Harker’s Quiz Kids team – Olivia Zhu, Richard Chiou and Peter Gao, all grade 12 – was in fine form on Oct. 17, as they defeated San Mateo High School with a score of 620-110. That same weekend, a quiz team of Max Isenberg, grade 11, and grade 9 students Nikhil Dilip, Andrew Zhu and Varun Mohan participated in the Cal Classic quiz bowl competition, where they finished in fifth place out of nine teams. The team started out strong, winning four games in a row before meeting four tough teams. They finished 4-4, coming up short in two very close contests.
Harker’s 2010 Homecoming, the second at Davis Field, is Fri., Nov. 12, against Valley Christian of Dublin, and preparations have begun. Balloting for the Homecoming king and queen took place at the end of October but a score of tough backstairs jobs are underway. A few days before game day, additional bleachers will be erected to accommodate the crowd, public address equipment will be checked and re-checked, placement for others on and near the field – alumni, cheerleaders, Eaglets (the littlest Eagles), the jazz band – will have been allocated and the groups notified.
Parking, always tricky at big events, is being carefully regulated. Parking information is posted on the Harker website. Please note the main parking lot will be closed to all but those with appropriate placards and everyone should park at Blackford and take the shuttle to Saratoga. Student pick-up on game day will be only at the rear loading zone.
Up front, things are equally organized. In front of Main, the Davis family’s motor home will again host guests of honor while a few yards away, on Rosenthal Field, tailgaters will deploy and bounce houses will go up. Alumni will have a special area to congregate, dodge the crowd and see friends.The real action starts at 4 p.m., when the JV team takes the field. Barbeque will be available for purchase starting at 5 and the ever-popular Carley’s Café food trailer opens at 6 p.m.
Before the game starts, though, will come the semifinal round of the traditional tug-of-war contest, along with a dash of entertainment by the Varsity Dance Troupe and the Harker Jazz band.
Prior to the Big Game, Junior Cheerleaders take over the field, followed by the unforgettable Eaglets Fly-Through, and the national and Harker anthems will be sung by all the Harker choirs combined. At halftime the Homecoming court will be presented, with the king and queen announced at the Homecoming dance on Saturday evening. Get your tickets now, because this is sure to be a real extravaganza!
In late September, the roster of Associated Student Body officers was updated to include the grade 9 ASB representatives. They are: Arjun Goyal, president; Sahithya Prakash, vice president; Vincent Lin, secretary; and Mary Liu, treasurer.
Representatives for the class of 2013 are: Simar Mangat, president; Raghav Sehtia, vice president; David Lindars, secretary; and Kevin Lin, treasurer.
Class of 2010 representatives are: Revanth Kosaraju, president; David Fang, vice president; Max Isenberg, secretary; and Sankalp Raju treasurer.
Finally, the representatives for the class of 2011 are: Hassaan Ebrahim, president; David Wu, vice president; Rani Mukherjee, secretary; and Vlad Sepetov, treasurer.
This year’s ASB officers are: Santosh Swaminathan, grade 12, president; Gautam Krishnamurthi, grade 12, vice president; Alex Najibi, grade 11, secretary; and Nilesh Murali, grade 12, treasurer.
Honor Council representatives for the class of 2013 are Nayeon Kim and Emily Wang. Representing the class of 2012 are Frederic Enea, Priyanka Mody and Nicole Dalal. Class of 2011 representatives are Josephine Chen, Christine Chien and Olivia Zhu. Freshman representatives will be announced in January 2011.
Honor Council faculty members for this year are: Anthony Silk, chair, Pauline Paskali and Mark Brada.
A total of 52 grade 12 students have received commendations from this year’s National Merit program, putting them among about 34,000 students out of 1.5 million nationwide. They are: Ambrish Amaranthan, Trisha Basu, Appu Bhaskar, Rishi Bhatia, Tracey Chan, Jacob Chappell, Meghna Chatterjee, Christine Chien, Daniel Cho, Timothy Chou, Jennifer Dai, Mallika Dhaliwal, Anthony Fandrianto, Katharine Forsberg, Peter Gao, Pierre Gerard, Vrinda Goel, Miranda Gorman, Ashley Hejtmanek, Anshul Jain, Lorraine Kim, Warren Kwong, Christina Li, Andrew Liang, Katie Liang, Kristi Lui, Rohan Mahajan, Partha Mahajani, Henna Mishra, Daisy Mohrman, Shireen Moshkelani, Arko Mukherjee, Moneesha Mukherjee, Nirjhar Mundkur, Chris Ng, Margaux Nielsen, Shannon O’Reilly, Ruchika Podury, Michael Prutton, Tanya Rai, James Seifert, Ganesh Sivakumar, Naomi So, Catherine Stiles, Supraja Swamy, Diane Villadsen, Michelle Vu, Allika Walvekar, Aileen Wen, Timothy Weng, Anne West and Kenneth Wong.
Students entered this year’s contest by taking the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Commendations are given to students who post “outstanding” scores and place among the top 50,000 students taking the exam. The top 16,000 in this category go on to be semifinalists.
On Oct. 13, the Class of 2015 participated in the annual freshman service day. In their advisory groups, they went to various sites including the Humane Society, Elkus Ranch, Eco Magic and the San Jose Family Shelter.
Serving as an introduction to community service, the daylong event “is also a nice way to go out with advisories and bond outside of school,” said Kerry Enzensperger, director of upper school community service.
Raghav Sehtia is stepping up to citizenship in a big way. In early September, the Harker sophomore was named an intern in California State Assembly Member Jim Beall’s office. In addition, he has become a member of the San Jose Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC). Sehtia works in Beall’s office once a week and is one of the youngest people there; most of the other interns are college undergraduates. Along with routine front office duties, Sehtia helps with case research on citizen complaints as well as issues regarding public services like the DMV or the Megan’s Law database. He also assists in outreach for Cal grants plus state and federal funding for students for college. To publicize the application process for such aid, Sehtia is producing a newsletter article as well as seeking other means of spreading the word.
As a member of the BPAC, Sehtia will help the committee advise the city council and other policy makers on how to best accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians throughout San Jose. He has been appointed to a two-year term and will meet with other members approximately once a month.
Dancers, singers and musicians will again help celebrate “Light Up the Night” at Santana Row, a long-time Harker Fashion Show sponsor. Performers will gather Tues., Nov. 16 from 6-6:30 p.m. for the annual tree lighting, which this year is being directed by our own Laura Lang-Ree, director of performing arts. Harker groups Dance Fusion, US Jazz Band and Downbeat will all be performing prior to the tree lighting on the green outside Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurant. The entire event runs from 3-9 p.m. More details are available at http://www.santanarow.com/events/calendar/2010/11/ (yes, the photo on their site is Harker’s Dance Fusion at last year’s performance!).
Rohan Chandra, grade 10, is one of 10 first place national winners of the Scholastic BE BIG in Your Community contest, in which people submitted ideas to help improve their communities. Chandra will receive a $2,500 grant to help his idea come to life. His plan is to make and distribute “Earthquake Kits” to the senior citizens in his area, which runs an especially high risk of experiencing a major earthquake.
These kits would contain essentials such as water, a flashlight, first-aid supplies, medicine and non-perishable foods. Because Chandra’s community is very ethnically diverse, the kits would also come with instructions in various languages such as Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, Urdu and Tagalog, so that more people will be able to clearly and quickly understand important information in the event of an earthquake-related emergency. The contest organizers provide the structure for winners to complete their proposals. Chandra’s was one of nearly 1,000 entries; more than 25,000 community members of all ages submitted for the contest: one top-10 winner was 55.
Jo Ann Bibb, a wellness clinician at the Bon Secour Hospital’s Mind Body Institute in Richmond, Va., spoke at Nichols Auditorium on Oct. 4 and 6 about various ways to reduce stress and live a healthier life.
At the Oct. 4 appearance, Bibb, who is the mother of upper school math teacher Jane Keller, who organized the events, spoke to grade 11 parents on how stress can impact one’s mind, body and character, and also offered tips on stress reduction. Bibb spoke to the juniors on Oct. 6 on the same topics.
“Stress is a perceived situation where you feel you have no control,” Bibb explained to the students. “In those moments, your body freezes and the adrenaline rushes and you’re not much different from the caveman who was running away from the tiger.”
Bibb then showed the students a “simple but profound exercise” that could reduce stress levels and help students function more productively. The exercise involved closing one’s eyes and finding sensation in the hands, feet, back and seat areas, and then focusing on breathing.
“Very often, you’re in your head trying to figure out what to do, where the safest place, most reasonable place to be is calm in your body, but you just can’t quite find it,” Bibb said.
Going through this exercise for just 10 minutes a day can keep students from becoming too wrapped up in stressful situations, thus rendering them more able to face them.
Thorough practice of the exercise will also make them more able to recall the sensations so that they can reduce stress more quickly and easily.
“That little stockpile of time … goes through your day,” Bibb said. “You have a much more easeful use of your brain. Things are more easily accessed.”
Football
Congratulations to Rishi Bhatia, grade 12, for being named Mercury News Male Athlete of the Week for his stellar performance in the Eagles’ game against Capuchino High School. The full story can be read here.
Harker suffered its first loss of the year to powerhouse Salesian 56-18. The full story is in the Contra Costa Times. The team is now 1-1 in league and has its next game against league opponent St Elizabeth. St Elizabeth is 0-1 in league after a loss to Berean Christian.
Cross Country
The Eagles traveled to their second league race of the year at Shoreline and both the girls and boys did impressively. Ragini Bhattacharya, grade 10, placed third overall with freshman Claudia Tischler coming in right behind her at fifth. The girls are currently tied for second in league. Not to be outdone, the boys took third in the event. Proteek Biswas, grade 11, placed 10th followed immediately by Adarsh Ranganathan, grade 12. They are currently tied for third in league.
Golf
The girls are on a hot streak right now with two big wins last week against Notre Dame and Menlo. They are currently 5-3 and third in league. Having season lows last week were: Kristine Lin, grade 9; Jessica Son, grade 10; Nina Sabharwal, grade 10; and Patricia Huang, grade 10, who shot an impressive 34 against Menlo. The Eagles face Mercy-Burlingame and Sacred Heart this week.
Tennis
The Eagles lost to a tough Menlo squad last week but responded to the defeat well with wins against Fremont and Pinewood later in the week. This week they lost a close match, 3-4, to Sacred Heart Preparatory. They are currently 9-4 overall and an impressive 5-2 in league and have a big match against highly-ranked Saratoga this week.
Water Polo
The girls had an impressive 10-4 victory over Mountain View last week, avenging an earlier first-round loss. Cynthia Shwe, grade 12, led the team with five goals and was supported by Keri Clifford, grade 10, with four and Niva Bigler, grade 12, with one. Sierra Lincoln, grade 10, was stellar in goal with 10 saves.
The boys had two tough losses last week against Wilcox, currently number one in league, and Saratoga. Chris Ng, grade 12; Rex Chen, grade 12; Ryan Hume, grade 10; Gabe Yanovsky, grade 12; and Karan Das-Grande, grade 10, all had goals against Wilcox. Both the girls and boys travel to Cupertino and Lynbrook this week for league matches.
Volleyball
The girls continue to face tough opponents in one of the most competitive leagues in Northern California. Their overall record remains strong at 13-7 even after tough losses to Menlo, Mercy-Burlingame and Notre Dame. The Eagles aren’t making it easy on anyone, taking Menlo and Notre Dame to five games and Mercy to four. They will look to get out of their current slump in their game against Castilleja this week.