“The official problem was that the processor blew. It is something that is also difficult to detect, so it took us quite a while before we found this to be the problem,” dance teacher Aaron Gilbert said. “I did not know the processor blew until the show had finished on Friday night. Fortunately, the owner of Aspire was there and went to their gym and loaned us a portable sound system. This was something that could not be foreseen nor could it be repaired quickly. It has yet to be repaired, as a matter of fact. We bypassed the problem so we could have sound for Saturday’s show. We went in at 7a.m. Saturday and the sound expert we hired spent about two –and- a- half hours to accomplish this task.”

While waiting, students, family and parents visited with each other in the auditorium. Also, Richard Cardona and Donivin Duran gave a go of entertaining the crowd with some hip hop moves.

When the show finally began, the audience witnessed a mass of talented dancers showcasing their hard work. In my mind, the talent made up for the problems at the beginning of the show. The audience was very enthusiastic throughout the show and showed massive support for the dancers.

Some of the student choreographers that helped make this show so terrific included Madi Brown, Marisa Koster and Irene Ashu. All of these dancers are members of Corona del Sol’s Dance Company  (CDSDC) and they choreographed at least two dances, as well as co-choreographed the finale, “Run The World”, along with Shelbi Papp.

Each different level danced at least two routines, though CDSDC participated in five: “Heads Will Roll,” “Countdown,” “School Cliques,” “What A Feeling” and “Dock of The Bay” with ranging styles from hip-hop to lyrical.

Overall, I enjoyed the show immensely and would highly encourage any student to go and attend one of Corona del Sol’s upcoming dance shows.

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The pageant is based on a typical Miss America pageant, with a personal interview, talent and onstage question portion. Each girl was judged in each of these categories, showcasing their talents, fashion and smarts.

The beginning of the show began with the personal fact portion. Each contestant walked onstage with a child and struck a pose as the emcee read off facts about the contestant and child.

The next part of the show was the talent portion, where each girl showed off her individual and unique talents. The talents ranged from tumbling to dancing to impersonations, and even comedy.

Formal wear came next, each girl dressed up in a dress and heels and strutted to the front of the stage where once again they struck a pose or gave a sassy face.

After the fashion show each contestant walked on stage where they were asked a question by the emcee and the girls answered in their own unique way. The questions varied from math to personal interests, and the answers given were interesting, to say the least.

At the end of the show four awards were given out. Sophomore Maddie Douglas won the Blockbuster award for most donations collected. Junior Stefani Jarman received the Shining Star award (Miss Congeniality). The talent award was given to freshman Amanda Johnson, who displayed her skill in dance routine. The overall winner of the Miss Corona Pageant was sophomore Jackie Ellis, who showed her strength in each category.

Miss Corona was not just a show; the event also raised approximately $2,500, which was a much bigger success than expected. The money raised is benefiting soldiers overseas during the holiday season. Both Corona Conservatives and Fallen Heroes club worked hard to make the event the success that it was.

“Miss Corona was a very fun and exciting event to attend. The event not only raised money for a good cause, but also gave students a chance to get to know their fellow classmates a whole lot better,” said teacher and co-coordinator Steve Foggatt.  

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This dance is only for freshman, as the name implies. The reason for this exclusive access is because this dance is used to assimilate the new freshman to their Corona class. The only students who are not freshman with access to this dance are the Student Council members.

Student Council is there to help get the freshman dancing, and help the freshman meet new people. The dance floor was a convulsing mob of freshman, along with the Student Council members running around with whistles and blowup pool toys. It made the dance floor a dazzling eye spectacle.

As opposed to last year’s freshman dance, this year was more controlled and watched by the Student Council and Corona staff. Officially, there was no grinding allowed at this dance and although many tried, Student Council excelled at breaking it up and keeping it to a minimum. Although the dancing may have been controlled, the music that came blasting from the back of the gym was not. The beats, sounds and melodies of each song could be heard from the breezeway outside as Neil Bhargava, otherwise known as “DJ EL3MENTS,” boosted the bass and amped up the dance with his great mix of newer and older songs.

This, along with the Student Council and the raving freshman, made for a successful freshman dance.

And that right there is the biggest problem with Shirock’s debut album, Everything Burns. It’s a good, enjoyable album but it feels like Shirock truly thinks that this is a brilliant, world-changing album.

The songs are for the most part political, but almost pretentiously so.

For example, the intro for the song, Everything Burns, which is heavily derivative of the intro for the song KKKY, is a man talking about how everything burns except for people.

It’s a commentary on commercialization and how greed has turned objects into things more important than people. The only problem is that their logic is faulted. People burn to. Once stable relationships can light ablaze and disappear in a cloud of smoke after the wrong thing is said. They really didn’t think what they were saying through.

I much preferred their song Say It Out, a light-pop melody about a relationship. The song isn’t great, but it is enjoyable to the point of even reminding me of Ima Robot. Even the song Man Inside, which they can’t help but throw some little political connotations into, is still just simply a good song.

In the end, that’s how this album should be enjoyed as a decent rock album. I only wish the band knew that.

3 out of 5 stars

The competition started heatedly with the two teacher teams getting to skip the first round and students attacking each other. Balls flew fast. Teams won. Teams lost. The first round found Aztec Annihilators and SHFT Shakers in the loser brackets and Studco Studs and Corona Cruisers going on.

With the teachers now in the competition, things sped up. Carter Cougars massacred the Studco Studs in an exciting and heartwarming battle proving that with age comes the ability to defeat children. Forbes Fighters beat the Corona Cruisers.

On the winner’s side the bracket ended with Forbes Fighters and Carter Cougars still poised to battle each other. While on the loser side, SHFT Shakers beat Aztec Annihilators and Studco Studs got defeated by the Corona Cruisers.

With the teachers going up against each other, the tension in the gym reached its highest point. The air was thick and once the round commenced, it was nearly impossible to turn your eyes away. The end, however, still came, and the ending came for Forbes Fighters losing to the Carter Cougars. On the loser’s side of the bracket, the Corona Cruisers defeated SHFT Shakers.

This next round was purely to determine who was going to go on to battle the Carter Cougars in the finals. The teachers didn’t stand a chance and lost to the Corona Cruisers.

Finally, the Carter Cougars and Corona Cruisers went head to head. It didn’t matter though. The winning streak the Carter Cougars were on carried them all the way and they won. They defeated everybody proving they are the best of the best.

The show began with the emcees explaining the show and asking for the audience to obey certain guidelines. Of course, they said it in a much more entertaining and humorous fashion.

Before getting to the fun of the show, the club showed a series of videos to raise awareness to the crowd about what they were taking a stand for. The videos were quite moving and really helped to open the eyes of many who may have just showed up for the models.

Then began the struts. Student models were able to strike three poses in their runway that formed a “W” pattern. They came out in pairs or single and not all had the typical tux and dress look. Senior Pablo de Leon wore a wrestling uniform and struck up a pose of a handstand at a point.

Others found other means of transportation in their strut by riding scooters down the runway.

The struts were entertaining but somewhat short lived; it seemed as the models’ time on stage was quickly over.

Followed was the award ceremony as judges agreed on winners for best strut and best dressed. De Leon came out on top for his courage in wearing a wrestling uniform on the stage, and junior Chris Conger came out with best strut.

The event was highly entertaining and supports a very good cause. I would recommend any student to attend this event in the next annual STAND fashion show.

Songs in the concert ranged from a genre of classical requiems to pop hits, like the song “Car Wash” by Rose Royce. Additionally, the A Cappella choir fortunately had the opportunity to perform a full requiem that consisted of seven parts.

The concert began with Encore singing several songs: “Jordan’s Angels,” “In Mote Oliverti” and the 1940’s jazz tune “Route 66.”  Each song was wonderful, but in my opinion I enjoyed Route 66 the most because of its joyful and lively spirit.

Men’s Chorus came next with another three songs. I did not enjoy the first song, “Festival Sanctus”, but the group rallied with their hit, Johnny Shmoker. Johnny Shmoker was a simple, repetitive song but it included several movements that were quite amusing. The last song that the Men’s Chorus sang was the pop tune “You’re Lost that Lovin’ Feeling,” which was a song meant for lonely hearts. While the crew was performing, there were several girls that came out onto stage and stole the choir’s attention.  As girls walked on and off the stage, the choir would gesture lovingly to the ladies, portraying their “love.” All in all, the Men’s Chorus had a very strong performance.

Next, the Jaztecs, a 22 member group comprised of A Cappella singers, came on stage and performed “Car Wash,” a 1970’s soul tune, “Do Nothin’ Till you hear from me,” a jazz ballad, and lastly “Bridge O’er Troubled Water,” a 1960’s folk hit. The first song, “Car Wash” was pleasing because of its familiarity and catchy beat. However, the other two songs however weren’t as enjoyable because of their sluggish tempo and lack of movements.

After the Jaztecs, A Cappella sang a 35-minute requiem consisting of seven parts. Frankly, I thought the requiem was very boring, mainly because of its length. Choir teacher Greg Hebert even announced at the beginning of the song that this requiem is quite lengthy, and it would be wise to take small children outside as to not disrupt the song.

Finally, the Women’s Ensemble took to the stage and sang another three songs. Their last song, “We are Family” was a pleasurable tune because of its astonishing soloists, who performed wonderfully.

To close, the parent choir was brought on stage and sang three final songs: “Sing A Mighty Song,”  “If Music be the Food of Love,” and “Lean on Me.” The finales were spectacular, especially their last song “Lean on Me,” where the entire choir program came out to sing with them.

All in all, the CdS choir program put on an amazing concert that left the audience in awe.

We left Thursday night and arrived in Long Beach the next morning, where clouds loomed across the entire sky. After arriving at the dock, our class was told some daunting news: waves were too large for the boat to travel through. This upset in arrangements caused some unrest, but fortunately Trim Trim had a back-up plan.

Instead of taking the boat, we walked to the nearby Long Beach Aquarium.  The extensive aquarium offered an insight to the marine aquatic life that we would later be studying on Catalina Island. On our way back to the port unfortunately, the clouds above started to downpour, and we had to dash from the entrance of the aquarium to a bus in the distance.

That night, we stayed in a rather cramped boat terminal and played cards and watched movies to keep ourselves entertained.

The next morning, we quickly packed our bags and got on the boat before waves became too turbulent. Despite the waters looking tranquil, many of us soon realized that the Dramamine we took at breakfast might be coming back up. About halfway through the ride, students began to hurl. Almost half of the kids on the ride became seasick, while the other half laughed at their friends throwing up.

Finally, we arrived at the island and the camp leaders led us to our dorms where they gave the schedule for the day. The plans were to go on a morning snorkel after unpacking, and then work on several labs for the rest of the afternoon. Snorkeling was a first for many of us, so the leaders had to instruct everyone on putting on a wetsuit. After strapping up, our groups hopped into the frigid water and began the snorkel. On the dive, instructors pointed out sea critters that many of us had never seen before. One animal that the leader brought up from the sandy bottom was a sea cucumber. Ben, our leader, claimed that smooching this slimy creature would ensure a year of good fortune. Despite some hesitance, junior Tanya Nguyen decided to kiss the cucumber and hope for the best. Students saw many other animals, including several leopard sharks and many garibaldi fish.

After the dive, we dried off and began our three labs: invertebrates, fish, and sharks. During the fish lab, students observed fish common to Catalina Island while instructors lectured about basic fish anatomy. Later, we moved to the interactive shark/ray lab. In our second lab, we had the opportunity to pet sharks and rays gliding around in the tank nearby as our teacher gave a lecture on sharks. Lastly, we moved to the invertebrate lab, where students observed water samples from the nearby water and identified different species of plankton.

That night, we were given the choice to dissect a squid or go on another dive. In spite of freezing temperatures and rainy conditions, more than half of our class decided to dive. As one of the divers, I saw many fantastic things that we were unable to see during the day. For instance, we viewed bioluminescence, a phenomenon where living organisms in the water emit their own light. As we splashed around in the water, specks of light fluttered around in front of us, before fading into the darkness. After getting out of the water, we yanked off the wetsuits and dashed to the hot showers in the freezing rain. The long day had finally come to an end, and we went to bed without much commotion.

The next morning, we packed our bags and prepared for the final activity of the trip: another dive. Despite the terrible weather the day before, skies were clear and the sun was shining brightly. We quickly strapped up and dove into the water for what seemed like a very quick dive. Not much was different than the previous day, but the dive was still enjoyable. Once we got out of the water, everyone changed into a set of dry clothes and hopped on the boat and prepared for the long ride home.

Regardless of our original plans going awry, this year’s snorkel trip seemed to be a fantastic experience for everyone who went.

Students voted for the Mr. Corona nominees in their third hour. Three representatives are being chosen from each grade level.

This year there is quite a diverse group of young men competing. The freshman representatives are Jordan Somerville, Omar Soussi and Johnny Osgood. For the sophomores we have Nathan Samuels, Fateh Fini and Nate Sell. The juniors competing include Steven Womer, Drake Ridge and Dong-Hyun Kim. Finally, we have the seniors with their representatives Vamsi Varra, Jeff Wattel and Heath Dwyer.

Even though March of Dimes isn’t hosting the pageant this year, Student Council has decided to put the collected money toward March of Dimes and Prom.  This year’s pageant theme is “celebrity.” Some of the types of categories include best smile, best talent, Mr. Congeniality and Mr. Hollywood. The boys will all be doing a group dance with some of Corona’s dancers as they have done in previous years.

 There will be a total of nine judges, including three faculty members, one administrator, four students (one per class level) and a former Mr. Corona winner.

The Mr. Corona pageant is on Friday, Feb. 11 at 7 p.m. in the auditorium. There will be an entrance fee of $5 per person.