Author: Victoria Juan

  • Spring sports : the competitions to begin

    Swim Although Westlake High School has historically dominated the Marmonte League swim teams, this year’s NPHS team is looking forward to upsetting their throne after several close races last year. “The goal this year is to rile everyone up, get them all excited for swim team, and hopefully maybe beat Westlake,” Sandy Nguyen, senior…

  • “Arrival” arrives as a stunning existential sci-fi masterpiece

    Think of any typical science fiction film and images of aggressive extraterrestrials, militaristic flying spacecrafts and advanced laser guns immediately come to mind. This is not so for “Arrival”: focusing on the philosophy rather than the action of sci-fi, its aliens are peaceful elephant-like heptapods, the spacecraft is an inactive oblong block, and the…

  • Vegans: They are loud, they are proud

    Imagine life without leather belts, juicy steaks, drugstore foundation and weekend trips to Seaworld. This may sound like a distant dream, but for vegans, it’s a very real, daily lifestyle. Vegans avoid all products and events which use or exploit animals, including food, clothing, makeup, and entertainment choices. Many vegans choose this lifestyle due…

  • Health class revised to officially include LGBTQ+ curriculum

    The health department and CVUSD School Board have begun the process of revising the health class curriculum in order to align with Assembly Bill No. 329, which was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown in early October 2015 and took effect at the start of 2016. The law mandates sexual education along with…

  • Create and Compete: Jazz bands take music to a new level of creativity

    As the cymbals tap away consistently like the sound of quivering glass, saxophones, trombones and trumpets blare in syncopation with a rhythm of long-short notes. The notes climb higher and higher, swirling as they reach the climax, then drop to silence as the piano rings bright against the light backdrop of cymbals and toms.…

  • Lies and Truths of High School

    As young and naive children who watched Disney Channel and read Harry Potter, we dreamed about high school. We dreamed about tall swanky lockers that we’d decorate with posters and pictures, close friend groups that clashed against other groups, and bubbled-in scantrons of standardized tests that held the key to our success (well, maybe…

  • Wasteful runs in the concrete jungle: Why marathons don’t belong in the city

    Downtown LA traffic. No other words even need to be spoken for this phrase to immediately conjure an image of a long, solid mass of red tail lights and white front lights crammed into thin, 3-lane strips of highway. Even in the local streets, cars and buses meander through Los Angeles’s awkward curvy streets…

  • Obama proposes Computer Science for All initiative

    President Barack Obama has proposed a “CS For All” initiative to promote computer science in K-12 schools and in communities across the nation. In an address on Jan. 30, he revealed details of his plan, which include a $4 billion budget for states and school districts to expand their computer science classes,  $135 million…

  • Speech state qualifications hosted on campus

    Newbury Park High School hosted the Tri-County Forensic League’s Individual State Events Qualifier on March 4-5. With 26 schools in attendance, this was the largest speech tournament of the league and the biggest event ever hosted by NPHS’s speech and debate branch, which is relatively new and small compared to other branches. “We were…

  • Conner awarded exemplary educator of California

    Janet Conner, I.B. English teacher and Extended Essay coordinator, was awarded on Jan. 28 with the Exemplary I.B. Educator Award by the California Association of World Schools (CAWS) for her representation and dedication to the program. Specifically, CAWS states that the award “is offered in recognition of an outstanding educator at your school who…