On April 28th and 29th, Irvington invited bands from around the east bay to participate in the California Music Educators Association Festival. Irvington’s Wind Ensemble scored unanimous superior, Symphonic Band scored superior, and Freshman Band scored excellent.

Each band gets a score based on two categories: performance and sight reading. In the performance, there are three judges who rate the band’s performance of the pieces that the band chooses to play. After listening to each band play, each judge ranks the band in one of five ranks: superior, excellent, good, fair, and poor. In sight reading, the band is given a new piece that they have not rehearsed and are scored with the same scale on how well they play it.

Many band members are proud of their accomplishments but strive to improve their skills. Wind ensemble percussionist Primus Lam said, “It was a unanimous superior, but we can always do better.”

“I was concerned with running the festival, but I thought all the bands did a great job,” said Irvington band teacher and director Charlie Rodda. Mr. Rodda made it clear that CMEA was not a competiton between schools, but rather a chance for bands to be judged based on their musical talents and score well. 78 bands from 26 schools attended the festival.

Th Irvington CMEA headquarters, where all the behind-the-scenes work to run the festival took place, did face difficulties in running the festival. “Communication with the volunteers was difficult,” said Sophomore Jerry Quan, who worked at the festival headquarters compiling scores and recording judges. “But overall, it was a success.”

1. Spend the night cramming for the AP test. Don’t waste your valuable time trying to study for it before. Study when it’s really necessary.
2. Don’t eat breakfast the day of the test. You might feel nauseated or you might just vomit because of nervousness.
3. It’s good to be extremely nervous. Helps you stay alert so you are aware of the students’ scantrons next to you.
4. Don’t eat dinner the night before. You don’t want to spend time in the bathroom regretting about what you ate last night.
5. Log on Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr for a 1 to 2 hour break. Social networking sites aren’t distractions. They are stress relievers where you can vent all you want.

Plans are coming together for a 2013 world languages trip to China, open to all students regardless of whether they are taking a foreign language or not, according to Chinese and math teacher Mrs. Vila.

The trip, coordinated by Mrs. Vila and Spanish teacher Mr. Ballado, will take place during the spring break of the 2012-2013 school year. Students will visit Beijing to see the Great Wall and the Imperial City, as well as the Terracotta Army in Xi’an and the pristine landscapes of Yunnan.

According to Mrs. Vila, the cost of the trip will be about two to three thousand dollars per student, depending on how many sign up. Interested students should be on alert for updates later in this year and early next year as the trip’s details are further arranged

Roughing it should not be an issue. “We will definitely be staying in a four-star hotel,” said Mrs. Vila. “I wouldn’t trust anything less in China

Alright, I’m not guilty to admit it: I judge things based on its looks. Now come on, don’t tell me you don’t.

As humans, we tend to judge prematurely based on looks, and that impression will somehow influence our later judgments. Choosing college, unfortunately, falls into this category. Many people go visit campuses not to visit the school and its programs, but to see how “pretty” the school is. The prettier and newer the buildings are, the more attracted to that school you are. It’s kind of similar to the whole “apply for the college name” scenario where people apply to a certain school because of its name.

As part of an immigrant family, my parents have urged me to apply to certain schools because “they are good schools”. They don’t necessarily understand what specific programs each individual school has to offer, but the name is just way too appealing. Just like the school names, the school’s look also draw in a lot of incoming students as well. Some students choose School A over School B because School A has newer buildings, better campuses, and more varied facilities. These factors are important when one chooses colleges, but often times these factors become the only factor people consider.

It’s understandable that you cannot possibly learn everything about a certain school based off of the websites. Each person is built differently and can adapt to different environments differently. Though it will be difficult to fully know a school before actually attending there, students ought to be more objective. You are spending the next couple of years in that school, so considering everything is important.

Vasco de Gama, Prince Henry the Navigator, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Ferdinand Magellan, Lewis and Clark, Edmund Hillary, Shackleton…. The list continues in both directions for a while and then suddenly stops with Neal Armstrong and his fellow explorers of our moon. As humans, we have always been curious. We yearn to discover the undiscovered. For centuries, we have adorned explorers- those among us who have the backbone to risk their lives to traverse a foreign land. So many things could go wrong, but they risk their lives in the name of exploration. Many have died because of their voyages – Balboa, Magellan, and Livingstone.
Young boys and girls used to revere explorers. These men were the namesake of their generation. Lewis and Clark became a household name after their perilous journey from Missouri to the Pacific Northwest. For centuries, even millennia, humanity has explored. Then suddenly, exploration of new worlds comes to a dead halt. After man set foot on the moon, humanity stopped flirting with adventure. We don’t hear of that brave group of young men and women who voyaged out to Mars or to the abysses of our own planet. We don’t hear of that man or woman who set off on his or her own to discover new planets.
Is our thirst for exploration quenched? Do we think that everything that needs to be explored has been explored? Has exploration lost its sexiness to innovation? After all when we think of the 21st century, we don’t think of it as an Age of Exploration. It’s an age of innovation. Our generation is marked with breakthroughs in technology like personal computers, the iPad, HDTV, and medicine.
We need to continue to explore. Perhaps, people don’t take the risk because they don’t have the capital. When we think of exploring space, the first thing that comes to mind is NASA. Our governments are the ones who have the sheer capital to build billion dollar spacecraft and risk their failure. But when we think of true explorers like Magellan and Columbus, it was their initiative that made them venture into the unknown. They went to the ruling figures of the time and asked, even begged for money. Why don’t we go and grovel in front of President Obama or Congress for funds to build a spacecraft that can travel to Pluto? It’s because we live in a conformist society. We don’t take risks or do anything out of the norm because we are happy with how or lives are.
I don’t want to live in a society where young boys and girls can’t dream of travelling outside our own solar system. People like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are great idols but I don’t want to live in a time when the stories of men who survived nearly two years stranded in Antarctica and the sheer joy of knowing humanity has conquered a new land no longer exist.

On Saturday night, April 28th, at 11:19 pm Fremont Police were dispatched to a house party near Yellowstone Park and Hyde Park drives for multiple reports of shots fired and possible stabbing. When police arrived to the scene they found Futi lying in the street suffering from multiple stab wounds, however, there was no evidence that a gunshot killed him. Futi was taken to a local hospital where he was then pronounced dead Sunday at 1:20am.

Abraham Ibrahim Hade, 18, of Fremont was arrested late Sunday with connections to Futi’s death along with three male minors with suspicion of being accessories to the crime. Hade is being held at Fremont City Jail on no bail and charged with one count of murder with gang enhancement.

Futi’s aunt and legal guardian, Soliafoli Ieremia, has mixed emotions with the arrests of the suspects.

“I’m glad they did make an arrest, but I have no animosity toward him or his family,” Ieremia said. “Only because I’m a Christian. That’s how we were taught, to always forgive.”

What do flying knives, combustibles, cigarettes, and Sweet Tomatoes have in common? They are all highly dangerous. You may be thinking to yourself how in the world a buffet could pose a danger, but after a serious reflection of personal experience, I hope you will become aware of how dire a threat the buffet stands in the life of the every civilian.

1. The Vomit Factor

Too much of a good thing is bad. I can recall plenty of unpleasant instances in which my underweight sister, in her tender age of threes or fours, was urged to continue eating. Her progress was celebrated at the end of the meal; however, everyone’s smiles were rapidly turned into cries of distress as she promptly emptied out the entire meal she had just consumed. At least the carpet had murky tomato patterns on it already, so that our mark was well-concealed.

1. The Curse of the Pink Underwear

Always be prepared for painfully awkward reunions with people you will not know very well, especially if you happen to be wearing pink underwear. Perhaps you may doubt the truth of this claim, but years of experience have unfortunately proven this eerie correlation to exist. Why, the next time you run into someone at a buffet, check your underwear color for that day. It will probably be pink.

1. Fainting Spells, Ambulance Calls

This perhaps presents the most extreme of the buffet dangers. After eating an amazing volume of food, my mother’s face started to turn blue. To our horror, she passed out and could not stand for at least an hour. I suspect it may take a full year or two before she is able to venture again into the perilous land of the buffet.

On April 21st, the Senior Class of 2012 hosted their second Ultimate Frisbee Tournament of the year. Seven teams participated in this double-elimination event at Warm Springs Community Center. The games started around 2:30 when it was around eighty degrees outside with only a slight breeze– perfect weather for frisbee. Most of the teams comprised of upperclassmen, including the winners of the last tournament, who entered the tournament under the name “The Defending Champions.” The Defending Champions went undefeated in the winners bracket until they met Toasted Marshmallows, a team of mostly sophomores.

The Toasted Marshmallows fought their way back from the losers bracket after a late defeat to The Defending Champions. Before they reached the championship round, Toasted Marshmallows was forced to rematch Mystery Inc, a team who was hot on a three win streak after their early loss to Toasted Marshmallows. Mystery Inc rallied from two point or more deficits during each of their wins and it seemed that they would not be denied the title.

By half time of Mystery Inc’s bout with Toasted Marshmallows, they were losing 1-4. Mystery Inc closed the gap to 3-4 before the Toasted Marshmallows scored another point that shot the dagger in the hopes of Mystery Inc.

Toasted Marshmallow’s took their momentum into their championship game with the then undefeated Defending Champions and crushed the senior team in a 5-1 victory. At that point, both teams had suffered one loss as they entered their final match. Toasted Marshmallows emerged with another strong start and led at half-time 3-1. By the time the second half was over, the score was tied 4-4 and the two teams were forced into over-time. The Toasted Marshmallows had utilized the height and strength of Evan Martin coupled with the long, skillful tosses of Adam Villaflor throughout most of the tournament, and in the end that same combo proved to be too much or the Defending Champions who collapsed in overtime 7-5.

On April 19, young adult novelist Michael Grant visited the Irvington High School library. He gave a presentation on his two newest books, BZRK and Fear.

“In BZRK, I wanted to define ‘monster’ in a different way,” explained Grant. “I wanted to go small and find something dark and disturbing.” BZRK, which is about a future society in which nanotechnology is used to make people more pliable and docile, delves deep into the human body and examines the nature of reality.

Fear is the fifth novel in the Gone series, which is about a town in which all the adults have disappeared, leaving only teenagers and children, some of who begin to develop supernatural powers. “The Gone series is a series about desperation and about what’s right. It’s about what people do in desperate times,” the author said.

Michael Grant arrived during the lunch period to autograph books and explained his novels during sixth period. He encourages aspiring writers to not give up, saying, “There’s never been a better time to write.”

For almost a year, Potterheads who didn’t get a beta account for Pottermore finally got their prayers answered with the official opening of Pottermore to the public on April 14. 2012. Even though the opening was supposed to be October 2011, the creators finally announced that the website would be opened early April, when they’ve finally fixed all the bugs and added the ideas suggested by the owners of the beta accounts.

Pottermore, for those of you Muggles, is an interactive game with Harry Potter created by Sony and J.K. Rowling, where you can make an account to receive your wand and be officially housed in Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, or Slytherin. You can also buy your school supplies, choose a pet to bring with you to Hogwarts, make potions, and duel with other wizards around the world. With a username, you can make friends with other wizards and witches; you simply need their username.

Going through the “pages” of the “book,” Potterheads relive the series with lively animations and bright music. Along with these pages, J.K. Rowling has also inserted notes and extra information about the book never seen before. For example, she explains the importance of the name “Petunia,” Harry’s aunt that he is forced to live with for the first seventeen years of his life, further information about each of the four houses, and the wizard counting system.

Since April 14, 2012, millions of Potterheads have made their accounts and began dueling. Although there are still bugs to fix and ideas to add, Pottermore is an exciting new way to continue their journey in the wizarding world of Harry Potter.