Lyka Sethi

After a year of planning, the leadership class will finally revive the Safe Ride program at Saratoga High on April 24. The program provides rides from student and parent volunteers for people who are in any unsafe situation. Originally Safe Ride was scheduled for April 4, but was delayed due to the Bombay in the Bay activity and a lack of volunteers.

Guided by coaches Manny Steffen and Travis Hatfield, the Falcons are currently first in the El Camino league with a record of 6-1, as of April 14.

With a winning record of 4-2 at the very beginning of the season and a new set of enthusiastic coaches, the varsity baseball team is working toward a stellar season. The boys played three preseason games, first defeating Westmont 2-1 on Feb 25, then Leland 11-4 on Feb 26 and finishing with a close loss to Harker 5-3 on March 5. They then took home a victory at their first El Camino league game against Gunn on March 10 with a score of 2-1 before losing to Mountain View 7-10 on March 12, and finally scoring a 3-0 victory against Fremont on March 17.

There is an overwhelming and ever-growing list of accomplishments that alumni of Saratoga High have achieved. Each success story seems to top the rest, yet all are unique in their own way. Alumnus Roza Pyghambarzadeh, who graduated from Saratoga High in 2007, is not only one of these graduates who have raised the bar in the past few years, but she has done it in style. Pyghambarzadeh, a sophomore at the Marshall School of Business at USC, started her own social networking website for females to “swap dresses by simply going online and browsing each other’s profiles.”

The boys’ varsity soccer team is looking back with regret after enduring a rocky season that ended with a loss to Mountain View on Feb. 6. The boys lost 6-1 to Mountain View after playing a difficult game with two key players out: junior left center defender Matt Marshall and freshman left forward Jon Jonqua.

As the first semester comes to a close, many seniors find themselves in a sticky situation: College application due dates approach and the dread of finals fills their minds with misery, while the light at the end of the tunnel—second semester—serves as an enormous hindrance to productivity. And as college application websites crash as a result of last-minute crunches, complaints echo across the country. These types of difficulties, however, are easily remedied with better planning.

The Museums of Los Gatos will be hosting the Annual Juried High School Art show from May 7 to the 29, presenting the artwork of students from both Los Gatos High School and Saratoga High School. For the two sister schools, this will be a very momentous event in more than one way. Saratoga Ceramics and Art 1 teacher Leah Aguayo hopes that the event will bring the two schools together, “without rivalry,” for the common goal of just presenting artwork.

After a 3-1 home win against Prospect to kick-off the season, the Falcons reeled off four straight one-goal losses, going 2-1 against Yerba Buena and Homestead, and 1-0 versus Menlo and Watsonville. What once looked to be a promising season has now disappeared with a 1-7 record. “The losses got really frustrating because we kept making simple mistakes that would cost us the games,” said senior captain striker Hoffman Hibbett. “The team didn’t communicate well even though we kept working at trying to play together during practice.”

ASB officers hoped to increase the head count at Winter Ball, which took place on Dec. 13, by holding it in the Large Gym, lowering bid prices, decreasing pressure on students to bring dates and allowing semi-formal attire. Their hopes, however, were not fulfilled, and attendance fell short of what they expected. they had aimed to get a turn out of at least 500 but ended up with about 400 attendees.

With a new coach and a relatively new group of players, the boys’ varsity soccer team hopes to pull together and improve their commitment this season. Despite three preseason losses to Yerba Buena, Menlo and Watsonville, in which the team lost 2-1, 1-0 and 1-0, respectively, and only one 3-1 win against Prospect, the players are looking to improve in league games, which started on Dec. 17 against Wilcox.

Students’ suggestive dance styles has been an issue for several years. However, concern over the problem heightened after the Homecoming dance in October, when several parents who had chaperoned the dance expressed their complaints.

When senior Yeun Byun started working with a community service foundation called the Digital Clubhouse Network at the beginning of her high school career, her intention was to gain new experiences that would continue to inspire her dream of becoming a politician. Little did she know that through the program she would realize her true passion was not for politics, but for film.

A student rushes to class after lunch and looks up at the sky to see a flock of seagulls circling the quad, waiting for a chance to fly down and devour the leftovers that are strewn across the concrete. Lowering his glance to ground level, the student slows his pace and looks around at the multiple lunch tables. There are recycling bins and trash cans beside every few tables, yet none of them are teeming with garbage. Instead, the garbage lies on the ground and on the tables, creating a tedious job for the custodians. This daily occurrence is not inevitable or acceptable; the custodians, who already do enough service for the school, should not have to sort out garbage from the trash cans and the surrounding areas into recycling bins due to the carelessness of a student. Saratoga High should be kept in pristine condition to make for a healthier environment not just on campus, but also in the entire community.

After a season full of hardships, from injuries to close losses to not qualifying for CCS, the team looked at the 2008 season as a definite learning experience. Despite struggling through most of the season, the boys ended well, winning their last three games.

It’s not unusual for a healthy person to go to a restaurant that serves plenty of tasty, nutritious foods only to order an over-priced plain salad because he or she is “watching their weight.” As portrayed by all of the latest celebrity blogs and trendy magazines, skinny is definitely in. Going to the gym for hours on end is a must for many young guys and girls of this new, superficial, appearance-driven era. True health has been put on the backburner for fear of increasing the number on the digital scales lying in bathrooms of nearly every American household. What’s ironic is that being “healthy” is often simply an excuse used to justify meager diets.

After a season full of hardships, from injuries to close losses to not qualifying for CCS, the team looked at the 2008 season as a definite learning experience. Despite struggling through most of the season, the boys ended well, winning their last three games. The highlights of their season included defeating Monta Vista and Lynbrook by astounding scores of 13-1 and 17-2, respectively. However, they still ended with a mediocre league record of 6-9.

It’s not unusual for a healthy person to go to a restaurant that serves plenty of tasty, nutritious foods only to order an over-priced plain salad because he or she is “watching their weight.” As portrayed by all of the latest celebrity blogs and trendy magazines, skinny is definitely in. Going to the gym for hours on end is a must for many young guys and girls of this new, superficial, appearance-driven era. True health has been put on the backburner for fear of increasing the number on the digital scales lying in bathrooms of nearly every American household. What’s ironic is that being “healthy” is often simply an excuse used to justify meager diets.

When the students of Judith Sutton’s poetry classes think of the conflict in Iraq, they no longer envision bloody bomb blasts and violent terrorist plots; they have come to see the strong cultural background that lies beneath the blanket of oppression and violence taking place in this rich, historical country. Fourteen students from Sutton’s intermediate classes presented their pieces of poetry as a homage to the Mutanabbi Street Bombings in the Little Theater during April, National Poetry Month, but the project had begun several months earlier.

This story was originally published in the March 21, 2008 edition of The Saratoga Falcon. Ever since his senior year of high school, 2006 alumnus Nikhil Sethi has been helping others “express the inexpressible.” Sethi has been creating innovative social networking sites where people can anonymously express themselves for the world to see.