Recently there was an airplane crash in New York City Harbor. According to the BBC website there were 155 passengers and all were unharmed; including a baby that’s only a couple of months old. After taking off at LaGuardia Airport the plane suffered difficulties and had to land in the Hudson river where they were rescued by local recovery teams. But what caused this crash? According to investigators, there was feathery organic matter found inside the plane’s engines; this could have come from a flock of birds that flew into the engine.

The pilot, Chesley B ‘Sully’ Sullenberger III, is the hero that landed the plane and saved everyone on it. The 57 year old pilot is from Danville, California landed the plane after hearing an explosion and seeing flames from the left wing. He has been with U.S. Airways for 29 years and was a former Air Force pilot and has his own consulting business (Safety Reliability Methods Inc.). After taking off, the heroic pilot reported that there were birds hitting the engines. The pilot was told to make an emergency landing at Teterboro Airport, but knowing that he couldn’t make it he planned to make the safest landing that he could, so he aimed for the Hudson River.

With the temperature of almost -7 degrees Celsius in the Hudson River, the rescue teams needed to get the passengers out as soon as possible. The plane was pulled down the river until it stopped next to a pier and tug boats. One of the passengers described how water was rushing in the plane, and how the flight attendants did a “wonderful job” evacuating the plane. Helicopters, tug boats, and ferries hurried to rescue all the passengers, flight attendants, and the pilot. The passengers exited the airplane quickly, woman and children were first, then the men. Once they were all out, they stayed afloat on the wings until they were rescued. Some even waited in the freezing water in a state of shock.

The day after the crash the news cast were talking all about it. One report that stood out to us the most was the ABC news. They were discussing a lot of interesting information, if your plane does crash to stay buckled until your under the water. They were also saying that now that this incident happened they are going to train pilots and assistants in a way that they can deal with this kind of situation.

In addition, the Disaster Victims website (disastervictims.org) was very helpful and informed us that five jet airlines have had an accident as result of a bird strike since 1975. Of those five accidents, about 35 people were killed. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) states that over 56,000 bird strikes to civil aircraft were reported in the United States from 1990 to 2004. Of that number, only 20% are believed to be actual bird strike related. Fortunately for all of the passengers on Flight 1549 they all survived.

Information for this article was collected from the following sources:
1) BBC News ‘Comtrolled chaos’ - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7835497.stm
2) WRAL ‘Investigation begins in plane’s landing’ - http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/4331992/
3) Disaster Victims – disastervictims.org
4)Picture of the airplane in the Hudson - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Airways_Flight_1549.jpg
5)The pilot - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chesley_Sullenberger_honored_crop.jpg

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Please check the website often to find out the most current information about what is going on at school.

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At school, we’re constantly talking about college. Karla is very interested in Stanford because she’s planning on being a pediatrician. She heard of Stanford being one of the top universities in the whole state for medical school. So, in order to find out more about what it’s like to be a student at Stanford, we first talked to Mr. Ozdogu, our Journalism teacher, about when he went to Stanford as a graduate student.

Mr. Ozdogu stated, “I worked really really hard in high school. I worked really really hard at my first college which was UCLA. And then, I actually had to work in the field of education for a few years afterwards and then prove that I was worthy to go to Stanford. And when I got there, it was well worth it.”

Since it’s hard to be one of Stanford’s students, Mr. Ozdogu worked really hard to attend Stanford. Thanks to his hard work, he accomplished going to a very good university.

We also asked, “Did you enjoy being in Stanford? Why or why not?” Mr. Ozdogu replied, “Yes. It was very very difficult and it was very exhilarating and fun.”

Even though being able to attend Stanford was very difficult, Mr. Ozdogu had fun being in Stanford.

In addition, we asked Ms. McCarty, “What did you expect from college before being in Stanford?”

She told us, “I expected it to be a time when I would learn a lot; not just on my classes but that I would also get to meet a lot of new people and learn about different places since it was somewhere– you know a little bit far away from where I’d grown up where it was in Northern California and I’d grown up in L.A., and I expected also, to have the opportunity to study something that I was really interested in instead of just you know, forced of what I had to study in high school.”

Ms. McCarty wanted to study something she was interested in, not what she was forced to study in high school even though studying was going to be far away from where she grew up.

We wanted to know how the graduate experience different from the undergraduate experience.

Ms. McCarty told us that “Undergraduate life at Stanford was really fun. All of the undergraduates live on campus almost; I think the statistic is like 96 to 97 percent live on campus in dorms. Most of the dorms have like 100 to 200 students in them; so that you really get to know the people who live there. You live with them for a whole year, and it’s so small that you become like a community. The dorm life is a lot of fun there’s a lot of activities faced around dorm life and you all just kind of become friends.

That was a lot of fun, it’s something that as an only child I didn’t get a lot of growing up; It was really fun to live with a hundred of people who were the same age as me and it was also really cool to get to choose my classes every quarter, to get to decide kind of what path I wanted to go in into as I was studying different things to realize… oh I am very passionate about this, I want to take more classes of this one… oh I really like this professor, I want to take more classes from them, or I like the small discussion format… I want to take more classes like that.”

In Stanford, Ms. McCarty was able to enjoy being with a lot of people because she didn’t get a lot of growing up when she was a child, because she is an only child. She had really fun because she was able to choose her classes and classes she liked.

In conclusion, it is amazing and interesting being a Stanford student. Both of our experts worked really hard. Therefore, students at LPS-San Jose should learn the amount of work they have to do and how much it takes to attend a college, especially if they want to go to a very good college or university like Stanford.

The NFL Playoffs started January 3rd. The teams consisted of many talents and many good teams. On Saturday the 3rd, the first teams to play were the Atlanta Falcons vs. Arizona Cardinals. The game was very close, but the Cardinals won with a final score of 30-24. Later that day, the Indianapolis Colts fought hard against the San Diego Chargers but couldn’t come up with the win. The Chargers won with the final score 17-23 OT. On Sunday the 4th, the Baltimore Ravens faced the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins took a beating when the Ravens did not allow Miami to make any touchdowns. The final score was 27-9; Ravens move on. The final wild-card game was between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Minnesota Vikings. Minnesota lost the game with the final score 26-14. Four more teams had a chance to play for the Superbowl had a bye week which determines which wild-card team they play. The team who had a bye week were the: Tennessee Titans, Carolina Panthers, New York Giants and, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The divisional games started January 10th and ended on the 11th. The first game was between the Baltimore Ravens vs. Tennessee Titans. It was a very close game between the two, but in the end the stunning Titans couldn’t stand their ground with the final score 13-10. The second game of the day was between the Arizona Cardinals and Carolina Panthers. The Cardinals grabbed the game from the beginning and just took control. The final score was 33-13; Cardinals go to the conference.

The first game played on the 11th was between the Philadelphia Eagles and Superbowl champions the New York giants. It was one of the first games where the Giants weren’t able to score any touchdowns. The Eagles were proud when they defeated the Giants 23-11. The last divisional game of the day was between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the San Diego chargers. The game started with a touchdown by the Chargers but, unfortunately the didn’t win final score 24-35: Steelers win.

On Sunday the 18th, the championship games were played the first of the day was between Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Baltimore Ravens. The games was supposed to be a definite win for the Steelers, but many were shocked when at the end as the Ravens were the AFC Champions with the final score 14-23. The last game was between the surprising Philadelphia Eagles and the Arizona Cardinals. The Cardinals took the lead very early and in the 2nd quarter with 17 points but, the Eagles had a few comebacks of their own with 13 more points in the third quarter. In the end, it was clear who would become the NFC Champions the Cardinals won 32-25.

On Feb. 1st, in the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fl the Pittsburgh Steelers faced the Arizona Cardinals for the Superbowl championship. The Pittsburgh Steelers who had the best Defenses in the NFL squared off against the Arizona Cardinals’ tough offense.

The Steelers became the AFC champions and the Cardinals became the NFC champions. They met at Superbowl 43, and it was a great game. Both teams came in with tons of energy and they both wanted to win. The game was going back and forth and then when the Cardinals were about to go for the lead before half time, James Harrison intercepted Kurt Warner and ran the ball back for a 100 yard touchdown interception. The Steelers won the Superbowl 30-21 and are the only team to have six Superbowl championships.

Some people are very afraid of change but not all change is a bad thing, sometimes its even for a good cause. The last couple of weeks before winter vacation, we had seen a couple changes around the campus. If you had paid close attention to the differences in the campus, you can see at a time that there were murals put up in multiple places. The school’s mascot, the Phoenix is painted at the entrance of the school. In addition to the transformations the school had before winter break, there are also a few changes around the campus. The changes that occurred benefitted the school in a good way, but not all of them were good.

campus-logo

The rails were painted green instead of the boring rusty silver color, and boards were cut up and put on the bottom of the rails to cover any open spaces so garbage would not be build up under the rails.

The school received five murals that were made during our winter break by the group City Year. The mural that I think that has the most important message is the one that has three different people next to each other and in the bottom inscribed “Yes we can” and also in Spanish “Si se puede”. The three individuals in the murals are presumed to symbolize three people who have made a major change in the country. The mural features Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and our new president, Barack Obama. I assume that the point of this mural is to persuade us and make us reflect that we can also make a big impact in society. The other murals can be found in the quad and in the very back of the school. The mural in the very end of the school has all the California State Universities put on the mural. Then we have one in the right side and left side of the quad, one of those murals has Ceasar Chaves and the other is a painting is an abstract painting with a sun.

I asked Steven Ferdin, a senior, what he thought about the campus changes and he had this to say ” I like it but I would enjoy it more if they had started this a couple years ago, since now that I am about to graduate i am not really going to appreciate it but overall it is starting to look better than before.” I also asked Edgar Valencia, a Sophomore, and he said “I feel like they are trying to do some good but in the end it will all be trashed, but its a nice try though.”

So after hearing this from both the students I went directly to the source that was responsible for the “Campus beautification.”
I uncovered that the main purpose for the campus change is to make a more comfortable environment instead of it being all dull. The murals were chosen with the help of Mrs. Miranda and Mr. Poo. Mrs. Miranda believes that the whole campus change will surely help other students be more comfortable at school and make it seem more vivacious.

Unfortunately as vivacious as they would like the school to seem, there has been damages to the school that actually reverses the effect of a more vivacious school to a more gloomy environment. When someone vandalizes something you are trying to achieve it makes it a lot harder for you to try and achieve that goal. So in the end, the school would like to make the campus environment a lot more comfortable for us but they can only do so much to help, the rest is up to us to make of it what we want.

TRANSCRIPT: This is Joseph Fernandes, Osvaldo Herrera, and Ranfis Villatoro, from the Catalyst and we’re going to be talking about AP classes. AP, or advanced placement, classes are a new occurrence to the students of LPS, and many are finding them to be a virtual hell. AP classes are designed to prepare students for college with college level work loads and tougher than main stream curriculum. Since all three of us are in AP classes, we wanted to talk about AP classes to show students outside of the classes what they were like, and what they could expect going in to an AP class.

Recently, we got a chance to talk with a couple of students taking the classes as well as one of our own AP teachers, Mr.Devin, who teaches AP Literature. We asked them a number of questions about AP classes, including how they were doing in the class, what advice they could give for students going in to the class, and so on. We got a chance to talk with two students in AP classes to get their opinions on the class and what they thought of them. I got a chance to talk with Josh Garza, a student in an AP class, specifically AP World History, I asked him what AP classes are like. “It’s very difficult to get through the day with an AP class, because of the things we have to do.” Such things might include an entire chapter in one night in both a workbook and taking notes. I also asked Josh how he got in to an AP class, “Basically I got in to an AP class because I was doing good last year, and because I asked for it.” There is no GPA requirements for AP classes here at LPS SJ, but GPA is taken in to consideration on whether the student will get the class upon request.

I got to talk to Karla Tapia, another student in AP World History. I also asked her questions about the class, like Ranfis, I asked her what the classes are like for her. “I feel that the class is not hard, we have work to do and it’s not a lot for me, but it takes a lot of time doing the workbook, doing the notes, and doing the tests.” I also asked her if she would change anything about the class if she could.

“I wouldn’t change anything from the AP class because what we do, I understand, and we just have to complete the work.” I asked if she thought the AP classes were for her as well. “I do because I know that I’m able to do the work, but sometimes I get scared because the tests are hard and I don’t think I’m going to pass the exam in May.” The Exam in May she is talking about is the AP exam, the exam which determines whether or not you get the college credits for taking the class. Like Ranfis I asked Karla how she thought she got in to an AP class.

“I think I got in to an AP class by doing good last year, in my freshmen year, working hard, and getting straight A’s. You don’t necessarily need to have straight A’s to get in to an AP class, but you need to be ready for hard work, much harder than usual. Again, GPA is a factor when going in to an AP class, so someone with straight A’s will have a higher chance than someone with mixed/average grades.

Our last interviewee was Mr. Devin, our AP Lit teacher, as mentioned before. I talked to him and asked him what a student should expect going in to an AP class. “They should expect harder workloads, probably more homework, and being able to progress through the work at a faster pace than a normal mainstream class.” I also asked him what the teachers expected for their students. “Every school will have different expectations for their students, and every teacher will also have different expectations for their students.”

This means that not every AP class is going to be the same workload, in one AP class you may get completely different amounts of work as opposed to another.

I asked Mr. Devin what positives a student would get from participating in an AP class. “There are benefits you get from the AP class, you get college credit if you do well in the class, you are better prepared for college, and you get a weighted GPA. As a result, you gotta put out more effort and more work.”

In the end, AP classes are a new, challenging aspect of school here at LPS SJ. AP classes are meant to challenge students and prepare them for college with harder than normal class and homework as well as difficult tests. AP classes are easier to get in to than you may think, but you need to be ready for hard work, harder than you may or may not have had in your previous years.