From the first day we stepped foot in school, all the girls were wearing these blue, red, yellow.. etc. checkerboard-like shirts.

Some guys were also wearing these shirts too!

Like skinny jeans and flats that are still in style, these checkerboard shirts are the NEW style of 2009-2010.

I asked some girls from school why they were wearing checkered shirts and this is what they said:

Jacqueline B. said, “I wear these shirts because they are real fashionable, they’re really cute and they bring back the 80’s!”

Alexis R. said,”Because they’re HOT!”

Angelica said, “They rock with my Jordans and they are also in style!”

As you can see this may be the new trend for the year.

In my own opinion, if you want to be in style, you should get these checkered shirts and rock them!

-Stephanie L.

The Magic will come back!! The Magic made the champs last season but didn’t get to the end. The Lakers beat them to the prize. The preseason game was a hit. This season we have new players Jason Williams, J.J Redick, Vince Carter, Brandon Bass, Matt Barnes, and Ryan Anderson. The reason why I have Vince Carter italic because he used to play for the NETS. In my opinion, he will make an impact in the Magic along with Rashard Lewis and Dwight Howard. The Magic have played against 10 different teams, and they have won each game! The preseason has been really good for them. The Magic will be going against Cavaliers again. I can’t wait to watch that game, they will be playing each other on the 11th. The Magic have come back with a goal to take home the prize. In my opinion, the Magic have improved from years ago to now. The Magic have also been a help around our community during the summer for kids. Dwight Howard also went around the world to see and help other kids’ dreams come true. The Magic aren’t all talk, they will come back, and hopefully it will be this year! The Magic will come back!!!!

-Jacqueline B

Cornell Notes

What’s Cornell notes you say? You may think of them as the boring ways your teacher tells you to do your notes. But what you don’t know is that Cornell notes can actually help you a lot!  

Cornell notes is a note taking system devised in the 1950’s by a man named Walter Pauk, a professor at Cornell University.

You divide the paper into 2 columns. On the left side goes your questions, on the right side goes your notes, and when you are done taking your notes, your summary goes at the bottom.

Taking Cornell notes can keep you organized. Instead of going through your notes looking for what you did and getting confused, you have your handy dandy Cornell notes! With the questions, you can see exactly what questions are being answered. With the summary, there are a few sentences summarizing what you did altogether.

In AVID, Cornell notes are a MUST. If you don’t have it then, you are going to get a bad grade on your Binder Check, and wouldn’t want that now would you? Even if you’re not in AVID, it’s still required. You might never know when Dr. Cartwright is going to come in your class and check! So be ready!!

-Stephanie L.

MotorStorm comes racing back to PlayStation this fall with its newest game: MotorStorm: Arctic Edge.  The game takes place in Alaska and all the vehicles have been adapted to this.  It came out October 20th for the PS2 and September 29th for the PSP.  This game is sold exclusively to PlayStation’s PS2 and PSP (PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable).  The game includes fully destructive environments- for example, if you honk your horn or blow up you can start an avalanche, and the avalanche will then sweep away other players off the track.  I recently went to pick it up at the store because I thought it looked cool and worth playing.

           For any people who have actually heard of this game, it includes all new vehicles to play, including: the Bike, Snowmobile, ATV, Buggy, Rally Car, Snowplugger, Big Rig and Snowplow/Snowcats.  There are some awesome tracks, too: There are 12 different tracks in the game, such as Wolfpack Mountain, Eagle Falls, Widow Maker, Log Jam, Cold Rush, and Vertigo.  Also there is a “Mirror” mode which is all the tracks only backwards.  The game also has fully customizable vehicles; you can add different wheels, rear spoilers, exhaust pipes, and even paint jobs!  My favorite vehicle is the Snowcats because it’s huge, destructive, and pretty fast.  You can run over other vehicles and cause avalanches with your horn.

          Despite all the cool things you can do, there are some flaws in the game as well.  The bikes are totally unrealistic looking on the track.  Also, the choice of music sucks.  There are only one or two songs that I actually like, most I had never even heard of.  “Most of these songs make me think that the game is glitching up or the PlayStation is broken,” said my little brother after playing the game for about an hour and a half. 

          But all the same, I think this is a pretty fun racing game.  The graphics aren’t that bad and the game play is really good.  Over all, I think I got my money’s worth.

                                                                                       - Billy F.

Q: How do you confront someone when you know they’re cheating on you?

Harrison says: If you really know and you’ve seen it yourself, I’d flat out dump him/her.  If they are with someone else they clearly have lost interest in you or otherwise, I wouldn’t trust them anymore in that case.  If you get a chance to move up the social ladder with someone sneaking behind your back, I’d use it.

Ask Alexis: Well no matter what and why you think your boyfriend/girlfriend is cheating on you, just come out and ask him/her.  But make sure you have a good reason and good evidence on why you think they’re cheating, or else you’ll just be looking dumb.  No offence but this is just my two cents!

Q: What all is the tutoring room for other than make-up work?

Harrison says: Tutoring isn’t only for making up assignments, after school it’s also a quiet place for studying, homework and so on.  If a teacher allows you the opportunity, then you can correct an assignment with a bad grade.  If you’re not missing assignments and don’t have a zero  you won’t have to use the tutoring room during elective time!

Ask Alexis: You can go to the tutoring when you need a quiet place to do homework after school, you can study for a test, and you can correct assignments that you got a low grade on, but only if your teacher will take it.  But other than that you’ll be stuck in there for make up during your electives.

Q: How can you persuade your parents to subtract days from your grounding punishment?

Harrison says: Honestly, it would probably be good if they trust you on the first hand.  If they do, you might be able to promise them some extra hard work or something to get them to be happier with you in general. Make sure not to forget the usual work they make you do while you’re grounded.  Other than that, I don’t think it’s possible with parents like mine.

Ask Alexis: Well for parents like my dad there is no punishment that actually lasts for all of what he says.  He usually forgets or I just don’t abide by what he says. But then for parents like my mom I suggest you should just do all your chores without being told and eventually time will be subtracted.

Cafe Madrid - great service right from the beginning. I ordered an unsweetened tea – got an unsweetened tea.  I ordered Arroz con Pollo, which consisted of one leg and one breast of chicken, fully loaded with plenty of rice mixed with yellow onion, garlic, a pinch of oregano and that sums up the rice.  Little thing to remember, yellow or white rice still makes the dish traditionally Cuban, so don`t worry.  Before I got the main course I got a very interesting salad: it consisted of lettuce, vinaigrette, carrots, tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, and was assembled with expertise. The character of the restaurant`s atmosphere was white tile floors, distinct tables- it`s like they are not showing that they are a Cuban restaurant until you take in the feel of the restaurant. It`s like for the moment you`re in there, you take a little journey to Cuba. I did like all the food, decorations, and presentation, I highly recommend it.

Nap time!  Yay!  Wait, NO!

   On October 23, 2009 flight 188 took flight from San Diego, CA to Minneapolis, MN.  But at 6:56 pm, controllers in Denver and Minneapolis were unable to reach the airplane which had 147 passengers on board.  At approximately 8:00 p.m., the plane flew over Minneapolis and kept flying for another 150 miles until it reached Eau Claire, WI.  The pilots noticed they had gone too far.  At 8:14 p.m., the cockpit re-established radio contact and requested permission to land in Minneapolis after they had turned around.  The pilots said that they were arguing and “lost situational awareness”. 

   The NTSB(national transportation safety board) is conducting an investigation.  Delta North West said that it is cooperating with federal investigators and is conducting it’s own search.  Plus, the pilots have been relieved of active flying, pending the completion of the investigation.  Using the cockpit voice and flight data recorder(complicated electronic thingies that tell you what happened on the flight), they will be able to tell whether the pilots were really arguing or if they had fallen asleep.  But safety officials find it very hard to believe that two professional  pilots lose their awareness because of an argument.  Actually,  for an hour and twenty minutes, they were working on their schedules on their laptops.

   This is not the first time pilots have fallen asleep in the cockpit.  From what I can find, the first time this happened was in 1986.  This flight carried about 248 soldiers.  In this 1986 case, pilots were pushed to the point of exhaustion and fell asleep in the cockpit.  This plane crashed and killed all 248 soldiers.  Since then, pilots have fallen asleep approximately 53 times.

   I don’t understand.  Correct me if Im wrong but a pilot is allowed to work 16 hours without break while a truck driver is only alowed to work 11 hours without a break.  Plus, truck drivers can pull over for a break.  You can’t pull over 10,000 ft in the air(Well, you could, but that would create a huge problem).  So we shouldn’t be mad at the pilots;  we should be mad at whomever made that law.

First half,  Chargers made the first touchdown- not that interesting. But, on punt return Broncos receiver Eddie Royal caught the ball and ran his cleats off. Unimaginably, he ran about eighty yards to a well deserved Touchdown!!!!! Second half, as hard as it is to do, one eighty yard  punt retun. Touchdown! Eddie Royal doubled their points by running another eighty yards to another punt return. Touchdown!! Like a rabbit getting pulled out of a hat.

Third half- after all that, Broncos-17 Chargers-23. WoW! Out of nowhere Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton threw a forty five yard Touchdown pass.(AMAZING) Fourth half, surprisingly nothing happened? What, this is supposed to be the fifteen minutes of fame. Unfortunately nothing happened. But the Broncos amazing plays paid of when they saw the score and screamed in excitement because they won!! Broncos-34 Chargers-23

GO    BRONCOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!