Page 4 January 31st, 2012Academics

Bellarmine students love community. Whether it’s on the sports field, on the quad during lunch, or a club meeting, we all have our own groups that are founded on similar interests and friendship. While these interests can be anything from Starcraft to gardening, some clubs at Bel-larmine unite under the desire to discover more about their cultural heritage and spend time together planning impressive cultural events.

After the varsity basketball team ended WCAL play with an even 7-7 record, they are look-ing forward to winning CCS with the highest seed in Division 1. Overall, the Bells have a 16-11 record, and are currently ranked 57th in the state, according to Free-man Rankings. That ranking is improv-ing with each win in CCS.

“We have quali-fied for the CCS and we got a pretty high seed in Division 1 because there are no other WCAL teams in it,” said ju-nior Grant Vermeer (Wing). “Our goal is to win CCS, and we are doing everything we can to prepare for it.”

The first CCS game for the Bells was a surprising 72-39 blowout against the Santa Clara Bruins, who end their season with a 20-5 record. After lead-ing 32-24 at halftime, the Bells went on a 12-2 streak in the

Cultural groups are all about bringing people together, and of-tentimes, these groups find their community simply by spending time as a group. For the Indian Student Coalition, senior Rohith Jayaraman says that their meet-ings are more about setting some time aside to hang out together.

He said, “It’s cool that there’s a day of the week where we can all just hang out together and watch Bollywood movies and laugh.” In this regard, cultural clubs help to bring students together who may take different academic paths.

In addition to these more so-

Basketball Looks to Finish Season Strong

Students Celebrate Heritage In ClubsFSA students dance with girls from Notre Dame’s FSA for a benefit concert at the San Jose Repertory Center

March 2012, Issue 2 Bellarmine College Prep - San Jose, CA

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Scan This:what’s inside: Life On Campus5 6-7At the White House

See Culture pg 4

by Andrew Marks ’13section head

cial-centric groups, some clubs find unity in impressive perfor-mances and shows that incor-porate traditional cultural exer-cises with modern dancing and performance. Recently, the Viet-namese Student Union enjoyed their 9th Annual Fashion Show. The show celebrated dancing, modeling, singing, and martial arts, and generated proceeds to be donated to charity.

According to senior co-president Steven Chu, “With a full house of over 500 people,

by Faris Katkhuda ’13managing editor of Web presence

third quarter that solidified the victory.

Every player on the ros-ter actually played in the game last Saturday night. Also, even though senior captain Griffin Goudreau had to sit out through most of the second half with a twisted ankle, other play-ers stepped up, including Nick

McCue, with 21 points.

The Bells will face Salinas (21-5) in the Di-vision 1 Semifi-nals this Wednes-day, and if Bellarmine wins, they will face the winner of the San Benito-Piedmont Hills game for CCS finals on Sat-urday, March 3rd.

Mitty, St. Francis, and Serra are all placed in Division 2.

Even with all of this CCS ac-tion, the real excitement was in the WCAL league tournament, where the Bells were unfortu-nately beaten in the semifinals. In the quarterfinals, Bellarmine

See Basketball pg 12

“We’re pleased with key improve-ments, but I think we need to focus on being stronger with the ball.”~head coach Mr. Schneider

Spring Sports - page 10 Nick Nguyen ‘13

Page 2 The CardinalCampus Life

From year to year, most of the classes on the schedule re-main the same, with required classes like Calculus and US His-tory; yet, each year, new classes are added to the schedule to pro-vide more options for interested students. Next year will not be different, with two proposed ad-ditions, including organic chem-istry, and robotics.

The Cormac McCarthy seminar will be a semester-long senior class taught by either Mr. Lum or Ms. Giraudo; the teacher will be decided after confirma-tion of its approval if enough students show interest. It has been submitted for UC approval and should receive it.

Ms. Giraudo explains, “Mc-Carthy is one of the great living American authors. Mr. Lum and I shared a great interest in his works, and it was a pipe dream of ours to put it into action.

Editors-in-ChiefRyan Allen ’13Animesh Agrawal ’13

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We’re really excited that we have the opportunity to teach him.”

Students as part of the class will explore three major works of McCarthy’s, including All the Pret-ty Horses, The Road, and Blood Meridian (a book almost no other school teaches).

In explaining his appeal, Ms. Giraudo says, “He’s a very dark author but he has a great message; he’s so different from the other authors you see with Western characters, and he’ll use the Western to deconstruct other American concepts we hold. I think students will enjoy him.”

Organic chemistry will also be offered as a semester-long se-nior elective to be taught by Dr. Roy. It will peer into a very com-plicated material that most stu-dents do not experience in great detail until college.

Junior Gareth Chen is excited to take it, however, explaining, “It sounds like an interesting branch of science, and I’ve heard Dr. Roy is an excellent teacher.” He con-

tinues, “I hope the class will teach me how chemistry applies to life, and connect to other fields like biochemistry as well.”

Robotics will be a year-long class taught by Mr. Lindemann and will be available to anyone interested in learning about ro-botics, not necessary restricted to team members.

Mr. Lindemann explains, “The course will serve as an in-troduction to robotics and will cover basic physics and engineer-ing.” He continues, “The emphasis, however, will be on C program-ming and programming robots, including experimentation.”

The class will also help the Cheesy Poofs as well; Mr. Linde-mann says, “I saw a need for more programming instruction for our current robotics team.” But never fear! In addition to computers, he promises, “There will be many other activities, including analysis of robotics in literature and cin-ema, for example.”

by Kshithij Shrinath ‘13section head

New Courses Offered To Students For Next Year

Matt Garcia ‘13

Another month has passed, and our campus finally seems to be coming alive after a long winter season. Winter sports are wrapping up, spring sports are in full swing, and half of our layout staff (it seems like half of our school) is involved in track and field. On top of that, many students seem to be staying later after school, perhaps to catch a rare glimpse of the creatures many of us know as “fe-male.” Not to sound pessimistic, but February may have been our last month with a moderate work-load. From my experience and the words of countless peers, schoolwork always increases in the latter months of the year, particularly March and April. To the underclassmen, here’s a tip: don’t leave entire research papers to be written the day before the deadline. Do the breaks feel successively shorter to everyone else? Mine passed so quickly I actu-ally feel winded. After running into Mr. Meyercord at Disneyland and touring various colleges in LA, I braced myself for a wild night of the Oscars. Surprise, surprise—The Artist took home the gold. I know a number of teachers and a majority of students were rooting for other great films like The Tree of Life and Hugo, but at least the show was entertaining. Mr. Healy’s students, please see Midnight in Paris. It gives some insight into the Roaring Twenties and the famous writers of the time. For those who still crave a good show, I hear our production of Tommy will be a blast. Appar-ently, theater tech was here every day over break transforming the stage. If the set is anywhere near as good as the one used for The Grapes of Wrath, then be sure to check it out. Funny story, I saw Mitty’s production of Tommy a few years ago. Needless to say, they didn’t set the bar very high.

Go Bells!Ryan Allen

Dear fellow Bells,

AMC Math Competition

Sixteen Bells qualify for the American Invitational Math-ematics Examination, which is the second of two tests used to determine the USA Math-ematical Olympiad .

News in BriefAMC Math CompetitionOn Feb. 7, 2012, 53 Bells partici-pated in Round A of AMC. Eight of them qualified for the American Invitational Mathematics Exam.

BCP Rugby in VegasOn Feb. 9 , 2012, 31 student travelled to Las Vegas to compete in the Las Vegas Regional Rugby Tournament. After a great first day, the team suf-fered close losses until a 20-15 win in the last tournament game.

Quiz Bowl DominanceOver the first weekend of Break, Nikhil Desai ‘12, Ankit Aggrawal ‘12 and Sameer Rai’14 traveled to Hous-ton to compete in the third Texas Invitation tournament. Bellarmine posted a 28-1-1 record over the course of two tournaments. Eventu-ally, the advanced to the finals and beat Rice University to secure the title of tournament champion.

March 2nd, 2012 Page 3Academics

by Emilio Flamenco ’14staff writer/reporter

The speech and debate team enjoyed great successes at tournaments in Las Vegas and Milpitas in recent weeks, with the 2012 season high-lighted by the performances of a particularly strong fresh-man class.

There “are a lot of prom-ising freshmen,” says senior Vijay Singh, who won 3rd place for national extempora-neous at Milpitas in January.

Sophomore Luca Dau said that the freshmen “are very strong” and “doing ex-tremely well.” While it used to be “a rare event [for a freshmen] to semifinal…[the] freshmen this year are final-ing on a more regular basis.”

Amazingly, freshman Ro-han Dhoopar ’15 secured first place in two speech events at Milpitas, impromptu and in-ternational extemporaneous.

According to freshman John Nunziati, they’re “al-ready contributing a lot to the team.”

At the Coast Forensic League's (CFL) Winter Indi-vidual Events and Super Debate at Milpitas High School on the last weekend of January, the upperclass-men continue to lead the team to vic-tories. Senior Matt DeLateur, junior Madhu Vijay, senior Sri Gopakumar, and senior James Thomas all earned first and second places in various speech events.

At the National Forensic League (NFL): Golden Des-ert Invitational in Las Vegas during the first weekend of February, all nine debaters who went proceeded to seed elimination rounds.

At the debate tourna-ment, Singh and his partner made it to the top sixteen, where Vijay became 6th plac-er speaker.

work this year… [now that] I am a sophomore,” added Luca.

Still, “the team is work-ing hard,” and “hopefully [it] maintains our strong work ethic,” said Vijay.

Looking ahead as a team, speech and debate “hopes to do well at state…that’s what we’re looking to. We’re also nationals looking forward to Nationals, of course,” said Dau.

Members of speech and debate are setting person-al goals for future tourna-ments as well. Many aspire to achieve success as well as maintain their integrity along the way.

“I’d like to send a mes-sage…do well on paper [and] represent Bellarmine well. I want to give it my all, wher-ever it leads me,” said Des-courouez.

Meanwhile, Dau’s goal is to final, because in the “pre-vious two tournaments I’ve gotten close.”

Vijay partially credits the schools’ successfulness overall to the “strong league which we are apart of. It en-courages us to try to perform at the very best,” said Singh.

Speech and Debate Team Meets Success

“It’s always great [to play against] such tough competi-tion…It’s not like I won by a lot…Vijay [Singh ‘12] could have won, for instance, ” said junior John Cherian, who won the national extemporaneous speech event at Milpitas.

“It was tough,” said, Nunziati, who p a r t i c i p a t e d in original ad-vocacy at the January tour-nament, earn-ing 5th place. “Earlier at the same tourna-

ment I placed 3rd. I was hop-ing I could do as well or better [this time].” Nevertheless, he was “still happy with what I did.”

The Milpitas competi-tion was Drew Descourouez’s fourth tournament. “Milpitas definitely has a lot of really good competition,” he says. “It was really good to listen to what people said.”

Vijay says that he “feel[s] this year…[is] more competitive than [those] be-fore,” as more people “be-came in involved in the activ-ity.” “I think its probably more

“It’s always great [to play against] such

tough competition” – John Cherian ’13

When we as Bells hear the word carnage, a lot of not-so-pleasant thoughts come to our mind. But to a select few of us, the word carnage has much more meaning than its superficial dictionary defini-tion. That group of select few Bells is the Writer’s Guild.

The Writer’s Guild, led by guild president and senior Anthony Abril and moder-ated by Mr. Preciado, “is a group of people... who like to write and want to be around people of the same quality,” as Abril puts it. Their goal is to appreciate the writing of both themselves and others.

Every Monday at lunch, the Writer’s Guild con-venes in S-302 and shares interesting works that they have written or found.

The guild, which consists of about ten students, engag-es in many different activities both inside and outside of these meetings. One sample activity the guild does during meetings is group poetry, in which each student contrib-utes one line to a free-form poem.

Freshman Oscar Marti-nez notes that, “I really enjoy to write, so I knew the club was something I would also enjoy. I also had some friends joining with me, so I was mo-tivated even more.”

Outside of the guild, most members like to write their own work, which they

then share at the meeting. For February, the Writer’s Guild theme is poetry, so students will be writing and sharing their own poetry at meetings. These poems are peer edited and reviewed by other members of the guild.

Another freshman, Bry-ant Jew, joined the guild for a similar reason: “I found out that I really enjoy creative writing, so when I came [to Bellarmine], I looked for an-other creative writing oppor-tunity.”

The Writer’s Guild also has an upcoming publication called “The Written Echo,” a collection of work created by students, for students. This year’s edition is set for a March release and will con-tain work from students both in and out of the guild. It will include works such as po-etry, short stories, and even screenplays.

Another major Writer’s Guild event is “Evil Jackrab-bit,” which is a read-in put on by the Writer’s Guild. Stu-dents will be reading works written by themselves and others.

The Writer’s Guild also has a “word of the week,” which members try to incor-porate into their works. Past words of the week have in-cluded the aforementioned carnage and a similar word, carnivore. Past monthly themes of the Writer’s Guild have also included antago-nism and conflict, the theme for the month of January.

Writer’s Guild’s “Echo”by Rohan Dhoopar ’15staff writer/reporter

Twelve Bellarmine stu-dents just returned from the first ever Peru Immersion Trip to rural Lima. From play-ing bocce ball before the trip to experiencing fresh per-spectives during it, the trip brought them together in solidarity.

At Campo de Bocce, junior Anthony Collado cheered and high-fived his teammates, having just won them the round. His excite-ment was shared by all who attended, as the students built solidarity by brushing up on their bocce ball skills.

The Perú delegation had a lot on their plate. Over win-ter break they faced cultural differences, language barri-

ers, and experiences that test-ed their comfort zones. They left behind the jungle of Peru only to return tangled up in the large amount of homework and tests waiting for them at home.

Most of the delegation was new to the experience. Junior Mario Fiandiero remarked, “This was a new experience for me as I had never been outside of the United States before. It was great to meet people from completely different worlds.”

Thankfully, their modera-tors were quite familiar with foreign environments. Fr. Shin-ney, who spent five and a half years in parts of Perú, was looking forward to this im-mersion trip. Moderator Mr. McCrystle has been to Quito in El Salvador, but this is his first trip to Perú. McCrystle ex-

by Jeff Hara ’14staff writer/reporter

Bellarmine Delegation

plains, “It will be completely different. For better or worse, I don’t know, but it will be dif-ferent.”

During the trip, the stu-dents and moderators at-tended masses conducted in Spanish and tried the famed Peruvian delicacy, guinea pig. To intensify the cultural ex-perience, all electronics, with the exception of cameras, were banned. Mr. McCrystle warned, “Absolutely no iP-ods, computer games, or oth-er electronics. If I see a cell phone out, it will be mine.”

In addition to religious experiences, they built a children’s center for a par-ticularly poor parish so the elders could watch over the children. They cleared the area so the foundation could be lain.

Experiences Peru

Junior Gareth Chen spends quality time in the Speech and Debate office

Junior Bailey Morales, Senior Anthony Abril, and Senior Joel Ponce

The Writer’s Guild meeting at lunch, discussing ideas, and writing.

Junior Sam Kellner laughs at a humorous piece by another student.

Page 4 The CardinalStudent Life

Clubs Help Students Explore Heritage

we have raised an enormous amount of money to donate to ACWP.” ACWP is an organization that gives aid to children who have grown up without parents, and facilitates opportunities to become self-sufficient through education and vocational train-ing. In addition, co-president and senior Binh Tran-Tu ex-claims, “it’s always a fun experi-ence to go out on stage with no shame, and all pride.”

The Vietnamese Student Union is not alone in their major event planning, as the Filipino Student Association also has plans for an impressive upcom-ing show. The Filipino Culture Night, by far one of the largest events of the year for the club and currently scheduled for late April, is just another fantastic example of cultural clubs band-ing together to create an impres-sive display of unity and creativ-ity.

According to senior Daniel Zenarosa, “There are four cat-egories in FSA: hip-hop, tradi-

continued from page 1

tional dancing, skit, and choir, and each category ties into what we do as a club.”

Daniel goes on to say that the Filipino Culture Night allows students to talk about their cul-ture, and bond with attendees and participants.

Ultimately, it is this bond-ing that forms the pivotal com-ponent of cultural clubs, and al-most every member agrees.

For some, devotion to cul-tural unity is what truly brings club members together, and FSA really ensures that new mem-bers feel at home. FSA groups members into capamillias, or families.

As Zenarosa puts it, “there are two or three upperclassmen who are the parents, and the un-derclassmen are the kids, and if they have questions, they can come to us.”

Tran-Tu discusses how VSU promotes unity, explaining “I don’t think it’s ethnic back-ground that brings us together, but our willingness to hold onto our roots. VSU provides a middle way to express our culture.”

The culture clubs at Bellar-mine provide unique opportuni-ties for students to discover and enrich their personal cultural understanding, and give back to the Bellarmine community ex-tensively.

So, if you are curious about your cultural heritage, join a club; they are welcoming, com-prehensive, and most of all, ex-pressive.

Top: Alex Pura ‘12 models casual wear. Bottom: Aldrich Luciano ‘13 and Matthew Nepacena ‘12 pose in the hip hop portion of the show.

VSU’s 9th Annual Fashion Show: Legends. Top: Tango. Left: Hip hop.

March 2nd, 2012 Page 5Student Life

Inside the Minds of Tommy’s Women

Senior Eric Bakan recently had the honor of represent-ing Bellarmine’s place in the alliance that won the robotics world championships. He, along with other students from across the nation, was flown over to the White house for his contribution to Bellarmine robotics.

Built on a balance of raw talent, hard work, and drive, Eric’s and Team 254’s achieve-ments have propelled them to the top of the national stage.

“I’m the head of program-ming and controls on the team,” explains Eric. “We could only send one person, unfortunately, but this was a team effort.”

“Last year, we had 80 mem-bers [on the team]. This year, we

pretty amazing. I was watching it at home, and I was thinking, I never imagined this!”

Eric learned programming largely by himself. “I started pro-gramming in 6th grade. I learned languages like C++ through watch-ing videos and reading blogs. I took a couple of formal computer science courses at Bellarmine, which helped, but most of it was self study.”

As far as the future, Eric has bright hopes of continuing in pro-gramming. His potential is mas-sive, though, as he humorously observes, “I haven’t been accept-ed to a college yet. Call me in two months!”

For the time being, Eric con-tinues to support and lead Team 254, adding his experience to the already great Bellarmine robotics program.

Team 254 Sends Student to the White Houseby Ronny Mukherjee ’13online content manager

have about 120,” explains Eric. “I was glad to go, but I really want to thank the team as a whole; it was a team effort that won the world championships.”

“I didn’t actually get to meet Obama,” he admits, “because he didn’t come to our booth.”

Despite that disappoint-ment, the trip was far from unin-teresting.

“The coolest part (apart from going to the White House itself) was the people I met. I got the chance to meet one of my child-hood heroes, Billy Nye the Science Guy [at the White House].”

Eric’s achievements ex-tend far beyond the average high school student’s in more than one way. In fact, some of his code drives a NASA satellite currently in operation.

“Watching the launch was Senior Eric Bakan and Mrs. Roemer tour the White House before the event.

Bill Nye poses with Eric Bakan and representatives from other teams. Eric Bakan drives around ally Team 973’s First robot, also world champions, in the White House lobby.

Page 6 The CardinalStudent Life March 2nd, 2012 Page 7Student Life

Seniors Jonathan Elfar and Daniel Fernandez knew that displaying the announcements on televi-sion screens and during homeroom was not reach-ing students. Instead, they formed an idea and, over the past month, this idea has materialized into bi-weekly announcements by email in which stu-dents are informed about school events. The reasons behind this overhaul are quite logical and students have reacted in different ways to the changes.

“We have been work-ing on it for a while now,” Elfar says. “We coded the whole thing with scripts that send emails out to each class.”

Time conserva-tion was the main factor that contrib-uted to an underly-ing need for a new system of informing students and staff of school events. “Many felt that the time was not being used well,” says Mr. Meyercord. “The desire was more to increase time for lunch than anything.”

“Everyone has access to announce-ments,” he adds, “so the new system gives them an opportunity to review announce-ments quickly.”

The student response to the re-vitalized system has been generally posi-tive, namely because of its practicality and

Announcements Through Email Successful

accessibility. “The an-nouncements are great,” states freshman Justin Molano. “I pre-fer the announcements to be in an email, rather than cutting into our lunch, because I am able to read them whenever.”

“I definitely prefer the change over the former system when we spent 5 minutes dur-ing lunch hearing them read to us,” adds senior Danny Hernan-dez. “We could always get them from the website of course, but now it’s delivered straight to us. It’s fast, simple, and efficient in keeping everyone informed.”

However, the new system does not present a true improve-ment over the old one for some. “I think it’s pretty obvious that if announcements are emailed, far fewer people are going to know what’s going on at school,” com-ments junior Liam Hardiman. “I don’t think there was quite any-thing wrong with the lunch sys-tem at all.”

“I think reading them over the loudspeaker was fine, but holding people hostage in their pre-lunch class until they’re finished doesn’t sound appeal-ing,” he adds.

On February 1, students in the quad were treated to sounds of techno and dubstep, courtesy of KBCP.

Students were gener-ally supportive of the Live on the Quad event and the atmo-sphere surrounding it.

“I liked it a lot because Bell provided a free opportu-nity for people to get together and listen to the music,” fresh-man Kevin Prabhakar said.

Some teachers also thought a school-wide music event at lunch was a good idea.

“I thought it was fun. We should have more events like these, where everyone can just come together and chill,” said Mr. Spitzmueller.

Though the idea was gen-erally supported, some did not care much for the music played.

“I thought the music was [not very good], because I just didn’t like it. I prefer other types of music,” said junior Miguel Contreras.

Others shared similar feelings.

“I did not much care for the dubstep, because I am just not a fan of it,” Elliot Wilde, a sophomore, said.

According to Mr. Cannon, faculty moderator of KBCP, this desire for more commu-nity events from students and faculty members alike was one of the reasons they consid-ered hosting this type of event, which was not free of hurdles.

“We had to first get per-mission from Mr. Swenson to allow us to do this. Then, we had to find a DJ who knew his music and was liked by stu-dents. Finally, we had to set up all the equipment, which was heavy and time-consuming,” said Mr. Cannon.

“Also, we felt we had to put in extra effort to make it like Club Day in October, which was well-received by students and faculty as ‘fun time’ during an otherwise stressful day.”

Using this first time as guidelines for the future, the team at KBCP is considering a few changes to make other events different and more en-joyable.

“I think we might poll the students to check the pulse of what’s popular. Then, based on the results, we could maybe play a bit of music from each type, so that more people could enjoy at least part of it to attract a bigger audience,” said junior Matt Garcia, music director at KBCP.

“It might also be interest-ing to have the music playing, and dancers dancing in front. We might be able to get the stu-dents going this way through days that might normally be stressful,” said Mr. Cannon.

The club is also consid-ering varying the DJs at each month’s event to showcase the skills of other students.

by Namit Mishra ’15staff writer/reporter

An ambitious charitable or-ganization aimed at solving two of the world’s biggest problems,

Cafeteria’s Table for Two Helps Needyby Alex Powers ’13staff writer/reporter

Life On Campus

Jonathan and Mr. Mey-ercord echo Liam’s point of view about the ability of information to travel to stu-dents. “I’m not super-happy with how the current system is playing out,” Mr. Meyercord remarks, admitting, “The new system probably keeps students less informed.”

“We find that there aren’t many options we have going for-ward since people need to be in-formed about what is going on,” Elfar adds. “If they’re not looking at the screens, it’s not much help.”

Hernandez also proposes one possible improvement to the announcements-by-email system: adding more student-run events to the updates. “It would be cool if more clubs would use the an-nouncements system to broadcast what’s happening within their lit-tle group,” he says. “That way ev-eryone knows what’s going on in each club.”

Overall, Elfar has high hopes

KBCP Sponsors Music in Quad malnutrition and “overnutrition,”

Table for Two was launched at Bellarmine on December 6th 2011. Unfortunately, many stu-dents, despite belief in the cause, do not even know what the group

does, presenting a marketing challenge for the organizers.

The program coordinators have been working hard to pro-mote it. Junior Frank Yang said, “I first found out about TFT when Mr. McMahon asked me to design a poster for a promotion. Last se-mester, one of the administrators asked me to be a student leader to better reach students at Bellarm-ine.”

Yang was at first skeptical, “My role was just to design the poster; didn’t know what they do. However, after doing some re-search I was very impressed.” TFT adds a 25 cent charge to the price of meals, which is used to pro-vide school lunches in countries including Uganda, Rwanda, and Ethiopia.

Since then, Yang has worked to further publicize the program, “So far a lot work still has to be done. We definitely have to pro-mote it more. The PowerPoint in last Friday’s homeroom tried to do exactly that.”

The cafeteria workers have been attempting to excite stu-dents about the program as well. After repeatedly announcing TFT over the microphone, Ms. Janda said, “Students are lagging, not re-ally picking up on it to well.”

However, senior Alec Boyer contradicted, “They definitely don’t advertise enough. Presenta-tions in homeroom are a complete turn off. Bell guys just tune out and tend to disregard it, which is terrible because it’s a great cause and people should pay attention.”

The majority of students do

appreciate TFT’s philosophy. Boy-er said, “Table for Two sounds like a great idea. The idea itself is per-fect if they could execute it right, especially if they could have it every-day. Unfortunately, it is hard to coordi-nate good food at Liccardo and Table for Two.”

TFT meals are advertised as oc-curring on Tuesday and Wednesday on the first and third week of the month, and Tuesday and Thursday on the second and fourth week of the month. How-ever, according to Mr. Pinkston, you can participate any day of the week.

The problem isn’t only timing. Junior Ben Isip com-mented, “For the people who don’t go to the cafeteria (quite a lot don’t), it won’t really per-meate through the whole campus; they need another way to participate that gets to everybody.”

The students who do partici-pate in the program understand the difference such an insignifi-cant amount can make. Freshman Tyler Mobraten said, “I partici-pate because it feels nice to give in such a convenient way; plus, I have a friend who works in Africa and I think it’s great to support people working there.”

Students are skeptical about how far their quarter will go. Junior Devon White added, “I felt like my donation will only have a very small impact. I mean minus shopping costs, 25 cents really isn’t enough in my opin-

ion.” He explained,

“I don’t think world hunger can solved by pro-grams like this, I mean it would only take 30 billion dol-lars to solve global hunger. This isn’t about tiny contri-bution but chang-

ing larger economic and political policies.”

Senior Gabe Jakobs does not feel the same way, however, insisting, “I think it’s a great pro-gram. I saw in the homeroom

PowerPoint that it would provide a complete meal so being able to not worry about that could be a big deal. I don’t think about it a ton so it really isn’t a huge deal.”

The coordina-tors hope that the program will soon

take a firm hold. Mr. Pinkston concluded, “I think as a com-munity, we are only scratching the surface of what we can do. Students are basically asked to donate 25 cents, an insignificant amount more to feed twice as many people. I think when they fully understand this program’s potential they will be more will-ing.”

I don’t even know what [Table for Two] is. Get the word out.Michael Kaufman ’13

Students are lag-gin, not really picking up on it too well.Ms. Janda

New Programs and Events Appeal to Students and Help Others

It’s fast, simple, and efficient in keeping every-one informed. Danny Hernandez

for the system, even as a depart-ing senior. “Even if it may be dis-liked at first, I feel that people will eventually appreciate it, since it will be able to be customized so students can choose which an-nouncements they want to re-ceive,” he explains.

Students should be receiving

the emails every Tuesday and Friday from the email address announcements-noreply@bcp.org; if you do not receive regular emails and would like to, see Mr. Lindemann.

by Collin Baker ’13staff writer/reporter

The new system keeps stu-dents less informed.Mr. Meyercord

Senior Oby Offorjebe shows off his dance skills at KBCP’s Live from the Quad

Middle: Freshman Patrick Castle and Senior Mandy Heiser. Left/Right: Junior Nate Metzger

The Who’s Tommy Practice Makes A Perfect Show

Nick Nguyen ‘13

Nick Nguyen ‘13

Nick Nguyen ‘13

Page 8 The CardinalStudent Life

Understanding the Immigration Debateby Kai Xiao ‘13staff writer/reporter

America is a land of immi-grants. A nation characterized by cultural diversity, America has long been known as a land of opportunity, open to all who wish to journey here.

However, despite over two centuries of immigration into America, immigration has not always been “open” or smooth. Racial discrimination has caused the implementation of immigra-tion quotas in the past, which severely limited immigration to America. Today, immigration policy remains a controversial issue and a topic of many heated debates across the United States.

This year’s Justice Summit, which has the theme of immigra-tion, has called this important issue to the attention of Bellar-mine students by asking them to express their views on this very contentious problem. However, during the first few assemblies of the Summit, many students did not know much background information about the debate about immigration at all. As a re-sult, most people were unable to fully appreciate and understand all of the controversy surround-ing the topic.

The Justice Summit has introduced students to many potential problems and justice issues related to immigration policy, but some students may feel similarly lost if they do not know more about the back-ground behind the great debate

about immigration policy today.To put it simply, there are two

primary viewpoints – those who oppose relatively unrestricted immigration, especially along the US-Mexico border, and those who support it. Additionally, another major issue being debated is how undocumented immigrants should be treated.

Many people have expressed concern about the economic im-pacts of immigration on native US-born citizens, population growth caused by immigration, and the

ability of immigrants to fit in with American society. Many worry that immigrants may take the jobs of native citizens, take away hous-ing, and strain the health care sys-tem, or that increased immigra-tion will have a profound cultural impact on America.

On the other hand, many oth-ers believe that increased immi-gration will strengthen US society and that immigration will actually help the US economy as a whole. According to recent surveys, while there is concern regarding

the impact of immigration on the availability of jobs, about two-thirds of Americans believe that immigrants take jobs that Ameri-cans usually do not want. How-ever, a large minority, about one-sixth of Americans, states that immigrants have actually taken jobs away from family members.

Experts and the public are also divided about how undocu-mented or illegal immigrants should be dealt with if their im-migration status is discovered. About one-third of the public

believes that these immigrants should be sent back to their home country, which is usually a part of Latin America, while another one-third believes that undocumented workers should be allowed to stay and that they should be placed in temporary work programs, as long as they eventually leave. Finally, the last one-third of society believes that undocumented immigrants should be sent home.

Many also debate the means by which America can reduce illegal immigration, especially across the US-Mexico border. About half of society believes that increasing penalties for employers who hire illegal im-migrants would be the best so-lution, while about a third wants an increase in border patrol agents. Only a small portion of society wants more fences to be built on the US-Mexico border as a solution to this problem.

However, another issue with the immigration policy debate is that most Americans, especially those who do not live near bor-ders or those who do not live in very culturally diverse areas, do not believe immigration policy to be significant at all. Thus, this year’s Justice Summit is very im-portant, as it gives Bellarmine students a chance to learn more about immigration, share their viewpoints with others, and hopefully increase their knowl-edge of a very contentious and vital justice issue.

9.5% of citizens in the United States are foreign born

11,768,816“skilled” jobs held by illegal immi-grants 28,400,000

first generation immigrants since 1970

7,000,000,000dollars of social security tax paid by illegal and undocumented im-migrants

March 2nd, 2012 Page 9Student Profile

You wouldn’t think much of the guy

with the “Indiana Jones” hat. Always beaming and

energetically gesticulating, Drew Descourouez seems like a freshman hyped up on way too much coffee. Upon clos-er inspection, however, you’ll find

that Drew is one of the most involved students on campus. As a mem-ber of cross country, wrestling, track and field, speech and debate, and San-

guine Humours, he has immersed himself in campus

life. Descourouez is also a Eucharistic Minister, and helped bring the charity Free the

Children to Bellarmine. In his free time, he sleeps. “Bellarmine is a fantastic place to be, and it’s not exactly

cheap to be here, so I like to go for it all. It would be an injustice not to go for all the opportunities that I can,” said Drew.

Drew’s biggest success has been with speech and debate. As a freshman at the Logan Invitational (a varsity tournament), he took fourth out of about 130 students in original oratory. In his speech, he talked about living in the present. He knows that our high school experience goes by really quickly, so it’s best to enjoy it. That may ac-count for his permanently excited attitude.

Drew also competes in oratorical interpretation and duo. For OI, he’s doing a rap called “Me to We.” The piece is about moving the mind-set of “me” to a much broader, “we” ideology. For duo, he’s doing a piece called “Dominic and Eugene” with Anderson Cook. It is about a mentally challenged man and his younger brother, and the way they work together. Drew believes the team’s success is due largely to Mrs. Jones’ inspiring teachings, and the coaching of the older members to the younger guys like him.

Aside from being an excellent speaker, Drew also has a very quick wit. He is the only freshman on Sanguine Humours, and a well-received addi-tion to the group. While the whole experience has been thrilling for him, he admits to occasionally feeling nervous while on stage. Said Drew, “I have to say, our last show, having Jake crawl between my legs, that was pretty embarrassing, as I tried to salvage a salad bar. I’m sure I was beet-red, and had sweat pouring from many orifices.”

Aside from being in Sanguine Humours, Drew also intends to participate in several plays during his time at Bellarmine. He saw The Grapes of Wrath, our fall drama, and loved it. He really en-joys drama, but thinks humor has a profound ability to alleviate stress. He admits he’s not a great singer or dancer.

In fact, during a mixer this year, when he realized he was a less-than-impressive dancer, he tried instead to impress a girl with his intellectual capabilities. “Un-fortunately, it’s rather difficult to impress a girl at a mixer with grades.”

Though he is blessed in many ways, Drew still struggles with the perennial curse that afflicts all Bellarmine boys—the inability to interact with people of the opposite sex.

“There was an incident where I was pole vaulting. It was a co-ed pole vault, and there was some mingling of the genders. Unfortu-nately, my pole vaulting skills are somewhat down the drain. I tried to tell [a girl] I would show here the worst way to pole vault, while I proceeded to give it my best shot and told her that it was terrible.”

He doesn’t really talk with the girl any-more, but remains optimistic about the whole ordeal. “It was a learning expe-rience.”

Drew competes in three sports, a rare feat for a Bellarmine student, especially one committed to so many other groups. As a wrestler, he start-ed for the freshmen at 140 pounds. Having wrestled in middle school, he brought that skill to the freshman team and helped lead them to a second place WCAL finish.

Like many students, Drew also rides the train. There, he is able to complete much of his work, hang out with friends, and rest for a little while. Yet it seems that even when he isn’t looking for excitement, excitement still finds him. “There was one man that was actually running to the train stop. He had to jump over

the railing in the middle of the train, so if there had been a train coming I don’t think he would be with us. He managed to vault the fence, and board the train. I’m not sure if he had a ticket, and when he walked by me, his hand seemed to be bleeding profusely. All in a day’s work of a train rider, I guess.”

After participating in the charity Free the Children in his middle school, he managed to found it at Bellarmine with the help of Ms. Maloney and Mr.

Downs, the current moderators of the charitable group. “Free the Children is very unique because it tries to free everyone from pover-ty, disease, exploitation, thirst, but also free youth like ourselves from the idea that we can’t do anything. It frees us from the idea that we are powerless to affect change all around the world.”

The group revolves around the idea that each member has a

unique gift, and if they pair it with a current issue, then they can take action. At his old middle school, Drew built a school in Sierra Le-one, Africa, with his fellow class-mates. The country is ravaged by many wars, so it isn’t uncommon for children to be brought into the conflicts as soldiers. His class later held fundraisers to build a well in Kenya. “Water races” were competitions that helped

raise awareness of the struggles women face in Kenya. Women often have to travel many miles to get water for their families.

Drew is also very religious. He’s a Eucharistic Minister, goes to Church every Sunday, and cares deeply about his faith. It reflects his entire lifestyle. He noted that enthusiasm comes from the Greek word enthos, meaning “to be filled with God.” He believes God gives him all the energy to interact with many other people.

Along with faith, family is very important to Drew. “I spend a lot of time with my family. My family rocks. I have a younger sister who is an amazing soccer player. She helps me with rela-tionships, and in my case, the absence of relationships.”

Drew sees a similar sort of close interaction between people within the Bellarmine community. “I love meeting new people. Bellarmine is such a comfortable, relaxed place to be.”

DREWDESCOUREZ

BY RYAN ALLEN

The Iconic Renaissance Freshman

Page 10 The CardinalSports

Aidan Crockett

Cardinal: When did you start playing volleyball? Did you plan on playing for Bellarmine?

Aidan: I started playing club volleyball at age 13. I have played every position since I began volleyball, and I believe this has really helped me garner a bet-ter understanding of the game. When it was time to choose where to go for high school, I decided that

Interview by Rahul Joshi ’13section head

Player Profile:

Bellarmine was the best fit both academi-cally and athletically. I had already been coached by Scott Peterson, our Head Coach, before I arrived at Bell, and he had great things to tell me about the program.

Cardinal: What were your fears or con-cerns when coming into this season? Have they come true so far?

Aidan: There weren’t really any fears coming into this season. If I had to tell what my biggest worry would be it would have to be overall health. I want to make sure that everybody on the team, includ-ing myself, is healthy and free of injury by the time we near the end of the season and look towards playoffs.

Cardinal: What motivates you to play hard even in times when the game is tough?

Aidan: My motivation comes from my previous experiences in volleyball. Vol-leyball is one of those sports where it can be very easy to feel down on yourself and on others. I think one of the most impor-tant things that a volleyball player should be capable of doing, especially in a tough game, is to find ways to fight through the adversity and motivate the rest of your team. There are always 6 players on the court at all times, meaning that no single person can lead the team to a victory. It is a team effort.

Cardinal: What are your feelings about this year’s team? How well are we doing with respect to how well we could do?

Aidan: The most important thing to ex-amine about this year’s team is that there are many new players, and no definite starting lineup. After having five starting seniors graduate last season, there is a lot of open room on our roster.

Cardinal: Is it difficult to manage Vol-leyball along with academics and other activities like ASB?

Aidan: Many of my fellow Bellarmine vol-leyball teammates, including Alex Keane, play club volleyball in addition to school volleyball. Combine these two commit-ments with other in-school activities like ASB, school work and college apps, and you have got a pretty busy schedule. It is also an extra time-commitment if you wish to spend time with friends and girl-friends.

Cardinal: How does volleyball tie in to your future plans for college and after?

Aidan: I plan on playing volleyball for Ohio State University in the fall.

This year, the Bellarmine Varsity soccer team finished with a record of 8-10-3, and many are scratching their heads in confusion and disbelief. The previous year, the Varsity soccer squad ended theseason claiming both the WCAL and CCS champi-onships and placed 18th in the nation, and people are curious as to what is the reason for the drastic difference in team per-formance.

It is unknown to students that many of the players who played on Varsity also competed in another soccer league com-monly referred to as Academy.

Furthermore, the North-west Division of Academy soc-cer committee decided that Academy participants cannot commit to any other leagues in the 2011-2012 season, includ-ing high-school teams. Players involved in both leagues were then forced to decide on which team they wanted to commit to, and a lot chose to stick with Academy soccer, which explains the team’s unusual overall per-formance this year.

Senior Matt Escobar, one of Bellarmine’s leading scorers in

the 2010-2011 soccer season, is a member of the DeAnza Force soc-cer team, and explains the perks of being a player in the league. The US Development Academy of-fers a lot more college exposure for those who wish to pursue soc-cer after graduating high-school. “The US Development Academy is the highest level of youth soc-cer in the country. The Academy provides tremendous amount of college exposure for every play-er”, says Escobar. “You get top level coaching with the Academy and are scouted by national team scouts every game.”

Escobar’s team has traveled all across the nation to compete, including places such as Los An-geles, Washington, Florida, and Dallas. The US Development Academy is one of the more pro-lific leagues in the country and ranks in the top 78 clubs from around the country, put into one league with 10 conferences and 4 divisions. Escobar had already re-ceived many college offers before eventually committing to play at University of Portland.

Junior Marcus Rojas is also a member of an Academy soccer team, and says, “The difference between Bellarmine and Acad-emy is that Academy gets you rec-ognized by colleges much easier

than high-school.” Marcus also hopes to pursue soccer in col-lege and hopefully compete on a professional level.

Not only does the Academy league offer more chances to be recognized by colleges, it also elevates the level of competition that cannot be found in other soccer leagues. Escobar states, “The competition is very high and the intensity in training and in games is much higher than most other club and high-school teams. If you want to play at the highest level, it would have to be in this league.”

Teams are faster, stronger, and smarter, and often play at different strategies that are very uncommon on high school teams. The rules are even de-signed to emulate actual pro-fessional soccer games, such as permanent player substitution.

The Bellarmine Varsity soc-cer team experienced a year of rebuilding this year, adjusting to the loss of skilled players such as Matt Escobar, Andrew Pla-ton, Cole Heer, and Greg Singer. Only time will tell as to whether or not the team will recover, but after a successful Junior Varsity and Freshman season (15-1-2 and 16-1), the future looks promising.

by Lucas Urbi ’13staff writer/reporter

Academy Soccer Triumphs Over BCP Varsity

Edson Cardona ‘13 eagerly awaits a pass at an Academy game.

Matt Escobar ‘12 with the DeAnza Force soccer team at the Academy Showcase in Florida.

March 2nd, 2012 Page 11Sports

by Aniket Saoji ‘13staff writer/reporter

After losing only three games, including the WCAL fi-nals, last year, all to St. Ignatius, the returning varsity players want to win it all this year. How-ever, with only nine returning players, Mr. Oelkers and Mr. Ro-mano are working really hard to rekindle the team’s chemistry.

The team practices six days a week for two hours each. Ju-nior Austen Lovett, the manager of the team this year after suf-fering from a concussion, says, “There has been a lot of condi-tioning, practicing plays, and strategy.”

After two weeks of scrim-maging with Mountain View and De La Salle, the varsity team has their first game at Menlo-Ather-ton High School.

Junior Lawrence Zhou de-scribes their goal, “As always, our goal is to win the WCAL championship and beat St. Igna-tius for the first time ever. To do so, we are focusing on playing together as a team and getting rid of the preseason kinks.

“We are starting to look like a team now. It’s hard with only 9 returners, but we have been

making good progress.” However, Lovett cautions,

“Though we are looking pretty strong, we have a really young team this year since a majority of the players last year on var-sity were seniors.” With fifteen sophomores on the team, junior Jack Purser says, “A lot of young guys are stepping up and com-ing into their own.”

This includes the only re-turning underclassman, sopho-more Joe Rodriguez: “It’s been hard, but I think I’m getting used to becoming a leader.”

Though the team has a lot of talent with twelve all-star players, Purser points out, “We’re lacking in size. Most of us are purely lacrosse players who focus on finesse and touch, while other team’s starters are bigger football players.”

Despite these concerns, Coach Romano remains opti-mistic and confident. “Though it’s all new, and there are a lot of new faces, I think [Mr. Oelk-ers and I] can get them to gel together. This is a very talented team.

“I think we can win WCAL this year. We play SI twice in the season, so we’ll be ready in the playoffs.”

Lacrosse Pulling Together to Meet Upcoming Rivalry

Defending WCAL and CCS Champs Deal With Many Major Injuriesby Ishan Sinha ‘15staff writer/reporter

After suffering a bucket-handle tear, swimmer Chris Scheaffer ’13 is injured and will not be able to compete for at least 3 months. “I injured my knee in 2 steps,” Scheaffer said. “First, I slipped on the pool deck, caus-ing me to rip my meniscus but still allowing me to swim. Then a few days later, I pushed off the wall and my meniscus flipped. It was folded in half causing me to not be able to move my knee, re-quiring surgery.”

However, Scheaffer is op-timistic about the situation. “It

will take a while for me to get back in championship form,” he said. “I’m not that disappointed because I swam well at Junior Nationals in December. Since it wasn’t a torn ligament, I will be fine once it heals. Plus, there’s se-nior year, so it won’t be too bad.”

Scheaffer is one of many swimmers out in an injury-filled start of the season, but Coach Larry Rogers still expects a stel-lar performance from the team. “Expectations are high on the team,” Coach Rodgers said. “The team feels that it can have a good season and hopefully capture an-other WCAL and CCS Champion-ship. We should match up pretty

swell [against other WCAL com-petitors]. We have a number of CCS placers returning, and they should help make it an eventful season.”

“The team will do fine,” Scheaffer said. “We may not set the 200 medley record but with the depth of our team, there is no school even close to beating us at CCS.”

“At this point, it is hard to identify the role players,” Coach Rodgers said. “We like to look at it as a team effort and hopefully see large improvement as the season goes on, but we have a very good senior class which is very influential.”

Animesh Agrawal ‘13

Animesh Agrawal ‘13

Animesh Agrawal ‘13Animesh Agrawal ‘13

Senior Sean McMahon jukes a defender to create an opening to score.

Senior John Bigelow sprints away from the defender with the ball.

Sophomore Colin Whitney Junior Connor Towne

Nick Nguyen ‘13

Nick Nguyen ‘13

Nick Nguyen ‘13 Nick Nguyen ‘13

Page 12 March 2nd, 2012Sports

had a repeat “Holy War” against St. Francis, where the Bells came out victorious with a 60-50 upset in the fourth quarter.

“I’m just hoping we play an-other good game against St. Fran-cis,” said head coach Mr. Schneider in preparation for the game. “I can’t say that the improvement is as sub-stantial as it needs to be, but we’re pleased with key improvements. I think we need to focus on being stronger with the ball, and the oth-er area is blocking out.”

With two minutes left in the game, the Bells and Lancers were deadlocked in a 50-50 tie, when Mr. Schneider called a timeout for some words of inspirations. Ap-parently, his words worked, as the Bells finished the game with a 10-0 streak including six points from the

Sports in BriefSwimming3/2 Jesuit Invite (Away) 12:003/8 St. Ignatius (Away) 3:003/9 MV Invite (Away) 12:003/22 Sacred Heart (Home) 3:003/29 Serra (Away) 3:00

Baseball3/1 Los Altos (Away) 3:303/3 St. Mary’s HS (Away) 12:003/5 Westmont HS (Away) 3:303/7 Northgate (Away) 6:003/13 Serra (Away) 4:003/26 Sacred Heart (Away) 3:30

Track and Field3/3 Mt. Pleasant (Away) 9:003/10 K-Bell Invite (Away) 9:003/14 Valley Christ. (Away) 3:00

Basketball

2/29 Salinas HS (Away) 5:303/3 Poss. CCS Champ. (Away) 8:003/5 Poss. NorCal First R (TBD) 7:00

Tennis3/6 Serra (Away) 2:453/7 Mitty (Away) 3:003/8 Sacred Heart (Home) 3:303/13 Saint Francis (Home) 3:303/13 Leland (Home) 3:30

Golf

3/6 Serra (Away) 2:303/8 Saint Francis (Home) 2:303/13 St. Ignatui (Away) 3:003/15 Riordon (Home) 2:30

Lacrosse

3/7 Saint Francis (Home) 3:303/9 Serra (Away) 3:303/14 Mitty(Home) 3:30

free-throw line.McCue finished with four

field goals and 11 points, but Bel-larmine’s lead scorer was Ver-meer. Although he only had three field goals, two of which were three pointers, Vermeer made seven of his eight free-throw shots for a grand total of 15 points.

However, in the WCAL semi-finals, Mitty took a victory over Bellarmine, 54-48.

Although the Bells never fell too far behind, they could never take the lead completely. Although

Blair Mendy scored 12 points and McCue contributed 11 points, Mitty’s junior forward Aaron Gor-don couldn’t be stopped as he scored 24 points.

The Bells hope to end their season on a good note with vic-tories in the CCS semifinals and finals this upcoming week.

Jack Fordyce ‘12 lays up the basketball over an Saint Francis defender.

Grant Vermeer ‘13 shoots a tough shot over two St. Francis defenders. Bottom: Blair Mendy ‘13 looks for an available option to score.

Griffin Goudreau ‘12 attempts a reverse layup in traffic.

Top: Court defense against Valley Christian.

Basketballcontinued from Page 1