The Drake Jolly Roger

Image couresy of Rachael Moncayo

Senior Meghan Rienks lies on her couch, twisted in her comforter and sheets while she watches the newest NCIS and talks to her mom. “Mom, IHP!”

The 17-year-old tries to make her mother understand, but the other side of the couch remains silent, so Rienks explains to her mom, “It means, I hate people!”

“She was like IDK [I don’t know] what you’re saying.”

Rienks is not alone when it comes to this form of communication.Teens are using fewer words and more abbreviations to express themselves, and while some find the newest form of slang clever and creative, others find it immature and disrespectful.

“The reason abbreviations are attractive in particular [is that] we live in a fast paced generation,” said Noshir Contractor, a professor of communications at Northwestern University.

The English language is always evolving, and these innovations in the language are due to new practices, new ideas and new technology, said Contractor.

The use of abbreviations in conversational language is more common than one would think. OK is actually an acronym for “all correct.” “I’m sure at some point our ancestors thought, that’s really odd, why are they using abbreviations? Why don’t they say it?’” said Contractor.

The abbreviations that abbrev-ers find themselves using today may also become a part of mainstream language while some may not, according to Contractor.

The abbrevs that sophomore Jerri Cohen uses have been simplified to the first letters of words. Although not everyone understands, she says that most of the people she spends time with have caught on to her slang. “It’s really F to have my U dubs of S-ing,” said Cohen. Translated into conversational English this means, it’s really fun to have my unique way of speaking.

“I just started doing it; I didn’t really have a reason,” said Cohen. “Most people think its annoy but I D C (I don’t care).” Cohen has carried over her speech from conversations with friends to almost every time she uses words, like singing. “I usually S JB (sing Justin Bieber) in abbrev; it just comes naturally. I don’t have to think about it,” she said.

Some teens though are skeptical of the growing trend.

“The only real situations where it is annoying is when it is unnecessary or doesn’t even serve the purpose of an abbreviation by making the word or phrase shorter,” said junior Hayden Reilly.

He thinks that abbrevs are fine to use between teenagers, but they may pose a problem once they begin to pop up in formal settings. “Normally we are using them in our [everyday] vocabulary when talking to our friends, but it sometimes comes out in situations where that could be detrimental to the situation such as a job interview,” said Reilly

However, Reilly isn’t concerned about the way abbrevs may make our generation look. “There have been things that have been associated in the same way [as abbrevs are with our generation] with past generations,” said Reilly. “[Older generations] may think that it shows a lack of intelligence, but really it’s just become so common that it’s normal for us.”

“It’s seen as babyish,” said Stacey Wilkins, an English and journalism teacher at Darien High School in Darien, Connecticut. Wilkins’ students see speaking in abbrev as something middle school kids do. “They’ll say ‘LOL’ sometimes, but really they do it to make fun of it,” said Wilkins.

Her students think that the kids who do speak in abbrev are just trying to be cool. “When someone tries to be funny or tries to be cool it doesn’t work,” said Wilkins, “it’s a fake thing to do.”

Penelope Eckert, Professor of Linguistics at Stanford, thinks that abbreviating words is a sign of creativity among teens rather than immaturity. She says adults judge teens for their use of abbreviation in conversation and see abbrev-ers in a negative light. “[It] has nothing to do with language skill or cognition,” wrote Eckert in an e-mail. “People get stylistically conservative as they move into adulthood.”

Eckert says the use of abbreviation will move with our generation into the future. She likened abbrev-ing to other nuances in adolescent language, such as the use of the word like. “It spread into the adult population, and the teenagers who were originally responsible for this innovation generally continue to use it in adulthood,” she wrote. “What changes is the frequency.”

The way teens communicate is ever changing, but the connection that abbrevs create is only becoming stronger. “Abbreviations can have a huge part in the way you talk if you let it,” said Rienks. “It’s not the proper way to speak English, but it’s a universal connection between teenagers.”

The Agroecology program has also helped with other projects on campus: students cooperated with the school’s art teacher to beautify an outdoor seating area with new benches, a new table, and latticework, adorned with jasmine vines and passion flowers.

Because the garden program is a class, it receives a budget, which can be used to buy the necessary supplies. Rice has also managed to secure some grants to supplement the garden’s funding. He noted the continued support of the school’s principals in making the garden viable since its establishment.

At The Branson School, an organic garden was built in the center of the campus. “As the newly planted fruit trees and vegetables grow, we hope students will find the garden a welcome place to sit, admire, think, and pick a fresh tasty snack,” said Eric Oldmixon, visual arts teacher.

Branson’s garden has been “100% student driven,” according to Oldmixon. Apart from a few community work days with parents, all of the work on the garden has been done by the students in the Environmental Action Committee. These students use the garden to learn about organic and sustainable agriculture.

Some of the food from the garden is used to supplement the school’s food service. “We do not have the space to produce enough for the entire school,” said Oldmixon, “but we aim to supplement and to raise awareness about the ingredients when they are used in the lunch or event services.”

Similarly, Redwood’s ecology program, supervised by teacher Joe Stewart, grows annual plants like “flowers and veggies” in a student-maintained garden. This program is larger, with approximately 110 students involved.

Enough produce is available that students can “share it with their families, teachers, and other students,” said Stewart. The funding for the garden comes from the science department and the TUHSD maintenance department, but according to Stewart, the garden “does not require much upkeep beyond the regular student cultivation and care.”

At Tamalpais, the 64 students in the environmental science program plant a wide variety of crops in their garden. “We grow pumpkin, tomatoes, peppers, artichokes, lettuce, chard, kale, spinach, and broccoli, and we have a lemon tree, apple tree, and blueberry bushes,” said science teacher Lyanne Abreu. “The students use it to make authentic meals – two weeks ago they made stir fry with the chard, kale and spinach.”

Alice Waters is one of the most well-known advocates for gardens and improved lunches in schools. Following her success as chef and owner of Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley committed to serving meals made with local and seasonal ingredients, she established the Chez Panisse Foundation in 1996, based on the idea that children in public schools should have access to fresh, healthy food.

The Chez Panisse Foundation helped to transform an abandoned lot next to Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School into a flourishing organic garden replete with seasonal vegetables, herbs, berries, and fruit trees. A new kitchen-classroom was also built to teach students how to turn fresh ingredients into tasty and nutritious meals.

Though our own garden, located near the photography room by the creek, is not currently part of the curriculum, students work on it every other year as a unit. Sue Fox, SEA-DISC science teacher, said, “It used to be a senior project, but since we’ve blended [11^th and 12^th grades], it is every other year.”

Fox said that the students “raise their own food, design their own beds, and do the whole operation of it.” The fruits of the garden were donated to St. Vincent’s to feed the homeless, Fox said.

Anna Pieri, SEA-DISC senior and co-president of the garden club added that they, “also donate the produce to non-profits or food banks.”

Accompanying the upkeep of the garden is a SEA-DISC debate project. It entails extensive research on various forms of sustainable agriculture. In preparation for this publicized debate, students gain new perspectives on the pros and cons of particular methods. Senior Dom Longo, for instance, gained a respect for genetically modified organisms [GMOs] in farming, and said that he doesn’t think they should be denounced on the basis of imperfection, because it is a new technique.

Fox also made note of the work that the Global Student Embassy [GSE] is doing here, headed by a Drake graduate, Ian Creelman. Under his direction, our garden has received plants as donations, and hosted international students from Tanzania and Ecuador. Ian added, “It’s great to see [this issue] get the attention it deserves.”

Creelman and the Garden Club are working hard to maintain the garden for teaching about sustainable agriculture and providing organic produce for local non-profits.

Many students look forward to seeing an army of women (and a few chosen men) make Lady Gaga’s dancing entourage look like a group of amateurs. Dance Troupe is sometimes the reason a student decides to attend a rally at all. 

Funding through Drake Athletics has put the swing in their step for the past few years, but that support is now in jeopardy. 

Specifically, a funding conflict between cheerleading and Dance Troupe is the cause of this event. Currently, their instructor, Jolie Jacobs, manages to spend hours a week coaching the team with the help of a modest stipend from the school. 

But changes in the department’s monetary distribution could soon leave Dance Troupe without any instructor at all. 

Without an advisor, the team can have barely any practice time, which would mean disaster for its meticulously choreographed routines and the existence of the group itself. 

The core problem in receiving funding is the fact that Dance Troupe is considered a club, not a sport. While our sports teams have thousands of dollars in funds, the most a club can receive from the school supply is 300 dollars. 

“Dance Troupe has always been on the borderline between a club and a sport,” said Samantha Stone, a captain of Dance Troupe. Although it is considered a club, Dance Troupe practices can be as long and physically intensive as a practice session for a school sport. 

“I get the feeling people don’t know how athletic dancers are,” said Jacobs. 

Regardless of the true nature of dance, Dance Troupe will likely have to find resources elsewhere. Unfortunately for them, instructors, costumes, and competition entry fees are not free and cannot exist without money. 

For these expenses, Dance Troupe members may have to undertake a large fundraising project. Currently, their only fundraising task at hand is to pay back team members for the costumes they purchased themselves. 

If the end is near, Jacobs is confident the community will step in. “I’m positive the student body and parents would fight to keep Dance Troupe,” she said.

English teacher Patchen Homitz rides a stationary bike in the weight room.

Everything from the origin of his name to the professions of his parents pointed to working in the field of language arts.

But despite a variety of careers, new English teacher Patchen Homitz would not be able to escape the path set forth for him by his parents.

When he was around seven, Homitz came home from school wondering why his name, Patchen, was different compared to the names of his peers. His mother told him the name came to her in an elaborate dream involving fairies, and that the name had Shakespearean references. But Homitz says it’s more likely that the name had significant connections to poet Kenneth Patchen.
Homitz’s mother was a poet, who as a teen would often sneak out of the house to read poetry at clubs in Venice Beach, California. His father was an English teacher, who became a professor and worked at San Diego State University, among other colleges. Homitz jokes that both of his parents, whom he describes as “always wanting to be the center of attention,” fell back into their respective careers after failing as actors. But it was more than just acting that preceded Homitz’s teaching career.

From journalism to working as a manager at REI, Homitz experimented with charting his own course. But the teacher realized that his job at REI was “superficial” and that he “wasn’t really helping anybody.”

Homitz said of his time at REI, “What would it have really mattered at the end of the day? No one says [at REI] you changed my life by hiring me to sell backpacks.”

Homitz says he was inspired by a girlfriend he traveled around the world with. She challenged him to find meaning in his work. When he returned from the trip, Homitz pursued a career in teaching.

Homitz has taught English for three years at Redwood and for nearly nine years with Tamiscal. In addition to teaching AP Language and Composition, he worked with the Team program, an outdoor educational experience for juniors within Tamiscal. At Team, Homitz was responsible for approximately thirty students. Now, filling the hole left by English teacher Ellen Strempek, he’s become responsible for three sections of AP Literature and Composition in addition to one section of freshman English.

“When I heard this job was opening up, I was intimidated by the schedule. It’s the hardest English schedule I’ve ever heard of,” Homitz said, “but at the same time, I get to read the best literature ever written; I get to work with the most motivated kids, and I get to work with some of my old friends [Vice Principal Eric Saibel, and teachers Dan Freeman and Rod Milstead].”

Aside from the fact that Homitz considers himself to be “really curious” and “not shy at all,” a defining aspect of his character is his love for biking and mountain biking. One of our mountain biking team’s captains last year and again this year, Homitz owns six bikes (and 11 total between he and his girlfriend), has a tattoo of bike gears on his left arm, and took a bicycle trip around the Pacific Rim.

Homitz also loves traveling. He’s been to nearly 40 countries and has set foot on every continent except Antarctica and Africa.

“I’m very much a born-again traveler. I did it late, but now I want to see everything. That’s my only problem. There aren’t enough hours in the day and there’s not enough money,” Homitz said, who wants to visit Mount Everest and Mongolia.

Students may not be able to relate to seeing the world on the same scale as Homitz, but he does share many familiar passions. He loves author and comedian David Sedaris (admitting that he’d like to write creative nonfiction, too), ska and grunge music, and he has a  “hidden obsession:” movies.
“I love movies and I’ll watch The Hangover, but given the choice I’ll watch independent almost exclusively,” Homitz said, noting that some people associate the genre with being a snob. “I realized there’s a whole other world out there of film as literature,” he added.

In addition to the independent genre, Homitz enjoys watching foreign films. He loves the feeling of being in another country while watching them and absorbing languages. “I can go to all of these places,” he said. “I can hear Polish, the language my dad spoke when he was a kid.”

Homitz enjoys playing the role of a “bridge to understanding” in the lives of his students, and he hopes they can take more than just the curriculum with them.
“What do kids remember? Are you going to remember a quiz we did or a practice AP exam?” Homitz said, “No, you’re going to remember a story I told. I think what I bring is intangible in a way, but there’s something there.”

Back again with the storytelling power of no other, The Decemberists masterfully craft one florid, articulate, bittersweet tale of lust and loss after another. The King is Dead, a mosaic of clever harmonies and wavering emotions, exhibits this Portland folk band’s musical quirks and strengths while adhering most sincerely to its defining quality: eighteenth century-style narratives of war and sentimentality.

The first things with which this LP might impress a Decemberists noob are its range in subject matter, the tone of each track’s speaker, and its lyrical fluency. As if born in 1700, Colin Meloy, lead singer and lyricist, expresses a rhetorical facility matched by few contemporary songwriters. Six albums worth of impassioned ballads and epics, rife with such vocabulary as “avarice,” “vixen” and “gabardine,” have established The Decemberists as one of the most lyrically animated groups around. The second verse of “June Hymn” is a prime example of the band’s eloquence: “Pegging clothing on the line / Training jasmine how to vine / Up the arbor to your door / And more. / Standing on the landing with the war / You shouldered all the night before.”

As the curtain is drawn and the album commences, the hard-hitting snare of “Don’t Carry It All” is somehow reminiscent of Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up.” These similarities are quickly shattered, however, as the true, guileless Decemberist style rears its familiar head and blares harmonica and string harmonies with the effortless perfection of dedicated, skilled musicians. For the duration of the album, loyal Decemberists fans will be pleased with the characteristic snare, harmonized melodies and amp settings that have kept us coming back since their 2001 debut.

Unfortunately for those fans with a thirst for experimentation and change—its quality notwithstanding—The King is Dead is, at times, rather evocative of a handful of pre-existing tracks. “Calamity Song,” for instance, features a guitar riff nearly identical to that of The Crane Wife classic, “O Valencia!” Additionally, “January Hymn,” coupled with “June Hymn,” is suggestive of the “Crane Wife” song trilogy, in both sorrowful plot and segmented story.

Another phraseological bone that listeners may have to pick with this LP is the sometimes excessively country twang. “All Arise,” particularly, brings back memories of restless early 2000s road trips filled with the agitating sound of Shania Twain’s pop-country mediocrity.

But The Decemberists achieved what they wanted with this album: a divergence from the rock-opera-type concept album that listeners found with their last LP, The Hazards of Love, released in March of 2009. Although The King is Dead takes only the bronze medal in my mind, behind The Hazards of Love and The Crane Wife, faithful Decemberists fans will be tickled by Meloy and contingents’ surviving creativity. With the sweet taste of unity on “This Is Why We Fight,” the lively chorus of “Calamity Song,” and the polished perfection of “June Hymn,” The King is Dead delivers a musical wallop rarely matched, and the linguistic power of Whitman or Yeats.

The Decemberists will be playing at the Fox Theater in Oakland on Feb. 14. You have just over two weeks, so go get your tickets now!

From year to year various coaching positions change.  The only two sports teams here that haven’t changed coaching staff in more than a decade are boys varsity basketball and boys water polo.

And this spring, our high school will welcome yet another new head coach. His name is Carlos Campos, and he will be taking over for Rene Ayala as head coach of the girls varsity soccer team.

Campos grew up in Hayward, and began his soccer career at the early age of four. As a teenager, Campos attended Moreau Catholic High School, playing soccer all four years. He started on the club circuit at the age of 16 when he was able to drive himself to practices and tournaments. After high school Campos played at Chabot Junior College in Hayward, then as a professional for the Class A San Francisco Seals. He also spent some time playing overseas in Germany.

“Soccer really provided a big opportunity as a kid,” Campos said.

Campos has been training soccer players of all ages for the last 15 years at soccer camps, was an assistant high school soccer coach at Bishop O’Dowd, and has spent the last eight years coaching for a living. He currently is the head coach for the College of Marin girls soccer team, where he works in the fall.

“[It’s] the bread and butter of what I do,” says Campos when talking about his coaching career.

After starting from scratch in 2007 at College of Marin, Campos has built that program into a winner. When he started Campos didn’t know if he would have enough bodies to practice with. He is excited to coach here this spring because of the good group of players we have here on campus.

“Now with a bigger talent pool, it will allow me to work on more of the big stuff,” he said.

“Drake represents an opportunity to execute a game plan” explains Campos.

On Jan. 5, Campos held a girls soccer meeting at lunch and 49 people showed up, and a good number of these are returners from last year’s team.

A group that large is not something he’s used to seeing very often.

“If I had numbers like that [at COM] I could do some damage in the league,” he remarked.

Last season the girls varsity soccer members had an overall record of 10-5-3, a home record of 8-1-3, an away record of 2-4-0, and a winning percentage of .639, finishing fourth in the Marin County Athletic League (MCAL), according to MaxPreps.com. Even though the lady Pirates finished fourth in MCAL, they pursued the title hunt all season.

When asked about whether he expects to win or not, Campos replies, “[I] expect to win games [and] to be very competitive.”

Planning to win with strategy, out-organizing the opponent, playing clean but tough, and establishing good lines of communication are all cornerstones of his coaching philosophy.

“Team work will build success [and with that], the rate at which we can improve will be much greater,” he said.

Besides winning Campos acknowledges that fact that like all other athletics here, girls varsity soccer team represents the community and student body. Through the leadership of his team captains, Campos wants to preach respect for the game, your opponent, team, parents, and the public.

“Yeah I’m looking forward to it” says coach Campos.