On April 22 a non-profit organization Peace Over Violence had its 11th annual Denim Day in L.A. here at Roosevelt.
In 1998, a teenage girl was getting ready for her first driving lesson. When her driving instructor picked her up he took her to an isolated spot, took her out of the car and raped her. The driving instructor was taken to jail.
The perpetrator appealed the sentence. The case ended up going all the way to the Italian Supreme Court. The driving instructor won the case and was set free.
The Head Judge of the Italian Supreme Court put out a statement saying, “because the victim wore very, very tight jeans, she had to help him remove them, and by removing the jeans, it was no longer rape but consensual sex.”
That statement made women and men outraged. They protested against the court case by wearing jeans to work. This ultimately started what is now Denim Day. “The wearing of jeans became an international symbol of protest against erroneous and destructive attitudes about sexual assault.”
Last year on Denim Day, Planned Parenthood made a display of about 50 pairs of jeans that were hung from tree to tree at the quad area at Roosevelt. “I thought that was pretty cool”, says senior Elia Huerta 12C. “It caught my attention”, says Daniela Parada 10B.
Students from all clichés stopped to see what was going on. Teachers spoke and informed their students about the issue and how it created Denim Day.
“There is never an excuse, regardless of what you’re wearing for a man to sexually assault a girl”, says organizer of Denim Day, Marisol De La Rocha.
This year Marisol De La Rocha is planning to do a lot of things. On April 22 Peace Over Violence will have a table with information about Denim Day. They will also be having classroom presentations.
Planned Parenthood will have their jean display again. Every jean will have a statistic about sexual assaults and women affected by it.
With having the jean display, Planned Parenthood will also encompass a clothing drive. Anyone can contribute to Chicana Service Action Center Inc., a sexual assaulted center for women and children by donating clothes.
The clothing drive will be held from April 15 – 30. Clothes can be dropped off at Roosevelt’s clinic, located passed the nurses office in the R building.
With Denim Day here at Roosevelt Marisol is hoping to “reduce sexual assault activities”.
Most of us wear jeans already, but hope you wore your jeans on Wednesday April 22. Show your support on Denim Day.

Ever since I joined softball I don’t think that much attention was put on it. Not many people knew about softball.

This year, my senior year, Nike decided to do something about it. They created Nike Diamond Days, which is an effort to put more attention to softball teams and Roosevelt is one of the first schools that they are trying this with.

Somehow, they found out that Garfield is our rival school and they decided to make a big deal about this game. At first I wasn’t nervous about playing Garfield, since they’re just another school, but now that Nike put sooo much attention on this one game I feel like the only way we could thank them is by winning. I’m so nervous!! But it’s that good nervous that doesn’t let you sleep at night.

I can’t wait until Monday. Power 106 is going to be announcing the game and they’re going to give out foam fingers!! That’s freaking awesome!!

They also took the whole team to the Nike Headquarters and they gave us a pasta dinner, preparing us for the Garfield game. They also took tons of pictures of us with nike stuff. They even brought Olympic gold and silver Medalist, softball player Jessica Mendoza to one of our practices.

I’m extremely nervous. I don’t want to mess up Monday. I’m glad that Nike is doing all of this, but they just got me nervous.

It was an outstanding season for the girls’ varsity basketball team.
In league they were ten and two, losing their first two games against Garfield and South East then coming back to defeat them by having a ten game winning streak.
This year’s team consists of six seniors, four juniors, and two sophomores. Ten of the twelve girls on the team are returners, one of the reasons why the girls are so strong this year. “We have good teamwork, they come together as a team and they play good defense,” said the varsity girls’ coach Dina Mayeda.
The girls had a little rough start after they won their first practice game against Jefferson. They lost three games, one of them being a practice game against Marshall, away at South East then at home against Garfield.
As their season continued they came back and defeated South East at our home and Garfield at their home.
The girls’ varsity basketball team is coached by Coach Dina Mayeda who has already led her past teams to the City Invitationals, winning City Invitational Champion in the 05-06 season and City Invitational Finalist in the 06-07 season. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been taking a ASL2 (american sign language) class at ELAC, (I need two years of a foreign language and yes sign language is a foreign language). Well its harder than I thought, there’s a lot of acting and facial expression’s that are involved. When you sign mad you have to not only have to sign it but you have to show it on your face. When I took ASL1, my teacher was partially deaf. He wore a hearing aid and could sort of speak. I thought all sign teachers had to speak but two weeks ago when ASL2 started I noticed my new teacher wasn’t speaking at all. He is completely deaf, he can’t hear or talk and our only rule in class is that you can’t talk, no voice allowed. That was a crazy first day but I’m getting used to it but I noticed that people sign everyday and we don’t even know it. We move our hands when we talk. Crazy…

Before the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game last weekend, the Charlotte Bobcats’ mascot named Rufus (it’s the orange one that looks like a dog)made a shot that amazed fans. It was a half court shot, his back was to the basket and it was nothing but net. It might seem like a regular lucky half court shot but what was happening during, after and the way the ball went in is more interesting than the made basket. As the Rufus was getting ready to shoot, the Bucks’ mascot, Bango, climbed on the backboard and stood on the rim. When Rufus shot the ball hit Bango’s groin and went in, Rufus had a little help, but that’s not it. After the shot was made Bango slipped, fell and somehow went though the hoop!! Fans laughed and oohed as he fell, the whole scene was sad but pretty hilarious, I couldn’t stop laughing. I didn’t look like he really got hurt but he did Bango suffered a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in his right knee and will receive surgery in late March.

What is the biggest blow-out game you have ever seen? This story has gotten a lot of attention, a Texas varsity girls basketball team beat another school with the ending score of 100-0.

Now the school that won, The Covenant School, wants to declare a forfeit to the school that lost, Dallas Academy. The Covenant School is also apologizing for winning by such a large margin. That’s crazy!! but Dallas Academy hasn’t won a game in four years!!

But that’s not all, Dallas Academy, the school that lost, only has about 20 girls in the whole school and 8 of them are in the basketball team. Dallas Academy is a school that specializes in teaching students struggling with ” learning differences,” like short attention spans or dyslexia.

So was the game really fair? I don’t know. A couple of days after the school publicly apologized the Covenant School’s coach Micah Grimes, put a statement that he is not sorry for his teams win.

After that statement was made yesterday another article was published today titled “Unapologetic coach of 100-0 win fired by school” which is pretty self explanatory.

This whole story is crazy!! I have never seen a high school get this much media attention.

On January 5th C-track students forced themselves out of bed early in the morning to prepare for the start of the second semester of the school year. For seniors these are the last four months of high school then it’s off to college. We start receiving letters from the colleges we applied to telling us we got in or that we didn’t, we start to reminisce on high school life. I know I’m gonna miss being in high school. I’m especially gonna miss all of the friends I made and teachers I’ve had. I kind of want to leave high school and experience college life but at the same time I don’t want to leave. I don’t know, I’m just confused…

As I walk to the store to look for something that would quench my thirst I look at my choices: there’s water, gatorade, and a nice refreshing coke. Without hesitating I go straight for the coke. This happens to me every single time I go to the store. I don’t even know why I look at the other drinks.

Why is soda so tasty? Is it the caffeine?

Whatever they put in it makes it taste really good. It’s so addictive. I can’t go a day without drinking a soda.

It’s the last coke and it’s all mine. As I’m about to grab it I see that there’s another hand trying to get my coke. It’s a stranger. I couldn’t really see that person’s face. I’m way too thirsty. I’m not going to give my coke to this stranger. We look at each other and I immediately let go of the coke and run out of the store. What or who do you think I saw?

Omg!! It’s almost here..the 25th annual MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) is this Sunday!! I like seeing the VMAs. Their openings are usually the most memorable moments of the whole show. Like last year’s opening with Britney Spears’ “comeback”. This year the host will be Russell Brand. He’s from London and they brought him all the way here so he could host.

Don’t know who Russell Brand is? He was that one guy from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Anyways, the 2008 VMAs will be held in Paramount Studios in Hollywood. Britney Spears will kick off the show and there will be special performances by Kanye West, Katy Perry, Christina Aguilera, The Jonas Brothers and many more. Make sure to watch the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards live from Paramount Studios in Hollywood on September 7 at 9 p.m.

Yay! Im going to camp tommorrow! I am so excited. I’m packing all my clothes and a lot of bug spray. This is like the only time of the year when I can actually go out and see what real nature looks like and smell the fresh air. I go camping every year with my church. It’s actually really fun. We get time away from the world, problems and all of the pollution of course. It’s a really good way to bond with everyone. We sleep in tents and at night we tell stories and perform plays. This year we’re going to Lake Perris. I’m so exicted that I can’t even sleep, I’m counting the hours. Just 9 more hours to go!