A big brother lost to violence

December 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment


By Theresa Olsteen, Crenshaw High School

I used to think that the one thing I could never speak about was the death of my brother. When it first happened, I couldn’t talk about it with anyone and didn’t want to think about it. Out of all of my family members I think that it hit my mom, his twin, and myself the hardest.

I didn’t believe it until the funeral. Although I cried when they told me he was gone, his death became real at his funeral.

His death wasn’t his fault. He went to the store with one of his friends earlier in the evening before the incident. His friend got in an altercation with a Hispanic man and that turned into a fight. From what I heard, my brother’s friend Red won the fight and the man left with cuts and bruises. After the fight my brother Kevin and Red returned to our house where they hung out.

After a couple of hours Kevin decided that he needed to go back to the store and his twin Keith told him that he shouldn’t. Knowing Kevin he didn’t listen. When he got back to the store the Hispanic man and one of his friends had been waiting there for him. Before he walked in the store the men shot him three times in the chest with a shoot gun. Kevin died right there on the spot.

The reason why I think that it hit me so hard is because we were really close. I talked to him about everything and he always listened. He was there for me when I thought that I was all by myself. He was my oldest brother and although he was mean at times, he was really nice. As days went by after his death I thought that I couldn’t live without him. He was the person that I would turn to when things got hard and rocky for me but I had to deal with it alone because he was gone.

Most of the time I isolated myself from everyone and everything. My mom thought that I was never going to talk again.

The way that I got through it alone was by picking up a book and sitting on our roof, where I was by myself, to read. It kind of got my mind off of it but I still couldn’t stop thinking about him.

The first person that I started talking to after the whole incident was his twin, my other brother Keith. I knew that we had to be going through the same thing because they where each other’s shadow. They went everywhere together.

After he and I started talking I started feeling better and now I feel like I can talk about it freely. Thank you for listening.

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More than just school work: community service hours

October 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment


By Chantel Carter, Fremont High School

As we all know, most high schools require students to complete hours of community service in order to graduate. This enables you to become an involved citizen in your neighborhood. Also, when the time comes to apply for college, community service always looks good on the application and gives you an advantage over students that haven’t taken the time to contribute to their community.

We also know that the last thing that we want to do on our vacation, in the cold and dreary California winter, is community service. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take being lazy in bed over being an “involved citizen” any day. Unfortunately, no matter how hard we can wish for this requirement to go away, it won’t. So we’ve got suck it up, wipe the sleep out of our eyes, and get it out of the way. And with four years to complete these hours, there is really no excuse not to complete your service.

Can’t think of where to do your community service?

A misconception that a lot of students have is that community service means that you have to go out and pick up trash on the side of the freeway. That’s not always the case. The truth is, there are many places you can do community service that are right in your face. You can do community service anywhere, like a school, church, or a local business.

If you don’t want to do community service in your neighborhood, there’s always the possibility of traveling. If you go to another state with your family, see if there’s anyway that you can get a few hours done on your vacation. If you can’t leave the state, you can do something small like go to another city, or even another part of Los Angeles! Just know that there are opportunities everywhere to do your service, and who knows? You might just find something that you really enjoy, and those 160 hours will just fly by.

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Sushi Virgins

October 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment


By Crystal Gutierrez and Guadalupe Ortega, Fremont High School

As we walked into our journalism class Mr. Hwang was taking out sushi and some other weird-looking food from grocery bags and neatly setting them up on a desk. When he finished he stood in front of class and asked for everyone to please sit down. To our surprise Arturo, a classmate, was handing out chopsticks to the class.
We immediately knew we were going to have a sushi feast but most of us had no clue what so ever how to use chop sticks or what we were about to taste.

“Don’t worry I’m about to teach you guys how to properly use them,” Mr. Hwang said. Everyone felt relived and started unwrapping their sticks. I however broke my sticks–known to be bad luck– and my friend Chelsea, stabbed her food with her chopsticks—a gesture believed to invite ghosts.

The correct way to use your chopsticks is to wedge one in between your thumb and index finger and then place the other about an inch parallel to the other chopstick.

What I expected was nothing to what I tasted. I expected this weird raw tasting fish with gooey substances, but as I bit into the sushi I was surprised by its wonderful taste. I was eating dry seaweed with sticky white rice and other healthy veggies. Chelsea didn’t like it she said it tasted like, “salty, yet sugary fish”, but what I tasted was yummy non-fish tasting spongy sweet rice. Our sushi, unlike most, had no raw fish in it.

To top off our meal we had Mochi, a spongy rice cake filled with sweet red beans in the center. It was very sweet but I didn’t really like it. The Mochi tasted very different to other desserts that I’m used to such as chocolate cake or ice cream but everybody in the class seemed to like it.

Trying something new to eat helped me discover a new culture. Eating sushi was like going to Japan for my first time.

Photos by Guadalupe Ortega

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Senioritis 101

October 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment


By Destany Charles, Hamilton High School

Do you think your suffering from the “itis?” The senioritis?
Like any other ‘itis,’ it happens in phases. I started experiencing senioritis during the summer. I went from phase to phase with no grace or preparation at all. I want all you seniors to know that if you have started experiencing the ‘itis’you are not alone.

Phase 1:Excitement, “OMG! I’m a freaking senior!!!!”
You’re excited about this new chapter in life your going into a new year that you think is going to be better then all the rest. You plan to go to all the football games home and away. You’re going to have a little fun, possibly ditch one or two classes. You’re going to make the most of final year, at least that’s what you think right now.

Phase 2:Stress, “OMG, I’m a freaking senior.”
You start pulling out your hair and grinding your teeth because of the impending 12th grade year. You start receiving mail from different schools and you may start hyperventilating. You are now entering the second phase of senioritis and there is no cure.

Phase 3: Acceptance, “OMG I’m a freaking senior”
You have accepted your fate. You are officially a senior and you are ready to face the trials of senior year. You are experiencing some excitement over things to come in the year like prom and senior week, etc. Colleges have stopped sending you mail, and are waiting to receive your application. So you are still a little antsy about which colleges your going to get into, this feeling will pass.

Phase 4: Indifference, “Omg I don’t give a fuck that I’m a freaking senior.”
You don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter if you get a C in A.P. Chem, or that you didn’t join any clubs, school is almost over. Life goes on it doesn’t matter that Stacy and Lisa are pissed at Samantha for stealing Jodie’s boyfriend. This phase is when you are simply over the drama of high school. And if you have reached this phase you’re in luck you, have gotten through your senioritis with flying colors. Now lets just make it through graduation.
The order in which these symptoms take place may vary according to your experience in high school. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms contact your counselor immediately.

Filed Under: High School Notebook

Just dance: Cali jerk

October 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment


By QueJonne Smith, Frederick Douglass Academy High School

There’s a new trend that has skyrocketed in the last few summers: dancing. There has been a host of new dances since the summer of 2009: (different variations of) The Jerk, The Reject, the Spongebob, The Pindrop, the Drop Kick, The Dougie, the D-Town boogie, and a range of other dances that keeps the teenage and juniors crowd interested and engrossed in the growing fashion.

Let me teach you how to jerk.

The Jerk: There are many different ways that people have taken the jerk and made it their own. They have taken the original jerk, where you bend your knees and begin to pop up and down in a jerking motion, and put their own spin on it. They have put different hand motions, flips, head movements, and dropping to the floor and coming back up in order to make the dance better in appearance.

The Reject/ Spongebob: The Reject is the new dance that resembles the backwards “Running Man” has been added to a variety of footwork and drops that make the dance better. The Spongebob is best described as the sideways reject that can be combined with the reject, jerk, and other dances to make the combination appealing to their audience.

The Pin Drop: This dance requires the dancer to place his/her foot behind the knee of the other leg and fall onto that foot in order to pivot and spin around in order to stand back up. This dance can lead into any of these other dances.

The Drop Kick: This dance can be accompanied by a host of footwork that can make the dance a part of another combination.

Combining it all is like a freestyle that you can put together on the dance floor.

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Cheerleading: a real sport

October 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment


imageBy Erdavria Simpson, Hamilton High School

Cheerleaders always feel that they don’t get recognition, always bringing school spirit to games and school events and still get talked down. From administration in schools to students talking about how they are boring. Some of this might be very constructive but most of it hurts since we are still not seen as a sport.

Cheer takes so much out of so many people. No time for the beach-I have cheer practice, no money in my pocket—I have cheer payments, no money in my mom’s pocket—she just paid for cheer camp. “Hey babe can I see you today?” –from boyfriend, a cheerleader’s answer: “I’m sore and sleepy. Catch me tomorrow.”

Even as I write this I’m in pain sore in a chair because of a stunt accident.

We tried a set it up stunt, which included the flyer, me, jumping over her back spot. No one caught me and I landed hard on my left foot and tore a few ligaments in my ankle. So I’m out for a while, but it’s okay because that’s what happens in cheer.

We work hard, practice rough, and always give 100% to everything we do– from stunts to tumbling dance and cheer; we have to be assertive and diligent. I know all of this from experience, I’ve been cheering for the past four years of my high school career at Hamilton High and each year we have been improving constantly.

Yet throughout those years the criticism of the team has been intense. It’s bad enough cheerleaders already have negative stereotypes of which we recognize and try to change. Television has done absolutely nothing to help change them; our effort in school has been completely undermined. Administration blames cheerleaders for lack of school spirit and instead they compare their high school days to ours, when everything has changed since then.

Students just don’t care about school. This generation looks at school for fun and not for education, they would rather chill with their friends than attend or support a pep rally. By trying out to become a cheerleader and effect change it is clear that we understand the lack of school spirit in our high schools.

Students tend to degrade cheer efforts just by spreading false rumors, or constantly complaining about how we are not awesome or don’t do enough “poppin’ cheers.” Our football players say that we don’t support them enough, but while they are on the field we are on the track. If they are playing and it starts to rain we are cheering in the rain.

And then there are the few who make cheer worthwhile, besides the connections you make with other girls and getting cheer sisters, and seeing work effort get paid off in the end with great dances and cheers. You make new friends, get to know and understand your school with a deeper connection by seeing how you could change it and make it better.

So I’m still a cheerleader and always enjoy cheering, dancing, and encouraging a crowd or team with and without recognition—recognition just helps.

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons

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