what’s inside: Movember: Sponsor Your Mustache (and beard)2 3 8Perspectives

Steve Jobsfootballseason

See Spirit Week pg 3

See College Visits pg 2

by Vijay Singh ‘12managing editor

Spirit Week Rallies with a New Twist

Exploring Colleges

Bellarmine students embarked on visits to colleges across the world

October 2011, Issue 7 Bellarmine College Prep - San Jose, CA

Insert caption about boring presentation in boring immigration summit

Brandon Yung ‘13

During the first week of No-vember, ASB will host its annual spirit week leading up to the foot-ball game against Saint Francis on Friday, November 4. This year’s spirit week promises to bring some unique changes and per-haps improvements as well. So what can the Bells look forward to this year?

As usual, there will be sev-eral theme days, but this year, ASB plans to have one day dedi-cated to class colors. According to ASB moderator Ms. Troyan, “ASB has already approved a class color day for Thursday, Novem-ber 3. Seniors will wear pink,

juniors will wear white, sopho-mores will wear powder blue, and freshmen will wear dark blue. ASB plans to sell shirts in the appropriate color with the BCP label on the front and the class name on the back, but students are free to wear their own colored shirts as well. And, of course, on Friday we will all wear Bell Wear!”

In addition to these theme days, ASB also plans to host a myriad of lunchtime events as well. Ms. Troyan explained, “The Spirit Committee also came up with lunch time events for each day of Spirit Week. We

From Wednesday October 12th to Sunday October 15th, stu-dents enjoyed Bellarmine’s first fall break, created with respect to the school year starting two weeks earlier. More focused than relaxed, seniors used the oppor-tune week for the pursuit of their college dreams.

With the new 5-day break, seniors wisely explored colleges, ranging from those of the East Coast to those of southern Cali-fornia. It is a new step for Bellar-mine’s prospective college fresh-men as their college applications are in their rudimentary stages.The week provided the opportu-nity to reconsider college choices and strengthen interests. For some, the colleges they expect-ed to be their future residences turned out to have turn-offs. For others, unexpected colleges cap-tured their hearts.

Starting earlier than others, I used the whole week to get a feel for the southern Californian schools. The school that appealed to me in particular was the Uni-versity of Southern California. From the moment I stepped on campus to the moment I departed,

I knew my heart belonged there. Students thrive in a competitive environment, can easily find op-portunities for success through undergraduate internships, and can be a part of a unique network called the Trojan Family, similar to Bellarmine’s. I also got to expe-rience the Greek life, walk around by myself in a student’s perspec-tive, and shadow a Neuroscience class. Personally, it was once a farfetched target school, but with the help of campus tours, encour-agement from USC students, and a newfound love for the school, it is now my number one choice.

USC’s neighbors, such as Loyola Marymount University, Po-mona College in Claremont, and University of San Diego at Califor-nia, hosted Bellarmine students as well. Among them were Nick Abad ’12 and Alex Keane ’12.

Located on top of a hill in between Downtown Los Angeles and Venice Beach, LMU’s beauti-ful campus fascinated Nick. Nick

said, “ [I] liked the class size and how you would really get to know your teachers, plus won’t just get lost in the shuffle.” For Nick, the Jesuit-based co-ed school is now a priority of his.

Alex found the weather of surf world La Jolla in UCSD breath-taking. It was exactly what he ex-pected, and Pomona and UCSD’s “colleges appeal to me because of their academics.”

East coast schools, from Bos-ton’s prestigious universities of Harvard and MIT to the quaint Brown University to the bustle of New York University, hosted more seniors such as Michael Head ’12, Andy Cook ’12, and Max Skala ’12. The big cities of Boston and New York City are reasons why Max Skala has Boston College and NYU as his top choices, but he also wants to follow Dr. Sullivan’s foot-steps with Brown as his number one.

Justice Summit - page 4Binh Tran-Tu ‘12

Huy Pham ‘12

Binh Tran-Tu’12

by Karl Valdez ‘12staff writer

Editors-in-ChiefMatt Chan ’12Sri Gopakumar ’12

Managing EditorVijay Singh ’12

Online Content ManagerRohit Mukherjee ’13

Business ManagerJames Wei ’12

Photography EditorsHuy Pham ’12Binh Tran-tu ’12

Layout EditorArun Pingali ’12

Section HeadsRyan Allen ’13Akshay Alaghatta ’13Benjamin Chan ’13Faris Katkhuda ’13Aram Nazarian ’13Matthew Tran ’12

RevisionistNathan Kragas ‘12

Layout and DesignAnimesh Agrawal ’13Daniel Nguyen ’12Ankur Das ’12Rahul Joshi ’13Derek Nguyen ’13Greg Toschi ’12

Photo and GraphicsMatt Garcia ’13Carl Molina ’12Nicholas Nguyen ’13Sean Pagnon ’12Jaythe Silva ’12Jonas Sung ‘12Brandon Yung ’13Vincent Nguyen ‘13

Reporters and WritersCollin Baker ’13Christopher Cognetta ’14Emilio Flamenco ’14Sagar Kanumalla ’13Rahul Lodavia ’12Ryan Ochoa ’13Aniket Saoji ’13Kshithij Shrinath ’13Rahul Singireddy ’14Debnil Sur ’13Karl Valdez ’12Shiv Wadwani ’13

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Page 2 October 25th, 2011

Cardinal Staff

Perspectives

by Ben Chan ‘13section head

On October 5, 2011 – a tu-multuous day characterized in part by a three fatality shooting and dreary, gray rain – Steve Jobs died, and Silicon Valley saw the loss of one of its founding fathers and finest visionaries.

As young men in an evolving world, we should realize that on this day, a truly inspirational man who shaped our lives through t e c h n o l -ogy and culture left the earthly world. Even as students, we have felt Steve Jobs not only through his world-changing creations like the iPod, Mac, and iPhone but also through the values he embodied which are now an integral part of the spirit that comes with living in Silicon Valley.

He once said, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Everything else is secondary.”

I think that we don’t fully re-alize how important Steve was to our lives. He wasn’t just a success-ful CEO of a successful company; Steve Jobs was crazy, genius, mag-ical, inspirational, revolutionary, a visionary, a pioneer, and a real influence on our lives.

He was crazy – he dropped college and visited India in 1970 to reach enlightenment - and we sometimes try to be too. We try not to live by the book or the for-mula, and without Steve, a bit of this ideal would have never ex-isted.

He was genius, and even though few of us consider our-selves genius, we look at him and remember to utilize our own tal-ents to change the world. He was magical, and gave the world devic-

Steve Jobs’ Inspiring Legacy

Other than the harsh winters, he says he will have no second thoughts when acceptance letters will be sent.

On October 15th, the local Santa Clara University held a spe-cial program for about 40 Bellar-mine students called “Santa Clara Lunch.” The program comprised

home. It actually is like its own lit-tle world where you can still have your college experience, but also if you ever need anything, home is like right there.”

I hope that you take these experiences into account when you embark on your college visits in future years, whether you’re a freshman, sophomore, or junior. It may seem like college is years away but time has a way of flying

Searching For The Perfect College And Future

by. It is always best to be prepared rather than to hastily throw to-gether an applicaition.

Seniors, when filling out the rest of your apps or cramming those life stories into the param-eters, picture yourself in the col-leges you visited for motivation. But as we finish our college apps and prepare for the future, re-member what got you there. Re-member where you started.

Pennants from many celebrated colleges line the corridor in Wade Hall

of a student panel, 4 alumni from Bellarmine who spoke about the transition to college down the street, and a campus tour. Valmik Desai ‘12, Aryan Khojasteh ‘12, Matt Wallace ‘12, and Rahul Pala-muttam ’12 had special access to the frat houses and dorms through Valmik’s older brother and fellow Bell alumnus, Kanishk Desai ’09. According to Aryan, “SCU is really a home away from

UC Davis is one of many schools that seniors may visit before applying

es that we didn’t know we needed. Steve fused art, utility, and the en-trepreneurial spirit into a magical product; in this way I have per-sonally lost one of my r o l e

m o d -els. He taught us to make technol og y accessible to all.

He was inspirational, and through his achieve-ments but more so through his ideals he changed the experience of the world for many and in-spired many of us to do the same. As students aspiring to cement our identities, we often look up to him.

He was a revolutionary, and wasn’t afraid to be different and to be wrong by making the Mac and the iPad, and we embody that spirit. He was a visionary who materialized his visions even as we, as students, slowly started to realize that our dreams may not be as far-fetched as we may have thought.

He was a pioneer in tech-nology and business, breaking

ground for others to follow with Apple and Pixar, and many of us now aspire to do the same.

T h i s month, we’ve lost a genius and a role model. As students in the heart of Silicon Val-ley mere miles away from Steve Jobs and his

creations, we were affected more than anyone else by Steve and his life. Now that he is gone, life goes on,

but his life is one that deserves to be

remembered and cel-ebrated.

We can only re-member that Steve Jobs continues to live on within the hearts of all, but most of all within the students of Bellarmine as we continue to forge our identities in an ever-changing world.

Have something to say? Agree? Disagree? Please email me at ben.chan13@bcp.org.

Despite many com-plaints that the iPhone 4S did not change much from its predecessor, there are several significant features Apple added and altered to its latest product. The great-est of these is the new Siri assistant, followed by a more powerful core, and the new iOS5 operating system (the new OS works for other de-vices as well.)

Siri is a voice command system that does nearly any-thing one commands. Ask it about restaurants nearby, the weather, or where a certain place is, and it will refer to dif-ferent resources. It answers promptly and accurately. Siri also sends text messages to people, sets reminders, gives directions, sends e-mails, up-dates Facebook statuses, all by voice command!

Nick Mercadante ‘15, owner of the new iPhone, said, “The design [of the Siri] is very intelligent. It’ll figure out what you’re saying. To mess with it you can even have a conversation.”

The iPhone 4S also comes equipped with a new dual-core A5 chip, designed to provide more loading power, and provide the user with faster graphics.

Some students don’t see significant change with the new phone. Shankar Iyer ‘13 said, “I think it’s not really different from the other four phones. The only thing that was really nice was the Siri.”

The greatest new fea-ture iOS brings is the “Noti-fication Center” at the top of the screen. Instead of freez-ing an app by popping up in the middle of the screen, small notifications now show up at the top of the screen, where the user can swipe down to view all of them.

by Ryan Allen ‘13section head

The iPhone 4S ranges from $199.99 (16 GB) to $399.99 (64 GB)

Jonas Sung’12 Binh Tran-Tu’12

iPhone 4s

College Visitscontinued from Page 1

“He’s sort of that bril-liant technology guy who could always create the new big thing.”

~Carlos Yero ‘15

“Steve Jobs basi-cally changed technology with the iEverything.”

~Jimi Alvarez ‘15

“He was a source of innovation and insipiration.”

~Elias Wu‘14

“Steve Jobs was a visionary - a hero-leader. A lot of what we have is because of him.

~Gianluca Onorato ‘15

Reactions to Jobs’ death

BellarmineNews.com Page 3Campus Life

Movember: Hair for a Causeby Ryan Allen ’13section head

In the past, seniors have glowed over the fact that for an entire month, they were able to grow their peach fuzz as long as they wished, without fear of con-sequence. This year, seniors main-tain that special privilege, but with a twist: the event, renamed “Movem-ber,” is now semi-inclusive, and at the root of it is a charitable cause.

This year, An-drew Clem ’12, ASB Senior-Class Presi-dent, suggested participating in the Movember Cam-paign. “[Movem-ber] is an interna-tional organization where guys around the world grow their mustaches to support the fight against prostate cancer,” said Clem. “We’re moving the senior beard contest that’s traditionally been during Lent to the month of November, and for seniors the period lasts from the beginning of November to the end of the se-mester.”

The key is to gather the most support for your beard or mus-tache.

Most likely, a new category this year for contestants will be for the “Most Support,” meaning the most funds raised for cancer. Customary categories that include “Best Overall,” “Best Mustache,”

Mr. Young sports an attractive beard and mustache, like many

“Best Sideburns,” and others are also a part of the competition.

Winners may keep their beards until Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 16).

Valmik Desai ’12 seemed thrilled by the new growing date,

saying, “I think that Movember is going to be extremely chill. Se-niors should be pumped, we get so much more time [to grow facial hair.]”

Though freshmen, sopho-mores, and juniors, may not grow beards during this time, they still are able to participate by growing mustaches.

Sohum Patel ’13 expressed his support for the event, saying, “I think it’s an excellent idea.”

Ms. Troyan, ASB’s moderator, said, “Students do not have to par-ticipate in the fund and awareness raising to participate in the beard

contest, but we hope they will as it gives students the chance to be men for others by growing mus-taches for a cause that should be very important at a boys school.”

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer

is the most common cancer in American men and the second leading cause of can-cer death for men, just behind lung cancer. About 1 in 6 males will be diag-nosed with prostate cancer at some point during his lifetime; 1 in 36 will die from the cancer.

“If it’s sup-porting the fight for cancer, then I sup-port it fully,” said Jim McCambridge ’12, one of many seniors eager to make a dif-ference in the fight against cancer.

As Men for Others, Movember serves as an ideal opportunity for students to act out of generosity and compas-sion for the community.

Though very few of us know firsthand about living with pros-tate cancer, the problem still af-fects a tremendous amount of people, many of whom may be relatives or older friends. All stu-dents have the manpower (and some, the facial hair) to make a difference.

For more information about the Movember Campaign, go to http://us.movember.com

Nick Nguyen ‘13

Spirit Weekcontinued from Page 1

. . . can promise the return of some class competitions including the ever popular dodgeball!”

Specifically, ASB Vice Presi-dent Nakul Karnik ’12 highlighted some new ideas that students are sure to love, noting, “This year, I think the students will enjoy the new points system and lunchtime events. Classes will earn points based on their participation and how well they do during thes events.”

Although not all of the theme days and lunchtime events have been finalized, one idea, the Night Rally, will surely happen and will be held in the gym on Thursday, November 3, at 8 p.m.

Ms. Troyan explained, “As for the Night Rally, we don’t want to give it all away, but there will be some class competitions, some faculty events, and...giant ham-ster ball races!”

According to Valmik Desai

’12, both a member of ASB and a Yell Leader, “Well, the climax of Spirit Week, as always, is going to be the Spirit Rally. It should be a great display of school spirit. Look out for games throughout the week, and friendly competition. I will be looking forward to the night rally, since that is where we come together to really support our team, get them pumped up, and make a statement. The game will be a great game as well. I look forward to doing a lot of pushups, as a yell leader.”

All in all, while Spirit Week is returning in the same format in terms of its use of theme days, lunchtime events, and the Night Rally, ASB’s Spirit Committee has put together several new ideas, which promise to make this year’s Spirit Week an exciting one, to say the least.

ASB’s ideas are great but they require a certain level of par-ticipation from the studnet body for them to live up to their poten-tial. With that, take part and have fun!

Nick Watson ‘13 shows lots of spirit Green bells surround Matt Chang ‘13

Sustainability Lives On“The Beautiful Country”

Page 4 October 25, 2011Feature BellarmineNews.com Page 5Feature

In the past, while the fac-ulty and students have focused on hunger and sustainability, the 2011-2012 school year is continuing the Bellarmine tra-dition of a social justice theme and is shining the spotlight on the theme of immigration. From economic to political immigra-tion, students will be learning it all.

Bellarmine has already had its first experience with the issue through the Justice Sum-mit Assembly on October 10, 2011. The student body had the privilege of hearing Rosa Gomez from Community Legal Services of East Palo Alto and Jennifer Lee from the American Immigration Lawyers Associa-tion speak about the different aspects of immigration. As the first speaker at the assembly, Gomez offered her perspective on economic immigration as well as the situations of asylum seekers. Following closely after, Lee gave insights into the busi-ness motivations for immigra-tion. Their speeches were prim-ers for the follow-up activities, the discussion groups.

Making these groups very special was that the discus-

The Bellarmine student body has had the recent opportunity to participate in a historic summit on Social Justice. Taking place on October 11th, this summit high-lighted the topic of immigration, triggering thoughtful discussion and raising awareness about a real world issue. Under the staff leadership of Mrs. Arriola, the event met and exceeded its goals of serving as a catalyst for stu-dents to think about immigration on different levels.

Mrs. Arriola shares that it is her hope that Bellarmine’s theme of immigration will allow stu-dents to think of it as something more than an abstract issue that does not affect them. “Immigrants are part of our school communi-ty,” explains Mrs. Arriola. She also points out the bigger picture, “On the macro level, immigrants are full members of God’s community. My hope is to make this issue less abstract and more concrete for students.”

This particular summit was unique in giving students the re-sponsibility of serving as discus-sion leaders. Planning for this since last spring, the 9-member faculty team and Mr. Meyercord met several times in ensuring that everything would run smoothly and fit with the mission of the school and be accessible to stu-

On Tuesday, September 27, Bellarmine presented its second film of the Justice Summit series, The Beautiful Country, a story about the life of Binh, a young Vietnamese man who decides to search for his real parents after being raised in a small village with adopted parents. He is ac-companied by Ling, whom he meets in a refugee camp, and his newly found younger half-broth-er, Tam, as they seek entrance into America.

Binh escapes the small vil-lage where he resides in order to find his true mother, who lives in Saigon. He gets a job with his mother, but is soon forced to move to America. Hoping to create a new life for himself, and to find his long-lost father, Binh, along with his half-brother Tam, eventually finds himself in a refugee camp in Malaysia after his ship sails off course.

Binh meets a Chinese prosti-tute named Ling, who also seeks to go to America. Ling is able to get enough money from prosti-tution to allow Binh, Tam, and herself entrance to an American-bound British ship, where they endure a food shortage.

Binh’s younger brother, Tam, dies due to starvation. Eventually Binh and Ling make their way to New York City, where Binh works as a delivery boy and Ling works in a cabaret. After discovering that Binh could have easily flown to America and gained citizen-ship because he was born to an American father, Binh realizes his brother’s death was unnecessary. This motivates him to find his fa-ther, so he hitchhikes his way to Texas. He eventually finds his fa-ther in Texas, and the movie ends with a genuine moment between the two.

College guidance counselor Ms. Hill says, “It was really valu-able to see a story of immigration from the perspective of someone who’s made the journey – in their language and set primarily in an-other country. By the time the

With a new justice theme each year, how does Bellarmine implement past themes such as sustainability? Even though the justice theme this year is immi-gration, Bellarmine is still striving to become a greener community, especially with the construction of Lokey, the preservation of SEAS (the Student Environmental Ac-tion Society), and the Garden club.

Lokey itself promotes the theme of sustainability in the sense that it is an extremely envi-ronmentally friendly building. In comparison to Old Town, for ex-ample, Lokey uses one-fourth of the space, and is therefore much more efficient.

Mr. Meyercord compares Lokey to Sobrato, stating, “Like Sobrato, Lokey is a LEED Certified Gold building, meaning that it was built with very high standards for sustainability, and it is a very en-ergy-efficient building.”

Also, clubs like SEAS and the Garden Club continue to perform environmentally related projects aimed to contribute to a more sus-tainable community.

Mr. Flowers, the faculty

by Adam Pramono ‘13staff writer/reporter

Students Have Mixed Opinions On Summitby Aram Nazarian ‘13section head

Classroom Reflections After Summitby George Boxberger ‘13contributor

by Shiv Wadwani ‘13staff writer/reportersions were led by students. With

the goal of making sure that all students would be learning about immigration, the Justice Summit involved all four grades split up evenly throughout many discus-sion groups.

Although sign-ups were an-nounced, most students were unaware of where and how to register to be a “Justice Summit Leader”. Lucas Urbi ’13 says, “To be honest, I didn’t even know about it. When I found out, it was too late.” Furthermore, as Mrs. Ar-riola, coordinator of the Justice Summit, says, “We were pleased with the level of interest from the student body, but since this is a new program, we knew it would take some time for the program to take hold within the Bellarmine community.” Nevertheless, a fair number of Bells signed up to par-ticipate in the facilitator training. Supplementing these numbers were some members of the Cross Country Team and the Bellarmine Speech and Debate team.

As disciples in the art of com-munication, the team collectively had quite a bit of experience in discussions already from count-less tournaments and practices. Mrs. Jones, director of the Speech and Debate Program, saw this as a perfect opportunity to put that

expertise to use. “Since listening to and un-

derstanding two sides of an issue is exactly what debaters do,” she says, “I thought that acting as the facilitators for the Justice Sum-mit was a way the debaters could serve the larger school commu-nity .”

The team was eager to put their skills of communication to use. James Thomas ’12 said, “The members of the speech and de-bate team will use their commu-nication skills to facilitate mean-ingful discussions on the topic of immigration.”

And as Mrs. Arriola said, “Their participation is what en-abled this program to become a reality.” Speechers, debaters, and many others tightened their ties and buckled their belts on Justice Summit Day as they prepared to facilitate discussion. Alex Doan ’14 was looking forward to the day because he and his fellow members would be able to “apply their skills in speaking and abil-ity to arbitrate between differing sides.”

As the school year is still just beginning, the entire student body can look forward to more student-led discussions and assemblies on the enlightening, yet challenging, issue of immigration.

character got to America, I got a better sense of how odd New York must have seemed to him, and what kind of culture shock he went through.” The Beauti-ful Country was a powerful story about the determination needed for the rough journey to Amer-ica. Binh showed great heart as he struggled to make his way to America and find his father. This movie was reflective of our justice theme, simply because it gave a first-person perspective towards the journey to America. It showed that immigrants often must un-dergo desperate measures in or-der to come here.

Junior Derek Nguyen adds, “I suspect it would be very mov-ing for someone totally new to the notion of immigration: the events displayed in the movie were meant to inspire empathy in the audience for refugees’ hardships.”

The movie showed how en-ticing America truly is, and we should understand what immi-grants have to go through to make it here. Derek Nguyen also says, “The movie made me connect some dots that I totally didn’t ac-knowledge before, like how im-migrants might have to buy their freedom in a very brutal manner--the human trafficking business.”

Ms. Hill also says, “At the end of the movie I was really reminded that when you meet someone who has come to America from anoth-er country, you never really know why they moved, or what they had to go through to get here.”

moderator of the Student Envi-ronmental Action Society states, “This year the goal of SEAS is to maintain and strengthen the en-ergy that grew during the Sustain-ability theme last year.”

Also, in relation to the proj-ects SEAS is currently working on, Mr. Flowers says, “Our current long-term project is to push for the installation of electric hand-dryers in the bathrooms [in place of the paper towel dispensers]. Our more immediate, short-term, project is to promote the use of re-usable lunch or tote bags for the student body and faculty.”

SEAS also continues to par-ticipate in environmental commu-nity out-reach projects, such as beach clean ups.

The main purpose of the Gar-den Club, on the other hand, is to provide food for the needy and to learn about sustainable gardening practices while contributing to a greener campus.

As a result, the Bellarmine community continues to take steps to becoming more sustain-able, even though the official jus-tice theme of sustainability has officially ended.

dents. Mrs. Arriola explains that a lot of work went into planning the event, including summer meet-ings, reading books, and making sure that the presenters and stu-dent leaders would be well-pre-pared. “We have been in full plan-ning mode since the summer, and I think our time was well spent.” Judging by the reactions from fac-ulty, participants, and leaders, all that planning did pay off. Summit Leader Thomas Lee ’12 says, “I thought the presentations were very effective. By being concise and full of information at the same time, the presenters were able to relay their topics very well.”

The event allowed present-ers to share topics that would trigger discussions among small-er groups, with the goal that the student leaders would facilitate the small-group discussions. Mrs. Arriola’s reaction to the discus-sions are positive, stating, “I think they were a great success!” She is pleased that opportunity was given for deep thought and reflec-tion, followed by students voic-ing their opinions. “I haven’t ever seen a group of Bells stay quiet for long, especially when we are asking them to think critically,” she elaborates, “I think the dis-

cussions bring out what is best about our school – we can dis-cuss, offer viewpoints, disagree respectfully, and in the end, the students remain brothers.”

After the initial ques-tions offered by the presenters, Summit Leaders steered the discussions, and according to Thomas, did so with success. He reflects, “The questions that we created were more specific and encouraged more students to participate. I would say the facilitation training slightly helped me. I have previous ex-perience in moderating discus-sions and speaking on the spot from speech and debate; how-ever, I learned some techniques in getting the quiet people to talk and to branch out discus-sions to include everyone.” Mrs. Arriola praises the stu-dent leaders, exclaiming, “Our Summit Leaders were amazing, and handled the responsibility extremely well!” She adds that this leadership opportunity is a new role that is emerging at Bellarmine and expresses her gratitude. She states, “We are so thankful for all the studens who have given their time to serve the school in this capacity.”

A Scene from The Beautiful Country

Miss Arriola talks to the Bellarmine community about asylum seeking immigrants in the United States

Vijay Singh ‘12 facilitates heated discussion during the Summit

Mr. Adams shows others his garden, which he tends to sustainablyFr. Sheridan joining the discussion

Pennants from many celebrated colleges line the corridor in Wade Hall.

Justice Summit:

Focus onImmigration

Carl Molina ’12

Carl Molina ’12

Binh Tran-Tu’12

Binh Tran-Tu’12 Nicholas Nguyen ’13

Page 6 October 25th, 2011Campus News

by James Wei ‘12business manager

in the powerful wind tunnel at the beginning.

Most students flew in air-speeds around 100-105 miles per hour.

The iFly wind tunnel has the capacity to generate airspeeds of up to 180 miles per hour.

This year’s Physics C AP field trip to iFly SF Bay was Mr. Janke’s second time taking students to the venue.

According to Abrary Choud-hury ‘12, “While a minute [of flight] may not seem like a very long time, there’s a pretty big time dilation when you’re flying inside the tunnel. Not only are you having fun, time feels like it slows down.”

The iFly facility is powered by four, 250-horsepower engines that channels two loops of air into a narrow wind tunnel.

All in all, Kartik Chillakanti ’12 sums up his experience: “Ex-hilarating, that is all.”

Bellarmine college counsel-or and quiz bowl coach Chris Flei-tas went big on ABC’s Jeopardy! a couple of weeks ago – more than 82-grand big, that is. Mr. Fleitas’ episodes have been the buzz on campus among students recently; he consequently took a little time to share his sentiments about the three-day, $82,900 yielding expe-rience.

The show itself was filmed close to mid-August in Culver City, near Los Angeles. Contestants had to await their turns, calculated by a rigorous randomization pro-cess – Mr. Fleitas actually watched three games from the audience before he got his chance to com-pete.

When his turn finally came, he definitely performed extreme-ly well, over the course of three days, winning $82,000. Mr. Fleitas will get his sum of prize money in a month or two, he’s been told.

He’s already made a list of the things he wants to get and the plans he will eventually make – including “hit[ting] Iceland next summer” for a long overdue hon-eymoon.

The coach of Bellarmine’s nationally recognized quiz bowl team also plans to use his bounty to buy his “wife a new laptop and myself an iPad,” along with a con-tribution toward his search for a “house in [San Francisco].” Mr. Fleitas also says, “I’ll probably drop a donation of a few bills on Wikipedia, to say thanks for teach-ing me about dressage the week before I went on [the show].”

Mr. Fleitas was able to make

by Sagar Kanumalla ‘13staff reporter/writer

Mr. Fleitas Appears on ABC’s “Jeopardy”competing on Jeopardy! look a lot easier than it really was; it’s important to note that just a few months prior, Bellarmine student Nikhil Desai ’12, himself a recipi-ent of Mr. Fleitas’ coaching, had reached the semi-finals of the stu-dent tournament.

Mr. Fleitas said, “I was defi-nitely feeling pressured during the two months of intense study-ing I spent prior to going down in August. I worried that if I didn’t win, I’d never hear the end of it.

“By the night of the show,

I finally felt at peace about it. Some of it had to do with finally realizing that so, so much of who wins on Jeopardy comes down to luck.”

He continued, “The next morning, I woke up and didn’t feel even a twinge of nervousness. I knew I’d done everything I could do to prepare and it was going to be an incredible experience no matter what.”

Mr. Fleitas also holds that success was reached in just mak-ing the cut; according to him, since only “4% of people who make the in-person tryout get se-lected, there’s no shame in losing

to any of them, and it doesn’t say anything about you.”

The friendly coach and fac-ulty member was able to meet his “personal goal of winning two games. Once to say I was the champ, and the second to prove it wasn’t a fluke.”

Mr. Fleitas also set a few re-cords in his own right.

“Two wins would be a re-cord for high school quiz bowl coaches. The amount I won in my first two matches was in the top ten performances ever for

consecutive days, and the top three ever for Day 1 and 2.”

Many felt very proud in seeing a faculty member and coach on national television. Junior Debnil Sur ’13 says, “Mr. Fleitas is a great person and a really, really smart guy, and seeing him do that on television was awesome.”

As great as Mr. Fleitas did on Jeopardy!, competitor Joon Pahk dethroned him on

his third day on the show. Christopher Marks ’14 ex-

plains, “I wasn’t surprised by the fact that Mr. Fleitas knew all of that information. Being a former quiz bowl member, I know that he’s a very knowledgeable guy. It was sad to see him lose, but ev-ery champion has to end his win-ning streak at some point.”

Former Bellarmine Quiz-bowler Tanay Kothari ’11 ex-plained, “I was definitely a little upset to hear that he had lost on the third episode, but simply the fact that Mr. Fleitas was on Jeop-ardy! at all made it less disap-pointing.”

Students of Mr. Janke’s Phys-ics C AP class spent the morning of Thursday, October 13th explor-ing aerodynamics at iFly SF Bay in Union City.

According to Arun Pingali ’12, “iFly gave us an excellent hands-on complement to the top-ics that we covered in Physics C.”

Students had the opportu-nity to fly in iFly’s vertical wind tunnels, attend lectures about air resistance, Bernoulli’s Principle, air foils, and Reynolds’ number, see professional instructors dem-onstrate complex and intricate maneuvers, and tour the facilities underneath the wind tunnel.

“It was pretty exhilarating,” says Aditya Limaye ’12, “especial-ly once you got your body position figured out.”

Several students, including Limaye, had difficulty controlling their bodies and staying upright

Mr. Fleitas’ first day on Jeopardy

Animesh Agrawal ’13 experiences the thrill of the iFly wind tunnel

Students Take Trip to iFly

BellarmineNews.com Page 7Academics

October Break: Why Do We Have One?by Ryan Ochoa and Colin Baker ‘13staff writers/reporters

Evan Noronha ‘13

The administration insti-tuted a new four and a half day weekend in October that provides a time of relaxation for the entire school community while allowing juniors and seniors to work on the process of college selection and application.

The Bellarmine faculty members behind the new Octo-ber break have a few reasons for doing so. According to Principal Meyercord, the purpose of the break is “to provide for a bit of respite in the first semester, which traditionally has run at a break-neck pace until Thanksgiving.” “It also could be used as time to work on college apps, visit colleges and write college recommenda-tion letters,” he adds. “I surveyed [the staff] and they were greatly in fa-vor of it.”

Predictably, many students have again and again voiced their en-thusiasm for the newly created break. Ignatious Hoh ’14 comments, “It is really nice to have a 3 day break [as] breaks are always welcome.”

Ben Isip ’13 agrees, saying, “I just like breaks in gen-eral because there is no school, which is obviously good. Junior year is very busy and stressful

and it is nice to get a few days of reflection and rest.” Rest is a com-mon theme among Bellarmine students, as Nolan Barrett ’13 echoes: “This five day weekend is perfect to catch up on homework and some sleep.”

Bells of all grades planned to take advantage of their break in various ways. College visits and preparation for applications were one activity popular among juniors and seniors. Brian Leone ’12 busied himself, “attending a CSU workshop, a Santa Clara lun-

cheon, and going to the college fair” all in one day over the break, while visiting colleges on remain-ing days.

Nagy Hakim ’13, like many students, worked on Bellarmine extra-curricular activities such as speech and debate, and robotics, which has a tournament on Octo-ber 21st. Other students such as Alejandro Serrano ’13 did service, and some still attended practices and meets for their respective sports. Overall, many students took advantage of the October break as a time to rest, relax, and prepare.

Although most students sup-ported the idea of October break,

others presented some cons to the extended weekend. “[I don’t] like the fact that there’s an extra week of school. Also, teachers will just give more homework since we will have an extra two days to do it,” said Sean Yamagiwa ’12. “In a sense, it’s not much of a break.”

Pedro Hernandez-Bachen ’13 agrees, say-ing, “Starting school a week earlier isn’t worth a day and a half in Octo-ber.”

Support for the new October break is clearly mixed through-out Bellarmine. Should the break continue in the future, it will hope-

fully continue to provide students with a productive time to catch up on work, yet still allow a bit of time for relaxation and recreation.

At Bellarmine College Prep, one main goal for our four years is to go to college. Because of this, Bellarmine has provided us with college counselors who will gear

Bell’s College Counselorsby Matt Tran ‘12section head

us in the right direction and help make a college decision based on what best suits our personality; basically, they’re here for us. How-ever, we would like to know how much they are really helping our Bellarmine students?

Andrew Ho ’12 says, “My college counselor [Ms. Murphy] has been very helpful to me. She helped me narrow down my col-leges that I liked and helped me pick the ones most suited for me. Also, she helped me pick my class-es for this first senior semester because colleges also look at this semester.”

Similarly, Devon Ciby ’12 says, ““Ms. Hill, my college coun-selor, has been able to guide me every step of the way making my college application process feels like a breeze. I don’t know what I would do without her! She told me what schools to apply to and what I need to do to apply to them. Hon-estly, Ms. Hill works to the best of her ability to see that I make it to

Scottie Hill

Chris Fleitas

Katy Murphy

Joe Romano

The last two years of high school are always the most impor-tant in one’s time as a high school student. Yet, the question always remains: Which first semester was harder: junior year or senior year?”

Juniors vs. Seniors: Who Has It Harder?by Rahul Lodhavia ‘12staff writer/reporter

Junior year is considered one of the most important and stress-ful years of high school. Courses get tougher and the workload increases. Options for courses in-creases as students begin to take courses that truly interest them. With more variety in science and history course selection, students have more flexibility and freedom when it comes to choosing classes.

However, with great power comes great responsibility. Many of the classes that juniors take are both academically challenging and demanding. These classes can add a lot of stress to the students as they constantly work hard to try to achieve the best possible grades.

Kshitij Shrinath ’13 says, “Tests are more difficult, home-work takes longer, and extracur-ricular activities become more demanding. It is a very stressful year so far.”

Yet aside from rigorous coursework, junior year first se-

mester is considered very difficult simply because of the large tran-sition from sophomore year. Ju-nior year is the first year students are considered “upperclassman” and they are expected to serve as role models for the younger stu-dents. More responsibility falls on the juniors and seniors to not

stressful and difficult year, espe-cially the first semester because students are very preoccupied not only with academics but also college applications. Senior year is the homestretch for all high school students and the time their immediate futures are decided. College applications are the most stressful part of high school. Stu-dents are busy writing essays, taking standardized tests, and at

no wonder that many kids are stressed out, staying up into the early morning.

Both years are very de-manding and challenging as they help prepare students for life in college. When asked to com-pare the two years, senior Nakul Karnik responded, “I think 1st semester junior year was difficult because adjusting to the work load took some time, and man-aging sleep with your homework was especially hard. Senior year is even tougher because even with the work, college apps add a great deal of stress.”

Overall, though both years are extremely difficult, first semester senior year is the tough-est semester of a high school stu-dent’s career, simply because of college applications. Where they go for the next four years is deter-mined by the work they put into these applications.

So to the underclassman, I say enjoy life and make the most of your time at Bellarmine, be-cause come first semester senior year the next four years of your life is determined by how well you write those college essays, how well you perform on standard-ized tests and how much work you have put into achieving good grades. No pressure or anything.

only perform well in their academic and extracurricu-lar endeavors but also serve as the ideal B e l l a r m i n e student, rep-resenting Bel-larmine.

Like ju-nior year, se-nior year is c o n s i d e r e d another very

the same time working hard to maintain good grades.

S a n j e e t Raman ’12 re-marks, “It’s like taking an-other course. I feel like I am in AP College Applications.” With the aver-age senior ap-plying to nine colleges, it is

the college of my choice.” Other than aiming us in the

right college direction, Tim Craw-ley ’12 says, “They really helped me through the application pro-cess, especially with the UC work-shop. We were guided step-by-step through the UC application. I mean, just being there was good and gave me more incentive to do the app. It’s easier to do it with a large group of people than just doing it by yourself.”

However, other students have a different opinion. Marshall Jacobs ’12 says, “The college coun-selors are excellent except for some stuff they make us do. There are two things I would change. First, the mandatory college things we do are really not needed and could take five minutes rather than five hours. Second, I think making a first draft of our com-mon application essays due ear-lier would make the fall semester of senior year a lot easier.”

Our four long-time college counselors, Ms. Murphy, Ms. Hill, Mr. Romano, Mr. Fleitas (our very own two-time Jeopardy champion), and the newly added Ms. Aparicio, are here for us. Al-though they are mainly focused on seniors and second-semester juniors, they are there for the un-derclassmen, too, if the freshmen or sophomores have any basic questions about college. Overall, they are excellent counselors and we really appreciate their help.

Karly Aparicio

Senior Chris Ong struggles with his high workload

Junior Aram Nazarian fretting over his Calculus work

San Jose State UniversityUniversity of Southern California

Santa Clara University University of California, Berkeley

Bellarmine Students and Popular Colleges

Huy Pham ‘12

Huy Pham ‘12

Huy Pham ‘12

Students visit colleges over break and enjoy the tours

Binh Tran-Tu ‘12

Page 8 October 25th, 2011Sports

As the Bells started with league games against Sacred Heart Cathedral, Riordan, and Valley Christian, they have proven that Bellarmine will be a tough team to stop. Currently ranked first in the CCS and 16th in the state, the Bells have achieved a record of 3-0-0 in the WCAL and a record of 5-1-0 in the entire season.

In the first league game against Sacred Heart Cathedral, Bellarmine barely held on to a 14-7 lead. Throughout the major-ity of the game, the Fightin’ Irish held the lead with a touchdown in the second quarter. However,

by Faris Kathkuda ‘13section head

Bellarmine Football Re-bounds to Win 6th Straight

Bellarmine’s Cross Country Team Continues Winning Streak

in the fourth quarter, the Bells re-covered with two touchdowns by Tim Crawley ‘12, for 146 yards in the entire game, and a recovered fumble by Alex Manigo ‘12.

“We just believed in each other and ourselves in the first half. We had a really sloppy game with lots of penalties and lots of turnovers,” said running back Tim Crawley. “In the second half, though, we started fresh and kept completing plays.”

The Bells also beat the Val-ley Christian Warriors, but with a whopping lead of 48-6. Head Coach Mike Janda said, “I think our offense really picked it up from last week, while the defense

played great both weeks. Tonight we just wanted to run our plays better and better.”

After stopping Valley Chris-tian’s nationally ranked running back, Byron Marshall, who just recovered from a shoulder injury, the Bellarmine offense simply kept scoring, with four touch-downs in the first half alone. Val-ley Christian only scored one touchdown after the Bells substi-tuted out most of their starters to prevent injuries.

Quarterback Travis McHugh ‘12 said, “We knew that this par-ticular team had the ability to do a lot of things. We never let any-one get behind, and we moved

forward together. We knew that hard word had to happen, and it paid off.”

Finally, the Bells continued their winning streak with a 56-0 lead over Archbishop Riordan. The Bells simply outplayed Rior-dan, even scoring 28 points in the last quarter, when all our starters were substituted out.

One key reason why the Bells are faring so well in these league games is that the defense is effectively stopping long offen-sive drives and big plays. For ex-ample, defensive tackle Epie Sona ’12 was able to sack Valley Chris-

tian’s sophomore quarterback, Jay MacIntyre, four times in the first quarter alone, a remarkable achievement.

“It felt good,” Sona said, after the game with Valley Christian. “I just focused on being fast off the ball and pushing for those sacks.” Along with the fact that the entire defensive line was able to repeat-edly bring down Byron Marshall, the strong Bellarmine defense paves the way for the offense to score touchdowns.

The Bells also have a lot of experience on the team, with more returning starters than any other team in the WCAL. Tight end Alex Manigo ‘12 said, “While Valley Christian had to replace a lot of senior weapons they had last year, we have so many start-ers coming back this year, and we have great talent in those spots where the graduates left.”

These returning start-ers include quarterback Travis McHugh, who has 237 passing yards and 354 rushing yards this season, and Tim Crawley, who has accomplished 444 rushing yards this season. Other key players this year include Alex Manigo, Connor Jauch, Justin Taliaferro, and Jake Whipple.

The Yell Leaders this year have also played a big role in stir-ring up the crowd and arousing the spirit of the team. Nick Ma-karov ’13, a proud Yell Leader, said about the Valley Christian game, “We were going to do an ‘I believe that we will win’ chant, but the Bells went up too quickly. I mean the Bells winning by so much gives us less to work with, but good job.”

The WCAL is an extremely tough league with great teams, but Bellarmine has the skill and experience to do well. In the words of our athletic director, Mr. West, “Top to bottom, the WCAL is tough league, home and away. All teams will undoubtedly have the talent to beat each other on any given week, and I anticipate seven very challenging games.”

The Bells faced the Mitty Monarchs on the 21st and will face the Serra Padres on October 28th.

In the end, if the Bells con-tinue strengthening their defense and focus on strengthening a vari-ety of offensive plays, Bellarmine has a chance to go all the way this year.

Note: Due to time frame this ar-ticle may not be up to date

Upcoming SportsFootball

Serra (Home)-10/28/11St. Francis (Away)-11/4/11St. Ignatius (Home)-11/11/11

WCAL Champ. (Crystal Springs)-11/2/11

Valley Christian (Away)-10/26/11

XC

Water Polo

Memorial Pk. Tourn. (Home)-10/28-29/11WCAL Quarter-Final (TBD)-11/1/11

*CCS Champ. (Crystal Springs)-11/2/11

WCAL Semi-Final (TBD)-11/3/11WCAL Championship (TBD)-11/5/11CCS First Round (TBD)-11/8/11

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Coach Amarillas talks to the Bellarmine football team on game night, ready to play and fight a tough opponent

The Bellarmine football team proves its worth on the field during a game

Brandon Yung ‘13

Brandon Yung ‘13

Jack Bordoni ‘12 and his teammates sprint past cheering spectators on a path to claim victory for Bellarmine

Carl Molina ‘12