The Student Voice of California State University, Fullerton

February 8, 2011Vol. 89 Issue 4

dai lyt i tan.com

Becoming a second-time poker kingJohn Rivera, winner of last year’s Texas Hold ‘em Poker Tournament on campus, competes for a second time

............................................5

WHAT’S INSIDE

NEWSMandatory Early Start Program........................................3

OPINIONIs law school a good idea for you?........................................4

FEATURESSingapore-style food truck serves downtown Fullerton........................................5

SPORTS Titan lacrosse dominates USC in homegame........................................8

Milton Gordon to be reviewed by CSU

President Milton Gordon will be reviewed by the CSU Board of Trustees this May in regards to his leadership and the current state of affairs at Cal State Fullerton.

Every president within the CSUs is reviewed every year in a conference with the chancellor. Every three years a paper review is conducted and every six years a more labor-intensive review is conducted by a team of four in-dividuals.

The team, which includes one trustee and three others (who could be retired presidents from other systems or former faculty), will spend one day on the CSUF campus. They will interview some 40 individuals that are chosen by Chancellor Reed’s chief-of-staff, Sandra George. These individuals are randomly selected by George from a list of 100 people connect-ed with the university and com-munity.

“It’s a good, fair process; we do a thorough job,” George said. “We do the same kind of review on ev-ery (CSU) campus.”

See GORDON, page 2

Board of Trustees will begin their analysis of the CSUF President’s performance

FRANCES LEEDaily Titan

The Salsa Club executes a sample performance during the Homecoming event located in front of the Titan Gym. For full story see SALSA CLUB page 5.

MARK SAMALA / Daily Titan

CSUF Salsa Club: Dancing to a different tune

CSUF’s only victory against Hawaii came from Titan sophomores Tiffany Mai and Monica Rodriguez. Rodriguez, shown above, and Mai claimed the victory, 8-4 at Titan Courts on Feb. 5.

MARK SAMALA / Daily Titan

President Gordon who has been with Cal State Fullerton since 1990 is on deck to be evaluated this school year.

Photo courtesy of Public Affairs

Putting an end to procrastination Eliminating the constant struggle between scholastic success and the countless distractions that stand in the way

The start of a new semester in-vites students to begin afresh. What is done is in the past and the new semester awaits further achievements. However, the old enemy “procrastination” continues to try to derail students from their diligent studies.

WILLIAM CHENDaily Titan

The Problem

A research study conducted by the Psychological Bulletin in 2007 by Piers Steel revealed that roughly 80 to 95 percent of college stu-dents engage in procrastination. One of the causes, indicated by the research, is distractibility. On-line videos, Web surfing, iPods and Blackberries are some venues of dis-tractions in the tech-savvy culture today, according to an article in

USA Today.Cal State Fullerton staff and stu-

dents recognize procrastination as a problem that needs to be battled. Although this is a large problem, both parties provide hope that de-veloping new habits can prevent procrastination.

The Suggestion

Peggy Bockman, the assistant dean for Student Affairs, suggests

students do more than time man-agement.

“What I think is important is self-management,” Bockman said. “[Self–management] is where peo-ple need to assess themselves and their surroundings and figure out how they are going to prioritize based on their own individual ex-perience.”

Bockman oversees the advising center and through her years work-ing with an eclectic range of stu-

dents, from careful planners to con-fused plotters, she has found it is more important for students to balance the different responsibilities in their lives as a whole.

Although she sees the need for self-management and planning for the semester, she also understands some-times life is just hard. Therefore, she compassionately works with students on academic probation.

“I approach academic advising to that special population from the van-tage point that something has gotten in the way of their doing their best work,” Bockman said.

She sees the need to care for the discouraged, but at the same time encourage others to plan and manage their lives. She believes self-manage-ment should be an ongoing practice for an individual’s life.

Brenda Garcia, a senior Spanish major, has found that being married, having a part-time job and being a stu-dent requires her to create a detailed calendar.

“The calendar is my best friend,” Garcia said.

Garcia only has the nighttime to study after doing certain house chores.

“I usually leave time at the end of the day to study and review for the class I had that particular day,” Garcia said.

Garcia is fortunate to be able to manage those weighty tasks, but that doesn’t mean everyone has developed an effective way to balance their lives.

Looking out a window from Col-lege Park, there is a scene of tranquil-ity. Students are walking across Com-monwealth Avenue with books in their hands and the sunset as a backdrop. In Egypt, sounds of gun shots are heard throughout the day while make-shift firebombs light up the night.

Sara Nasr, 23, a public relations major and president of the Middle Eastern Student Society, walks into one of the Daily Titan’s newsrooms in College Park where her interview-ers are waiting. According to Tamara Khoury, 21, a nursing major and a board member for Students for Justice in Palestine, Nasr is a mild-tempered person who “sugar coats” things when talking so she won’t come across con-frontational.

Nasr pulls on the sleeves of her black sweater, a sign of nervousness, for her tardiness. But tardiness is the least of her worries.

The government’s reaction to the protesters in Egypt has made Nasr uncertain about the well-being of her family in Cairo. At the time, Egypt’s government cut every form of com-munication the people had, which made it impossible for Nasr to check on her family.

She has family living in New Cairo, Ma’adi and Nasr City, cities within Cairo and not too far from Tahrir Square where CNN reported “11 people dead and more than 900 others injured” on Wednesday and Thursday.

See SARA, page 6

Sara Nasr assembles a candlelight vigil to raise awareness of the cause in Egypt

CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZDaily Titan

Fearing for family stuck in Egypt

See TIME, page 2

Women’s tennis falls hard to Rainbow Wahine In a blowout non-conference game with Hawaii, the Titans fall in their fifth match of the season

ARIANNE CUSTERSDaily Titan

On Feb. 5 the Cal State Fullerton women’s tennis team had three dou-bles and six singles matches against the University of Hawaii. “Keep up the energy. Keep up the thinking,” were the starting words of encour-agement from CSUF Head Coach Bill Reynolds.

Keeping an eye on all three dou-bles matches, Reynolds suggested approaches to cutting off the oppos-ing teams’ serving methods.

“Try not to back up on the deep balls. Move forward,” said Reynolds. “Let’s go girls! Let’s battle, come on, you got to believe.”

Despite these words of direction and guidance, the Titans lost two of the three doubles matches and all six singles. One point is given for the most match wins in doubles and one point is given per singles match win. Despite this 7-0 defeat, the young team of two freshmen, four sopho-mores, one junior and one senior learned some lessons.

When Megan Sandford came off the first doubles court and slumped on the bench after her loss with fel-

low freshman Morgan McIntosh, Reynolds said, “I think the emotions got the best of you.”

Through frustrations of the out-come, Stanford did not want to give

the coach a high-five after the match.“The most important thing in

doubles is how the two players get along. You can have the two best players in the world but if the chem-

istry is not there...” Reynolds said with a shrug.

See TITANS, page 8

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CORRECTIONFor the article entitled “committee plans courtyard rede-sign,” published in the daily titan on Feb. 7, 2011:It was reported on Page 3 that Kurt Borsting is the director of the TSC. Borsting is the director of the TSU. It was also reported that Megan Morrison is a committe chair. Morrison is the TSC board chair.

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NEWS2

February 8, 2011

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FOR THE RECORDIt is the policy of the Daily Titan to correct any inaccurate informa-

tion printed in the publication as soon as the error is discovered. Any incorrect information printed on the front page will result in a cor-rection printed on the front page. Any incorrect information printed on any other page will be corrected on page 2. Errors on the Opinion page will be corrected on that page. Corrections also will be noted on the online version of the Daily Titan.

Please contact Editor-in-Chief Isa Ghani at 657-278-5815 or at dteditorinchief@gmail.com with issues about this policy or to report any errors.

DTSHORTHAND

According to a recent report from the state legislative ana-lyst, California taxes, normally paid as a surcharge included in residential electricity bills, may have been wasted on what they are describing as “questionable research.”

Californians have been paying roughly 2 percent of their elec-tricity bills to fund the California Energy Commission’s Public In-terest Energy Research program since 2001. Of that accumulated funding, about 10 percent of the total was spent through grants. The report from the state legis-lative analyst questions how the $700 million that went to these grants relate to energy.

According to a report from KABC, supporters of the sur-charge, which just expired in January, argue that the PIER program had a positive effect in helping drive development of energy-efficient commercial fry-ers and move California to CFL light bulbs.

Hearings have been scheduled later this month where the Cali-fornia Energy Commission will have to justify the questionable research. The hearings will be chaired by state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-San Fernando Valley).

California research funds “wasted”

Brief by Wesley Nease

A shooting occurred north of Youngstown State University in Ohio on Sunday, Feb. 6, kill-ing one and leaving 11 people wounded.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Omega Psi Phi frater-nity house party had an estimated 50 or more people present early Sunday morning.

Party-goers created a “stam-pede atmosphere” as they tried to escape gunfire.

Seven of the victims, including the victim that was shot to death, are students at Youngstown State University.

Two suspects are being charged with aggravated murder and 11 counts of felonious assault. Nei-ther of the suspects are students at the university nor members of the fraternity.

Eleven wounded in frat shooting

Brief by Amy Leadbetter

The Consensus

Business Academic Adviser Michelle Lucio believes that incurring too many classes and responsibilities at a time could actually be detrimental.

“The thing I emphasize to students is to be realistic about how much they can handle not only in terms of school but in their per-sonal lives,” said Lucio. “Most of the time when I see students struggling, they have taken on too much.”

Lucio advises students who work 40 hours a week to take no more than 2 or 3 classes a semester. This is to prevent them from an overbearing schedule.

In addition to taking fewer classes, she encourages those with a busy life to be diligent in organizing their schedule.

Lucio remembers carefully organiz-ing her schedule during her student years in order to juggle the multiple responsibilities she had during college.

She also believes that a student needs to understand his or her circumstances in order to progress into diligent plan-ning.

TIME: AVOIDING GRADE-KILLING DISTRACTIONS TO SUCCEED

...Continued from page 1 The Big Picture

Lucio’s role as adviser causes her to view the problem of procrastination from the vantage point of graduation.

She notices business majors put off certain classes like calculus, which is an important prerequisite to other classes.

“The main reason I see students putting things off is because they are afraid of the subject,” Lucio said.

“They are afraid they are going to fail.”

She exhorts stu-dents in general to face their fears head-on and go to the resources avail-able on campus to

help them, like the professor, the tutoring

center and aca-demic advisers.

“I think it is a good practice to see an adviser at least once a semester,” Lucio said.

Lucio believes the advising staff of every department is more than happy to help students to make sure they don’t put off classes or misunderstand the road to graduation.

“We are all here to serve the stu-dents and to make sure they meet their goal of being successful graduates of Cal State Fullerton.”

The Cal State Universities are in the planning stages of both the Doctor of Nursing Practice and Doctor of Physical Therapy pilot programs, intended to meet the increased demand for higher education in the medical field.

MARK SAMALA / Daily Titan

The CSU Board of Trustees approved the planning of both Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) pilot programs Wednesday, Jan. 26.

A southern DNP program would be offered jointly by Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach and Los Angeles cam-puses, with Fresno and San Jose State sharing a northern division, and San Diego State offering an independent program, if approved by the chancellor after further re-view, according to the CSU Public Affairs Office.

The DPT pilot programs are proposed to include Fres-no and San Diego State, Cal State Long Beach, North-ridge and Sacramento.

California adopted laws AB 867, which allowed the CSUs to offer an independent DNP, and AB 2382, allow-ing the CSUs to offer DPT programs, last year.

The proposed DNP programs are intended to fill the increasing need for nursing faculty and to prepare nursing students for the rising academic standards of accrediting bodies in the field, according to the CSU Public Affairs Office.

“Our current advanced practice nurses that were pre-paring at the master’s level now will need to be prepared at the doctoral level,” said Cindy Greenberg, chair of the CSUF Department of Nursing.

B.J. Snell, director of Women’s Health Care Con-centration, said fields such as nursing, physical therapy, medicine, pharmacy and occupational therapy are all on a trend to move to the doctorate level for entry to practice.

Beginning in 2015, the National Commission on Ac-creditation in Physical Therapy Education will only grant accreditation to programs offering doctorate degrees, ac-cording to the CSU.

Greenberg said that the increasing complexities in health care have demanded higher education, especially in practice.

The relatively new DNP is a practice-based degree, in contrast to the doctorate in nursing, which is primarily focused on research, according to Greenberg.

“The ultimate result is better health care and better outcomes for the population,” Greenberg said.

The new DNP programs would also help contribute to the faculty pool, as teaching courses and curriculum strategies would be required, Greenberg said.

Shortages in faculty have led to students being turned away from entering the nursing field, which was one of the primary reasons that the CSU made top legislative pri-orities of getting AB 867 and AB 2382 passed, according to Erik Fallis, CSU Media Relations specialist.

“In any university that I have ever been in, there con-tinues to be the need for doctorally prepared faculty,” said Snell.

Although the pilot DNP programs must still be re-viewed for budget and feasibility examination before approval at the chancellor’s level, the doctorate level de-grees will be built from existing bachelor’s and master’s programs, using existing resources provided by the depart-ments, Fallis said. If approved, the DNP and DPT pro-grams can be offered as soon as 2012.

Greenberg said the CSUF Nursing Department would work within the university’s budget to offer the DNP pro-gram.

Pilot programs in medicine CSU Board of Trustees approves planning of two new doctorate degrees

ANDREW KWOKDaily Titan

GORDON: REVIEW OF PRESIDENT UNDERWAY

According to past reviews, the criteria includes the “overall man-agement of the university, relations on campus and within the system, educational leadership, community relations, major achievements of the campus and president, and personal characteristics of the president.”

Students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members may also sub-mit a confidential letter to the chan-cellor that will be summarized and presented to President Gordon dur-ing the review. The letters must stick to the listed criteria on the campus website and must be signed.

...Continued from page 1“I feel great about the review be-

cause I’m fairly confident that I’m going to be presented with positive comments,” said Gordon. “I know I’ll get some negative ones but the positive comments will outweigh the negative ones.”

Gordon added that within the past six years, he expanded the student body and built numerous buildings throughout the campus, including Mihaylo Hall, the Rec Center, Child Care Center and a third residence hall.

Although many members of the faculty and staff declined to com-ment on the outcome of the review, the student body was eager to share what they thought of the president.

“I receive the mass emails and statements from President Gordon, but that is all the interaction I have had with him,” said Sean McReyn-olds, 23, a political science major. “As a political science major, I correlate the happenings at CSUF with how I view political officials. As government officials are deeply connected with constituents, I think the president of our school should be involved with the student body. I’d like to see him go around and show his face. It might bring the student body together.”

Gordon’s last review was in May 2006, which concluded that he was a “highly respected president of CSUF” and “admired and respected by all constituent groups.” The review included his expansion of the student body from 25,000 students to over 35,000 students. He also opened the El Toro campus to accommodate the growth and a new parking structure to alleviate parking tension among students.

Those that wish to submit a letter for President Gordon’s review may do so by addressing it to Dr. Charles B. Reed at 401 Golden Shore, Suite 641, Long Beach, CA 90802.

The Daily Titan is a student publication, printed every Monday through Thursday. The Daily Titan operates independently of Associated Students, College of Communications, CSUF administration and the CSUF System. The Daily Titan has functioned as a public forum since inception. Unless implied by the advertising party or otherwise stated, advertising in the Daily Titan is inserted by commercial activities or ventures identified in the advertisements themselves and not by the university. Such printing is not to be construed as written or implied sponsorship, endorsement or investigation of such com-mercial enterprises. The Daily Titan allocates one issue to each student for free.

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Following the political unrest in Egypt, other Arab countries reconsidered their autocratic gov-ernments.

Last Tuesday, King Abdullah II of Jordan fired his Cabinet and appointed Marouf Bakhit as the new prime minister to “correct mistakes from the past.” With the dictator in Tunisia removed, it was anticipated that Syria would respond with a revolt of its own.

However, the “days of rage” ex-pected to happen on Friday and Saturday against Bashar Assad’s domineering rule were a no-show. The uprisings in the Arab region seem not to influence Syr-ia to revolt. After Saturday after-noon, the security in Damascus decreased tremendously, accord-ing the Los Angeles Times.

Unrest continues in the Middle East

Brief by William Chen

- Michelle LucioBusiness Academic Adviser

“Most of the time when I see students struggling, they have taken on too much.”

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NEWS 3

February 8, 2011

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In early 2010, the CSU Board of Trustees voted that all 23 CSU cam-puses must create and implement new programs in remedial English and math. CSU campuses were given until Nov. 19, 2010, to come up with an individual strategy in accordance to the needs of their universities.

These mandatory early start plans will go into full effect by summer 2012 with complete implementation by summer 2014 after the Chancellor’s Office reviews each CSU program, according to the Access and Equity Group.

Ed Trotter, Cal State Fullerton’s acting associate vice president for CSUF undergraduate programs; Javier Ramirez, M.F.A., student retention services to CSUF; Kimberly King, Ph.D., associate professor of psychol-ogy at Cal State University Los Ange-les; and Steve Teixeira, Academic Pro-fessionals of California for the CSU, came together for a discussion on Fri-day, Dec. 3, to discuss the details of the Mandatory Early Start Program.

The forum was called “Advocating for Educational Access, Quality and Equity Session,” and the main fo-cus was to educate all attendees on the positives and negatives of the Man-datory Early Start Program, MESP.

The office signed an Executive Or-der that establishes “a program for CSU admitted freshmen who have not demonstrated proficiency in mathematics and/or English as estab-lished by the CSU faculty.” The order states, “as of summer 2012, incoming freshman who have not demonstrated proficiency in English and/or math-ematics will be required to begin re-mediation prior to the term for which they have been admitted.”

According to a PowerPoint presen-tation put together from reports writ-ten by the California Faculty Associa-tion, UCLA Civil Rights Project and Academic Professionals of California, Cal State University Dominguez Hills needs 91 percent remediation, CSU-LA needs 89 percent remediation and Cal State University San Bernardino needs 75 percent remediation. CSUF falls between the highest and lowest remediation percentages.

Trotter said that the CSU aims to

Disruptive students cause tension in the classroom enviorment. The SOCC strives to counsel and help these types of students succeed. MARK SAMALA / Daily Titan

Extra classes for freshmen CSU to mandate remedial courses for low scoring incoming students

aid all incoming students. “There are a lot of issues here. But I know the peo-ple who started this (program) wanted to help people of color,” said Trotter.

“We tend to ethnitize everything, when in fact whites are amongst the second largest group that are in dire need of remediation,” said Teixeira.

To decide whether or not a student is remedial, “the CSU will take a look at test scores on the Early Assessment Program taken at the end of 11th grade in a California public high school, or the Entry Level Mathematics Exam and/or the English Placement Test taken during their senior year of high school,” Order 1078 states.

“Remedial students did not fail to prepare for CSU. Remedial students are the majority. Remediation can be seen as a social justice remedy because if remedial eduction was not available in the CSU then many fewer students would have access to a college educa-

tion in California,” said King.Teixeira feels that the MESP just

raises the level for the students that have always had an unequal every-thing.

“It is a very cumbersome process right now. But it is the Trustees’ pol-icy and it was passed by the Board of Trustees, so no matter what it will start in the summer 2012,” Trotter said.

Dr. King stated that according to the Chancellor’s Executive Order 1048, if students do not participate in the remedial summer program prior to their expected start date, they cannot attend a CSU.

“If (students) have not started to address a deficiency in either math-ematics and/or English, they will not be permitted to enroll at the CSU campus of their admission unless they have applied for an exception and the requirement has been waived due to extraordinary circumstances,” Order 1078 states.

In the Programmatic Requirements

section of Order 1078, it says that the remediation requirement does not require that students demonstrate a proficiency at the end of the summer, “only that remediation has begun.”

Joe Lopez, president and CEO of Associated Students Inc., asked the panel, “Are there any people within the CSU, other than those present, that are advocating for students?”

Order 1078 also addresses the issues of financial aid for remedial students.

“Matriculated students who are re-quired to enroll in remediation during the summer immediately after high school and immediately preceding the fall term shall be classified as early en-trants,” the Order states.

Early entrant students can qualify for financial aid if they meet six spe-cific CSU conditions and they try to qualify for a Pell Grant.

Teixeira is afraid that “MESP will become too much of a dollar oppor-tunity as far as extended education is concerned.”

“A lot of us don’t have a problem with this, except for the fact that it’s mandatory and it seems like it’s just another admissions requirement that penalizes students who have already been cheated by the educational sys-tem,” King said.

Trotter did not deny the fact that parents and students alike will have concerns. “I cannot believe that when this hits it will survive. But people above me have control over this man-date.”

The panel, at the end of the dis-cussion, directed its concerns toward the government: “If President Bush and President Obama bailed out the banks, insurance companies and auto-mobile companies, why not have a real bailout for public education?”

King said there are many things everyone can do in regards to MESP. “First, understand the problem and get informed. Hold campus meetings for people who care about this, collect public data, that way we can push our leaders to commit to quality public education.”

Chancellor Charles B. Reed of the CSU signed Order 1078 on June 11, 2010. The CSU is currently review-ing MESP plans submitted by all 23 CSUs and is planning on beginning campus implementation in February 2011.

A committee designed to respond to students at risk is running full force on the Cal State Fullerton campus to provide the right services and contacts for these students to get help. This group is called the Students of Con-cern Committee, or the SOCC.

This committee was formalized in 2008 after the Virginia Tech massacre, in which a disturbed student killed 32 people in two separate attacks.

The SOCC is chaired by the dean of students, with members consist-ing of the chief of police, one of the lieutenants in the police department, the director of Counseling of Psycho-logical Services (CAPS), the director of Disabled Student Services, the as-sociate dean of Judicial Affairs and the University Council who serves in an advisory capacity to the committee.

All members play a major role in the team, ensuring that each student’s case is handled with respect, balanc-ing the needs of the student with the needs of the campus community.

Prior to the establishment of the committee in 2008, the committee members were already working to-gether as an unofficial group. Other campuses such as Cal State Long Beach have similar programs and committees designed to help troubled students.

According to the Counseling Ser-vices website at CSULB, “Each semes-ter, CAPS offers a variety of groups including general counseling groups, women’s issues, grief issues, interper-sonal issues and many others.”

Dean of Students Lea Jarnagin said that this type of group or committee is not unusual to see on a college cam-pus.

“It’s a very normal thing that you would see on a college campus, the idea that there are times when stu-dents have a difficult time ... function-ing in a way that keeps them success-ful in the university community,” said Jarnagin. “Students may be a harm to themselves, or they may be acting out in a classroom environment, the li-brary environment, wherever it might be, that draws alarm from other indi-viduals.”

Although the SOCC did not be-gin as a result of a huge problem on campus, this committee receives vari-ous types of referrals from the campus community, usually a faculty or staff member or a colleague in student af-fairs who may have been approached by a concerned student who is wor-ried for a fellow student.

Vivian Tran, a business major, claims that she has witnessed a disrup-tive student in her classroom environ-ment and hopes to become educated about the resources available to her. When asked if she would approach a faculty member about a student who may be at risk, Tran responded, “Of course, anonymously of course, though.”

The SOCC generally doesn’t re-ceive referrals from students or the actual student at risk.

The committee’s primary focus is to come together as a collaborative group, share information and ideas and look at all of the information that it has access to as a result of its role on campus.

The SOCC members work with the campus community to respond to students in distress and involve a vari-ety of colleagues when appropriate as a result of their professional roles in the university. Response, consulta-tion and education are the three key roles in making sure that this system is carried out in the best interest for the campus community.

“We share with one another and talk with one another, identify some-one who is going to be a point per-son to then work with that student, and try to help that student who is in trouble in one way or another,” Jar-nagin said. “Not having a formalized system that people know about and being able to coordinate and work with one another in an effective way would make it more difficult to help a student who is in trouble.”

The SOCC strives to get the stu-dents of CSUF the resources they need, whether those resources are available on campus or within the surrounding community, so that they can become a successful student.

Although Kristy Gallegos, 21, a business accounting major, said that she is familiar with the Student

Disruptive students counseled for behavior Students of Concern Committee created to respond to the rising issue of students with poor classroom etiquette and the havoc they create

- Kimberly King, Ph.D.Cal State Los Angeles

Remedial students did not fail to prepare for CSU. Remedial students are the majority.”

ALLY BORDASFor the Daily Titan

Health and Counseling Center, she is unaware of the SOCC on campus and is not familiar with the resources concerning students at risk.

“If I noticed a disturbed student in my classroom I would inform a facul-ty member through email, of course,” said Gallegos.

The committee constantly tries to balance helping the individual student

without the need to have the student disrupt the educational environment.

A tangible resource that is available to all students, faculty and staff is the “Helping Students in Distress Manu-al” created in 2008 by the Women’s Center and the Student Health and Counseling Center.

This resource can be found on the front page of the CSUF Student

Health and Counseling Center web-site. The SOCC also encourages a student who knows of a student in distress to reach out to someone who works on campus and call the Uni-versity Police by dialing 911, or stu-dents are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Student Health and Counseling Center on campus by visiting Fullerton.edu/SHCC.

Are you an anxious or demanding student?• Are you easily agitated?

• Do you have irrational

fears?

• Do you worry excessively?

• Do you have an inability to

empathize?

• Do you have a need for

control?

• Talk to the student in a safe

and private place.

• Stay calm and collected.

• Speak concretely and

concisely.

• Develop an action plan

that addresses the main

concern.

• Respond quickly with clear

limits to disruptive behavior

How do you combat disruptive students?

If you answered yes to most of these, you might be a disruptive or overly demanding student in the classroom

Call the Counseling and Psychological Services hotline at 657-278-3040 for counseling.

For more information refer to the Helping Students In Distress Manual located on the front page of the CSUF Student Health and Counseling Center website.

JESSICA RUBIOFor the Daily Titan

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OPINION4

February 8, 2011

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Heavy student loans are leaving some law school graduates wondering what was the point of spending hun-dreds of thousands of dollars on get-ting their degree if they can’t even get a job after graduation—especially a job in the law industry, or at least one with the expected starting salary.

The most recent U.S. News statistics of employed law school graduates are impressive. At 93 percent, the number is almost a 10 percent improvement from the original 1997 publishing of the U.S. News statistic called “Gradu-ates Known to be Employed Nine Months After Graduation.”

However, the number is misleading.

David Segal’s article “Is Law School a Losing Game?” in The New York Times quotes law professor William Henderson of Indiana University as saying that “Enron-type accounting standards have become the norm.”

Henderson is referring to the fact that the survey’s guidelines, estab-lished by the American Bar Associa-tion and the National Association for Law Placement, include any kind of employment law graduates have nine months after graduation. That includes jobs that don’t require a high school di-ploma, let alone a law degree, such as a grocery clerk or burger flipper.

The reason for this deception, as Se-gal points out in his article, is that law schools need law students to keep their doors open. He further emphasizes that even schools that have lower year-ly tuition, in the $40,000 range, make bank because they do have the same need for equipment as other majors’ departments do. Segal even suggests that universities’ law schools compen-sate for less lucrative majors.

So of course law schools want to

put out impressive statistics on em-ployment after graduation to encour-age students to pursue a law degree. The problem is that the debt students acquire to get that far is too great for those who believed in that statistic, but weren’t able to get that law position with a promising salary within the first few months after graduation.

One of those recent law graduates is Jason Bohn, who was interviewed by Segal for his article. Bohn has a stag-gering student loan debt of more than $200,000. Although Bohn accrued most of this debt as an undergraduate and while working on a master’s degree at Columbia University, Segal reports the debts Bohn accrued while attend-ing Columbia Law and the University of Florida certainly didn’t help.

In addition, as Segal points out, Bohn is only earning $33 an hour as a legal temp in contrast to the starting salary most colleges quote. As Segal’s article states, schools such as Harvard, Yale and even law schools that don’t make it into the U.S. News Top 40 claim that graduates ought to expect a

median starting salary of $160,000 in the private sector. That breaks down to $76 an hour. Bohn is making less than half of that.

And keep in mind that even though Bohn’s current annual salary as a legal temp will average to about $68,600 a year, there are other bills to be paid besides student loans. He and other law graduates will likely need to make a house or rent payment, buy grocer-ies, fill up the gas tank and pay other living costs in addition to paying the interest on sizable school loans - loans that can accumulate in the hundreds of thousands of dollars while acquir-ing the schooling needed to obtain a law degree.

Granted, employment is hard to get no matter what industry you’re vying for. But when law schools are quot-ing statistics that mislead students into believing that not only will there be a job waiting for them when they gradu-ate, but one with a hefty starting wage, they are creating an illusion that may not turn into reality… well, at least not at the rate that they are claiming.

Think twice before applying to law school

ARIANNE CUSTERDaily Titan

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all go back to preschool when we had a designated nap time? Sleep is one more thing we are robbed of while growing up and entering adulthood.

The recommended amount of sleep an adult should get each night is no less than eight uninterrupted hours. According to Harvard Health Publications, the average person is sleeping less than six hours a night. This lack of sleep can result in health problems such as high blood pressure, weakened immune system and weight gain.

According to Harvard Health Pub-lications, there are six important rea-sons to turn off Facebook and sleep for more than two hours each night:• Learning and Memory- It’s the night before a midterm and you de-cide the best tactic will be to pull an all-nighter so you will be able to retain all the information you read over the course of the night. Wrong. Studies have shown that sleeping after you learn information will increase your ability to memorize and recall the in-formation when you wake up. So in-stead of drinking endless amounts of coffee and energy drinks, go over the information you need to know for the exam and sleep! • Metabolism and Weight- This might be the easiest way to con-trol your metabolism and keep off the extra pounds. Get ready for it: Sleep. When you do not get the rec-ommended eight hours of sleep, the process in which our bodies store car-bohydrates is disrupted. The change to this process will alter the hormone levels and affect our appetite when we wake up. • Safety- Cal State Fullerton is a commuter school, so as most of us get into our cars with a lack of sleep, we put ourselves and everyone else on the road in danger. Chronic sleep deprivation can also be dangerous to occupational safety. • Mood- Not getting enough sleep will result in an inability to concen-trate, irritability, and impatience. Be-

ing tired brings out the worst in our personalities and leaves us feeling that we cannot complete our normal daily tasks. • Cardiovascular Disease- This is a serious condition that can be a direct result from lack of sleep. Sleep disor-ders increase strain that is placed on our heart, and over time this can be-come a serious health problem. • Disease- Lack of sleep decreases your body’s ability to fight off disease. The immune system is affected and not able to make cells to ward off in-fections and disease.

Most of you might think that it is impossible to fall asleep before 2 a.m., but you may just need to change your nightly routine. First of all, get off the computer. Sitting on the computer for hours before you try and sleep might seem draining. In fact, it actual-ly makes it more difficult to fall asleep.

If you are tired during the day and have enough time to take a nap, do it. While you’re at school and have a long break, don’t be afraid to fall asleep on the large grass fields Fullerton has to offer. I won’t judge you; hippies do it all the time. The environment in which you sleep will make all of the difference. Create an environment that is relaxing; leave everything work (stress) related outside of the bed-room. Make sure the room you are sleeping in is completely dark. Simple, but it works. The temperature of the room will affect your sleep patterns; try to keep the room at a cooler tem-perature of 65 degrees.

Try to finish your dinner at least two to three hours before you try to sleep. You need time to digest every-thing you ate. Avoid drinking alcohol or caffeine before sleeping; it can keep you awake for hours before it wears off. Exercise at least two hours before you sleep. By then the natural high will have worn off and your body will be tired.

Sleep is precious and refreshes our bodies each night. So get your beauty sleep everyone. You need it.

Peace, love and recycle!

Get offline and sleepThe beautiful, bright blue skies on

Oct. 14, 2010 misled me into think-ing it was going to be a good day. However, unlike every other day of my life, it hurt to breathe.

The pain was coming from my back, below the “chicken wing” area also known as the scapula—on my right side. I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move; I ached too much. Why was I in pain?

I tried to hold back my tears, the tears of anguish. Every minus-cule breath in and every tiny breath out felt like a dagger in my back. The pain began on this day, but re-

mained with me for many months.I didn’t have any idea what to do,

so I used the only resource I knew existed: the Student Health and Counseling Center.

I slowly got dressed and eventu-ally made my way to school. When I finally reached campus, I realized I had no idea where the SHCC was; I’d never been there.

I found a friend who escorted me to the building. I was told to fill out some online work; there were com-puters in the lobby students could use to do so. When I was done, I was sent inside. I found where I was supposed to go, and I waited for my name to be called.

The meeting with the doctor was brief. I suppose it was a general visit to see what my problem was. I went again a couple days later—holding

off the pain, which had not less-ened—for a more specialized doc-tor visit. He determined it would be best for me to go through physical therapy on campus and gave me a recommendation.

This recommendation slowly nursed me back to health. I went to physical therapy a couple times a week for the entire semester, and it only cost me $35 out of pocket. Physical therapy consisted of receiv-ing an ultrasound on my back, a deep tissue massage and mainly ly-ing down on a hot-pad while some-thing attached to my back pulsed.

I was saved! I finally used the won-derful facilities we have on campus. The SHCC is a fantastic resource. I couldn’t believe I had never used it sooner.

I am not specialized in the field

of physical therapy, so I don’t know what was going on, but it worked for me. Over time, the pain subsided. By the very end of the semester, it went away completely.

Now I mention the SHCC to any-one. According to the SHCC school website, students may go for any basic medical care: minor surgery, first aid, Family PACT reproductive health, pap exams, pregnancy tests, HIV tests and eye exams. There are specialized services consisting of acupuncture, chiropractics, optom-etry, orthopedics and psychiatry.

As students we are given access to an excellent staff who are here to help us. We will not always have such a resource readily available. I strongly recommend for the students of this fine establishment to use what we are already paying for in our tuition.

CARMEN VARNERDaily Titan

How the SHCC can help you too The Student Health and Counseling center is a wonderful yet widely over-looked resource for

students in need of anything from basic medical care to physical therapy

The employment statistics for law school graduates are misleading

Hippie Healthby NICOLE FELTON

“How to Live a Greener Life”

One of my professors is in the middle of implementing an insane idea for her class: she wants to divide the class into two, so that 40 of us come on one of the class days and the other 40 of us come on the other.

Personally, it sounds like a re-ally creative idea to make the class less impersonal and more engaging (Oh, right, and the whole “Class just once a week!? Hells yeah!” definitely comes into play.) But it highlights a problem that basically the entirety of Cal State Fullerton seems to be having: there are too many of us and there are not enough classes to ac-commodate everyone.

With a number of undisclosed classes being cut last year according to the Orange County Register, the problem is only exacerbated.

Overcrowding starts to look like a legitimate problem when I’m in-vesting more attention to the ada-mant people standing throughout an entire lecture because of how im-pressed I am by the sheer determina-tion of it all.

Then again, it’s not entirely abnor-mal to see classes packed with eager students. That’s just how college is sometimes. There’s a reason why we have those Roman Colosseum-esque lecture halls for some of the heavily-

requested classes, but just because that’s how it is, it doesn’t necessarily make it right.

Back to my professor’s crazy, awe-some idea: The reasoning behind it was that her intersession class for this course did tremendously well and only 24 students were in it.

Basically, smaller classes equate to greater involvement from students and the professor.

This is anecdotal evidence more than anything, but the class aver-age was apparently so good that she’s willing to cut basically half the semester for all of us if that means there’s far less of us in any given class day.

And I think that’s the principal problem with crowded classes.

When there’s so much of us to teach with only one professor at the helm, the entire experience of learn-ing and attaining new knowledge suffers as a result. We’re blasted with words, phrases and definitions and, while we do what we can to absorb it all, there’s very little opportunity to actively apply it in active discussion and class activities.

See, the problem isn’t a physical one. It’s not like we’re scrunched up elbow-to-elbow struggling to even write a single note down. No, the problem is how a professor’s message gets diluted when trying to reach hundreds at a time, to get them to listen and to care.

Take, for example, a quote from the Sacramento Bee from Cal State Sacramento student Stayza Albrecht: “I shouldn’t have to sit in the hallway and not hear anything.”

It’s a common scenario, isn’t it?It’s also awfully impersonal.

When the professor doesn’t know someone by name because of the sheer amount of students in a class, it gets me to care less.

Maybe it’s just me, but if a profes-sor knows me and even strikes up a water-cooler chat before the start of class, I suddenly start thinking, “Oh god, I hope I don’t disappoint this guy,” and then I wind up getting a good grade. Usually.

I know that, for the most part, crowding will continue to be an is-sue.

Factor in more budget cuts, which leads to cut classes, which then leads to students taking a completely avoidable semester if it weren’t for the cuts, which leads to more of us still attending college, which finally takes us to the issue we have now.

It’s a bummer to know that this isn’t a problem that will be fixed any-time soon, so we’ll have to do what we can.

Sit up in front, tell the person next to you to hold onto the bat-teries to your phone and listen as if everything depended on it, like your ability to graduate, which is prob-ably true anyway.

CHRISTOPHER PARKDaily Titan

Every seat in this communications class seen above was filled even after several students dropped the course.BRIAN YAMAMOTO / Daily Titan

Crowded classrooms: A side effect of budget cuts

dailytitan.com

FEATURES 5

February 8, 2011

dai lyt i tan.com/features

When restaurant consultants Robert Zuetell and USC graduate Shaunn Ng decided to open a food truck in Orange County, they had one goal in mind: To create some-thing unique, something that had not been served up by all the other Korean BBQ food trucks.

In an industry now saturated with food trucks roaming every city in Southern California and accessible via Twitter or Facebook, Zuetell, his wife Gina, and Ng were hoping to introduce a new spin on a fresh idea.

Ng created a business plan for a Singaporean restaurant as part of his MBA thesis at USC. Zuetell, a self-proclaimed “trend forecaster,” had the street smarts to start a business.

After a corporate layoff, Ng decid-ed that he didn’t want to go back to the cubicle, so he did what any smart entrepreneur would do: He gave up his Singaporean citizenship in order to obtain the license to open an OC food truck fashioned after tradition-al “street hawkers,” or street food a la Singapore.

Then the epiphany came. “You’re like a man without a na-

tion,” Zuetell told Ng after he aban-doned his citizenship. And that’s

how they came up with the name. “A little Popeye, a little Pac-Man” and a whole lot of Singapore: Chomp Chomp Nation was born on Oct. 10, 2010, the Year of the Tiger.

The menu offers dishes like Kaya (coconut-stuffed French toast with a tropical fruit medley), a Singapore-style “Sloppy Joe,” Singapore satay skewers, and their most popular, the Singapore chili-crab slider seasoned with ginger, lemongrass and kefir lime, served with Tiger Slaw and root chips.

“I think it is the right timing to launch a unique exotic brand pro-moting Singapore food in America,” Ng said. “American consumers as a whole are opening up to more eth-nicity (sic) food and Singapore food is still not well known here.”

Patrons can expect to pay $3 for an appetizer or dessert and up to $7 for a main dish, which Zuetell de-scribes as “gourmet street hawker fa-vorites with an American twist.”

“Even though the price is a little more, people still pay the extra $2,” Zuetell said.

Chomp Chomp Nation will be 90 days old this week. They line up and compete with trucks like Bacon Mania, Spudrunners Gourmet Fry Truck and Sushi on Wheels.

“It’s healthy competition,” Zuetell said. There are six main OC food

trucks. “You have to start out as the little guy. Three months ago I was the little guy.”

Now their truck, painted as a striped orange and black tiger (as in the Year of the Tiger) complete with a face, whiskers and a tail, parades around Orange County stopping at places like the Irvine Farmer’s Mar-ket, Bootlegger Brewery (“The food goes good with beer,” Zuetell said) and downtown Fullerton.

On Tuesday nights, Chomp Chomp Nation sets up on Amerige Avenue off Harbor in Downtown Fullerton from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Kathleen Linson, 25, a public health graduate student at CSUF, spent time studying at the National University of Singapore. She said the food has “an authentic flavor with an American twist.”

“It makes me nostalgic,” said Lin-son. “I used to eat Kaya every morn-ing for breakfast.”

Kaya is a coconut jam usually spread on bread.

The only downside? “The price is a little steep, but

I’ll definitely be coming back,” Linson said.

Chomp Chomp Nation can be found on Twitter and Facebook at Twitter.com/ChompChomp-Truck and Facebook.com/Chomp-ChompNation.

Chomp Chomp Nation serves up something unique With a black and orange tiger-striped design, Chomp Chomp Nation serves Singapore-style street food in Downtown Fullerton.

JOHNNY LE / Daily Titan

FLOR EDWARDSDaily Titan

Cal State Fullerton has a Salsa Club and it has gotten a recent makeover.

“In all honesty, there was a club before, but the direction it was going in was completely the opposite direc-tion,” said Joshua Mendoza, 27, club president, former marine and finance and ISDS double major. “We changed the name and did everything so it was almost like we reinvented the club. So, that’s why I say it’s new.”

The CSUF Salsa Club’s goal is to give students the opportunity to have quality dance instruction at an afford-able price. At the monthly meet-ups, members can learn a series of dance steps, practice and engage in a fun so-cial setting with their peers.

With a meeting space in the works, solid plans for the weekly and monthly meetings are TBA. However, Mendoza urges students to keep an eye out for information coming soon.

“Salsa is a skill and it’s also a luxury so it’s something really hard to learn and it costs money. Because it’s a luxu-ry, it can get expensive. That’s why our club does as much as we can to subsi-dize the fees,” Mendoza said.

The cost for membership is $25 for the semester with the club meet-ups. For weekly workshops it is an addition-al $25 per month. Mendoza pointed out that at a dance studio, the cost can be around $12 an hour, whereas this

club price is about half. The Salsa Club works on subsidizing member’s dues through fundraisers of their own.

“I was kinda swindled into it,” Mendoza said on how he became club president, but is glad he has had the opportunity. “With all that said and done, I have learned so much. I really appreciate my position. We have a full board this semester.”

“The bottom line is helping each other learn as much and coming to-gether as a community: unity through salsa and having fun,” Mendoza said, suggesting that the club is about bring-ing the salsa community to campus and building relations within the stu-dent body and surrounding areas.

Kazumi Devrias has instructed the salsa club since its start in summer 2010, but has been a salsa instructor for six years. She looks forward to fo-cusing on a salsa competition.

“Long Beach took many, many years to get there so I want to shorten our time. That is my goal,” Devrias said. “As students, you can’t beat this price and quality and getting to know each other in a social setting. It’s exer-cise and having fun and half the price.”

Griselda Romero, 20, undeclared major, is not in the salsa club but is a member of the CSUF club Circle K International.

“I think they are getting a better deal here at school because they’re not just going for one time, they are going for the whole semester,” Romero said when asked if the instruction and price would attract students to the club.

With a professional instructor, members of the CSUF Salsa Club receive quality training.MARK SAMALA / Daily Titan

STEPHANIE GOMEZDaily Titan

He slightly peels his cards back while covering them with his other hand. He glances around for a couple of seconds. Finally, he discards them to the center of the table and shuffles his chips while he patiently waits for his next hand.

John Rivera, 20, is a third-year business marketing major who de-lights in playing Texas Hold ‘em. He has found an outlet for his passion in the Texas Hold ‘em Poker Tourna-ment sponsored by Titan Bowl and Billiards. The tournament first started at Cal State Fullerton in the spring of 2006. Ken Maxey, manager of Titan Bowl and Billiards, noticed a growing popularity nationwide in the game of poker.

“Poker has been made popular by the World Poker Tour, and the telecast of the World Series of Poker on ESPN has helped spur the popularity of it,” Maxey said.

Maxey first implemented the pro-gram after attending a workshop at the Association of College Union International (ACUI) regional confer-ence. Ever since then, the tournament has received a popular turnout. There are eight tournaments throughout the

semester that culminate to the Tour-nament of Champions at the end. The Tournament of Champions is the final tournament where the tourna-ment winners and other high-point leaders meet to contest for a trophy.

Rivera, the winner of the Tourna-ment of Champions last semester, returns this semester to contend once again to win the final tournament.

Although Rivera used to play soc-cer in high school, he fell out of love with the sport and awakened a passion for poker in college. He was first in-troduced to poker two years ago while watching his friend play online. He has become a poker fanatic ever since.

“I like that you have to out-think your opponent because it’s usually the one that out-thinks his opponent that usually wins the pot,” Rivera said.

The pot is the chip earnings at the end of every round that goes to the winner of that round.

Rivera reads books on poker in order to master what he considers his new sport. Before the tournament he was quite calm and confident. Rivera had music channeling through his headphones before the tournament and kept one headphone on through-

out the night. The various books he reads have finely tuned his strategy. He begins by playing “tight,” meaning he folds, or discards, most cards. When other players presume his conservative style, he starts playing “loose,” mean-ing he plays more of his hands.

“When you get caught bluffing, then you get back in tight for a little bit,” Rivera said.

Bluffing is where a player pretends to have a good hand in an attempt to force other players to discard their hands. Rivera repeats this cycle to be as unpredictable as possible.

The game of poker also requires luck at times. Rivera remembers win-ning with an unexpected hand.

“I had a two and a seven suited and I made a flush at the end,” Rivera said. “I wanted to bluff the guy at the end and luckily I hit the flush. He was not very happy to see my hand after-wards.”

Rivera won that hand by getting a “flush,” or five cards of the same suit in conjunction with a player’s hand.

Though he takes poker seriously, he also enjoys joking, interacting and meeting other players in the tournament.

Jane Ccaihuari, student manager of the poker tournament, tries to create an environment where friendships are built at these tournaments.

“A lot of people don’t know that many people on campus, so it’s a good way for students to get to know each other,” Ccaihuari said.

She began the evening by having all the players of the same table introduce one another and share how their win-ter break went.

“I think it’s good to do an icebreak-er because it’s fun playing, but it’s even better if you get to meet someone,” Ccaihuari said.

She even witnessed romance spark to form a couple, who met each other through the tournament.

As for Rivera, his goal at the mo-ment is to turn 21 as soon as possible.

“I’m like the only friend that’s not 21,” Rivera said. “It’s starting to get annoying.”

For now he can aspire to win the Tournament of Champions again this semester. He might make history be-cause a repeat has never happened in the Tournament of Champions.

The next general tournament is Feb. 16.

John Rivera won the Texas Hold ‘em Poker Tournament in the Titan Student Underground last semester and is attempting to win it again this semester.

JOHNNY LE / Daily Titan

Poker King

WILLIAM CHENDaily Titan

Salsa Club gets makeover

John Rivera tries to win the Poker Tournament on campus twice in a row

dailytitan.com

FEATURES6

February 8, 2011

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Travel has both glamour and grun-ge. Trekking the globe is a luxury not many folks get to experience. I am lucky to have seen the world on two separate occasions.

My last visit abroad was in the sum-mer of 2010 when I had the chance to see Israel, a petite country that I was otherwise ignorant about.

I didn’t know anyone who had been there so I had nothing to base my visit on.

I knew nothing about the country until I flew there for the first time.

Israel is particularly intriguing in that it is the Holy Land for many re-ligions that make pilgrimages there. Muslims visit Mecca, Christians and Jews go to Jerusalem and people of the Bahá’í Faith travel to Haifa.

I spent nine days in this holy coun-try. I got to experience its people, buildings, food, language and overall culture longer than any other country I visited.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the majority of Israel’s population is Jewish, the rest being Muslim.

On Saturdays, don’t plan on do-ing anything because most stores are closed for Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest. Seriously, everything is closed. Don’t go out.

I visited Haifa, Israel, and parts were very reminiscent of lower-class America. Apartment complexes that were once painted white now looked an ashy gray, dirtied by years of lay-ered filth. The ground was littered with trash, a headless doll lying in the gutter. Cigarette butts, ragged clothes and bottle caps were strewn in barren dirt lots. Grungy would be the ideal word to describe Israel, the parts that

stuck in my brain at least.Cats roamed the streets of Haifa,

which I now dub the Land of Felines. I counted dozens throughout my time in the foreign country.

I recall seeing two adorable kittens on a street corner. I got closer to take a photo of the Israeli kittens when I re-alized their eyes were infected, goopy and gross. The wild cats weren’t so

cute anymore, but more like an infes-tation plaguing the city.

Israelis aren’t the meanest people to roam the earth, but they definitely don’t commit to the American stan-dard of customer service I was used to. After going to several countries, I’ll warn you right now: nobody will kiss ass more than Americans to make a buck. Israelis won’t suck up to you

to get your business. You either want their product or you don’t; if you don’t, get out of there because you’re a waste of their time.

My food staple in Israel was the falafel, which is essentially a chickpea ball. Yes, that sounds disgusting, but I assure you it’s delicious. In Israel, I often ate falafel sandwiches with pita bread and hummus. As a vegetarian, I was no stranger to the hearty falafel and welcomed them with open arms. However, there were not many other veggie options, so I stuck with what I knew was kosher for my diet.

By the end of my stay in Israel, I was falafel-ed out, I ate them every day for one meal or another.

Roaming the city in daylight was arduous; it was deathly hot outside. The temperature was in the 100s ev-ery day. I vividly remember thinking my face would melt off (like the head-less doll I saw in the gutter). Beads of sweat generously rolled off my face, when normally I rarely perspire. The Israeli sun will forever remain fried in my brain, just as it fried my skin.

One thing really stuck out to me: all Israelis over the age of 18 must complete time in the Israel Defense Forces -- two years for females and three years for males.

I saw so many ladies and gentlemen my age in green uniforms and boots, holding giant scary looking automatic rifles in their arms.

I’ll always remember Israel. I’ll re-member taking photos of every sec-ond, trying to cement each memory in my brain. I’ll remember the summer rays beating down until it turned my skin a lovely shade of tan. I’ll remem-ber the music I was listening to and will forever associate the songs with the country. I’ll remember not going in the Mediterranean Sea because of the dead jellyfish being washed up to shore. I’ll remember everything.

One of the most noticeable aspects of Haifa, Israel is the way the apartment complexes appear dingy and dirty with litter scattered on the ground.

CARMEN VARNER / Daily Titan

CARMEN VARNERDaily Titan

Israel: A petite, holy country

Sara Nasr, a public relations major and president of the Middle Eastern Student Society, has organized a candlelight vigil in honor of the current revolution in Egypt.

MARK SAMALA / Daily Titan

On those days, David D. Kirk-patrick and Kareem Fahim for The New York Times reported that Mubarak supporters fought back with “clubs, rocks, knives and firebombs.”

“There was a period of, ‘Oh my goodness, where are they?’” Nasr said.

Nasr equates not being in con-tact with her family to having someone gone missing, not know-ing what is going on and being helpless.

She continues to tug on her sleeves as she talks of the escaped criminals and people “who are not in their right mind” roaming the streets, possibly alongside her family.

Her best friend’s mom, who lives in Ma’adi, which is consid-ered a nice area, heard her neigh-bors being raped by the escaped prisoners.

When the landlines opened up, Nasr had an eight-hour con-versation with the mother while machine guns were heard in the background.

“(My best friend’s mom) said in the be-ginning her re-action was that (the situation) was crazy and everyone was insane,” Nasr said. “Egypt has never been through any-thing like this. Now she’s like ‘I wanna get out of here.’”

Nasr fears that her own family may be going through similar situa-tions.

“I thought they might have been dead to be honest. I still think that. I have no idea,” Nasr confessed. “It’s horrible to say, but I have that fear.”

On Wednesday, Feb. 2, Nasr had her first contact with one cousin through Facebook.

She assumes the Internet was available to them that morning. From his short sentence responses,

she gathered he was scared. She has yet to make contact

with anyone else.“My goal is to just make people

more aware that it’s not just mere protests going on,” Nasr said. “It’s actually a revolution against their government and a war.”

It is here that Nasr speaks with confidence. She is no longer tug-ging at her sleeves but using her hands to illustrate her point.

She is organizing a candlelight vigil to inform the students of Cal State Fullerton what is going on in Egypt.

Professor William Haddad, the Middle Eastern Student Society’s adviser and department chair of history, is all for bringing “pub-lic awareness and democracy to Egypt.”

“She’s been an excellent leader to the club, and I applaud her for her efforts in organizing the vigil,” Haddad said.

Khoury is also very supportive of what Nasr is putting together.

“I think it’s awesome,” Khoury said. “Sara was raised without any cultural background, so she’s kind of finding these things out for her-

self.”A l t h o u g h

Khoury said Nasr normally organizes cul-tural events, a Facebook event and fli-ers have been made for the vigil Wednes-day.

Khoury ad-mires the ini-tiative Nasr took in con-tacting her to help organize the vigil.

Nasr chose a vigil over a protest because she wants to change the im-age of Middle Easterners be-ing viewed as a violent people,

fitting well with her “nonhostile” way of communicating.

Different clubs were asked to be involved so that every student empathizing with Egypt can be involved, not just Middle Eastern students.

“When it comes to basic rights, there’s no question,” Nasr said.

In the hustle and bustle of the busy school day, there are very few places on campus where a student can take a small break in a relaxing setting. The fast-paced walkways and atriums around campus are loud and crowded and offer little distraction from the demands of schools.

The bi weekly International Cof-fee Break put on by the Office of International Education and Ex-change is a perfect escape that of-fers a tranquil setting in the quiet nook between University Hall and the Humanities Building.

“The goal of the Coffee Break is for the students, staff and faculty to informally meet the international, study abroad and exchange student community on campus,” said Am-ber Nakamura, an international student adviser.

The Coffee Break will start with one or two people gathering around the bright tangerine sign that is

set out on the first available table. Chairs and tables are drawn up as the group expands from two to 20 in a matter of minutes.

Very little coffee is actually drunk at the Coffee Break, but every week cookies and international candies are passed around the group as it

grows. Advisers from the Office of International Education and Ex-change are scattered among the Cal State Fullerton students, so any stu-dent wishing to ask questions about going abroad or about their stay here at CSUF can ask outside of the threatening setting of formal office.

“I appreciate how you can come by and just say hello. You can just meet people and make friends,” Na-kamura said.

Conversations are struck up with strangers and everyone is welcomed to join in. The topics vary from where the students are from, who has recently had an escapade in Las Vegas or how to swear in Korean.

The atmosphere is light-hearted and completely relaxing.

“I think that Coffee Break is a good idea. You can meet people from everywhere, from each coun-try, and you can find some friends and talk about experiences,” said Si-bel Oezsoydas, a German exchange student. “I liked meeting people from everywhere and talking about different cultures and languages, and sometimes you can learn sen-tences in different languages. You can talk about where you have been and which cities you have visited. It’s a nice experience.”

However, the Coffee Break is not merely a place where international students can come to meet up and get information. The meeting is also a place where CSUF students who have studied abroad come. They exchange the stories of their trips abroad and encourage the students who are contemplating studying abroad, no matter what country they might be considering.

“I did not attend Coffee Break before I studied abroad in Heidel-berg, Germany,” said Chris Furu-kawa, 28, a business major. “Now I have similarities with a lot of the exchange students that attend the Coffee Break. This is a great way to meet people from around the world, where we can get different perspectives of different cultures.”

No matter what the reason is, be it to take a break, learn about differ-ent cultures or practice your inter-national swear words, the biweekly Coffee Break is a much-needed hour-long rest from the endless days of books and papers. Anyone is welcomed to join the groups every week, weather permitting, Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to noon, or Wednes-days from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. outside Aloha Java.

International students and those who are interested in traveling abroad can meet biweekly at Aloha Java to discuss other countries, languages and cultures while enjoying cups of coffee.

KATHLEEN ROSELL / Daily Titan

Sharing java and tales from abroad The International

Coffee Break brings multicultural chatter and friendship

KATHLEEN ROSELLDaily Titan

Let us teLL your story

The Daily Titan wants to hear your stories and tell them for you. If you have, or have heard of, an interesting circumstance about a fellow student or staff member or know someone on campus who has undergone hardships, has a strange job or a quirky pasttime or is working toward a unique goal, let us tell their tale. We welcome any stories. Send letters to the Features Desk at dtfeaturesdesk@gmail.com or tweet at Twitter.com/dtfeatures.

SARA: Student organizes Egypt vigil

...Continued from page 1

I thought they might have been dead to be honest. I still think that. I have no idea. It’s horrible to say, but I have that fear.

-Sara NasrPresident of the Middle

Eastern Student Society

Crosswordbrought to you by mctcampus.com

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Sudoku brought to you by dailysudoku.com

Horoscopes

Sudoku

How To Play:Each row must contain the numbers 1 to 9; each column must contain the numbers 1 to 9: and each set of boxes must contain the numbers 1 to 9.

7

Aries (March 21-April 19) Family responsibilities require your undivided attention. If you want friends to know what’s up, tell them yourself. Don’t keep it a secret.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Like a butterfly, you flitter from one project to another without much direction. For the best results, choose one idea and pursue it logi-cally.

Gemini (May 21-June 21) You have too many irons in the fire. Weave your activities together, first by apply-ing logic, and then by anticipating good fortune.

Cancer (June 22-July 22) Don’t expect visible results from today’s efforts. Everyone is chipping away at the requirements, but may not be ready to share results.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22) A neighbor may try to distract you from household matters that require attention now. Someone at home watches the fort and calls you back in when it’s time.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Did you sleep well last night? If not, take time out for a quick nap or quiet time to relieve stress. Get the people around you to do the same.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) An idea you’ve nursed along unfolds today. You don’t need a lot of money to take the next step. Enthusiastic co-workers make your dream possible.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Internal dialogue provides you a different point of logic. Harmony is the goal, and the assertive energy required to achieve it. Imagine freedom.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Don’t be the one who’s dragging their feet now. You want instant results, remember? Ignore side issues to achieve steady forward movement.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) As you explore communi-cation avenues, a new fortunate vista opens up. Others may fuss about details. Move ahead cautiously.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Associates all agree to a central change you’ve suggested. Move ahead before anyone changes their mind. You’re glad this is out of the way.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) Don’t drag your feet. You might stub your toe. Instead, move briskly ahead, enjoy-ing the harmony that comes with working smoothly in a team.

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February 8, 2011

Hey! Guess what movie this quote is from!

“Over the next few weeks I am

going to cram as much infor-

mation into your brains as

humanly possible, or as space will allow.”

Write your answer on the Daily Titan’s Facebook:

www.facebook.com/daily.titan

or

send a tweet to:www.twitter.com/daily_titan

Your venture will be a success.

Southwestern Law Schoolinvites members of the CSUF

student body to a special event on our campus.

CSUF DAYAT SOUTHWESTERN

Friday, February 2510:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Southwestern Campus3050 Wilshire BoulevardLos Angeles, CA 90010

For more information or toreserve your spot on the bus,

contact Aissa Canchola atasboardchair@fullerton.edu

by Monday, February 21.Attendees riding by bus should meet on

the North Side of the Titan Student Union,by the Alumni House, at 8:45 a.m.

Map and directions to Southwestern:www.swlaw.edu/directions

6200Career Opportunities P/TJoin the Daily TitanNow Hiring!!!

Account Executives and Graphic Designers

Contact Adrian Gaitan (657) 278-4411 or stop by CP660 with your resume or e-mail it to

agaitan@dailytitan.com

1300GreeksZTA Forever!Sylvia Rand wishes her ZTA

Crown sis’s Allison Akbaroff and Amy Koch a great week!

dailytitan.com

SPORTS8

February 8, 2011

Contact Us at dtsportsdesk@gmai l .com

Titans scrap away Trojans DTSHORTHAND

Calling all Cal State Fuller-ton skateboarders. Now is your chance to show off your skills and talent to Maloof Skateboard-ing in a newly developed contest called Maloof U Skate Madness.

This contest allows college skaters to submit an online video to represent their top skate moves and school with hopes of being selected as a finalist.

The top four finalists win a trip to Spinnaker Beach Club in Panama City, Fla. on March 19 to compete in a one-day compe-tition for $10,000 in cash and prizes and title of best college skateboarder in the country.

The odds of winning the con-test will vary depending on the number of valid entries received and quality of the contestants’ performances.

Skaters’ Time to Shine for Maloof

Brief by Gilbert Gutierrez III

With a 14-6 run for the Ti-tans, the Cal State Fullerton women’s basketball team came within single digits to slip away from the lead as the Highlanders of UC Riverside captured the win with a score of 74-60.

Capping off the night with 17 points and three rebounds was junior guard Megan Richardson, as she moves into the 11th place spot on the CSUF basketball scoring chart.

Senior guard Lyndsey Grove ended with 15 points, including two three-pointers, and sopho-more forward Lauren Bushong had eight points.

Women’s Lose to UC Riverside

Brief by Michellee Cooper

The Cal State Fullerton men’s lacrosse team opened against Division I opponent USC with a convincing victory

Titan senior midfielder Andrew Hauke keeps the ball away against a USC defender. Hauke scored a goal and was dominater on face-offs throughout the game against the Trojans.

WILLIAM CHEN / Daily Titan

Cal State Fullerton men’s Division II lacrosse team opened the regular season with an impressive win against USC on the Titan track Saturday af-ternoon, beating the Div. I Trojans 16-10.

“It was a big win beating a Div. I team,” said Titan Head Coach Kyle Morrison. The game was tied 5-5 at the end of the first period when Mor-rison decided to switch to a zone de-fense that he said “shut them down.”

Junior goalie Justin Kappeler stepped into the starting role and led the defense that held USC scoreless for the entire second period and most of the third. When asked about Kappel-er’s play, Morrison said, “Justin pretty much won the game for us.”

Kappeler, who blocked 64.3 per-cent of USC’s shots, deflected the praise of his head coach much like he did the Trojans’ shots all afternoon. “The whole defense played well,” said Kappeler. He added, “Although get-ting the first save on the first shot did feel good.”

While CSUF’s defense smothered the Trojan offense in the second pe-riod, the Titans’ offense was able to score three goals and give the Titans a 8-5 lead going into the half.

At the start of the third period, Kappeler and the defense were able to keep USC off the scoreboard for nearly five minutes while the offense built on their lead.

In the second half, the Titans were able to double their scoring total from the first two periods with three goals in the third and five more in the fourth. Senior Mike Ansel led the offensive outburst by scoring three times while

BRAD SALAHDaily Titan

seven other payers, including seniors Andrew Hauke and JR Grubert, each scored a goal of their own.

Hauke was another player that Morrison acknowledged, saying his dominance on the face-offs really helped the Titans pull out the victory.

A couple of late goals by USC, in-cluding one with nine seconds left in the game, made the box score look a

lot closer than the game actually was.When asked what he thought

swung the momentum over to the Ti-tans, sophomore Chris Cole said, “We had more lines than they did. I think we stayed fresher than them.”

Cole, like Morrison, praised the play of Kappeler and the defense as a whole. “We were more vocal on de-fense,” Cole said. “Everyone stepped

up. There is just something about playing USC.”

As a sentiment echoed by Cole, Kappeler said, “It’s always awesome to beat USC.”

The Titans weren’t staying compla-cent with the one win over a name opponent like the Trojans, however. When asked what area the team need-ed improvement on, Morrison said

ball possession. “We got UCLA next week,” Cole

said, making sure to focus on what’s ahead. If the Titans hope to down two Div. I foes in a row, they will need to build upon the groundwork from this game.

The No. 12 ranked Titans have their next home match-up on Sunday, Feb. 13, against UCLA.

Titan sophomores Tiffany Mai and Monica Rodriguez getting ready for their doubles match against Hawaii at Titan Courts.

ARIANNE CUSTER / Daily Titan

He continued to tell her, “They need to learn to deal with each other through adversity, victory and when one person is down as a doubles player.”

During the doubles games, the Titan teammates were their own cheering squad. They hollered words of support from court to court when they were in between plays or when sitting on the side-lines after their match ended.

As the head coach and the rest of the crowd watched the last set, Reynolds urged the dou-bles team to stay aggressive with those strokes. Just after, the CSUF sophomores Tiffany Mai and Mon-ica Rodriguez successfully won the following point.

As the battle between the last opposing doubles teams on the court went on, the Titans chanted, “Come on Tiff, come on Mon, keep fighting.” And they did. There were a lot of exciting, intense returns be-tween CSUF and UH, and the Ti-

tans were able to secure their only match win of the day on the courts.

Playing singles on the first court for the Titans was sophomore Tif-fany Mai. After an intense battle of returns, Reynolds said, “Good job running down those balls. Next time try to be the offense.” Mai said

she has to put up a good fight and is usually on the defense because she is smaller than her competition.

Bridgette Thompson, the assis-tant coach for UH, encouraged her player Natasha Zorec on the second court.

“Keep using your same game plan that got you here,” said Thompson.

Zorec beat Sandford, who again seemed upset and disheartened.

When asked what words of ad-vice she would give her freshmen teammates, senior Karina Akm-edova said, “I would tell them to just keep their heads up and fight for every match because I know it’s hard as the season goes on. You get tired and your losses get to you, but I would just tell them to keep your head up because it’s a long way to go.”

On court four, Akhmedova’s game was as intense and lengthy as Mai’s. However, Head Coach Reynolds, who had been on the other side of the courts watching Mai’s match for most of Akme-dova’s game time, only interjected once or twice while observing her challenging returns at the end of her second set.

Akhmedova lost the match but played hard and didn’t give up.

The Titans will return to action on Feb. 8 at Cal State Northridge.

Tennis swept by ranked 49ers in Big West openerMARGARITACASTELLANOSDaily Titan

The Cal State Fullerton women’s tennis team wore their game faces and brought plenty of Titan pride, giving rival Long Beach State a run around the courts and serious racket mileage.

Starting the afternoon games were doubles held on three courts with six pairs.

The CSUF tennis team started out last year as a young group of in-dividuals with only one senior, lack-ing intercollegiate experience, but has since then grown. The team played in the weekend-long Fall Intercollegiate Tournament and Intercollegiate Ten-nis Association West Regional Tour-nament last fall.

“It’s pretty much one of our tough-est matches, so we’re fighting pretty hard,” said sophomore Katie Nichols who supported and cheered for her teammates from the sidelines.

Titan sophomores Tiffany Mai and Monica Rodriguez took the lead against their opponents, senior Debo-rah Armstrong and sophomore Sarah Cantlay of LBSU, in round one of doubles with 1-0.

“I felt really good. For doubles we played really well and we were smart with our shot selections,” said Mai.

Although Mai and Rodriguez dem-onstrated fierce defense in the first round, the duo fell behind in the sec-ond round, losing 3-6.

“I was really glad that we got our doubles win this early in season. I’m looking forward to the rest of the sea-

son,” said Rodriguez, referring to her doubles match against Hawaii.

The Titans made sure team effort was apparent in their strategy, encour-aging each other through Titan pride shout-outs of “Let’s go Titans.”

Playing doubles in the second court were freshmen Morgan McIntosh and Megan Sandford. The girls had deter-mination, extending their rackets at full length.

Both sets were played intensely as Long Beach sophomore Jaklin Alwai and junior Rachel Manasse took the first round, 2-3. The Titans quickly picked up their game, turned up the heat and secured the win in the second round with 4-3.

Both Nichols and her teammates agree they have shown improvement this year.

“(CSUF) is a better team this year. We’re a lot stronger,” Nichols said.

Long Beach dominated the singles match, but the Titans, such as sopho-more Tiffiany Mai, did not give up without a fight.

Mai, with six wins, is the team’s No. 1 singles player. Mai had a strong backhand and quick agility but was overpowered in the first set by LBSU sophomore Sarah Cantlay, 1-6.

Mai gained some momentum in the second set, nearing a win, but Cantlay amped up her game and gained back control with 2-6. She exerted all she had left in the last set, giving Cantlay a difficult time. The set was evenly matched and ended with a score of 0-0.

CSUF returns to Big West Con-ference competition with a match on Tuesday at Cal State Northridge.

...Continued from page 1

Despite the 21-point game for Titan junior guard Megan Rich-ardson, the Cal State Fullerton women’s basketball team was un-able to hold off the UC Irvine Anteaters on Feb. 3, with a final score 81-77.

Senior guard Lyndsey Grove and redshirt junior guard Lau-ren Chow added 14 points each, along with another 10 points from freshman guard Yvont’e Neal, but these points were not enough to beat UCI’s junior for-ward Mikah Maly-Karros’ game-high of 29 points.

Trailing into the half with the ‘Eaters up by seven, the Titans decreased the deficit to just four.

Anteaters Edge Titans by Four

Brief by Michellee Cooper

The Cal State Fullerton wres-tling team competed in the San Francisco State Open on Sat-urday, Feb. 5, with three wres-tlers claiming first place in their weight class.

Andre Gonzalez (125), Mar-cus Orona (133), and Kurt Klimek (heavyweight) all repre-sented the Titans as weight class champions in the tournament. Other wrestlers that were placed include: Peter Hoang (141) and Todd Noel (184) in second place; Bobby Morales (141), Nick Jor-dan (149), Mark Savalle (174) and Kyle Bergstedt (197) in third place; and Gabe Brown (133) in fourth.

The next competition is at Or-egon State on Feb. 13, and con-cludes the regular season.

Wrestling Claims Three Titles

Brief by William Chen

The student-athletes of Cal State Fullerton are participating in the fourth annual 2011 Big West Charity Coin Drive. Throughout the month of February, the athletes are collecting donations and spare change in efforts to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure.

The coin drive is a competition among all nine of the Big West Conference institutions, and the school with the most money will not only donate all their money raised, but 25 percent of the earn-ings from other Big West schools will also go to charity.

Titan student-athletes will be collecting donations in hopes of raising the most money for char-ity in the Big West. The drive ends Feb. 28.

CSUF Athletes Join In for Charity

Brief by Michellee Cooper

TITANS: CSUF claims a solo doubles win, but loses match

Watch the Cal State Fullerton women’s tennis team take on the University of Hawaii. http://www.dailytitan.com/?p=33116

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Women’s Tennis puts up a fightto the finish

ONLINEEXCLUSIVESdailytitan.com

- Bill ReynoldsHead Coach

“They need to learn to deal with each other through adversity, victory and when one person is down as a doubles player.”