WRITTEN BY: Samara ChavezIt’s October, and that means it’s Breast Cancer Awareness month. This month is dedicated to encouraging women to take mammograms and normalize speaking on these health issues. Earlier this month, Med Club and its members came together to try to spread a little bit of pink around campus. Some of the members grabbed their brushes and painted a beautiful poster that allowed other Vipers to join in. During lunch on the 19th, students were free to come down to the quad and sign the Medical club’s poster to show their support. Members also worked together to create pink ribbon pins for our fellow classmates.
Lee Boch, a member of the Medical Club, shared their struggles with making the pink ribbons, “I poked myself a lot (with the safety pins), but it was a lot of fun.” The end product of that dedicated time and effort was visible throughout the school. In the hallways you can occasionally find students wearing those pins on their lanyards. WRITTEN BY: JILL LUNA
One of the many great clubs here at VAAS is the Guitar Club. This club allows guitarists, musicians, or anyone interested in music to come together and share their collective passion and interest in guitar and music. Member, Light Ramirez, says that the club allows them to “hang out with friends” and “explore guitar experiences.” A word from the co-club sponsor, Mr. Chan, says that Guitar Club has the intent to get people to hang out and “have good vibes” while including people who have guitar experience, those who don’t, and anyone who just appreciates guitar. If interested in checking out the club, Guitar Club meets on Wednesdays, during lunch, in room 113, sponsored by Mr. Teele and Mr. Chan. WRITTEN BY: Zachary buenaventuraDebate club is a club that fosters critical thinking, strengthens communication and objective thinking skills, and practices patience and tolerance. Debate clubs meet every Monday at lunch in room 314 with Mr. McMillin. Students learn to promote problem-solving and innovative thinking. This club helps students to build links between words and ideas that make concepts more meaningful. Debate club students are taught to research and synthesize complex topics and information.
Every week they exercise creativity and implement different ways to claim, reason, and support a certain argument. Some of the recent debates they have had over the past two weeks are, “should we abolish the British monarchy”, “gun control”, and “cancel culture”. Life skills that they learned in debate club are public speaking, even though it’s just a couple of students and a teacher in the room. This club builds confidence and is able to deal with a lot of pressure. Students find this club very engaging and exciting because they have a platform to express their opinions and the ability to back up those opinions. Winston Ordona, a member of the debate club and the debate team, said, “I can express my creativity in this club because I can write and write to express my creativity and come up with impromptu arguments on the spot. It’s quite fun. I learned about how to use specific skills for debate such as note taking.” He would recommend any student “1000%” to join the debate club. Julia Cervania, member of debate club and the debate team also said, “I feel that debate club is very fun and it’s a good community to be in. I can express my creativity in this club through sharing my unique ways to speak my mind and get a point across. I have learned to think on the spot and to stay calm when in fast paced environments. I joined debate club because it seemed like it would be a cool experience, and it would help me develop good speaking skills.” Mr. Mcmillin, the sponsor of Debate club and the coach for the Debate team had this to say. “I was given a speech class that had a new student, Jocelyn Garcia, who was part of the Lake Balboa debate team. She wanted to rejoin her team, which was not possible. The criteria for entering a new school into debate required ten students minimum, so I asked around and found a large population here at VAAS that wanted to join. I used the Debate Club to gather that interest. I got in touch with the immaculate and legendary J Flo, in charge of Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League. He let me know what I needed to do to get involved and how to get the team going. I got training and attended a weekend meeting and tournament. Then I had to meet with Ms. Hanock and Ms. Guerra to figure out funding and options for debate team. I am positive that the team will improve, and we will eventually be able to take the State and National Championship.” The debate team went to their first debate tournament last November 5th at Royal Learning Center. The team is composed of many members that are in the debate club. The teams performed exceptionally well for their first time. With the level of preparation and experience they had compared to the other teams, they were able to stand toe to toe with the other competitors there. Winston Ordona was awarded 3rd place speaker for the rookie division. They will definitely be returning to future tournaments to showcase their improvements in skills each time and bring home many wins to the VAAS community. The next tournament will be December 9 through California State Long Beach, and they will surely aim and succeed to make us vipers proud. |
EditorJaden Fiske AuthorZachary Buenaventura Archives |