This year’s winter rally left IHS students stunned with the same excitement that is associated with eggnog, gifts, and the holiday season in general. Students gathered in the gym on Friday December 11th to see this spirit in action. Featuring song and dance performances by hip-hop and glee club, this rally was a great success. Junior, Jeff Li says, “This rally was chill. It seemed really organized and had awesome dancing. “Sorry Sorry” was great!”

The event started off as a sneaky Captain Global Warming (senior, Ally d’Ambrosio) attempted to put an end to the winter festivities. Fortunately, rally commissioner, Kimmy Denne, thwarted these plans Indiana Jones-style with classic theme music in the background. This was preceded by “snow” falling from gym ceiling and raining down on the performers below.

Next, glee club astounded the audience by dancing to “Let It Snow”, sung by junior Donna Huynh and senior Katherine Dela Cruz. Soon after, the entire gym stood for the national anthem, sung

Freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors showed their Viking spirit in Irvington’s first ever Winter Week to compete for the $100 class prize. Students could be seen sporting all kinds of winter and holiday attire including flannel pajamas, hats, and Irvington’s latest blue and white Viking attire. Seniors were able to just barely snag the $100 prize with a total class participation of 34%. Juniors remained neck and neck with the seniors throughout the entire competition but lost by 2%. “I think the facts pushed the senior class into doing amazing things and showing the entire school how spirited we are!” said senior class president Stephanie Tsoi. “When it comes down to it, I think we were fighting for our pride more than the $100. Once again we pulled through, and showed that we rule the school!” While sophomores finished in third place with a respectable 28% participation, the overall class participation of the freshmen was 22%, placing them fourth in the class competition.

Irvington Winter Week

by junior, Smita Patibanda. Similarly, the dance crew, Soup, rocked the house with their dance to “Sorry Sorry” by Asian pop sensation, Super Junior.

The rally continued to feature Hip-Hop Club, Drumline, JV and Varsity Cheerleaders, and several other performances, all of whom presented nearly flawless acts. As a surprising new twist, Varsity Cheer included a few guest football player -turned- male cheerleaders.

The event also included a movie made by Mr. Mintey and his sculpture class. This video featured a remix of the entire class playing their artfully crafted didgeridoos.

As usual, the rally included a multitude of games. In one particularly popular game, contestants fought to put on as many layers of viking gear before the time limit ran out.

The rally ended in dramatic dance-off between Mr. Willer and Ms. Jackson. It was a duel to the end but somehow both finished first in a rally to remember. (We know you p*wned Ms. J!)

Students crowded into the gym on Saturday, December 19 to attend Irvington’s annual Winterball, ‘A Frosted Affair.’ The gymnasium was transformed into a winter spectacle of ornaments, balloons and lights. Strings of 3-D snowflakes hung from each corner of the room and were linked to the center of the ceiling, where they were joined by a decorative center piece of blue and white balloons. The walls were covered with dark blue tarps and the stage was adorned with blue and white gossamer. Strobe lights shifted across the ceiling, creating various designs, and other colored lights continuously flashed across the floor. While the DJ played several new hits by artists such as Lil’ Wayne and Kesha, many old-school tracks were played as well. Midway through the dance the DJ played an old Micahel Jackson number. “There’s always controversy about the music,” said junior Aashish Bhandari. “Overall, the DJ did well.”

Winter Rally

ihsvoice.com Volume 18.3 December 17, 2009

INSIDE4

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. Opinions 5 | Should teachers be allowed to evaluate students using social networking sites?

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News..........................1-3Opinions....................4-5Features.....................6-7Entertainment............8-9Sports....................10-11Humor.........................12

VoiceThe

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From left to right: KariAnn Yoshida , Mane Ohanyan, Nidhi Kaul, Surbhi Chopla, Scott Benett, Scott Bennett 2nd row: Alison D’Ambroisa, Ha Le, Christi Guam, Alyssa Glidewell, Chris Williams, Kevin Chan, Rishi Mahendru, Ruth Sekkor 3rd row: Nicholas Yurong, Sumiya Rahman, Katie Moran, Michelle Hong, Manpreet Kaur, Namaha Jain, Jessie Wang

By Shilpa Sharma

By Shilpa SharmaBy Sukhbir Kaur

I r v i n g t o n H i g h S c h o o l - F r e m o n t , C a l i f o r n i a

It’s A Winter Wonderland

N2 | The Voice 18.3

ews

MSA Makes Mark on Oakland School

By Shajee Syed-Quadri

On December 4th, Irvington High School students, senior Misbah Husain and junior Anum Ahmed went with Ms. Susan Piekarski to Piedmont Junior High in Oakland to talk and give students more of an insight on what its like to be a Muslim growing up in the United States. John Weinstein, who organized this event through his organization “Facing History and Ourselves,” hoped to provide the all the different kids of Piedmont different perspective on what it’s like to grow up in the US with a unique and scrutinized religious background. This annual trip has been going on for the last three years with participants coming mainly from IHS Muslim Student Associatin. Piedmont, which is located in the suburbs of Oakland, is not as diverse in terms of race and religion as many of the other California schools; therefore, the intent was to show the junior high students a real-world perspective of different religious

Two students from Muslim Student Association give insight on their religious background

The annual Physics Photo contest, hosted by The American Association of Physics Teachers, has a numberof Irvington students interested in competing. Mr. Shankar Kumar is currently working with Ms. Shiloh Burton to encourage students to participate in the contest. The Photo Physics contest combines the art of photography with physics concepts. Participating students are asked to photograph pictures that demonstrate the many topics studied in physics such as the motion of objects and gravity. Photos that are submitted must pertain to one of the two

Art Meets Science in International Competition

Irvington students are encouraged to participate in physics photo contestBy Kim Ngo

backgrounds. The hope was that the students would be able to benefit from having their questions answered and their doubts cleared about the religion of Islam through a question and answer session with Misbah and Anum. In Misbah and Anum, students got to see and interact

with two real-life examples of followers of the religion Islam, a religion often misinterpreted and misconstrued due to the terrorrist attacks that shocked the world on September 11th. Misbah and Anum tackled various questions the students had for them as the students came in groups of 50 to listen to what Misbah and Anum had to say. Topics ranged from specific Islamic dress codes and ethics to the difficulties faced in following these beliefs in the U.S. The first person point of view the students received was no doubt beneficial as the students received a nice gist on what Islam exemplifies and how its actually very different from how the media portrays it at times. Said Misbah Husain, “This was definitely a great experience for me, and the students at this school. I feel like we were able to connect with all the 200 students we spoke to and give them a good idea on what our beliefs are all about and that we are all actually

categories: natural photos or contrived photos. Natural photos involve everyday instances that naturally show physics concepts in action, while contrived photos are intentionally set up. A third category, photos with multiple images, is also part of the competition, but is only judged for special recognition and not for cash prizes. Each photo entry is followed by an explanation of the physics that is taking place in the photo. This contest requires more than

just photography skills, but also knowledge in physics. The contest is open to all high school students in grades nine to twelve. The winners of the contest are presented with cash prizes in recognition for their extraordinary work. First place winners of each category receive one hundred dollars, second place winners receive seventy-five dollars, and third place winners receive fifty dollars. The teacher of the winning student is also awarded a one hundred dollar Vernier gift certificate and will be presented a plaque with the students name and photograph. Mr. Kumar and Ms. Burton will also be offering extra credit to their students who put a lot of

effort in their entries. Though the competition entries are not due until the spring of next year, Ms. Burton wants her photography students to consider entering the contest now. Senior Raj Tripathi, a student in Ms. Burton’s photo 1 class and an interested competitor says, “Photos is based on physics. Having the chance to do both photo and physics at the same time is a good experience. In the end there is always the chance of winning, and if not, extra credit is a plus.” Raj has been interested in photography for a while but it is his first year taking phot at Irvington for two years now, and really enjoys the class. According to Ms. Burton, the contest will allow students to develop the ability to recognize the similarities in art and science, two subjects that once always came together. She said, “I want my students to understand the connection between art and science. Combining the aspects and motion of physics with photography is a really wonderful way for students to discover anew way of looking at things. Only photography can stop time and defy gravity. And that is what makes the relationship beteen photography and physics so special.

The past two months saw Irvington High the most unified it had ever been. Students, teachers, administrators, and even some dedicated parents, were mobilized to win the contest. For those of you who do not remember, the America’s Favorite School Contest, sponsored by Care2 and Campbell’s, determined its winners by the number of online votes per school on its website during the period of September 14th to December 8th. Thus, to ensure that Irvington nicked the 20K extreme publicity and extraordinary school support were needed. Math teacher and computer extraordinaire Mr. Clint Johns managed to win a $50 gift card for being one of the top 20 recruiters. In the beginning, it seemed IHS had no chance of coming in the top 5, let alone winning. The ranks were dominated by New York giants and school confidence was quite low. All that changed, after Principal Pete Murchison made a rather long PA announcement one early October morning. Well, the next morning came and went, and IHS’s rank had greatly From then on, Irvington only climbed higher and higher. Surpassing schools such as San Francisco’s Galileo High School and New York’s

elite Stuyvesant, IHS was the #1 school by late October. At that point, most, if not all, students and staff expected are sure victory. What happened? Well, as the contest drew to a close, Irvington was neck-in-neck with Brooklyn Technical High School. Both schools oscillated between #1 and #2 often with the difference being only a few hundred votes. Many Irvington students between the contest ended at 12:00 A.M. EST November 8th. However, it was later discovered that the contest actually ended at 11:59 PST November 8th. Some students stopped voting at 9:00 PM PST November 7th. Thus, arguably Irvington had a 12 hour window where very little votes were filed in. Whatever the confusion, by the contest’s end, Brooklyn Technical high school had 9400 votes, while we had 8842 votes, thus beating us by 558 votes.

Activities Director Ms. Kristina Palos, currently is organizing a committee of students to decide what should be done with the $5000 consolation prize. Could Irvington have lost because of a simple miscommunication and misleading directions from the contest website? Some students and staff believe so, although we will never find out for sure.

America’s Favorite Runner Up

By Neetu Puranikmath

Irvington loses America’s Favorite School competition by slim margin

Raj Tripathi focues the camera before taking taking his potentional picture.

Anum Ahmed and Misbah Husain

Photo: Kim Ngo

By Anisha Babbar

December 2009 | 3

New-Winter Break (12/21-1/4)-FAFSA Deadline (1/1)-Blood Drive (1/15)

UC Berkeley Riots

Budget cuts have been a hot topic for the past couple months. They’ve been affecting state funded programs, including our public school districts. However, one of the most talked about issues regarding budget cuts is the toll it’s been taking on our California universities.

Towards the end of November, the California University Board voted to increase fees by 32% for all University of California schools in response to the extreme funding cuts but the State of California. Protests occurred on many campuses, including Berkeley, which made headlines over the next few days. On Friday, November 21st, 40 individuals (mostly Berkeley students) took over the second floor of a building called Wheeler Hall, refusing to come out unless administration agreed to reinstate 38 laid-off custodians. Texting, emails, and other electronic communications allowed the spectacle to gain widespread attention. As the size

of the crowd grew, panic had set in to the point where Berkeley campus police felt it necessary to being in additional police forces in order to help calm the situation. However, police arrival seemed to aggravate the situation in some ways by creating multiple confrontations between law enforcement and the crowd. The campus security maintained that since over 118 classes were being delayed as a result of the protest, it was their foremost responsibility to ensure that the protest was quickly quelled and ended to these classes can resume. As a result, many UC Berkeley students felt that the police actions at the demonstration showed unnecessary brutality to individuals who posted no imminent harm. The crisis reached new proportions when a group of 20 or so Berkeley students recently vandalized the UC Berkeley president’s house this past weekend. No word has been received if all suspects have been apprehended.

IHS Vocal Music department held their annual winter concert, Jingle Bell Ball, on December 3rd. The show was held in Valhalla and featured performances by Chamber Chorale, Concert Choir, Treble Ensemble, Fresco Femme and Viking Jazz.

The concert began with a performance of “Puer Natus in Bethelhem” by the entire choir.

Then, Chamber Choir was directed to the stage where they sang a “Football!” song that demonstrated a football game in the form of song. The song consisted of the cheers of the fans during a typical football game.

Treble, Chamber, Fresco Femme and Viking Jazz, came after Chamber and sang various types of Christmas carols, including songs in other languages. Both Treble and Chamber sang Austrian carols and parts of the songs wee in German. Also Treble sang a traditional Hebrew carol by the name “S’Vivon”.

During the performance Smita Patibanda and Sarah Laus did a solo for “I Wonder as I Wonder”.

“I was a little bit nervous about the performance at first,” sa sophmore Smita Patibanda, “but I felt better half way through.”

Sarah Laus performed

Jingle Bell BallChoir had two big performances in the last monthBy Alexandra Perlegos

once again along with Sarah Hawks, Frances Delgadillo and Jennifer Zunino in Fresco Femme as they sang “Pine Cones and Holly Berries” and “Little St.Nick”.

At the end of the performance the choir director, Mrs. Jennifer Olson, thanked everyone for coming and was given a bouquet of flowers by the choir club officers. She also encouraged everyone to come see the spring choir performance, Music Around the World.

IHS Vocal Music department’s second performance was on December 5th. Along with Irvington High School Band, Choir was also invited to perform at the Warm Springs holiday tree lighting. The festival lasted from two until six p.m.

The tree lighting included showcases from Horner Junior High Band & Choir and Choi’s martial arts. At 5:30 p.m. “Santa” lit the holiday tree in the parking lot. Irvington High School’s Interact club was also there selling raffle tickets in order to support the organization that put the tree lighting together.

“The performances were fun,” says sophomore Theresa Jamie Ho, “but I am even more excited for our spring concert with songs from all around the world.”

The Art of Flying Without WingsThe “Wonders of China” performance, sponsored by MEChA, awes students with Chinese cultural dance and music

dance, named after the figures that had been unearthed in a Qin tomb decades ago.

The third performance, which drew the greatest audience response, was a Shaolin Kung Fu demonstration. Kung Fu, or Chinese martial arts, includes a variety of styles, many of which imitate animal movements and sounds. The four Shaolin Kung Fu athletes displayed their finesse with everything from the monkey style to the duck style, and wielding swords and staffs.

Afterwards, renowned musician Yong Ping Tian played the Chinese instrument, erhu, which has two strings and makes a full sound when a bow is drawn across it. He was accompanied by Duny Lam, who played the

By Justine Yan

On Monday, December 7th, the San Jose based company, Chinese Performing Arts of America (CPAA), gave a popular guest performance that featured classical dance, kung fu, and traditional music.

As students filled up the seats of Valhalla Theatre during fourth period, they wondered what they would see during the next 45 minutes. The show was touted as an “enchanting” celebration on the posters put up around the school.

Indeed, Mr. Alberto Ballado had organized this event as part of a series called “Celebrations Around the World,” sponsored by MECHA. The show is the first in this series of events.

“I’m really excited working at IHS, where diversity is everywhere. It is always good to open our horizons and awareness of the world around us,” said Mr. Ballado.

Once the curtains parted, the first performance, “Flying Apsaras,” began, featuring the principal female dancer, Yang Yang. In a flowing, multi-colored dress with long sleeves, she whirled around gracefully to simulate “flight without wings.”

Next, principal male dancer, “Dragon Son,” imitated a Terra Cotta soldier’s forceful yet swift movements in his solo

yangqin, a percussion instrument that resounds with the tapping of two bamboo sticks.

Finally, principal dancers Yang Yang and Dragon Son appeared once again on the stage for a well-known romantic dance duet, called “Jasmine Flowers”. Moving lightly, their performance captivated the audience.

CPAA offers performances in San Jose throughout the year, including major shows such as the longer, more elaborate “New Dream of the Butterfly,” which was on November 14th. It also offers dance, Kung Fu, and music lessons. Through “Wonders of China” students were offered but a brief, but profound glimpse into Chinese performing arts.

MLK Invitational De-bate (1/18)Ritmo Latino (1/22)

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Dancer Yang Yang stimulating “flight without wings”

How state budget cuts pushed UC Berkeley students to take measures into their own hands

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Photo: Justine Yan

By Shajee Syed-Quadri

Capital “C” in consumerism takes over capital “C” in Christmas

Opinions4 | The Voice 18.3

People change as the world changes. Over the past few decades, consumerism has increased and the value of the dollar bill has become so powerful that the meaning of a cherished holiday is now tarnished. Christmas, originally intended for people to give, love and share a bit of passion, has now turned into a day when the consumer’s greed overshadows the acts of charity that the holiday of Christmas has emphasized throughout its history. Undoubtedly, large cor-porations have used Christmas as a mantle to make more revenues and take advantage of the con-sumerism craze. Through this craze for material things, compa-nies have been able to use Christ-mas as a gimmick to lure the com-mon person to buy more and more. We all know that one of the main colors associated with Christmas is green. Sadly, the only thing green about Christmas today is the color of the dollar bills that

The holiday is the same as ever, just modernized

Divorce is Going Downnn

John Marcotte is a genius. No, not the Einstein kind, but the kind that decides to push for the banning of divorce in order to prove a point. Marcotte, a democrat and former op-ponent of Proposition 8 wants to place a measure on the ballot next year to outlaw divorce in California altogether. His reasoning is very simple. In the past year, California voters de-cided to pass Proposition 8, banning gay marriage in order to protect the “sanctity of marriage.” However, Mar-cotte argues that divorce goes against this idea of traditional marriage and thus should not be lawful either. Although his approach is in-tended to be slightly satirical, there’s no doubt that he’s getting some serious sup-port for the movement. Currently, he has dozens of signatures, more than 11,000 fans on Facebook, and recognition from several political figures. But will this be

enough to make next year’s ballot? Un-fortunately, it doesn’t seem like it. The number of signatures that he does have comes no-where near the prerequisite of 694,354 signa-tures that he must have by March in or-der to take the motion to the federal level. Perhaps this movement was not meant to go through the federal level and get passed but essentially to flip the coin and get people thinking. I mean

he can’t possibly think that the amend-ment actually has the potential to be rati-

fied into the C o n s t i t u -tion. I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of po-litical storm this could stir up when all of Amer-ica’s mar-ried couples get the news that they are truly stuck together un-til “death do them part.” T h e

real purpose of his divorce campaign is to draw attention to the hypocrisy of

A growing movement in California can really outlaw divorce?By Shilpa Sharma

One fourth of Americans are af-flicted with depression, and as a nation, we are only 69 percent happy. Women are twice as likely to experience depres-

sion and are often too em-barrassed to seek help. It re-ally makes you wonder: how do they get away from the pressures of daily life? Ro-mance flicks. We all experi-ence stress and pressure from our everyday

Romance: The Unexpected Anti-DrugExplanation of the prevalence of romance in American filmsBy Quess Liu

lives. That being said, the real purpose of a romance is to provide an escape for women (as well as a small percentage of men). As they sit down on that soft sofa and kick back with a bowl of popcorn, women can temporarily ignore their re-sponsibilities and transport themselves into the movie, pretending to be the damsel in distress. As they watch, they easily re-late to the main character, who waits for the handsome Prince Charming to come and rescue them from all their troubles. While Prince Charming isn’t very bright, he almost always has a six-pack. Then comes the perfect yet unrealistic end: “the main characters live happily ever after,” whether they are humans, lions, robots, fish, ants, talking cars or even vampires. The ability to live out this fanta-

sy is a way for some people to find a release from their daily grind. Sadly, this is the reason why trashy films and novels like Twilight are some of the best sellers in the film industry, a spot traditionally reserved for actual movies with actual plots. Now why do men watch romance films? Youtube’s Peter Chao cannot describe it any better, “You bring a girl to the New Moon premiere and it’s a done deal, a guarantee lay. But don’t get turned off by the idea that she will probably be thinking about Jacob or Rob-ert Pattinson the whole time instead of you...”

Photo: Flikr.com

Photo: news.yahoo.com

the situation. The same people who voted for Proposition 8, which stripped gay couples of the right to marriage, may now feel concerned when their own civil liberties are potentially at stake. I, for one, find his approach to be pretty hilarious in the way it lam-poons the avid supporters of Proposi-tion 8, who defend the idea of tradi-tional marriage yet fail to recognize the staggering divorce rates as a threat. All in all, if civil liberties are taken away from gay couples in order to protect the “sanctity of marriage,” then is it wrong to take away civil lib-erties of non gay couples who want a divorce? No, in fact, it seems rather reasonable. However, is this truly con-ceivable in today’s society? With nearly half of all marriages in the U.S. end-ing in divorce, it doesn’t seem plausible.

By Xiaoshan Bao

fly into the pockets of large compa-nies benefiting from the consumer’s willingness to spend. Have you ever wondered what the “Christ-mas spirit” means now? It is undoubtedly the mindset clev-erly created by these large corpo-rations to use Christmas to advertise their products while making consum-ers believe that the products of the large corporations are worth buying. For example, Coca Cola advertise-ments sometimes show Santa drinking the company’s products. Isn’t it sad that a figure who is supposed to rep-resent goodness and the charitable act of giving is being used as a gimmick to lure people into buying the soda’s products? The Christmas lights, pho-tos with Santa and storewide sales are all intended to attract the common people and make sure that they buy more than they ever have in their whole

tree and lights adorning the outside of my house. My dad has put up a tree and lights for years, and I doubt that the tradition will change. Christmas has al-ways been a time of elation and reunion since its establishment. With the country at its current state, Christmas is one of the few constants that we have available.Some people say the meaning of Christ-mas has changed, but I don’t think so. Christmas was originally established as a

religious holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ, and people still celebrate

it religiously today. Around the world, a lot of churches are

packed to the last bench around Christmas time. I

myself have attended a Christian school, and

the school officials have always put

on a pageant and concert

a b o u t

Has Modern Society’s Outlook on Christmas Changed?Con Pro

lives. C o c a C o l a isn’t the only one; even now you see various com-panies taking the beloved Santa Claus and using him to pro-mote their products and ensure that kids will beg their parents for more and more.

Christmas. Whenever I hear

of the word Christmas, I

think of a Christ-

m a s

Christ’s birth every year.Eventually, however, the meaning of Christmas has changed a little to also include family and reunion. Christ-mas is one of the rare times in the year when everyone sets apart time just to enjoy being with their family. Everyone is so busy otherwise that Christmas is a welcome relief from our hectic lives. Since the early days, people remem-ber Christmas as a time of peace, and I don’t think that view is going to change.With the nation in an economic rut, it may seem like Christmas is being com-mercialized. While that may be the case, Christmas is still Christ-mas. All the ads and deals and whatnot add to the Christ-mas spirit. Especially now that we’re in the middle of a recession, it’s im-portant to know that Christmas is a time when we can forget our worries and embrace the Christmas spirit.

Cartoon: Shirley Lin

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The VOICE is a student-run newspaper with the sole purpose of providing an open forum for student expression. Any-thing printed represents the opinion of the writer, but not neces-sarily that of the VOICE staff, the administration or faculty of Irvington High School, or any person affiliated with the Fremont Unified School District. The VOICE does not discriminate against race, political orientation, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orienta-tion, or disability. Although the VOICE will never refuse to publish student guest submission based on the aforementioned factors, we reserve the right to edit or not publish them.

Advisor MAtthew PhilliPs

Editors-in-ChiEf: Shilpa Sharma* Columnist: Justine Yan staff WritErs:

Sri Ravipati* BusinEss managEr: Quess Liu

nEWs Editors: Selina Mahesri*

Niveditha Puranikmath* Copy Editors: Katherine Wang

fEaturEs Editors: Anisha Babbar* Xiaoshan Bao

Kim Ngo* WEB Editors: Brian Chin

EntErtainmEnt Editors: Karishma Patel* Sahil Pandya

Raji Ramanathan* photographEr: Katherine Wang

sports Editors: Jonathan Horng* Asst. Photographer

Shajee Syed-Quadri* and Cartoonist: Shirley Lin

humor Editor: Arjun Panda*

irvingtonvoice@gmail.comCheck out our new website! http://www.ihsvoice.com (510) 656-5711 ext. 46398

*Deadline Workers

POLICY STATEMENT:

Disagree with the writers? Bring your letters to the editor to room 223 or e-mail them to staff@ihsvoice.com. We welcome all

comments.

VOICE STAFF 2009-2010

Anooj Desai

Divya Gowthaman

Sukhbir Kaur

Ramya Kaushik

David Lo

Alexandra Perlegos

Jennifer Siew

Dion Wu

The VOICE is a student-run newspaper with the sole purpose of providing an open forum for student expression. Any-thing printed represents the opinion of the writer, but not neces-sarily that of the VOICE staff, the administration or faculty of Irvington High School, or any person affiliated with the Fremont Unified School District. The VOICE does not discriminate against race, political orientation, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orienta-tion, or disability. Although the VOICE will never refuse to publish student guest submission based on the aforementioned factors, we reserve the right to edit or not publish them.

Advisor MAtthew PhilliPs

Editors-in-ChiEf: Shilpa Sharma* Columnist: Justine Yan staff WritErs:

Sri Ravipati* BusinEss managEr: Quess Liu

nEWs Editors: Selina Mahesri*

Niveditha Puranikmath* Copy Editors: Katherine Wang

fEaturEs Editors: Anisha Babbar* Xiaoshan Bao

Kim Ngo* WEB Editors: Brian Chin

EntErtainmEnt Editors: Karishma Patel* Sahil Pandya

Raji Ramanathan* photographEr: Katherine Wang

sports Editors: Jonathan Horng* Asst. Photographer

Shajee Syed-Quadri* and Cartoonist: Shirley Lin

humor Editor: Arjun Panda*

irvingtonvoice@gmail.comCheck out our new website! http://www.ihsvoice.com (510) 656-5711 ext. 46398

*Deadline Workers

POLICY STATEMENT:

Disagree with the writers? Bring your letters to the editor to room 223 or e-mail them to staff@ihsvoice.com. We

welcome all comments.

VOICE STAFF 2009-2010

Albert Chin

Anooj Desai

Divya Gowthaman

Sukhbir Kaur

Ramya Kaushik

David Lo

Alexandra Perlegos

Jennifer Siew

Dion Wu

D i d you hear? Anoth-er tsunami has hit Asia. It’s been going on for ap-proximately a de-cade, yet the av-erage American knows nothing about it. Is this fair?

No, because the Korean Wave has certainly affected my life. And I live on this “safer,” democratic continent. Over the course of Ameri-can history, many nerdy, self-conscious Asian girls have wanted to be vari-ous things other than Asian. During my American life, I have wanted to be many things other than Chinese. “Koreans are so dang cool.”This has been the theme of my life,

Fan girls, Fan boys, Precipitation, and the Waveand I trust, many other Asian kids’ lives, since either the start of high school or the fall of N-Sync and the Backstreet Boys. “Bye Bye Bye,” American boy bands. You will never beat DBSK, Su-per Junior, Shinwa, Shinee or Big Bang! These Korean boy bands have got everything over you – dancing, good looks, fan service. The whole thing. The Korean Wave, or “Hal-lyu,” is a socio-cultural phenomenon in which South Korean pop culture is exported to (and enthusiastically re-ceived by) fan girls (plus grown men and others) all over Asia (and elsewhere, in countries like Mexico and Russia). What it really means is that girls fall in love with Korean pop-stars like Rain, an extremely popular singer/dancer who was featured in The Colbert Report. It also means that one of our

very own teachers likes Girls Generation, a relatively new girl band whose mem-bers are known for dancing and winking. Indeed, I am enamored with the sounds of the Korean language. I also believe that Rain is a gorgeous man. The gals in Girls Generation are, I ad-mit, pretty. And their songs are cute. And South Korea is a democratic country. But I also believe that there is a melody to Chinese that should not be dis-missed as “terrible” by unfamiliar ears. I also think that Rain is not a god. I am con-vinced that the members of Girls Gener-ation are way too cute. Watching K-pop music videos is sometimes overwhelming. Also, having looked into scholars’ analysis of Hallyu over the summer, I’ve learned that this great cultural tsunami has resulted from both economic factors and celebrity packaging. Korean culture

is not “better” than others. In fact, no culture, however popular, can ever be. Have I proven to you that I am NOT your typical fan girl? I don’t go to concerts. I don’t daydream fre-quently about dancing in the rain with Rain or imagine my life as a movie. But I understand the fan girl mental-ity. Of course, you probably do too. I think the conclusion here is that we all have a bit of, “I wish I were someone else” in us, no matter how confident we are. Part of the ap-peal in these fantasies is that we can never be that “someone else.” But daydreaming is awesome. And squeal-ing at Youtube videos for hours is oc-casionally amazing too. Trust me, you should try it sometime. Maybe ask Mr. Wu for a song recommendation?

South Korean pop culture is unbelievably popularBy Justine Yan

opinionsDecember 2009 | 5

Ah, Facebook. The giant cess pool of humiliating, revealing, oops-I-wish-I-kept that-a-secret moments. We understand. Sort of. Installments like Facebook pages, Myspace profiles, Tum-blers, Twitters, etc. all give us a sense of personal ownership of our own little corner of cyberspace. We decorate it lib-erally with revealing pictures and deep, inner thoughts, but we often fail to real-ize that despite whatever false sense of security these websites have given us, they are, and will always be, very much pub-lic. Even Facebook, with its multitude of security protections and measures, does not keep you totally safe from the damag-ing effects the internet can have on you. We hear about it all the time. A young teen gets fired from her job based on something she wrote on her Myspace; a woman in Canada gets her health ben-efits taken away based on the pictures she posted on facebook. For some rea-son, these warnings don’t seem to affect this generation in internet users because internet careless is on a rampant rise. Facebook and Myspace attempt to offer various security protections, but there is one more universal security option anyone can exercise— common sense. Whether you’re a student or an em-ployee, believe it or not, the things you post on the internet (about you or any-one else) are a public reflection on who you are. You are very much capable of reasoning what does and doesn’t have a place on your internet page, and that’s a capability you should bother exer-cising when dealing with the internet.

Teachers tend to watch your every move… even on Facebook?By Anisha Babbar

That being said, it’s really no one else’s job to govern internet stupidity but your own. There have been a small but sig-nificant number of incidents where teach-ers and administrators have exercised their administrative authority by punishing stu-dents for something they have posted on their Facebook or Myspace or Tumbler. While what you say on the inter-net is a reflection upon yourself, it’s really nothing more than that. It’s an institution completely separate from our (or any) school. Teachers really have no grounds besides moral bias, to discipline us based on what we put on the internet. While I concede that there are limits to free speech on school grounds (dress codes, profanity, etc.) these restrictions extend only as far as the classroom walls. Teach-ers have no right to peruse your internet profiles and incriminate you for the things they find there. And if they do, you can argue that it is in fact an infringement to your right of free speech because any-thing you put on your own internet pro-file is not under the school’s jurisdiction. What does this all mean? Ba-sically, if Mr. XYZ suspended you for writing that nasty Facebook status about him, you actually have a pretty good case against him. But it doesn’t mean that you should rush out and go and slap another mean thing on your profile. “But that com-ment was just a joke!” Yeah, we know. But when Mr. XYZ is grading your math test and fails to give you points for the benefit of the doubt; or maybe he’s grading your essay and comes down a little too harsh-ly on your misplaced commas, it kind of

Photo:Justine Yan

Irvington High School boys have been denied the possibility of tak-ing part in an all boys volleyball team. This sad, but unsurprising, decision by IHS administration is a travesty, a sham and a mockery —a travishamockery. Every other sport offered at IHS has ei-ther a co-ed team or two separate boy and girl teams. Except one: volleyball. Throughout Europe, volley-ball has been one of the most popular sports, and now in Poland, men’s vol-leyball is second to soccer. This influ-ence has begun to spread throughout the U.S. as volleyball becomes a more popular sport. There are various colleges in the U.S. that offer men’s volley-ball to their students, includ-ing Penn State, Stanford, USC, UCLA and Princeton University. Scholarships are provided for men’s volleyball in many universities, but if Irvington does not have a team, then IHS boys are deprived of the fi-nancial aid they could receive from a sport that is less competitive than others. Boys volleyball was also offered by Horner Junior High, and they had a complete team of boys who were willing to play. When these students later attend Irvington High School, they are informed with the disappointing news that IHS does not have a boy’s volleyball team for them. “It would be worth the shot,” said girls’ volleyball coach, Coach Mar-tin. “But the only problem is gym time, cost of uniforms and the athletic de-partment may not have the cash flow.” If Irvington is not “fit” to handle another sports team, then how are the five others schools in the Fremont Unified School District, (Mission San Jose, Wash-ington, Kennedy, Logan and American High School) able to have boys volleyball

teams? If these schools have the materi-als and time for their boys to play volley-ball, then what is Irvington doing wrong that inhibits us from making a team. In order to start a boy’s volleyball team here at Irvington, there would have to be some sort of petition that proves to the athletic department that enough boys are interest- ed in trying out for the team in the spring. A com-p r o m i s e would have to be met with the badminton team for gym time, but some sort of ag reement could be met in order to work out schedul-i n g and game

days. IHS should try and see if the boys could practice in the com-munity cen-ter across the

street or if the smaller gym could be used. Lastly, be-cause the funding to-wards this new sports t e a m would prob-ably be a low amount, players could fund-raise like other

teams or a s k for help from sup- p o r t i v e parents. Making the team is not an impossible thing; it is just up to the faculty and students to get it started. As the world and other schools move forward in creating equality for the students, Irvington should remember not to deny their male athletes an equal opportunity.

What about the Boys?Irvington administration needs to take Boys volleyball into considerationBy Alexandra Perlegos

Internet StalkersInternet Stalkers

Photo: Alexandra Perlegos

DCA

eaturesF 6 | The Voice 18.3

2000Events: In the months leading up to year 2000, the apoca-lyptic Y2K theory stirred paranoia about the upcoming mil-lenium. People feared banks would malfunction and lose all their data because banks’ computers had abbreviated a four-digit year to two digits. However, the century turned, the world survived, and shortly after, the Summer Olympics took place in Syd-ney, Australia where USA took home 36 gold medals. The year closed with the controversial Supreme Court case, Bush v. Gore, where the Gore campaign de-manded a recount due Florida’s close results. This request was ultimately denied by the Supreme Court, marking the beginning of the controversial Bush presidency.

Movies: In the year 2000, The Grinch topped the box of-fice, grossing 260 million in total. Another notable movie of 2000 was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, though less fiscally successful, took the Oscar’s by storm, receiving six Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Film and Best Mo-tion Picture. Music: It was the era of Pop. Christina Aguilera, Macy Gray and Britney Spears were all nominated for Best New Artist. The best selling album that year, N’sync’s No Strings At-tatched, sold 15 million copies worldwide follwed by Emi-nem’s The Marshall Mathers LP, which sold 1.79 million cop-ies in just the first week. Britney’s Spears’ megahit album Oops I Did it Again revolutionized pop music, selling 1.3 million copies in the first week.

Fasion: Think back to what was in your closet ten years ago. Baggy jeans and denim jackets were a popular trend among men while fitted sweatsuits be-came increasingly popular for women.

2001Events: September 11th marked one of the most pivotal moments of the decade when terrorists hijacked and crashed two passaenger planes into New York’s World Trade Towers, killing thousands of people. Terrorists also crashed a plane into the Pentagon, killing hndreds of civilians in the process. The responses to this attack were only the beginnings of Bush’s famous war on terror. This event stirred one of the Bush administration’s most controversial pieces of legislation: The Patriot Act.Music: It was the year of the boybands. NSYNC’s songs This I Promise You and Gone made it to the top 100 hotlist. Backstreet Boys also topped the charts with their songs, including More Than That and Drowning. Movies: The number one box office movie was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, grossing 317 million dollars, followed by The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Shrek and Monster’s Inc. were also memorable releases. Technology: Apple announced their two newest innovations iTunes, and the iPod. Wikipedia was also first introduced online as a free encyclopedia, revolutionaizing internet research forever.Fashion: Peasant blouses and graphic tees were big hits in women’s fashion. Khaki and army green print also staged a fashion comeback, influenced by

the 9/11 attacks.

2002 Events: President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law, which allowed for standardized testing to be administered throughout the nation. These scores would subsequently determined federal funding. In the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II lost her mother, Queen Elizabeth, and sister, Princess Margaret during her 50th year of ruling.Movies: A Beautiful Mind, starring Russell Crowe, was awarded Best Motion Picture at the 74th Academy Awards. Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me if You Can, Doug Liman’s Bourne Identity also released successfully that same year. Several sequels were released that year, including Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Lord of the Kings: The Two Towers, and Men in Black 2. Spider-Man was the top gross-ing film of the year at $403.71 million, followed by Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones with $310.13 million. Music: Christina Aguilera released her second album, Stripped, which skyrocketed to number two on the Bill-board. Eminem made his third hit album, The Eminem Show,

which hit number one on the charts. He followed it with his autobiography film, 8 Mile, which won

an Academy Award for Best Original Song, “Lose Yourself.” Some of the other famous albums released that year included Linkin Park’s first remix album, Reanimation and Avril Lavigne’s debut album, Let Go, with lead single, Complicated. Sports: The 2002 Winter Olympics took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the women’s bobsled event was first intro-duced. Brazil took home the gold for the fifth time at World Cup soccer.

By Johnny Horng By Karishma Patel

2005 Inventions: The year 2005 started with a bang with the creation of YouTube, perhaps the greatest interface for video-sharing in the world. When former employees of PayPal Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, formu-lated the idea of YouTube after having difficulties shar-ing videos from a dinner party. None of them could have possibly imagined the impact their creation would have on the media, networking, and the world. Today, Youtube gets over millions of hits a day.Events: Pope John Paul II passed away on April 2nd, 2005. He is widely recognized as one of the most influen-tial leaders of the 20th century and is the only Polish Pope to date. His death led to the induction of Pope Benedict XVI on May 13th. Hurricane Katrina, which occured in August 23rd, turned out ot be one of the most disasterous and costliest natural disasters of the decade. It became one of the five deadliest hurricanes in US history, and the sixth strongest recorded of Atlantic hurricanes.Movies: George Lucas kept the force alive with Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. The movie topped the charts for the year, raking in more than 380 million dollars at the box office. Music: Making its second debut in August 2005 with the infamous treadmill music video and the catchy lyrics of “Here It Goes Again,” OK Go stormed the celebrity world with their energetic videos and odd glam/rock-geek fash-ion sense. Fashion: Perhaps it was the need to go green, or a re-newed love for Bohemian style that inflamed the hand-crafted bags made of layers of decorative embellish-ments, that created the “recylced, but trendy” look.

2006 Music: The year 2006 could be called the dawning of modern entertainers in the world of music. The era of the Hillary Duff, Backstreet Boyz and N’sync fangirls had come to close. The pop music of the early 2000’s was beginning to fade. A new generation of music listeners had emerged. This year marked the beginning fame for artists such as Neyo, Mariah Carey, Beyonce and Jus-tin Timberlake. All four topped the charts that year and their popularity skyrocketed from onward. At that point, hip-hop, rap, and R&B took over mainstream music.Movies: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dean Man’s Chest was the most popular movie of the year, making more than 423 million at the box office. (How can you possibly forget Johnny Depp being swallowed by a slimy, 200-foot kraken?) The success of this movie sent a massive spasm of pirate-mania. Before the year 2007 even ar-rived, store shelves were filled with all sorts of pirate-philia including posters, bed sheets, lampshades, and even bobble heads. Pirates became and important part of our culture that is still visible today. Other movies that made top dollars in the box office include X-men: The Last Stand, Night at the Mu-seum, The Da Vinci Code, and Cars.Events: On a darker note, Saddam Hussein, the pri-mary dictator of Iraq was hung after he was finally sen-tenced to death in Baghdad. Many argued that the execution was a barbaric act and not under the jurisdic-tion of the United States. Others felt it was an entirely necessary act, considering the fact that Hussein had committed far worse crimes and the only way for Iraq to move towards a more stable future was to shed its past. Overall, Hussein’s execution was a turning point for the United States involvement in Iraq.

It’stheENDof the

2007Technology: Science advanced faster than ever in 2007. The first human vaccine against the avian flu came out that year. The world’s “going green” move-ment was also born in 2007 with the G8 conference, an international forum in which the world’s eight richest countries debated environment issues. Other technological innovations included new video games for the newest game systems including the much hyped Halo 3 and Call of Duty: Modern War-fare 1 were released for Xbox 360. Events: The year was also plagued by some of the most horrific incidents this decade. Indonesian earthquakes ruptured the Pacific early September, leaving thousands dead and homeless. Huge southern California wildfires

By Raji Ramanathan

By Dion Wu

By Sukhbir KaurBy Jennifer Siew

e

CAde eatures feature

December 2009 | 7

s2002 Events: President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law, which allowed for standardized testing to be administered throughout the nation. These scores would subsequently determined federal funding. In the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II lost her mother, Queen Elizabeth, and sister, Princess Margaret during her 50th year of ruling.Movies: A Beautiful Mind, starring Russell Crowe, was awarded Best Motion Picture at the 74th Academy Awards. Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me if You Can, Doug Liman’s Bourne Identity also released successfully that same year. Several sequels were released that year, including Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Lord of the Kings: The Two Towers, and Men in Black 2. Spider-Man was the top gross-ing film of the year at $403.71 million, followed by Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones with $310.13 million. Music: Christina Aguilera released her second album, Stripped, which skyrocketed to number two on the Bill-board. Eminem made his third hit album, The Eminem Show,

which hit number one on the charts. He followed it with his autobiography film, 8 Mile, which won

an Academy Award for Best Original Song, “Lose Yourself.” Some of the other famous albums released that year included Linkin Park’s first remix album, Reanimation and Avril Lavigne’s debut album, Let Go, with lead single, Complicated. Sports: The 2002 Winter Olympics took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the women’s bobsled event was first intro-duced. Brazil took home the gold for the fifth time at World Cup soccer.

2003 Events: One year after its debut, American Idol gained incredible popu-larity and became the most watched TV show that year. The first space rovers that were successfully able to land and keep communications with the NASA, Spirit and Oppurtunity, were launched in 2003. Also, the first, fully functional Toyota Prius hybrid car (NHW11) was sold in 2003 for just under twenty thousand U.S. dollars.Movies: One of the most memorable movies of 2003 was the much antici-pated Lord of the Rings: Return of the King which grossed about 1.1 billion U.S. dollars, making it the second-highest grossing film in history. Finding Nemo grossed 860 million U.S. dollars, as the second highest-grossing movie of 2003. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was also released and grossed about 650 million U.S. dollars, engulfing much of the population in Pirate-fever. Music: Hilary Duff’s first album Metamorphosis sold about five million cop-ies worldwide. Linkin Park’s second studio album Meteora was also released and has currently sold about sixteen million copies worldwide. “Numb” came out to be the biggest song of the year on the chart. Kelly Clarkson, the first American Idol winner, also released her first album Thankful in 2003. Her single, “Miss Independent”, became a top ten hit in the U.S.Fashion: Skechers shoes and Heelies were all the rage in 2003. It was fashionable to sport conservative and simple styles. Cargo pants and vests were also a pretty common sight in 2003.

By Albert Chin 2004 Events: The year 2004 kicked off with the beginning of the presidential election, the highly anticipated face-off against John Kerry and George Bush. This nail-biting election ended with Bush winning 50.7% of the popular vote while John Kerry trailed behind with 48.3%. Facebook was launched on February 4th, ef-fectively leading to a boom in the social networking scene. Founded by four Harvard University students, Facebook has provided us with an easy way to network and kill time. The site was originally released as “The Facebook” and was initially restricted to the students of Harvard College; however, after a few months it be-gan expanding to other universities and ultimately the world.

Movies: Shrek 2 became the highest grossing film of 2004, earning over $900 million. And who could forget Million Dollar Baby, which won Best Motion Picture at the Academy Awards. The Passion of the Christ, directed by Mel Gibson, stirred controversy that year as critics questioned the historical accuracy of the movie and criticized its excessive violence. The film was banned in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Music: The world of music had its moments in 2004 as well. American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino became the first artist in history to debut at number one on the Bill-board Hot 100 with a first record. Jay-Z and Linkin Park’s collaboration “Collision Course” debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 list and was deemed the highest selling CD of the year. Last but not least, was the re-union of the group Destiny’s Child for one last world tour.Sports: The summer Olympics in Athens began on Au-gust 13th, 2004, where Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps made his mark in history by winning 6 gold med-als in 8 events, setting a precedent for what he would achieve four years later.

2007Technology: Science advanced faster than ever in 2007. The first human vaccine against the avian flu came out that year. The world’s “going green” move-ment was also born in 2007 with the G8 conference, an international forum in which the world’s eight richest countries debated environment issues. Other technological innovations included new video games for the newest game systems including the much hyped Halo 3 and Call of Duty: Modern War-fare 1 were released for Xbox 360. Events: The year was also plagued by some of the most horrific incidents this decade. Indonesian earthquakes ruptured the Pacific early September, leaving thousands dead and homeless. Huge southern California wildfires

destroyed thousands of homes in late October. But one of the most memorable events for the American public was the horrifying shooting at Virginia Tech University, in which a student gunman opened fire and shot down 32 other students before taking his own life. This was the big-gest mass shooting to take place on a campus up to date.Music: The year 2007 also brought an unforgettable array of entertain-ment. The music industry boomed with worldwide phenomena such as Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” and One Republic’s “Apologize” featuring Timbaland. Other memorable hits that year were “Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis and “Wait For You” by Elliot Yamin.Movies: This year also included some of the most iconic movies of today, including hit musical Hair-spray and children’s favorite, Rata-touille. Action movies such as The Bourne Ultimatum hit theaters and-comedies such as Juno, Superbad and Rush Hour 3 amused the crowd.

2008 Events: A racial barrier in politics was defeated when Barack Obama became the first African-American man to be elected president. Obama won the election in a landslide, 365 electoral votes to 173. In addition, the affair of former North Carolina Senator, John Edwards, with campaign employee, Rielle Hunter, was leaked to the public. The affair had happened during Senator Ed-wards’ presidential campaign and his wife’s remission from breast cancer. Movies: The Dark Knight and Twilight made an unprec-edented mark in the movie industry as they dominated the box office for weeks, earning more than 300 million dollars each, largely fueled by scores of Batman fans and teenage girls screaming for Edward. Iron Man, star-ring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, came in a close second, grossing over 200 million dollars domesti-cally. Heath Ledger’s death was one of the most widely talked about in 2008 as fans mourned him amid talks of a suicide and a drug-related death. Ledger received a posthumous Golden Globe and Academy award for Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight.Music: 2008 was riddled with artists such as Kanye West, Beyonce, and even the Jonas Brothers. Kanye West’s song “Love Lockdown” sold more than 2.5 million copies while “Burnin’Up”, written by the Jonas Brothers, debuted at #5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” became one of the most popular songs of the year and won an MTV Video Award for the Best Video of the Year.Sports: Swimmer Michael Phelps amassed a record-setting 14 career gold medals during the 2008 Olym-pics in China, surpassing the previous record of seven medals set by Mark Spitz in the 1972 Olympic Games.

2009 Events: The entire world was in shock on June 25th when Michael Jackson died at age 50 after suffer-ing from a cardiac arrest caused by a combination of drugs. The artist has since been recognized by the biographical movie This Is It and a dramatic increase in album sales. Chris Brown was sentenced to five years pro-bation for the assault of singer Rihanna. During the VMAs, Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for the “Video of the Year” award was inter-rupted by Kanye West. “Taylor, I’m really happy for you,” West said stealing the mic from Swift. “I’ll let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time!” Swine flu (H1N1) was declared a public health emergency. Since the initial outbreak, there have been 10,074 confirmed deaths worldwide.

Movies: Several highly anticipated hits came out such as Twilight: New Moon--the highest grossing film of 2009 with 402 million dollars-- The Half-Blood Prince, and Transformers 2. Other hits that year in-cluded The Hangover, Up and Star Trek. Music: The number one album of the year was Fear-less by country singer Taylor Swift. Along with Taylor Swift, Lady GaGa made her mark with her first head-lining tour and subsequent album The Fame Monster. Her unique style in both fashion and music has made her an icon worldwide.Technology: Twitter, a website that allows users to “tweet” updates, became the third most used social network. Its instant updates in news, sports and poli-tics has dramatically increased news flow.

By Raji Ramanathan By David Lo

By Selina MahesriBy Divya Gowthaman

ePhotos: cato.org, shoreline.eng.ohio-state.edu, mackrazde-sign.com, weblogs.cltv.comimg2.timeinc.net, tvbythenum-bers.com, ghacks.net, img.dailymail.co.uk, thequickhour.com, imgsrv.kcbs.com, templecuttingedge.files.wordpress.com, the7thfire.com, iact.ie, ubergizmo.com, blulob.com, skytracking.com, automopedia.org, keetsa.com, compstore.gmu.edu, mouseplanet.com, absolutegadget.com

ntertainmente 8 | The Voice 18.3

Q u e s t i o n Man

HOLIDAY MUST-SEE Movies

By Anisha Babbar and Johnny Horng

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel is the sequel to the successful kids movie released two years ago. The singing chip-munks Alvin, Simon and Theo-dore are challenged to save their school’s music program by win-ning the $25,000 prize in a battle of the bands. The situation be-comes complicated as the Chip-munks are confronted with ro-mantic interests and competition. While this does seem like a good movie for kids, I feel like many will watch this movie due to the success of the first movie. But I feel like not many people in highschool will go see it because of its plot is not very intriuging. But then again, who thought that a movie about a house fling away baloons be interesting. Go watch the movie De-cember 23, 2009, to find out if it lives up to the success of the original.

By Selina Mahesri

What’s the worst Christmas pres-ent you’ve

The same exact gift I gave away last year.Brenda Ryali, 10

My mom got me a book.M i c h a e l Avina, 12

A used hair tie from my brother.S a l e n a Huang, 11

I got a rock.Daniel Par-sons, 9

Flicks for the holiday season

An easy-to-make dish that brightens up your dinner tableBy Jennifer Siew

Ingredients:• 30 square wonton wrappers• pepperoni slices• 1/3 cup pizza sauce• 1 cup shredded mozzarella• 1 green pepper cut into strips• small bowl of water• vegetable oil

Decorations:• parsley• cherry tomatoes

Prep Time: 30 min.Cook Time: 10 min.

How to Make It:Lay wonton wrappers on flat surface. In the center of each wrapper, place one pepperoni slice, ½ teaspoon of cheese, and one pepper strip.

Dip your finger in wa-ter and moisten all 4 edges of the won-ton. Fold it in half and press edges to seal it.

Heat one teaspoon of oil in a skillet over medium heat and cook pockets until brown on each side.

Allow pockets to cool. Arrange in a wreath shape, adorn with pars-ley, cherry tomatoes, and cheese. Enjoy!

Step 4Step 3Step 1

Step 2

Photos: Jennifer Siew

Art

is

t Spotlight

By

Kat

herin

e Wang and Albert Chin

Sherlock Holmes is an ac-tion movie based off the successful book Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes and his partner Watson set off to track down their nemesis who has a plan that could potentially destroy the country of England. The villianous Lord Blackwood gives the movie a haunting feel. While I think Sherlock Holmes will definitely be a success in the box office, I feel as if many of the fans of the book will walk out disappointed because of its many differences than the book. Confirming my fears, many crit-ics who have already watched the movie say that it is not a very accu-rate depiction of the book, but it’s a good action and mystery movie. My advice is to go to the theaters with an open mind and watch it for the entertainment. The movie will be re-leased to the theath-ers on De-c e m e b e r 25, 2009. It is perfect to watch d u r i n g the holi-day break.

Senior Ashley Dalrym-ple may be in high school, but she’s already an accomplished artist. She has been interested in art since she was in 6th grade, and she continues her passion to-day through taking art classes at Irvington. Ashley enjoys painting the most, but likes to experiment with many types of art. Her favorite style is re-alism because as Ashley puts it, “it feels good to be able to cre-

Senior Henry Wu be-lieves in a more laidback kind of art style that allows him to draw freely, rather than realistic art. Caricature and other cartoony styles are his favorite styles of art to draw. Anything that strikes Henry as “pretty cool” is a po-tential candidate for him to draw. “When I play a game, if I see something that I like, I’ll draw it,” said Henry. “I’ll also draw when I have a concept I want to show.” Out of all the people who have influenced his drawing, Henry believes that his sister is probably his artistic hero. Hen-ry’s sister gave encouragement to Henry when he first started doo-dling, helping shape Henry into the artist he is today.

ate something that looks real.” However, she’s open to all kinds of styles. In fact, she cites her fa-vorite artist as Picasso because of his “off-the wall” creations . Of all her works, she is most proud of a sculpture she made: an intricate pot deco-rated with detailed drawings and splashes of color. Ashley de-scribes coiling it, then making it into a pot. “It’s especially hard to coil the pot,” Ashley said, “be-cause it’s hard to get it in the right shape.” A mo-saic of differ-ent elements, the pot is col-orful, creative, and striking – a true work of art.

The piece of artwork that Henry is most proud of is quite unexpected. “It was a pika-chu I drew on an SAT practice test,” explains Henry, “I managed to draw it by looking off a ther-mos bottle all the way across the room on the teacher’s desk.”

1 sheet of construction paper (tree)1 sheet of card stock (card)pair of scissorsglue/tape

Materials:

• Fold the construction paper in half and cut along the folded line

• Fold the two halves again and draw half a Christ-mas tree at the fold*

• Cut out the two trees and cut a slit along the bottom half of one tree, and a slit along the upper half of the other tree

• Slip the two trees together

along the slits and tape where the different tree flaps touch each otherTake half a sheet of card stock and fold it in half

• Cut a slit horizontally at the bottom 1/3 of the paper to around 1/2 across the pa-per from the folded edge

• Fold up the cut slit to form a triangle-shaped flap and crease firmly then fold the flap

back to its original position• Push the triangle through

to the inside of the card and close the card firmly

• Open the card and take two flaps of the tree and glue it to the pop-up triangle

• Take the other half of the piece of paper, fold in half and glue it to the back-side of the opened card

1 2 3 4 5Photos and Article

By Shirley Lin

Poppin’ Greeting Card

HOLIDAY TREAT: Pizza Calazone Wreath

Based on the best selling book by Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones centers on a young girl, Su-sie Salmon, who has been mur-dered and watches over her family and killer from heaven. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her fam-ily to heal. She watches lives of the people around her and how they have c h a n g e d all while a t t e m p t -ing to get s o m e o n e to find her lost body. Her family, including her father, Mark Wahlberg, and her sister, Rose McIver, take matters into their own hands and race to find Susie’s killer. Among the other people in her life, are friends from school, Ray Singh and Ruth who strug-gle to cope with Susie’s death. The Lovely Bones is a must-see if you wish to watch a heart-warming, touching, mov-ing film this holiday season. It releases on January 15, 2010.

Walt Disney Anima-tion Studios presents the musical "The Princess and the Frog," an animated comedy set in the great city of New Orleans. It’s a clev-er, modern twist on a the classic tale, where a beautiful princess kisses a frog, transforming the latter into a handsome prince. The Princess and the Frog stars a beautiful girl named Tiana and a prince who is in the state of a frog who desperately wants to be hu-man again. Their fateful kiss, how-ever, doesn’t turn out as planned when Tiana finds herself in a changed state of a frog herself. The movie n a r r a t e s their comic and heartwarming ad-venture through the mystical bay-ous of Louisiana. You can watch it with your friends, your parents, or little siblings. It’s guaranteed to make you laugh, smile, and keep you entertained throughout. It re-leased on November 25, and it’s currently still playing in theatres.

Case 39 is a horror mov-ie with a u n i q u e plot. Em-ily Jenkins is a social w o r k e r who saves 10 year-old Lil-ith, Case 39, from her par-ents, who

try to kill her, and takes her in herself. Then, Emily real-izes that the girl isn’t as inno-cent as she originally thought. I am definitely excited to watch Case 39. While horror movies are generally not my first choice, the plot of Case 39 is too intriguing to pass by. Many hor-ror movies in the theatres have been based off of trite ideas such as supernatural beings, but Case 39 is believable, which makes me interested to find out why her parents try to kill her. Case 39 is rated R and scheduled to release on January 1, 2010 in the US while it has al-ready been released in other coun-tries like Australia and Mexico. Go watch it to find out what hap-pens to Lilith and Emily Jenkins.

Photos: movieroar.com, flixter.com, mov-iecarpet.com, moviegoods.com, buhayky-usi.com, alpha-zls.com, and Karishma Patel

Photos: Selina Mahesri

Photos: Katherine Wang and Henry Wu

December 2009 | 9 TInstead of buying her some expensive per-fume, offer to do her share of the chores. A handmade cou-pon book is the easiest (and cutest) way of doing this. Simply cut several squares of paper or cardstock, write a different job on each, decorate, staple, and done!

The Top 4 iPhone AppsWinter Swag StuffBe cool in the cold, yoBy Arjun Panda

-Guys-

The Bomber Jacket

The real kinds are kind of hard to pull off unless you’re a mid-dle aged biker with a handle-bar ‘stache and a Har-

ley. So the fitter, faux bomb-ers from Urban should suffice.

FlannelsYeah, they’re played out, but rock the more sober shades and aban-don the hype beast neon ones from H&M. It’s difficult to believe, but the real flannels ACTUALLY keep you warm and look good.

Crew Neck Sweaters

Doddle up to some thrift place and cop some of this. May-be you’ll find a sweet A’s one; rep the yay and be tight. But maybe you’ll find some ran-dom plumbing company’s promo sweaters. It’s all good.

The Lumberjack Hat

Yeah, the ones with the ear flaps. Go for the farm animal de-signs, 90’s geometr ic shape de-signs, or the classic flannel style. What happened to the skull cap? People got tired of oily hair, that’s what.

-Girls-

Folk Inspired Sweaters

Whether it be the Peruvian sheep h e r d e r h e m p pullovers, or those old school l o o s e s w e a t -ers that have that subtle over hang (of fabric, that is) of the waist/sleeves, you’ll be sure to see this stuff around. Oh, and Christmas sweaters.

FlannelsAgain, the cutsie fitted neon “flannels”=ehh. Flan-nel tops are cool, but it’s all about longer, looser fits.

Sheer NylonsWell gosh darned, tights have left the scene. I guess people’s eyes got too tired from all the colors. These, however, are a bit more *ahem* sexy and natural. With some high waist shorts, these may make you look really, re-ally good. Or bad; you decide.

Clunky HeelsThese have been show-ing up on Dior, D&G, and c h a n n e l r u n w a y s . So clearly, they are cool. Also, colder days

may call for some folk in-spired boots; modest tassel-

Bells on Bob Tails Ring, Cha-Ching!Have fun for less without being the wet blanket this holiday seasonBy Sri RavipatiThe end of the year usually means breaking open that piggy bank and scavenging for all of the change in your coach to treat your loved ones to a good time. And boy, if you’re a senior it’s even worse! Senior portraits, graduation gowns, college applications—you’re already dishing out the big bucks and it has only been three months of school. Here are some ways to show people a fun time without burning a hole in your wallet:

The War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco is holding this year’s Nutcracker Ballet. Watch the holidays in the form of art and fancy footwork. The play is open from now until the 27th at the War Memorial Opera House.

Grab those skates and go! The Union Square Ice Skating Rink in San Francisco is open until Janu-ary 18. Skate in the heart of San Francisco with your loved ones!

What better way to shake up your holiday season that with a bunch of animals? Oakland Zoolights will feature displays to mirror the Oakland Zoo’s full-time animal residents. Join the fun and listen to holiday music!

Christmas in the Park is cel-ebrating 30 years of holiday tradition. The event calendar in-cludes Santa’s Photo Shop and Christmas in the Park Raffle Drawing. This is a great place to bring the your family because there is plenty to do together!

Cost: tickets are as low as $18

Cost: $9.50 for adults

Cost: $7.50 a person

Cost: it’s totally FREE

By Sukhbir Kaur

For: Mom

For: Graduating Senior

For: Dad For: GF/BF

For: FriendWithin a few months your favor-ite senior buddy will graduate and move far far away to the live the crazy college life. A “College for Dummies” guidebook is the best and most useful gift available. An-other option could be various de-grees of dorm décor such as wall posters, desk lamps, clocks, etc.

For Dad, stick to the classics. By far, the best gift for him is a tra-ditional coffee mug. A nice way to add a personal touch is to get it personalized with a picture of your dad. Before you wrap it, in-sert a Starbucks gift card into the mug to jazz up your gift even more.

Sing them a song, write them a poem- anything that will show how much you love him/her. Just take something you’re good at and present it in a way that’ll impress your sweetheart. If math is your strong point, then create a com-plex equation to solve together.

This holiday season get your friend a matching friendship bracelet. Make it at home to save money. For your guy friends, make them a customized duct tape wallet. For directions, go online to ihsvoice.com.

entertainmen

Santa’s SackTake a look inside Santa’s sack... he only comes once a year.

Ever wonder how T-Pain gets his voice like that? This new auto-tune app has been the #1 grossing app for the past two weeks. All you need is a mike to record whatever you want, and you can even post your recordings on Facebook!

Speaking of Facebook, the ever popular social networking site has now launched its own application for your iTouch or iPhone. You can access pictures, wallposts and even your inbox. It’s basically the perfect fit for Facebook addicts who are away from the computer.

LOL. Mkay cya tonite? BFFL! <33Texting has become the new medium for communication these days. For those of you who haven’t tried texting, now is your chance to try it out without the monthly fee. Just a one time purchase can get you free texts, in and out, on your iPhone or iTouch, provided you have wi-fi.

This application is basically your all-in-one program. It’ll calcu-late tip, remind you of holidays and anniversaries, and upcoming events. It also includes other nice functions such as unit conversions, and currency exchange formulas.

AppboxPro

Textfree UnlimitedFacebook

I am T-Pain

By Dion Wu

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Happy Holidays From The VOICE Staff!

Photos: sff.net, textplus.com, theappleblog.com, mobileticker.info

Photos: wordpress.com, about.com, sfgate.com, waymarking.com

Photos: Arjun Panda and Karishma Patel

Photos: polyvore.com and Sukhbir Kaur

SGirl Vikings Goes for the GoalVarsity girls soccer play their first league game against Mission San JoseBy Selina Mahesri

On December 8, varsity girls soccer played their first league game against Mission San Jose High School at TAK. The Lady Vikings lost 0-1, but kept up a strong game that gave them confidence for the upcoming season. Irvington had a sloppy beginning that accounted for the loss of the entire game. Mission scored on Irvington within the first thirty seconds of the match, leaving both the players and the spectators in fear for what was coming. But, Irvington immediately picked up their game and evenly matched their opponents for the remainder of the match. The game was bursting with headers, strong crosses, and aggresive attacks on Mission’s goal by forwards juniors Stephanie Lloyd, Heidi Moreno and Jessica Lerma. The unchanging score can be accounted for by the solid defensive line which consisted of senior Kimmy Denne, freshman Danielle Corothers, and sophomore Sarah Hardin along with freshman goalie Kim McLaughlin. Junior Stephanie Lloyd said, “I’m so proud of the way we played in our first league game. We trained really hard over pre-season and it

showed in our game against Mission. League will be intense, but there are no forerunners. It’s anyone’s game this year.” Although many of the calls made by the referee were questionable, the referee loosened up with Irvington by the second half and the Vikings got their fair share of calls against Mission. During the final stages of the second half, Irvington had a couple of chances to even out the score with penalty kicks, but luck wasn’t on their side. Shots were missed,but thanks to the excellent defensive performance, IHS was able to hold off MSJ for the entire duration of the game.Although Irvington did not emerge victorious from the game, they played a well-above average game considering Mission has always been a fierce competitor of their’s. “We look really strong, we have a lot of really good players, but in the MVAL, what it comes down to is which team battles harder” said Coach Nicole Mangiardi. “We need to bring it.” Judging by their unfaltering energy, girls soccer is definitely MVAL material. Irvington’s girls soccer will get the chance to redeem themselves against Mission again on January 14.

Sword Grabbin’ and Back Stabbin’Irvington fencing slices its way into the topBy Anooj Desai

Although not many know about it, the fencing club is making strides and becoming big. Sophomore Samir Mehta joined the club with a couple of friends just to experience some of the things high school had to offer. He did not have prior experience in fencing, but learned skills over time from student instructors like junior Simon Tam, the lead instructor of the team. He also mentioned that if someone was

interested in learning from a professional, some colleges offer fencing classes. The club took part in a tournament last year, and though they have not decided the exact tournament they want to participate in, they plan to do so again sometime this year. The club had about 50 people when the school year started, but only about 10 or 15 people come consistently now. “My greatest accomplishment,” said Samir, “would have to be the time I beat someone 5-0.” He explained how each point is earned by a hit to the torso. When asked why he chose fencing over other sports, his reasons included the fact that fencing does not require too much dedication and time, how it is easy to pick up and how there is always a good balance between the opponents in terms of skill level. The club generally meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-5 PM in the 200-wing and practices in the hallway across room 222. Fencing club also runs around the school to warm up and get exercise at the start of each practice. Because it is a student-run club, new members would have a great opportunity to meet new people and learn a unique sport at the same time.

Gasp! A Tennis Tantrum!By Vida Bao

If you’ve never heard of Serena Williams, you hate sports. That, or you have been living under a rock. Serena Williams is only the decade’s best female singles tennis player. I’ll admit it, Serena is one of my idols. After all, who wouldn’t idolize the woman who won the Grand Slams 11 times? (For all of you people who don’t follow the tennis world, a Grand Slam is the eqivalent of the Superbowl in Football--the World Cup of Soccer.) However, recently Serena hasn’t exactly been the model for good sportsmanship. At the US Open this September, during the semifinals, she was charged a point penalty over a foot fault point penalty. She then screamed “If I could, I would

take this f***ing ball and shove it down your f***ing throat!” at a linesperson over the foot fault point penalty. Because of the tantrum, Serena was charged another point penalty. However, since she was already charged a point penalty over her foot fault, the penalty that occurred over her tantrum cost her the match point. Therefore, Serena had to concede a 6-4, 7-5 loss to her opponent, Kim Clijsters from Belgium. (Again, for all of you non-tennis people, a foot fault is when a player touches the line with his/her foot while serving. A linesperson is in charge of calling the ball in or out and calling foot faults. Match point is the final point of the match.) Afterward, on November 30, Serena was fined $82,500 for her public tantrum in addition to a $10,000 fine that was dealt immediately.However, I personally believe that this fine is useless. Serena earned $350,000 for reaching the semifinals, and her career prizes amounts to more than 28 million. For example, I think that instead of a fine, Serena should have been given“probation”. If she displays bad sportsmanship again, she should be barred from entering the next Grand Slam. This way, Serena will be forced to learn from her mistake instead of merely handing over a wad of cash that she doesn’t need. But since this isn’t going to happen, I guess we’ll just have to hope that no one else in the tennis world will have another temper tantrum.

Tennis superstar Serena Williams’ breakdown at the 2009 US Open

Photo: dailymail.com

10 | Voice 18.3

Q: What are your goals this year for the team? A: The past few years the basketball team here has forgotten what it means to play basketball. They have been too worried about not making mistakes, which leads to poor basketball. I’m looking forward to the kids remembering that they are playing because it’s something they love to do. Q: What is happening different this year with the team, in comparison to last year?A: So far this year the unquestionable change has been intensity. The way the kids are getting into the game, and the hustle they show on the court. Leadership is another change from last year. Instead of one guy out there leading by example, we have three. Not just by their play on the court, but also using their voices. Juniors Shaun Ho and Jon Wright, and senior Anthony Dugger, are helping to get this team to where we would like it to be.

Q: Have you personally participated in any basketball competitions before you became a coach?A: I’ve been playing basketball all my life. I played all through Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), then Horner Jr. High, and right here at Irvington High School (2000-2004). I tore my meniscus in my left knee about 2 weeks before our all star game my senior year, and decided to play through it. After surgery I rehab’d [sic] it and tore my right knee’s meniscus

while playing at Ohlone College. At that point after my second surgery, I knew I wouldn’t be playing anymore college ball, but didn’t want to give up the game, so I found myself coaching.

Q: Have you ever coached any other teams? If so, which ones?A: I’ve assisted with several teams prior to coaching at IHS. Millard Elementary School, CYO teams, Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) clubs, and helping a few high schools. I also spent a lot of time individually working out high school players, training them on areas they needed help. Then, 2007-2008 I was the freshman coach here at IHS, 2008/2009 junior varsity, and this year 2009/2010 becoming the varsity head coach.

Q: Do you have any pet peeves when it comes to playing basketball? If so, which ones?A: Guys not hustling. In my mind hustle is the most important part of basketball. A player can have all the skill in the world, but without the right mindset, will never be able to display it. There is a lot of talent on this years team, and I’m big on motivating them to use that to their advantage. We have to be a scrappy, intense, high energy team if we want to compete, and so far the players are doing just that. This team hasn’t realized its full potential yet, and many players don’t realize the potential they have in themselves

Q: Who do you think will be your toughest & easiest opponents this year?A: I think every game this year will be tough. Not in the sense that we can’t win, but that this is a new year. Being that it is a new program, we don’t have all the scouting on each team’s plays or tendencies. Yet at the same time they don’t have ours. Each game will be a learning experience for the players.

Interview with Varsity Head Basketball Coach: Tim Gerber23-year-old Irvington High school graduate tells us about his time as the basketball coachBy Raji Ramanathan

Photo: Raji Ramanathan

Photo: Anooj Desai

Sophomore Katie Lovejoy pushes the ball up the fieldPhoto: Selina Mahesri

Junior Simon Tam and sophomore Samir Mehta from the Fencing Club get ready for their practice.

Serena Williams slandering the ref. Tsk Tsk, Serena.

ports

Burning Off That Santa-Fat During BreakNo more extra pounds after eating irresistible holiday goodsBy Shirley Lin Everyone’s afraid of eating a bit too much of the roast beef or having one too many of Grandma’s baked cookies. But fear no more—there are ways to enjoy the food without gaining any of that unwanted weight. One suggestion is to give yourself penalties after eating certain fat-saturated or high caloried foods. For example, for every 5 or more chocolate bars, brownies, cookies, etc., do 20 sit-ups, 20 jumping jacks, and one-fourth of a mile. For accurate ways to calculate how much calories burned during exercises or activities, visit sparkpeople.com. At this website, you can choose the

Ranking system in the NCAA leads to controversiesBy Sahil Pandya

We all know that the National Football League (NFL) uses a playoff system to narrow down its 32 teams to the final two, both of whom battle it out with the Super Bowl in February. However, college football is very different. It doesn’t use a playoff system like the NFL. Instead, it has a complicated ranking system that lands teams in the elite group of ten, known as the Big Ten. But this ranking system has been questioned numerous times in the past due to its imperfections and bias. The actual selection of teams involves a long list of regulations, groupings, and quirks. All college football teams are divided into conferences, similar to the National Football Conference (NFC) and American Football Conference (AFC) in the NFL. Some of these include the Big 12, the Pac-10, and the Big East. A champion from one of these conferences is automatically granted a spot in the BCS bowl bid. Then there are other clauses like, “A special case is made for independent Notre Dame, which receives an automatic berth if it finished in the top eight.” This special provision disregards all other teams, and gives Notre Dame a free ride into the BCS seeding. Numerous other clauses eventually result in 10 dominant teams being the winners, or chosen ones. But in order to get to those ten teams, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has put forth an even more complicated point-ranking system. Points are awarded to teams based on general wins, general losses, wins against higher ranked teams, losses against lower ranked teams, tough schedules, easy schedules and even injuries! In addition, there are different types of polls, including a media poll and coaches’ poll, which ask NCAA viewers to vote for their favorite teams. After all of these factors are accounted for, computers generate the rankings after the points have been totaled and entered. At the end of this selection, the Big Ten teams are ranked from first to tenth. Then, the teams ranked third to tenth are seeded in one of the four bowl games. The remaining two leaders are selected to play in the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) Championship game, which, for the 2009 season, will take place on January 7, 2010. The two teams competing this year are Alabama and Texas, ranked first and second respectively. So where is the controversy? Maybe it is in the voting system where bias, population, and attendance take away from the actual skill of teams. Many franchises can get easy points from their large viewer base despite their lack of competence. It could be in the overwhelming number of clauses stating who qualifies and who doesn’t, or it could be in the overall points system itself. I mean, you tell me. In math, long processes with a lot of calculations always leave room for error—maybe a missed multiplication sign or negative sign. In cooking, too many ingredients can lead to a distasteful product. In football, too many clauses, too many criteria, too many numbers and too many calculations can only lead to one thing: mistakes.

College Football PowerhousesFun Traditions of Top Five Football Colleges in the nationBy Karishma Patel

University of Alabama: Traditions have it that Alabama’s Million Dollar marching band, plays during the half-time shows at home games. The fans start chanting “Yea Tide” to get everyone pumped up for the big football game. The biggest game of the year is always against Louisiana State University.

Texas University: At the football games, a live Texas longhorn named Bevo comes for the game. One of the school’s organizations, the Orange Jackets, comes on the football field during halftime to play the song “The Eyes of Texas,” which is sung to the tune of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” The school also has a hand signal that they sign out during the games—“Hook ‘em Horns.” During the game everyone participates in the “Texas – Fight!” cheer,

which has one side of the stadium yell “Texas!” and the other “Fight!” Smokey the cannon is fired during kickoffs and after the Longhorns score at home games. Waving the world’s largest Texas flag before football games is another tradition. Lighting the main building in orange after victories is a tradition that has been followed many years. Texas Christian University: For every home game, Frog fans gather outside the University Union before the football team takes the field. Each week the team would come down the stairs and run through all the fans to the stadium.

University of Cincinnati: One of the traditions at this school is bringing Lucy, a bearcat from the Cincinnati Zoo, to almost every home

form of exercise which you have done. Some of the choices include casual exercise and everyday activities like gardening, painting, and even Wii golf. Once the

game. Other traditions include singing “Fight” songs to pump the team up.

University of Florida: Gator fans do the Chomp, which is a hand motion, which is led by the band as they play the theme song from Jaws. A new tradition started which has the Gators empty the team buses on University Avenue and walk through the crowd of fans on their way to the stadium. Another tradition during the game incorporates Gator fans. The fans wrap their arms around their neighbor and sway left to right and sing at the end of the 3rd quarter. The stadium is separated into half “Orange.” a nd half “Blue” to show school spirit.*Alabama Crimson Tide will be facing the Texas Longhorns in the Rose Bowl at Pasadena, California on January 7, 2010.

5. Florida Gators

4. Cincinatti Bearcats

3. TCU Horned-Frogs

2. Texas Longhorns

1. Alabama Crimson-Tide

Photo:Johnny Horng

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Collegiate Uniqueness or Utter Stupidity?

11 | December2009 Photos: Rivals.com

PhotoShirley Lin

Freshman Katie Ng is punishing herself for eating too many brownies.

activity is selected, all you have to do is enter in your weight in pounds and the minutes that you spent doing that activity and the website will calculate the amount of calories burned. Using this, you will know how much exercise is needed to burn off the excess calories you consumed. As a precaution, for those of you who don’t count the calories you consume, start doing exercise everyday. You can use the set of exercise mentioned above, but replace 10 sit-ups with 20, and change the one-fourth of a mile to jogging around, walking your pet around the neighborhood or jogging three-fourths of a mile.

s sport

umorH12 | The Voice 18.3

Santa Claus Is(n’t) Coming to TownHere comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus...aww nevermindBy Sahil Pandya On December 24, 2009, Saint Nicholas passed away in the confines of his cottage at the North Pole. The press was told that he had finished his rounds on the night of December the 23, after which he got into bed. His wife, Mrs. Claus, said that he never woke up the next morning. “It was bound to happen,” she said. “I had been trying to tell him that he wasn’t okay...I mean the exercise was way too much. There was an in-crease in seismic activity when he ran!” Born...a long time ago...Nicho-las’s life is really unknown to most. How-ever, he had been featured in many re-cent magazines as the biggest success for the Jenny Craig diet. His record-breaking success of a two hundred pound loss ex-ceeded even the expectations of leading scientits. However, the absence of smoked reindeer from his dinner table and candy canes from his desert menu led to a large decline of his immune system. We were told that he had shaven two nights be-fore his death in an attempt to bring a new look to Christmas. The exposure of his skin to the cold led to pneumonia. “I told him that his beard was still fashionable, but he wouldn’t listen. He told me he wanted to look like George Clooney—I really don’t blame him,” said Mrs. Claus. Saint Nicholas is now lived on by his wife, Mrs. Claus, and the thou-sands of elves who claim to be his chil-dren. The resemblance is unknown. In an Irvington Voice exclusive, we were also introduced to one of the Claus’s fam-ily secrets, one they had been keeping for almost nine months now. Saint Nicholas

Jr. was born on December 18, 2009, just six days before his father’s death. Mrs. Claus hopes that Nick Junior will be able to take the place of his father, but she isn’t sure whether he will grow to that size. “There is a chance that Ju-nior might not be Saint Nick’s child; the gap between the two men was so short,” she said when asked about her love life. So what does this devastating news mean to the people of the world today? A more depressing Christmas, that’s what. No more hearing the sleigh bells through the night. No more Rudolph’s shiny light. Instead, parents will have to start buying the gifts for their children. ‘Dear Santa’ let-ters won’t be sent to the North Pole any-more. Cookies and milk will be left out and eaten by adults. The North Pole will be bought over and turned into an Asian shopping center by the name of China-town: Frosted. But, look on the bright side. At least Kwanza will be appreciated more...

Top 10 New Years Resolutions

1. Stop making Kanye-at-VMAS refer-ences.

2. Leave South Indians alone!

3. Act like you appreciate the newspaper and visit IHSvoice.com at least once this year. Please!

4. Leave ASB alone!

5. Tiger; refill prescription for Viagra.

6. Quit your business behind Walgreens and get a real job.

By Shirley Lin and friends

7. Less laundry, more deodorant.

8. Work on those pecs that have so much potential.

9. Stop getting so many girls/guys (circle one, or two)

10. Stop dressing babys in weird costumes; that includes top hats.

Lamentations of a Myspace Veteran

By Neetu Puranikmath I remember the good ol’ days way back in the early 2000s. Man, ev-erything was perfect then. Kanye was known for his music, Britney Spears hadn’t gone Screamo on us, and Myspace ruled Cyberspace. Everyone loved us. Myspace was the ultimate in-crowd. We had them all: Whites, Blacks, Yellow Asians, Brown Asians, Yellow Mexicans, Brown Mexicans, you name it. We had the diversity. We REPRESENTED. But as it is with many love tales, ours did not have a happy end-ing. After the b**tardization and birth of Facebook, things just started to go downhill. At first I didn’t even notice it. Maybe, a little less income, fewer fans online, smaller membership lists. The fans were still there though. I knew it deep down inside. Soon, Myspace would be able to make a big-ger comeback than Justin Timberlake. However, the situation got worse instead of better. Facebook decid-ed to install these things called “applica-tions” and “games.” Soon people were raising cows and playing poker. Slowly,

my academically elite brothers and sisters left Myspace. Those nerds -- just because Facebook was started by some Harvard kid, they go running to join. Facebook, TIME magazine gushes, still maintains a “whiff of the Ivy League.” Who needs a whiff of the Ivy League when Myspace shows pictures of you having a whiff ? Now, people say hurtful things to me. They call Myspace the “internet ghetto!” I mean so what if each page gets corrupted with flowers and cheap plastic hearts as screensavers? Some-times truths are not meant to be told. While the Facebook yuppies get interviewed in TIME and Newsweek, Perez Hilton asked me how my life “in the hood” has been and whether dumpster diving was helping me survive. Myspace is more than a place where friends post photos of their latest beer pong tourna-ment. The next decade will be better than the last for Myspace. I just know it.

¬¬With an emo haircut tak-en from an awkward angle,Tom, the most popular guy on Myspace

The Origami Voice!By Kim Ngo Honestly, I’m happy to see you go out of your way to open to this page to read my article. I really appreciate it, but I just want you to know that you shouldn’t be intimidated by the other ar-ticles of the paper. But if reading about Healthcare and school sports is too dif-ficult a task, I thought of some ways for you to use the paper so it doesn’t go to waste...

Toilet Paper - If you’re not going to use The Voice for reading, might as well use it for some-thing totally necessary. I mean who cares if you can’t read The Voice. It’s not like you can read toi-let paper, right? Wrong.

The Ultimate Push-Up Bra – now that the cold season is coming up, its best to conserve all the tissue paper that you can. The Voice is much thick-er than ordinary tis-sue paper. It’ll give you a good lift ;]

Food- You can eat paper. Trust me.

A mat – You can use The Voice to meditate on and ponder about how much bet-ter everything would be if you were in control, especially of the newspaper.

Firewood- I know that the newspaper isn’t ex-actly wood, but it once was on a tree. And plus you know you like the pretty colors that burn when you light it. (Please don’t breathe in the flames. You might burn your nose. I suggest you breathe in Sharpie’s instead).

Trevor Buswel before enhancement

After The Voice Enhancement

Photo: Sahil Pandya

Santa gets his diet on.

www.broncobillyspizza.com

Phot

os: K

im N

go

Tom fades away, but not in my heart

(Up to 10 pizzas pre-order onlyvalid on Tuesday-pick up only)

(Up To 10 Pizzas Pre-Order OnlyValid On Wednesday-Pick Up Only)