Category: Features

BOO! Juniors Syndie Tanujaya and Lydia Hong are excited to help out.

Photo: Emilie Chau

By Emilie Chau

UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) is back with their annual trick-or-treat boxes during the last two weeks of October.

UNICEF began this Halloween-themed activity in 1950, to help children in need during the month of October.

“I think what sets us apart from other volunteer clubs…is that we donate all our profits back to the cause.” says Treasurer Sydnie Tanujaya.

Since 1994, Key Club has teamed up with UNICEF in this community service activity.

Members of each club will be walking around campus with their signature orange boxes like years before, asking for donations.

“It’s an easy way to help out people and families that are struggling,” comments UNICEF Vice President Lydia Hong.  The cause for the trick-or-treat box changes every year, but all center around the same cause to help people in poor countries by providing them with vaccines, clean water, food, healthcare and education.

“At the beginning of November we count [the money] up and send it to…UNICEF,” explains Key Club Project Writer Jason Vu.

After donations from members worldwide are submitted, UNICEF will choose which countries need the most help and give them the donations.  This community service activity is an easy way to make a huge impact on a child’s life.  Any donation, no matter how much, can only do positive things.

“If you just donate one dollar, people get water, protein, biscuits or vaccinations,” says Lydia.

The trick-or-treat boxes can be found anywhere on campus–with a club member in the hall or on the desk of a teacher.  This activity is a fast and easy way to help children around the world.

UNICEF is an international non-profit organization that supports women and children in need.

“We not only spread awareness about what’s going on in third world countries, but also aid these people,” explains Lydia.

Step out and walk with me! PHHS joins the Walk to Stop Diabetes event.

Photo courtesy of Spencer Nguyen

By Kyle Sumida

To start off the new school year, Insane Ink decided to give back to the community and partake in the Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes, to assist Piedmont Hills in the district competition of providing the most support and fundraising for the charity event.

The charity event took place this Sunday at the Guadalupe River.  All funds raised will be allocated to help train school personnel to ensure that children with diabetes are safe at school; provide aid to those that have been recently diagnosed with Type II diabetes; and much more.  Not only was this a chance to beat other schools in the district, but it was also a significant, positive impact for those affected by diabetes.

“I think we’re on a good track so far,” comments Insane Ink CEO Spencer Nguyen.

In the beginning of October, PHHS was in first place of the district competition in terms of fundraising.  Piedmont Hills team member Jessica Sobrepena had donated $1,874 in behalf of our team, immediately going beyond our goal of $1,000.  Several others donated to the cause.  As of Oct. 6, our school had raised $2,519 in total for the charity event.

Although we had the most money raised, we were still behind Independence High School in regards to the number of sign-ups.  Last Friday, our school had 134 sign-ups for the charity event, compared to Independence’s 304 sign-ups.  In hopes of stepping up the game, Insane Ink created an incentive program to entice its own members to participate.

“(The incentive program) was brought up in our meeting and we thought it (was) a good way to get (our members) to actually participate.  If they don’t have an incentive program, people would put it off and say they don’t have to do it,” Insane Ink Director of Philanthropy Jade Chiu explains.

The charity event was free to sign up; however, Insane Ink provided a free t-shirt to the first 100 participants that donated $29 or more.  Those who were unable to physically attend the event but still wanted to support the cause had the ability to become virtual walkers instead.  Virtual walkers were able to customize their fundraising web pages and send out emails asking for fundraising contributions.

Insane Ink is a business class in Piedmont Hills that allows students to have hands-on learning of operating a business.  The company’s mission statement is to strengthen, support, and uplift the community; which is otherwise known as “The 50/50 Concept.”  Insane Ink advisor Diane Pereira added that the school’s position and ranking amongst the other schools were able to be found online on School Loop.

By Michelle Fong

Seniors Walt Leung and Benton Liu and sophomore Addison Chan participated in the 2015 HSF (High School Forensics) team competition hosted by CSAW (Cyber Security Awareness Week) and NYU (New York University) Polytech School that ended Fri., Oct. 9.

Their team, Big Bobby Tables, was able to reach eighth place in West Coast but was unable to continue onto the final round.  Only the first place of every region or the top ten in the country can move onto the final round in New York.

“The hardest part (for me) was decompiling a file and seeing what a file does,” reveals Benton.  “What you didn’t know was (the) hard (part).”

For the past few years, HSF was a murder mystery type of competition where competitors reason from the information given and information painstakingly found to deduce the culprit.  However, this year it has changed; HSF is now more of a “Capture the Flag” type of competition.

“Competitors race against each other to solve multiple challenges scattered across various topics in cyber security,” explains math teacher and team advisor Stewart Kuang.

This is the third year Piedmont Hills has participated in HSF.  The first challengers from PHHS, Class of ’15 Claire Shu and Class of ’13 Rachel Guan and Amy Shu, were able to pass the qualifying round and continue on to the final round.

By Angelina Nguyen

Members of HOSA (Health Occupation to Students of America) attended the RLC (Regional Leadership Conference) last Saturday at Petaluma High School.

“This is going to expose our new members to what HOSA really is and it’s going to help us gain new members and kind of build up the club,” states HOSA Co-president Brian Hoang before RLC.

RLC is a conference hosted by the state organization that allows HOSA members from Region 2 to learn more about HOSA, expand members’ knowledge of the medical field, advance their leadership skills and become more aware of upcoming events such as SLC (State Leadership Conference).

“I want them [the members] to be able to learn more about the health field and broaden their perspectives,” hopes HOSA Co-president Silvia Liu.

Over 120 members were able to participate in workshops that focused on leadership, health, and team building.  This was the first year sophomores and officers were able to experience RLC.

“It was pretty fun bonding with other HOSA groups from other schools,” exclaims HOSA member Cindy Chang.

HOSA’s main focus is to provide students with more information on jobs in the medical field.  It is a CTSO (Career Technical Student Organization) which supports school studies as well as work studies.

“If you need opportunities or information, HOSA gives you those opportunities,” replies Brian.

HOSA provides members with an early connection by helping them to get internships, experience, and standing by them though high school and college and finally when they are hired in the health industry.

By Dixie Murillo

This year we have eight new clubs on campus, which include AADP, C0d3x, Paradox Motions, The Storytellers Collective, Cricket and Smash Bros Society. There also two other clubs which are Engineering and Coding and Magic the Gathering.

AADP (Asian American Donor Program) is a club focuses on helping and volunteering at the official AADP program.  This program is a non-profit whose mission is to help anyone who has diseases like Leukemia and Aplastic Anemia.  The club plans on helping in drives or other events to help increase availability of potential stem cell or bone marrow donors.

C0d3x is a club that gives members the opportunity to love coding.  For new members who don’t know how to code, other members teach them how.  This club also provides opportunities to learn by giving presentations or getting guest speakers.  This club also participates in a Hackathon.  Members collaborate in computer programing for several days.

PMX (Paradox Motion) is a club focused on hip-hop, and its choreography.  The members of this club teach one another how to dance.  They also use the power of hip-hop to express themselves and how they feel.  Anyone can join this club.  No experience is necessary.

TSC (Storytellers Collective) is a club that explores the power of storytelling.  They do storytelling in different ways.  Some methods they use to tell stories are prose and poetry, art, music synthesizing and spoken word.  This club will also be working with all kinds of mediums.  No experience is necessary to join this club.

Cricket is a club that focuses on how the sport cricket works. This club teaches members how to play cricket. It also shows them different ethnic backgrounds that can play the sport.

Smash Bros Society is a club that is based on and dedicated to the hit video game Super Smash Brothers.  Within the club there are tournaments.  This club meets during lunch every first and third of the month in P-10.

By Billy Ung

Piedmont Hills High’s Music Department hosted its first annual concert on Wed., Oct. 7.  The concert is divided into two parts.  The first section, “Fall in Love with Music”, happened on Wednesday, October 7.  The second section, “Fall Festival”, happened on Fri., Oct. 16.

Like always, the concert provides fund to the music department.

“We spend the money we get out of the concert to help improve the school music program.  We got a couple of drums  falling apart and couples of saxs are broken.  We have to fix those.  Also we spend the fund to hire more music coach,” remarks music director Emily Ray.

The concert also serves as an opportunity for the newcomers to advance up and the advanced to advance even more.

“This year I get 41 newcomers out of 45 students overall,” remarks music director Emily Ray.  “The theme of the concert is ‘Fall In Love With Music’, so I want to start the newcomers with easy music.  The rhythm is not as hard because when you are a newcomer and the music director makes you play hard rhythm, you will want to quit music.  That is not my goal.  My goal is to make them fall in love with the music.”

“Carillon” by Bizet, “Slavonic Dances” by Dvorak and “Marche Militaire Francaise” by Saent Saens are some of the music pieces that were heard at the concert.

“Playing at a different school is overwhelming but I feel like I did good because I practiced everyday at home for about 2-3 hours,” explains with relief freshman Isabella Hoang.

But the annual concert is no stranger to veteran violinist May Lam.

“Freshman year was scary, but now that I am a senior, I feel more confident,” proclaims May.

In general, the audience agrees that this concert is not as good as last year concert.

“Overall the concert was good, but last was better because people applaud more and it was more fun,” describes a parent spectator Lien Nguyen.

For many, the department is a place to grow and make friends.

“My stand partner, Valerie Nguyen, helps me a lot with playing the correct notes and rhythm.  I kind of grow with her personality,” explains sophomore Jonathan Hoang.

Besides from the concert, the music department also gets its money from asking for donations  through email address.

The music students will not go to Disneyland this year due to high expense.