisure, and not drive an hour.”>>>

photos by Manon von Kaenel

“I’m going to Tahoe the weekend just before it [summer school] starts.”>>>

senior Justin Youngyunpipatkul

...have a private beach or a private jet? ...go the summer without texting or without Facebook? ...save Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan from herself ? ...change your eye color or your hair color? ...extend school for two weeks or get a root canal?

sophomore Haley Lucian Haley said:

Justin said:

swim with sharks

skydive

private beach

private jet

without Facebook

without texting

Lindsay

Britney

hair color extend school

eye color extend school

e one of the first five Paly students to find the hidden Verde V-Man somewhere in this issue and come to room 213 to claim your prize!

Crossword Crazy Soultions:

...swim with sharks or skydive?

A scorching summer day 1. Take a hike at the shaded Castle Rock State Park.

Across: 4. skydiving; 6. caesar; 7. debate; 8. Burrow; 9. five Down: 1. froyo; 2. Salinas; 3. Mexico; 4. solstices; 5. gelato

WOULD YOU RATHER

5 ways to enjoy...

2. Make Popsicles! (pg. 46)

3. Rent a kayak at Elkhorn Slough and observe the

myriad sea life

around you.

4. Enjoy the sprayer while washing your dog (or your friend’s dog) at Pet Food Express for $15. 5. Have a five minute hose-fight on your lawn before tanning (or otherwise relaxing) in the sun. june 2011

Students express their interest and inspirations for their fashion sense Text and photography by ANABEL HOMNACK

“My favorite stores are Urban Outfitters, American Apparel and thrift shops. I would describe my style as kind of boho or hippie. I am mostly inspired by music, the free love thing and John Lennon. My favorite places to shop in are San Francisco and New York City. I love my ripped jeans, circle glasses and flowy dresses.”  junior Alexandra Dwight

“I get my clothes from thrift or vintage stores, American Apparel or Urban; basically anywhere where I can find stuff I like for a reasonable price. I just sort of throw on whatever I think looks good together and walk out the door. I love San Francisco; it’s definitely my favorite city to go shopping in.” freshman Noam Shemtov 

verde magazine

“I am not super-intense about style, but I do like looking neat and presentable as much as possible. I think probably metrosexual is the word people would use to describe most of my outfits, which is fine because I do dress on the nicer side often, so I just take it as a compliment, I guess.”  sophomore Spencer Carlson

“I love to shop at Wasteland, Bloomingdale’s and Buffalo Exchange, especially in Seattle. My style changes every day, depending on my mood, music and environment. My favorite things to wear are boots and shorts.” senior Laura Jalalian 

COVER Trash Talk: How and why Paly isn’t as wasteefﬁcient as we would like to think

Text and photography by MANON VON KAENEL and SARAH JACOBS

TRASH TALK SOLAR AS A SYMBOL BLOOD

15 19

he cries of seagulls wheeling overhead mingle with the rumble of trucks and compactors. We’re tramping on hard-packed garbage — plastic bags, Styrofoam, and a myriad of other unrecognizable items — behind an orange-suited landfill worker right to the “face” of the Palo Alto Landfill. The ripe smell of decomposing organic waste is hard to ignore. Our little procession halts before a heap of compostable branches, tile and what looks like the wreckage of some one’s porch trellis. “All this stuff shouldn’t be here,” says Zea Luce, the Environmental Outreach Coordinator of GreenWaste, the company in charge of Palo Alto’s waste. “You can’t force ’em [city residents]

june 2011

[ COVER ]

A nobler future for leftovers?

A whirling debate surrounds the question: What will happen to the city’s organic waste once the landfill closes? The controversy began last fall, when an initiative to build an anaerobic digester on 10 acres of the 126-acre Byxbee Park sparked a fierce green vs. green battle that has been raging ever since. An anaerobic digester converts food waste and yard scraps to electricity. Palo Alto’s digester would be the first in the U.S. Proponents of the idea say that the anaerobic digester would save the city about a million dollars in fees and reduce pollution by 20,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year. Others hesitate to scrap some of the ideas in the Palo Alto Baylands Master Plan, mainly the “un-dedication” of 10.1 acres of Byxbee Park that was slated to become parkland when the landfill closes. Emily Renzel, a former City Council member and fierce environmentalist who was instrumental in the original installment of the master plan, says her main concerns are aesthetic and financial. “The cost per ton does not make sense vis-a-vis a regional facility serving a number of communities,” Renzel says. “It doesn’t make sense for every little city to spend millions of dollars on the same capital equipment in order to ‘take care of their own waste’.” First recommended by a specially appointed Blue Ribbon Task Force last year, the campaign to build an anaerobic digester is now spearheaded by the Palo Alto Green Energy and Compost Initiative. After the draft of the feasibility study comes out on June 27, and the final feasibility study is released in October, residents will vote on an initiative to un-dedicate the land in November. For more in-depth coverage of this issue, see voice.paly.net/verde

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“They want us to separate it [the to do anything,” the landfill worker rewaste] but there’s no time,” Paly custodian plies, resignedly. Despite Paly’s new three-bin system, Max Arana explains as he points out the students are not necessarily as waste-effi- contents of a compost bin. Inside, plascient as one could hope. For most throw- tic and paper nearly equal the amount of ing away the remnants of their lunches, food waste present. The problem lies more the trash can means the end of their re- with students who don’t take the time to sponsibilities: Once that lunch is out of sort their waste than with the custodians. According to the annual official audit sight, it disappears from their mind as well. But that chip bag or banana peel or of Paly’s waste conducted in 2010 by the plastic water bottle still has a long journey Cascadia Consulting Group for the Palo Alto Zero Waste ahead of it, along Program, only 25 with the refuse of percent of Paly’s thousands of other garbage was actupeople. This landfill ally garbage — 10 is one of the final percent was redestinations of Palo cyclables and 65 Alto High School’s percent was comtrash — at least for — unnamed landfill worker postables. now. The impending This is a massive problem when one close of Palo Alto’s landfill will spell out a very different journey for Palo Altans’ considers the sheer mass of trash we produce. According to the Environmental waste. Today, however, the journey starts Protection Agency, Americans generate at the end of every school day, when the trash at an average rate of 4.6 pounds per custodians gather all the waste from each person per day, about the weight of a bag of the recycling, trash and compost bins, of flour or a chihuahua. In a year, that and place it all in one of the many big col- translates to 251 million tons — almost or-coded bins around campus. It is now twice as much trash per person as that ready for pick-up by GreenWaste early produced by people in most other major the next morning. Although the janitors countries. Moreover, the issue is growing: are encouraged to return misplaced items Trash production in the United States has to their correct disposal site before plac- tripled and the amount of trash buried in ing each can into one of the correspond- landfills has doubled since 1960. Paly Assistant Principal Jerry Berking bins, they admit to often overlooking son, also the administration liaison to the this step.

”You can’t force ’em [residents] to do anything.”

What is Palo Alto schools’ waste? school’s Green Team, is the first to admit that Paly has a problem. “In the past, it [our recycling and composting] has been horrible, and we’re hoping with our campaigning it will get better,” he says. Since the waste audit, the Green Team has introduced compost bins around campus and has revived its campaign to educate Paly students about proper waste disposal habits. “We have been working on the ‘Got Green?’ signs that are all over campus, two videos and the labels on the bins,” Green Team co-president Sarah Berry says. In addition, a new pick-up service for the school includes more recycling and compost bins and fewer garbage bins. Because of the difference in rates — recycling is free to pick up, and compost is 10 percent less expensive than garbage — this has saved Paly $3,670.36 in avoided costs per month, or approximately $2 per student every month. Simply put, “It’s cheaper to compost and recycle than throw away our trash,” Berkson says. Yet Paly, like many other high schools, shows poor recycling and composting rates in comparison with middle schools and especially elementary schools. Using the type of pick-up service each school uses, information provided by GreenWaste, as an indication of the amount of waste each school produces, Verde calculated the amount of recycling, compost, and garbage Palo Alto elementary, middle and high schools produce each week.

Based on the 2009-10 school year student populations, an average of 54 percent of Gunn and Paly’s waste is made up of garbage. By comparison, only 31 percent of the total waste coming from elementary schools, represented by Addison, Duveneck, and Walter Hays, is garbage. That number jumps to 39 percent in middle school, according to data from Jordan, JLS and Terman. The elementary schools also compost more than twice as much, per capita, as the two high schools. Luce attributes this discrepancy to the differences inherent in elementary, middle, and high schools. “Elementary schools are great because the students want to do the right thing, and the teachers are right there and they have their class all day, so they can train them well,” Luce says. “Then, at lunchtime all the classes all sit together at one table, dismissed at once, they go and sort their things and go play. It’s not so controlled in middle school and high school.” Although Berry acknowledges that it has room for improvement, she is hopeful for the future of Paly’s recycling and composting system. “It’s a work in progress.” v From left: a bulldozer at the soon-toclose Palo Alto landfill; a recycling bin at Paly; garbage on the face of the landfill; a “wood hog” for processing yard scraps; a pile of finished compost

Elementary Schools

31% garbage

45% recycling

24% compost

Middle Schools

39% 45% 16% High Schools

54%

36% 10%

Verde calculated these numbers using the volume requested by each school in the GreenWaste pick-up service and the 20092010 school year student populations. The schools used to compute these averages were Palo Alto High School, Gunn High School, Jordan Middle School, Terman Middle School, JLS Middle School, Addison Elementary School, Duveneck Elementary School, and Walter Hays Elementary School. june june 2011

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Tracking our waste: What happens after the bin? Text by MANON VON KAENEL and SARAH JACOBS Art by YELENA KASIANOVA

Trash

its full capacity and permanently close by July 1. Then, as part of the Palo Alto Baylands Master Plan, it will be covered over with grass like the rest of the nearby Byxbee park — a reconverted landfill itself — and become parkland. This means that, next year, the journey of our trash will be

For next year:

Paly’s trash ultimately ends up in the Palo Alto Landfill, which currently occupies 126 acres of the Baylands. There, all of the schools’ garbage is dumped on the face of the landfill and covered over with dirt. However, the Palo Alto Landfill is expected to reach

SMaRT

vastly different. According to Luce, our future garbage will go to the Sunnyvale Materials Recovery and Transfer Station (SMaRT), where misplaced recyclables will be sorted out, and the rest trucked off to the Kirby Canyon landfill in San Jose.

Station

Kirby Canyon Landfill

Compostables

Recyclables

That banana peel or leftover Calafia salad from your lunch goes on yet another journey when it leaves Paly. According to Luce, the residential yard trimmings are trucked to Palo Alto’s compost facility, adjacent to the landfill and recycling center. Then, after being sorted out from the yard trimmings and misplaced recyclables and garbage, the food waste heads to the Z-Best Composting Facility near Gilroy. The Z-Best Composting Facility processes both yard trimmings and municipal solid waste and food waste, to be sold as organic compost to the local landscaping industry or Salinas Valley farmers. In all, the facility sold over 115,000 tons — equivalent to the combined weight of 11,500 school buses — of compost products in 2010.

Recycling follows a different path after being dumped into the big green bins. That old homework you threw away in one of Green Team’s recycling bins last week? By now, it is headed to GreenWaste’s Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in San Jose, where it will be sorted through by hand or by magnets, blowers, or optical sorters, according to Luce. The GreenWaste MRF prides itself on its advanced and efficient technology: according to the Green Waste web site, it is the first facility in the nation to install two “state-of-the-art” side-by-side processing lines where both municipal solid waste and curbside recycling are sorted through. In fact, the San Jose MRF is capable of recovering nearly all — 98 percent — of recyclable materials sent to the facility. The recyclables are then sold to local vendors who repackage and resell the materials.

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Z-Best Composting

Salinas Valley farms

San Jose MRF

Vendors

Solar as a Symbol

Renewable energy is more complicated than you think Text and photography by ALLY MESSICK and CAMILLE VON KAENEL

photography by Roxana Moussavian MOSTLY EDUCATIONAL The solar panels currently installed around the district, such as those at Escondido pictured here, provide more educational resources than practical energy for PAUSD.

ith an array of thin, sparkling solar panels, Henry M. Gunn High School may seem at the cutting edge of energy conservation in comparison to Palo Alto High School. The solar array is a clear sign of the city’s general push for sustainability, but the panels do not provide much energy for the district, according the Robert Golton, the district’s Chief Business Official. “The panel at Gunn is small, and it’s for an educational purpose,” Golton says. “It is not saving significant money. It is there symbolically.” He says that many solar panels at surrounding districts also have a more symbolic purpose. Despite the growth of solar arrays in other schools, the construction plans for the new buildings at Palo Alto High School do not currently include solar panels, according to the district’s Facilities Manager, Ron Smith. However, that does not mean that Paly is behind the curve in saving energy and money. With or without solar panels — the district is still debating where to place the panels — impending massive construction will focus on energy conservation. “The new buildings will make Paly more energy efficient,” Golton says. For example, the buildings will have more efficient lighting and air conditioning than the portables. In addition, Golton says, the district has partnered with Enovity, a company that makes structural recommendations for a more efficient supply of electricity. For example, Enovity may recommend more efficient lighting or using renewable sources of energy. june 2011

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Why we won’t have solar panels on our new buildings... SHADE The abundance of trees at Paly makes placing solar panels more problematic. Shade on one corner of an array degrades the whole system, says Smith.

ROBERT GOLTON Though he acknowledges the shortcomings of solar panels, he emphasizes that sustainability is one of his main goals for the district.

“We are trying to figure out where we can do [a solar array]. You want to put in a system that is going to get the maximum sun exposure.” — PAUSD chief business official ROBERT GOLTON

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A long payback cycle The district gets electricity from the City of Palo Alto rather than PG&E, as many of the surrounding areas do. The city’s rates are much lower than PG&E’s rates, so the payback cycle is longer because yearly savings off of solar panels are smaller than they are in PG&E territory. Escondido Elementary School, for example, is one of the few schools in the district to get its energy from PG&E because it is on the Stanford University campus. According to Lisa Benatar, Educational Services Manager, grant money, which is higher in PG&E territory than in most PAUSD schools, from the California Energy Commission and the Morgan Foundation paid the complete $180K for Escondido’s solar array. At no cost to the district, Escondido installed solar panels that provide enough electricity to supply four to five homes, Benatar says, saving $3,360 per year in energy costs. Without support from large grants, the Escondido model could become very costly to the district if applied to other sites. In addition, property tax incentives, which help homeowners who install solar panels, would not help the school, which does not pay property taxes.

Finding the best site Despite the costs of solar panels, Palo Alto’s schools are still actively progressing toward becoming energy self-sufficient. Currently, the district is looking into placing a 130-kilowatt solar system that would cost about $800,000 somewhere in the district. Golton says that funding has been set aside for this project. Though the district is considering the new buildings at Paly for this array, Paly may not be the best site. Because solar panels in one school produce electricity for the whole district, says Golton, finding the site with the maximum productivity is more important than placing arrays in every school. “We are trying to figure out where we can do it,” Golton says. “You’ve got to look at south-facing orientation and shading. You want to put in a system that is going to get the maximum sun exposure.” According to Tom Hodges, the district’s Facilities Management Consultant, the roof areas and architecture of the new buildings at Paly are too small for an efficient solar array. “The solar orientation for these two buildings is also not optimum for installing photovoltaic panels,” Hodges says. Other possible sites include the roof of the warehouse near the Paly football field, Golton says. Students and staff can decrease energy usage by... Turning off the lights or using only half the lights. Lowering the temperature of the heater and wearing a sweater. Turning the lights on at the fields right before the game.

... and why we are better off changing our own behaviors. The blame game It is easy for students and administrators to rely on the district to install more efficient and energy-saving appliances, such as solar panels and lights, because they do not have to change their own behaviors. However, the district supervisors, who focus on both the financial and environmental well-being of schools, would rather reduce energy demand than invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure. Currently, the district spends an enormous amount of money on utilities, including electricity, gas and water. Already, Paly uses more energy than any other school in the district because it hosts the night school, according to Golton. When a student leaves a light on at home, that is only a few dollars of wasted money, but when all students leave the lights on in their classrooms that energy and cost is multiplied by every classroom, in every school, in the entire district. “We are also trying to change bad habits,” Smith says. “You could save 10 percent of energy by just doing small things.” For example, while most classrooms have two switches for two levels of lighting, one level of lighting would be sufficient for normal class activities, according to Smith.

Enter Energy Education Recently, the district contracted with Energy Education, a company pledging to help the district reduce energy costs, starting next year. The district will hire and work with an energy specialist, who by working with a team of several dozens experts and specialists, gives the school saving recommendations specific to its environment. “They [Energy Education] give us suggestions of things we can do... They told us that we don’t have to warm lights up after the game or leave them on for hours after,” Golton says. But while some suggestions seem simple, such as turning off lights, the program is very comprehensive, ensuring that equipment in every building is operated as efficiently as possible. A keystone of the program is that Energy Education works with every staff member in the district so everyone will know how energy can be saved. Already, Smith has learned from skimming through Energy Education literature. Currently, teachers can control the set point of the heating system. “It surprised me,” Smith said. “I read, if you take the set point down by one degree, it saves X amount of money. I thought, you bring it down one degree, so what? But it makes a big difference.”

COOLER Lowering the set point of thermostats can save electricity.

DIMMER Students can work on computers with fewer lights turned on.

RON SMITH He outlines the diﬃculties of solar energy and emphasizes student participation in energy conservation.

“I absolutely can’t change behavior from this oﬃce... The students are going to make a huge diﬀerence.” — PAUSD facilities manager RON SMITH

Energy Education typically saves clients 20 percent to 30 percent off utility bills, according to the company’s website. Additionally, Energy Education is paid out of the savings the school earns from smaller energy costs, so it is “no risk,” says Golton. The additional money the school saves can be recaptured and reinvested in teachers, books, school improvements. While the Energy Education specialist will meet with the staff and students, increasing student responsibility. “I absolutely can’t change behavior from this office, I can change the lighting but I can’t change behavior. The teachers and staff that we talk to can change it some, but students are going to make a huge difference.” v april june 2011

PROFILES

TRAVELING TEACHER MUSIC TO THE POWER OF ONE TUNEFULLY TALENTED THE PHOTOGRAPHER

photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS

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Traveling Teacher Deanna Chute talks teaching, traveling and taking a year off Text by SONALI SASTRY Photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS Art by YELENA KASIANOVA

eanna Chute recalls climbing up the ancientInca hand-hewn stone stairs, attempting to complete the 26-mile route. The trail involves passing through three mountain passes and Dead Woman’s Pass, which Chute calls “punishing.” “The mountain scenery and amazing cloud forest, rushing rivers and dozens of Inca ruins made this ancient Inca trail unforgettable,” Chute says. “At sunrise on the fourth day, I descended on the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu at dawn. That moment was like no other.” For Chute, a Palo Alto High School math teacher, traveling is special. In fact, among hobbies that include photography and running, Chute considers traveling as her favorite. “Traveling is something that, once you do it, you can’t stop,” Chute says. “And I don’t mean a week’s vacation at the beach or a cruise to Mexico. I mean really immersing yourself in a foreign place, figuring out how to get around and how to communicate.” Chute’s favorite places to travel to include Portugal, Spain and Croatia among other destinations near the Mediterranean. Last summer, she spent time in Italy and France working on improving her photography skills. Next year, Chute will continue her travels, taking a year off in Florida to spend time with her boyfriend in addition to teaching at a school in Tampa. Those students who currently have Chute as a Teacher Advisor will have math teacher Arne Lim instead. Chute admits that she will miss

Teacher in Travel Deanna Chute, here teaching her Algebra/Geometry 1A class, will take a year off to spend time in Tampa, Fla.

spending time with her students. “I love my relationship with my students,” Chute says. “I really care about them and I hope that they know that.” Chute’s students say the same about her. “I will miss her because she is an excellent teacher,” says senior Danielle Blonstein. “She is so committed to her students success and passionate about teaching math. She has endless energy which motivated me the entire school year.” In addition to her students, Chute says she will miss the small day-to-day moments. “The best part of being at Paly are the zillions of ‘small moments’ that make up any given day,” she says. “Every conversation with a student, lesson with a class, collaboration with a colleague, they all come together to make Paly a place that I look forward to coming to every day.” As Chute prepares to leave behind such memories, she is looking toward the

future, which includes Florida and more exotic destinations. “I’ve been really wanting to explore Central and South America,” she says. “Argentina and Guatemala are definitely high on the list. Morocco, too.” She stresses the importance to her of traveling to other countries. “The world is a huge, interesting place full of people who live very fulfilling lives that are very different from mine,” Chute says. “When you break out of your surroundings and put yourself in situations that might be a little uncomfortable, that is when you really learn something about yourself.” v

Quick Takes: Deanna Chute Favorite Hobby: Traveling Favorite Travel Destination: Anywhere near the Mediterranean Memorable travel moment: hiking the Inca Trail june 2011

[ PROFILES ]

Music to the Power of One A student’s ability to incorporate math and improvisation into her music Text and Photography by SHARON TSENG

hree slender instruments shaped like elongated banjos rest on stands in the middle of the room, colorful designs lacing the edges of their lacquered wood. Palo Alto freshman Sahana Vasudevan carefully plucks the strings of one of the drones, called a tambura. She switches on a synthesized tambura and a buzzing hum fills the room, sounding like the tuning of an orchestra. She begins to sing, tapping her hand rhythmically on her knee as her voice rises and falls in mystical trills. Vasudevan practices Carnatic music, the classical music of Southern India. Considered one of the most ancient forms of music, Carnatic music is still enjoyed by many in India and here in the United States, according to Vasudevan. “It’s a main part of Indian culture,” she says. “It’s not like pop music. It’s more traditional.” She compares it to classical music here in the Western world in the sense that although classical music has been around for a long time, there are still many people who listen to classical music today. Vasudevan began to learn Carnatic music from a teacher, called a guru, in India eight or nine years ago. “When I was young, there was a lot of Carnatic music in my background so I just got into it,” she says. She spends at least an hour each day practicing vocals and even more time on the violin, although music infiltrates much of her daily life. “Music is in my mind most of the hours I’m awake,” she says. “Sometimes I practice improvisations in my head.”

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The songs of Carnatic music follow strings of microtones, the links between notes, so it is virtually impossible to exactly notate although people try to approximate. “Traditionally, you hear it and then you sing it,” Vasudevan says. Carnatic singers follow songs; however, a large part of the music also focuses on improvisation. There are four types of improvisation: raga alapana, niraval, kalpana swaram, and thaanam. Although Vasudevan tries to briefly explain each type, improvisation involves many complicated aspects with countless restrictions. Despite the many rules that must be kept in mind while improvising, Vasudevan enjoys the challenge and has been singing so long that her brain automatically adapts to the rules.

“Music is in my mind most of the hours I’m awake.” — Freshman SAHANA VASUDEVAN “Carnatic music only comes to you if you listen to it all the time,” she says. Especially for improvisation, lots of practice and listening is the key to improving. “Everything you listen to very subtly reflects what you sing.” Vasudevan says. The music a singer listens to and their guru most influences their style of impro-

MORE NOTES OF CARNATIC MUSIC Four Types of Improvisation: as explained by Sahana Vasudevan

Raga Alpana — sung before a song, this focuses on the ragam, the thousands of Carnatic scales Niraval — takes a line of a song and alters the tune, making sure the syllables of the lyrics still fall on the right beat and stays in the same ragam

THE CARNATIC WAY Vasudevan shows the proper way to play a violin in Carnatic music; for ease of making minute note differences it is rested on the leg visation. “It’s not easy to improvise because you have so many restrictions,” she says. “Learning the rules of improvisation is really easy. But actually abiding by those rules is not easy.” The complicated improvisations of Carnatic music are linked closely with math, so naturally, Vasudevan also excels in math at school. She took BC Calculus, the highest math lane offered at Paly, in seventh grade. Vasudevan finds that her music helps her understand math better although she enjoys the two equally. “Both music and math are a way of relaxing for me,” she says. For her, the relationship between math and Carnatic music can be described in two ways. “First of all, math, as you go on higher and higher, it becomes really abstract and that’s kind of similar to music because it becomes intuitive and abstract,” she says. The other reason involves the mathematical patterns in improvisation. “Getting the mathematical patterns to get on the beat correctly, it’s obviously math and you have to do it fast,” Vasudevan explains. Every year, Vasudevan attends the Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. When she thinks of the festival, “awesome” automatically pops into her mind. “It’s the biggest music festival outside of India,” Vasudevan says.

The competition, open to musicians 25 years old and under, have different categories based on age level, difficulty, or skill. Vasudevan competes in the highest level of competition, the Aradhana Concert Competition, and the Advanced Pallavi Competition. In the Concert Competition, a judge chooses a line of any song and the singer must then sing improvisation on that line. “It’s fun when they give you a line and you sing it and you haven’t sung on that line yet,” she says. She rarely feels nervous before or during the competition. Because it is difficult to predict what a judge will ask, Vasudevan finds it hard to prepare specially for competition. Instead, Vasudevan simply practices as she normally would. “I kind of immerse myself into the music” she says. Winning a competition, which Vasudevan has achieved quite a few times, brings trophies, free tamburas, and the chance to perform a concert. Despite her wins, Vasudevan acts unfazed by her success. Her eagerness in describing Carnatic music and focus while singing clearly shows that her talent stems simply from her love of the music. Concentrated on a pattern of notes unknown to anyone else, Vasudevan sings a series of quick, melodious syllables, her hand keeping beat on her knee with a tap, tap, tap. v

Kalpana Swaram — sings the Carnatic notes (equivalent of Do, Re, Mi, etc.) in differenet combinations while keeping the lyrics on the correct beat and in the same ragam Thaanam — sings the phrases “tha”, “nam” and “a” in mathematical patterns while staying in the same ragam

The Concert Experience:

Full Carnatic concerts last anywhere from one to five hours, depending on the experience of the artist and how the concert was organized. Short performances or junior artist concerts last half an hour. Vasudevan says that she performs here in America more than in India. Concerts consist of a singer and accompanying instruments. Typical instruments include the violin, which Vausedevan plays, the mrindangam, a rhythmic instrument, and many side percussion instruments like the kanjira and ghaeam. The rhythmic instruments follow the beat, called the talam. However, singers and supplementary musicians usually never continuously perform together for multiple concerts, unlike bands. Sabahs, groups responsible for organizing concerts, match singers up with musicians before concerts. june 2011

[ PROFILES ]

Tunefully Talented Paly junior Julian Hornik shares his unique passion for music and musicals Text by ELISE BRUGUERA Photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS

ulian Hornik laughs when I notice that he is wearing laceless converse. It is ironic because he named a song that he wrote and recorded four years ago after the fraying blue-gray shoes. Hornik, a Palo Alto High School

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sophomore, has changed much since recording the music video for “Laceless Converse” in 2007, but his passion and talent for music have persisted, as has his shoe style. Although he still enjoys writing pop-style singles, his focus has since shifted towards a more serious topic. He is now working on a musical based on The Diary of Anne Frank, a project that he started as a seventh grader.

“I had known that I wanted to write a musical, then I read The Diary of Anne Frank and for whatever reason I decided that I wanted to make it a musical,” Hornik says. He has written about 1 hour and 15 minutes of the production, which consists solely of songs. Hornik has already talked to a company in Los Angeles about putting on a workshop production of the show once he is done writing the remain-

ing 45 minutes over the summer. His mentor, Jeff Marx, the Tony award-winning co-creator of Broadway’s Avenue Q, aids him in his writing process. Hornik maintains a mainly e-mail and phone relationship with Marx, who gives Hornik advice on both music and lyrics. “I am always delighted when Julian e-mails me new songs, because I think he’s got such an amazing ear and musical voice, especially at his young age,” Marx says. “I’m really proud to be a mentor for him because it’s an honor to watch his musical talent develop.” Hornik’s home environment also influences his music writing process by providing him with an area where his musical talents can flourish. Hornik leads me out his house’s back door to another building and into his family’s playroom, which is furnished with

couches, a flat screen TV, a Wii set, and endless canvases painted by his younger siblings. He has two younger brothers, Noah and Beckett, and a younger sister, Darrow. Noah, 13, recently put on a benefit concert which featured several indie rock bands and raised thousands of dollars for charities It Gets Better and The Trevor Project. Julian was one of the performers in this concert, and wrote the song “It Gets Better” for the event. Julian’s studio is a smaller room to the side of the playroom, and features a glossy black Yamaha piano, a keyboard, two microphones, and an Apple computer on a Dell monitor. He says he writes songs on the piano and uses the keyboard and microphone to record. These are hooked up to the computer running Logic Pro, the program he uses to edit his songs. Recording is his way of writing his

music down, he says, since he struggles with writing music in notation. “I’m not particularly great at music theory,” Julian says. “I play by ear, most of the time.” Until he records a song, the music exists only in his head. “I have a blurry sense of the structure of the song, then I mess around on the piano until I find the right chords,” he says. “Almost always I write the music first [before the lyrics].” He adds that the chords come first, then he writes the melody and lyrics simultaneously. He records lyrics for his musical in an unlined notebook that sits on the piano bench next to a paperback copy of The Diary of Anne Frank, which is bursting with colorful post-it notes. His shelves contain

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AROUND THE STUDIO 1. Julian’s copy of Anne Frank, bursting with sticky notes, and the notebook where he records lyrics for songs in the musical that he is writing. 2. A model boat from the opera Madame Butterfly, Julian’s first performance. He was five years old. 3. Julian’s collection of plays and memorabilia, including a cap from the musical Wicked. 4. Julian’s collection of Anne Frank literature. 5. Julian holds his Avenue Q book that contains a note from and picture with the musical’s writer, Carl Marx. Marx acts as Julian’s mentor and advises him with the songs he writes for his musical. 6. Julian’s award for his performance in the musical Caroline, or Change at TheaterWorks in 2008.

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[ PROFILES ]

“I’m really proud to be a mentor for him because it’s an honor to watch his musical talent develop.” — Avenue Q co-creator JEFF MARX

countless pieces of Anne Frank literature, as well as trophies, musical soundtracks, and other theater-related memorabilia. Posters of Broadway musicals such as Hair and performances that he himself has been in hang on the walls, including Christmas Dreamland, which he participated in when he was a sixth grader. On the top shelf stands a wooden model boat, which was from Julian’s very first show, an opera in Walnut Creek. “He performed in the opera Madame Butterfly when he was five and could not get enough of the music,” David Hornik, Julian’s father, says. “After that he spent his days singing around the house and eventually on stage.” Julian went on to perform in productions with the Children’s Theater, TheaterWorks and the American Musical Theater of San Jose, which no longer exists. He learned to play piano when he was seven or eight years old. However, he was much more interested in making his own music than playing what others had written, he says. “After only a year or so of lessons, Julian started getting mysteriously ‘sick’ on piano lesson nights,” his father says. “After enough nights of ‘sickness’ we decided that Julian should probably stop taking piano lessons. He couldn’t have been happier. But despite quitting the piano, Julian has played piano every day for almost a decade.” Julian has written songs ever since his stint with piano lessons, and even wrote a song for his fifth grade graduation, appropriately titled “Graduation Song.” He continued to write and perform through middle school, although he temporarily stopped performing during eighth grade because his voice was changing. In ninth grade, he opted to enroll

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at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Massachusetts to focus on his musical career. “It was an experience,” he says. “There were certain things you couldn’t get anywhere else.” However, he felt that the academics were not up to par. “It was supposed to be a four-year thing but I wanted a more well-rounded education.” Now attending Paly, takes classes in all core subjects but hopes to do an independent study class with choir teacher Michael Najar next year. Music is a part of him, and he wants it to be part of his school schedule as well. “I’ve just grown up with it [music],” he says. “Its always been something that I’ve loved.”

Although he is no longer at art school, Julian still hopes to make a career out of his love for music and become a professional musical theater composer. “I don’t think I’ll major in music,” he says. “I want a liberal arts education, which is something I’ve learned from the art school experience.” He is considering majoring in art history, then going into the theater business. Marx, Julian’s mentor, has faith that Julian will have success in the future. “I keep hearing him get better and better, deeper, smarter, and more sophisticated,” he says. “I have no doubt that if he keeps developing the way he is, he’s going to have a show opening on Broadway before long.” v

“

The Photographer

Allen Lee’s sketches are so realistic, students joke that he secretly uses a camera instead of a pencil.

“D

Text by ALEX LENAIL

ude, get a better camera. Your current camera doesn’t do these justice,” comments junior Molly Chen on the Facebook album that junior Allen Lee created to exhibit his sketches and paintings. Sophomore Soo Song writes “I’m in awe,” adding an emoticon for extra effect. The object of these exclamations is a set of sketches of friends of Lee’s, sketches that were promptly adopted as profile pictures for a number of these students. Lee is a very talented artist; he enrolled in AP Studio Art his sophomore year, essentially skipping two years of art. He works tirelessly, in and out of class, to improve his art, which is already the envy of a number of other Paly artists. How did Lee come to be so talented? “I was ‘good’ at art, or at least above average from an early age,” he says. “I started to enjoy art mostly because of the compliments from my teachers, parents, and friends. At first it was just something I did for fun, until later in middle school I began to look at art almost competitively. I was obsessed with perfection and being ‘the art kid’ that I would push myself to be better than my peers.” When Lee arrived at Paly, however, he gained perspective. In Advanced Painting and Drawing, the class he took his freshman year, he says, “I began to explore other mediums, styles, and artists. Then I became genuinely interested in art.” Lee worked with different materials to create unique forms of art he hadn’t tried before, giving him greater artistic awareness. “I was at first just doing it for college, but during sophomore year I found I really liked it,” Lee says. That’s when he began carrying a sketchbook. He now carries one for watercolor, one for sketches, and one for charcoal. Each is 9” by 12”,

with pages of thick, off-white paper. “Sketchbooks are about how an artist’s mind works,” Lee says. “It’s what no one is supposed to see and artists can practice on.” Flipping through them, you get the feeling you are flipping through Lee’s innermost thoughts. Lee’s subject matter is almost exclusively people. “Landscapes aren’t as interesting for me. I like emotion in my pieces,” Lee says. “I want people to be able to see the expression in someone’s face and feel something.” “Art is all about emotion,” Lee says. “When I do a piece, I try to get as much as possible onto the page. It’s not about what looks good it’s about what you feel. I don’t really think about composition and stuff, I just go for the emotion.” Lee is a quiet person, but very friendly when you get to know him. It is hard to believe that so much creative energy and passion can arise from someone who is so calm and composed. He doesn’t fit the stereotype of what most people might think of as “an artist” in temperament, but that only goes to show that these stereotypes are almost never accurate, because his work is truly stunning. Lee usually spends approximately an hour and a half on each of his sketches, but he may spend up to three hours on some of the larger ones. He tries to pace himself, and committing himself to one sketch a week. He often works from photographs, black and white, and copies them, a method used by many artists to improve their technique. He says that sketching from memory or especially from imagination is exceptionally difficult. Lee’s work has been displayed in many PAUSD art shows, and he is currently trying to find a way to bring more attention to his work.

“POWDERED SNOW” by Allen Lee “I’ve thought about doing portraits for people,” Lee says. “So far I have been mainly sketching my friends in my sketchbook. It would be interesting to get to know some new faces.” Lee is not sure what he wants to do with the rest of his life. He knows he is not ready to dedicate his life to the study of only fine arts. He’s thinking about architecture. “I am depending on my art to give me a competitive edge in college, but that’s not what it’s primarily for anymore,” Lee says. “I draw because I love to draw.” Lee enjoys trying to perceive who a person really is, and reflect that in their portraits. He also enjoys the critical reception to his pieces, which is almost always positive. “A lot of the joy of doing art is to listen and see what people think of your piece and just what they take away from it, what they feel after they have seen your work,” Lee says. “I’d say that it’s the notion that you’ve been able to change someone with your work is what artists find passion in; to realize that something you have put so much time and commitment into has been able to make a difference just makes the effort worth all the while.” v june 2011

TRIANGLE ART

STUDIO

• Art College level lesson plans • Studying various techniques in Drawing, Painting and Creation • Prepare College Art Portfolio • Pre- Art College Exercise • Express student’s talent and • develop their Aesthetic • Summer Art Program available! Contact bpcstudio@yahoo.com (415)-385-4268

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PERSPECTIVES Election

cartoon by AVA DORDI

ECO-DUCATION IT WAS NOT JUSTICE GIRLS: IN LOW SUPPLY

32 33 34

[ PERSPECTIVES ]

Eco-ducation

The case for required environmental science Text by MANON VON KAENEL Art by AVA DORDI

ercury poisoning in tuna. Increasing ice melt due to global warming. Cancer from contaminated drinking water. These are just some of the issues facing our planet, and students at Palo Alto High School need to know about them — in depth. The two Paly AP Environmental Science (APES) teachers Nicole Loomis and Kenyon Scott have been discussing replacing the Integrated Science class, which is offered as an alternative to the freshman biology classes, with an Environmental Science class. Gunn already has a basic Environmental Science class that serves a similar purpose as Paly’s Integrated Science class. This should be pursued by the district, and further efforts should be made to incorporate Environmental Science into the core curriculum, because it provides students with important contemporary knowledge and allows them to analyze the world around them with a more progressive and interdisciplinary perspective. “It [the Environmental Science class] might be a more interesting class for students [than the Integrated Science class], and it would provide environmental education to a population of students that generally do not take APES,” Loomis says. If approved, the Environmental Science class wouldn’t go into rotation until at least 2012, according to Loomis. The growing prominence of Environmental Science in the high school curriculum reflects the urgency of educating the public about the environment. The College Board introduced the Advanced Placement exam for Environmental Science in the late 1990s, and by 2000, the percentage of high schools teaching environmental science had increased by 15 percent, according to data gathered by Horizon Research, Inc. Thirty-one percent of Paly APES students agree that Environmental Science is the most necessary science for high school students to learn out of biology, physics, environmental science, and chemistry, according to a Verde survey of 49 current APES

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students, conducted online at the end of May. This places Environmental Science a close second to biology, which is already a required course. Taking Environmental Science can fundamentally change students’ attitudes toward the environment. Although educating the public to make better informed decisions regarding our planet will not solve all of our problems, it is a step in the right direction. Ninety-six percent of APES students said that they consider themselves more environmentally aware and more likely to be eco-friendly as a result of their APES class. Environmental Science is a uniquely engaging subject because students can relate to the course material in their day-to-day life. In addition, it combines history, social science, biology, ecology, and economics in a truly interdisciplinary way. This makes it the ideal course to ease students into the scientific world, as well as to tie all the sciences together to answer the big “so what?” Although the ideal situation, which 36 percent of APES student support, would be to make Environmental Science a required class, this would be inevitably run into problems unless the district overhauls its graduation requirements. A more moderate action would be to, in addition to the new Environmental Science class, to make the environment one of the major themes of the required semester-long Living Skills class. The integrated Environmental Science unit can incorporate guest speakers from local environmental groups, lessons from APES teachers, documentaries regarding the major issues facing our planet, and class discussions about how to create a more sustainable world. The Associated Student Body, Green Team, or Environmental Initiative Club should also sponsor more environmentalawareness activities like documentary showings and guest speakers during tutorial. So, if Paly wants to become more green, it’s time to make the long-term investment in environmental education. v

It Was Not Justice

The American peoples’ response to Osama bin Laden’s death was uncalled-for. Text by JACKSON MILEY Art by YELENA KASIANOVA

ept. 11, 2001, is a date that will live in infamy. There is little doubt that Osama bin Laden was responsible for horrible and cruel attacks on American civilians, and the United States’ 10-year manhunt is certainly an understandable response to the domestic security issue posed by the attacks. But it is a cruel thing to celebrate the death of any person, and the celebrations in front of the White House and across the country over the news of bin Laden’s killing were inappropriate. Our celebration and glorification of bin Laden’s death is barbaric and not something that should be happening in any country, let alone in the United States. The reason many people celebrated may have been that they believe that “justice has been served,” as Barack Obama said, or that his death marked the end of the War on Terror that George W. Bush called for a decade ago. But it was not justice that we are truly celebrating, nor did his death demarcate any long-lasting change. There is a great difference between justice and self-defence. Justice is doing the morally correct thing, and killing yet another person does not balance out or repair damage that has already been done. His killing no more healed the wounds from the Sept. 11 attacks than did the killings of thousands of civilians in the War on Terror. In the original, unaltered words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Bin Laden’s killing was a necessity of self-defence. While he remained at large, lives would be in danger from his plotting and leadership, and it was just an ugly reality of war that his death was necessary, not justice. It is also wrong to classify bin Laden’s death as the end of the War on Terror, or even as a turning point in that war. Al-Qaeda is still at large, and although it has lost its charismatic figurehead, it is far from finished. Other leaders will step up to fill the void left by bin Laden’s death, and the war will not be won until we can remove the root cause of al-Qaeda’s existence. One wise and successful move on America’s part was the

Obama administration’s handling of both the pictures of bin Laden’s corpse as well as the corpse itself. The burial at sea, which was conducted soon after the body was identified as bin Laden’s, was respectful of Islamic traditions, and did not do any more to strain the already-tense relations between the United States and the Islamic world. Obama’s decision not to release the images of bin Laden’s death and of his body was also in good taste. The decision did not allow the pictures of bin Laden to become propaganda tools and kept the celebrations from devolving further into bad taste. While it is possible to applaud the United States and its operatives for the success of the mission, calling it justice or anything more than a necessary evil of war is inaccurate. Americans should reconsider the appropriateness of their reactions to the death of their fellow human beings. Though bin Laden’s death was commensurate with his crimes, there is an enormous difference between maintaining national security and doing justice. v june 2011

[ PERSPECTIVES ]

Girls: In low supply

Why girls and guys shouldn’t be pressured into taking certain classes Text by CAMILLE VON KAENEL Art by YELENA KASIANOVA

s students reluctantly stashed snacks and water bottles not appeal to girls, for biological or cultural reasons, but high under their desks, proctors repeated endless instructions school is the time to explore different fields and gain a basic to fill in bubbles with our names — the routine for a understanding of the world, not to commit to a career. May Advanced Placement test. As I settled down for the AP As for me, I eventually signed up for economics because I Macroeconomics test, however, I noticed something. Looking saw it as a pragmatic base for any career. This turned out to be around me, I saw boys, boys and more boys — a quick head count very true — the contents of a high school economics class have revealed an almost two to one ratio of males to females. Only proven much more practical to me than those in a calculus or 37.5 percent of my AP Econ classmates are female, according to chemistry class. “A background in econ is valuable to any career Palo Alto High School economics teacher Debbie Whitson. By or lifestyle,” Whitson aﬃrms. contrast, the other AP social science class, AP Psychology, has For example, learning about the banking system prepares a 60-40 percent ratio of girls me to save or borrow money to guys, according to Paly once I reach college. Repsychology teacher Melinda viewing the tools of fiscal Mattes. and monetary policy makes Though the discrepancy me more capable of voting at Paly mirrors the one at knowledgeably. the collegiate and profesIn addition to finansional level — according to cial literacy, I have gained the Association to Advance critical thinking skills that Collegiate Schools of Busiare easily applicable in my ness (AACSB), 37 percent other classes. For example, of students enrolled in MBA a group of students in each programs are female — it is AP class formed an investmore acute here than nament team and portfolio tionwide. The CollegeBoard to “invest” $50 million. reports that 45 percent of We applied the macrothe students taking the AP economic principles we Macroeconomics test in learned in class to current 2005 were female. events, from the uprisings GENDER DIFFERENCE According to economics teacher Debbie “It [the reason for the Whitson, 37.5 percent of AP Economics students are female. in the Middle East to the difference] could be that disasters in Japan, buying girls like the idea of psychology more because it’s more person- and selling stocks accordingly. This exercise helped me view the al,” Mattes says. “Econ[omics] tends to be more goal oriented. world under a different lens, the one of economics. Or is it that girls like more long classes while guys are like, ‘Oh, AP Economics, then, was definitely not a purely matheI’ll just take a semester’? It seems like there’s some sort of cor- matical class. In fact, says Whitson, the rise of behavioral ecorelation there but we obviously don’t know the causal factors.” nomics emphasizes the marriage of psychology and economics, When choosing AP Economics over AP Psychology last and offers a base in both fields. Neither gender should shy away year, I had hesitated because I did not see myself in business, from signing up for a class because of expectations or perceived a male-dominated field. Female peers also wavered because of interest. the perceived “mathiness” of economics. In truth, few juniors Gender equality in a class also creates an ideal teaching and know about either economics or psychology, and many choose learning environment because it brings balance to class dynambetween the two on a whim or out of an interest in the unknown. ics. Being in a female-dominated magazine journalism class, I Both genders should know that both classes provide useful ways know how a severe gender imbalance skews class focus. I wonof seeing and interacting with the world. Economics may just der — what would this issue be like if we had more boys? v

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FEATURES

ADIOS URBINA ON TARGET SPREADING THE GOOD ODE TO THE ARC GUIDING STUDENTS OR GAMING THE SYSTEM?

36 38 39 40 42

photography by EMILY EFLAND

[ PHOTO ESSAY]

verde magazine

¡Adiós Urbina! Vamos a extrañarle Text and Photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS

“Q

ué horror,” Palo Alto High School Spanish teacher Janet Urbina exclaims one mid-May day during her Spanish 4 AP Language class. Urbina has just discovered junior Marissa Heirich’s English translation copy of “La Casa de Bernarda Alba,” a play by Federico Garcia Lorca that the class is reading. Urbina laughs, saying in Spanish that she knows students do this — read the English translations of the plays assigned for homework — but it is supposed to be kept “un secreto,” a secret. Urbina, who currently teaches Spanish 3 Honors and Spanish 4 AP Language, will retire after 35 years of teaching and 11 years at Palo Alto High School. According to Heirich, Urbina is “the backbone of the language department and she’ll be very missed.” RIGHT: Spanish teacher Janet Urbina explains “La Casa de Bernarda Alba,” the play her class is studying. LEFT: Urbina at the Palo Alto High School Language Department Awards Night. FAR LEFT: Urbina examines the play that junior Marissa Heirich brought to class. BOTTOM LEFT: Urbina’s 7th period class. BELOW: Urbina, at lunch with fellow Paly Spanish teacher Kevin Duffy.

june 2011

[ FEATURES ]

On Target Students revive archery’s traditional roots Text by MIRA KHANNA and EMILY EFLAND Photography by EMILY EFLAND

rrows whiz by, perforating bull’s-eyes on bales of hay that lie throughout the verdant grass of Stevens County Park in Cupertino. “Clear!” a man yells, and men, women and children run to collect their arrows and prepare for a new round of shooting. These people, including Palo Alto High School junior Rhyan Pike, are devoted archers who come regularly to the park to practice a sport many consider anchored in the past. Pike, who practices archery through the organization Bowhunters Unlimited, relishes the traditional aspect of archery that the organization provides. He says that while archery remains practiced today, technology has transformed the sport. At Stevens Creek County Park, however, archers do not come to play with the latest technology. They have found a safe haven from technological advances in a peaceful field where most people still use wooden bows and carry their arrows in leather quivers strapped to their backs. “It’s primitive, and going back to how bows were supposed to be shot,” Pike says. “It’s becoming way more popular to do the more primitive stuff.” According to Pike, the move back to traditional archery began locally when a new archery shop selling only traditional equipment opened near Stevens Creek County Park. Many archers who frequented the store began to try this equipment, gaining an appreciation for the simplicity and natural feel of the devices. Aside from using different types of equipment, bowsmen at Stevens Creek County Park can practice two different types of archery. The first, target archery, requires archers to stand in a line and aim their arrows at bull’s-eyes laid out on the

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AVID ARCHER Junior Rhyan Pike’s passion for archery and his skill as a mentor have allowed him to become the youngest board member of the archery club Bowhunters Unlimited. Pike claims he could survive in the wilderness with only his bow and arrows. field before them. A two-mile hiking trail also weaves its way through the park, containing animal figures, often life-sized, with bull’s-eye targets indicating the location of a “kill shot.” Moving targets also exist on the trail, held up by pulleys. Pike, along with his fellow archer, junior Cody Laurence, prefer the moving

targets on the hiking trail to the farther away stationary targets. “For us, you yank it [the bowstring] back and just raise the bow to what looks right with your instincts, it’s not a measured thing,” Pike says. Neither Pike nor Laurence has an archery coach, but pick up hints and tips from other archers at a shoot. However, Laurence cites Pike as a major influence in his archery career. “If I were to consider someone as a coach it would be Rhyan Pike because he taught me the basics when I was just starting out,” Laurence says. Pike became an archer after he moved to the Peninsula in 2009. His original passion for hunting led him to discover archery when, in search for hunting areas, he found archery clubs instead. “I love shooting archery, and I have met some of my best friends in the world at the archery range,” Pike says. “I am elated that I have had the opportunity to do such a wonderful and enjoyable sport. ” Pike wins awards fairly often from both Bowhunters Unlimited as well as from other clubs in California, but enjoys archery for its social aspect. “Shooting archery isn’t about awards. It’s about having a good time and spending time with some great people,” Pike says. “I have gotten to meet some of the best people on Earth and have had a great time.” Although some members of Bowhunters Unlimited still use technologically advanced compound bows and arrows, Pike and Laurence never forget the traditional aspect of archery from Robin Hood’s days of lore. “You keep downgrading and downgrading, and you get more in tune with the bow,” Pike says. “It feels more natural.” v

THE DROP-OFF ZONE Many people stop by the Goodwill truck to donate old items

Spreading the Good The story behind our Goodwill truck Text and Photography by SHARON TSENG

n Palo Alto High School’s parking lot, right across the street from Trader Joe’s, sits a truck. Stuffed to the roof with an array of odds and ends bursting out of black garbage bags or duct taped in cardboard boxes, it glares white in the sun. Printed in big blue letters, the writing on the truck states: “Giving people the chance to hate Monday mornings”, a reference to the truck’s mission. In a chair beside the truck sits Alfonso Cardoza, who manages donations on weekdays. He points out the strangest item in his truck at the moment, a rusty old push motor propped up against the truck’s wall. Although the Goodwill truck has maintained a conspicuous presence beside the stream of traﬃc since its placement six months ago, few students pay attention to it. The truck serves as a donation site for clothes and household items, which Goodwill Industries International then sells to fund its mission.

According to the Goodwill website, their mission is to “help people earn a living, improve their lives, and strengthen their families and their communities.” In short, Goodwill helps people get a job and gives them a reason to “hate Monday mornings.” So why is the truck at Paly? It’s simple. Goodwill pays the school $1,000 a month to leave the truck there. “It’s just like any other rental,” says assistant principal Jerry Berkson, who was involved in the Goodwill truck placement. It is comparable to renting out classrooms on weekends or the school fields to other teams. Originally, Goodwill contacted the school about the possibility of setting up a Goodwill donation site at Paly, says Berkson. The school accepted on a few conditions, mainly the ability to background check and approve the person managing the truck. Berkson says he believes Goodwill chose Paly as a donation site because of its visibility next to the busy Embarcadero

Road. However, Cardoza disagrees. He says that for the most part, the truck’s proximity to the school, rather than the street, attracts donors. The truck is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, as well as on additional weekend hours. Every day, Cardoza receives anywhere from 12 to 20 visitors. Most deposit items like clothes, electronics, books, or shoes. Every two to three weeks, the contents of the truck are taken to Goodwill stores or to the main store in San Jose. Both Berkson and Cardoza agree that no one has ever tried to vandalize or steal from the truck during its time at Paly. As another school day winds down, a woman pulls up in her car, parking it neatly diagonal to the truck opening. Cardoza walks up to greet her and helps her lift two bags of what looks like comforter sheets from her trunk. Taking a simple thank you in exchange, she returns to her car and leaves. Cardoza returns to his chair, awaiting more gift-bearers. v june 2011

[ FEATURES ]

Ode to the ARC What goes on behind the scenes? Text by ELISE BRUGUERA Art by YELENA KASIANOVA

ong after the campus traffic rush is over, Noel Beitler is wiping down tables while one last test-taker finishes up an exam and a student tutor returns a textbook and a colored folder to the designated shelves. It is 4:30 p.m. and Beitler, the Academic Resource Center (ARC) co-coordinator, thanks the tutor for her time before closing up the ARC. Just 45 minutes earlier it was packed with students. Although tutors, tutees, and testtakers gather here, so do students simply looking for a place to hang out and do homework. Many gather during lunch to eat and get some work done. However, seldom do they stop to appreciate all of the services offered and all of the work that Beitler and Maria Lim, the second ARC coordinator, put in daily, with the help of parent volunteers. The ARC houses textbooks, runs a tutoring program, provides make-up test proctoring, and even offers hot chocolate on Fridays. Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes to make all of this possible?

to the 700s

staff copy room

About the ARC Hours: 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Open only for tutoring and testing during Thursday tutorial. StaďŹ&#x20AC;: Noel Beitler, Maria Lim, and more than a dozen weekly parent volunteers

to the library verde magazine

Textbooks

The ARC has more than 100 textbooks available for student use, along with some novels and SAT/AP preparation books. The staff has recently moved most textbooks to the shelf in the main room and moved all last copy books to the shelf just inside the testing room. Last copy books used to be housed in cabinets inside the testing room. Students must exchange a phone or wallet to borrow a last copy book, because textbooks in the ARC are irreplaceable. According to Beitler, the math books are the most popular, followed by science and social studies.

Tutoring

Students can fill out a request slip to tutor or be tutored in the ARC, and the ARC staff will match tutees and tutors. According to Lim, the tutor program involves matching tutors and tutees, tracking and monitoring meetings, and sending call slips. Beitler does most of the progress tracking, which involves visually monitoring pairs and reviewing tutors’ folders, Beitler says. “It’s hard for tutors to ask tutees if they’re getting any better,” she says. Because of this, she includes a spot in each tutor’s folder for tutees to rank the helpfulness of their meetings. According to Lim, there are currently 298 tutors in the computer, and Beitler says that about 100 are currently active in tutoring. Every day, tutors and tutees receive call slips for their lunch, prep period, tutorial, or after school appointments. to the quad Parent volunteers help greatly with the tutoring service, especially with the call slips, Beitler says. Call slips even often include handwritten notes from Beitler.

Testing

Students who have missed tests are able to make them up in the ARC, proctored by parent volunteers along with Beitler and Lim. “I’m proud of how we’ve worked it out -- with the instruction sheet [filled out by teachers] and the sign in sheet [for students],” Beitler says. “Almost everyone trusts us to do a good job proctoring their test.” Unfortunately, the testing room is located next to a hallway to the quad and the door between the testing room and the adjacent tutoring rooms is constantly being opened, so testing during busy periods like lunch and after school is often loud. Beitler says that if she could, she would designate a different room as the testing room to avoid this noise. The ARC staff asks students to sign up in order to test during tutorial because tutorial there are limited seats. june 2011

College Co

Guiding s

gaming th T

Private counselors say they can help paying applicants get into their top schools. But at what cost?

he girl who got into an Ivy League school wants you to know that her college coach didn’t write her application essays and no, he didn’t skew her GPA or tell her exactly what classes to take and he didn’t get her into the school she got into. This Palo Alto High School senior asks that her identity and her college’s identity be kept secret because she’s scared of what others might say. She got into this school herself, thank you very much. “He showed me that I have the potential to get in,” she says. But he didn’t get her in. When the senior girl discusses the role of college coaches with Laura Rossiter, another Paly senior who hired a private consultant — come September, Rossiter plans to attend Scripps College in Claremont, Calif. — their conversation reveals two divergent views of college coaches and their role in helping high school seniors apply to colleges. The role of a college coach is... “To bring out the best in you,” Jane says. “To bring out the best that colleges want to see in you,” Rossiter adds. But her friend snaps, “No, no, that’s not true.” This divergence in opinion begs the question: What is the role of a college coach? Are they hired to help their clients paint a picture of what colleges want to see, even if it differs from the subject’s true colors? And if not — if the purpose of college coaches isn’t to help applicants portray verde magazine

themselves in a better light — then why do applicants need them? “They really teach you how to package yourself — because that’s basically what the entire process is all about,” says the Paly senior who got into the Ivy League school. “College counselors are really good at figuring out what would be a good way to talk about yourself. They’re someone who knows enough about you to do that.” Rossiter first met her coach during her sophomore year. Her parents thought that hiring one would help her navigate what for many students is a nerve-racking ordeal. “My parents wanted me to have a college coach from the start,” Rossiter says. “They've been through this process before — my sister got into Barnard ED [Early Decision]. So they pushed me to get a college counselor like she did.” Over the next two years or so, Rossiter and her coach “bonded” over lunch and “random conversations” — and application essay writing: Rossiter’s coach encouraged her to work on her essays and read them over once she finished. Once, while writing an essay at home, Rossiter felt lost: She couldn’t find an ending. When she asked for help, her mom quickly typed up a filler last line and Rossiter sent it to her coach. The next time she checked her email, Rossiter found that her coach knew her writing style well enough to say: “Why did you let your mom write your ending?” Her friend’s experience with her college coach was almost the same. “He edited my essays, though not in terms of nitpicking them,” she says. “And he never

Coaches:

g students or

the system?

Text by GADI COHEN Art by YELENA KASIANOVA and GADI COHEN

crossed the ethical line.” When she was a high school senior applying to colleges, Irena Smith worked all on her own — as did almost all of her peers. She wrote her essays on a typewriter and sent only a handful of applications off in large envelopes. Now that she is an independent, private college counselor, Smith wants to bring her students closer to this more streamlined way of applying to colleges. “What I try to do is not absolutely return it to that point, but I do try to give students a sense of ownership,” Smith says. “This is their show. They get to decide where they spend the next four years [and] what their essays are going to be about.” Though she works with a spectrum of applicants’ personality types and schedules, Smith says that her job usually carries the same list of tasks. After getting to know her clients during their sophomore or junior year and finding out where they are in the process, she starts developing a plan with them — standardized tests, extracurricular activities, the college list. During applicants’ senior year, Smith helps her clients develop their essays and finalize their lists. “My role is not necessarily to give them an edge, but to help them bring out their best parts to the table,” Smith says. “My goal is for them to be able to say, ‘I put out the best possible application that I could.’ If at the end of the day they can feel like they put out their best work, that’s more of a validation than getting into their dream

school.” For an hour of consultation, Smith charges $360. According to her website, applicants use anywhere from ten to thirty hours of consulting over the years, which means that a client might pay Smith any-

a college coach and other people can’t,” Rossiter says. “But really, we go to a dogeat-dog school and live in this whole dogeat-dog world. And it definitely wasn’t only about getting into the right school. It was about not losing myself on the way to the right school.” To Rossiter, the ability to hire and consult with a college coach gave her an advantage over less well-off applicants, one that was unfair — but not unethical, she says. “It’s unethical to have a college coach when he creates more of the content than you,” the Ivybound girl explains. “It’s important to be genuine.” Smith doesn’t see her job as giving clients an unfair advantage. To her, college counselors “help students and parents negotiate — Senior laura rossiter what is an increasingly stressful process”; if an applicant is so thing from $3600 to over $10000 by the extraordinary as to have a chance at exend of the process. tremely selective schools, he will get in Rossiter doesn’t know how much her with or without a private counselor. parents paid her college coach — but she “It’s not that working with me is godoes know that some applicants would ing to give [applicants] an edge,” Smith not be able to afford hiring one. says. “Working with me helps them man“It’s not fair that I can afage the process. I don’t give them that ford to get kind of edge — I don’t know if I could live with myself if I did that.” v

“It definitely wasn’t only about getting into the right school. It was about not losing myself on the way to the right school.”

june 2011

Lunch Dinner at our new location 140 Homer Ave

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Brunch Private Functions at The Annex 806 Emerson St

Compiled by CAROLINE EBINGER Art by YELENA KASIANOVA

THE WATCH

46 48 50 52

SUMMER EDITION

FROZEN TREATS FROYO FEVER SUMMER MOVIES SUMMER CONCERTS

photo by CAROLINE EBINGER

[ THE WATCH ]

Frozen Treats

Delicious desserts that anyone can make Text, Photography and Culinary prowess by AVA DORDI, CAMILLE VON KAENEL, and MARGARET KADIFA

s summer approaches and the sun comes out in full force, frozen desserts become popular in many students’ refrigerators. We created these recipes in order to provide students with a few refreshing and easy-to-make frozen treats. Our Popsicle molds came from Crate and Barrel, but any will do.

ROOT BEER FLOAT POPSICLES Needed: • Root beer • Vanilla ice cream • Popsicle molds

Instructions: 1. Pour a small amount of root beer into the bottom of each Popsicle mold. 2. Fill about 1/2 to 1/3 of each mold with vanilla ice cream. 3. Fill the remainder of each mold with root beer. 4. Freeze for at least 10 hours. 5. Run the molds under warm water to loosen the Popsicles and gently remove the Popsicles from the molds. Enjoy!

ICE CREAM IN A BAG Needed: • 1/2 cup milk • 1/2 cup whipping cream • 1/4 cup sugar • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla • 3/4 cup salt • 4 cups ice • 2 large ZiplocTM bags

Instructions: 1. Combine the sugar, milk, cream and vanilla in one bag. Seal the bag and tie the top with a rubber band. 2. Fill the second bag with the ice and salt. 3. Insert the first bag into the second bag and seal the second bag. Make sure that the first bag is surrounded on all sides by ice. 4. Shake the bag for about 20 minutes or until the mixture has solidified. 5. Remove the first bag. Be careful when removing the ice cream from the bag to avoid introducing the salt on the outside of the bag into the ice cream inside. Enjoy! Adapted from a recipe by Anne Marie Helmenstine originally published on About.com.

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ICE CREAM CUPCAKES

Instructions: Needed: 1. Melt the chocolate chips and the butter together. • 5 large scoops of Cookies ‘n 2. Coat the inside of each cupcake liner with Cream ice cream melted chocolate. • 1 cup chocolate chips 3. Refrigerate the chocolate-coated liners for one • 1 tablespoon butter hour. • 5 foil cupcake liners 4. Remove the foil liners from around the chocolate • 5 Oreos shells. • Whipped cream 5. Fill each chocolate shell with ice cream. 6. Add whipped cream and one Oreo to the top of Note: Use a different flavor of ice cream for a each cupcake. Enjoy! variation on this delicious frozen treat.

DOUBLE-LAYERED POPSICLES Needed: • 2 cups vanilla ice cream • 1 banana • 10 strawberries

• 1 cup milk • Popsicle molds

Instructions: 1. Combine the banana, half of the vanilla ice cream and half of the milk in a blender to make a milkshake. For a thicker milkshake, add more ice cream. For a thinner one, add more milk. 2. Make another milkshake with strawberries and the remaining vanilla and milk. 3. Fill the bottom half of each popsicle mold with the banana mixture and freeze for 45 minutes. 4. After 45 minutes, fill the rest of each mold with the strawberry milkshake and freeze for at least 10 hours. 5. Run the molds under warm water to loosen the Popsicles and gently remove the Popsicles from the molds. Enjoy!

june 2011

[ THE WATCH ]

Froyo Fever The four best frozen yogurt cafés in the Peninsula Text by EMMA TUCHER Photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS Art by YELENA KASIANOVA

orget the Bieber Fever; I’ve caught a case of the Froyo Fever. As a child, I always waited patiently for my ice cream to melt before slurping up the mashed-up mix. Imagine my delight when years later, I find a pop-culture dessert that I can get behind: frozen yogurt — the melted ice cream of my childhood dreams — with less fat, too. So Paly, after proposing this story every single issue for the last two years, I’m finally bringing you the best frozen yogurt shops in Palo Alto.

Yogurtland combines the consistency of L’Amour’s menu with staples like cookies and cream and tart while having a constant rotation of various flavors to allow patrons variety. The best part is the price. At a mere $0.33 per ounce, you will not break the bank enjoying one of these cold treats once a week, or every day. L’Amour

Yogurtland

494 University Ave Palo Alto When I heard Yogurtland was being installed on University Avenue, a mere six blocks from my humble abode, I considered Foothill for my further education. Every time I enter L’Amour these days, I take an extra helping of cookie dough knowing that I will frequent it far less now that its far cheaper competitor, Yogurtland, has opened. The bright, colorful establishment is cute and friendly. Yogurtland is self serve and customers can mix-and-match the flavors to create a unique yogurt blend. Unique flavors like Red Velvet cupcake batter, brownie batter, chocolate mint cookie (inspired by the famous Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie), white chocolate macadamia, and key lime bar set this place apart.

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276 University Ave Palo Alto Before Yogurtland arrived, I was here almost every day after school for a cool after-class treat. At $0.47 an ounce, L’Amour is astronomically expensive, however I still pay the steep price for local froyo. This dessert place has self-serve flavors. The consistency of the menu is a relief — unlike many of the competitors, the menu doesn’t change on a daily basis. The staple flavors — Cookies and Cream, Peanut Butter, Yellow Cake, Tart, Strawberry, Non-Fat Chocolate, and Irish Mint — offer a range for people of mixed palettes to enjoy. L’Amour allows its customers to select a mix of yogurt and toppings. This gives them the freedom to decide the exact quantity of each item along with placement. With more than 40 toppings offered, patrons will have a range of options to sprinkle on top of their yogurt. A few notables are the medley of candies, including Butterfingers, Oreo Cookies, M&M’s,

Mochi, and Reese’s, as well as Brownie Bites, Yellow Cake, and Cookie Dough. Fruits such as strawberries, watermelon, and mango are also offered. The best topping by far is the cookie dough — table spoon size amounts of cookie dough. The cookies and cream has turned many a Pinkberry fan into a L’Amour convert. Reminiscent of one of America’s favorite deserts in colors and taste, the flavor perfectly captures our preferred childhood treat. The creamy base is delicious and just thick enough; while the flavor also mixes well with L’Amour’s other offerings. The yellow cake flavor is unique to this location. Every creamy bite reminds me of my favorite birthday cake handcrafted by my grandma. It perfectly captures this luxurious treat with none of the fat. Both flavors are creamy and rich without having the thickness of ice cream. The Irish Mint is the only flavor that disappoints. The mint flavor is overpowering; it tastes like the strong smell of a mint leaf, and doesn’t offer the sweetness of the popular ice cream flavor. Yumi Yogurt

947 El Camino Real Redwood City While frequenting the Redwood City Century 20 movie theater to see the latest blockbuster, instead of over-paying for popcorn or Reese’s Pieces, a hungry mov-

iegoer can walk a block to Yumi Yogurt. Do not be dissuaded by the cheap decor or run-down appearance. The best food always comes from the shadiest establishments, because the only selling point they have is their cuisine. Flavors vary daily with interesting options like Toasted Marshmallow, Tart, Reese’s Peanut Butter, Chunky Fudge Brownie, Vanilla Malt, and Mint. The shop offers “Carbolite” and “Wow-Cow” options for those who are more health-conscious. Large sizes are offered for the cheap price, but this place is not self service and you pay for one to three different favors. Toppings are $1.10. At Yumi, a small is $3.75, a medium is $4.50, and a large is $5.50. The flavors are delicious and thicker than those of their competitors — less milky, but still delicious.

Customers can also purchase toppings ($1.10). Yogurt Stop offers the traditional bevy of fruits, candies, and sauces. Strawberries, Raspberries, Reese’s, Oreo Cookies, Butterfingers, M&M’s, Cookie Dough, and Gummy Bears. Yogurt Stop is not self-serve but in-

stead offers very generous portions of various sizes: Child/Petite ($), Small ($3.75), Medium ($4.50), and Large ($5.50). Customers can enjoy their yogurt sitting inside the store on plastic, colorful children’s seats or on benches outside the establishment. v

RIGHT Yogurtland allows patrons to mix and match flavors and toppings of their choice for $0.33 per ounce.

Yogurt Stop

401 El Camino Real Menlo Park Located on El Camino on the cusp of the elegant Stanford Mall and the Safeway strip mall. Yogurt Stop offers all of the taste with none of the pretentious decor of our local yogurt places. With constantly changing flavors, one can always find something tasty to try on a hot, or not so hot, day. Yogurt Stop always offers their traditional tart along with a daily changing menu with popular flavors of Oreo Mint, Red Velvet, Peanut Butter, and Chocolate. They offer Wow-Cow and Carbolite options for their more health conscious patrons. These options are either lowsugar, low-carb, or low-fat. The flavors are creamy and thick, and just sweet enough. However, the lack of consistency makes it hard to know whether or not you will find a flavor to your liking.

LEFT The plethora of topping options at L’Amour TOP The storefront. TOP LEFT L’Amour’s yogurt. FAR LEFT A delicious Yumi Yogurt.

june 2011

[ THE WATCH ]

Summer Movies Text by JACKSON MILEY and ZACHARY STANTON-SAVITZ Art by ZACHARY STANTON-SAVITZ

ANOTHER EARTH

THE DEBT

When a second, identical Earth comes within travel distance of our own, a character played by actress Brit Marling is confronted with the choice between staying in her imperfect life here or traveling to an uncertain future there, in Fox Searchlight’s “Another Earth”. The trailer plays nicely with the idea of this choice, and seems to indicate that this movie will be a character piece rather than something effects-heavy. However, it does not look as if director Mike Cahill fully explored the possible plot twists of having duplicate planets within striking distance of each other and instead opted to continue with a potentially run-of-the-mill love story. Not that there’s anything wrong with that — and in fact, it may work to the film’s advantage — but it may not be a mind-altering distortion of reality like “Inception”, despite its potential to be. Altogether, this film is one to look out for. It comes out on July 22.

From director John Madden comes a movie that’s sure to turn some heads. “The Debt”, a remake of a 2007 Israeli film by the same name, is the story of a team of Israeli agents who went on a mission together in 1966 in East Berlin and who met up again in 1997 to discover that the target of their mission may not have been successfully executed. Madden had previously directed period pieces such as “Mrs. Brown” and “Shakespeare in Love”; the latter won seven Academy Awards including one for best picture. Other than that, Madden has directed only a handful of lukewarmly received films. From the pre-release trailer and the previews, it seems as if “The Debt” is going to be a well-shot and well-played action movie. And even if it isn’t, at least the props and scenery look authentic. “The Debt” looks like it is going be a solid thriller. It will be released by Miramax and Focus Features on August 31.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART II

A classic superhero flick from Marvel Comics, “Captain America: The First Avenger” looks to be everything a superhero movie should be, with excellent action sequences topped off by excellent special effects. From the trailers and the previews, the plot doesn’t seem to be Oscar-worthy, but we will only know for sure once we see Captain America in action. The movie centers around a scrawny American cadet in World War II who is selected to be part of a team to bring down Hitler. Enhanced by the cutting edge of alternate universe World War II technology, our diminutive hero transforms into a hulking mass of American muscle armed with a seemingly impervious shield and looks ready to lead audiences on a roller-coaster ride of action. “Captain America: The First Avenger” doesn’t look like it will go down in the history books as one of the top 10 best movies ever made, but it certainly doesn’t look like the haphazard assortment of special effects and scantily-dressed women that is “Transformers 2”. This looks like a quintessential summer film. “Captain America” will come to theaters on July 22.

It’s the moment we have all been waiting for: to see the Harry Potter saga come full circle on camera. Without a doubt, as one of the most highly-anticipated films of the year and certainly of the summer, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II” will bring to a conclusion a phenomenon that has spanned nearly a decade. If the movie shows any weakness, it might stem from the deviance from the source novel. The trailer that Warner Brothers has released seems to show several shots which do not occur in the book. The film will also have to overcome the pacing problems of Part I — a film which was glacial — and it will have to wrap up the franchise satisfyingly. On the whole, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II” is definitely a must-see for the summer, regardless of quality. This film will become available on July 15.

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GREEN LANTERN

THE GUARD

When the first trailer for the upcoming Marvel comic book adaptation “Green Lantern” hit the Internet, a wave of disappointment arose among groups of cinephiles and comic book fans. The movie looked pretty bad. The computer generated imagery looked hokey, and the small bit of acting on display by leads Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively was plastic at best. It felt rushed, as if Warner Brothers was trying to make the film as inexpensively as possible. As each subsequent trailer emerged though, the CGI began to look increasingly polished, and the scope of the film became more underlined and pronounced. The acting does not appear to be much better, but then again, how many superhero movies have great acting? (“Dark Knight” perhaps, but even in that case, the good performances came from the supporting cast rather than from the leading actor.) The film is directed by Martin Campbell, who has also directed James Bond movies “Golden Eye”, and the more recent “Casino Royale”. He knows how to shoot action, which is a hopeful sign for the movie. The film will probably fail to stand out in terms of quality among a sea of other tent-poles and comic book movies coming out this summer — like the fantastic-looking “X-Men FirstClass” and “Captain America: The First Avenger” — and may fall by the wayside along with movies that came out earlier this year like “The Green Hornet” and “Thor” — decent movies, but far from perfect, and quite forgettable. The film will likely offer audiences a chance to turn off their brains for two hours or so, but not much more. “Green Lantern” will open on June 17.

Playwright Martin McDonagh made his directorial debut in 2008 with “In Bruges”, a low-budget, darkly comedic masterpiece, starring Colin Ferrel as a troubled hitman. Unsurprisingly, critics have drawn parallels between “In Bruges” and “The Guard”; “The Guard” is directed by Martin McDonagh’s brother, John Michael McDonagh. Critics have noted that the film is comparable when it comes to both theme and quality, and, like In Bruges before it, “The Guard” has earned rave reviews from the Sundance Film Festival. “The Guard”, like “In Bruges”, will be far from standard Hollywood fare — a dark, humorous, character-driven piece of filmmaking. It features Brendon Gleeson as a small-town cop in Ireland with a number of personal problems (not the least of which include a dying mother and an affection for prostitutes) and Don Cheadle as a straightlaced FBI agent who must work together to take down a cocaine-smuggling ring. As trite as it may sound, the early reviews suggest otherwise. It seems as though “The Guard” will turn out to be a refreshingly unorthodox summer movie. The film comes out on July 29.

CARS 2

30 MINUTES OR LESS

Pixar has not a single bad mark on its track record so far. As of last year, Pixar has released 11 excellent movies. The one dull spot — if it can even be called that — was “Cars”. Many cite it as the worst Pixar movie. That said, “Cars” was still fairly well-reviewed. The worry is that Pixar’s upcoming “Cars 2” may repeat or even add to “Cars’” (relative) failure. Many see the film as a purely commercial ploy. Realistically though, this movie will likely be simply a respite from the thematic heaviness of Pixar’s most recent group of films: “Toy Story 3”, “Up” and “Wall-E”. The trailers for the film have shown it to be a fun, worldspanning action movie — a combination of “North by Northwest” and James Bond. Perhaps the movie will turn out to be derivative, and maybe it won’t hold the same significance or stick to the standards as Pixar’s previous movies, but it promises to be entertaining. It comes to theaters on June 24.

In 2003, 46-year-old pizza delivery man Brian Wells was coerced into robbing a bank, when robbers forced him to wear a bomb, according to Fox News. When police intervened, the bomb detonated, killing Wells. This is the event upon which director Reuben Fleischer’s comedy, “30 Minutes or Less”, is (very loosely) based. Pizza man in the film is played not by a middle age man but by Jesse Eisenberg. After his more serious, Oscar-nominated performance in “The Social Network”, Eisenberg is back to playing a dweeby 20-something. Eisenberg was in Fleischer’s previous film, “Zombieland”, which was an excellent take on zombie films, whilst being a wonderful entry into the zombie genre as well. If “30 Minutes or Less” repeats the successes of Flescher’s previous movie, then it will be a sure success. The trailer has shown the film to do just that. The prospects are looking bright for this dark comedy. “30 Minutes or Less” will be released on August 12.

june 2011

[ THE WATCH]

Summer Concerts

This summer’s hottest concerts

As we wrap up this school year, we can finally relax and get ready for summer. To help kick off our break, Verde has compiled a list of this summer’s best concerts and music festivals. We hope you enjoy! Calendar by ALLISON CHANG and MIRA KHANNA Art by YELENA KASIANOVA

Sunday

Monday

June 5

Tuesday

U2 360 Tour @ Oracle Arena

World Oceans Day Union Street Festival @ Celebration @ MonUnion Square terey Bay Aquarium

Kid Cudi @ Bill Grahm Civic Auditorium

Thursday

Friday

Saturday Earth Wind and Fire @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium

Adele @ The Greek Theater

Live 105 BFD @ Live 105 BFD @ Shoreline Amphitheater Shorline Amphitheater

Wednesday

Bruno Mars and Janelle Monae @ Bill Grahm Civic Auditorium

Death Cab For Cutie @ The Fillmore

R Kelly @ Oracle Arena

Boys of Summer @ Fox Theater

Tim McGraw with Luke Bryan and The Band Perry @ Shoreline Amphitheater

Florence and the Motley Crue and Jethro Tull - Aqualung Machine @ The Greek 40th Anniversary Tour @ Poison with New York Theater Dolls @ The Mountain Winery Bill Grahm Civic Auditorium

Wiz Khalifa @ Bill Grahm Civic Auditorium

Britney Spears with Nicki Minaj, Jessie and the Toy Boys, and Nervo @ HP Pavilion

Panic! at the Disco @ The Warfield

41st anniversary San Francisco Pride @ San Francisco Civic Center

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Rihanna with J. Cole and Cee Lo Green @ Oracle Arena

Sunday

Monday

July 26

San Francisco Symphony @ Shoreline Amphitheater

Rockstar Energy Mayem Festival @ Shoreline Amphitheater

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Steely Dan @ The Mountain Winery

American Idol Live American Idol Live @ Oracle Arena @ HP Pavilion

Saturday

Vans Warped Tour @ Shoreline Amphitheater New Kids on the Block & Backstreet Boys @ HP Pavillion

16 Eddie Izzard @ Shoreline Amphitheater

Sunday

Owl City with Mat Kearney and Unwed Sailor @ The Warfield

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

14 OUTSIDE LANDS

Goo Goo Dolls, Michelle Branch, and Parachute @ The Mountain Winery

Kenny G and Michael Bolton @ The Mountain Winery

Ben Folds with Kenton Chen @ The Warfield

Sugarland with Sara Los Lonely Boys and Jason Aldean with Los Lobos @ Bareilles @ The Thompson Square @ The Mountain Winery Shoreline Amphitheater Greek Theater

August An Evening with The Beach Boys @ The Mountain Winery

Soundgarden @ Bill Grahm Civic Auditorium

Kid Rock with Sheryl Crow @ Shoreline Amphitheater

Thursday

Friday

13 OUTSIDE LANDS

Death Cab For Death Cab For Cutie Cutie and Frightand Frightened ened Rabbit @ The Rabbit @ The Greek Greek Theatre Theatre

Unity Tour 2011: 311 & Sublime with Rome @ Shoreline Amphitheater

Ford F- Series Presents Toby Keith and Eric Church @ Shoreline Amphitheater

We the Kings with The Summer Set, The Downtown Fiction, & Action Item @ The Regency Ballroom

Saturday

Sade with John Legend @ Oracle Arena

Goo Goo Dolls, Michelle Branch, and Parachute @ The Greek Theatre

june 2011

CULTURE

verde magazine

MIDNIGHT PREMIERES BREAKING OUT THE BACON VERDE VEGAN IT’S IN THE ROCKS A SMASHING GOOD TIME SENIOR SECTION MAX’S WORDS

55 56 59 60 62 65 70

Midnight Madness Enthusiastic fans attend pre-dawn movie premieres of popular ﬁlms. Text and art by AVA DORDI

lose to midnight, a vast horde of people crowd around me at the Shoreline movie theater. Some wear red and gold scarves, others wield wooden sticks, and many more sport pointed wizard hats. One girl even holds a potted plant which she proclaims to be a Mimbulus Mimbletonia. Who are these people? What are we doing at the movie theater at midnight? Why are we carrying around potted plants at the cinema? The answer: we are Harry Potter fans, all here for the July 2009 midnight movie premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Although Half-Blood Prince came out two summers ago, midnight premieres themselves occur multiple times every year. In fact, the final installment of the Harry Potter franchise, Deathly Hallows: Part 2, comes out this July. Midnight showings will occur this year for many highly anticipated summer films, including Deathly Hallows: Part 2 as well as Green Lantern and Transformers, among others. Why go through the eﬀort of purchasing a ticket several weeks in advance to see a movie that will most likely be playing every day for the next month at far more convenient times? Who even came up with that idea? Historically, it appears that one of the first midnight releases occurred not in Hollywood but in Seattle, Washington. According to a 1980 Seattle PostIntelligencer article, more than 800 Star

Wars fans gathered in rainy Seattle at midnight on May 21, 1980 to see the release of Empire Strikes Back, the sequel to the original Star Wars movie. This event was an unusual occurrence at the time. In fact, Darryl MacDonald, one of the organizers of the premiere, noted in the article that predawn film releases had only been tried a few times before in history. Fans at the Empire Strikes Back showing were certainly more excited than the average fan to see the film, with some flying to Seattle from New Jersey or Rhode Island to see the movie at midnight. They dressed up as characters from the film and bonded with other fans. After this immensely popular event (which was sold out for weeks in advance), perhaps movie theaters realized that midnight movie releases could be a lucrative business. Today, midnight releases are common for mainstream blockbuster films, but the reasons for attending them have not changed much. When I attended the Half-Blood Prince premiere, I was looking forward to having a fun experience with my friends as well as getting the chance to celebrate my love of Harry Potter with other fans, much like the initial Star Wars fans did in 1980. The element of excitement attending a midnight premiere is almost undeniable. Many enthusiastic fans get dressed up for the occasion. Some wear

t-shirts decorated with inside jokes or phrases that other fans will understand. Others wear more elaborate costumes, dressing up as their favorite characters from head to toe. Not doing so is acceptable, of course, but costumes and props are not unusual at a lively premiere. At the Half-Blood Prince premiere, I made sure to wear my Gryﬃndor scarf as well as my pointed black wizard hat. The viewing of a midnight show is a community experience. A person can watch a movie knowing that they’re surrounded by people who love the franchise, be it Harry Potter or Twilight, just as much as they do. Being one of hundreds of fans all waiting to see a single film can be a tremendously exciting experience. It’s certainly fun to watch a movie with friends, but watching a movie with hundreds of other fans who love the franchise at least as much as you is a whole new adventure. Anyone who is a fan of a franchise, be it Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, or one of many others, should attend at least one midnight premiere in his or her lifetime. The creative costumes alone will keep anyone entertained for hours while they wait for midnight to come, and the community experience with other fans just can’t be beat (unless they’re at San Diego ComicCon, but that’s a whole diﬀerent story). Look for me this summer at the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 premiere in Mountain View. I’ll be the one in the awesome Voldemort outfit. v june 2011

[ CULTURE ]

Breaking out the Bacon With the rise of social media, bacon has become a sizzling hot topic Text and Photography by MELISSA WEN

TRIPLE THREAT Dennys new bacon menu serves up a mouth-watering combo of hickory, pepper, and turkey bacon, along with eggs and cheesy hash browns.

SWEET AND SALTY An online recipe led me to the unusual concoction of bacon chocolate chip cookies. I don’t know if bacon makes all bad food taste better, but it certainly adds a unique flavor to what is already delicious.

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made some bacon chocolate chip cookies the other day. Initially pouring greasy bacon bits into a pristine, vanilla scented bowl of cookie dough didn’t seem like the greatest idea, but the concoction turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable. For the most part, the taste of the chocolate chips dominated, with the bacon adding a certain warm, hickory je ne sais quoi. The tastes didn’t exactly blend, in my opinion, although this probably resulted from my inexpert preparation. Yet somehow, the hint of bacon brought me somewhere, to sizzling plates of meat at a hotel buffet in Boston, to a Sunday breakfast in a kitchen that has since been renovated, altogether to places far away and elevated from my reality of crumbling meat, flour and sugar. Ultimately my love for the salty smoked pork prevailed. I am only one of the many bacon lovers who jointly consume the couple billion pounds of bacon produced every year in the United States, according to the National Pork Board, which serves as a resource for pork providers. More than half of American households always have bacon on hand in the kitchen, and, according to a survey conducted by Maple Leaf Foods Inc., 43 percent of Canadians choose bacon over sex. In the past few years, with the rising popularity of social media and the consequential emergence of entire websites, blogs, and Youtube channels dedicated to it, bacon is on the table for discussion more than ever before. So, what is it about bacon? Bacon Beginnings “Bacon, you taste it, you smell it, you know exactly what it is. It’s very powerful,” bacon entrepreneur Rocco Loosbrock says, describing why he loves bacon.

Loosbrock runs the websites bacontoday.com, baconjerky.com, www.baconfreak.com and www.bacn.com, where he posts news about bacon, showcases bacon jerky, and sells products that range from bacon cookbooks to chocolate bacon bars. Loosbrock began his bacon endeavors seven years ago, when he and others were looking for unusual wine and food combinations. They came up with bacon appetizers and named the pairing “swine and wine,” a term that soon caught on on the Internet. “It became very popular. People started to ask us where we get this good bacon,” he says. To sell on his website, Loosbrock looks for unusual bacon, such as steak bacon from the meat provider Burgers Smokehouse, a bacon so thick it can be grilled like a steak. In fact, it was when Loosbrock became aware of the different varieties of bacon that he began to see it as special. He even offers some insight into the combining of chocolate and bacon. “The issue is to find the sweet and salty balance.,” he says. “Too much bacon is no good.” Heather Lauer, who owns a digital communications consulting firm, runs www.baconunwrappped.com and authored “Bacon: A Love Story.” These projects, according to the biography on her website, also began with some help from alcohol. However, the idea did not disappear upon the arrival of sobriety. Researching for her book and blog has taken her on a bacon quest that spans her local area, the Internet, and numerous states “I was able to meet and talk with a lot of people along the way whose lives are affected by bacon, including hog farmers, bacon curers, chefs, and everyday bacon lovers,” she writes in an email to Verde. Lauer also comments on the widespread love of bacon in society. “Humans have a natural attraction to flavors that combine sweet and salty flavors, and that flavor balance combined with the streaky meat that is used for bacon is a perfect combination that is very hard to resist,” she writes.

Alex Carter, Paly junior and fellow bacon aficionado, eats bacon every day for breakfast, having consumed it since, he jokes, within a half hour of his birth. Clad in a bright green farmers market apron, he speaks readily on the topic. “I love the fact that everything goes well with bacon,” he says. “If you take bacon and add it to something that’s otherwise terrible, it becomes good.” Now and Then Although there is no record of its exact origins, according to the Oxford Companion to Food, bacon has been present in peasant diets for centuries, and was first commercially produced in 1770 in Wiltshire, Britain. “Bacon has been around for thousands of years,” Lauer says. “It was originally invented out of a need to preserve meat for longer periods of time, but it stuck around after the invention of refrigeration because it is so delicious.” Since then, bacon’s horizons have vastly expanded. Lauer says that in the past couple of years she has seen two main bacon trends emerge. “First, with the increasing popularity of blogging and social media as a means of sharing information, some of the crazy products like bacon floss and bacon mints have become a popular topic of conversation in a way that might not have been possible before the Internet,” Lauer says. “The Internet is also exposing people to a wider range of specialty bacons that can be ordered online from artisan curers or bacon-of-the-month clubs.” Carter confirms this trend. “I have noticed a recent spike in bacon consumption due primarily to the popularity of the viral video series known as ‘Epic Mealtime’,” Carter says, referring a video series on Youtube.com. The videos feature a variety of heart-attack- inducing, often bacon-wrapped dishes, such as meat salad and fast food tacos. As of May 18, 2011 the videos have received more than 93 million views. Loosbrock adds that the demand for high quality bacon has grown, and notes

The Great Bacon Debate: Chewy or Crispy? Bacon entrepreneur Rocco Loosbrook likes his bacon crispy by itself and chewy in a sandwich, while Paly junior Alex Carter prefers a mix of chewy and crispy. What do others at Paly say?

“Crispy. Because it tastes better and has better texture.” — Grant Blackburn, social studies teacher

“Chewy. Crispy’s too hard and it goes down too fast. Chewy...you can eat it for longer.” — Daniel Fisher, sophomore

“I really like it when it’s crunchy. That’s the only time that I can actually eat it.” — Andrea Hur, junior june 2011

[ CULTURE ]

BLT X 3 Baconalia delivers a hefty triple layer bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich, along with a side of tempting thick fries. that a lot of his customers are either welloff or looking for gifts for well -off friends. Some have told him that $50 worth of bacon has provoked more enthusiasm than gifts costing thousands. The gift baskets sold on www.baconfreak.com range from the $49.95 bacon jerky gift bundle to the $89.95 boss hog variety sampler. “It’s an inexpensive gift that gets a lot of attention,” Loosbrock says. A Celebration of Bacon My own bacon quest took me to the restaurant Dennys in Sunnyvale, which has also recently jumped on the bacon bandwagon, with its new menu, called Baconalia. The menu features bacon in a variety of novel ways, including bacon flapjacks, a maple bacon sundae, and bacon meatloaf. I personally opted for the triple bacon sampler, featuring cheesy hash browns, eggs, and three types of bacon. The hickory bacon was ripe with typical

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bacony goodness, crispy and thin with a salty smoky flavor and just enough grease. The pepper bacon, my favorite, was crispy to the point of shattering, but I was impressed with its slight spiciness. The turkey bacon added some variety with a milder flavor and chewy texture. I also tried the BBLT, consisting of six pieces of toast and four layers of chopped bacon, lettuce, and tomato skewered on a toothpick. It was nothing special—delicious, but not any different from a regular BLT. According to Lauer, “Baconalia” is part of a trend she has noticed in the past couple of years. “As bacon has become an increasingly popular topic, we’re also now seeing several chain restaurants around the country embracing it as a marketing tactic,” she writes. Dennys waiter Jose Plata confirms the success of this tactic, noting that Baconalia has been popular since its arrival a

few weeks ago, and will last for a limited time, maybe just a month more. For now, the company sends bacon in a truck every Friday. “A celebration of bacon,” Plata says, reading off the menu cover. Bacon Tomorrow? “Some people think the current interest in bacon is just a ‘trend.’ But even though we may be talking about it on the internet more frequently, or seeing it used in advertising more regularly, the fact is that bacon has been around for thousands of years, it has always been popular, and it will continue to be popular long after the “trend” has passed,” Lauer says. Especially after my most recent bacon endeavors, I am inclined to agree. I look forward to a future of crispy bacon, chewy bacon, BLTs, bacon jerky, breakfast bacon, turkey bacon, dinner bacon, chocolate dipped bacon and possibly another batch of bacon chocolate chip cookies. v

Verde Vegan All about sticking it to the greens Text by CAMILLE COUCHON Art by LEA COUCHON

am the master of scrambled tofu. Wrap it up with some guacamole and some salsa, voila! You’ve got one excellent vegan burrito on the go. This little cooking skill is one I learned last month when I made the adventurous and out of the blue decision to become a vegan. Veganism was an extreme step to take, especially since I skipped the vegetarian stage. I used to enjoy my Sunday lunches with big juicy medium rare steaks. Being vegan implies staying away from all meats as well as avoiding dairy products and other animal by-products. No more eggs sunny-side up or half-and-half in my morning cup of coffee. I now have to compensate with sugar in my coffee, but giving up the milk was difficult. Having to refuse a gigantic piece of vanilla and chocolate layered cake at a birthday party was probably the moment when I realized that the drastic vegan change was not going to be as easy as I had thought. I had convinced myself that just eating my weight in tofu would be enough to get me by as a vegan. Just cutting down on meat, though, is not enough. When it comes to cooking, all the best recipes have some animal-based product hidden somewhere. It is not only my diet that had to change, but also my lifestyle. Being vegan means saying no to leather and fur. Once I started paying attention to what I was taking into my body, I started to notice the presence animals have in everyday life. A simple thing such as a wool sweater became taboo and had to be thrown to the back of the closet. It became an everyday goal that no harm

comes to any animal. If you’ve ever had plain tofu, then you would know that it is one of the blandest foods that could ever reach the tip of your tongue. Pairing that up with some broccoli and mushrooms makes it passable, but it is still nothing compared to the simple joy of toast and butter. Even though I have cut down on the cupcakes and Sunday steak, health-wise, I have not felt such a big impact from the change. I did lose a couple pounds, but that was not my source of motivation for starting the diet in the first place. Replacing meat and milk with tofu and soy plays a toll on your body. Doctors do not recommend this diet since it could seriously decrease the intake of calcium and vitamin D. Your bones might become less dense and such a simple thing as growth could be halted. Every meal time becomes a puzzle in figuring out whether you have enough vitamins and protein to keep you alive. The real benefit from going vegan cannot be measured by the amount of greens in my body. I am in no way physically healthier, but my mindset took a turn for the better. I live my days with a little more peace of mind. The effort it took to become vegan has filled my days with a little more good then bad. My philosophy in life is to go with flow while doing the most good possible.

Living everyday without harming or consuming any part of another living animal has had a soothing effect on me. My bones must be at their angriest, but my mind is at ease with the thought, “Today I did no harm at all.” And then I get that little comfort that I’m truly one with nature. I’m living off of what can be grown from the earth and not from what is born from a mother. Nothing I take into my body was raised in a factory where it never got to feel the fresh warmth of the sunshine. You could debate that the act of eating a carrot is still destroying a living organism, but that carrot saw the sunshine and the rain and was never cooped in a pen. That carrot was planted, grew up in the arms of the soil, and reached my frying pan. That happy carrot was never torn away from the arms of its mother. Even though my journey in going vegan has held a couple moments of shame, I still hold pride since no animals were harmed from any of my actions. Even though I messed up with the midnight call of the creamy dulce de leche ice cream calling me from the freezer, I still stand strong next to my humane efforts to remain a Vegan. It’s not easy being green. v

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[ CULTURE ]

It’s in the Rocks Documentary “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” unveils ancient world Text by AMANDA GROZIAK Art by YELENA KASIANOVA

ragments of French conversations sound in the dark as we descend into the cave tied together with ropes, with only the headlights on our helmets guiding us through the dark. We hit the floor and we’re walking on metal walkways — if we stray off the designated path, we might destroy the preserved history that surrounds us. Stalactites and stalagmites alternately shine with radiance as headlamps point their way. The bones, footprints and paw prints — almost everything is encased in a layer of calcite crystals — everything, that is, except for the drawings on the walls of the cave. We’re inside a Chauvet cave in Southern France and we’re about to discover the world according to man 32,000 years ago. It’s the Sistine Chapel of the caveman, and accomplished documentarian and director Werner Herzog, along with a film crew of four, have traveled inside of the Chauvet cave, named after one of the discoverers, to capture this world won-

The film crew is limited in number, equipment and time because of necessary precautions taken to preserve and protect the cave from outside disturbances. The cave gives us a window into the world of humans thousands of years ago and helps us further understand the history of man as well as other animals that have left their mark on the cave walls or their remains on its floor. The stampedes of horses, rhinos, bulls and lions that decorate the walls are the oldest paintings ever discovered. The cave drawings also show extensive use of shading and perspective, which overturns our current perceptions and theories about how sophisticated man was in this period of time. Herzog’s documentary combines beautiful cinematography, although the crew was restricted from using professional cameras inside the cave, with a powerful storyline. Herzog’s aged but smooth and crystalline voice becomes a recurring artistic device throughout the film, seamlessly guiding the viewer

“The first time I entered the cave, it was so powerful that every night I was dreaming of lions.” — Archeologist JULIEN MONNEY

der in a stunning film of modern cinema titled “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.” Since its official release on April 29, Herzog’s film has established itself in the national and international spotlight, gaining nominations for four major film festivals.

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through the movie. The film also incorporates a soundtrack of drums, violins and vocals that matches the feeling awe the film inspires in its audience. When I bought the tickets for this movie I was slightly hesitant to attend the

STAGNANT MOTION We recreated the were trying to show motion in their art. 3-D showing of the film. My experience with 3-D movies is that they detract from the original plot line, not to mention that my eyes become fatigued with the stress of constantly feeling as if I’m inside the movie screen. However, with this movie I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy wearing the slightly funky glasses for the entire movie. Because “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” walks the viewer through an underground structure and explores the physical intricacies of an ancient cave, the 3-D technology completely complements the film and made me feel like I was actually inside the cave next to the film crew. The movie opens as the film crew meets up with a group of scientists: archeologists, art historians, paleontologists and geologists. One man among them is Jean Clottes, one of the first people ever to enter the cave after it had been naturally sealed. He and two other cave hunters

original paintings above. On the cave walls, some animals have multiple horns and eight legs. Scientists realized the artists The scientists and art experts called this motion in the cave drawings a form of protocinema. were exploring the Southern France area on Dec. 18, 1994, when they felt a slight breeze coming from the rock side of the cliff. Because caves usually have some sort of ventilation to exchange air with the outside environment, the team of three hypothesized that the layer of rocks they were looking at sheltered the entrance to a cave. They cleared the rocks, discovered the entrance, and the rest is history. Archeologist Julien Monney is also among the group of scientists. Earlier, he and several other scientists spent a week down in the cave studying the drawings. “The first time I entered the cave, it was so powerful that every night I was dreaming of lions,” Monney says in the movie. Even though the movie presents the scientific research findings on the cave drawings, the science is accessible to the general public and does not overwhelm

viewers with facts. The drawings differ in style, artists, and time period. One portion of the cave is covered in the red hand prints of a single man with a crooked finger. The scientists mapping and studying the cave can follow him through the cave by recognizing his finger abnormality. In another place there are beautifully detailed drawings of herds of bison, horses, and other animals. Two scientists have labored over this portion of the cave and have chronologically mapped the order in which the drawings were made. Sometimes bear scratches would cover portions of the art and someone would draw over them again. “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” is a masterpiece of art. It beautifully captures one of the unofficial wonders of the world and successfully employs 3-D technology to fully captivate the audience. The

soundtrack complements the cinematography and adds another sensory layer to the full experience of seeing the movie. One of my favorite scenes came early in the film and caught me by surprise. “Silence, silence please nobody move. We are going to listen to the silence in the cave,” one scientist says as his voice rises above the others. “And perhaps we can even hear our own heartbeats.” Those words echo in your head, becoming progressively softer as you start to listen. You hear the drip drop of water on the cave floor. You hear the silence of the cave echoing in its vastness. You hear the walls, you hear the voices of the cavemen drawing those pictures. You hear the bears and wolves and the extinct cave lions walking through the cave, right where you stand, but thousands of years ago. You hear all of this, and then you hear your heart beat. v june 2011

[ CULTURE ]

A Smashing Good Time

Competitive Super Smash Bros. Brawl Text by ALLEN WU Art by YELENA KASIANOVA and TIN NGUYEN Photography by SAM WRIGHT

he room was quiet, broken only by the sound of clicking joysticks. Behind me, spectators watched the screen intently; I was tied, 2-2, with my opponent, playing the decisive round of the set. “Game!” declared the announcer, and I shook the other player’s hand. I had won the match, the tournament, and the grand prize of a $20 bill. The money I won wasn’t much, but not bad considering I was playing a video game — Super Smash Bros. Brawl, for the Nintendo Wii. The competitive world is very diverse. Some people play soccer, and some people play chess; I play Brawl. The third installment in the popular Smash series, Brawl is an unconventional fighting game featuring popular Nintendo characters including Mario and Pikachu, as well as guest characters Solid Snake and Sonic, who are owned by other companies. Brawl is well-known for departing from conventional games such as Street Fighter and Tekken, which typically revolve around mechanics like health bars and complex combos. Instead, Brawl revolves around a unique system of knocking opponents out of the screen’s boundaries. Each playable character has its own set of attacks that damage opponents in various ways. The

more “damaged” a character is, the easier naments, because to me they were like it is to knock out of the screen. Though what Super Bowls are to football fans — I Brawl has a single-player mode, the loved rooting for my favorite players and Smash series has always been well-known enjoyed the sheer intensity of the compefor its frantic multitition. player action. National tournaLike many Wii ments are massive affairs, owners all across involving hundreds of the world, I bought entrants and thousands Brawl when it came of dollars in prize money out in 2008, and I — in fact, at the Major played it casually League Gaming Chamwith my friend Tin — SSBB player ARISTOS KEMIJI pionship in Dallas, Texas, Nguyen. By chance, I last year, a Diddy Kong discovered the webplayer named Keith Garsite Smashboards (www.smashboards. mond won $12,500. com), the virtual hub for a huge competiIronically, I tracked tournaments tive scene that I had never imaged existed. happening in other states, Europe and The site is more than 10 years old and at even Japan for two years before I discovthis time has 98,417 registered members. ered local tournaments. Reading through the boards, I found Local tournaments operate on much that gameplay was much more intricate smaller scales, generally attracting bethan simply mashing buttons. I learned tween 20 and 30 players each. My first that each character in the game can move tournament, which I attended in January quickly and precisely and that top profes- of this year, had only nine entrants, and I sional players showcase tremendous skill placed fourth. in competing for hundreds of dollars. I was disappointed in my own perFrom then on, following competi- formance, but the experience kindled tive Brawl became my hobby. I followed some dormant ambition within me—not Smashboards, reading through the latest only to improve as a player, but to develop guides and breakthroughs, and watching a club of Palo Alto players. Not only do I videos of matches between talented play- want more of my peers to experience the ers. I was always excited for national tour- thrill of competitive Smash, but having

“The dream to win brings us together. ”

Editor’s note: Verde wanted to write an article about the competitive Super Smash Bros. scene, and when we discovered that we had an expert on staff, we decided to embrace the opportunity to tell the story from an inside perspective.

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POWER RANKING This image, made by Tin Nguyen, shows the names, gamer tags, and characters of the top five players in Palo Alto. These rankings were based off Palo Alto tournaments. Right now, I’m the best in town, but that could easily change. competition nearby would be very convenient for me as well. In that month, my friend Tin and I laid the foundations for the Palo Alto Smash Society; the name was suggested by fellow junior Peter Kotik, the first one to join us. I recruited new players mainly through word of mouth, asking my friends if they were interested, and fishing for interest on Facebook, among other mediums. Since then, our numbers have risen to around 10 members, and we’ve developed a flexible rhythm of meeting to play at least once per weekend. We gather a few Wiis and TVs at a house, sometimes have pizza, and we play Brawl. “It’s fun,” says freshman Tri Nguyen, Tin’s brother. “Especially when there’s food and I don’t get owned [beaten badly].” As in most competitive gaming communities, Smash players are usually known by their gamer tags, as opposed to their real names. These names are no different from the screen names that people create for any

online account. Some opt to be known simply by their actual names, while others go by lengthy, silly pseudonyms. I picked my tag to be Owsla, which is a term from one of my favorite novels, Watership Down. Tin is Cygnet, while Peter is Zante. Tri rounds out our core members as Tripe. To date, Palo Alto has held two local tournaments — we call them Bunny Brawls, because I run them and I like rabbits. At the first, Peter won, toppling a strong guest from Los Gatos who went by the tag Yougy. At the recent Bunny Brawl 2, I barely edged over Tin for first place. Videos of finals, and other miscellaneous matches, are recorded and uploaded to my Youtube account, SSBBOwsla. Brawl is not a difficult game to pick up at the competitive level, but it can be disorienting to newcomers. Players can choose who to play out of a roster of 39 characters. The community ranks how good characters are in tier lists, and although the exact order of the characters is a

perpetual point of debate, Meta Knight is clearly the best character at high levels of play, while the warlock Ganondorf is considered the worst. Tournament sets are usually played as the best of three games, though finals are extended to best of five games. Brackets are set up double-elimination style, meaning a player has to lose two sets before he or she is completely out of the tournament. Individual rounds are played with three lives apiece and an eight-minute timer. Players utilize quick reflexes and mastery of game mechanics to triumph over their opponents. Being able to adapt to an opponent’s playstyle quickly and predicting their actions are also important components. Because of our experience, Tin and I are almost certainly the top two players in Palo Alto. My win over him in our last tournament puts me tentatively on top, but we trade sets constantly and Tin has more impressive wins than I do over other players in the region. I won one round against the thirdranked player in Northern California, losing the set 1-2, but Tin won a casual match against the top-ranked player and also defeated the fifth-ranked player twice in a friendly tournament. Since the beginning of the year, I

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[ CULTURE ] have attended five tournaments, traveling as far as Sacramento. Taking a train over a hundred miles for the sake of competing was very exciting, though I only placed ninth out of 21 entrants. More than half the fun of the trip, however, was the social aspect; playing Brawl has allowed me to meet interesting people and make new friends. This seems to be a common sentiment shared by many players. Most professional players do not need to focus excessively on winning as long as they enjoy themselves. “Competitive Smash for me has never really just been about playing video games,” says Gianpaolo Solari, a player who has beaten me three times in tournament. “It’s about traveling, meeting people, and making amazing friends that I would never have met otherwise. And on top of all that you get to make money playing games.” In my case, I get to lose money, and some of the money Gianpaolo has won comes from my pocket, as prize money is raised by the entrance fees that players pay to compete. To me, however, and to many other players, prize money is not as important as the basic joy of getting together with others and the ambition to win and be respected. “Everyone wants to be the best, but once you actually finish your tournament sets and shake hands, everything changes and that’s what Smash is all about,” says

Aristos Kemiji, a San Francisco player. “The dream to win brings us together, and we spend most of our time at tournaments talking with each other. And these connections become the fuel that drive all of us.” In terms of skill, Palo Alto players have a long way to go. We have not made a significant impact in tournaments, but we are relatively new to the scene, after all, and we’ve earned some recognition from veterans. “You guys seem very good, but incredibly nervous,” Nick Carsner, a player in Santa Rosa, tells us. “You all just need to get out there more.” Aristos says “Palo Alto players have high potential for two reasons. They have great initial talent coming into this scene and practice with each other regularly. They also show a willingness to truly be part of this community and learn from being a part of the region.” I wouldn’t compare Brawl to soccer or chess, but it’s a flexible hobby that allows for both silliness and intensive competition. It’s a shame that not many people are aware of competitive Smash, because it’s an engaging pastime with high reward and negligible cost. When I sit down to play a set against

a good player, I’m nervous. When I win a close game, I’m triumphant, and when another Palo Alto player wins, I’m proud. When I lose in a tournament, I’m down five dollars, but that’s money well spent for an afternoon of fun. I’m going to continue building up Palo Alto Smash, finding new players and helping members improve. Tin and I share a vision of developing a balanced Smash community, and he explains it eloquently. “My goal is to get to the point where anyone can play with anyone for an even, exciting match,” Tin says. “And for us to be a really tight-knit group.” I organize our little get-togethers, and try to coordinate tournaments; I’m going to do my best to help our players grow. Actually, I feel like I take more pride from developing the community’s skill and cohesion than I do in my own wins. I look forward to the day Tin described, when we’ll have a bunch of players at around the same skill level, and Palo Alto becomes a force to be reckoned with. We’re going to be the very best, and it’s going to be a smashing good time. v

BRAWL UNDERGROUND V Here, I’m playing a team match with Nick Carsner, 20, against two other players. This was a tournament held on March 26, 2011, in San Francisco. I placed ninth of 24 entrants on that day.

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Seniors in Action Captured: Last high school moments of the Class of 2011 Text and Photography by ANABEL HOMNACK and EMMA TUCHER

9 8

1 — Julia Moran, Grace Borchers and Noa Dagan at senior camping trip at Sunset Beach 2 — Kimberly Hallsted, Priya Kshirsagar, Leigh Dairaghi, Vivienne La and Julia Wong on the quad 3 — Lucas Chan, Grant Sawyer, Andy Hammer, Paul Fallon, Scott Zhuge and Chris Liu before playing ultimate frisbee 4 — Lori Krakorian, Gracie Cain, Emma Tucher and Emily Benatar before going out on New Years 5 — Max Schmarzo and Jose Tochez on their way to lunch 6 — Rachel Shaffer, Katie Maser and Samara Trilling chatting during 7th period 7 — Clare McGarrigle, Anabel Homnack, Melissa Steritz, Juli Gaeta, Sabrina Yeung and Neda Ronaghi at a birthday party 8 — Connor Fitzgerald, Max Cohen and Jack Scarpino preforming at Duveneck Elementary School Harvest Carnival 9 — Marshall Walters, Michael Morton, Hiroki Baba, Cory Fung and John Callahan hanging out after school june 2011

[ SENIOR SECTION ]

Senior Section Survey The class of ‘11 speaks out Complied by MAX COHEN and ANABEL HOMNACK

Verde asked seniors to reflect on their time at Palo Alto High School in 10 questions. Verde staff writers chose which responses to include. Here is what the graduating class of 2011 had to say.

1. Describe your funniest classroom moment at Paly. • • •

Mr. Leonard’s pre-winter break jeopardy game When Ms. Wixsom put a pumpkin basket on her head George Brown saying he is the soon-to-be Messiah

2. At Paly, I always wish I had . . . • • •

take one of the golf carts and done donuts in the quad five preps eaten less Student Center cookies

• • • •

the night before senior cut day when I went to Camp Everytown when I had to annotate Anna Karenina in one night for AP English

3. The most memorable night of senior year was...

6. Final confession? • • •

I’ve never been to a tutorial. Mr. Blackburn’s kinda cute. I love bubbling in scantrons.

7. Who are you most excited to see at our high school reunion? • • • •

Lillian Xie Kevin Anderson Samara Trilling Gadi Cohen

• • •

JB’s Mr. Baba’s Paolo’s

• • •

TJ Braff Haley Conner Ms. Kim

8. Whose house is the party at?

4. High school was the first time I had...

9. I’ve always had a crush on...

5. Best excuse for being late to class?

10. Best kiss in high school?

• • •

pulled an all-nighter worn high heels everything

• • •

Mr. Berkson stopped me on the way here Helping my crippled friend to class Someone saying they ran over a squirrel

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• • •

Never happened The flag pole There were many

From Freshman to Senior: 1

Advice to incoming college freshmen

The best advice I could give is that when you get to college, get involved with everything. College is a demanding yet rewarding time in a person's life, and you get what you put in to it. It can also be a difficult transition for many people who have to step out of their comfort zone to develop new friendships and venture to new paths. In college you have to learn to be self-reliant. There's not going to be anyone telling you when to do your work or how to do it. The people that exceed expectations are the ones that are self-motivated. Don't be afraid to depend on yourself. It is one of the many tools a student will have to learn during their time in college.

-John Hall (2007)

Get to know the dorms before you choose. I’m living in a new dorm and we have an air conditioner and really nice amenities, but the dorm my roommate moved from was an old building really far from campus. A week after she left, the plumbing broke and no one was allowed to flush the toilet for a few days... The papers I’ve been writing here are very different from the ones I wrote in high school. I thought my first paper was going to be awesome, but the grade I got back was

not what I had expected. Now, I talk with my professors before each paper in office hours and have a better sense of what is expected for these papers. Get off campus! I love just taking a break from our campus, even though it’s gorgeous, and going downtown for an adventure or just finding some cafe to study in.

-Caroline Wang (2010)

ample, I have a friend who’s passionate about music: He’s majoring in music but decided to add a minor in economics so that he can more easily find a job. I constantly look back and miss my time at Paly. It’s hard to appreciate something until it’s gone, so definitely appreciate your remaining time there.

-Mohammed Abid (2008)

In a lot of ways, college is like high school all over again. Of course you’re away from your family and have more freedom, but the general dynamics are still very similar. In college, you have to get a high GPA and participate in extracurriculars so that you can compete to land a job at a top firm. Major in something you’re passionate about but don’t forget that you want a job. For ex-

may

june 2011

What are you going to write your college essays about? Find topics that show you are interesting. Figure out what voice works for you. Produce essays that show who you are.

Christina B端chmann, Essay Coach Years of experience with college applications at Castilleja. Trained to screen applicants for Yale. acbuchmann@earthlink.net 650-704-2875 68

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june 2011

[ MAX’S WORDS ]

How to fix the education system, starting with California, starting with Palo Alto High School, starting with classes taken by Max Cohen Text by MAX COHEN Photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS

eachers do not really get all of the respect they deserve. to choose from can be helpful. Projects with open topics are also They put in long hours grading work, planning lessons, more likely to interest a student because they are picking what and thinking about the way their class is run. In re- they want to learn about. A student is likely to put more effort turn, they get students complaining, texting, talking, disrupting, into a project he or she is interested in. And even if the curricucheating and sleeping. lum requires a dry subject that does not inspire your students, But don’t get too down in the dumps; I’m here to help. give your students options about how to learn the material. StuHere is some advice for you, teachers. Take some sugges- dents enjoy projects in which they can write a report, design a tions on how to make your class run more smoothly and more poster, create a diorama, or direct a movie. This will keep the effectively from a student’s perspective. grading interesting for you and allow Your first lesson is about access to the students to learn the material in a information. Give your students all reway they can get excited about. sources possible. Give them the formuThe fourth lesson? Respect earns las, notes, information and materials respect. This may sound like a ground that will help them learn. Many teachrule you might lay down in the beginers will feature documents or Powerning of the year, but it goes both ways. points in class that they do not share Giving students unfair regulations outside of class with their students. If about seating charts, eating restrictions, you want your students to learn, give or unreasonable amounts of work durthem the information necessary. Even ing class will give the students a more if a student does not take notes in class, rebellious attitude. Students will work he or she should still be able to access harder for a teacher they like and who content taught during a class period. If they think respects them. the teacher posts notes online, a stuNext, remember that variation is dent can learn from the posted notes important. Changing the classes’ daily what he or she did not absorb in class. structure and pace will make students Unless you are teaching a Study Skills less likely to tune out during class. Lecclass, you should not be grading the turing is perfectly fine if it does not fill student on his or her note-taking, but all the class time. Using group projects, rather on their handling of the subject class discussions, videos, multimedia, matter. and other activities will keep students The next lesson concerns clarity. CLASS WITH COHEN Even if you teach for engaged. Typing out detailed instructions on a living, there’s always room to learn. Further, assign more extra credit. handouts is useful and it will save you Extra credit helps everyone. It gives the time by answering all the “what if ” questions students tend to students an incentive improve their grade while getting somehave about assignments. Don’t expect students to automatically thing useful out of the assignment as well. And why would you know how the assignment is supposed to be formatted. Every not want your students to improve their grade or work harder? teacher has different preferences that can change at any time. Exactly. The only downside for you? More grading. But you like Students get confused with the overflow of contrary instructions that, right? You are a teacher. and clarity is so refreshing for the average high school student. And lastly, if you learn one thing from this lesson, do not Students will give you the work you want if you tell them what ruin a movie with required note-taking. It’s really as simple as will earn them an “A.” that. Third, give students options. If there is a range of subjects Class dismissed. for a project, presenting your class with a list of approved topics But wait for the bell. v

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june 2011

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