2015-2016 Selected Profile Magazine Articles

Freestyle Academy of Communications Arts and Technology 2015 - 2016 Selected Profile Magazines

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Freestyle Academy of Communication Arts and Technology Proudly presents the top selected Profile magazines from 2015-2016.

In this unit students answered the question, “How do you creatively and truthfully portray an interesting person who has a positive influence in the community?”

The students assignment was to find an intriguing person and research the subject’s influence on others. Students gathered primary and secondary research sources to develop a distinct perspective on the person’s life which served as the basis for a research paper, magazine article, film, or website. This unit emphasizes characterbased and narrative style journalism.

Rohit Padmakumar

Empowering the

99 Percent

Balancing the Playing Field with Online Streaming

et’s do it one more time,” said the cameraman. He took his clipboard, showing the second take, and placed it in front of the camera. After he removed it from the frame, the camera refocused on Kunal Chawla’s face. Kunal took one last glance at his lines before he set them on the chair beside him. “This is lesson 2B,” he said to the camera. At the push of the record button, he looked heavily into the camera’s lens and began his lecture. The green screen behind him and the multiple studio lights shining on his face constituted his work environment. As he began his lesson on application programming, his fluid hand gestures flooded the air and his voice gave off a vibrating channel into his microphone. After roughly 30 seconds of Kunal talking to students he will never see, the cameraman said “Let’s do it again.”

They each repeated the lesson until the perfect take on the fifth go around.

One lesson down, hundreds to go.

Kunal is not your typical teacher.

Working at Udacity, a company that specializes in online learning, Kunal is an educator who creates and instructs several technology courses. By utilizing the power of Udacity’s resources in combination with his educational knowledge, Kunal is transforming the way people see a classroom. He specializes in making education a global phenomenon that can reach any corner of the planet with the click of a button, whether the student is a soldier in Afghanistan or a working mother in India.

“One of biggest things online education is going for is scale,” he claims. It’s one of the major advantages to teaching through a virtual

platform as opposed to the traditional classroom setting. Kunal develops “Nanodegree” programs for Udacity, a new credential to enable people to get skills to change their careers or access higher affordable education. “As online learning becomes more individualized, more students are able to reach their full potential,” states Jason Orgill, a student at the Forum for Growth and Innovation at Harvard’s business school in “Online Learning Programs Are Changing the Way Students Learn.” Through a blended approach that includes streamed lessons and exercises, Kunal and Udacity are allowing students to reach their full

educational capacity in a revolutionary manner.

Being one of the few people in Silicon Valley that strives to help others from an educational rather than a technological and consumer perspective, Kunal has a “knack for asking the questions a novice learner would ask” because it allows him to formulate his lesson plans around what he thinks his students will understand.

“Good teaching and learning can actually change people’s lives and their economic trajectory, and that’s a very inviting thought to me,” he explains.

He strives to defy the societal norms that claim students can only thrive if they get a college education or if they have only majored in a specific area.

Though Kunal teaches the fundamentals of programming, he is part of a larger, socially progressive cause that takes our rapidly advancing technological culture and applies it to the

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needs of those who want change in their lives.

Born in New Delhi, Kunal has a fairly unique educational history. Originally wanting to major in physics, he attended college in India, but after his love for the subject diminished, he transferred to University of Texas at Austin to study computer science. When studying the subject, Kunal realized it “wasn’t the full answer for him,” and he longed for something more meaningful. This led him to return to India and teach middle school children science. He felt learning was a “gift,” and in his “small humble way” he wanted to pass it on to a new generation. As a teacher, his ingenuity inspired him to tie popular local music to scientific concepts where he composed 17 “science songs” to teach the concepts of gravity, inertia and magnetism.

After 2 years of teaching in

New Delhi, Kunal headed a project at Google that involved course instructors and content developers in California beaming videos to three cities, 25 classrooms, and a thousand students in India. “It was essentially a Skype conversation,” where an instructor would ask a question and the students would respond by hitting a buzzer. “Kunal was focused on how you provide affordable education to kids in villages,” said Ann Rogan, one of Kunal’s project coworkers. “He experimented with using video as a method to deliver education,” but it “morphed” into him instructing the teachers in the country as well. Despite Kunal’s work at Udacity where he cannot physically see his students, his previous work throughout his life has displayed his unique ability to mix practices together to better the people around him.

Even though Kunal is a teach-

er both at Udacity and in India, he lives a multi-faceted life outside of education. Every Wednesday, he meets with a group of nearly 70 people to meditate in Santa Clara. The three-hour process involves sitting in silence for an hour, eating in silence for the next hour, and then sharing a compassionate story that others can relate to. “I like to slow things down,” he explains. He believes there is a very strong link between meditation and education. The silence gives him time to contemplate his life. He wants his students to do the same after a lesson by reflecting on what they have learned and then writing down their thoughts. “We are social creatures,” he claims, and the relationships we establish with our family, friends, and online mates are “critical to our iden-

tity.” His meditation puts the importance of sociality into “overdrive” by empathizing with a group that is connected through a spiritual experience.

Kunal’s meditation is essential to his rigorous work life. Kunal’s work employs the power of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). “Since the advent of broadband speeds capable of carrying multimedia traffic, online distance learning programs have grown in popularity,” says Nicholas Laudato, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh in his article “MOOC.” Kunal has filmed nearly 650 clips for the five courses that he has created at Udacity that have a growing number of thousands of views each.

MOOCS are what educators in the online platform use as their classroom to teach to their students. Ferguson

R. and Sharples M. highlight the impact “massive” has on society in their article “Innovative pedagogy at massive scale: Teaching and learning in MOOCs,” explaining that scale “offers the potential to change professional practice, to increase access to education and to achieve global impact by solving large-scale problems.”

Kunal’s role demands the “need to know how to make the most of these possibilities, and how [to] support learners effectively when opportunities for one-to-one contact are very limited,” states Curtis Bond in his book MOOCs and Open Education around the World. It’s clearly a tradeoff: lack of intimacy for increased range. Since Kunal has taught in various environments that rely on in class settings, teaching at Udacity is an al-

“It’s phenomenal have someone who not only teaches, but also walks the walk.”

- Ben Jaffe 3

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ternate strategy of education adapted to be scaled immensely.

Even though Kunal is one of many course instructors at Udacity, his method of teaching differs than that of his colleagues because of how he integrates the learner. Ben Jaffe, a Udacity coworker, said that Kunal

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utilizes a method of “role reversal.”

Since he cannot physically interact with the thousands of students he has, he forces them to write down a question they would ask themselves as if they were the teachers. “The students aren’t used to thinking from the other side,” Ben says. “Education is only

scaled linearly.” However, Kunal has unlocked the key to scale “exponentially” because he “engages the learners not just to learn themselves, but to help teach each other,” through group interaction and collaboration.

“This idea of how [his] student is feeling” (Chawla), is what he most thinks about. When teaching middle school, he had his students ask questions on the “students become teachers” day and had their peers answer those questions on the board, enforcing an interactive environment. This method of instructing correlates to Kunal teaching to help others teach.

He amplifies his knowledge to grow in the mindset of others in the classroom and online. Through this magnification, Kunal is a droplet creating ripples in a pond, since every lesson he streams represents a single wavelet that brushes the surface of the water to educate thousands under him.

Kunal as an educator is able to eliminate the “blind spots” in teaching by asking himself what he thinks the learner is thinking. Jaffe claimed that “His level of compassion, empathy, and the types of questions he asks”, set him apart from most people. His method of inviting other people to empathize with him lets him overcome the frustrating component of learning as a student by divulging from different perspectives.

When asked how he would describe Kunal, Ben said that he would rather describe the vibe that is created with his interactions with the people around him because it’s the atmosphere that he generates that truly defines him. During his time teaching in India, Kunal aimed to establish a relationship that was “built on parity” with his students. “I respected my students and I treated them as my friends” (Chawla), making him realize that the connections he makes with his kids is equally if not more important than the content itself.

Although Kunal is a teacher, he is also a lifelong learner. Recently, he has grown fond of piano playing in his home and has begun to develop it as a skill because he wants to constantly learn. “It’s a vehicle for spreading joy,” says Kunal, who “want[s] to merge music with math or computer science.” His work with his students in India sparked his creative potential. “It’s phenomenal to have someone who not only teaches but also walks the walk. They don’t just tell their students to learn they learn too,” Ben explained.

“I don’t get the impression that teaching is a job for Kunal,” he continues, “but teaching is his backbone… and he wants to unlock for you whatever he sees.” Kunal describes himself as “a novice teacher” who still seeks to “observe from the experts.”

Teaching “has helped [him] become a better learner,” because he attempts to explore a wide range of topics and understand them, fueling his passion to play the piano since it introduces a new concept that he wants to grasp.

In the future, Kunal wants to continue to be a teacher. “I’ve made the lifelong bet that I will be a teacher,” he claims. It goes back to that act of passing on a “beautiful gift” to other people. By putting himself in

the shoes of the learner, he is able to promote social equity in our “unjust world.” Sebastian Thrun, founder of Udacity, states, “ ‘I am against education that is only available to the top one percent of all students. I am against tens of thousands of dollars of tuition expenses. I am against the imbalance that the present system brings to the world. I want to empower the 99 percent.’ ” Udacity and Kunal share this sense of enabling those who cannot afford college to still obtain a higher education. “The way to level the playing field for a lot of folks is offering quality education at no cost,” asserts Kunal.

He is against large brand name colleges because they exemplify inequality. By reinforcing those that simply cannot com-

pete with the upper class demographic, he shines light on the “99 percent” to further regulate the spread of knowledge through online education.

In his room, Kunal wakes up to his own quotation, written in orange on a whiteboard: “Be nice to yourself (and others).” Kunal is more than just an atypical educator; he is a vibrant, compassionate member of the community who captivates those around him, whether it’s a random student or a close coworker. He lives by his words, keeping his spirits continually high and expressing humility to the people around him. Not only does he choose to grow himself, but he influences others both intellectually and spiritually as well. By being part of the pioneers that are competing against the one percent, Kunal is balancing the educational system, defying societal norms, and revamping the manner in which we learn to revolutionize the world.

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Works Cited: Bonk, Curtis J. MOOCs and Open Education around the World. New York, NY: Routledge, 2015. Print.

Chawla, Kunal. Personal Interview. 21 Sept. 2015.

Chawla, Kunal. Personal Interview. 31 Aug. 2015.

Ferguson, R., & Sharples, M. (2014). Innovative pedagogy at massive scale: Teaching and learning in MOOCs. Proceedings of ECTEL 2014, Graz, Austria. Web. 26 Sept.

2015.

Jaffe, Ben. Personal Interview. 9 Sept. 2015 Laudato, Nicholas C., and K. Lee Lerner. “MOOC (Massive open online course).” The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. 5th ed. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2014.Student Resources in Context. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Orgill, Jason, and Douglas Hervey. “Online Learning Programs Are Changing the Way

Students Learn.”What Is the Role of Technology in Education? Ed. Judeen Bartos. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. At Issue.

Rpt. from “How Online Innovators Are Disrupting Education.” Harvard Business Review (4 Nov. 2011). Opposing Business Review (4 Nov. 2011). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 Sept.

2015.

Rogan, Ann. Personal Interview. 18 Sept. 2015

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Rohit Padmakumar is a Senior at Mountain View High School and at Freestyle Academy of Communication Arts and Technology.

He is interested in going to college to pursue his passion for film and cinema production and possibly another field that is yet to be determined. Motivation, intelligence, and raw passion are the three components that fuels his personal and academic goals. Being a proud student, he is a determined and adaptive individual who seeks to help others and display his talents to the world.

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Rebecca Bettinger

Teaching Center Stage Mr. Smith’s Daily Production of “Edutainment”

ct One: The Te a c h e r in the To p H a t Every student in the classroom is completely quiet. No energy. No sound. No motivation. It’s a tough crowd.

Mr. Michael Smith, an English teacher at Los Altos High School, realizes he needs a new strategy.

The student in the corner is a break dancer. Time to take advantage of that.

Mr. Smith clears all the chairs from the middle of classroom.

The stage is about fifteen to twenty feet wide. Perfect. Cue break dance battle. The audience gathers around centerstage, immersed in the eccentric exchange of dance moves.

Mr. Smith recalls, “... he did this move with a scarf and I said

‘How am I going to counter that?’”

He enters the spotlight dramatically by jumping on a chair and sliding halfway into the middle of the stage.

He then jumps off the chair with a twist. He grabs the scarf from his opponent and ties it in a bow around himself.

The crowd goes wild! Energy levels are at an all time high! A curtain call is immediately followed by a very productive work period.

What a student can get from Mr. Smith’s class is different than what one receives from a normal high school class. Former student Aditya Vohra explains, “He makes you feel really at ease. It’s a very casual setting and I think that’s a good change from sorta the classic school.” Students do not read from a boring Powerpoint or lazily stare at YouTube videos; rather, they experience an engaging performance. On any given day, Mr. Smith is wearing his top hat, “...out there shuckin’

by Rebecca Bettinger

and jivin’, dancing, singing, [executing] face, differed greatly from that of the back flips …. whatlocal neighborhood ever [he needs] to “ It’s fun. It’s goofy. It’s drug dealer, who do to get that kid was loaded with unpredictable. ” motivated and to money, yet never -Mr. Smith smile.” Welcome to seemed to find Mr. Smith’s producsatisfaction. The tion of “edutainment,” where education is drug dealer, though appearing fierce and now entertaining. In his own words, “It’s invincible, eventually was arrested. It’s fun. It’s goofy. It’s unpredictable” (Smith). people like Mr. Johnson, a neighborhood A c t Tw o : L i v i n g i n t h e B ro n x store owner, who became role models. Mr. “I made the connection quickly Johnson encouraged kids to stay in school that I wanted to be as educated as and often let struggling low-income families possible, formally and informally,” recalls Mr. take food until they could pay him back.

Smith. Growing up in the South Bronx, “So I saw these wonderful examples,” rehe saw numerous examples illustrating the flects Mr. Smith, “and each example that value of education. The person with two or I saw that I liked was because the three jobs, no money, but a smile on their person had valued education.” This sparked

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his quest for “edutainment.” People should enjoy learning and not take it for granted.

When students are smiling and excited to gain an education, “life is so good and it gets better every day” (Dawson).

Around the age of ten, Mr. Smith moved out of the South Bronx and to the Bay Area. Unable to afford a house, he lived with relatives and, at one time, even a homeless shelter. At a young age, he made the goal to someday own a house, a path led by a good education. He attended Los Altos High School and graduated in 1996. After high school he went to Morehouse College, Foothill College, and eventually transferred to UCLA. In 2001, he accepted a job opportunity that opened up at Los Altos High School, his alma mater.

His diverse educational path has granted him a satisfying lifestyle in which he owns a house and teaches other students the value of education.

Act Three: Strengthen the Craft In this day and age, particularly in the heart of Silicon Valley, teachers are often competing against technology for their students’ attention spans. Many young startup companies see technology as a way to replace teaching methods rather than improve them. Different methods of learning have emerged such as online classes and video tutorials. Danny Crichton, author at Tech Crunch, believes education is not possible without the critical social aspect.

He wrote, regarding startups aiming to replace the traditional classroom, “If we

can take a teacher and make them al- ers go through training and professional most equally effective in just one half or development, the performance aspect of even one tenth the time, we may have the job is rarely emphasized or taught. done more for human A c k n o w l e d gi n g development than “...there’s no wonder this aspect could any startup has” that I’m still excited be a missed op(Crichton). Technolportunity to reto this day.” ogy has the ability structure ways - Mr. Smith to advance in the teachers learn classroom and keep teachers in the loop. new skills and tactics” (Schwartz). The It enhances their ability to teach. But art of “edutainment” is a craft requirwhat else can teachers do to increase ing never-ending ways to engage students their effectiveness and engage students? while teaching appropriate curriculum and Perhaps another way to make teachers controlling the classroom. How is “edutain“equally effective” is by training them to ment” possible without the ability to act be better public speakers or actors. Ac- and create an energetic persona? Training cording to Katrina Schwartz, author of teachers to perform and edutain their education website MindShift, “when teach- students is the best possible

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way to combat the distractions of technology and keep the classroom alive.

A c t Fo u r: Fi n d i n g t h e K e y , Pa s s i o n However, the idea of “edutainment” goes even further into the unteachable. The Huffington Post asked students around the country to send their thoughts on boredom in schools and one student wrote, “Personally, I feel that if a teacher seems to have no interest in a subject, neither will I” (Wiggins). A teacher can be a good performer or educator, but when they genuinely love what they teach, they can become great. “Remember why you majored in what you majored in,” Mr. Smith advises. “...I strategically chose Literature and English because you can explore anything…. I was excited about doing it and there’s no wonder that I’m still excited to this day.” Passion, although not a requirement on a resume, is the key to successful teaching.

Mr. Smith is an excellent example of passion. Every day in class he puts

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on the top hat, expressing his passion about First Amendment rights and I for learning through “edutainment.” say, ‘You know what? I’m not going The energy levels invested into each to sing but he summed it up exactly class period soar through the roof. how I would’ve.’”

Act Five: Practice What Some days he chooses to perform the instructions in an inventive manner You Preach such as a rap or a Shakespearean Several years ago, two brothers, a accent. Other days, he is sharing freshman in his Survey Literature a deep story in a class discussion. class and a junior in his American Literature Instead of just making “...’You know what? I’m class, both his students not going to sing but deliberately read John he summed it up ex- slacked off.

Steinbeck’s actly how I would’ve.’” A pattern of East of Eden, not finishing -Mr. Stewart he guarthe homeantees that they understand it. work and not finishing the readHe wants students to analyze J.D. ing had developed. Concerned with Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye this behavior, Mr. Smith warned both and ask why Holden Caulfield thinks brothers that he would come to the way he does. History teacher their house, sit at their dinner taGabriel Stewart, who co-taught Los ble, and make them finish their esAltos High School’s Global class with says. Though at the time, Mr. Smith Mr. Smith, remarked, “I always had put on that top hat and did like the look on the students faces not intend to actually follow through, when he’d start singing in class and he then heard a fellow student say, they’re like ‘Where’s he going with “Aye man, he’ll do it…,” to which the this?’ and then all of a sudden he brother replied, “No he won’t.” Mr. turns [it into] this incredible song Smith described this moment as the

“hook in the fish’s mouth.” When essays found a place in Mr. Smith’s the other brother did not bring hand. Mr. Smith would never allow his work into class, this was a clear these boys to actively fail. This idea indication that the brothers did not of “edutainment” and a passion for take the e d u cati o n “My kids are like, ‘Is class seriis one that ously. “So I students it gonna be like this go to their need teachall the time?’ and I’m house,” Mr ers to take like, ‘Pretty often.’

Smith exseriously and And they’re like, plained. take to the ‘Yes!’” “ S t ra i g h t next level.

-Mr. Smith up. Knock on Te a c h e r s the door, and who invoke a no one’s home. So I wait. I wait personal connection with students for about thirty minutes and these make them the most enthusiastic two little boys, if you saw the looks and effective. “I don’t know if I on their faces, were beside them- connect emotionally on the same selves.” Their mother greeted Mr. level he does,” Mr. Stewart acknowlSmith, inviting him to sit and su- edges, “and I really find watching pervise the boys while they wrote him doing that is like, ‘Wow! We their essays. The next day, both need teachers like that.’”

Cue Curtain Call As the curtains begin to fall at the end of the school year, they never really do fall for Mr. Smith. Each day is a new scene with a new character from a novel to introduce or a new level of energy to engage audiences with. Leading man Mr. Smith plans to continue the life of the top hat and tails and pursue his career in the “edutainment” business for as long as he can at Los Altos High School. “My kids are like, ‘Is it gonna be like this all the time?’” Mr. Smith reflects, “and I’m like, ‘Pretty often.’ And they’re like, ‘Yes!’”

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Works Cited: Crichton, Danny. “The Challenges of Teaching When Silicon Valley Doesn’t Care.” TechCrunch. N.p., 11 July 2015. Web. 2015.

Dawson, George, and Richard Glaubman. Life Is so Good. New York: Random House, 2000. Print.

Schwartz, Katrina. “Why Teachers Should Be Trained Like Ac tors.” MindShift. KQED News, 1 July 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2015.

Smith, Michael. Personal interview. 3 Sept. 2015.

Smith, Michael. Personal interview. 28 Sept. 2015.

Stewart, Gabriel. Personal interview. 10 Sept. 2015.

Vohra, Aditya. Personal interview. 17 Sept. 2015.

Wiggins, Grant. “Attention, Teachers! Why Students Are Bored.”

The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 Nov. 2013.

Web. 11 Oct. 2015.

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Rebecca Bettinger is a senior at Los Altos High School and attends Freestyle Academy. She hopes to pursue a degree in communications and eventually a career in advertising. In her free time, she enjoys writing, travelling, watching movies, and spending time with her family and friends.

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Karna Chelluri 1

Off the Deep End: A Profile of Albert Gwo Karna Chelluri

“Karna, I need you to teach me how to play the guitar, so I can serenade girls.” hese were the exact words said to me by my longtime best friend Albert Gwo, who, despite being a fourtime All-American swimmer, is still normal enough to ask his “elite” friend for help regarding his awkwardness around girls.

His asking me for help in that

category at all really surprised me because attention for being a high-profile athlete is not something he lacks. One doesn’t usually win Varsity MVP three years in a row, get first place in the Central Coast Section, and win a double state title without turning a few heads.

He proceeded to slide my black office chair over to the corner of my room and pick up my acoustic guitar. He struck a few awkward chords and then glanced at me, hoping for reinforcement. It was almost comical, he was actually proud of himself. You’re the athlete,

I’m the musician. I thought to myself. Let’s keep it that way.

Albert Gwo is the epitome of a successful student-athlete.

The Los Altos High School senior has maintained excellent grades, fitness, and health while following his dreams of being an Olympic swimmer. He recently committed to swim for the University of California at Berkeley (Cal) and occasionally trains at the Olympic training facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Although Albert is an amazing swimmer, he also has other talents that are overshadowed by his excellence

in his sport. As his best friend, it saddens me that people don’t see this other side of Albert.

While some students may think that Albert is unrelatable; this is not the case at all. He still has passions and hobbies aside from swimming, despite his great success. Although fans of high school swimming would scoff at me for suggesting this, Albert is really just an average high school student with an amazing talent.

Gwo was born in New Mexico, but moved to California in 2004. He played baseball and swam simultaneously until he started competitive swimming.

Albert began swimming competitively for the Palo Alto Swimming and Aquatics (PASA) club in 2008. His success as a young swimmer came to peak

when he placed in the top three out of fifty or more swimmers at the prestigious PASA Rinconada meet. “At that point I knew I had some kind of talent, but it didn’t really come out until December of 2011 when suddenly I dropped 4 seconds in the 50yard freestyle, and that’s when I started getting to the tops of the ranking lists and I started focusing more on sprint events,” says Albert.

Club swimming is broken into multiple tiers. It starts with noncompetitive swimming for children and gets more and more competitive as the swimmers get older (USA Swimming). The ultimate goal for a club swimmer is to be a member of their club’s national team. This is a very hard task as placement is limited and trials are difficult. Albert,

however, made it to his club’s national team in 2011 and has been swimming on it ever since.

In his freshman year in high school, he qualified for and competed in his first national meet. Although he wasn’t very proud of his performance at his first national competition, he decided that swimming would be his utmost priority. His primary goal would be to consistently outdo himself with every successive competition.

In recent months, he has trained at the Olympic Training Center with some of the best athletes and coaches in the world. For his accomplishments, he’s received a multitude of awards from the school, his swim club, and even the governing body of competitive swimming.

More recently, Albert has beat the Olympic Time Qualifying Standard for his event by 0.12 seconds, placing him around 80th in the ranks for the olympic team (Swimming World News).

It goes without saying, he was noticed by college coaches from all over the nation, but after a long and difficult process, he decided that he would attend Cal in the fall of 2016 as a freshman.

He stumbles into the hallway in the morning in early December. I step closer so I can give him a handshake. I notice his bloodshot eyes as he takes off his mirrored sunglasses. “Dude, I’m so tired,” he says as he reaches to grab my hand. Albert is usually rather vocal about how he’s feeling, especially

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when he’s so tired that he can and the practices are intense.

His coach controls many barely stand. His breathing Although Albert manages his facets of his life, one being slows as he comes to explain his schedule to accommodate for nutrition. For Albert, eating the situation. He explains to me how all of the practices and training proper diet while swimming is the preparation for nationals sessions, he couldn’t do it crucial. But contrary to popular is tiring him out, and on top without the help he receives belief, he’s not on a specialized of getting ready to swim in a from the coaching staff at diet plan. “You don’t really national meet, he has to prepare the Palo Alto Swimming and eat specific foods that are for his academic finals. “I just Aquatics (PASA) club. Albert beneficial to swimming. You don’t know if I can do it man,” he admits that often times he’ll start to generalize into eating says, “I’m so tired and all more like a vegetarian of me hurts.” actually. You still want He then launches “Your coach pretty much your protein intake, into a tirade of expletives but not too much runs your whole life and it’s detailing the exact ways protein,” says Albert. in which he was tortured pretty controlling, but if “Our coach says every by his swim practice the meal has to have you do the right things, then day before. This is nothing greens... If you make new. He’ll often seek things get easier.” (Gwo) a good habit out of me out so he can detail it, it’s really easy to exactly how he is feeling, control your diet.” often citing medieval torture, lose his head during practice and It is widely known that being punched in various places tensions between him and his swimming is very beneficial to all at once, and being hit by a coach will run high. “Your coach one’s health, and Albert cites car. pretty much runs your whole life swimming as his motivation to The pressure is on for and it’s pretty controlling,” says lead a fit and active life. But then my best friend, who, being Albert, “but if you do the right again, Albert doesn’t really have the competitive person he is, things, then things get easier a choice. He hopes that seeing decided to take extra advanced between you and your coach” how physically fit swimmers are placement courses in his class (Gwo). will lead more people to take up schedule during his junior year along with an intense swimming schedule. Luckily, however, his performance at nationals and during finals would attract the attention of the school to which he has now committed.

As if studying for finals and then immediately going to a national championship didn’t sound stressful enough, Albert faces an even greater challenge in his quest to make the Olympic team. Needless to say, the time commitment to this goal is immense, the hours are long

swimming as a hobby or a sport.

Swimmers have excellent cardiorespiratory fitness and also build more dense muscle mass (Weil). It is an excellent way for the participant to engage all of their muscles and keep their heart rate high for a good workout (“Swimming Health Benefits” ).

Unlike the rest of us though, Albert doesn’t get to swim leisurely. For him, practices are long and grueling.

After school, he’ll go straight to the pool and start his daily swimming routine with some individual stretching. He then joins his team for group dynamic stretching. The goal of this exercise is to warm up the muscles without raising his heart rate. After the group dynamic warm ups, the team does an hour of dryland practice. Although it may seem counterintuitive to do a swim

practice away from water, dryland practices are important to building up a swimmer’s power and explosiveness, so that the swimmer can swim faster. From there, Albert begins the aquatic portion of his practice. He starts with a fifteen-minute pre-set workout which is supposed to warm him up for the main set of the practice. Not unlike many other high caliber swimmers, Albert’s main set is occasionally done in unorthodox ways. Swimmers such as Michael Phelps have often cited unusual practice methods for improvement of technique. His coach, Bob Bowman, was a very creative person when it came to figuring out new ways to train Phelps.

“One day, Bob had me practice in sneakers,” says Phelps in his 2005 book, Michael Phelps: Beneath the Surface, “Other days, I’d either swim while

tethered to a pulley, while wearing a scuba vest or with an innertube around my ankles.”

For some reason, Albert wouldn’t disclose the ways in which his training was unorthodox, but assured me he wasn’t being tortured too badly. He also mentioned that the unusual ways in which he trains become second nature after years of practice, so something that might seem painful to us is just a normal set for him. After he finishes his fifteen minute pre-set, he goes into an intensive main set for an hour and a half. Following the main set is a fifteen minute cool down.

In my experience, Albert has never taken himself seriously and that’s what is so unique about him. Surprisingly, the same holds true while he’s at swim practice. He’s just about as audacious at practice as he is when he’s in class, and according to his teammates, that’s what makes him such a great swimmer (Brett). His complete inability to realize how cocky he is just about eliminates any need for him to realize it at all. He’s good, he knows that and he’ll let you know that, too – not only with his words, but also with his blistering times.

As great as Albert is at swimming, he’s always looking for hobbies as well. Whenever he and I both feel overwhelmed

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with school, we’ll decide to do a home run derby at the closest baseball diamond or even throw around the frisbee disc just to stay sane. “You know I was really good at baseball? Like so good I was on a travel team,” he said once when we were doing a home run derby on the softball field at Bullis Charter School, “but then swimming came along and just started eating up all of my time, so I had to quit baseball” (Gwo).

This is a sad example of how Albert has had to cut things out of his life entirely in order to accommodate swimming.

But as busy as he is, he always makes time for his close friends.

It might not be too much, but it’ll be enough for him to let us know that he cares.

Nik Lee and Albert have been great friends since sophomore year, and, like me, Nik doesn’t get to see Albert very often. Whenever we do see him though, he’ll always be out to have fun.

More recently, Albert decided that he and I would like to play a professional round of paintball in the woods. In a way, this is exactly who Albert is. He’s a pleasantly surprising individual. I’ve noticed that Albert is very good at only wanting to do things because there is a chance that he could be seriously injured while doing them. He could easily be hit by a line drive while pitching to me at our home run derbies, he’s

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always the one to lay out to catch a disk in frisbee, and he’s willing to run through a field of flying paint projectiles. As two of his closest friends, Nik and I can both agree that Albert believes that fun comes before safety. “I have a mountain bike,” says Nik, “and Albert thought it would be a good idea if he rode down the two flights of stairs in the 900 wing on it.

He manages to defy the generalization of Olympiccaliber athletes who sleep in hyperbaric chambers and refuse to enjoy life because they fear that even the slightest papercut will end their Olympic career. Albert’s extraordinary talent for swimming doesn’t prevent him from trying to enjoy life with

the small amounts of time that he has. Like the rest of us, he’s just looking for the next thrill.

Albert will continue his swimming career by moving on to swim at Cal. He will continue to train for the Olympics and hopes to make the team in time for the 2020 Olympic games. After Albert graduates from college he hopes to use his engineering education at Cal to start a business. I’d also like to think that he and I will remain friends no matter where either of us go in life. While it may seem that he has achieved massive success, he still relies on me a great deal. I still posses one skill that he can’t match.

How else is he going to learn how to play the guitar for the ladies?

Works Cited

Brett, Hana. Personal interview. 6 Oct. 2015.

“FINA Releases 2016 Olympic Qualifying Time Standards.” Swimming World News. Swimming World News, 16 Jan. 2015. Web. 05 Sept. 2015.

Gwo, Albert. Personal interview. 12 Sept. 2015.

Gwo, Albert. Personal interview. 4 Oct. 2015.

Lee, Nikolas. Personal interview. 9 Oct. 2015.

Phelps, Michael, and Brian Cazeneuve. Michael Phelps: Beneath the Surface. Champaign, IL: Sports L.L.C., 2004. Print.

“Swimming - Health Benefits - Better Health Channel.” Better Health Channel. State Government of Victoria, Aug. 2013. Web. 05 Sept. 2015.

“Swimming 101.” Swimming 101. USA Swimming, n.d. Web. 05 Sept. 2015.

Weil, Richard, MEd. “Swimming: Learn the Benefits of This Exercise.” MedicineNet. MedicineNet, n.d. Web. 05 Sept. 2015.

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About the Author

Karna Chelluri is a senior at Los Altos High School. His hobbies are playing guitar and working on his car. He loves hanging out with his friends on weekends and volunteers at the Boy’s and Girl’s Club over summer. He’s excited to go off to college this fall and hopes to major in finance to become an investment banker in the future. No matter where he goes, he and Albert will remain best friends as they have for four years.

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Katie Dil on

An Innovative Mind, A Generous Life A Profile of Josh Makower

written and designed by Katie Dillon

he bell rings for lunch and a stampede of children rushes towards the playground where they will spend the next forty-five minutes swinging on monkey bars and sliding down slides. But little Josh Makower peels off from this stampede and runs to a small private room where he turns on the lights. Exposed in the now-lilluminated room is his professional camera setup with lighting and a tripod.

Josh sits down and hunches over a collection of little clay figures that he had molded the characters in his claymation film. For months, Josh would go into this secluded room and spend the full fortyfive minutes of his lunch inching the characters forward, and taking another shot. Inching them forward, and taking another shot.

Josh’s rampant determination for the things he does never fails to amaze me. He has dabbled in every activity under the sun (he’s probably dabbling right now as I write), but he never seems to be spread too thin. When Josh is making music, his entire self is dedicated to making music:

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he is constantly thinking, but he isn’t thinking about medical devices, or food, or wine (unless he’s writing music about one of those things, that is).

Some people, like his friend and coworker John Chang, wonder how he has time to do everything that he does with such enthusiasm and such drive. I wonder that too.

Josh is like the little engine that could. He thinks he can, he thinks he can, and usually he does. But Josh “does” for a reason: his engine is powered by a desire to help people and reinforced by the tremendous rewards that he gets by seeing that he’s made a difference in other people’s lives. Many of Silicon Valley’s innovators claim to be “making the world a better place”, but most of these claims are insincere.

Unlike o t h e r innovators, Josh’s contribution to the world is clear. Josh’s creations tremendously affect the people who use them. One of his

most widely used inventions is a device called balloon sinuplasty. It’s a device that can be used to treat chronic sinusitis without the bloody, invasive surgery. Josh’s wife Jen says, “My very good friend...suffered from horrible sinus issues and she couldn’t even fly...She ended up having it done and I was just talking to her yesterday about it how her life has completely changed and she doesn’t even have to think about it anymore” (Makower, Jen). I can say, with confidence, that not only Jen’s friend, but also millions of people around the world could come up to Josh and say, “You’ve changed my life”.

Josh works mainly as an entrepreneur and medical device inventor, but he is also passionate about many other things like cooking, wine, photogr aphy, teaching, and making music.

In fact, Josh entered college as a music major. He and his band, Still Trust, had been writing and

performing together for years, and Josh dreamed of eventually becoming a professional musician.

Music was an extremely creative pursuit that was very rewarding for Josh. He loved writing music and “putting a sound into the air that wasn’t there before” (Makower, Josh) because he was creating something that other people could listen to and enjoy. Even though he ended up following a different path, music is still a very integral part of Josh’s life. You can still find Josh, hanging out in his music studio, playing his bass, and cutting tracks. Jen, says that although music is no longer his main focus, it is still a “happy, relaxing place” for Josh.

Josh went from music school to engineering school where he discovered a connection between engineering and the human body. From there, he decided that he wanted to pursue biomedical engineering. For a while, Josh worked for Pfizer, but eventually quit when he realized he wanted to own his ideas.

One important characteristic about Josh is that he gener-

ates ideas without even think- ugly blue cover. He wanted a ing about how feasible they are. plexiglass cover that, with the He holds the belief that with push of a button, would slide over the pool so that during parties, it could double as a dance floor” (Makower, Jen).

Apparently, this was not actually feasible because of corrosion, but Josh had seen someenough effort, everything is thing similar in a James Bond possible. On my quest to un- film—so naturally, it should be derstand Josh’s thought pro- possible for his home! Many of cess, I read a book called The Josh’s ideas don’t fall within the Innovative Mind. It was funny realm of possibility, but Josh how accurate the book was in thinks it’s important to just describing Josh. The author, “throw stuff against the wall...

Gene Landrum, thinks that crazy stuff ” (Makower, Josh). “innovative entrepreneurs tend He thinks that if you don’t limto have their feet firmly plant- it your ideas and you let them ed in outer space” (Landrum flow freely, it’s possible to whitxvii). Josh definitely fits into tle down a formerly unrealisLandrum’s category of “inno- tic idea into something that’s vative entrepreneurs” because achievable. Similarly, Paul Hsu, his ideas are in no way limited senior researcher at Harvard, by the current reality of what’s thinks that “tinkering is a prepossible. When Josh designed cursor to problem solving” and the home that he and his family the only way to really solve a live in today, he had some very problem is though a process of extravagant ideas for its design. trial and error (Hsu) even if the According to Jen, “he wanted preliminary ideas are outlanda pool, but he didn’t want an ish. Josh has a mindset that is

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perfect for an innovator, but he still struggles to overcome obstacles in his field.

At some point in their innovating career, most innovators realize that “when you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you that you’re nuts” (qtd. in Landrum xiv). Josh told me that “one of the most difficult challenges that [he’s] faced as an entrepreneur is how difficult it is for people to accept change” (Makower, Josh). He has had experiences where he’s created a great technology that, for years, is laughed at by physicians. The sad truth for many innovators, and especially for innovators in the medical device industry, is that the world is usually not ready to just embrace change (Abele). I remember when iOS 7 came out on the iPhone. The world seemed to be split into

two groups: pro-iOS 7 and anti-iOS 7. It was such a dramatic change to the look of the iPhone that people took very extreme stances. There were some people I knew who were violently opposed and who would get very argumentative if you’d mention the new operating system. Eventually, almost everyone switched to iOS 7, but it took a while for people to accept that change. Now imagine when there is so much more to lose than the shadows on your app icons. Taking a chance in the medical industry involves risking further injury and in some cases, a person’s life. Even though Josh’s devices are well tested, low risk, cheaper than alternatives, and beneficial to the patients and the doctors, the medical device industry usually grapples with the idea of switching over

“One of the most difficult challenges that I’ve faced as an entrepreneur is how difficult it is for people to accept change.”

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to a new procedure because they are afraid of stepping into the unknown. John thinks that it’s sad “when people tell you [your technology is] better for the patients, better for the doctors, and cheaper, [and] you think you’ve got something” (Chang), but doctors can take years to warm up to the idea of introducing a new technology into their practice.

Josh and John have faced multiple situations where their technologies were not readily accepted, but Josh has been able to look at the situation with optimism, “an essential ingredient to innovation” (Comstock).

John says that even during the hard times, “for Josh it’s about handling the situation. It’s not about feeling bad for ourselves, it’s [about] what can we do?”

(Chang).

Josh is gifted with an innovative mind, but he is subject to the challenges of his industry.

Still, he is somehow able to persevere because of his optimism and his motivation to improve people’s lives.

Eventually, Josh’s quests to improve his industry usually pay off. With time, the doctors do really come around.

Josh explains, “I’ll have dinner with them and they’ll say ‘I like you, Josh, but I’m never going to use this thing’. And we spend the whole dinner talking about why it makes sense and still, adamantly, no no no. And maybe for the next few years they won’t do anything, but then a colleague starts using it.

And the patients that used to be going to him are going over to that other guy and they say well maybe there’s something to it… Suddenly all the papers come and they change their mind, and suddenly they’re on the speaking tour where they’re talking about it at meetings” (Makower, Josh). Josh spends so much time and en-

ergy moulding ideas and convincing physicians to accept them. Sometimes, because of the industry’s inability to accept change, it seems like a lost cause. But it is extremely encouraging to see that when you have a great technology, people’s love for it might start out slow, but then spread like a virus, making its way from physician to physician, and ultimately improving the way that the industry operates.

Josh has already improved more people’s lives than most people do in their whole lifetime. Even so, Josh is not planning to stop helping people any time soon. However, he is going to be directing his efforts to help others in a different way.

Josh is in the process of joining a venture capital firm so that he can play a part in helping other businesses start and succeed.

By joining this firm, Josh is extending his innovative prowess towards other companies that

have the potential to change lives. John Chang believes that “Josh will have a legacy where through the companies that he’s founded and guided, so many people’s lives have been made better” (Chang). A desire to innovate and share his findings with the world will continue to be part of Josh’s legacy as he moves into the world of venture capitalism and he will never lose the passion that he has for helping other people or the excitement that he gets from seeing how his technologies have improved lives. Josh perseveres through his struggles with the medical device industry because he is ultimately rewarded with the ability to change lives. Josh says, “It’s encouraging to see that when you have something that really works and makes a difference, it will eventually get adopted as long as you work and you don’t give up” (Makower).

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Works Cited Abele, John. “Bringing Minds Together.” Harvard Business Review. N.p., 01 July 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.

Chang, John. Personal Interview. 4 September 2015.

Comstock, Beth. “Innovation Is A State of Mind.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 25 Jan. 2012.

Web. 29 Sept. 2015.

Hsu, Paul. “Achieve the ‘Innovation Mindset’ With These 8 Keys.”Entrepreneur. N.p., 08 May 2014. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

Landrum, Gene N. The Innovative Mind: Stop Thinking, Start Being. Garden City, NY: Morgan James Pub., 2008. Print.

Makower, Jen. Personal Interview. 18 September 2015.

Makower, Josh. Personal Interview. 22 August 2015.

Makower, Josh. Personal Interview. 4 October 2015.

Rae-Dupree, Janet. “Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Dec. 2007. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.

Su, Tina. “7 Habits of Highly Innovative People.” Think Simple Now. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.

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K

atie Dillon is a senior at Freestyle Academy and Los Altos High School. She spends her free time rock climbing, swing dancing, writing poetry, and eating delicious food. Katie has two siblings and two cats.

All four of them like to run around the house at lightning speed. Next year, Katie plans to continue to pursue film and design in college.

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Max Weber

Camera’s Best Friend - BY M A X W EBER -

stood firmly A figure at the end of a long

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hall. His blue cape draped down around his side and contrasted the bright red shirt adorned upon him to complete the costume. A classically dark scene stood behind him.

The shady chasm set the tone for this hero’s background. The bright colors of his super suit made him stand out and look powerful as he stood alone.

The scene was intense.

He captured all attention with his incredible presence and vibrant clothing. With his head poised and turned in profile, with his legs posed and cape flailing, the flash went off. Gromit the dog - Underdog - was like a clay statue, allowing his photographer to mold him into a masterpiece.

Diane Costello, professional dog photographer, knows how to model her easily distracted customers like a puppeteer, controlling their every aspect by delicately moving the little invisible strings that dangle above them. At Fog Dog studios, Diane manages

to maintain control and composition as she plays around with her energetic subjects. She’s willing to go to fantastically quirky lengths in order to earn their cooperation.

From squirrel sounds to the best of dog treats, Diane has everything she needs to get the attention of even the least cooperative subjects. Diane Costello’s award-winning works show off the character behind every dog, her amazing technical skill, and her incredible level of creativity.

Diane Costello, putting it simply, loves dogs. Her Boxer, Gromit, can confirm that fact and so can her many regulars who visit Fog Dog Studios for Diane’s incredible ability to capture the essence of and understand each individual dog that walks in through her door. “Each dog is so very different, but there’s always food motivation, ” (Costello). She’s a natural with dogs and a natural with a camera. She knows her way around her studio and to a dog’s heart.

In 2012, Fog Dog

Studios came into existence. Diane realized that this would be the path that she would take with her life when her 14 year old rottweiler passed. She sadly came to the realization that she didn’t have any half-decent photos of her beloved pet. “ ...I realized that I only had a handful of really bad snapshots, I mean, glow in the dark green eyes, just bad snapshots. And I started thinking about it and that’s not acceptableI call myself a photographer” (Costello). She felt that there was no way to properly preserve the memory of the friend that passed. Diane started this business so she could help others. She wanted to create a service to aid people who are currently in the situation that she experienced and don’t have the skill to properly capture the memory of their faithful friends. “ . . . I find more and more people are contacting me when their pet is towards the end of their life, because they didn’t take the time to get these really great pic-

“

Her work is beautiful, it’s very elegant and--it’s just quality, you know? It’s

“

precise. It’s clean. It’s inviting.

- Miriam Weber

tures, ” (Costello).

Diane is an intelligent, strong, lighthearted, and caring woman. Anyone would immediately feel welcomed in her presence. Even at first sight, she looks friendly and inviting.

These traits are present in both her social life and work life. Fog Dog Studios, Diane’s office, is small, cosy, and cluttered, but it feels very homey. And that’s one aspect that genuinely attracts repeat customers to her business. She runs an honest business and offers an environment and service that customers deserve. She works on devel-

oping a relationship between both the customer and the dog, during a job, because the two personalities are often very alike. Diane’s interest in photography sprouted during high school and her passion had a revival during her twenties. Life eventually got in the way of her passion, but it made its way back to Diane in her thirties. Diane has had a diverse background when it comes to occupations but one job in the dog care industry greatly influenced her future choices in life. She abandoned the previous high-tech job,

whose commute she despised, and began working with dogs.

Mrs. Costello is a highly skilled and very competitive photographer.

In March of 2015, Diane earned her CCP (Certified Professional Photographer). Earning one’s CCP is a very difficult and rigorous process. To earn that certification, one must be incredibly skilled with the technical aspects of photography. One would have to master lighting, color, and

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many other visual elements of photography. Diane also entered another competition in 2015 through the PPA (Professional Photographers of America). Diane won a gold medal for the four images she entered into the competition which were judged against over 5,000 other images from various photographers around America. A couple months later, Diane received a letter in the mail.

In mid 2015, Diane earned her Master of Photography Degree through the PPA. This is a major feat

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that took Diane five years to accomplish. One interesting fact, that Diane is extremely proud of, is that her certification, gold medal, and photography degree were all based on her dog photography. Diane is an incredibly talented photographer and her work is technically stunning and strong in every aspect.“I Just love her work. It’s beautiful. She’s a wonderful individual to know. If you have a question about anything, she’s always willing to answer it and share her experiences.

I’ve gone to her to ask her

how she got started in her business and what it took and she was very forthcoming. That’s who she is.

She’s wonderful, I like her a lot” (Weber).

Gromit, Diane’s dog, is surprisingly cooperative in the studio. One’s reaction after spectating upon a photo session would resemble shock due to the way Diane manages to mold the dogs she works with. Diane builds trusting relationships with her customers dogs. Some dogs click instantly and others can take hours to get used

to the environment, but Diane is determined to do her job. She’s incredibly patient and uses positive training techniques to make the dogs want to cooperate with her.

“Positive training allows you to create a partnership with your dog using gentle persuasion based on kindness, respect, and compassion” (Owens). It’s important to build a respectful foundation at the beginning to the relationship to create trust. Once the subject trusts you, it’s much easier to get them to cooperate with you.

Often, the dogs will be overcome by the new environment. One of the most difficult aspects of the studio for the dog to overcome is the studio itself. “I mean a lot of the time, I don’t really know what I’m getting. I try to do a phone interview type situation, I have a questionnaire. I want to know kind of the dynamics of the dog, are they friendly? Are they good with other people? Are they outgoing? Are they shy? Because all those things can tell me how I

need to work with them.

How fast. How slow. And sometimes, it’s a fear factor” (Costello). The different environment, large flashing lights, and a strange new person trying to interact with them terrifies some dogs. Diane understands from experience that it is almost impossible to get the desired results with a subject that’s suffering from fear. The key to a good dog photograph is natural expressions.“ A lot of times, what I’ll do when they first come in with the owner is I’ll chit-chat with the owner, and I’ll pop off the strobes while we’re talking to see how the dog is going to act or react. If there is no reaction whatsoever then we’re good to go. 90% of the time, the dogs are not going to react when the strobes are flashing at them. If the dog does react or jumps, the I continue to see what their reaction is. It’s just kind of desensitizing them to it” (Costello). Diane instantly tries to gauge the kind of dog she’s dealing with and adapts to how she handles

the situation. It’s a whole new experience for the dogs, and Diane lets them know that they shouldn’t be afraid of anything in her studio. Her ability to make the dogs completely comfortable with her is a key aspect to her incredible photography.

Diane Costello enjoys her business and believes that there are endless possibilities for what her studio can evolve into. She loves her work and doesn’t expect to stop any time soon. One of the only things holding her back is the space that she’s lacking in her studio. Fog Dog Studios is a single rectangular room which holds all of her backdrops, props, technology, treats, her office and her set. She has to keep track of so many tools, props, and equipment for every photoshoot within the small but packed area of her business. Her confined circumstances only make her incredible accomplishments even more impressive.

Works Cited Costello, Diane. Personal Interview. 23 September 2015.

---. Personal Interview. 24 September 2015.

---. Personal Interview. 7 October 2015.

“Dogster. ” 10 Tips for Getting Great Photos of Your Dog. Web. 7 Oct. 2015.

Fishman, Shaina. “Dog Photography 101. ” Modern Dog Magazine. Web. 7 Oct. 2015.

Owens, Paul, and Norma Eckroate. The Dog Whisperer: A Compassion ate, Nonviolent Approach to Dog Training. Holbrook, Mass.: Adams Media, 1999. Print.

Weber, Miriam. Personal Interview. 27 September 2015.

Weiss-Roessler, Juliana. “How to Get Your Dog to Listen to You. ” Cesar’s Way. 31 July 2015. Web. 9 Sept. 2015.

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About The Author Max Weber is a senior in high school in the Bay Area of California. He practices graphic and web design at Freestyle Academy, contrasting his interests in mechanical engineering and physics.

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Zipporah Alcaraz

T

WALTER MAYES

hey all entered the theatre waiting for their next task.

People of all ages stood to the side of the stage, ranging from as young as 14 to 65. The directors instructed them to take on the roll of a character of their choosing without the use of any words. They would walk up one by one, and pretend they were at a bus stop, get on the bus, and step off of it. Today was the day in which they were to show off the characters they have chosen to play.

The directors began to call the actors up, and soon they came across a 17 year old girl who had decided to be a pregnant

youth. She walked up to the stage, and began. She started by bending her back over, and caressing her stomach as if there was truly an unborn child there. Suddenly, she was told to stop. One of the directors stood. His presence overpowered the room, he asked the girl who she’s supposed to be, to which she replied “a pregnant teenager.” The tall boisterous man then asked her what it is like to be pregnant.

With no answer, he rapidly explained how a woman feels to be pregnant, what happens to her physically when she’s pregnant, what pregnancy does to

women psychologically, and all while this happened, everyone was completely and utterly silent. Shocked, the people around couldn’t fathom at how well a young man with no children, who rarely hangs out with pregnant women, could even begin to describe the experience of pregnancy. As he finished instructing the young girl, the man who’s name is Walter Mayes, is asked how he possibly knew all of that, to which he replied “I don’t know!

Isn’t that what being pregnant is like?!”

By Zipporah Alcaraz

E

ver since Walter Mayes was a young man he has always been a part of the theatre community. He describes his youthful self as “a showoff. I was boisterous. I was loud. I was desperately seeking attention at all times.” So when he found theatre, it became an appropriate creative outlet for him. During his 5th grade elementary school year, his teacher announced to the class that they were going to be performing the Christmas Carol. That day, they gave all the children scripts and asked them to familiarize themselves with the parts and come in the day of auditions. However, young Walter misinterpreted the instructions he was given. He thought that they were to come into auditions having learned the parts, not become familiar with them. So, Walter came into auditions having memorized the whole part of Scrooge, thinki n g

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that had been the task given.

When the teacher realized that he had already learned the entire part, she said “Okay, so I guess you’re playing Scrooge,” thus starting his whole acting experience. After that initial experience, Walter acted from the time he was 13 to the time he was 30, never stopping until he took a break to raise his son and become a professional storyteller.

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n order to pay off his college tuition, Walter worked at bookstores and eventually he worked his way up into the publishing business. After working many years in the industry, an editor came up to Walter and asked him “would you write a book for us?” At first, being skeptical of his ability to do it, he immediately answered no.

However, Walter states, “my son finally ultimately said ‘oh dad just shut up and do it,’” and that determined his decision to create Walter the Giant Storyteller’s Giant Book of Giant Stories.

Since 1985, Walter has professionally told stories and travelled to book fairs under the persona of Walter the Giant Storyteller.

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s he’s journeyed to school assemblies, local libraries, and book fairs, Walter spread his motto of “Love food, shelter, clothing, books.” He believes that “Story is something that every person uses every day of their life. A person who chooses to have no interaction with the rest of humanity and live in a cave is probably drawing in the sand with a stick or carving on the walls of the cave and telling a story. Story isn’t just words. A dance can be a story. You can build a house out of popsicle sticks and it’s a story.

Everything is story, we have an innate need for narrative and we have a desperate, desperate human need to make sense out of random things”(Mayes). In the book The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human Jonathan Gottschall conveys a similar belief and uses his book to point out why story is essential in human lives. He says, “Story, in other words, continues to fulfill its ancient function of binding society by reinforcing a set of common values and strengthening the ties of common culture. Story enculturates the youth. It defines the people. It tells us what is laudable and what is contemptible.

It subtly and constantly encourages us to be decent instead of decadent. Story is the grease and glue of society: by encouraging

us to behave well, story reduc- expressively in a form or perfores social friction while uniting mance he loves. people around common values. fter asking if playing difStory homogenizes us; it makes ferent characters helps him us one” (Gottschall 1627). understand other people,

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ian of the Girls Middle School in Palo Alto. During his time as Walter the Giant Storyteller, a friend had asked Walter if he could come to the school to get the students excited about

“ E v e r y t h i n g i s s t o r y, w e h a v e a n innate need for narrative and we have a desperate, desperate need to make sense out of r a n d o m t h i n g s .” - W a l t e r M a y e s

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ccording to both Walter and Gottschall, story creates meaning in our lives, and it connects people together by reminding others of their humanity and empathy. Walter is currently directing a production of the play Evita, which is about a group of prisoners locked up for their support of the Perons in Argentina. The new regime does not want to have anything to do with the Perons anymore and wants all forms of them destroyed. However, the people who are locked up are still telling their stories, meaning the prestigious family will never go away in history.

This play beautifully emulates Walter’s core belief of why story is important and it is an opportunity for him to not only convey that message, but to convey

he states, “I’d actually turn that around, for me I can play a lot of different characters because I do empathize with a lot of people. I have a really highly developed sense of empathy...I can just get in there and feel what you’re feeling and it’s not like it’s psychic or anything, I’m in tune with where you are right now. I can read your face, I can read your body language, I can hear it in your voice, so that really helps me be a better actor”(Mayes). Walter’s ability to empathize with others not only helps him within the world of theatre, but it also helps him in his daily occupation.

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utside of his theatrical antics, Walter can be found sitting in his room surrounded by books as the librar-

books and read stories. His friend, who was the librarian at the time, was about to move to the other side of the country and was currently looking for someone to replace her. Thinking Walter would be the perfect fit, she told her boss and Walter became “the visitor who never left”(Mayes).

S

iggi Bengston, a Girls’ Middle School alumni and student advisee of Walter states that if she were to describe Walter in one word, it would be “supportive.” As a young middle school girl, Siggi went through a difficult time identifying herself and her sexuality.

She never had anyone to open up to about it and never trusted anyone when it came to that topic in her life until she met

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Walter. Siggi and Walter both met on the day Siggi shadowed at GMS. Shadow day is when those who are interested in applying to GMS can shadow a current student. During drama class, Siggi was asked to play Walter because she was so similar to him in terms of height.

Shortly after, she was playfully

bettering myself and if I hadn’t known him I really don’t know how that would’ve worked out.” Out of all the people in the world, Walter was the one who impacted Siggi positively towards the “right” direction.

Without him, she would never have learned to be herself. She would never have learned to

older teenagers...”(Mayes). For example, when Walter was 14, an older boy named Bob affected his life greatly. He recalls Bob helping him “man up,” and although it was only the simple act of being selfless, it is one out of many experiences that has sparked Walter’s desire to help others.

“ Yo u l i s t e n , y o u s h u t y o u r m o u t h a n d l i s t e n t o t h e k i d .”

- Walter Mayes thrown into a recycling bin and stop caring about what othrolled around by Walter, thus ers thought of her, because at the end of the day if you’re not ending their first meeting. happy, your life is not going to hen explaining her first be worth much and that advice impression of Walter, from Walter is what will stick she described him as big with Siggi forever. and intimidating, but after gets I spoke with Walter about ting to know him, she found helping his students and achim to be a genuine and cartors become better versions ing person. Siggi recalled going of themselves, he mentioned through a rough patch in the mentorship as playing an im7th grade, and how he helped portant role in finding your best her through it. She was strug- self. He states, “It’s important gling with personal problems, because I remember and value really needing someone to those people in my adolescence talk to and Walter was able to who were there as sort of sign be her support for that morn- posts for me and said, ‘here’s ing. She believes “he handled what you need to know.’ [They] it really well and he was like lowered their hands to me to ‘I didn’t know that you could raise me up to the next step. show emotion!’ He joked with Whether it’s family, or whether me and it just really helped... it it’s teachers or whether it’s famwas a really good way to start ily friends or sometimes it’s just

W

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A

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alter has found that the “ part of the journey of ‘being-of modeling’ [is] that [children] can be their best selves is when they come to you with a revelation or a feeling or uncomfortable emotions [and] you don’t freak out. You just sit there and you listen, shut your mouth and listen to the kid. It’s a good rule for parenting, boy it saved my ass raising a teenager. The Day I learned to shut up was the most amazing thing”(Mayes). Since realizing this, he has helped not only students like Siggi, but others around him with the problems they face. One of Walter’s close friends has recently been struggling with her teenage son.

Walter first met the boy when he was 11 years old, and right away he knew that one day the

“ kid and I are going to be sitting somewhere around about the time he’s 17, on a stoop, arms around each other, and he is gonna unburden a whole bunch of shit to me. It happened last week”(Mayes). When you create a comfortable space for someone to be themselves, it’s easier for them to let go and unleash all the unkept feelings they have. The fact that Walter is able to create strong enough rapport with people that they are able to feel comfortable is a quality that he really adds to the GMS community.

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tion of books in which anyone of all ages can come in and enjoy. He is notorious for recommending books, and no matter who you are he can list several authors and books that you may like. He even recommended me a few for myself.

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ther than creating a fantastic library, Walter offers these young girls a place to be themselves and feel safe. He believes “It’s very important to offer young women at that very impressionable time in their life, the opportunity to fall FLAT on their face, to screw something up, to pick themselves up, to learn from their mistakes, and then do it again better. A kid is going through something in her life that is having an impact on her education. Whether it’s a home thing, or a medical thing,

hroughout Walter’s time at the Girls Middle School, his empathy and care matched with his outgoing playful personality really impacts their community as a whole. Esther Selk, a drama and math teacher and alumnae affairs director at the Girls Middle School, states “he is actively looking for ways to challenge you and challenge the girls intellectually and challenge them morally and ethically.” When you enter his library, you enter a room with a vast amount of high shelves filled with books of varying heights and widths. Some are stacked vertically, some horizontally, yet the aesthetic of the shelves brings a sense of comfort to those who enter. With a variety or a peer thing, and we(GMS) of genres and levels of dif- address it. As a staff, we take it ficulty, Walter has a wide selec- on, and we make it so that every

girl in that school can be the version of herself she is most comfortable with at that time of her life, and it’s okay to be whoever you are.” The time and effort he and everyone at the Girls Middle School put to create a space for all their young girls to learn the importance of being themselves is truly admirable. When Walter interacts with his students, current and former, you can see the adoration in his eyes when they are learning on their own by becoming their true selves and figuring out where they fit into the world. Although Walter has a strong passion for directing and acting within theatre, after asking where he sees himself in the future, he states “I will stay at GMS until I die. It’s the perfect job for me I’ll never go anywhere else,” and I with no doubt believe that to be true.

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WORKS CITED Bengston, Siggi. Personal interview. 18 Sept 2015.

Gottschall, Jonathan. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.

Selk, Esther. Personal Interview. 03 Oct 2015.

Mayes, Walter. Personal interview. 04 Sept 2015.

Mayes, Walter. Personal interview. 03 Oct 2015.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Zipporah Alcaraz is currently a senior at Mountain View High School.

Her current goals in life are to graduate high school, get in to college, and leave home with good memories. In her free time she enjoys watching Netflix, hanging out with friends, and traveling. She is the youngest of five, and goes by several names, Zippy being one of them. In the future she hopes to travel around the world and be happy.

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Connor Leak

Bob Kenyon The Last of His Kind

By Connor Leak

“We were fighting for our existence.”

-Bob Kenyon

n June 26th, 1944, Bob Kenyon and the US 90th Infantry Division, known as the “Tough Ombres,” were on patrol in northern France, rooting out Nazi encampments in an effort to liberate Europe from German occupation. Kenyon and his division had been repelling Nazi forces for al-

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most 3 weeks, and each battle had incurred its own casualties. As the Ombres trudged through the French landscape, they were suddenly shelled by German artillery. While his division came under fire, Kenyon was struck by a white hot piece of artillery shrapnel, traveling at 700 miles per hour. Dazed, but oddly calm, he reviewed his wound, and walked 507 yards back to the aid station. There he was given a shot of morphine, and was shipped to England for treatment on his shoulder. Kenyon finally found comfort in that bed in England, and his long campaign in Europe was finally over.

Kenyon was among the first US

infantrymen to set foot on the European coastline. His time spent in northern France earned him several decorations, including 2 Bronze Stars, a French Legion of Honor, and a Purple Heart for his injury sustained in the invasion. He has experienced some of the most visceral carnage that anyone alive can relate to, and yet he still believed in the American cause.

There have been thousands of debates on the ethics of war, but Bob’s view is much simpler. Despite his first hand experience on the coastline of Normandy, he firmly says “we were fighting for our existence.” Following this sobering statement, Kenyon told the typical tales of German oppression and the evil of Adolf Hitler.

However, Kenyon’s

belief in war ends there. His disdain for violence and war stemmed from his experience, and later wars like the Vietnam and Gulf Wars only fueled his distaste. While WWII was a war of “necessity”, future wars America took part in came at the cost of the lives of servicemen with no real gain. He truly fought for what he believed, but that would still take its toll.

At 18, Kenyon completed his military school in the ROTC program. After that, he was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia to further his training as a US Infantryman. At that point in time (1943), the war had been raging in the Pacific for 2 years, and there were many suspicions that a second front was to be waged in the European mainland. The gravity of the situation hadn’t yet sunk in for Kenyon, though.

Chosen by one of the generals at Fort Benning to play football, Bob and his miscreant gang of fellow athletes gained some notoriety with the officers at the camp for their consistent laziness. But the good times couldn’t last.

As his season concluded, his orders came in. Kenyon was stationed in America for a few more months before he was sent overseas to meet the invasion.

Now in southern England, Kenyon would be forced to wait for 3 months, training, preparing, and praying for the day that was on each of the soldiers’ minds. And

on June 6, 1944, that day would come at last.

“I didn’t even know where Normandy was!” Kenyon told me, and yet there he was, in a metal boat, heading out to fight on its beaches. The assault on the beaches of Normandy racked up some of the heaviest casualties in the invasion. In the The Longest Day, Cornelius Ryan writes, “Some saw ‘bodies stacked like cordwood’ and counted ‘more than 150 dead’”(225) on their respective sectors of the beach.

Kenyon managed to hit the shore, gather his men, and embark on his mission to capture the town of Ste. Mere Eglise.

And they did. Ste. Mere Eglise became the first town retaken during the invasion, and they never forgot the bravery of the men who took it. The French townsfolk could finally return to the home they once knew, but he would end up spending weeks on the French coast, fighting German resistance, liberating French villages, and mourning the loss of fellow American lives.

His campaign ended abruptly after his division’s attack by German artillery. At the hospital, Kenyon had finally returned to a genuine bed, food, and human interaction. He finally found relief in that hospital, and his injury purchased him a one-way ticket back to America and back to the life of a “civie.” “I was never the same after [Normandy].” Kenyon said, after explain-

ing his experience in France, and it was true that he was fundamentally changed. On his return home, he grappled with readjusting to life without a uniform. For months Kenyon continued to wear his military garb, and for years he continued to brandish his scars. His shoulder was healed, but his experience in France made a mark on more than just his body.

Kenyon returned to his civilian life. He got married, had a son, and worked as manager of a food plant in the North Bay. However, he had to cope with years of PTSD from his time in Normandy, and his struggles only worsened after the death of his wife, Ruth, in 2003 as a result of cancer. Dr. Mark Moris, reverend for the Valley Presbyterian Church, remembered that as the time Bob really turned toward the relief of the church group. Dr. Moris remarked that at first, Bob was hesitant to vent his experience in WWII to the other members of the group.

As time progressed, however, Kenyon began to fill a niche in the group, and began to emerge more and more as a leader for the other veterans in the church: “Always when Memorial Day is coming up, or Veterans’ Day is coming up, he’s the one who gets in touch with me to make sure we’re getting that covered” (Moris). The major turning point for Bob, as Dr. Moris described it, was his trip to Aragon High

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School.

Julie Williams, a retired teacher at Aragon High School and a fellow church-goer of Bob’s, invited him and his friend, Bill Hagen, who was a medic during the invasion of Normandy, to her AP US History class.

She had heard Kenyon’s story at the church, but was a little hesitant to bring him because of the rowdiness of her class: “the kids can be, well, a little difficult sometimes”(Williams). Kenyon and Hagen entered the room, with maps, medals, and VFW hats. Every student watched intensely as the two veterans shared their experiences.

Kenyon told his story, the story of him waking up in an English haze, walking into the metal boats, wading in the waist deep seawater trying to reach Europe a few meters away, watching soldier after soldier drown or get shot. His audience couldn’t speak. They were so entranced by his story, absorbing every bit of information that came from him. Hearing the story of the class reminded me of my first time listening to Kenyon’s story. It’s incredible. Julie recalled how he choked up while reciting his experience, and Hagen interjected by saying, “See, boys and girls? People? We’re telling you this, you need to know! You need to know, so you will keep this from ever happening again.”

At the end of his talk, the class of 16-17 year olds couldn’t be-

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lieve the story of the 19 year old soldier fighting for his life on a beach in France. Julie was noticeably shaken by Kenyon’s story. Even today, 20 years later, Julie still believes, “I was deeply honored, but [the story] was hard for me to process because, really the depth of his message reached us so deeply we were quite preoccupied.”

As Dr. Moris described his visit, “...from that point on he was kinda realizing that his story was a value to other people.” Kenyon wasn’t shy about his story anymore. Now, he is more than willing to pass on his experience, and in some way, that has helped Kenyon just as much as it teaches us.

40 years after he landed on the beach in 1944, Bob Kenyon was once again on the Norman shores. Decades ago, he was running onto the beach with a gun in his hand, and now, he was just standing on the beach with his

hands in his pockets. He returned to Normandy under much better terms. The 40th Anniversary of the invasion arrived, and

Kenyon elected to return to his former battleground to get some kind of closure. Bob Kenyon, a man of few words, could only describe his first visit to Normandy as “very emotional.”

On this first return trip to Normandy, Kenyon was accompanied by his wife, Ruth, and initially was a little resistant to return to his old battlefield. However, he was determined to make the pilgrimage back to what he considered sacred ground for the troops who fought there. Even after an emotionally draining trip returning to the French coast, Kenyon continued to return to Normandy to attend as many anniversaries as he could manage. On the 60th Anniversary in 2004, when he was 83 years old, Bob’s service to liberate France was in some way repaid when he was given the French Legion of Honor, France’s highest military award. He described receiving the Legion of Honor as the highlight of his life.

His trips sparked the interest of several newspaper outlets in the Bay Area. As Mark Gomez described in his own profile on Kenyon, “That visit in 1984 sparked a relationship between Kenyon and the people of Periers, a village liberated by his unit, the 90th Infantry Division.” Periers, as Kenyon describes it, is a second home to him. And the people of Periers welcome veterans like him with open arms.

In Alan Sissenwein’s own article

on Kenyon’s trips, he writes, “... life in Periers came to a standstill while the residents catered to veterans, often driving them to areas where they had fought.”

His incredible return to Normandy made Kenyon a local hero in the Palo Alto area, and for one of the first times in his life, his sacrifice was finally acknowledged, both by the country of France and by the people he fought for back home.

Now past his 92nd birthday, Bob Kenyon isn’t very optimistic about any more trips to Normandy. He missed the 70th Anniversary on account of his health, and he isn’t even optimistic he’ll still be kicking by the time the 80th Anniversary arrives. But that realization doesn’t impact his day. He trudges on, going to the Elks Lodge gym every day at 2:00, taking care of his small, energetic Yorkie, Trixie, and watching football every Saturday and Sunday. He consistently continues to avoid the “In Memoriam” page of the 90th Infantry’s yearly newsletter, and has the attitude to continue this trend for years.

He spends a lot of his time in his T.V. room, which is probably the most fascinating room in his house. He sits in his recliner, watching T.V., while he is surrounded by military memorabilia, pictures, medals, books, and plaques. The most significant items, however, are two helmets: the first, a Nazi Stahlhelm, and

the second a US Infantry helmet – Kenyon’s Infantry Helmet.

Surprisingly, many years after the European Campaign, Kenyon had both helmets repainted.

The Stahlhelm looked striking, and even had a logo painted on one of its sides. But the Infantry helmet was far more impressive.

With its base color repainted, Kenyon added the insignia of the 90th Infantry Division and a phrase on the side that read: “D-Day June 6, 1944”. While this helmet has a mint condition appearance, beneath its elegant surface are the dents and scratches from Normandy.

Kenyon’s story, as everyone I’ve met while writing this profile has said, is more than just a story about the terrors and struggles he overcame, it’s a warning. He warns of the perils of war, of what some men are capable of doing, and of what some men have done to protect what they believe in. He honors the soldiers he fought with and against, and disparages the institution of war and violence. As a man of few words, Kenyon summed up his story and its message in two sentences:

“I can’t tell anyone what it was really like; you have to experience it yourself. I just want [people] to know what I went through.”

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Works Cited Beesley, Jim, ed. 96th Anniversary (2013): n. pag. Print.

Gomez, Mark. “France Salutes a Hero of Normandy.”

- San Jose Mercury News. San Jose Mercury News, 7 Aug. 2008. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.

Kenyon, Bob. Personal interview. 6 Sept. 2015.

Kenyon, Bob. Personal interview. 10 Oct. 2015.

Moris, Mark. Personal interview. 27 Sept. 2015.

Ryan, Cornelius. The Longest Day: June 6, 1944. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959. Print.

Sissenwein, Allan. “World War II Vet Bob Kenyon Revisits France World War II Vet Bob Kenyon Revisits France (October 25, 2000).” World War II Vet Bob Kenyon Revisits France (October 25, 2000). Almanac News, n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.

Williams, Julie. “A Thank You to Bob Kenyon.” Letter to Bob Kenyon. 1994. MS. N.p.

Williams, Julie. Personal interview. 4 Oct. 2015.

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Connor Leak was born in Mountain View, California, and has lived in Los Altos for all of his life. He is a Senior at Los Altos High School and Freestyle Academy of Communication Arts and Techonology, an alternative High School Program specializing in Film, Web Development, and Graphic Design. Next year Connor hopes to be accepted into one of his top -choice film schools where he wants to pursue filmmaking further as a career.

Julianne Wilson

It Started with a Minature Horse

icki watched

on as the little girl played by herself in the dirt with her stuffed animals.

The nonverbal child had been coming to their house with her mother and sister for a while now, and had never showed interest in the animals that were there

for her enjoyment. Calling the little girl’s mother over, she handed her a rabbit and asked her to go sit with her younger daughter to see if she would become interested.

Vicki watched as the little girl looked up at her mother holding the rabbit. When she sat down, the child turned her head away, but gradually became more and more interested in the animal her

A Profile on Vicki Amon-Higa

by Julianne Wilson

mother was holding. Finally, she reached out to pet the rabbit and smiled. Suddenly, an immense joy flooded Vicki as she watched the little girl grinning while petting the rabbit. This is what Vicki wanted to do.

During the normal work week, you can find Vicki AmonHiga working at her fast-paced, high-tech job at Cisco. However, during the weekends, she is fully dedicated to running and

facilitating Animal Assisted Happiness (AAH).

When she isn’t overseeing the construction of its new location at the Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale, Vicki, a few volunteers, and the animals of AAH drive to different locations around the Silicon Valley, working with children with moderate to severe special needs. Through the efforts of Vicki and her husband, what started out as a small, personal endeavor in t h e i r backyard h a s turned into a well-

known, well-respected organization in the community.

C u r r e n t l y, the smile counter on their website stands at 20,096, and that number only continues to grow. By bringing the joy of new and unusual animals to those with disabilities such as autism, Vicki is providing an essential service to those in need.

Animal Assisted Happiness started out as an idea between Vicki and Peter in 2009 after they realized what joy their pet goats, chickens, rabbits, and guinea pigs brought children. Lollipop, Vicki’s miniature horse, was the original inspiration to start AAH. “...the big inspiration was Lollipop,” Vicki says: “We didn’t know that Lollipop would go into somebody’s house on a tarp, but she did. She just walked in the front door and went up to the little girl that was in a wheelchair and stayed there with her for about an hour and a half” (Amon-Higa).

As word of Vicki’s work spread, more and more families started showing up at her house, hoping to have their children spend time with her animals. Unfortunately, this popularity created some

problems with the neighbors: “They were okay with us having the animals here until we started to share them, and then the neighbors all decided that maybe we weren’t in compliance with the city of Los Altos Hill ordinance, which we weren’t, and we readily acknowledged that” (AmonHiga). Vicki, not ready to give up what she had created, rented a house for six months in Gilroy in order to keep Animal Assisted Happiness going and to continue to bring happiness to those in need. With most of their clients in the Los Altos area, this transition was tough on everyone. There was “the hardship of driving to Gilroy every weekend when we were already working full time outside the home…” (AmonHiga) as well as financial hardship that the family faced.

Even so, she persevered and found a permanent location in Gilroy to keep the animals.

“We want to encourage youth typical or special needs to learn to give back early and often and embrace diversity and the animals are the draw to get youth involved,” Vicki states about the importance of having different people involved in AAH. Currently, the farm is moving to Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale “[to] be closer to the kids we serve” (AmonHiga). It’s clear that while it

may be stressful or hard on her and her family at times, the benefits far outweigh the costs when it comes to helping bring joy to those in need. Quoting her mother, Maya Higa states, “‘You have to find your pony in the pile of shit.’ That’s my mom’s thing, and she does that, really, really well. I know it sounds ridiculous, but she’s... really positive.”

For a while, Animal Assisted Happiness was confined to Vicki’s backyard.

What really inspired her to start taking animals out was her miniature horse, Lollipop.

It was unclear whether or not Lollipop would enter a house to visit with a sick child, but she surprised everyone. “...

[Lollipop] went to see a little girl that was sick and we didn’t know that Lollipop would go into somebody’s house on a tarp, but she did,” Vicki recalled. The little horse didn’t stop there, however, staying with the girl for another hour and a half before it was time to leave. “So that was, really, our huge inspiration… realizing that Lollipop could do more than just stand around in our backyard” (Amon-Higa).

Many people come and go through AAH, but some stick around for the long run.

“Jon started coming here when he was 9 with his family and I don’t think his family ever

knew anything about goats and by starting to be here, he met goats, he decided he liked goats. He got involved in 4-H, now he is a teen leader for 4-H for therapy animals…”

(Amon-Higa). Nine-year-old Jon Coleman, diagnosed with high-functioning autism, first visited AAH at age nine with his mother. Jon was not in a good place, unable to communicate his ideas and feelings, and struggling with anger and frustration. Despite having never really been around farm animals before in his life, he was immediately drawn to the

goats – specifically, Vicki’s goat, Fro-yo. When I asked what his first memory with AAH was he quickly responded, “Seeing the animals at AAH, particularly the goats, they were my favorite; especially FroYo, which led me to make a lot of decisions with goats later” (Coleman). Now, at age 16, Jon is no longer a client of AAH, but a volunteer and a paid worker for Vicki, feeding and tending the goats on the weekend. When asked whether or not he believed that Vicki was accomplishing the main goal of AAH, he rapidly responded with a resounding

“‘You have to find your pony in the pile of shit.’

That’s my mom’s thing...”

-Maya Higa

“yes!”

It’s not always a one sided relationship between the animals and the people. More often than not, it is a symbiotic relationship, as such the case for Bear the Chow Chow and his young friend. Bear was rescued after being abused by his owner, and while it may h av e taken

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him a while to warm up to people, he eventually became so friendly his owners decided to train him as a therapy dog.

In his first session, he sat down with a little boy who didn’t like to talk or interact, but who soon became very interested in Bear. Eventually it became clear that, “Not only was Bear helping to heal the boy, the boy was helping to heal Bear” (Therapy Pets). The same goes for the animals at AAH. Not only did goats such as Froyo help Jon become more comfortable, he is now giving back, and helping the goats live long and happy lives.

As progress continues to be made on

the AAH farm in Sunnyvale, Vicki is continuing to look into the future. “[Full Circle Farm is] a third [of an] acre, the animals are all there, they’re in good housing, but it’s not a sanctuary destination point.

Animal Assisted Happiness at Baylands Park will be a sanctuary. That will be a place people will love to go and interact with the animals” (Amon-Higa). Vicki is constantly evolving Animal Assisted Happiness to be a place for those with special needs to feel safe, welcome, and most importantly, happy.

If there was anything that Vicki would like the general public to know about AAH is that, “...we’re not a petting

zoo, and we don’t do birthday parties” (Amon-Higa).

Connections are made everywhere for Vicki. Whether at her daily job at Cisco, or watching the connections being created between her clients and her animals, she finds great joy in it. Does she believe what she is doing is noble? “I don’t know if noble, but it feels right, and everyone could do more and find a way to give back…

I have learned and so has Peter, a ton by being involved with Animal Assisted Happiness, things that I never knew. I have been blessed with meeting kids like Jon, that I want to help for the rest of his life… This is a very stressful Valley, so we can all learn things from the animals, whether you have

“I don’t know if noble, but it feels right, and everyone could do more and find a way to give back.”

-Vicki Amon-Higa special needs or not. What I love about the third part of our mission is to teach youth to give back early and to help you understand that although we’re all different, we’re all also the same and the animal is kind of the bond in between all of that” (Amon-Higa).

Scan code to visit the Animal Assisted Happiness website

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Works Cited: Amon-Higa, Vicki. Personal Interview. 15 September 2015.

Amon-Higa, Vicki. Personal Interview. 11 October 2015.

Coleman, Jon. Personal Interview. 17 September 2015.

Crawford, Jacqueline J., and Karen A. Pomerinke. Therapy Pets: The Animal-human Healing Partnership. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2003. Print.

Higa, Maya. Personal Interview. 8 October 2015.

“Service Animals.” Animal Rights. Kim Masters Evans. 2009 ed. Detroit: Gale, 2010.

Information Plus Reference Series. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 8 Sept. 2015.

Hayhurst, Chris. “Animal influence: from trained therapy dogs to common house pets, animals can help us in many ways.” Current Health Teens, a Weekly Reader publication Mar. 2012: 16+.Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 2 Sept. 2015.

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J

ulianne Wilson is a senior at Mountain View High School, where she is an active member in the Madrigal choir, color guard, and winter guard. Outside of school she is part of the local 4-H club of which she has been a member of for six years. In her free

time she enjoys playing guitar and volunteering with Animal Assisted Happiness along with her two goats. After completing high school, she hopes to attend the University of Oregon, where she plans to major in music production, digital arts, or creative writing.

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Wil Thabit

The Artist

by Will Thabit A blank can- visionary community advovas lies before cate. him: empty and colorless, with infinite potential.

An artistic hand sweeps across the canvas, and with it beautiful strokes of color follow close behind. The room is filled with energy and imagination. I have entered the world of Noel Perry, artist, conservationist, and

erry is best known as a philanthropic leader who envisions and implements innovative approaches to community and environmental challenges in California. The people who work with and for him emphasize his ability to “look ahead,” in ways that others can’t, and come up with unusual and creative solutions to complicated problems.

For over 25 years, Perry has dedicated himself to a wide range of projects that are unified by the common theme of education and community building. From his role as trustee for the Nueva School and the California College of the Arts, to his creation of the environmental education group Next10 and “100 Families Oakland,” Perry has worked tirelessly to bring to life his unique educational ideas. As I watch him at work in his studio, I am reminded that each of his philanthropic community projects, like his artwork, began as a blank canvas, on which Perry was able to envision shapes, colors and textures. Perry has a uniquely creative way of looking at a situation, seeing its many possibilities and designing a unique solution.

Perry’s commitment to community service began ear-

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ly in his life. In the small Rhode Island town where he grew up, his mother was a teacher and his father the President of the local Rotary Club. “My father was a community leader all of his life,” Perry recalls, and he emphasized service to others.

Perry’s interest in environmental issues began after college,

when he worked for the Peace Corps, helping to build water projects in villages in North Yemen. When he returned to the U.S., he joined the board of Conservation International, a leading global nonprofit dedicated to preserving world biodiversity. After earning an MBA from George Washington University, he founded a venture capital firm, Baccharis Capital, Inc., in 1991, investing in socially responsible commercial ventures that included Earth’s Best Organic Baby Food and educational product company Leap Frog Toys. Describing his vision for the firm, he demonstrates this commitment to social responsibility: “Make

money by investing in people, products and services that could make the world a better place.” (N. Perry).

In 2005, Perry founded the nonpartisan nonprofit think tank Next10 which commissions experts to research the relationship between the state’s environment and economy, and global climate change. Perry explains, “California has been a leader in climate change research, and Next10 plays a role in trying to understand climate change issues and how they relate to policy and to our economy.”

The organization then develops creative programs and tools to break issues down in a way that is easy to understand.

These include contests, interactive games and challenges that can be used in school and community settings. “Noel’s general creativity drives Next10,” says Sara Henry, Project Manager for Next10. As Henry explains, “We like to use innovative ways to engage people,” and Next10’s California Budget Challenge, for example, is an online exercise that enables residents to learn about the state’s revenues and costs, and practice balancing its budget.

Next10’s California Budget Challenge requires people to examine their personal values, and Next10 respects that

everyone will have their own set of values. “We are not trying to move any agenda forward,” Henry emphasizes. “We don’t care what you believe or what you don’t believe,” she exclaims, “we just want you to have information so that you can make a decision on your own.” Next10 is a politically neutral “think tank,” and it contracts with nonpartisan economic and environmental science experts to create unbiased and up- to- date reports about critical issues. According to authors Charles Saylan and Daniel Blumstein, this type of nonpartisan approach is unusual, and in their book The Failure of Environmental Education, they claim, “Our political institutions have succumbed to the influence of lobbyists and businesses” (174). They conclude that the public is continually presented with information that is biased, which is another example of the problems with the current model of curriculum.

Unbiased information on climate change is one of the most important pieces of information that Perry wants to share

w i t h Californ i an s a n d peopl e around t h e world.

“I think c l i m a te c h an g e is the biggest issue of the day,” he exclaims, “and I think California is an absolute leader and model for how a state can deal with the problem.” He is extremely excited about the potential for new technologies, such as wind and solar power, to provide alternative energy sources for the millions of Californians in our state. Perry’s enthusiasm is based in reality; according to ScienceDaily.com, “New work finds that the amount of energy that could be generated from solar equipment constructed on and around existing infrastructure in California would exceed the state’s demand by up to five times” (“Solar Could Meet California Energy Demand”).

He is dedicated to bringing the exciting news to Californians and the world that the state h a s

made huge advances in decreasing greenhouse gasses and funding and implementing green technologies, all without negatively affecting the California economy.

Many people are unaware of this positive progress in California, or of many of the other important issues associated with the intersection of the environment and the California economy. Environmental education usually only takes place in high school classrooms and colleges, and many experts criticize this and warn of the failure of the current environmental education movement.

The Failure of Environmental Education emphasizes that innovative techniques need to be created and used to make people aware of and engaged in environmental issues and they need to be disseminated on a “broad public scale” (Saylan and Blumstein 174).

Perry thought ‘outside the box’ and addressed this gap in environmental education with the creation of Next10. Perry’s team observes on a daily basis his ability to look at a problem or issue and envision a solution: “He will just throw something out as we are sitting around the conference table,” says Marcia Perry, Next10’s Chief Financial Officer and Perry’s sister. “All of a sudden he has us thinking about all the possibilities,” Marcia marvels. “It’s just so much fun to come to work because there’s so much creativity” (M. Perry). In

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Money Well Spent: A Strategic Plan for Smart Philanthropy, Paul Brest and Hal Harvey emphasize the importance of this type of creativity for effective philanthropic community engagement. They describe creativity as “‘effective surprise’— a process where existing knowledge is converted into something that had not been anticipated” (168) .

“Prescient” is the word Nueva S c h o o l Principal Diane Rosenberg uses to describe Perry during his time as board chair at the school, when he oversaw its campus expansion. As she recalls, “Noel had a vision of children playing on a hill,” and led the Nueva board in raising the funds to significantly enlarge the school. Rosenberg says Perry was able to inspire the

board “to envision his vision.

To transform the school and middle school population in very specific ways.” These included making sure that new construction was environmentally responsible, she notes.

“He was involved in environmental education before most other educators were recognizing its impact and importance,” Rosenberg explains.

“These buildings are LEED gold

Families Oakland.” One day, he recalls, “I went into the Oakland Museum of California. I ran in there and only had a few minutes and the museum was having a Day of the Dead show.

I looked at the wall, and there was an exhibition with a map of Oakland. It showed where 114 homicides had already occurred that year, and they had pictures of all of the victims — very small mug shot pictures — and the map showed w h e r e t h e s e peopl e had been kill ed.”

Perry says “the image of that map and the idea that standard. Noel believes that all these people had died was we need to safeguard the envi- very powerful to me,” he reronment” (D. Rosenberg). members. At that time, OakIn 2003, Perry’s ability to envi- land was well known as one of sion possibilities inspired him the ‘murder capitals’ of Amerto create a program that re- ica. Between 2002 and 2004, mains very special to him: “100 the murder rate in Oakland was

I know that he has been passionate about art for most of his life both as a painter and someone who believes in the power of art to transform lives -Diane Rosenburg

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25.6 per 100, 000 people—four times higher than the state and national rates (“Violence in Oakland”). Perry explains that this tribute to murder victims inspired him to create a program that could bring together Oaklanders from different sections of the city. He says, “I wanted to bring them together to do intergenerational art and have an exhibition at the end of the project,” and from this vision “100 Families Oakland” was born (N. Perry).

Mr. Perry launched “100 Families Oakland” in 2004. Collaborating with Cherie Newell, the director of professional services at the Oakland Museum, and Sonia B a s Sheva Manjon, Ph.D., then dire c tor of the C e n ter for Art and P u b lic Life at the California College of the Arts, this program brought families together from four different neighborhoods of Oakland, East Oakland, Chinatown, Fruitvale and West Oakland, to participate weekly in art projects.

The leadership team struggled with the issue of how to bring these diverse neighborhoods together. However, despite the hurdles involved, Perry remained dedicated to his vision.

Dr. Manjon remembers Perry’s “visionary spirit” and his “willingness to be fully engaged and to listen and learn.” Eventually they created a weekly

workshop program, taught by professional artists. Families could choose projects from a wide variety of mediums, including clay, watercolor, plaster of Paris, and print making.

The goal of the project was to bring families together to create a sense of family cohesion as well as to bring neighborhoods together. Of the 500 people who eventually participated in “100 Families Oakland,” many had been affected by the violence in Oakland.

Perry envisioned the art projects as a means of healing this trauma.

His vision was once again “prescient”

that frequently occurs.

Art and education and community service: all three passions have been constantly alive and in motion in Mr. Perry’s life, as well. Throughout the years, he has participated in many art forms, including sculpting, portraiture, landscape and abstract painting. “I am amazed at what Perry can do with his art, “ exclaims his sister Marcia Perry. “I can just about do stick people, so for me it is amazing to watch him with these creative processes” (M. Perry). Perry, with his unique skillset of open mindedness, remarkable creativity and admirable leadership, is able to uniquely tackle these social issues.

Perry successfull y uses art to simplify the educational process and in doing so makes the information more accessible and interesting to his audience. He is a master of using the transformative power of art to educate and improve society. He believes that through art and education, individuals, families, and communities can come together, collaborate and make the world a better place. The artist in Perry visualizes a community as an unfinished canvas, full of potential, and as I stand in his studio, I am left wondering what will be his next great piece of work.

Noel is committed not just to this generation, but to future generations, and to leaving the state as a whole in a better place than when he got here.

-Sarah Henry since there has been a recent wave of interest among mental health professionals in the use of art activities for the treatment of trauma victims. Karin Schouton and her coauthors found, in their review of these research studies, that “there is some evidence that shows that art therapy interventions are effective in reducing trauma symptom severity and anxiety in traumatized adults.” Art therapy has been found to be helpful for not only decreasing symptoms of trauma, such as flashbacks and anxiety, but also for helping the depression

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Works Cited Brest, Paul, and Hal Harvey. Money Well Spent. N.p.: Bloomberg, 2008. Print.

Cherie Newell. Personal Interview. October 15 2015.

Cherie Newell- Personal Interview- October 15 2015.

Clinton, Bill. Giving. New York: Knopf, Borzoi, 2007. Print.

Diane Rosenburg- Personal Interview- September 30 2015 Mañjon, Sonia BasSheva, PhD. 100 Families Oakland. N.p.: n.p., n.d.

Print.

Sonia Manjon- Personal Interview- September 15 2015 Marcia Perry- Personal Interview- September 23 2015 Noel Perry- Personal Interview- September 2 2015 Sarah Henry- Personal Interview- September 23 2015 Saylan, Charles, and Daniel T. Blumstein. The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It). Los Angeles: U of California, 2011. Print.

“Solar Could Meet California Energy Demand Three to Five times over.”

Sciencedaily.com. Web. “Violence in Oakland.” Dec. 2006. Web.

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Will Thabit is a Senior at Los Altos High School and Freestyle Academy. He loves all kinds of sports such as football and basketball.

Will lives at home with his mom, dad and two dogs. He plans to attend a college next year to study communications.

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Isabel Owen

Happiness

“You know, I am excited about life, even when it’s falling down. And trust me, if I look the other way it’s falling all over the place. But you know what? I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow and as long as I stay connected to right now, I am happy. ” -Leah Putnam

By Isabel Owen

t is 4:30 in the morning, dark and dusky out. The Putnam’s house is just starting to wake up, as the spacious kitchen slowly lightens with the rising sun. The sound of wind chimes resonate peacefully through the garden and the house. Leah awakes to this gentle sound, fully rested with a clear and fresh mind. She quietly hums as she walks downstairs, letting her mind wake up to today’s possibilities. It is cold and brisk, but serene. There is something comforting about early mornings, Leah’s mornings – being up before life begins for the rest of the world.

She begins to slice open fresh lemons from her own gar-

den outside her kitchen step, as she starts to make herself a fresh cup of lemon water, a morning ritual that happens everyday in this home.

The tart smell of citrus fills the comfortable and cool air, as the sun begins to peek through the window creating soft speckles of light. The gentle sound of water trickling mixes with the softness of the wind chimes as Leah waters the sprouts and wheatgrass growing on a shelf in her kitchen. These fresh, raw, and homegrown ingredients will blend together to become the green juice Leah makes every morning, full of vitamins, en-

zymes, and minerals energizing her body for the day ahead.

Leah Putnam has been a healthy eater all of her life, growing up as a vegetarian and then slowly drifting into the raw food and vegan lifestyles. From a young age she was parented by individuals who were passionate about cooking and nurturing one’s body through eating and exercise. She developed a strong passion for health and athletics – specifically raw food and gyrotonic pilates, a unique sys-

“When I eat cleaner, I am more conscious. I am more alive, my energy is soaring.” -Leah Putnam tem of exercises using apparati designed to increase stability through movement. Leah has become an expert and an educator in these fields throughout her life experiences, becoming a raw food chef and a personal pilates trainer.

Leah lives in a beautiful home that radiates happiness and simplicity, tucked in on a normal suburban street in Mountain View. This happiness comes from somewhere.

Starting with the freshly pressed green juice every morning, Leah fills herself and her life with clean energy, ranging from the vitamins and enzymes in her raw food diet to her simple stressless state of mind, to her stability and strength. She is a raw food eater, a pilates trainer, a yoga practicer, a meditator, a free soul, and a cancer survivor.

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Leah has always held a different perspective about health.

Perhaps she has been too extreme in some eyes, but “more conscious than the regular individual” would be the more correct description. Leah explains, “I have always been interested in working out and athletics, and it just kind of became a natural progression...I think it’s something I’ve always done.

I’ve always been a little off the grid, out of the box with food, thinking a little different. I became vegetarian at a very young age, and raised my children that way” (L. Putnam). Growing up around health enthusiasts and the restaurant business, food and its strong connection to the mental and physical health of our bodies was ingrained into her consciousness.

Born in Chicago, Leah

attended Colorado Mountain College with the intention of becoming an accountant, and moved to the Bay Area in 1984.

However, her plan to become an account wasn’t engaging her and she changed course when her father started a new restaurant, Lally Wally’s Turtle, and asked for her help. From here, Leah’s life revolved around raw food and pilates. Very knowledgeable in both of these fields, she officially became a raw food chef in 2003, teaching classes and spreading the word about eating raw.

Why raw and what is raw food? Anything that is not cooked or heated over 118 degrees. The simple principle of thought behind it is being that it is cleaner for the body and contains rich minerals and vitamins. “Cooking food may dimin-

ish its nutritional value… Certain vitamins, such as vitamin C and folate, are destroyed by heat” (Wong). Leah’s lifestyle is very in touch with these ideas.

“The theory is you are holding on to all the nutrients available, all the enzymes that are the spark of life that help digest the food, which will help you bring in more energy from the sun. Bring in the highest quality energy you can bring into your bodies” (L. Putnam).

Leah’s profession blossomed from the path of an accountant to a pilates gyrotonic trainer. She personally trains clients one on one through a unique gyrotonic method of pilates. “Major muscle groups are worked in an integrated manner using fluid, circular movements.

Specially designed exercise equipment provides free range of movement and enhances coordination, strength and flexibility… The motion patterns are natural, with no interruption, creating a bridge between contraction and extension through the rotating movement of the joints” (East Bank Club). Leah’s work is unique as she trains her clients at home in a beautiful studio built with the help of her husband Daryl where their ga-

rage used to stand. Her love and knowledge of this form of pilates radiates. Leah expresses, “As soon as I started working in the pilates method I knew I was just in love with it. It was giving me all the tools I needed to make a change in people’s alignment and posture and their movement, so it was really just a great gateway for me into my passion. My passion is really about teaching people how to really embrace their health and their wellness, and finding the tools to best fit them not only in what they eat also how they move and feel in their bodies, even how they think, their outlook on life” (L. Putnam).

Andrew Gaddis, a client that has been with Leah for three years, talks about how specifically training in this studio with Leah has helped him grow as an athlete. “I was twisting my ankles left and right…

When I came here and I started learning about how I can shift how I’m standing when I’m running, how relaxed am I, how my foot hits the ground; that

was the biggest thing for me. Understanding these small movements to become a more efficient athlete.

That really inspired me... all these things helped me so much and that’s why I’ve become a successful track runner” (Gaddis).

In 2011, Leah was given a diagnosis of breast cancer. A shock for Leah, who already appeared to be living a healthy lifestyle.

“I was mad - should I say that? I was mad about the diagnosis. I didn’t have time for it, I didn’t find it fair. You know, you’re numb... when someone gives you a diagnosis like that… it’s a shock. And you just kinda go no no no, they’re telling you it’s positive, it’s positive - you have a positive test but positive wasn’t actually positive, positive was really negative” (L. Putnam). It was as if this news had come out of nowhere, hitting Leah’s life like a storm. The connection between Leah’s healthy lifestyle and her diagnosis did not go hand and hand at first glance.

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Raw food? Pilates?

There is a connection between our mental health (including our stress levels, our doubts, and troubled thoughts) and the physical health of our bodies. This is a belief that Leah had been exposed to throughout her entire life thus far, a simple truth she holds close to her heart. She recalls, “I was living a really stressful life. I was dealing with a property situation.

My mother had died two years prior and I was dealing with her estate which had turned into a very stressful kind of a contentious issue with my brother… there was stress in that…. I was dealing a lot with it by drinking wine, I was using wine as kind of my dimmer switch to take the edge off the stress. And really wine is sugar and sugar feeds cancer” (L. Putnam). Cancer and stress go hand in hand, and what kills cancer patients is not the cancer itself but what triggered its existence in the first place. Leah’s views could be clas-

elsewhere. The Canadian Mental Health Association writes, “The research linking mental illness and cancer has yielded mixed results. Recent research has found significantly higher rates of cancer among people with schizophrenia than expected. People with schizophrenia have been found in some studies to have approximately twice the risk of developing gallbladder and bowel cancers” (Canadian Mental Health Association).

sified as subjective, and may not Andreas Moritz, author be relevant in every cancer di- of Cancer is NOT a Disease” agnosis. However, her thoughts draws a connection between on the link between mental and the mind and cancer. “Cancer is physical have been expressed

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merely an indication that something is missing in our body and in our life. Cancer shows that our physical, mental and spiritual life as a whole stands on shaky ground and is quite fragile, to say the least” (Moritz 9). Rather than cancer being hereditary or due to bad luck, it is a sign that there is something off or out of line within ourselves or in our environment. Scientifically thinking, the body develops a disease in reaction to external and internal stresses. “Genes do not cause disease, but are, in fact, influenced and altered by changes in the environment, from the very first moments in the mother’s womb to the last moments in a person’s adult life. Cellular biologists now recognize that the conditions and occurrences in the external surrounds and internal physiology,

and more importantly, our perception of the environment, directly control the activity of our genes” (Moritz 50). Genes react to one’s surrounding habitat, supporting Leah’s experience that cancer is developed in the body due to factors of change or high levels of emotion.

Treating the cancer or the cause of her cancer became the next decision. The traditional therapies that cancer removal called for were aggressive and particularly unnatural. Daryl, Leah’s husband, shares this experience: “Then we started looking for doctors, we found a few that were cutting edge but all were traditional in their approach. They all wanted to remove it first, you know burn it, and then radiate it, and use lots of chemotherapy drugs” (D. Putnam). However, the typical methods seemed to be the opposite of what Leah’s body needed during this time. Moritz writes about this idea: “Just imagine the holes chemotherapy creates inside your blood vessels, lymphatic ducts, and organ tissues when you undergo infusion after infusion! I have looked at the irises of patients (using iridology) who have gone through chemotherapy, and I saw the considerable erosion and damage of tissues throughout the body” (Moritz 67).

“I had known for many years, being in the kind of community that I was in, that food as well as stress had a lot to do with what was going on in my body, why cancer was actually showing up in my body” (L. Putnam). It became clear that raw food and lifestyle change through diet was “her truth”, as she describes. Leah flew out to

Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach Florida for three weeks, learning how to strictly adjust her body to eating completely raw, eliminating all forms of sugars, even tomatoes, and destressing all negative emotions. She describes the effects of this diet change.

“When you clean up your diet, and you eat more plants you are closer to nature. Stress has a way of not being there, there isn’t this kind of tension that is happening, that comes from heaviness in food. Food I think has energy, and it’s very clean energy that you are feeding your body, so you start to do all these great things for your body that in itself relieves stress” (L. Putnam).

A year and a half later, after following her raw food diet, Leah was cancer free. “ It was miraculous what took place after that. Her cancer was monitored by a Stanford oncologist.

They just watched the tumor shrink away - they called her their miracle child… they didn’t know what to make of it, it had to be there because they didn’t cut it out. But it was gone” (D. Putnam).

Leah’s knowledge has spread l i k e light, teachi n g a n d uplifti n g othe r s .

H e r clients have been affected by her lifestyle . “It was

cool because I came here and I only knew about pilates and I didn’t know about the other side and Leah’s story, how she battled cancer. And that was cool to see what she went through and the cleanse was a snapshot of that, her lifestyle…

How you treat your body physically and mentally, it’s all intertwined. ” (Gaddis).

Leah’s energy is infectious. She continues living cleanly, training individuals through gyrotonic pilates in her own home, cooking raw, enlightening others, and practicing yoga and meditation. “My future is now, it’s the present.

So I am always a spiritual seeker. I meditate everyday and it’s a big part of my life and my inner work… it’s a big part of me … The other is sharing the gift I got from cancer. Being able to express why I eat what I eat and do what I do and it’s become this gift that has opened up for me.

Was it life or death, who knows, but it became something that I couldn’t do half way. I had to be really serious and it required a certain discipline which has opened up so many doors for me. So that is my future, I am a seeker and a teacher”

(L. Putnam).

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Works Cited

East Bank Club. Fitness & Sports / Pilates and Gyrotonic.

Web. 10 November 2015.

Gaddis, Andrew. Personal interview. September 2015.

Moritz, Andreas. Cancer is NOT a Disease. Ener-Chi Wellness Press, 2009. Print.

Putnam, Leah. Personal interview. September 2015.

Putnam, Daryl. Personal interview. September 2015.

The Relationship between Mental Health, Mental Illness and Chronic Physical Conditions - Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario Division. Canadian Mental Health Association Ontario Division. 16 Dec. 2008. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.

Wong, Kathy. About Health. The Raw Food Diet, 7 Jan. 2015. Web. 10 November 2015.

Isabel is an art loving, music loving, animal loving, and coffee loving individual. She loves going to concerts with friends and makes many cups of coffee a week as she is a barsita at Philz Coffee. She hates small talk, appreciates real friendships and connections.

Isabel also loves Freestyle from the community to the style of learning, and is happy to be a part of such a unique community.

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Rayna Mahnken

Kevin Heiken

If adventure had a name, it would be...

By Rayna Mahnken

ou’re walking in the woods. You’re not alone: you’re hiking with the Heikens, two brothers who have decided to take a stroll behind the fence of their backyard. Their names are Kevin and Korey. You know them because they’re always doing stuff like this. You’ve heard the stories of Kevin’s shark taco tradition, the Star Wars class he teaches at UC Berkeley, the fishing and kayaking trips, the pet Crocodile his uncle brought over from Mexico (albeit illegally), and the scorpion breeding side job. You can’t say as much about his brother, although you know he wrangles rattlesnakes for a living. These young men are like myths, Indiana Jones in the flesh. (You heard that Kevin actually tried to become an archaeologist once, because becoming a real-life Indiana Jones was a dream of his. As you recall, it didn’t work out.)

You’re following them about 30 feet back, enjoying the faint rustling of green leaves and smell of damp soil as you hike the forest path. Af-

ter a little while, you get the feeling something is wrong.

The birds have stopped singing in the trees, which is a sure sign of oncoming trouble. Sure enough, even as you begin to call a warning to the two brothers, men decked out in military armor and wielding AK-47’s burst out of the undergrowth. They’re screaming, “GET DOWN!! On the ground, NOW!” You run, adrenaline flashing through your blood.

As you glance back, your heart in your throat, you see the Heikens are being thrown into the back of a sleek black hummer that had not been there before. You feel your stomach freeze over. Is this the end of Kevin Heiken, explorer, adventurer, and teacher?

As it happens, no! It’s just another of his many, many stories that he shares with anyone willing to listen. Kevin, after all, is a history teacher at Mountain View High School in California. Stories are his specialty: stories of the past, stories about him, current stories going on today. He is

an adventurer, a friend, and by far one of the most beloved teachers on campus.

In the government abduction tale, you were not, in fact, there. Kevin and his brother were, however, and were interrogated for hours before being released due to a misunderstanding. Kevin wasn’t there to infiltrate the government- he was just out for a pleasant afternoon stroll.

This story is one of many that Kevin shares in his classes daily. They’re a personal addition to his curriculum, one of the many reasons students hold him close to their hearts.

Throughout the year you really feel like you can get to know who this Kevin guy is, as opposed to the dry, typical teachers whom you don’t know anything about. In fact, usually you know more about your teacher’s dog than you do about them. The really special thing about Kevin, though, is that he tries hard to get to know you as well. His girlfriend and fellow teacher, Carson Rosenberg, said, “He really prioritizes the individual student. The lesson is important, but he just really thinks about each of his students as individuals and knows more about them and prioritizes them.”

As I walk up to his classroom I swiftly dodge the crowd of sweaty students that have flooded the hall with the ring of the bell. My stomach feels heavy from a sub-par school lunch, 2 but it grows warm as I hear

Kevin’s voice echo down the hall.

“Good afternoon, Miss Melanie.

How are you? Good, glad to hear that! Afternoon, Mr. Butters, welcome, welcome.” I turn the corner, just in time to see “Mr. Butters” and Kevin exchange a p e a c e sign. Kevin is stationed outside his classroom door, personally welcoming every student in this fashion.

In his warm yellow classroom, students joke and laugh amongst themselves as they grab their school laptops. The walls are lined with haphazard pieces of paper, gifts from students. I observe one, a graphite drawing of Kevin, his most notable feature his “steel wool” beard. Another next to it is an Indiana Jones movie poster, photoshopped to have Kevin as the star. Another sign next to that one boldly states, “MR. HEIKEN IS A LYCAN!” The beard would fit, then, I decide. I take a seat as Kevin strolls inside bellowing a loud ‘Good afternoon!’ that everyone echoes enthusiastically. As the hour wears on, he teaches in a way to dispel bias and open people’s eyes to the world; he treats students as fellow peer adventurers and respects them as adults.

Beyond the curriculum, the class talks about current world issues, stories, and opinions of events both historical and modern. His teaching style is very different from the average teacher, and his willingness to make things personal and important impact others far beyond this yellow, heartwarming room.

When describing Kevin with only a few words, those close to him say Kevin is selfless, empathetic, humble, adventurous, determined, and loyal; but in an interview with him I discovered he hadn’t always been this way. “I, as a young person, was not a particularly open minded person for the majority of my high school life,” Kevin says.

I grew up in a school where students didn’t really interact with each other.

If you w e r e o n what w a s seen to be the ‘top academic track’ you had special privileges. ... I was fortunate in my own way to be a part of that, but it definitely did not make me a very good person. When I went off to college that was when I realized how little I knew, and in a lot of ways had my moment of self discovery when I saw how small I was in the world (Heiken).

Kevin went on to tell me how this smallness encourages all his adventures, and inspires him to be a lifelong learner.

That acknowledgement of smallness brings upon a yearning to at least explore what you can, because the world is so big, and there’s so much out there. Those memories really stick with you. I’ve definitely found that in terms of memories, I’ve felt far more lasting happiness and more of a significant keepsake from seeing a bunch of strange pastel lizards darting through the cloud forest in Martineke than I’ve ever felt when I have purchased an

iPhone or something (Heiken).

Adventures Kevin has embarked on since this moment include hiking across Europe, kayaking in tropical islands to find endangered blue iguanas, digging at archaeological sites and labelling ancient artifacts from Greece and Rome, catching and eating leopard sharks for the fourth of July until one almost killed him, almost getting caught in a forest fire while backpacking, teaching Star Wars and History of Middle Earth classes at UC Berkeley, breeding scorpions for zoos as a side job, teaching tennis to the Housewives of Orange County and almost getting dragged on the show, and surfing 12-foot waves and living to tell the tale. Yet, perhaps the hardest one of all of them is teaching history to young people and trying to make them like it.

Kevin has been a learner all his life, sprouting from an intense curiosity of the world ever since he was young.

He grew up in San Clemente, and worked to balance his fun-loving take on life with an academic drive. His sister, Kelsey Heiken, told me a little about his behavior as a child: “He loved dinosaurs so much he could repeat any facts about anything to do with those. Same with reptiles, World War II, history. He’s so bright.” He was certain of where his future would take him, looking forward to getting his Ph.D. in history and becoming an archaeologist.

However, when Kevin went into college the “moment of clarity” struck:

he no longer knew who he wanted to be. His tone is quiet and solemn as he confides, “I think there’s very few more haunting places to be than the place where you don’t have any idea what your purpose is. A feeling of purposelessness is as about as deeply alienating a feeling that you could possibly feel” (Heiken).

As horrid as the feeling is, one wouldn’t think initially that it was common.

Unfortunately, a lack of purpose is quite common in the recesses of the modern student body. Kevin Zhou of The Christian Science Monitor, writes: “As a high school senior, I have witnessed the hysteria surrounding college applications. With colleges demanding higher and higher standards for each successive class of incoming freshmen, teenagers are forced to stay up until the wee hours of the morning… When they’re not [working on schoolwork], high schoolers are packing the few remaining hours of their schedules with ... any other activity they believe to be enticing to the selection committee.”

With very little free time, the taxation of the student mind leaves them burnt out and vulnerable to negative feelings. It’s easy to feel pointless when you’re so invested in a future that is unknown, especially when you don’t know what exactly you hope your future will look like.

It is a teacher’s role not only to in-

struct students in the assigned curriculum, but to watch after their students’ health. This is a part of the job that it seems most teachers shirk, or ignore altogether. In an interview by Josh Dehaas with psychologist and college professor Gordon Flett on mental health, titled “The Perils of Perfection”, Flett explains: “Something like six out of 10 students said that at some time during the school year they experienced a debilitating attack of anxiety. I think four in 10 had depression. And that’s the internalizing problems. Then you’ve got the ... anger issues, substance-abuse issues and intentional self-harm. … The vast majority of students who need help don’t seek it, and are carrying around this false front where they let on that everything is fine when they’re not. I’m concerned about the student who’s burned out, or overextended.”

Daniel Gilbert, psychologist and Harvard professor, expresses a similar sentiment in his book Stumbling on Happiness: “Mattering makes us happy. The act of steering one’s boat down the river of time is a source of pleasure, regardless of one’s port of call. … We insist on steering our boats because we think we have a pretty good idea of where we should go, but the truth is that much of our steering is in vain - not because the boat won’t respond, and not because we can’t find our destination, but because the future is fundamen- 3

tally different than it appears through the periscope” (23).

That shirked, unspoken responsibility that teachers have t o watch and care for t h e i r students is slowly disappearing in a world where it’s needed more and more. In times like this, people like Kevin can make a major difference in the stressed teen’s life.

After taking a step back and focusing on the s m a l l things in his life, from changing his major to getting a small job and exploring different paths, Kevin eventually figured out that he wanted to be a teacher of history and apply his lifelong curiosity to better young people. He hopes to help teach individuals things beyond the classroom, to show them things he didn’t know and teach things that people don’t often teach.

4 Kevin aims to guide

students to discover a life path, to learn what Gilbert describes in Stumbling on Happiness: “The question of the purpose of human life has been raised countless times; it has never yet received a satisfactory answer and perhaps does not admit of one…. We will therefore turn to the less ambitious question of what men show by their behavior to be the purpose and intention of their lives. What do they demand of life and wish to achieve in it? The answer to this can hardly be in doubt. They strive after happiness; they want to become happy and to remain so” (34).

Kevin may have described himself as a closeminded youth, but his close friends and family say

otherwise.

Kelsey confided, “We’ve gone through some stuff that’s not the easiest thing for people to go through, and

he’s always been there for me. Even if we went through the same thing, if I was dealing with it worse than him he would be selfless and be supportive for me. If I had to cry, he’s there, to talk, he is there. Every day with him is meaningful” (Heiken).

Kevin Heiken has only been teaching for three years, but it’s astounding how quickly the student body embraced him. As I traverse the MVHS campus it’s easy to find students who know Kevin. I walk towards a small group of students, chatting in the shade of a tree in the Quad. Although the grass is dead from the drought and a hot sun beats overhead, when I ask about the beloved teacher the youth fill with life. “Mr. Heiken?

I love Mr. Heiken!

He’s the BEST!” They go on to animatedly tell each of their favorite things about him, from his “steel wool” beard to the babies on his desk, and from there the stories he’s shared.

Kevin is certainly a man no one will forget any time soon, and this level of popularity is astounding considering he’s only been teaching for three years.

Kevin’s future is a hard thing to predict; even those closest to him have no idea what life path he’ll explore in the future, although all agree that no matter what it is Kevin will be helping others.

Whether he remains a teacher at Moun-

tain View high school, takes up travelling the world full-time, or pursues some new dream unseen as of yet, Kevin will spread his message about taking life as it comes and trying to make the best of it.

When asked about this outlook, Kevin said the following.

“Life’s a journey. Life is not leveling up from level one to level two to level three, life is just a continuous journey and you should always be doing something to make sure that your journeying somewhere. Even if you’re not quite sure what your pur-

pose is… there’s always something that you can do to try to bring some purpose in your life to keep yourself moving. The details sometimes can be a healthy thing to [focus on] when you don’t feel that things are going exactly how you would plan them in your mind. There’s always some path that you can go on, and even if you know you’ll wander back to the other path eventually, explore another trail on down the road for a little while.

It’s not a bad thing to do” (Heiken).

According to Gilbert, “We make mistakes when we c om pare with the past instead of the

possible” (141).

Despite all of Kevin Heiken’s stories and adventures, when I asked which of his own he would wish was never forgotten his reply caught me off guard.

“If I would like to be remembered for something, it would be ‘That’s the guy that barely ever had it figured out, but he eventually kind of seemed to get some of it figured out, and he seems to be doing OK.’ I think that that’s something that people often don’t like to hear or talk about, but it’s something that I really feel is a reality. If there’s going to be an enduring legacy to leave, I would hope that that would be it.”

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Works Cited Dehaas, Hosh. “On mental health, the perils of perfection and how to build residency in students: Gordon Flett in conversation with Josh Dehaas.” Maclean’s. January 2014. Student Resources in Context. Web. 10 Septem ber 2015.

Fleishman, Jeremy. Personal interview. 8 September 2015.

Gilbert, Daniel. Stumbling on Happiness. New York: Ran dom House, 2006. Print.

Heiken, Kelsey. Personal interview. 11 September 2015.

Heiken, Kevin. Personal interview. 3 September 2015.

Heiken, Kevin. Personal interview. 1 October 2015.

Rosenberg, Carson. Personal interview. 11 September 2015.

Zhou, Kevin. “Teen cynicism is byproduct of college appli cation process.” Gale Database. Christian Science Monitor, 18 July 2005. Web. 10 September 2015.

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Rayna Mahnken grew up in Erie, Colorado. She hopes to return there to teach mixed media art at her old school, Flagstaff Academy, after graduating from Utah State University. In her spare time Rayna loves to play with her pet rabbit, Biscuit, whom she adopted from a local animal shelter. Rayna has been trying to convince her family to start a ‘Mahnken Marauder motorcycle gang’ ever since she got her motorcycle liscence in August, and is constantly seeking adventure. Occasionally Rayna will take breaks from schoolwork to meet with friends, and proceed to create stories with them through both writing and role play.

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Eva Marie Koujikov

By Eva Marie Koujikov

living efore we begin our journey, be advised that the following information is not for the faint of heart or delicate of stomach.

Comfort-food cravers, beware. If your good friends are Ben, Jerry and Mr. Flaming Hot Cheetos, be prepared to say “Farewell.”

But, if you can handle some dietary adventure, get ready for your mind, body, and soul to embark on a quest — a quest which Leah Putnam has already embarked upon.

Imagine that you are patiently awaiting your turn in the grocery-store queue, amidst a sea of people lugging their own treasure troves of nutritious and delicious foods and voodoo powders and potions. We all

Mind Matter

want to feel like we are being kind and nurturing to our bodies, but what leads us to believe that we are following the best regimes? Suddenly your eyes begin to wander towards the freshly printed magazines. The beautifully drafted scripts scream at you the hundreds of things you could be and should be doing in order to be healthy, beautiful, plus more! Your fingertips tingle. You want to believe that by somehow buying this one glossy journal, your entire life will become significantly better.

On to the conveyor belt it goes.

Ding, it’s your turn to pay. You shuffle double the money out of your pockets that you budgeted, make the correct transactions, and hoard away your precious goods. “Today is the day you will change your life,” you think to yourself. You grasp onto the

hope that this time you will cure yourself of the toxins that your body is submerged in daily.

Maybe. But, then you start to doubt the product labels and the magazine advice. You ask yourself, “Who really holds the truth to true health?”

Meet Leah Putnam, an expert in all things living. She resides in a beautiful home in Mountain View with a thriving garden and her own personal exercise and meditation studio. Every day numerous clients from all over the Bay Area come to Leah in order to be trained in Pilates and in a new form of working out imbalances in one’s body, Gyrotonics. Leah has always thought outside of the box when it comes to health. She has a high-level understanding of the human body and how to have the mind and body work in balance and

unity. “Everything in nature is in the pose you are deepening the more about mind over matter. That spiraling,” says Leah in explaining movement,. You are making these belief and practice was really strong Gyrotonics. “so every time you do a micro, micro movements, so even in me. I was always a spiritual pertwist the right way, you can bring a the breath is an exercise. Everything son, always seeking more. I knew natural alignment to this rotating.” like that reduces stress.” (Putnam). that there’s more to life than what (Putnam). Leah has practiced many Throughout Leah’s life, food has I’m seeing. ” (Putnam). Leah’s phimethods in order to perfect her tech- always remained a consistent ele- losophy is to live cleanly such that nique for controlling the way the ment. Leah was born into the res- her soul and body remain at their human body moves. Her in-depth taurant business. Living in Califor- absolute best. There must be someknowledge allows her to take her cli- nia, the world’s fruit basket, Leah thing to it as Leah radiates a special, ents from a place of stress and ten- had great opportunity to be aware bubbly grace which captivates those sion to peacefulness and, according of many different foods and the way who spend time with her. to her client Joe, “two inches taller” they affected her system. “I just feel In 2011, Leah was diagnosed in the span of an hour (Maglione). like when I eat cleaner, I am more with breast cancer which she treated Leah is an advocate for through the method of Hippure and simple healing pocrates, eating raw foods “The thought I really took methods, and she eagerly and eliminating stressors shares her mind and body (hippocratesinst.org). Afaway from Sunday School insights with her clients. ter eighteen months of was more about mind over “When I came here I startnatural treatment, the docmatter.

That belief and praced learning about how I can tors could no longer locate shift the way I stand,” said tice was really strong in me. a tumor in Mrs. Putnam.

Andrew Gaddis. “When I’m Through her strength and I was always a spiritual perrunning, I am now aware of tenacity, Leah was able to how relaxed I am when my cure herself and is now eason, always seeking more. foot hits the ground. That ger to share and teach what I knew that there’s more to was the biggest thing for she has learned. According life than what I’m seeing. “ me, understanding these to her dear friend Theresa, small movements. Leah has “[Leah’s] such an educator helped me become a more and she’s so devoted to this efficient athlete. She has also really conscious. I am more alive. My ener- lifestyle. It becomes infectious with inspired me.” (Gattis). gy level is soaring.” (Putnam). Leah her. I think the energy and the pasFrom being stretched and mold- has an extensive grasp of both the sion she puts into the way she lives ed by Leah, you are not only healing poisonous and healing aspects of and the way she shares it with othyour physical imbalances, but also food. She is very aware of what type ers makes you not want to eat any the mental ones. A newfound spirit of nourishment she is putting into other way. She makes it feel neceshas been activated and begins to de- her body. As a young girl, Leah was sary to a healthy life”(Theresa). Leah crease your nagging anxiety about raised a Christian Scientist, leading believes that through the journey of your temple’s condition, allowing her to a lifetime of believing. “People truly cleansing your body and eating you to focus and finally breathe. think this religion is just about nev- mostly raw and minimally processed Leah explains “Yoga is about getting er going to doctors. We did go down foods, one will be able to reach a betinto the quietness of a movement that path, but the thought I really ter mental state. Leah states,“If I am and holding a pose. But even with- took away from Sunday School was

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anything, I am always connected to my creator. This is my biggest through the journey of truly cleansing your body and eating mostly raw and minimally processed foods, one

you are truly entering a place of healing and wellness. Her green and blossoming garden can be seen from the windows as you stretch and prepare for your workout. Leah is a raw food chef and most of Leah’s “If I am anything, I am diet consists of what she grows. Leah chuckles at the always connected to reactions of those who hear what raw food is for the first my creator.” time. “Anything that is not will be able to reach a better mental cooked or heated over 118 degrees. state. Leah states,“If I am anything, The theory behind that is you start I am always connected to my cre- to lose all your vitamins, your minator. This is my biggest focus. I share erals, and your enzymes at higher what comes from that with others. temperatures” (Putnam). Most canThe gift I got from cancer was being not bear to wrap their minds around able to express why I eat what I eat being vegan, so when meeting someand do what I do. Cancer was life or one like Leah, who takes health a death. It became something that I step further, it can be intimidating. couldn’t do half way. I had to be re- Nonetheless, Leah’s spiritual presally serious, and it required a certain ence and wisdom are a gift to the discipline. Cancer was like a teacher Bay Area community. It is stunning that opened up so many doors for to discover that her secret to vitality me. It defined my future, as a seeker is so simple: eat cleanly, eat simply. and a teacher” (Putnam). Much like Humans have been plant eatan earthworm, Leah has a rejuvenat- ers since the beginning, meat and ing ability which allows her to con- food farms are a new technique of vert painful experiences into valu- hunting. Humans have become very able lessons. smart and relaxed about food supWhen you enter Leah’s studio ply, usually holding a large surplus

of over processed foods. Although technology has assisted in stopping a large portion of famine, the foods we are putting into our bodies are not necessarily helping us be successful on a day-to-day basis.

We need to get reeducated about foods in order to gain control over our own bodies, “You actually have a lot of power over your health, happiness, and life—and it all starts with your mouth. What you put in it, and the words that come out of it, determine your destiny. Bad nutrition and chemical crutches will wear you out”(Carr 3). Many health issues can be attributed to poor eating habits. The United States has a high obesity rate thus raising the amount of taxes spent on medical care rather than agriculture. To Kris Carr, a renowned raw food guru, this is evident: “The relatively new science of epigenetics proves that our daily choices (diet, lifestyle, and environmental stressors) can actually change the way our genes express themselves—without changing our DNA. These non-genetic factors can literally switch disease, obesity, and

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other health issues on and off”(Carr 10). Leah is someone who understands these factors which most are too trapped by media and convenience to discover. Leah is uncovering a long lost truth to health: eating cleanly directly affects your body’s natural compass. “My passion is about teaching people how to really embrace their health and their wellness. I work to find the tools to best fit them— not only in what they eat, but also how they move and feel in their bodies.

These things even affect how you think, your outlook on life, how you feel about yourself and the relationships you have around you” (Putnam).

Once diagnosed, Leah was forced to examine her lifestyle choices, including the stressors that surrounded her at the time.

Although Leah has always radiated health, one way she dealt with stress was by drinking wine. Eventually everything seemed to pile up and that’s when Leah’s body, much like her overstressed mind, couldn’t handle the pressure. Leah had previously decided she would treat cancer naturally if it ever appeared

and thus began to do so. Once Leah eliminated the aggressive amounts of anxiety that had bubbled to the surface and decreased her wine intake, it was easy to see her body’s culprit: “I don’t think it’s genetic at all. I think it’s completely our lifestyle, completely stress and completely our diets. That is my belief. I’m not a doctor, everyone has a different opinion and that’s just mine” (Putnam).

As simple as her solution was, eating completely raw and walking away from all of your issues is not painless. Leah, being aware of the typical reactions to cancer, was shy to share what was occurring inside of her body: “I was dealing with uncertainty and doubt. I would take a step and find a truth, thinking ‘I hope it’s true.’ You know I had to stay with that path and keep it quiet because I didn’t want to deal with everyone else’s negative energy” (Putnam). People’s judgments of your lifestyle choices often come with their own gifts of anxiety.

Leah was not willing to accept this.

In order to remain on the path she had chosen, it was important for Leah to get support through her spirituality.

This began to affect the way Leah perceived her own thoughts and feelings about herself and her cancer: “Thoughts are thoughts but are they true? Thoughts come in, thoughts come out, and we attach to them right and start building this huge story behind it and it starts triggering…’You’re not living in the present. You’re living in what might happen.’ Well, you don’t know if that’s really going to happen. It’s all assumptions, and all of the sudden you start questioning your thoughts. My belief is that we are wired from our subconscious and we don’t really know why we are thinking what we are thinking” (Putnam).

By harnessing her spirituality Leah learned to be happy and accepting of her truth. Although we may not all have issues of the highest degree like cancer, humans have the tendency to make assumptions and allow these assumptions to drive ourselves insane, “Absolutely and it goes both ways... I think if you don’t feel good physically it affects your mental health..You said your mental health drives your physical

health and I believe that too, but I think it’s one integrated piece and both need to be in alignment in order to be effective” (Joe).

Leah recognizes this anxiety in herself and is brave enough to delve into parts of herself that aren’t simply analyzed. She inspires others to reevaluate their life choices and the amounts of self-created anxiety that haunt them. The happiness in Leah is genuine, infectious, and selfcreated: “I’m excited about life even when it’s falling down. And trust me if I look the other way it’s falling all over the place. But you know what? I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow, and as long as I stay connected to right now I am happy. I could be sad. But that doesn’t sound like very much fun does it?” (Putnam).

Leah’s message is elementary but critical. By consuming foods that are simple, uncooked, and from the ground, we are taking in the most beneficial enzymes and proteins necessary for our body to function. Treating our bodies with care and pure nourishment has a natural stress relieving effect.

When our minds are finally rid of trivial anxieties and properly cared for, we are able to achieve our best and be our best. By living simply and cleanly, we are giving ourselves the opportunity at pure health and rejuvenation physically and mentally.

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Works Cited “Authority Nutrition - Detailed Articles on Nutrition and Health.” RSS 20. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.

Carr, Kris. Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live like You Mean It! Guilford, Ct: Skirt!, 2011. Print.

Dee, Therese. “Therese Interview.” Personal interview. 5 Oct. 2015.

“Factory Farm Map -.” Factory Farm Map. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.a Gaddis, Andrew. “Andrew Interview #1.” Personal interview. 5 Oct. 2015.

“Home - Hippocrates Health Institute.” Hippocrates Health Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2015.

Maglione, Joe. “Joe Interview #1.” Personal interview. 25 Sept. 2015.

Putnam, Leah. “Leah Interview #1.” Personal interview. 15 Sept. 2015.

Putnam, Leah. “Leah Interview #2.” Personal interview.

20 Sept. 2015.

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Eva Marie Koujikov is seventeen and a senior who attends Los Altos high school and Freestyle Academy. She loves to explore in forests and spend time with her close friends. When she grows up, Eva aspires to be the director of Comedians Getting Coffee in Cars because she wants to hang out with Jerry Seinfeld everyday and she’ll get free coffee. Eva’s favorite pastimes are eavesdropping on Russian people and online shopping . Eva believes in lifelong learning so after she graduates from Los Altos she hopes to attend college and then graduate school.

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