The Irvington Voice 28.2

The official publication of Irvington High School

in Fremont, California

THE V ice

November 15, 2019

VOLUME 28, ISSUE 2

pg.

Read all about Irvington High School’s Berbawy Makers at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire!

STUDENT LIFE

Bollywood

Paths to Sucess

Maker Faire pg.

How do these former IHS student define their sucess?

Check out their stories in Humans of Irvington High!

pg.

HUMANS OF IRVINGTON HIGH

FUSD switches to By-Trustee voting system

By Prahalad Chari and Serena Yeh

Broadcast Manager and Staff Writer

On Wednesday, Oct. 30 at 7 P.M., the Fremont Unified School District (FUSD) held a public hearing at the District Office Board Room regarding drawing new “by-trustee” district voting lines after a lawsuit accused the district’s previous use of “atlarge” voting of not complying to the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA).

FUSD’s lack of compliance with the CVRA prompted a lawsuit from Shenkman & Hughes, a law firm that previously sued other cities for not complying with the CVRA. According to Peter Fagen, an attorney with Fagen Friedman & Fulfrost LLP,

the CVRA prohibits the use of “atlarge” elections when they make it harder for members of protected groups to elect the trustee of their choice. The “at-large” election has never fit these criteria set by the California Voting Rights Act. However, a “by-trustee” voting system would comply with the CVRA because it splits the district into trustee areas which each elect their own trustee. To be elected, the trustee needs to live in their area, and only members of that area can vote for them.

“The population in each trustee area must be as equal ‘as is practicable,’” said Fagen, “and that is the total population. It’s not the number of students, not the number of registered voters, not the number of citizens; it’s just the total number of people.

The law requires that the maps

Prahalad Chari | Broadcast Manager FUSD’s lawyer Peter Fagen and demographer Jacob Gomez explain the process behind creating the draft maps. There will be two additional meetings before the final vote on the trustee maps in December.

be drawn based off the decennial census and… [the 2010 census] is the last one.”

Since many current board members live in the same proposed trustee area of Fremont, only one of them will be able to serve on the next election in order to comply with the CVRA. Trustee areas with no current board members living there will have fresh candidates running for election.

This representation of area-specific interest is lost in an at-large election, where the elected representative would represent the general consensus.

The district emphasized that these voting areas are separate from attendance areas; thus, the schools that students attend will not change, but the method in which trustees are voted into the board will.

Keeping these requirements in mind, demographer Jacob Gomez presented the board with four draft maps that fulfill the requirements put forth by the CVRA. Community input was taken into account before the creation of each map.

These maps will be redrawn after every census, similar to the congressional representative voting areas. Therefore, in 2021, when the data from the 2020 census is published, these lines will be redrawn again. Because of this, the trustee area voting lines are able to account for population growth in certain areas.

Continued on Page 2

Read about IHS Indopak’s spectacular Bollywood night and all its participating dance teams!

ENTERTAINMENT

@theihsvoice @ihs.voice @ihsvoice

Vaping epidemic strikes schools across the US

By Nikoo Alizadeh and Joy Kuo Features Editor and Staff Writer

Joy Kuo | Staff Writer Guest speaker Michael Cordero showed parents different types of e-cigarettes at the PTSA meeting on November 7.

On Nov. 7, Irvington invited guest speaker Michael Cordero, the student resource officer at Mission San Jose High School, to give a presentation on vaping at a PTSA meeting at Irvington in light of the new scientific research about the dangers of vaping. The Fremont Unified School District has planned many of these vaping presentations for different attendance areas to inform parents about the health risks of vaping.

“It’s an issue across the board at all schools,” said Student Resource Officer Joel Luevano. “I think with the most recent information that’s come back through the media’s part about how bad it is and how

Irvington’s understaffed Special Education

people are actually dying from using this stuff [has] helped immensely with the decrease in all of the schools. All schools have their issues with vaping, and not just our school district.”

At the PTSA meeting, Officer Cordero explained to parents how vape pens work, why they are so popular among students, and how it became a billion dollar industry. He further informed parents about the risks of vaping, including explosions, hallucinations, and difficulty breathing.

It was also revealed that the City of Fremont banned the 7-Eleven near Irvington from selling the flavored Juul pods. In addition, the district is developing a new Continued on Page 3

As part of a nationwide crisis, the decrease in the number of qualified staff has left special education classrooms under-resourced.

By Anushka Nair and Geoffrey Zhang Staff Writers

Since the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year, the special education department at Irvington has been understaffed, a result of a growing special education teacher shortage across the country that has left teachers and their paraeducator aides feeling burned out.

According to Principal Melsby, approximately 258 special education students rely on services provided by the special education department at Irvington High School, and are served

by Special Day Classes (SDCs, small group classes that replace normal, general-education classes), the Resource Specialist Program (RSP, provides supplemental services to students who have general education teachers for the majority of the day), the Individualized Education Program (IEPs,

www.ihsvoice.com

written plans that describe the specialized educational services a student may need), and various other programs that federal law requires every school to have. In recent years, enrollment into the special education program has massively risen, but teacher hires have not kept up with this rise.

“There are around 200 special education students this year, up from 182 last year,” said Principal Melsby, “[And] the general trend in our enrollment is that it will rise [in the future].”

The increase in student enrollment has put the Irvington special education department in a tough spot, which had around 5 unfilled positions at the beginning of this year. According to the Irvington administration, positions are still being filled, and a candidate for one teaching position is in the process of being hired. However, in the absence of a steady stream of applicants, five current special education staff members

have also been asked to “take a 1.2”, meaning that they are giving up their prep period to fill a vacancy. As a result, this absorption of a position has led teachers to burn out early on in the year.

“We just don’t have enough people to fill the positions that are open,” said Mrs. Stilwell, one of the ten full-time special education teachers on campus.

“And that causes others to do extra work, which cuts down on the time they have per student.

[Teachers] have students from the first bell to the last bell, and no time to do the preparation for the classes, no time to prepare for IEPs or the testing needed for IEPs. They very much are burned out, and it’s only October.”

Understaffed special education classrooms are not unique to Irvington. Schools across Fremont and the United States face a growing need for more special education educators, but new Continued on Page 2

Geoffrey Zhang | Staff Writer Special education teachers such as Ms. Ammon (pictured here) are working overtime to prepare lessons for their students.

Inside: Student Life 5 | HOIH 7 | Opinions 8 | Features 10 | Entertainment 13 | Sports 15 | Humor 17

NEWS

Page 2

New district voting (cont.)

In the first draft map prepared by Gomez, high schools were lined up with the trustee voting area.

“There are a few areas, [that] didn’t meet [the requirements] quite exactly when I brought in the data,” said Gomez, “so there is a slight adjustment within plan one to get it to fit, but the majority, I believe, encompasses that original community plan.”

Some people are concerned that individual schools’ interests will not be represented by an elected school board member if by-trustee voting lines do not line up with the school attendance areas. However, due to a focus on population, it is difficult for those lines to match.

“Trustee Voting Areas must contain an equal number of residents,” said Superintendent Kimberly Wallace. “Some attendance areas are more populated than others meaning lesser-populated areas will need to draw from the more populated areas to balance them out.”

The requirement that the voting areas have the same population is also the cause for some unusual curves in the drafts and why some elementary schools’ attendance areas are covered by more than one trustee area. For instance, maps 1 and 2 split up only five elementary schools,

keeping most elementary schools within a single trustee area. On the other hand, map 3 splits up thirteen elementary schools and map 4 splits up ten elementary schools.

The public had mixed feelings about maps 3 and 4, but generally approved of the first two maps. Many parents cited the number of divisions of elementary school attendance areas in order to support their case.

“It simply makes no sense that my neighbors and friends [near] my old house… will be voting and represented by a totally different trustee from mine if we adopt map 3,” said Chadbourne Elementary School parent Helen Long. “Furthermore, map 1 and 2 have significantly less elementary school[s] divided, so keeping the vast majority of elementary communities intact is totally possible.”

Other community members emphasized that the Fremont Unified School District was made to be unified and should stay that way, regardless of attendance areas while creating the new trustee voting lines.

“We are beautifully diverse, diffusely in Fremont, and we should have attendance areas that have the most negative correlation with attendance areas,” said former District 3 Fremont councilmember David Bonaccorsi. “It may not be a legal

The Irvington Voice Editors-in-Chief Andrew Fu, Kayla Xu argument, but the community of interest is the school district as a public school system for everyone in the city of Fremont, not just my little elementary school in my backyard.”

This was a sentiment echoed by Superintendent Wallace, who wanted residents to remember that the elected trustees represent the interests of all residents regardless of the area the trustees live in.

Superintendent Wallace also described a few possible benefits of the by-trustee system for voters and candidates.

“Candidates who in the past may not have been motivated to run in an atlarge election might now participate knowing they will be campaigning in their ‘home’ district to voters who know them best,” said Superintendent Wallace. “Voters may now be more inclined to vote as there is greater chances to elect candidates they are familiar with.”

None of these maps are official and will be edited before the final vote. The FUSD Board of Trustees will be holding two more public input sessions, one on Nov. 20 and the last on Dec. 10. Community members unable to attend the meetings in person are encouraged to send their comments digitally to the FUSD’s Public Information Officer, Brian Killgore.

Special Education (cont.) teachers aren’t entering the workforce quick enough to meet this demand. In the Fremont Unified School District, there are over 49 vacancies for special education jobs, 16 of which are full-time vacancies requiring a teaching credential and 33 of which are paraeducator aides. According to the Learning Policy Institute, 8 in 10 schools nationwide are looking for special education teachers. When facing these shortages, principals often resort to filling special education vacancies with underprepared teachers. This could mean hiring a teacher certified in a field other than special education, an intern with just a few weeks of training, or—in the most extreme cases— a teacher on an emergency credential who has no training whatsoever. In fact, in California, new special education teachers with unqualified credentials outnumber those who are fully prepared 2 to 1.

However, besides being required by law, special education remains an important pathway for students to receive an education that they otherwise wouldn’t have.

“Not all students learn the same way, said Mrs. Stilwell. “If you take special education away and put everyone in

general ed, it’s not only going to affect special education students, but it’ll also affect general-education students because people who are unable of doing work can be more prone to act out and disrupt class, really affecting the emotions of the people that can’t keep up. [But] just because a student’s brain processes things differently or has a different outlook than the general popula-

Friday, November 15, 2019

News Editors Kayla Xu, Felicia Mo Student Life Editors Rory Conlon, Megan Dhingra Humans of Irvington High Editor Rachel Kavalakatt Opinions Editors Andrew Fu, Roxana Shahmohammadi Features Editors Vidushee Mishra, Nikoo Alizadeh Entertainment Editors Shradha Krishnamurthy, Akshita Nair Sports Editors Achintya Pinninti, Michael Zhu Humor Editor Alice Shu Photos Editor Ashka Patel Web Editor Kritika Sachar Distribution Manager Sanjana Gudivada Broadcast Manager Prahalad Chari Copy Editor Justin Kim

tion doesn’t mean they don’t have the right tools for life, that they don’t have the right to learn as much as they can and be as independent as they can.”

For now, in the absence of proper staffing, the special education staff at Irvington have made accomodations to ensure every special education student has a teacher.

Advisor Matthew Phillips Staff Writers Anushka Nair Arshad Mohammad Darsh Singhania Emily Liu Geetika Mahajan Geoffrey Zhang Isabella Lam Joy Kuo Kelly Feng Sameeha Salman Serena Yeh Shivangi Gupta Will Peng General Policy The Irvington Voice is a student-run newspaper with the sole purpose of providing an open forum for student expression. Anything printed represents the opinion of the writer, but not necessarily that of The Irvington Voice staff, the administration, faculty, or any person affiliated with the Fremont Unified School District.

The Irvington Voice does not discriminate against race, political orientation, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. Although The Irvington Voice will never refuse to publish student guest submission based on the aforementioned factors, we reserve the right to edit or not publish them.

ASG creates new Students in Action club council

By Darsh Singhania Staff Writer

For the 2019-2020 school year, ASG separated service clubs and regular clubs into their own councils, creating Students in Action (SIA) for the service clubs.

Prior to SIA, Irvington had one system for all clubs on campus, called the Inter-Club Council (ICC). The new system was a necessity because many of the procedures and roles of ICC were not relevant to service clubs in the past, which needed more individual attention and focus to get their larger projects finished.

“Since [SIA is] trying to cultivate and make a better service learning environment at school, we have a one on one relationship with service clubs,” said Anika Dixit (11), one of the SIA commissioners, as she explained the council’s role. “Many clubs have a hard time doing all their service events and also attending ICC meetings, so SIA has relieved them of this duty.”

SIA creates a personalized experience for service clubs in a few ways. Every month, they schedule progress checks with service clubs to keep them on track with their events. These include interviews with officers and typed reports, all of which can be done relatively quickly by club officers and generally seem to be favored by them.

“[Officers] have monthly reports,

and we fill these out as a progress check to see how the club is doing,” said Kaitlyn Chen (11), president of LEO Club. “So like how many new members we got or what events we’ve held.”

These checks have two major effects. Primarily, they are a way for officers to rate each other and therefore express when one member of the team is not doing the work that is required of them. This encourages all members to work together, although there is a potential risk of spreading animosity amongst the team. The secondary function, which may be more effective, is that the process of writing down ideas and plans for the entirety of the month forces club officers to schedule their time, encouraging them to plan ahead and start necessary work early. If this is integrated into the service clubs’ routines, the planning phase of many events may be completed much earlier, allowing forms to be submitted quicker and putting less strain on ASG as a whole.

The other major responsibility SIA can carry out is creating service opportunities for clubs to participate in. Service Week (Nov. 4th-9th) was the first demonstration of this, bringing clubs like Interact, LEO, and Key together to benefit the community.

“Service Week is ASG facilitated, and the main point is to recognize service

clubs and get pictures with all these clubs participating in it,” said Dixit. “We’re also trying to incorporate these clubs to be more spirited about it, and kick off the week with the Interkeyleo canned food drive, so the point is to bring clubs together by connecting them.”

In addition to this, SIA is also planning on providing support to normal clubs that need help running their own service events.

“If a club can state that its ultimate goal is to benefit the community, they can join,” explained Dixit. “But [SIA] can facilitate and aid service events if clubs reach out to us.”

This introduces a whole new way for normal clubs to integrate themselves into service at Irvington, and this openness is projected to encourage more service opportunities to be distributed to the students at the school.

Darsh Singhania | Staff Writer Krithik Varghese (11) and Jason Li (11) accept a can for their canned food drive.

Friday, November 15, 2019

California’s 8:30 school start time

Page 3

By Rory Conlon Student Life Editor

On Oct. 13, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will move middle school start times to later than 8:00 in the morning and high school start times to later than 8:30 in the morning. Set to go into effect by the 2022-2023 school year, the bill has already received approval from health professionals and the California State PTA, but it has met a mixed response among parents, students, and teachers themselves.

State Senator Anthony Portantino first proposed the bill in an attempt to address the adverse consequences that result from the high rates of sleep deprivation among high school students. Portantino, in several public statements, expressed his hope that later school start would improve mental health and academic engagement among high school students. The bill also came on the back of studies conducted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information and other health organizations regarding the teenage biological clock. Researchers have found that during puberty, teenagers become tired later in the night and therefore require later wake-up times.

Over the years, the bill has faced some setbacks. In 2014, the California Teachers Association expressed concerns regarding the financial strain put on working class parents to find appropriate childcare. They also objected to the bill on the grounds that later school start times should be discussed and decided on a local level. In September 2018, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed the bill, citing similar rationale and rejecting a “one-size-fits-all” approach.

Despite these objections, Superintendent Kim Wallace plans to work individually with each of the schools in the Fremont Unified School District to make for a smooth transition. Currently, she is Want to keep reading? Go to ihsvoice.com

Vaping Epidemic (cont.) alternative plan for dealing with students that vape by offering treatment options rather than suspension. The district is also implementing a “building bridges” program to inform younger kids about the dangers of vaping.

In the past decade, vaping has increased from five million users to nearly 45 million users across the globe according to the BBC, and thousands of individuals have been hospitalized in the past year as a result of vaping related illnesses. As of Nov. 8, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that a total of 40 people have died and 2,051 people have been hospitalized in the US with lung illnesses linked to use of e-cigarettes. These lung illnesses are reportedly similar to the chemical burns suffered by soldiers attacked by gas bombs. Furthermore, a study conducted by

the CDC informed that vitamin E acetate, which is used to dilute tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in vapes, sticks onto lung tissue and is linked to the lung injuries caused by vaping. As of now, the CDC is unsure of the exact effects of the substance; however, the majority of the patients who died as a result of vaping had vitamin E acetate in their lungs.

It appears that the number of students who vape has decreased in the past year mostly because of the news about teens dying.

“Yeah, [the new research is] kind of the reason I want to quit [vaping],” said an anonymous student who vapes at Irvington. “I was kind of surprised when I heard the news because I know a lot of people who vape, and nobody has experienced such effects.”

Overall, both the administration and district are taking steps to decrease vaping by informing both parents and students about the adverse effects through parent presentations as well as health classes.

“I think more so this year,” said Officer Luevano, “I’ve been out doing presentations on vaping. I’ve been doing them for teachers. I’ve been doing them for parents. Just by getting the word out and showing the teachers some of the devices and ways that kids are vaping in class, now they are more aware of their surroundings and are able to pay more attention to this.

The information is out there for anybody to obtain.”

Fremont is following cities such as San Francisco, Richmond, and soon San Mateo who have all taken action by banning vape products.

Page 4

Friday, November 15, 2019

STUDENT LIFE

Friday, November 15, 2019 Page 5

QUESTION MAN

By Sameeha Salman Staff Writer

What would be the worst name you could give your child?

Ansh Kharbanda (9)

MILESTONE

Irvington’s French club celebrated another successful French week, giving Irvington students a sense of France’s culture through creative and inclusive activities.

Berbawy Makers Successfully Craft a Showing at Maker Faire

By Geoffrey Zhang Staff Writer

Aaminah Mohammed (10)

“Any name that ends with Ju- “Pat, because they might get bullied or patted on” nior” Geoffrey Zhang | Staff Writer Jared Hughes (11) and Shivansh Baveja (11) tune the code of their CNC machine during the Faire.

Mahdi Shahab (11)

“Zit”

Lasya Gundala (12)

“Anything from the periodic table of elements”

Dandiya Night Highlights Irvington’s Indian Community

By Shivangi Gupta Staff Writer

PTSA collaborated with Students of PTSA to host Irvington’s Dandiya Night on Oct. 25 from 6-9 in the evening.

The event, which aimed to bring both Desi and non-Desi families in the community together so that they could experience Indian culture and have fun, was a success. It brought in about 100 attendees, consisting of a mix of students and parents from multiple schools.

The biggest challenge in organizing the event was booking the facilities. As a result, PTSA President Fahria Khan worked with Mr. Willer and Ms. Stone to reserve the Small Gym ahead of time in September.

This paved the way for publicity by both students and adults throughout October, posting the flyers to Facebook and taping them to walls around campus. They also worked together to plan the food, music, and decoration that would be present at the event.

Of the people that attended, there was a good mix between students and parents, although most teenagers arrived past 7 PM. The event played both cultural Garba and Raas music, along with trending Bollywood songs so that people could enjoy both modern and traditional dances. Several attendees were able to take photographs at the event using the decorations and lights

as backdrops. PTSA also sold rice, chole, pizza, and samosas for low prices, which several attendees were happy about.

Overall, PTSA received generally good remarks from the students and the parents. “Most of our attendees were moms who came with their daughters,” said Ms. Khan. “From the feedback I’ve received, it seems as though everyone really liked the ambience we created.”

Siya Bhadoria (10) attended Dandiya Night because her friends were going.

She remarked, “I really liked how everyone did dandiya together in the gym. I even got to learn a few steps that hopefully I’ll remember for a long time.”

PTSA hopes to host Dandiya Night in future years as well. However, for next year, Mrs. Khan would like to move the start of the event one hour later so that parents and children can have more time to dance and talk with friends. She also now has a better idea of how much food to order and what music the crowd tends to like.

Riya Mhatre added how Students of PTSA may publicize more next year to engage a larger portion of Irvington’s student body.

Dandiya Night was a huge success because it saw a large portion of attendees and received good feedback. PTSA and Students of PTSA efficiently organized an event that not only highlighted Indian culture, but also reflected Irvington’s efforts to unite diverse communities.

On Oct. 27, Ms. Berbawy and her team of makers were invited to the East Bay Mini Maker Faire in Oakland, California, to participate in an annual public exposition of inventive, creative DIY projects people make around the world. For the past decade, Ms. Berbawy has participated in various Maker Faires to showcase engineering projects her students made during the school year. This year, Ms. Berbawy brought over 30 Irvington makers from her Intro to Computer Science, Intro to Engineering Design, and Principles of Engineering classes to the event, many of whom were experiencing it for the first time.

“We brought a variety of projects to the event,” said Ms. Berbawy, “We had an augmented reality sand table, we showed off robots that the robotics academy had built for their competition, we had several 3D printing projects, [like] Thor’s hammer that Sairam, a student of mine, 3D printed, and more.” As always, Ms. Berbawy and her Berbawy Makers booth are always a popular attraction to visitors of any Maker Faire, drawing the attention of thousands. Young children, parents, teachers, engineers, and other makers were frequently found talking to some of Ms. Berbawy students about the projects they made.

Jared Hughes (11) brought a CNC drawing machine to the fair. “It has two arms and two motors that control the position of the arms,” said Hughes, “We could feed it code to draw whatever picture that we wanted.” Beyond that, Hughes also helped out the other makers in the Berbawy

Makers booth. “We had two spaces, one indoor and one outdoor, [and] I was mainly indoors helping set up things, [like] a field for the robotics academy, tables for other projects, and the sand table.”

Ms. Berbawy also brought along a number of freshmen to the event, giving them a first taste of what Maker Faire is like. Eric Xie (9), one of the freshmen, was tasked with running the 3D printing area of the Berbawy Makers booth. “People really took an interest in some of the squishy NinjaFlex figures we 3D printed, and many played around with fish we printed that articulated,” Xie said, “[But] besides our own booth, I also really enjoyed exploring the fair and all the other makers.”

So why do all this for her students? Ms. Berbawy believes that showcasing her makers and the maker movement is important since the students gain experiences that they would not gain in a classroom setting.

“I’m really, really proud of them,” said Ms. Berbawy, “I want people to know that there are kids in the world doing super cool things. And for the kids showcasing their projects, it means that they’re doing their projects for more than a grade, they’re doing it to show the world.”

In the coming months, Ms. Berbawy plans to prepare for her next Maker Faire, where she hopes she will draw the same attention to the maker community and movement she has built up at Irvington through the East Bay Mini Maker Faire.

Page 6

French Connection Celebrates French Culture With Irvington

By Sanjana Gudivada Distribution Manager

From Nov. 4-8, Irvington’s French Connection club held French Week to celebrate France’s culture with Irvington students. Every day of the week, there was an introduction to a different aspect of French culture with fun games and food. There were also spirit days where people from French classes or French club had to dress according to each day’s theme.

French Connection kicked the week off by organizing a fundraiser at Factory Tea Bar on Sunday. On Monday morning, they decorated the entire school and places around room 201 with cultural posters made by French club members and Mme. Cayla’s French classes. On the same day during lunch, the students worked together to make a gigantic human Eiffel Tower on the blacktop. A club member’s drone flew to take a picture of the final product from above. On Tuesday, Frenchspeaking teachers on campus gathered in room 201 and talked about their experience in French or Francophone countries.

To make the event more inclusive, not only teachers, but also French students got to participate in French week.

“We wanted to include all the French classes in the celebration so we organized a treasure hunt and it was to find different things relating to the cultural posters that we hid all over campus so the students really enjoyed that.” said club president Amandine Vardhan (12).

On Wednesday during Flex, the club held a pétanque tournament, which is a French sport where heavy balls are thrown at one target ball and the one closest to the target ball wins. During lunch on the same day, there was also a cheese tasting in room 201 with different types of French cheeses and sides of bread, grapes, and juice. Members had to pay a fee of $2 to

participate.

On Thursday during lunch, there was a regular club meeting where officers talked about Mardi Gras, a tradition celebrated in countries with a large Roman Catholic population, and started building decorations for the event. Friday was Red Carpet Day for a music video contest.

French students and French Connection members made music videos with French songs like Derniere Danse and the French version of Never Gonna Give You Up. The members voted the best music video out of three competing ones. After voting, there was a tie between a zombie-themed music video and Derniere Danse. All people who participated in making the music videos received a trophy, and Vardhan gave a heartfelt speech on the success of French Week this year.

“Last year I think we were a little bit disappointed about the turn out so we’ve been working really hard to make this like a real community event.” Vardhan (12) said. “Compared to last year we also included stuff during advisories as well, so there’s not one lunch, not one advisory where we weren’t doing something.”

French Connection’s vice president Tiffany Lo (11) had similar thoughts as Vardhan and was very satisfied with this year’s turnout.

“We really got all the officers into it and a lot of our members participated too,” Lo said. “We had a set of activities for each day which is the same as last year but they were more enforced and we knew what we were doing.”

This year’s French Week had a great turnout, which included people outside of French club and French classes. A diverse crowd of people came to the events each day and participated in games, decorations, and eating delicious food. French week ended successfully and was an amazing cultural bonding event.

Friday, November 15, 2019

Valhaunted Brings Halloween to Valhalla

By Arshad Mohammad Staff Writer

On Oct. 25, Irvington’s Performing Arts Club hosted its annual Halloweenthemed event, Valhaunted. The event took place in the Valhalla theater from 6:30 P.M. to 10:30 P.M. and featured a potluck, an Open-Mic, and a screening of the movie Beetlejuice. At the start of the event, people came dressed up in costumes ranging from The Joker to KFC’s Colonel Sanders. They were then invited to the stage by officers to sing a song of their choice.

Almost every student that went up for an Open-Mic performance said they were unprepared but went on to blow the audience away. Traditionally, Open-Mic involves karaoke, but students Alyssa Viray (11) and Finn Cumberworth (11) got creative and reenacted a scene from the HBO show Barry. While students were performing, everyone in the room would clap and show their support for them. At one point, everyone in the room was singing along with Mr. Ballin, the club’s advisor, who stepped up on stage to sing “Science Fiction/Double Picture” from The Rocky Horror Show.

Valhaunted has always been a fun way to get the club’s members to get together and bond. In the past, the club used to have a haunted house but due to a lack of visitors, they changed to a movie night. This year they decided to get a little more creative and combined a movie night with karaoke. Co-President Anika Goel (12) saw a significant increase in the number of people that attended after changing the activities at the event. This year more than 20 students participated at Valhaunted.

“I think it went really well. I know I always loved Valhaunted and I think people genuinely enjoyed it this year too.” Goel said.

Many of the attendees had great fun. One of the attendees, Andrea Toral (12) enjoyed the open-mic performances but wished she’d heard about the event sooner.

The Performing Art Club’s pub-

licity officer, Frankie Jensen (12) liked that people outside of the drama department came to the event, but in the future, she would like more people to come to the event. She plans on posting more posters throughout the school to encourage more people to attend.

“I wish more people from the school would come out to events like this because it’s another way to bring the school together.” Jensen said.

In the second half of the event, the club screened the classic horror movie Beetlejuice. The movie was voted on by the officers of the club and since it had recently been turned into a broadway musical, they thought it was fitting for the night. Many of the students were already familiar with the movie but were nevertheless excited to watch it all over again. All of the students enjoyed the movie and it was a good ending to a night filled with laughter and just a little bit of fear.

Arshad Mohammad | Staff Writer Performing Arts Club’s Publicity Officer Alyssa Viray (11) takes the audience’s breath away with a stellar performance.

Friday, November 15, 2019

Page 7

Page 8 Friday, November 15, 2019

OPINIONS

DISAGREE WITH US?

Submit your Letter to the Editor to Room 84 or through email to ihsvoice@gmail.com for the chance to be featured the next issue!

Anime vs. Cartoons: The Better Entertainment?

East or West, Anime is the Best

By Prahalad Chari Broadcast Manager

Weeb. The dreaded word that all anime connoisseurs hate hearing. The Wword carries with it inherent judgment.

W**** are people judged for watching anime by people who would probably rather watch “normal” western cartoons. This is an atrocity. W**** should not be shunned for watching a superior form of cartoons. Anime is substantially better than its western, cartoonish countertype because it appeals to a wider audience and is more coherent in its plot and character development.

Despite the apparent language barrier, Anime can appeal to a much wider audience than their western counterparts.

Unlike western cartoons, which primarily focus on just comedy or satire, Anime comes in all genres from sci-fi, to satire, to historical fiction. Not only does it do that, but it isn’t oversaturated in a single genre, unlike cartoons which focus on humor and stray away from more serious, gritty subjects. Anime is able to specifically appeal to more demographics rather than have a general “one size fits all” attitude like western cartoons. They come in four primary demographic appeals (Shoujou: for girls, Shounen: for boys, Seinen: for men, Josei: for women), which covers most target audience ranges. Audiences now have the choice to watch something that specifically appeals to their age group, be it the animation “modern-ness”, context-based jokes, graphic/adult-rated themes, etc. While anime does lose the ability to have a slight appeal to all age groups, it is better to do one thing properly than to do multiple things poorly.

Beyond making the show relatable, Anime also has more coherent plotlines in anime compared to American cartoons, which is very important for character development, thematic development, and a clear understanding of the timeframe. Anime is divided into arcs, with each arc having an antagonist and a very specific challenge to overcome. Arcs progress chronologically, and you can see character development over the arcs. The longestrunning cartoons are The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, Spongebob, and King of the Hill. Every single one of these does not has extended arcs and the characters are dreadfully static. Bart is still a brat, Stewie is still overly violent, Patrick doesn’t get more self-aware, and Homer doesn’t learn whatsoever. Compare this to Naruto, which ran for 15 years. Over time, we see Naruto’s power increase, and he grows from becom-

ing an arrogant, whiny child, to the leader of an entire nation. Arcs are necessary as they are able to develop an overarching theme. Fairy Tail, an anime known for its well-timed arcs, is able to advance its theme about the importance of friendship because the arcs provide a consistent antagonist who they have to work together against.

By not stopping the flow of the episodes, it allows for more continuity in the thematic development. Many cartoons don’t provide this opportunity because each episode is a different story, which doesn’t give the characters enough time to develop. They lack in serious character development because they tend to focus more on individual episodes. Watching a series feels disjointed and inconsequential.

Despite Anime’s more engaging plot, staunch supporters of its Western counterparts argue that the language barrier is an issue, as some subtitles aren’t entirely accurate and can confuse or distort viewers’ understanding of the topic. However, this problem is present in Western cartoons as well. Many viewers who live internationally may need subtitles or dubs to translate the cartoons from English back to their primary language. Regardless, both are enjoyed by people around the world.

The issue of language barriers is not an appropriate critique against Anime.

Going off of things that we can evaluate, Anime is better than Western cartoons because the art is more detailed, the characters are more dynamic and actually grow alongside the viewers. The timeline makes more sense, and the shows properly appeal to specific audiences. So the next time you try to shame someone for liking anime by calling them a Weeb, know that you are complimenting their taste in shows.

Justin Kim | Copy Editor

Western Cartoons Go to Infinity and Beyond

By Isabella Lam Staff Writer

The age-old debate over the superiority of Western cartoons and Japanese Anime continues to this day, with entire friendships being torn apart over differences in animation preference. However, with legendary titles like SpongeBob and Gravity Falls that have received world-wide acclaim and popularity, Western cartoons are clearly better than Japanese Anime.

Western cartoons’ simplicity gives it many advantages, such as a lack of heavy reliance on translations and a more inclusive demographic.

Well known to most people, Japanese anime, due to being created in Japan, is written and expressed in Japanese. Since the average person, especially in America, can’t understand any Japanese other than the word “nani,” this means that anime must be translated to fit the Western taste.

These translations are usually done through subs (subtitles) and dubs, but these translations have their own set of problems.

Dubs, or voiceovers of a separate language done over the original Japanese voices, are often choppy and awkward, with terrible voice acting. Animes like Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon are infamous for having actors either over acting or simply not fitting their characters at all. This voice acting can be extremely distracting for the viewer and lead to a decrease in quality for the anime.

Because of this, people often turn to subs instead. Although subs don’t face the same issue of bad voice acting, information can be lost in translation, and this can confuse or distort the viewer’s understanding of the Anime. While Western cartoons suffer from similar language barriers, they

are usually less complex in their storylines and don’t contain as much dialogue compared to Anime, decreasing the chances of a translation error. The immense popularity of Mickey Mouse and Tom and Jerry illustrates that despite language barriers, audiences from around the world can easily understand and appreciate western cartoons. SpongeBob has been translated into 50 languages and distributed in over 200 countries. Name one Anime that’s more popular—I’ll wait.

Western cartoons are also much more relatable for a wider audience, as anyone from any age or racial background can enjoy them. Family favorites like SpongeBob, PowerPuff Girls, and Adventure Time have achieved popularity around the world for good reason. Classic western cartoons like these have humored generations of people and can be watched by adults and children alike. Anime, on the other hand, has specific plots and animation styles that cater towards more niche demographics.

This reduces the anime’s entertainment value for general audiences, while cartoons can be enjoyed by all.

Despite the fact that anime has more coherent plots compared to many comedy-based Western cartoons, the lack of an interconnected storyline makes it much easier for people to watch and and skip in between episodes without needing to binge the entire series or understand a large amount of context. Western cartoons are designed to give people a quick laugh for a short or long-term viewing, so whether you’re an ardent or casual fan, you don’t have to watch hours worth of content to understand. Anime’s reliance on plot for entertainment makes it difficult to enjoy episodes without watching an entire series, which takes up hours.

Western cartoons are not all totally devoid of complex storylines. If you’re looking for a coherent storyline, consider watching Justice League, Adventure Time, or Phineas and Ferb, cartoons which incorporate coherent storylines with humor and heart. Unlike many Anime however, most of the aforementioned series have episodes that don’t tie in too closely with each other, allowing for occasional, casual viewing. In addition, hardcore fans who watch every episode will be satisfied with diverse storylines tackled in each episode.

At the end of the day, people who watch either Western cartoons and Anime should still unite; after all, all of us are still for animation, as long as you acknowledge that Western cartoons are far superior. Disagree? Eat my shorts.

Friday, November 15, 2019 Page 9

Don’t Cash In to Fast Fashion

By Joy Kuo Staff Writer

People tend to associate fashion with stylish trends, but what isn’t so stylish is the buildup of textile waste in landfills: one of the many detrimental consequences of fast fashion. Fast fashion is a culture built on buying trendy clothing that is quickly and cheaply available to consumers, but this lifestyle carries a heavy cost.

Although the idea of inexpensive, popular clothing may sound appealing, consumers should avoid fast fashion because the largescale production of cheap clothing negatively impacts the environment and harms laborers in third-world countries.

Fast fashion damages the environment by producing more textile waste that contributes to global warming and pollution. According to Ayesha Barenblat, founder of the nonprofit organization called Remake that raises awareness on the consequences of fast fashion, 12.8 million tons of clothes end up in US landfills every year, which is about a football field filled 14 feet deep with textile waste. Since more than 60 percent of fabric fibers are now synthetics derived from fossil fuels, these fast fashion pieces will take hundreds of years to biodegrade, an unsustainable process that is devastating to the environment. Combined with the fact that millions of tons of new textile waste are being added to the landfill every year, this unsustainable practice is growing in severity and could bring about dangerous consequences in the future.

The projected increase in the fashion industry’s CO2 emissions by 2030 is 2.8 billion tons, which is dangerous because CO2 traps the sun’s heat energy in the atmosphere that warms the planet and oceans. According to the EPA, humans release 30 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. That means the fast fashion industry is producing about one tenth of the total CO2 emissions, greatly contributing to the cause of the Earth’s changing weather patterns. As more people purchase fast fashion clothing, they are supporting global warming and adding to the massive amount of textile waste building up in landfills. In addition, the industry’s use of synthetic microfibers contain toxic chemicals and dyes that flow from landfills to contaminate soil and groundwater which eventually makes its way into freshwater sources and oceans. Not only does fast fashion negatively impact the atmosphere, but it also endangers ocean life and prevents people

from securing clean drinking water. Judging by its numerous environmentally harmful effects, apparel companies and consumers need to turn away from fast fashion to avoid destroying the planet.

Since speed is an important component of the industry, fast fashion heavily relies on laborers and encourages poor working conditions in developing countries that have inadequate workers’ rights regulations. The human cost is high as worker safety continues to be a severe problem, demonstrated by the Tazreen factory fire and the 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh. At least 120 people died after a fire swept through the eight-story Tazreen garment factory near Bangladesh’s capital, and 1,135 people died from the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex, built on swampy ground. Statistics from the International Labor Rights Forum revealed that from 2006 and 2012, more than 500 garment workers died in Bangladesh in factory fires. In fact, the BGMEA reported that only one out of eight factories in Bangladesh

passed inspections in August 2019. Judging by the high number of casualties each year, the dangers of the fast fashion industry to workers are evident. By continuously buying new clothes, consumers are supporting this predative system.

Furthermore, laborers work to support themselves and their families, but fast fashion traps generations into poverty, especially women. Forbes reported that 75 million people were employed in the textile industry worldwide, but 80% of the clothes were made by women who were only 18 – 24 years old and earned less than $3 a day, which is below living wage. Child labor is also prevalent in fast fashion factories, where an estimated 250 million children ages 5 to 14 are forced to work in sweatshops in developing countries. According to the Global Labor Justice, garment workers also alleged rape, slapping, and gendered bullying. Many are also forced to work overtime and even prevented from taking bathroom breaks.

Some companies may prefer the

expedient process of fast fashion because it lowers their production costs, but this comes at the expense of underpaid workers who are forced to work long hours in dangerous factories. Although the trend brings affordable clothing to consumers at a cheap price, fast fashion harms and sometimes kills the overworked and underpaid laborers who toil in hazardous settings.

In a materialistic world, most people value fashion and want to make affordable purchases that are up to date with fashion trends. Many of these consumers are unaware that they are actually supporting fast fashion, which comes with major consequences. Fast fashion should be cancelled because it is negatively impactful to the environment and threatens the lives of garment workers. In order to take action, consumers can take a stand against the trend of fast fashion by voicing their concerns about its negative effects. Boycotting fast fashion products can alert companies to switch to better alternatives.

Page 10 Friday November 15, 2019

CHOOSE YOU Careers Before T

Many people know Ms. Luna as an English teacher, but they don’t know that she actually worked in various careers for over 25 years before Irvington. At the University of Arizona, she majored in Journalism and enjoyed taking public relations and marketing classes. She also interned as a journalist, but through the experience, she realized her dislike for journalism.

After determining that journalism was not the right fit for her, Ms. Luna decided to switch to a different career field and worked as the communication specialist writer for the Tucson Unified School District. She organized the district calendar, served as the photographer of the school district, and wrote annual reports, along with press releases for news stories. Her favorite part of the job was going into classrooms and interviewing teachers while being able to interact with students.

Later on, Ms. Luna pursued a job in childcare when she became the marketing director at YMCA, but she lost her position once YMCA faced a major budget cut. Since she couldn’t find any public relations jobs in Tucson, Ms. Luna became a flight attendant in 2001. With her marketing background, the airline company hired her right away for her to start training in January. Later that year, the 9/11 terrorist attack occurred and changed her career, causing her to change her job.

Ms. Luna became a restaurant

manager for Hometown Buffet, but she later moved over to another restaurant, where she wanted to be a general manager. However, gender inequality hindered Ms. Luna from being promoted.

Through all of this, Ms. Luna continued with her studies at school to become a teacher. One of her classmates recruited her to work for Bath & Body Works, so Ms. Luna went to the store to talk with the general manager. Unaware that she was being interviewed, Ms. Luna was surprised when she was hired on the spot. She accepted the job as assistant manager and worked for six months until she was promoted to the position of general manager, who was responsible for the store’s branding. Ms. Luna left her job once again so she could finish her schooling in secondary education English.

In 2007, Ms. Luna received a second degree and a teaching certificate from the University of Arizona. Later on, YMCA recruited her husband for a job in California. Their family moved, and Ms. Luna became an English teacher at Irvington High School.

“When I was working at a restaurant and retail, I could work anywhere from 60 to 100 hours a week. Even though I have to grade a lot, I can grade at home and spend more time with my family.”

Even though Ms. Luna misses the branding aspect of her job at Bath & Body

Works, she loves being a teacher and would not trade it for her previous careers. Ms. Luna points out that she enjoys working at Irvington because of its atmosphere, where academics is a prevalent part of the environment, unlike the school she used to work at in Arizona.

“It’s easier to work at a school where kids actually want to work and want to move on to secondary education, not just go work at McDonald’s or whatever.”

Ms. Luna’s favorite part about being a teacher is seeing the moments when students catch on to what she is teaching and understand new concepts. Seeing that “aha-moment” and knowing that her students are truly learning is very rewarding for her.

As a teacher, Ms. Luna points out that it’s important to be more supportive of the youth because they are like sponges when it comes to learning and maturing. In addition, Ms. Luna believes that students need to work on book skills but also life skills.

“[Students] need to learn all the different skills and be able to apply those skills as well as being able to organize themselves, especially with time management. If they’re not using their life skills, especially listening skills, then they are not going to be able to succeed after high school, especially in the workplace.”

Mrs. Cindy Buell has an intriguing history beyond her P-4 home. Her sweet personality is contrasted by her adventurous previous career. As some of her students know, Ms. Buell used to be a bilingual police officer in San Jose for fifteen years prior to teaching at Irvington. She initially joined the police force in an effort to help kids that struggled like her in her childhood and to give back to her community. She enjoyed her time working there, and was satisfied by the impact she made.

Ms. Buell did not work as the typical traffic cop; she was involved in major cases that required on-field activity. In addition to being exposed to rape and domestic violence cases and investigative robberies, Ms. Buell also worked under cover, a difficult and respectable career. However, on one of her jobs, Ms. Buell faced a major injury, one that required surgery on her spinal cord.

Additionally, Ms. Buell had a concussion that made her lose some hearing and needed hip

replacement on her left him. The injuries she unfortunately experienced forced her to retire early.

Thus, she was required to consider other career options. She cites her love for the Spanish language as the main reason she decided to utilize her degree and turn to teaching Spanish. Additionally, while in college, she had experiences teaching as a substitute teacher that she enjoyed.

“I always loved teaching. I actually subbed when I was in college for a teacher at American High School when she went on maternity leave. As soon as I couldn’t [be an officer] anymore, I went back and got my Master’s and my teaching credentials and started teaching,” she asserted.

Ms. Buell grew up in Fremont, attending American High School, and she was excited to come back to her hometown.

Working with people who were once her teachers amused her, and those relationships ultimately led her to teach at Irvington.

Her family and friends supported the switch, making her career transition easy.

Ms. Buell also appreciates Irvington’s sense of community.

“[Irvington] is just outstanding, everybody works hard to make it a good school - the students, staff, administration, custodial, the people - everyone puts in effort to make it a good school, and I feel like most people here are here because they want to learn and they want to prepare themselves to go out into the world,” Ms. Buell explained.

Ms. Buell enjoys teaching, and she would not consider switching careers. She also advises students to choose careers that make them happy.

“Make sure you decide on a career path that is going to make you happy, not necessarily one that’s gonna make you a lot of money. That’s really important. You need to be happy with what you’re doing because you’ll probably do it for most of your life.”

When you hear Mr. Phillips’ name, you probably imagine the charismatic, amusing, and creative English teacher whose class everyone looks forward to. Although it may seem surprising, Mr. Phillips wasn’t always sure he wanted to be a teacher. In fact, he graduated college as an English major only because he felt pressured by his parents into acquiring a college degree.

Soon after graduating, he was offered a unique teaching opportunity in Egypt.

“I was a teacher for one year [in Egypt] but I didn’t have teaching credentials and I had no idea how to be a teacher. I was just an American who spoke English and [Egyptian schools] needed someone who could teach.”

Following his trip from Egypt, Mr. Phillips was offered a job as a forest firefighter in Missoula, Montana.

“I did that for two summers and then I worked for the actual forest service. When I was in Egypt, I met Ms. Berbawy and we sort of dated there, but when we got back [to the United States], we went on with our lives. We talked on the phone for a while and then about a year later, I moved down to California because she lived here. I worked at the American River Ranger district as a forest firefighter which is the south\west area of Tahoe National Park.”

Mr. Phillips found forest firefighting to be an exciting job, but there were times when fires got out of control and his colleagues were almost injured.

Being a firefighter was a memorable experience for Mr. Phillips and he

concludes that the occupation taught him a lot about perseverance.

“I would say the biggest thing I learned from the forest service was toughness in a way or grit like Mr. Jackson calls it. You work sixteen-hour shifts and it’s exhausting, which I didn’t understand until I did it one day and I thought I was going to die. Every day we had a few fifteen-minute breaks and a halfhour for lunch and then we would go back and eat all we could and go right to sleep. We would wake up the next day at 5:30 A.M. and do the same thing over again. After a while, you adapt. I learned that even when things seem impossible, you are capable of more than you think you are and you can do things that you never thought possible.”

Mr.Phillips learned a lot from his experiences in the forest service but he soon came to the realization that this occupation would only be able to support him financially.

Mr.Phillips’ relationship with Ms. Berbawy also developed and he was certain he wanted to settle down with her. Although he enjoyed being a firefighter, he knew he could not have a content marriage while working in the forest service. Because of this, Mr. Phillips left his job as a firefighter and obtained teaching credentials.

“I actually really loved the forest service. I wish that I had studied forestry instead but the problem was that it was seasonal work. There are all year positions but I found that since we would leave for 14 days at a time

and then come back for two days, most people look at it as temporary work and find something better to do. You get a lot of money doing it but you are gone for 14 days at a time. I guess I wanted a more serious life, and I heard from other firefighters that did get married that they almost always got divorced.”

After getting married, Mr. Phillips began to work on his teaching credentials . During this time, he was given the opportunity to work at a school and he chose Irvington because it was between his commute route.

“[Ms. Berbawy and I] moved down here from Roseville and she started working at Mountain View Academy, which is a private school. I was finishing up my teaching credentials in Concord and they said that I should just find a school to work at and I figured since I was driving up to Concord, I should just pick a school in between. I just randomly picked Fremont which seemed halfway between the two and I emailed the principal at the time. Ms. O’Connor was my master teacher at the time which was intimidating.”

Mr. Phillips has many memorable experiences from Irvington High School and although most are small, they are still quite special to him.

“There are small things such as getting emails or messages from students who I didn’t think too much about telling me how inspirational my class was. That’s an amazing feeling.”

Arranged by: Nikoo Aliza Contributers: Will Peng, Akshita Na Art work by

Friday November 15, 2019 Page 11

UR TEACHER: Teaching Edition

While most students see Mr. Albizo as their knowledgeable technology teacher, many are not familiar with his extensive past and experience in other fields. Mr. Albizo is the youngest of three brothers in his family, all who served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam war.

In his experience, he served in the Marine Corps as well as the public and private sectors. Through all his experiences, Mr. Albizo learned and experienced more than many people will in their whole lifetimes.

Despite growing up in culturally diverse San Francisco, Mr. Albizo faced defacto segregation and poverty as a first-generation American of Mexican descent.

He served in the Marine Corps as part of an infantry company. At different times during his tour, he served with each of his brothers. He and his brothers also had the profound and solemn experience of escorting the coffins of fallen Marines to their final resting place. These somber moments were helped to instill the importance of teamwork and respect for one another.

After being released from active duty, he entered the federal sector in naval aviation, starting as a ground support equipment mechanic. Eventually, he was promoted as a Division Director, which provides industrial engineering service

for the maintenance of military assets. He managed approximately 300 personnel, everyone from mechanical to industrial engineers and technicians to library staff and other administrative personnel, in support of fleet operations. In addition, he was extensively involved in the new revolution of the desktop computer systems.

During this time, he was one of twelve candidates from around the country to be selected for the Senior Executive Program, which entailed the study of military budgets and politics of the military with the goal as serving as a staffer in Washington D.C. However, he ultimately decided not to move back east and never looked back.

Despite his flourishing job, he decided to take an early retirement from corporate companies and eventually started work in private industry and to corporate America. Shortly after with the Internet boom in 1994, he worked as an independent contractor, providing website development services and consulting work for small business startups. Later on, he took a position as a director of IT for a small startup company, followed with a similar position in a private educational institution.

It was at this time he thought back to the 1980s when he read about the

high dropout rate of Hispanics and African Americans. He knew it was time to make a change and enter into the giveback mode, thinking he could make his small contribution.

Mr. Albizo did not have much trouble transitioning to teaching. One main issue he faces is that students are not being willing to approach technology because they think it is too complicated to learn about. However, to combat this issue, Mr. Albizo uses humor, particularly dry humor, and analogies to break the stereotype about technology being difficult to learn and help students understand concepts. Despite his attempts, many students are still reluctant to open up their minds and step out of their comfort zones. Mr. Albizo advocates for these pupils to seize every opportunity that comes up, or even make their own opportunity.

In his expansive career, Mr. Albizo has picked up many tidbits of advice and is more than willing to pass his knowledge along.

“Spread your wings, and start to soar in the direction that you choose,” Mr. Albizo advises. “As long as you choose your direction, [you can] become successful.”

Ms. Mattingly, Irvington’s AP Government teacher, used to work as account associate at a marketing agency called Metro Public Relations. This company had accounts with entertainers, such as Angela Kinsey from The Office. She was also in charge of working with nonprofits that the company was trying to get publicity for, such as the UN foundation.

Since her clients would have to go to famous public events like the Grammys and Red Carpet events, Mattingly got to tag along with them and witness the glamour of celebrity life. Her job at these events was to usher the celebrities through various stages on the red carpet, mostly media outlets like E! And Access Hollywood .

At the UN foundation, she got to work with celebrities as well, scheduling them to go to various events as an aim to gain more awareness for topics such as the Millennium Development Goals, which include eradicating poverty and reducing child

mortality. However, this career didn’t satisfy what she wanted to do in life, which was to make change in any way that she could.

Nevertheless, Mattingly is very thankful for her experience at Metro Public Relations. She was open to do anything because she wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted.

Throughout this time, one job was always at the back of her mind: teaching.

After conversing with her boss, who she was very close to, they decided that her resigning would be the course of action for her.

She worked a couple of more jobs before she decided to start subbing at schools in Fremont including Mission, Irvington, and Washington High School.

“My parents were teachers, so teaching was always an option in my mind.”

When she started subbing, she fell in love with the profession and decided to become a full-time teacher. in Fremont, not sure if it would work out. As soon as there

was an opening in Irvington, she jumped at the chance. She had subbed at many schools in Fremont, but Irvington had been her favorite since it was “a school that had something for everybody.” The aspect of being able to make a difference in students’ lives, whether it be making them more interested in government and history or being somebody that they could talk to comfortably.

“I’m also so glad that I did the other jobs because now I don’t have the “what if” feeling. What if I chose something else? What if I chose another career? I’m seven years in, and I’m still very happy to be a teacher,” she states, “This career didn’t just work out for me, something clicked for me when I got into teaching.

It’s what I was meant to do. Teaching might be difficult, but it’s never boring. And I love that fact.”

Before she became a teacher, Ms. Rooney initially wanted to become a lawyer.

Part of the reason was because of an incident that had happened in her civics class.

“We had a difficult exam, and he [the teacher] used my paper and another student’s to grade all the others, so that was certainly encouraging.”

She worked in the legal field for around three to four years and took some paralegal classes. Then she discovered that law school is very dry.

“My parents didn’t have money for dance lessons; I didn’t discover it until I was 17, and at that point it’s too late to study the craft of dance.”

Dancers need to start at a very young age, she said. She still loves dance to this day, but she had to face the fact that devoting her time to it would bring other consequences.

Her interests don’t stop there. She chose to major in English even though she really loved horticulture and botany. In the end, she picked literature because it was something that she excelled at. classes away from receiving a minor in botany.

Did her high school self expect to become a teacher? “I think I tried on the idea of being a bilingual teacher,” she said. Her mother saw her enjoying her English and Spanish classes, and she encouraged her to go in that direction.

“But I also had my own ideas about things, and did a fair amount of exploration in the process.”

Before she became a teacher, Ms. Rooney worked several jobs in the corporate world.

“I worked in public relations, so I would write press releases and interact

with clients on technology accounts.” She brought up trade, marketing, and promotional events.

“I worked in a couple of small advertising agencies writing ad copy.” She brought up more: brochures, presentations, websites.

“When I worked for the airport,” she said, “it was during 9/11, so that was a pretty intense time, we designed all the maps for the airport.” She said that marketing requires excellent administrative and communication skills, including communication in all forms: presenting, writing, and speaking.

With interests in law, dance, botany, English, foreign languages, and business, Ms. Rooney has a lot on her plate. She describes herself as a renaissance woman. “I am kind of a big-picture person. [...] I like to explore a lot of different things, I get bored easily.”

She claims to have a short attention span.

This explains her motivation behind exploring multiple fields.

One of the things Ms. Rooney’s previous experiences has given her is a very strong work ethic. She also developed a “striving for excellence” attitude from many years ago. Her writing, communication skills, and creativity also connect to help her in her teaching practice.

The freedom and responsibilities she gets as a teacher is what sets apart her job as a teacher from her previous jobs. “[You have] more freedom in different aspects of the job [...] through the creation of your own curriculum,” she explained. She also explained the different roles she has as a teacher. “I’m a sociologist, a psychologist, a parent, a disciplinarian, and a teacher all

in one.” She explained that you might also have a lot of roles in a marketing job, but the main priority is not the emotional, physical, and emotional welfare of a human being, whereas as a teacher it is. “That’s why we’re here,” she said, “we’re here for the students.”

As a teacher, Ms. Rooney looks up to her ballet teacher as an example.

She didn’t just teach about dance, but also about life lessons, striving for excellence, and discipline. The most important lesson she learned from her was to strive for excellence in all that she does, along with incredible discipline. What being a teacher has taught Ms. Rooney is patience, compassion, attention to details, and a goofy sense of humor.

If change were to happen to the current education system, she would enjoy seeing education being modeled more after how it is in Finland. “Finland’s teachers are put through a rigorous training, they receive a master’s, and they are paid professionals, similar to engineers and doctors, and they are respected and paid in the same way.”

Ms. Rooney considers most of the students at Irvington overachievers and would advise them to consider taking the time to travel and live in another country for some time. “Consider taking a gap year.

Your parents will probably shoot me for this, but, you never realize more of who you are than when you live in another country for a sustained period of time [...]. Really learn who you are and what you’re made of.”

adeh and Vidushee Mishra air, Joy Kuo, Ashka Patel, Serena Yeh y: Alice Shu

Page 12

Friday, November 15, 2019

Friday, November 15, 2019 Page 13

ENTERTAINMENT

DIRECT FROM THE EDITORS Jojo Rabbit is a film with mature themes and controversial social commentary. Despite the PG-13 rating, we recommend that only mature audiences view this film.

IHS Indopak Bollywood Night: A Huge Success!

By Kelly Feng Staff Writer

Friday, Oct. 25 at 6 P.M. marked the beginning of the Bollywood dance night held by the IHS Indopak Club in the school cafeteria. The event showcased Dil Se, one of the largest high school Bollywood performance organizations in the Bay Area, and many other individual performances

by Irvington dance teams like Soor, IBC, Sitaare, and Natya, as well. Attended by students mainly wearing traditional Indian clothing, the event lasted until around 9:30 P.M. in the evening.

Due to set up issues beforehand, entry was delayed until around 7:00 P.M. Students were free to dance and mingle until performances by Irvington dance teams started around 7:30 P.M. Each dance team performed a distinct style, namely Classical, Raas, Bhangra, and Bollywood, for around one minute each. In addition to the individual dances performed, attending students could also enjoy the free photo booth set up in the corner. Because the event was held at night, Indopak officers, joined by Mr. Ballado, also sold pizza for $2 per slice and samosas for $1 each starting at around 7:45 P.M.

“People from different schools came to socialize and interact which is a great thing because our club is a good way to build connections with students all over the Bay Area,” said Trisha Mehta (10), an

Ashka Patel | Photos Editor Irvington students came together to celebrate Indian culture.

Indopak officer. “It also helped people understand our culture, plus Irvington dance teams got a chance to showcase their dancing skills in front of a crowd.” Not only did Irvington students were able to attend this event with their own friends, they could

mingle with students from other schools and meet new people. Entry was also granted to Dil Se coordinators to introduce them to the IHS dance teams and familiarize them with these future contestants.

“I think what was really cool was

that almost everyone that came dressed up, and dressed up really nicely!” said Tushita Sinha (10), an attendee. “There were a lot of people who just came for extra credit and left, but the ones who stayed till the end really had a lot of fun. ”

This night of overall success was a result of overcoming quite a few obstacles, notably issues with the music, with it abruptly stopping. Officers made playlists for Bollywood music mixes on Spotify ahead of time, but due to download issues some American music had to be played in between individual songs. Next year, Indopak plans on downloading music ahead of time to avoid any recurrence of this issue.

“We usually sell out, so we want to make sure that it stays at that like high rate and that people enjoy it and try to make modifications to make it even better,” said Tanvi Syed (12), the Indopak club president. “I would just like to say thank you so much to everyone who came to the event. It really means a lot to Indopak officer team because we put a lot into it and we wanted to have something fun for everyone to come to.”

Syed is now preparing Indopak for Dil Se, which is coming up on 11 Jan. 2020 ter that, the club will be hosting Indopak Week much later in April. She also plans to get Indopak’s Holi event, which was rejected last year, to be approved for this school year.

Head in the Clouds (II), Grounding their Sound

By Kayla Xu Editor-in-Chief

As an Asian-American, I am somewhat disappointed that I had never heard of 88Rising, an Asian-American artist collective, before this review. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed listening to Head in the Clouds II, 88Rising’s second compilation album, which features a lot of their artists like Rich Brian, NIKI, Joji, and the Higher Brothers.

The album itself has 16 songs, each with a different set of singers and/or rappers and many with additional featured artists, the most featured being AUGUST 08 and Jackson (3 songs each).

One of the more notable things about the songs on this album is the structure of the songs. Not very many of them have the conventional “verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus” structure, some exceptions being “Shouldn’t Couldn’t Wouldn’t” and “Hopscotch.” In particular, any song Joji appears in typically has a more unconventional structure, like “Breathe.”

Personally, I think that the way the artists on the album as a whole played around with the song structure paid off well, although there are a few songs that could have benefited from more time. “Need Is Your Love” was one that felt almost too short, despite being a full 30 seconds longer than “Breathe,” mainly because the closing verse made me feel uneasy, like the music should have kept going but got cut off. “Tequila Sunrise,” although one of my favorite tracks on the album, also has a similar tension at the end. Some of the songs that succeeded at clean endings included “La La Lost You” and “Calculator.” What really stood out to me about this album was how heavy the instrumental was in a lot of the songs. Personally, I prefer lighter instrumentals in music, so the style definitely wasn’t my favorite. The instrumentals and production in “Walking” also stood out in the album because it seemed much sharper and cleaner than some of the other songs.

This was probably because Major Lazer was the featured artist and I guess his music style agrees with my tastes a bit more, so if there’s one thing I could change about the production on this album, it would probably be to thin out the texture and not have so many layers of sound build up.

On a more personal level, I think that the fact that this album predominantly features Asian artists is incredible, especially because they’re not all South Korean.

As much as I love and enjoy K-pop, Korean artists have definitely overshadowed other Asian countries in the world of entertainment. Which isn’t particularly their fault, because as far as I know, Chinese pop music

has never really been mainstream enough to appeal to foreign audiences, much less their Hip Hop. But then 88Rising and the Higher Brothers come out with an almost completely Mandarin Chinese rap song and for me, that’s a huge step, especially for an American company. You see all these South Korean groups including English words in every other line, yet arguably the most diverse country in the world can only squeeze maybe a phrase or two of Spanish and a “bonjour” or “konichiwa.” In Head in the Clouds II, you’ve got Korean in “These Nights,” Japanese in “ Need Is Your Love,” and Chinese in “Tequila Sunrise” and “Hold Me Down.” In the future though, 88Rising could really take this embrace of Asian languages to the max and start including languages from South and Southeast Asian countries. I mean, they have two Indonesian artists and one Thai artist that could help contribute.

Overall, though, Head in the Clouds II was a solid album in my books.

There’s one or two things that turn me off from it a bit, like some excess autotune and production choices I found weird. I recommend this album to anyone who wants to check out Asian artists killing it in America.

Complex Head in the Clouds II is the sophomoric album of the primarily Asian and Asian American label 88Rising.

Page 14

Skyler Cooper Inspires Irvington Students

By Kelly Feng and Isabella Lam Staff Writers

On October 25th, Skylar Cooper, an actor and director of the short film Hero Mars, came to the Valhalla Theatre during sixth period to speak to Irvington drama students. He talked about his experiences regarding the filming process of the short film as well as his general experiences as an actor, especially around Hero Mars.

Mr. Cooper and Mr. Ballin, Irvington’s drama teacher, first met at the Livermore Shakespeare festival when both of them participated as part of the cast in a small play. Cooper then introduced a copy of his short movie Hero Mars to Mr. Ballin, which prompted Mr. Ballin to invite Mr. Cooper to share his unique story with the students of Irvington.

The short film Hero Mars, follows, as the name suggests, Hero Mars, a transgender woman whom Mr. Cooper starred as. It was heavily based off of Mr. Cooper’s own journey in finding his gender identity and what it was like being a member if the LGBT community. The film mainly showcased the circumstances of which Mr. Cooper faced before his transition, during the transitioning process, and the cinematic art that helped portray these circumstances. “I think students got out of it the idea of per-

severing in who you want to be and trying to be who you are, and I thought that was really valuable,” said Mr. Ballin.

Many students also appreciated the opportunity to listen to Mr. Cooper speaking about what the industry was like in general. “I didn’t really know what to expect since Mr. Ballin just said it was his friend from Livermore Shakes, but when he got here, we learned a lot of new information about acting!” said Frankie Jensen (11), a student who attended the event. “He showed us a lot about what it was like and what transgender people go through.”

After a showing of Hero Mars, Mr. Cooper held a Question and Answer session with the students. “I thought the students asked fantastic questions,” said Mr. Ballin. “[Skyler] was thrilled with the questions that were asked, nothing was inappropriate in any way, and I thought it went very well.”

Several drama students attended the event under Mr. Ballin’s encouragementwere able to learn more about filming and acting from Mr. Cooper. Mr. Ballin also has plans for Mr. Cooper to return in the future. “We have a film unit in Advance Drama,” he noted. “Maybe I’ll have him come back and talk to the students about filmmaking and what the process is.”

Isabella Lam | Staff Writer During the Q&A section afterwards, Mr. Cooper shared his experiences in film and acting alike.

Friday, November 15, 2019

Jojo Rabbit Does It Different

By Alice Shu Humor Editor

The much anticipated Jojo Rabbit signals the return of Taika Waititi to the big screen, this time as both a director and an actor. Waititi’s previous films, including Thor Ragnarok, have established him as a prominent comedian and filmmaker on the cinema scene. His newest film is a comingof-age comedy that presents an often-used setting in a new perspective. While movies about World War Ⅱ are not uncommon, most depict the war on the frontlines (such as Dunkirk) or behind the scenes (as seen in Darkest Hour). Instead, Jojo Rabbit explores what life was like for children during the war. Specifically, a German kid who’s a Nazi fanatic and has Adolf Hitler, played by Waititi himself, as his imaginary friend.

The titular character Johannes “Jojo” Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) is introduced as an ambitious and adamant admirer of Nazi ideology, as proven when he boasts that he’s “massively into swastikas”.

His views on these philosophies are challenged once he discovers that his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), is hiding a jewish girl, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in their house. The movie explores the evolution of Jojo’s Nazi fanaticism as he realizes the true implications of Nazi ideology on his friends and family, all set in the backdrop of the second World War.

Recent controversy is mostly focused on the fact that Adolf Hitler, an infamous historical figure, was depicted as a comical character, which is a far cry from his real-life persona. It’s important to understand that the film is a satire and comedy. It’s intention is not to understate the injustices that Hitler committed in his time, but rather to satirize the effect of his presence on Nazi Germany. The movie highlights that everyone was affected by the Nazi party, even the “Aryan” race that the party was so adamant on preserving.

It depicts quiet forms of resistance within Germany against the Nazis and the difficult choices made between one’s country and one’s true character. Even though the film is set nearly a century ago, it seems that the lessons it teaches are more valuable than ever in our modern era.

Waititi satirizes Nazi Germany through comedy. Scenes of endless Nazi salutes hint at how citizens did not hesitate about worshipping the Führer. The sequences during a Nazi youth camp demonstrate exaggerated their society was, including scenes where pre-teens learn how

to throw hand grenades. Throughout the film Jojo, who is ten years old, fantasizes about joining the army, capturing a Jew, and becoming part of Hitler’s personal guard. While these scenes may be comical, they are all pieces that link together to reveal flaws in Nazi ideology and its implication on the German people.

I did enjoy every joke that was in the movie, no matter how subtle it was.

But my favorite parts were the symbols that became more meaningful as the movie continued. Symbols that included specific dialogue, objects, and movements become important as the story reaches its climax, and the ending of the story is told through said symbols. The ability to tell a coherent, emotional, and dramatic story with minimal exposition validates Waititi’s ability not only as a comedian but a filmmaker as well, making Jojo Rabbit a treat for anyone who appreciates comedy and smart movies.

But perhaps the most important part of the movie was its characters. The movie was extremely well cast, including accomplished actors such as Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell and talented child actors as well. Minor characters- most notably Jojo’s friend Yorki (Archie Yates) and Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell)- were used to characterize the protagonists, often through funny dialogue. The relationships between all the characters, major or minor, helped fuel character growth but also demonstrate the impact that the Nazi regime had on the relationships of different groups of people.

Jojo Rabbit is a coming-of-age movie like none other. It is filled with emotion but had many comedic moments as well. There are no stereotypical extended crying scenes: instead, the movie invests more time on developing the characters and themes in order for the audience to appreciate them more. Thus, pivotal moments and the climax are able to hold more meaning because they were the result of a culmination of numerous factors that were developed throughout the movie. Watching Jojo Rabbit was truly a journey, and I would recommend it for anyone who wants to see a newer perspective of Nazi Germany and an original, intriguing new coming-ofage story. Waititi may continue to be at the receiving end of some controversy, but this only further highlights the profound impact that comedy can have on a wider audience.

Rating:

Los Angeles Times Director Taika Waititi plays a comical version of Adolf Hitler, who accompanies Jojo (Roman Griffith Davis) on his adventures

Friday, Novemeber 15, 2019 Page 15

SPORTS

ON THE RECORD

“I think our mentality was the strongest point of the team.“ — Girls’ Varsity Volleyball Player Naylana Horn (12)

Girls’ Water Polo Wraps Up a Irvington’s Football Team Fulfilling Season Strives for Success

By Felicia Mo News Editor

Continuing from their excellent performance last year, Girls’ Water Polo wrapped up the regular season with an amazing 2nd place ranking in the League.

They ended with a league record of 4-2 and an overall record of 17-8.

The Lady Vikes improved tremendously, both in their teamwork and in their skill, retaining 2nd place in the league for the second year. Even with the amount of setbacks throughout the season, their resilient team chemistry allowed the girls to reflect and adapt to each game and every new challenge with confidence.

“We definitely improved a lot as a team, not only individually, but together we were able to work a lot better,” said Elaine Vo (12), a fourth-year member of the team. “We definitely looked more into the logistics of it rather than just to score goals.

More strategies, more techniques.”

Girls’ Water Polo faced obstacles at the very beginning of the season, especially since they had lost half of their team members. In order to combat that loss, junior varsity players had to be trained to fill the gaps and allow the team to maintain their 2nd place League title from the 20182019 season.

“We lost a majority of our starters,” said Kiara Llamas (11), one of the team captains. “So just teaching our JV girls ‘Hey this is how the game works more’ and making varsity players and building that confidence in them. We lost half the team, but I’m really proud of how our team adapted to that.”

With the help of their captains and coaches, many JV members were able to develop a strong water polo skillset that allowed them to make important contributions to the team’s overall success. In fact, the team plowed through several of their

first games with decisive victories.

“Over the year, I’ve gotten way better, especially with my swimming,” said Xenia Melgar (11), one of the JV players who was boosted to varsity. “I swim faster, my aggressiveness bumped up, my confidence with shooting the ball got better.”

In addition to building up a new team, the Lady Vikes also dealt with communication and mobility issues in the water as the season progressed, most notably towards the last few games.

“We kind of slowed down at the end,” said Peyton Schmitz (11), a third-year member of the team. “We lost at the Logan game, and then we lost another game against Washington. Our mentality was just very low, but we’re working on bringing it back up.”

Yet despite these problems, the girls pulled through and secured a high standing in the league, which was an accomplishment that exceeded expectations.

“I just think Irvington didn’t have a name before and we really gave it that,” said Captain Llamas. “Like second in league both years when they went from fifth or sixth and all that. I think it’s a big deal to change from fifth and sixth to second.”

The team played a total of three games in the MVALs tournament, winning two and losing the last against James Logan. However, their outstanding league and overall record qualified them for the North Coast Section, where they lost in a competitive game against California High School.

With another rewarding season in hand, the team is looking towards future goals and developments to help them continue their high-ranking status.

“I want to improve everyone as a whole and as a bench too,” said Coach Trinity Gerome. “Everyone has improved a lot this year and I’m really looking forward to coaching them next year.”

By Justin Kim Copy Editor

Achintya Pinninti | Sports Editor

Irvington’s football team looks to improve next season as they head into the offseason.

The Irvington High School Football team had a league record of 1-5 and an overall record of 1-9. Despite not having the best record, the team formed a close-knit relationship throughout the season.

“Just being there with my teammates, every moment is fun when you’re surrounded by your brothers,” said quarterback Julian Montelongo (11).

However, this does not mean that the team did not face hardships. They had a rocky start with injured players in an already small team with only 23 players, compared to other schools that have close to 60.

“We had a lot of injuries coming into the season. We were down guys but it is what it is,” says captain Alqasim Elnaggar (11). “What’s more important is that all of our guys just went up there and battled no matter who we were playing, if they were

bigger than us, if they were better than us, if they were stronger than us, none of us gave up. And that was the story throughout the whole season and we were able to come out with a win against American.”

The team had solid and clear expectations before the season started: getting into the playoffs. Sadly, things did not go as planned. However, the team has no intention of giving up anytime soon.

“We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing. We trust our coaches.

We’re going to prepare more during the offseason starting January and we’re just going to keep building our program,” says Elnaggar.

With the season coming to a close, the Irvington High School Football team is further motivated to reach further heights with team spirit and undying passion for their sport.

Page 16 Friday, November 15, 2019

The Girls’ Tennis Team Excels at MVALs

By Nikoo Alizadeh

Features Editor

Irvington’s Varsity Girls’ Tennis team excelled this season, winning nearly every game. They won eleven games and lost only three to American High School and Mission High School. Many of the doubles pairs also went undefeated this year.

Their hard work and dedication paid off this year which helped them qualify for the Mission Valley Athletic League tournament, on Nov. 5th and 6th. During MVALs, the number one varsity doubles pair made it to semifinals. With motivation from their coaches, the tennis team has continued to improve and refine their skills.

However, despite their excellent performance, a few players felt like they didn’t meet their expectations this year.

Last year, their record was 12-2 but they lost those two games only to one school Mission, which is known for being a difficult school to beat, while they lost to two different schools this season.

“We thought we were going to have the same record as last year or even better,” says Trisha Le (11), “but we underestimated American and lost to them this year. I think we made a comeback at their courts though because we won.”

The players said that they owe their success to constant practice, especially during the offseason. Several girls mentioned that they play tennis with a sibling, parent, or friend. Their coach also held open court sessions throughout the summer so that the returning players could practice with one another before the season began. Some of the team’s biggest strengths include their sportsmanship, backhands, and coming up with unique strategies for each game to beat their opponents.

Scores Football

Edison Ma (11)

The girls’ tennis team poses in front of posters that the girls made for the seniors.

“I think our strengths are our smart playing. We all have our trick shots,” says Le. “Some of us could slice while others had really nice angle shots.”

Some skills they believe they should work on for next year include better focus and consistently practicing throughout the school year.

“Our strength was our spirit, drive,

and being smart players (ie. using angles, volleys, and lobs) [are our strengths],” says Richa Ray (11), “however sometimes we lacked the consistency and focus required to win harder matches.”

The girls’ tennis team hope to come back even stronger next year and beat their current record.

Girls’ Volleyball

Boys’ Water Polo End an Optimistic Season

By Emily Liu Staff Writer

This season’s Irvington Boys’ Water Polo team performed with great energy given that they faced an unusual setback: there were no seniors on this year’s team. Led by Erbin Abarado (11), Brandon Vo (11), and Jacob Young (11), the varsity boys’ water polo team experienced a set of

challenges that come with having a young team,and spent this season growing and learning among each other. They ended the year with overall record of 4-12 and a league record of 1-5, but are prepared for and optimistic towards the next season.

“If I could put [the season] into words, it was more of a learning experience.

Last year we had a bunch of seniors— our whole starting line-up and our goalie was

a senior, so [this year] was definitely a year to rebuild, [and] to get to know each other,” said Abarado (11). “We had many inexperienced players so this season was more about trial and error, getting to know each other, and building that team chemistry for next year.”

Abarado reflected that one of his biggest challenges as team captain was keeping his competitiveness in check.

“If I saw someone make one little mistake, [I’d start] getting really mad. And doing that to young players really pushes them away from the sport. Throughout this year [I tried to] be more encouraging than commanding,” he said.

The challenge of having a younger varsity team was playing against larger and more experienced teams. “We didn’t have much experience and the boys aren’t used to the physicality of varsity,” said Captain Young. However, they will go into the next season with established team chemistry, teamwork, and experience.

“Next season’s going to be a very powerful season as we have a lot of seniors going in, and a lot of seniors from other teams have graduated so the league will be a lot more even,” said Young.

Before the start of this season, “very few people played club water polo, which helps a lot and definitely shows in the pool,” remarked Young. Next season, many members of the team plan to start playing water polo outside of school to improve at the sport.

One of the more remarkable games this year was Irvington’s match against Washington.

“It was our most difficult game, but also one of our best games,” said Young.

At halftime, the team was up by two points, and no member on this year’s team had ever played a game in which they defeated Washington.

“We lost to them for MVAL championship last year, and we had a really close game. A lot of our players played really hard for that one,” said Young.

“We made a comeback win in double overtime,” said Abarado as he recalled the victorious same against San Leandro as a “sum up” of their season. “We started playing out badly— we were all inexperienced so we needed to get the fundamentals down. By next year, I expect us to be a fully cohesive team.”

Overall, the Irvington boys’ water polo team has high hopes for future games.

“We’ll be a lot bigger, a lot stronger, and I think we have a pretty good chance at winning MVALs next year,” said Abarado.

Boys’ Waterpolo

Girls’ Waterpolo

Friday, November 15, 2019

Page 17

HUMOR Question Man but it’s just Ms. Kamal

By Geoffrey Zhang Staff Writer

What’s Obama’s last name?

Obama. What kind of incompetent question is this?

What is the meaning of life?

I think the meaning of life is to find your own meaning of life.

Dramatic reenactment of a fictional event

How do you deal with bullies?

I beat them...with staplers.

To be just like Ariela Koehler.

Dear Yolotl....

By Prahalad Chari Broadcast Manager

Dear Yolotl,

All my friends are making totally tubular memes and I feel left out. They keep roasting me about how I am not woke. What do I have to do to attain the woke?

- Dr. Y. Memes Dear Dr. Y. Memes,

You need to start by making more practice memes. The training is necessary for success. I personally recommend spending at least 20 hours a day making these memes. Then you need to spend the rest of your time not sleeping. Add some stress, self-depreciation, low self-esteem, and tada! You have achieved the lowest level of wokeness. Why are you woke, you ask?

Sleep deprivation makes you inherently incoherent and that gives birth to the most nonsensical sentences. In fact, one of the greatest, wokest people in the world, Elon Musk, is constantly sleep deprived (as seen in the bags under his eyes), and is also the wokest man alive. Coincidence? I think not.

After that, watch some really trippy videos, start making bogus conspiracy theories and shower thoughts OR just sacrifice a chicken in front of a shrine to James Charles, while wearing a scrunchie, drinking boba through a metal straw in a hydro flask and say sksksks for twenty minutes. The level of cringe you attain from this pushed your intellect forward. You get a blessing from James Charles and that will help you get woke.

Good luck in your endeavors.

From, Psychedelic Yolotl

What’s your deepest desire?

Dear Yolotl,

Why are the freshmen so short? How can I avoid running over them?

From, Bull Dozer Dear Bull,

Before we begin discussing how to avoid the freshmen, we need to know their history. The chemicals released from the construction of the new building at Horner has led to a race of mutants: super tall sophomores, and super short freshmen. Thus, the only logical explanation for their unusually diminutive stature is that the freshmen, like Gregor Mendel’s pea plants, are maybe just not dominant enough. There are no dominant alleles in their body, so not only are they short, but also beta. By treating them like the betas that they are, you can become an AP Bio grinder too! As upperclassmen, it is your responsibility to carry out natural selection. When the shortest freshmen will be stomped out (literally), the tall will survive, as we see directional selection. If you decide to run over them, you need to carry out your task to completion or else they’ll just get compressed like in Mario Kart!

This makes navigating the hallways even more treacherous as we now have a bunch of gremlin-like freshmen running around.

Thus, we either need to fully carry out the stomping or ACTUALLY watch where we are going, which is an atrocity because you aren’t a freshman and you’re higher on the food chain.

Your friend, Mega Mushroom Yolotl

Dear Yolotl,

Hi! I am a transfer student and I just got to California. How do I become a typical Californian? I want friends.

From, Francessca Ottawaka Brohmson Dear Francessca,

This is such a good question. As an omnipresent being, I too had trouble fitting in here at Irvington. First, you dye your hair (preferably a color of a highlighter), or anything that is bright enough to burn people’s eyes out of their sockets. Then, become vegan: it is impossible to be a Californian and still consume anything that isn’t green and leafy. You need your daily dose of chia seeds, or your chakras won’t align during Mercury’s retrograde. After uniting with the Earth, call yourself an activist

or a victim of any issue you can remotely connect to yourself. To sound like a local, upgrade your diction. You now need to get “triggered” by “microaggressions” like your teacher asking you why your homework is late. This will lead to you becoming a highschool dropout because the teaching system is inherently biassed against people who cannot learn. Now, vent your woes via slam poetry, hitting up many “eco-pubs” taking wheatgrass shots. Once you realize that your hair follicles have had enough genocide from the chemicals in your dye, shave your head and start sporting only tie-dye colors. And to cement your ideals, every conservative idea now is “fascist”, “racist”, and any other -ist you can think of.

With all of this, you can become a true Caliperson.

From, Leftist Yolotl

Page 18 Friday, November 15, 2019

Hidden History: The Turkey Revolution

By Felicia Mo News Editor

In 1789, to the horror of many of our feathered allies, President George Washington made Thanksgiving a national holiday. I have read many reliable turkey journals about the tragedy of that day, which have proven that all turkeys feared the purge that is Thanksgiving. Since then, thousands of turkeys have been sacrificed and murdered, dunked in artificially flavored sauce, stuffed with countless unimaginable things in unimaginable places.

Tarred and feathered, I say.

But we the people—I mean, turkeys—refused to succumb to this. We acted immediately—only two hundred years later, in fact! It was 1945, and it was a revolutionary moment in turkey history!

We began with the Great Turkey Gobble Wafflestuffs, born in one of the despicable turkey farms in Minnesota. Young Gobble was a dumb turkey. He ate whatever the farmer gave him, grew fat, thought about exercising the next day...

Buckle Up for Asiangiving

By Kritika Sachar Web Editor

Thanksgiving Articles: Previews

Here’s a preview of some upcoming articles about Thanksgiving, which will be released on ihsvoice.com on November 22! Stay tuned!

Why Thanksgiving is Everyone’s Favorite Holiday

By Geetika Mahajan Staff Writer

A lot of the times, Thanksgiving is overshadowed because it’s sandwiched between Halloween, when everyone gets candy, and Christmas, when everyone gets presents. However, it’s worth noting that there are some things about Thanksgiving that make it stand out. Sure you get junk

food and gifts on other holidays, but you know what? Junk food will give you diabetes. Plus, gifts are just material objects that will bring you no sense of happiness. Most of the time, you just get socks anyways. Still not convinced? Here are a few reasons why you need to get hyped...

Black Friday: The Anual Survival Games

By Akshita Nair Entertainment Editor

To Whomever May Find This Letter,

My name is Billary Chilton and I am truly sorry to whoever has to read this

letter. Right now, I am hiding in a crusty corner in Burger King with fry oil and watered down ketchup dripping on my head.

Just a disclaimer, this letter will be extremely disturbing and full of horror stories from the checkout counter to the clearance stations in soon-to-be closed down Forever 21’s. I decided to go to the local mall in the Fire Nation district to get some shopping done because I figured I would get good discounts on the American custom of “Black Friday”. Now, I am not from this country originally, I am from a tiny tribal island off the coast of Antarctica, and I have never experienced the horror show the Americans call Black Friday. I don’t even know where to begin...

Thanksgiving is a time for turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and all the other delights of a stereotypical autumn holiday. However, most of the Irvington population, due to differences in culture, tends to have slight revisions to this turkey-filled holiday.

Most Caucasian families tend to spend their Thanksgivings eating goldenbrown turkey with a beautifully set table full of fall decorations and aesthetics, in addition to watching football and having the “what are YOU thankful for” discussion. But what’s the point of all that? Some Asian families would prefer some smoky peking duck over turkey. And don’t even think about overpriced Thanksgiving decorations: it’s better to use that money to put into buying Buddhas and a wide variety of spices. Also, football? Forget that. Try videos of violin prodigies and people that are just overall way better at you than everything...

Friday, November 15, 2019

Page 19

Why the Pool is Really Being Remodeled

By Will Peng Staff Writer

You may have seen the stream of water being spilled out of the Irvington pool into the parking lot, or some guys standing in the empty pool repaving the walls and the floor. It might seem obvious that the only reason that they’re emptying it is to remodel the pool. But is that really the only reason? I put on my aluminum foil thinking cap and I thought long and hard about what the school’s true motives could be. I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re emptying the pool because the pool water is becoming far too contaminated by other substances.

One of the most important reasons is oil. The U.S. military secretly comes to the school at night and drills oil out from underneath the pool, with school approval, of course. With this information in mind, it could be possible that in an accident, the U.S. had caused a massive oil spill and they were too lazy to clean it up themselves, so they asked the school to just empty it out.

It’s perfect for them, because there’s people to cover up the oil reserves with a new cement floor.

But the secrets don’t stop there: the school is hiding the fact that there could be massive amounts of nuclear waste in the pool. According to allexxzhounsblog. com, in the 1950s, during the Cold War, secret missiles were stored underneath every school in America, to be used in the event that a nuke is dropped. Over time, people have forgotten about these missiles the Cold War’s tensions were lowered. The missile is still underneath the pool, and radiation has most likely been seeping out for decades now. The school is probably doing some damage control by removing all that waste out. Think about all the swimmers that swam in the pool and the effect it had on their bodies. In the future, don’t be surprised to see a swimmer produce a threearmed mutant child.

Also, word has it that the school district is investigating rumors that Russians have hacked the pool’s filtration and heating systems. Some say that the water is turned down to freezing temperatures

when the opponent school’s students are in the water, but is at a comfortable warm temperature when Irvington students are swimming, giving the Vikings an advantage. In a press conference, the coach’s spokesperson reported that there was no Russian conspiracy. When asked to explain the change in pool temperature, which has been proven to be true, the spokesperson attributed the phenomenon to the swimmers themselves: “We have video proof that the swimmers from other schools are lizard people. If you look at their eyes beneath their goggles closely, you can see them blinking vertically rather than horizontally. It’s clear that these swimmers are shapeshifters whose true form are lizards. When they enter the pool they lower the temperature of the water purely due to their body temperature because they’re cold-blooded animals.”

The most common contaminant contaminant turns out to be chlorine, and is arguably more important of a factor than oil. Chlorine is dumped into the pool like a gas company dumps CO2 into the atmosphere. In fact, chlorine concentrations are so high that swimmers entering the pool without goggles are at risk of becoming blind. Irvington student Candice Joe recalls the day she went blind: “I got too close to the person in front of me and he kicked off my goggles, burning my eyes off. I now navigate in the water through echolocation.” Another student, Phillimus Swiftamius, remembers the day he lost his taste buds: “I was thirsty, so I took a sip of the pool water. I could feel the bitterness of the water envelope my lungs and burn my taste buds.” Yet another student describes how the toxic pool water has significantly reduced his chances of becoming a mating partner: “I used to swim in that pool every day. I now regret that decision every day.

The instant a woman sees me she runs away in disgust because of my dry and wrinkled skin. I could walk around in a clown mask and still attract more ladies.”

In conclusion, the narrative that the pool is being emptied for remodeling is fake news. There are contaminants in the water and the school is trying to hide it, but the truth can never be covered up for long.

Munchie Madness: IHS’s Vending Machines

By Serena Yeh Staff Writer

Half functioning, sketchy, and won’t accept one- dollar bills on a bad day: it’s not the world’s most uptight, tired exotic dancer: it’s Irvington’s vending machines.

However, some students rely on them to provide some food in order to harness energy for cellular respiration get a kick from the food when there’s too many freshmen crowding the 7-Eleven. Here’s a breakdown on the top snacks Irvington has to offer, from the best to the worst, so you know what snack to get the next time you hear your stomach grumbling halfway through a reading quiz.

Buzz Strong’s Chocolate Chip Cookie: It’s a stale version of a chocolate chip cookie, without as much flavoring as one. The only time you taste sweetness is when you hit an ore of chocolate. Otherwise, it’s a “dessert” disguised as flavored white bread. When you have nothing else to eat and desperately need a sugar kick, this is your go-to.

Hot Cheetos: The snack that causes the ubiquitous scalet red powdery dust on the consumers’ fingers and a staple for latenightlate night grinders. After your first twenty Cheetoscheetos or so (depending on your spice tolerance), your mouth starts to heat up faster than the tension in a classroom when a kid talks back to the teacher.

If you can’t get your hands on these, eating a few jalapenos from 7-Eleven works just as well.

Lays Kettle Cooked Potato Chips, Applewood Smoked BBQ: Trick yourself that you are healthier than you actually are by ordering these kettle- cooked, not fried, chips. By buying these chips, you will have achieved transcendeance, and ultimately fused yourself and Mother Nature in life.

In fact, you’ll be able to talk to animals and plants. These chips have 40% less fat than the original Lays chips, but they’re about as dry as my humor. The flavor isn’t bad though, considering the fact that they used half as much fat.

Corn Nuts: What’s that sound? No, it’s not the satisfying crunch of a salty snack.

It’s your molar shattering, after biting into Corn Nuts. These are so spiced up and salty that, if not for the shape, you would forget that it was previously a vegetable in its past life. But when you’re starving in class, it’s a decent substitute for the chips and fast food you eat during lunch, with the tradeoff of everyone wondering where the drilling sounds are from.

Cheez Its: Ahh yes, salty and crunchy. The embodiment of the American diet- too fatty, too orange, and too salty (as represented by our current president). But it’s actually quite tasty. After being chewed for long enough, this cracker morphs into a cheddar mush.

Unfortunately with these cheese crackers, you won’t be seeing the happy smile from Goldfish (for this reason, Goldfish are better. feel free to fight me).

Chex Mix: It’s that bonanza of crackers in shapes that you would never dream of in a million years. By the way, it’s been scientifically proven that the pretzel bread tastes best, so y’all online haters can chill. But through the way these are packaged, you’ll be lucky to find more than a 1:3 ratio of the pretzel bread to the plain squiggle shaped crackers.

Cheetos: Hot Cheetos’ cousin twice removed, leaving trails of fluorescent orange dust on your fingers and everything you come within a 3 feet radius of. Like vaping, an addiction to Cheetos transforms from a light snack to a daily dependency. If you find yourself reaching to take a hit of the cheese powder during class, feel free to call the addiction helplines posted all around campus.

Fruit snacks: Fruit snacks are just America’s attempt to allow people to taste Mother Nature’s bounty. But it’s about 10 times sweeter than the original fruit would be, and colored with excessive food coloring.

Don’t forget the caramel-like stickiness on your teeth--it’ll take at least three gulps of water for you to get the gunk out of teeth. If you like sugary artificially colored and flavored snacks, this is for you.

Are We Living in a Video Game?

By Michael Zhu Sports Editor

Recently, there has been much speculation over whether we live in a simulation or not. While the idea of living in a simulation has gained much traction over the years, I believe that we actually live in a video game and we are just living as characters in this game. Not only does it explain all the weird things going on in this world, but upon my journey across the world to uncover the darkest secrets of this Earth, I have uncovered a whole lot of overwhelmingly accurate evidence that will support my claim. Here are some examples and my theories: Weird relatable things that happen to everyone: You know when you get up to do something but all of a sudden forget what you are doing? Like for example, waking up in the middle of the night to piss but then going back to bed for some reason and peeing there instead. That’s the video game player changing his mind and canceling your action.

Default character appearances (the Kevin Nguyen effect): Look around and you’ll see so many similar looking people in this world, people with the same haircuts

and the same red flannel outfits. This is because the video game player is only limited to so many outfit options, and many players are too lazy to change the default option.

Bermuda triangle: The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil’s Triangle or Hurricane Alley, is infamous for the mysterious disappearance of ships and aircrafts.

The Bermuda triangle is actually a portal out of this world and into another world in the video game.

Weird successful people: Why are so many of the most successful people so behaviorally different than the rest of us?

Think Steve Jobs, who rocks a turtleneck, Elon Musk (self-explanatory), and Mark Zuckerburg, the man who genuinely looks like an alien. It’s because they are hackers and they have all the cheat codes that allow them to be more successful than the rest of us.

Sheep in society: The majority of society are just minor characters in the video game that have no other purpose than side conversation and character development for the main character. These people offer no individual thought or opinions and just follow the bandwagon and popular beliefs. If this doesn’t remind you of anyone, you’re probably a minor character.

Mandela effect: The Mandela Effect is a phenomenon in which a large mass of people incorrectly remember something that never happened. Many people, including President Obama, claim to remember TV coverage of Nelson Mandela’s death in

1980, even though he actually died in 2013.

This shows that video game developers are changing the past, and us minor characters who they didn’t care to update remember things from past versions of the game.

Reddit If you find more evidence of yourself living in a video game, call Gamestop at 1-800-MARKZUCKERBURGISALIZARDMAN

Stay Connected:

@theihsvoice |

@ihs.voice |

@ihsvoice

41800 Blacow Road Fremont CA 94539

PROVIDED BY: VINISH DHIR

PROVIDED BY: NORA HAYANI PROVIDED BY: NORA HAYANI

SENIOR SZN

PROVIDED BY: VINISH DHIR PROVIDED BY: ASHKA PATEL

PROVIDED BY: ASHKA PATEL PROVIDED BY: ELAINE VO

LAYOUT BY: ASHKA PATEL

PROVIDED BY: ABTIN OLAEE