OAK HILL MIDDLE SCHOOL

PANTHER PRESS

INSIDER:•• Oak•Hill•News

•• Around•Our•World

•• A•Closer•Look•

•• Oak•Hill•Happenings

Interview with Ms. Thompson

By: Julian Milkey

•••• Last year, longtime principal Hank Van Putten left Oak Hill to retire and spend time with his family. Recently, the Panther Press interviewed the new prin-cipal, Ms. Eva Thompson.

What was your first impression of Oak Hill?There are a lot of friendly people; the kids were very enthusi-astic about being here.

What will you change about Oak Hill?We’re going to look at the cafeteria routines, it’s a little too rowdy. We’re starting a community block once a month. This community block is about panther pride.

What did you do before you came here?I was the Principal of Pierce Elementary school in Newton.

What is different about working with middle schoolers?The students are a little bit older, a little bit more mature. Social relationships are really important to children at this level, and I think kids are really thinking about who they want to be in life.

Note: Since this interview was conducted, the school administration has implemented Panther Pride Com-munity, a new policy of switching around the students extension rooms, and improvements in the cafeteria as well.

Issue 1 September and October 2009

A Student’s Education

By Veronica Podolny

to do what will help your country, your parents, and you. Even though Mr. Obama intended to urge students to study more, some parents did not fully agree with the speech. Parents were most con-cerned about President Obama directly speaking to their child alone. A parent stated “I don’t want our school being turned into some socialist movement.” Although some parents do disagree with the speech, students still should continue to work hard in school and keep giving themselves more and more opportunities for their future.

On September 8th, 2009, Barack Obama gave a speech in Arlington, Virginia about educa-tion. This speech was addressed to mostly school children, and meant to encourage and advise them to stay in school. Mr. Obama talked about his experience with school, but he focused on our education. He ex-plained that our country needs each and every one of us to stay in school so that we can grow up and be successful. If we are successful and responsible members of society than society can progress and the world can become a better place to live in. Obama said, “At the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most support-ive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.” His speech was telling all students that they may have the talent to be writers, but will never find out until they write an English paper or have to write a book report, because in order to have a good future in a career, students must put in the effort during their school days to become good at a particular subject. He also told the students that whatever job they will have, they will undoubtedly need an education to do it well. The point he made was that all of us need to do work, such as home-work, to succeed.” Obama believes that students are the most important part of their education. Another point that he made was that televi-sion gives us the impression that we can have it every luxury we wish for without trying, but that’s not reality. Of course you can have the best sing-ing voice in your school or be the track start and believe that you don’t need an education to do one of those things, but as Obama said, “chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.” Obama said that line because it is very hard to be famous and get noticed and beat all of the others compet-ing for the same prize. Lastly, Obama told us that success isn’t al-ways something that comes easily; you have to work hard for it. To be successful, you first might fail many times. You will have to try over and over again. You can’t just drop out of school or cut a

A•congratulations•to•the•Cross-Country,•Soccer•and•Football•Teams•for•a•well-played•season.••Photograph•by•Liam•Shanny

After•a•few•months•as•interim•principal•at•Oak•Hill,•Ms.•Thompson•shows•her•sense•of•humor!

An ominous storm sets over Oak Hill.

Photograph by Liam Shanny

A•example•of•the•63•member•Cross-Country’s••teamwork•shown•through•out•the•season!

During the summer, a new bill has passed in Newton, changing the old fashioned, man oper-ated system of collecting trash to a new, high tech automated trash can, which will work by a robotic arm picking up the trash can. As Newton’s gov-ernment may think that this is a good idea, many residents just don’t think the same way the govern-ment does. There are many rules and regulations for these new trash barrels, as they are city owned. Residents are only given two barrels, one for recy-cling and one for trash. Ward 5 Alderman Kenneth R.L. Parker said, “The new automated trash pickup program is definitely going to promote more city-wide recycling.” So what is the city going to do if residents produce more trash than what the bin is able to hold? Residents are able to rent a trash bar-rel from the city for an annual payment of two hun-dred dollars. Many pessimistic residents are, “urged to try the new system of waste, before they make any further comment,” said city employee Jeremy Solomon.

Warp Speed May Be Possible

By: Dennis Phan

New Trash Barrels Hit the

Around our world

Do you know about Star Trek? Do you know how the Starship Enterprise’s crew uses “Warp Speed” to travel to other planets? If you don’t have a clue, “Warp Speed” enables the ship to travel at the speed of light, even faster, to other planets. Do you think that Warp speed is possible? Two experts say it could be.Two Baylor University physicists, Dr. Gerald Cleaver and Dr. Richard Obousy, think they have the solution to travel at the speed of light without breaking the laws of physics. Their theory starts by manipulating the space-time dimensions with a lot of energy to create a bubble around the spaceship that could propel the ship at a speed faster than light. To create the bubble, you have to manipulate the 11-dimension, which would create dark ener-gy. Positive dark energy is responsible for speeding things up, just like after the Big Bang, when the universe expanded faster than the speed of light, says Cleaver.

The method involves expanding the fabric of space behind a ship to make a bubble. The ship wouldn’t really move, it would sit in between the expanding and shrinking space-time dimensions. Space would move around the ship, so the theory would not vio-late Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which says that it would take an infinite amount of energy to make an object go faster than the speed of light.Cleaver and Obousy think that amount of energy needed for “warp speed” is approximately the mass of Jupiter being converted into energy.“That is an enormous amount of energy,” Cleaver said, according to Sciencedaily.com.We still have a long way before finding a way to handle that much energy.

This week three Spanish teachers; Ms. Aliaga, Ms. Mulligan, and Ms. Martinez were interviewed. We wrote up a set of questions for the teachers. Then we compared their answers to each question, and this is what we got.

Q: What do you like the most about your job?Ms. Aliaga: My students.Ms. Martinez: I like to share my cul-ture to my students.Ms. Mulligan: When students are having fun learn-ing.

Q: How did you learn Spanish?Ms. Aliaga: My parents are both from Peru.Ms. Martinez: I was born in Puerto Rico. It was my first language.Ms. Mulligan: I lived in Spain, had Spanish nan-nies, and studied Spanish in college.

Q: Have you always lived in Massachusetts?Ms. Aliaga: Yes.Ms. Martinez: No. I was born in Puerto Rico, but have lived here for eight years.Ms. Mulligan: No. I lived in Spain and New York.

Q: What other schools have you taught at?Ms. Aliaga: Westwood Public Schools, Walpole Public Schools, and Burlington Public Schools.Ms. Martinez: Three different schools in Puerto Rico.Ms. Mulligan: Brown, Dover-Sherbon, and New Hampshire.

Q: How many years have you been teaching?Ms. Aliaga: 16.Ms. Martinez: 23.Ms. Mulligan: 17.

Q: What’s your overall opinion of Oak Hill?

Ms. Aliaga: I LOVE it! It’s great because of great students that inspire you everyday.Ms. Martinez: It is a great school.Ms. Mulligan: I think the people here are awe-some.

The Interview Crew

By: Anna Kim, YoElena Tkebuchava, and Monica Cipriano

Halloween season is a time of skeletons, vampires and fun for all ages (not to mention the candy!). But I will focus on the latter here, because I want to review a video game 21 years old that includes one of the most famous vampires: Dracu-la. So set your time machines to May 1987 and sit back for a review of Castlevania.

Nowadays, we have the Nintendo Wii, the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360, but 2 decades ago, if you sought to play video games, you played the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was a gray box featuring cartridge-based games and a controller with only 2 buttons. Although relatively unknown today, it began franchises such as Super Mario, the Legend of Zelda. Though games in these franchises have moved on to 3-D, its roots remain in the 2-D universe, and such is the same story for Castleva-nia.

Most games in the time had little story, and Castlevania is no exception. The plot of Cas-tlevania merely includes Simon Belmont invading Dracula’s castle in an attempt to destroy him. Oth-erwise, a storyline is absent in this game, but here, there is no need for it. To destroy Dracula, one must traverse 6 levels by taking control of Simon and moving him

Continued Game Review…from the left to right across the stage. Each stage takes about five minutes, which one would think makes it thirty minutes long, but one can easily spend a few hours on getting to Dracula, but I will discuss that later. As one moves across the treacher-ous levels, one will face bone-throwing skeletons, spiraling medusa-heads and pink ghosts (Yes, I know it’s a little cheesy.) to destroy the boss guard-ing the Magic Crystal of each stage. (The Magic Crystal will teleport you to the next stage.) To do so, one can use a whip with 2 upgrades or a second-ary weapon. (Secondary weapons include a knife, a boomerang-like ninja star, holy water or a time stopper.) In this adventure you will battle with a gigantic bat, a Medusa head larger than usual, twin Mummies, the Frankenstein Monster, the Grim Reaper, and finally the vampire himself, Dracula. But just like any other game, or anything else in life for that matter, it’s not perfect.

Castlevania: A Game Review

Ms. Mulligan

Ms. Alliaga

Note: A photo of Ms. Martinez is not shown.

A closer Look

•

The Oak Hill Track Team

Photographed by: Liam Shanny

“Anyone can be their own trend-setter.”

“Anyone can be their own trend-setter.” This is the Fashion Flash reporting to you about fashion trends that are happening right now at Oak Hill Middle School and influ-enced by the New Boyz, the artists of You’re a Jerk. Have you noticed any of these trends? Well, we know what we’ve noticed, and that is lots of colors. What do we mean by this? Well, some kids have started to wear skinny jeans, colorful shirts, and would rock all of this with some nice kicks, almost looking like a rainbow. But that’s not all, there are a few more trends happening this year. Some are wearing Hollister or Abercrombie with UGGS which is a noticeable trend. Last but not least, there is a trend with skinny jeans, any type of hooded sweatshirt, and then a pair of converse. If you want to make your own trend then let us know, and we will help you make it public. Anyone can be their own trend-setter.

Fashion Flash

By: Pereshah-Saphir Shear-Yashub & Jonnesha Mckinley

Pereshah-Saphir•and•Jonnesha•bring•this•Fall’s••Fashion•Flash.

“Anyone•can•be•their•own•trend-setter.”•

Popular Drinks

Juice

Wat er

Selt zer Wat er

H a llo w e e n C a n d y

Reeses Pean ut But t er Cups

Babe Rut h

Can dy Cor n

St ar bur st s

Twix

Skit t les

Sn icker s

Kit Kat

3 M usket eer s

Twizler s

Oak Hill Food Snack Bar

Cookies

Cheeseit s

Fruit - Roll-up

None

After extensive polling students reveal the most popular candy, snacks and drinks among the Oak Hill community. Looks like cook-ies and water are the most popular in the cafeteria but Halloween candy is split among a few popular contenders.

STUDENT SURVEYS

Oak HILL HAPPENINGS

NEWSPAPER•STAFF:

Julian MilkeyJAck LOVETT Matthew LuLiam ShannyPeter KlapesDennis PhanAnna KimAlison CostelloMonica CiprianoYoElena TkebuchauaVeronica PodolnyJohan Thomas Julian MontagutPereshah shear-yas-hubJonnesha Mckinley

NEWSPAPER ADVISOR Rebecca Mayrand

Rebecca_mayrand@newton.k12.ma.us

As you probably know Michael Jackson, just a couple days into summer vacation, died and left behind a big legacy as The “King of Pop.” The most popular album from this legacy is Thriller; The “Bestselling album of all time” and the key song “Thriller” one of the best music videos of all time. All of Michael’s album’s after were seen as disappointing come backs to Thriller (except for his latest album “Invincible” more seen as a disap-pointing comeback to becoming popular again.) I beg to differ. Bad, Thriller’s first successor, in my opinion match’s Thriller if not surpasses it. The album made in 1987, nearly five years after Thriller, took 2 million dol-lars for the actual album and another 2 million to make a music video for the first track “Bad.” Only one idea was in mind: To surpass Thriller. Michael Jackson had prepared and changed a lot since Thriller. With a new “resculpted” face Michael had originally wrote 62 songs and requested 33 of them be released in a triple album. Quincy Jones (co-producer with Michael for Bad) talked him out of it. The album was then shortened to 10 songs (another song was added when it was sold on C.D). Recording then took place between January 5th-July 9th 1987. After being released it sold 500,000 in five days in the U.K and immediately rose to #1 on the Billboard Hot 200 albums list in America. To this day it’s sold 30 million worldwide. Not beating Thriller the album was deemed “disappointing.” Was it really though? In my opinion no. The album should never have been com-pared to Thriller but seen as an individual album. If not for Thriller’s record, Bad would have been seen as an album just as good. The album contains many awesome songs. The title track “Bad” in my opinion completely kicks the butt of Thriller’s title track. “Dirty Diana” (a song about a groupie) is more than a match for its rock counterpart, “Beat It.”

Bad album review By Jack Lovett

Student and Faculty Candids

In•case•you•are•wondering•Zac•Davidson•and•Andrew•Shapiro•are•having•an•intense•staring•contest.

While most of the 8th graders were away at Nature’s Classroom, Mrs. Kappel and Mrs. Dempsey inspect a student’s paint job.

I don’t know either!

The girls do a fine job painting the bulletin board a lovely pumpkin hue.

“Smooth Criminal”, a song about the murder of a girl named “Annie,” is much better than any song on Thriller with the exception of “Beat It” and “Billie Jean”. The song “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” a sweet song about love and “The Way You Make Me Feel” a flirtfest considered one of Jackson’s best. The song “Man in the Mirror” was a great song about before changing the world you got to change yourself. The song is one of Michael’s most famous. Bad was also rated 43 in the 100 Greatest Albums of All Time of the MTV Generation in 2009 by VH1. So I hope the next time you listen to Bad you don’t look at it as an extension of Thriller or worse a disappointment to Thriller. This album was Thriller’s first fascinating successor and a masterpiece in its own right.