Being innately paranoid about firearms, I often ask myself about gun control in the United States. I hear countless stories of tragic, gun-induced deaths, each one raising questions in my mind. On October 30, 2010, a Berkeley High School freshman was fatally shot by a close friend. On November 25, 2010, two young women from South Carolina were shot and killed in Georgia. On November 30, 2010, a gunman opened fire in a Missouri apartment complex, fatally wounding three people before committing suicide.

Now, I’m not really one to contradict the law, but something about gun ownership rights in the U.S. just doesn’t hold up in my eyes. I’ve of course heard the argument that the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution ensures the rights of all citizens to possess firearms. While the right to form state militias theoretically protects the safety of the people, is it really beneficial that anyone who is willing to take the time to fill out a small stack of paperwork be allowed to own a gun?

Maybe my concern is rooted in pacifism, in naiveté, or in my general fear of conflict, but I can’t help but question our priorities when I hear that a twelve-year-old has shot and killed his four-year-old brother. Then again, giving only the government the right to possess firearms may very well thrust a dangerous amount of power upon those in charge.

Perhaps the true problem, then, is an issue of social cohesion – can everyone who owns a gun be held accountable to utilize their weapons in a responsible way? And maybe greater social cohesion would rid fearful gun-owners of their perceived need to own firearms as a form of self-defense. Not to sound too much like a hippie, but doesn’t peace sound really good right about now?

If you have seen Harry Potter, you are probably aware of Bertie Bott’s Jelly Beans. The basic concept is that they are disgusting-flavored jellybeans, which, for some reason, witches and wizards enjoy eating. They come in flavors such as vomit, rotten egg, and soap.

Some brilliant movie marketer saw the actual production of these jelly beans. Seriously. They sell vomit-flavored jellybeans. And they’re horrible. Why anybody would want to eat a vomit-flavored jelly bean, I don’t know.

It’s pathetic that our country has such cynically minded marketers that would go as far as to sugarcoat vomit to capitalize on Harry Potter hype. What’s even more pathetic, perhaps, is that there are people who actually buy vomit-flavored jelly beans.

I guess I’m pathetic, though, because, intrigued, I went as far to eat one of those vomit-flavored jelly beans. And that was the worst jellybean I’ve ever eaten.

Albany students have been constantly singing these lyrics in anticipation of Jaicko’s upcoming concert at AHS. The obsession with this up-and-coming artist from Barbados originated in Ned Purdom’s English 3 Honors classes. Students were panicking because they could no longer put off doing actual work by making announcements, when Purdom offered to share some of his favorite music with the class.

“I knew my classes would like Jaicko,” comments Purdom, “I just didn’t know they would love him!” Indeed, Purdom’s students loved Jaicko so much that they spread their admiration for him to the entire school. Needless to say, students were thrilled when Purdom announced that Jaicko would be performing live on campus on May 2nd.
Upon hearing the good news, Junior Sarah Dudas exclaimed, “Oh yeah! I love Jaicko with all my heart!” When asked to explain students’ obsession with Jaicko, Dudas commented, “His lyrics are really meaningful and I think students appreciate that. I like that his true colors shine through in all of his music.”

As the school prepares for one of the most exciting occasions in its history, students and teachers alike are abuzz with excitement. Preparations, such as spray painting Jaicko’s name on the glass tower, are underway to make sure that Albany is a welcoming place for this talented young musician. Suggestions for further preparations will be taken in the counseling office. “The administration is putting a lot of time and effort into this concert,” says principal Ted Barone, “After all, it will surely be the event of a lifetime.” True that.

Babbit’s 23-point performance, which earned the junior tournament MVP honors, was particularly important for the injury-plagued Cougars, now 7-2. Seniors Connor Freeberg and Derrick Virassammy and juniors Akwasi Agyekum and Sy Stokes were unavailable.

The remaining players certainly picked up the slack. Sophomore Justin Johnson poured in 19 and junior Branden Foote-Pierce grabbed 18 rebounds. Johnson was also named to the all-tournament team.
Seniors Kevin Terusaki and Jing Jing Gong played hard at both ends of the floor, helping hold the Hornets to just 2-for-23 shooting in the second half, and extending the Cougars 31-27 halftime lead.
To reach the finals, Albany knocked off tournament host Sir Francis Drake 44-42 in the semis, behind 15 points from Freeberg, 14 from Johnson and 11 from Babbit. The Cougars knocked off Kennedy (Fremont) 72-59 in the opening round.

The Cougars face the balance of the Marin County basketball teams in the upcoming weeks, with games December 19 at San Rafael, December 22 at San Marin and a re-match with Novato on December 27. A home game against Tamalpais is slated for December 29 at home.

BSAL play starts January 6 against St. Patick/St. Vincent in Vallejo.

The freshmen class started off with a bang as Oscar Rodriguez put on an undeniably catchy solo act. Typically a group effort, it was surprising to see a one-man performance reminiscent of the early Michael Jackson. Students and staff were equally impressed.

The sophomore class took a contrary direction from last year’s impressive performance. In attempts to poke fun at the class of 2011, they mimicked the class’s opening sequence from the previous year. Unfortunately, their intent was not met and instead, it appeared that they were merely copying the juniors rather than mocking them. The show continued with multiple risqué dance numbers and similar aesthetics to their preceding lipsync.

The juniors showed great improvement from last year’s sloppy, uncoordinated performance. Despite the reference about their favorite girl “Mary Jane” (that did not go unnoticed by students and administration alike and resulted in a 50 point reduction), the overall performance proved to be creative and well executed. Improved transitions and a wider variety of dances (as well as music) were deemed helpful and crucial for placing them second in the standings.

The seniors snagged first with flying colors. It started out with Krista Smithers whose rendition of Napoleon Dynamite’s dance number was hilarious to all onlookers. Franny Ferreira put everyone on their toes in her adrenaline filled act to Chelley’s, “Took the Night”. The seniors continued to amaze when they incorporated Mr. Kagawa, who participated in the aptly named song, “My Dougie.” This brought Ned Purdom and other faculty to reminisce on the old tradition of having Doug Kagawa a yearly part of the event. Lipsync was concluded by Cristy Petersen, who gave an electric performance equipped with an original rap, and a beat produced by David Teel.

All in all, every class put their best efforts forward and it was an impressive year despite the restrictions put into effect by faculty.

By Kate Pickering and Josie Kelly

See the following article for a summary of the track season.

Adding Another Mike to the Record
The Albany Cougar track team started the season off with a bang, shattering three school records. Though they lost a number of key members from last year, the skilled team stepped up in a big way. While all members of the team contributed to its outstanding success, senior Mike Gaunt left his mark in the school record books with 42.65 in the 300 hurdles.

Sophomore Tiana Diaz soared above all the other competitors and broke the high jump record with a leap of 4’10”.

Shortly after, junior Talei Tagivakatini confirmed her status as one of the mightiest shotputters in Albany High history. On Saturday, April 25, at the Fred Faucett Invitational, she launched the stone 39’ 6.” beating the previous record set by Rebecca Molinari.

Tagivakatini joined track as a freshman and has since excelled in the shot put and discus events. Her stupendous performance has taken her to the Meet of Champions for the past two years in both events, but she has never been to the State Meet. Since freshman year, she has been working tirelessly to reach that goal.

After breaking the record set by Molinari, her path to state is very clear. Tagivakatini says with a smile, “I made a deal with Rick [Holtzman] that if I broke a record and went to state, I’d get a Letterman’s jacket with all my past accomplishments on it.” She has already achieved one of these goals and is on her way to competing at the second in Clovis this weekend.

When she broke the record at the Fred Faucett Invitational, she was surprised. Before the meet, she was feeling a little apprehensive because the end of the season was approaching and she had yet to reach her goal. “Last week I was thinking about the end of the season and I was afraid that I wasn’t going to break it this year,” she said. But all of her hard work and effort paid off when she finally broke the school record. “When I saw that I had the record, I felt a mixture of relief and a little bit of excitement,” she explained.

On Saturday, May 16, Tagivakatini smothered the competition and won first place in both the shot put and discus events at BSAL. This is Tagivakatini’s third year winning the BSAL competition with a total of six BSAL titles between the two events.

Mike Gaunt, who also competed in the BSAL Championship, triumphed in the 300 hurdle event with an impressive time of 43.01. Gaunt originally joined track to run the 400-meter race, but when he found that that event was not right for him he `looked for a new race to participate in. In the meantime, he spent his practices keeping Matt Petrofsky company on the hurdles. A fast runner, Gaunt found himself excelling in the hurdles. He began to race in the event and beat the standing record Mike Savors, an Albany track star, set during his junior year.

During the meet against Piedmont, the pressure was on; everyone was watching Gaunt, waiting for him to break the record again. As an experienced hurdler, Gaunt focused on his form rather than speed. He spent hours pumping his arms and placing his left foot exactly in the three-meter box.

Gaunt explained his strategy for the season, “whenever I run I try not to think about anything except for where I’m going to put my foot.” All his hard work paid off at the Piedmont meet where he beat his idol, Savors, with a new record of 42.65. But Gaunt remembers having doubts about beating the record: “I was looking at the last hurdle wondering how the hell am I going to get over this.” But no worries for Gaunt: in fact he did leap over that last hurdle and he now sits in the record book next to Mike Savors. “He’s like a legend. And to be up there with him, [it] feels pretty good.”

In addition to the amazing accomplishments by individual athletes, the team’s 5-1 record is proof of its overall success. In their final meet the Albany Cougar track team participated in a dual meet against Piedmont and did exceptionally well: Stephanie Byun placed fifth in the hurdles with a time of 20.05 while Edward Gong glided 19’ 7.5” across the sandpit and placed fourth in the long jump.

Likewise things went well at the BSAL Championships. Junior Varsity Boys placed first overall, Varsity Girls won second place and Varsity Boys received fourth place. Eleventh grader Kevin Liu won first place with a time of 24.58 in the 200 meters. Nolan Tonkyn, a freshman, won first place as well in the 3200 event in 10:25. Finally, Stuart Adams, Aidan Juengling-bean, Kevin Liu, and Tim Clopp ran an outstanding 4X400 in only 3:48.80.

Finally, Chris Gioia ran the 3200 metersin 9:29 at the NCS Meet of Champions at UC Berkeley on May 30. This time is just a few seconds off the school record.

Congratulations runners, throwers, and jumpers!

The Cougar’s usually solid defense faltered early on and the Dragons took advantage of every opportunity.

At the plate, the Cougars lacked punch, with only a handful of runners even getting into scoring position.

As difficult as the loss was, the 22-4 Cougars have much to be proud of and to look ahead to. In two years, the team has reached the NCS finals twice, with a championship in 2008.

The squad is only losing one player, shortstop Hannah Kramer, to graduation. With a lineup full of playoff-experienced players, another NCS championship – and getting by nemesis O’Dowd – are well within reach.

Congratulations softball Cougars!

Arkin provided all of the offense needed with a three-run homer to left center. Arkin also played a solid defense that collectively shut out the Mustangs.

Muse pitched another complete game, bringing her overall record to 13-3.

The 22-3 Cougars will play in the championship game Saturday May 30 at Chabot College. They will play the winner of the Bishop O’Dowd – Del Norte game, also played today.

Game time and opponent details to follow.

With the win, the Cougars advance to the NCS semifinals against another Marin County team, San Marin, Wednesday May 27, 5:00 p.m. at Memorial Park.

The Cougars pounded out 10 hits, including a 3 for 4, 4-RBI, 2-run performance by senior Hannah Kramer.

Junior Katie Carter was 1 for 2 on the day with a walk, sacrifice fly, a double and two RBIs.

Sara Muse pitched a complete game, bringing the junior’s overall record to 12-3.

With the win, the 2009 softballers are bringing a 21-3 record against the 19-4 San Marin Mustangs, who beat Acalanes 7-2 to reach the NCS semifinals.

Let the games begin. Round Robin Competition.

We got up disgustingly early to eat our breakfast. Afterwards, we tried to play Risk before brunch, but it turns out we are not good at taking risks.

We established the Albany Science Bowl theme song: “Every Time We Touch” by Cascada. All of us sang this all the way down to our first match — Albuquerque. That is, all of us except Jamie’s nerdy ass.

We eviscerated Albuquerque.

The next team was Lafayette, and they were supposed to be pretty smart. Turns out, not as smart as us. Ha ha. Earlier we overheard a team complaining, “Mira Loma, Albany, and Parkview are all in our division. Crap.”

Lucky us. Our next match was Parkview. We were slightly nervous because… (we interrupt this blog because George had the best quote of the week: “Pretty Asians who are hella pro bring out the worst in me.”) Anyway, they were the team that won hella chocolate last night for having the best structure made out of spaghetti and other stuff.

Our next competition was against Mira Loma. We lost by a smaller margin than any other team, so that was kinda good in a way. Did we mention Mira Loma is hella pro? So pro that they’re gonna win the whole Science Bowl.

Unfortunately, George and I are both attracted to their alternate. Intersexual selection anyone? Digression to the third power.

Did we mention how little the three seniors actually studied? Over a period of 2.73 months, we have only studied a combined total less than fifteen man-hours. Anyhoo….

George: “I shouldn’t kill someone just because they want to have a good time.”

We apologize for making this into a George blog, but he is pretty hilarious. We actually have lots to write about.

The other teams in round robin were too bad to mention except for one team. In our divine brilliance, we somehow managed to lose to Cherry Creek, a team that had lost to four other teams before we played them. Because of the two losses, we were afraid we had lost our spot in the top 16. We were afraid we would tie with another team, which would be broken by the tie-breaker, an experiment in which we pulled out 6th out of 9th. Long story short, we somehow pulled out of it alive. If you are wondering about the details, ask me during Government and Econ.

Double Elimination Round
Props to Woodrow Wilson. We would have won if we got the 10-point bonus at the end of the round. That was our most epic match of the day.

Our next match was against Brophy, a dark horse team that sweep their round robin division. They came out of nowhere like vacuum energy. They plowed through Homestead and Thomas Jefferson. It was another close match and we were ready to take out the heart medication. Albany came out on top.

Our next match was against MSJ (Mission San Jose), our archrivals. MSJ is to Albany in Science Bowl as Piedmont is to Albany in nearly every sport. We pulled through and beat them by a narrow margin, thanks mainly to an epic challenge by Benji that made the epic match even more epic than usual. We were extremely pleased with ourselves at this point. We had surpassed the results of last year’s team and had escaped elimination three times. Everything else was just gravy on the cake.

Our next adversary was Homestead. We were in the top eight and this was when visual bonuses started. All you need to know about visual bonuses is that they are ridiculously hard. Think of answering an AP FRQ with 30 seconds on some random topic. It’s like going on four first dates in 30 seconds without it being awkward. We won 62 to 34. We were now in the top six, and we were all deliriously happy, but the night was not over.

Our last match, which would determine top four for tomorrow, was just about to begin. We were going up against last year’s champions, Santa Monica. Oh, I forgot to mention, I was wearing my pink bunny ears as an intimidation tactic. However, when I went to say hi to the other team, a short Russian guy from Santa Monica asked me, “Are you homosexual?”

We had an intense match, but it ended in our defeat. At the end of the match, the same short Russian guy accused Albany of cheating. What a jackass. To refrain from vulgar language, I will not go into the details in this blog. Ask me during Government and Econ for the full story.

Although we missed top four, and a mention in Wikipedia, we exceeded all expectations and are extremely content with our fifth-place performance.

Congratulations to the Albany High School Science Bowl Team and their fifth-place national finish: seniors Elise Cai, George Shan; junior Jamie Lincoff; sophomore Corwin Shiu; coach Peggy Carlock and blogging senior, Benji Kessler.