At the beginning of summer, we had our Nueva reunion party at the beach, and that was a ton of fun to see most of the grade again.  To my surprise, we actually played Survivor (and I wasn't even the one that suggested it!) like we did on the 7th grade backpacking trip.  This time I wanted to play instead of host, so John hosted.  I had a blast, and I actually ended up winning against Brian in the final two (I won all of the individual immunities so they couldn't get rid of me).  I hope we have the beach party again next year.

Africa

Then, I went on the most amazing vacation to Kenya with my parents, brother, aunt, uncle, and two cousins.  We went on a safari out in the bush, and also stayed at two 'lodges' in between the national parks.  In total, we went to 5 different locations in Kenya: Samburu National Park, Laragai House, Lake Nakuru National Park, Shompole Lodge, and the Masai Mara.  Each of the three National Reserves had their own unique characteristics and wildlife.  Samburu had elephants all over the place; we even saw them bathing one time.  We spent 3 days there, but I spent one of them resting because I had been sick for the week before we left, and I was just getting over it when we got there, fortunately.  There were also a bunch of monkeys in Samburu, and we even saw some lions lazing around at sunset.  Laragai was amazing, the rooms were so big and luxurious, and we had the entire place to ourselves.  I even got a room to myself!  At night by the pool at Laragai, my cousin Dave (who does film stuff for a living) took some incredible star photos.  He took over 7000 pictures throughout the entire trip.  Everyone took so many photos; it was ridiculous how many we all had.  When we flew over Lake Nakuru, you could see thousands of flamingos all across the lake.  One morning, we woke up early to watch the sunrise right by the lake.  We played a bunch of Frisbee golf at our campsite at Nakuru (it had just enough trees spaced perfectly); I even put together a double-elimination tournament that one of our guides ended up winning.  We lost a Frisbee in the trees two or three times though, and one time to get it down, they brought over the huge truck that transports the entire camp from site to site.  That kept us busy and very entertained.   Shompole was like nothing I have ever seen before, and will probably ever see.  It was built on the top of a mountain, so every enormous room is open and looks out at the beautiful sight.  Even though the room is completely open on one side, there is a sense of privacy because you can't see any of the other rooms.  Each room has its own little pool, and it is just the most amazing thing ever.  The shower was so cool; it was like a waterfall.  Shompole would be anyone's dream honeymoon location.  My description doesn't even do the place justice.  While we were there, we had an amazing experience.  The local Masai tribe performed a dance for us, chanting, singing, and jumping all the way through.  It was the coolest thing ever; the highlight of the trip for me.  I wish we had more contact with the locals, because I would have loved to learn from them more about how they live.  Then we were off to our last location, the Masai Mara.  Just as a side note, while we were staying at these beautiful resorts, there were people packing up the entire campsite, driving it to the next location, and setting it up in time for us to get there.  These guys were so nice, and I felt uncomfortable sometimes because they did so much for us.  I think I tend to be uncomfortable with people serving me, because I don't feel like I deserve it.  For example, when they would try to carry my bags for me, I would thank them but say no thanks, because there is no reason why they should be doing it when I am perfectly capable.  Maybe I would feel more comfortable with it if I had been the one to earn the money to pay for it, instead of someone else's charity.  Anyway, at Masai Mara, we saw a cheetah kill a hare, which was crazy to watch.  It's not that often people get to see a kill on a safari.  It was also my parent's 25th wedding anniversary on the last day we were there, so we had a celebratory feast, and they even made a cake.  When they first brought out the cake, they had my parents cut it together.  They were having a really tough time cutting it, and then when they got through it they saw it was elephant dung with frosting on it!  After we all had a laugh, they brought out the real cake that looked exactly the same.  Speaking of food, the food we had every day was out of this world.  There wasn't a thing I didn't like the whole time, even when we tried ostrich one night.  I have never ever eaten so well.  How they prepared all of it out in the middle of nowhere in such a tiny portable kitchen is beyond me.  We saw so many animals over the course of our trip, including lions, zebras, baboons, giraffes, cheetahs, topis, gazelles, elephants, hyenas, dic-dics, and all kinds of birds, just to name a few.  Even the tents we stayed in were amazing, and they had this thing where they lifted up a bucket of hot water that then goes into a section of the tent for a shower.  It was an experience I will definitely always remember and cherish.  I feel so lucky to have been able to see and experience what I did, and I thank my parents for that.

...Jeez, I meant for this to be sort of a summary entry, but I guess I got carried away thinking about our Africa trip.

Tennis Camp

The rest of my summer included going to the Nike Tennis Camp at Stanford for the second year.  I had an even better time this year, mainly because I clicked with the people a lot more.  Last year there were extremely few people my age, and it was basically all guys (it was the lowest amount of girls they ever had, so I heard).  This year though, there was a good mix and a lot of cool people my age.  We took a trip one evening to Great America, and I don't know how they did it, but these two really nice guys Peter and Evan somehow convinced me to go on my first loop-to-loop roller coaster.  I was scared out of my mind, but I'm really glad I did it and I think it helped ease some of my fears.  I am a very stubborn and individual person, so I am still impressed they were able to get me to go.  They encouraged me to face my fears (in a very supportive way), and I thank them for that.  Another night, we did a Dating Game type thing, tennis style, and I had a lot of fun with that when I was one of the 'bachelors'.  I got a lot of laughs from my responses, and I ended up winning the 'date', so that was cool.  Of course, we played a ton of tennis, any my game improved a lot.  Unfortunately, I have been so busy this school year that I haven't played at all for months, which really is no good.  My floor also kept having to do wall sits at night because someone would show up just like a minute or two late to walk to the courts.  One night I think we had to do 6 minutes of wall sits and lunges down the hall and back.  A lot of the staffers were really cool, but there was one in particular that was completely power-hungry and never treated any of the campers with respect.  I expect people to treat others with respect, no matter what their status or authority is, and I will always give the same respect in return.  It's a matter of being human, and understanding that others, regardless of everything, are people too.  When he was on a particularly unreasonable rampage, I told him he needed to calm down.  He threatened to make me do wall sits, but it never happened.  At some point my honesty will probably get me in trouble.  I had some really good conversations with some of the other counselors though, and I appreciated that they could talk to me as a person, regardless of my age or that I was a camper.  Anyway, I want to go back again next year, hopefully with some of the same people.

ACS Youth Summit

I also got to go on some trips as a member of some of the groups I am a part of.  The day after tennis camp ended I got to go to Los Angeles for an American Cancer Society Youth Summit.  The entire thing, including the flights, was paid for by the ACS.  It was a lot of fun and they treated us very well.  There was a big sort of banquet when we got there, and they had a Superhero theme for the 2 days.  At night we got to go to an Anaheim Angels game in the nosebleed seats, which was fun.  I got a wave started with the help of some of the people sitting with me, and it went a good way around the top section.  I met a lot of great people who were all obviously very caring, since they dedicate their time to helping other people's lives.  I also met 2 girls who had faced cancer, and it was very insightful and inspirational to hear their stories.

CASC Leadership Camp

The other trip was again, at Stanford, but this time it was for a CASC (California Association of Student Councils) Leadership Camp.  It was a 4 day camp and this too was also mostly funded by the Parents Group at my school.  My favorite thing about the camp was definitely the people.  Imagine the leaders of schools from all over California coming together; talk about a great time.  I especially met some amazing people from San Mateo and Notre Dame, both local schools.  I was hoping I could plan a reunion, but I have just been way too busy and I haven't talked with most of the people from CASC for a while.  The activities at CASC were not really what I expected.  I expected more games and teamwork activities, but instead it was more curriculum based.  I was a little disappointed that we spent most of the time with small groups in a small room learning leadership 'lessons'.  I wouldn't have minded a day of that, but 4 days was a little much.  I think we went into a little bit too much detail, for example we learned what colors were best for writing down ideas when brainstorming.  I have used some of that curriculum in facilitating a student focus group, but just the basic ideas of it, not the completely structured details.  I really enjoyed the general sessions however, when we had a speaker or saw a presentation or something.  Micah Jacobson, who I have seen speak now on five different occasions, spoke at CASC and he said and had us do some really cool things.  On the last night, we had the sickest dance ever, although unfortunately it was only an hour long.  It was outside, and unlike dances in other places where it takes a while for the dance to get started, as soon as the music went on all of these leadership kids went crazy.  It made me so happy to be with a group of people who just wanted to have fun and don't care about the possibility of embarrassing themselves.  After the dance, Micah did this thing with candles where we each had one lit, and he talked about how we need to protect our flame.  He also gave everyone what he calls a 'warm fuzzy', and then we went around giving people warm fuzzies and getting them in return.  That was an awesome thing, something I might want to try to bring to our school if I get the chance.  Another night we saw a video from a camp in the 70s where they discussed race, gender, and orientation stereotypes, and other general problems that effect a lot of people, like abuse and inner struggles.  It was an extremely thought provoking and moving documentary, and we had some great discussions about it afterwards.  Overall I had a great time and I would go back just to be with those types of people again.  The people from my school didn't really get much out of it though this year, so I'm not sure if we will go back next year.

Focus Group

The focus group I mentioned was something I had the idea for when I was up doing homework at two in the morning, and I had been working for like the last six hours.  I thought it was ridiculous, with all the busywork, so I thought about getting together a group of people who had an interest in changing the way the education system works, especially the honors program at Burlingame High School.  Since everyone interested in the group has very busy lives, we are taking it slow and we understand that change will not happen instantly, but it will take time. We have only met twice, but we have some good things down on paper (in the CASC style of course) that we can hopefully make an impact on.  At our first meeting, we listed what works and some problems, and at our last meeting we came up with specific goals that we want to tackle.  The biggest thing that I think I took from CASC is that when I'm facilitating, I make sure that what I do and say is to try to get out what the group really wants, not what I want.  The group really drives what we do.  Our next meeting is in January and we are going to figure out some action plans to achieve the goals, and also I am going to try to get some people from some other schools to come and talk about what works and what doesn't at their schools.

ASB Vice President

I was ASB Vice President this last semester, and that was a really good experience.  I enjoyed working with ASB, although I wish we could have met more regularly and for a longer chunk of time, so we could talk about some goals and student life issues.  I was in charge of clubs, Club Faire, and the Blood Drive.  Unfortunately, our school district has a major budget crisis at the beginning of the year; they thought they had $3 million more than they actually did.  This meant they fired teachers in the middle of the year, and had to make a lot of other cuts, including recently limits on teachers' healthcare.  The teachers, in protest of district decisions, temporarily would not write college recommendations, closed their doors before school, after school, and during lunch, and could not be advisors to clubs.  This made a big problem for clubs who could no longer meet in their advisor's room.  Because this happened right around the time of Club Faire, we postponed it for a few weeks.  Where we postponed it to however, was the week before the Fall Blood Drive, which put a lot of stress on me.  I put together four competitions between clubs for the Club Challenge, including a scavenger hunt, a competition called Mummy, a watermelon eating contest, and the final which was the Extreme Club Relay, which had 6 different elements.  The Relay was definitely the hardest to plan, but I think it was the participants' favorite activity.  The elements of the Relay included charades, a bat spin followed by shooting a basketball into a trash can, a orange pass with their necks, a water pass to fill a cup, a cucumber pass between the legs, and then a teamwork thing where they had to get a marble into a bucket by rolling it through little pieces of PVC pipe.  On Friday was the Food Faire, and that was a huge success.  About 25 clubs sold food, and there were a ton of people out there buying it.  The very next Tuesday was the Fall Blood Drive.  I had been getting signups for it for the last few weeks.  The Blood Drive was even more successful than Club Faire.  Last year, at the same time, there were 45 pints of blood donated.  This year, we got 96.  In the spring, we should get even more, because more people will be old enough to donate.  I will be old enough, but it still won't be a year since I traveled to a malaria infected area, so I still won't be eligible to donate.  Ryan Buckley will be Vice President next semester, so I know he'll do a great job on the Blood Drive.  It was challenging to manage all of the clubs because there are about 45 of them.  I have been working on a point system proposal for all new clubs.  It would give all new clubs a one semester probationary charter, and in order to become a permanent charter, they have to obtain a certain number of points.  The idea behind this is to give clubs a push to remain active and contribute to the school or community, and also give ASB an idea of which clubs are flourishing.  They would earn points by turning in minutes of meetings, putting on a fundraiser, advertising their club, and so on.  As long as they are serious about the success of their club, then reaching the 20 points needed by the end of the semester shouldn't be a problem.  The problem about the proposal however, is that since we didn't meet very often, especially at the end of the year, I never got the chance to talk about it with ASB.  Now it's not technically in my hands anymore since I'm not in charge of clubs, and I think some people see me as too controlling as it is, and that I am trying to impose what I think should be done on everyone else.  I have talked to Ryan about it and he likes the idea, but I think it is possible it still could be voted down at our first meeting just because I wrote up the proposal and not Ryan.  One thing I feel I am still lacking on ASB is respect, and I think that mainly is because of my age, and also probably has something to do with the fact that I tend to talk a lot about issues I care about, as you can see by my already 3200 word entry.  I have felt a certain bit of doubt and possible animosity coming from a few members of ASB ever since I ran for Vice President as a freshman.  I am hopeful that as I grow older, learn from my mistakes and experiences, and continue to prove my capabilities like I did for the Blood Drive, that I will gain the respect I desire from ASB.

Elections

My term as Vice President was only one semester, so I had to run again for office, and I decided to run for President.  I felt like if I ran for Vice President, I might be stealing the place of a very deserving senior on ASB, like Ryan.  VP is only one of two elected positions in the whole school that is only one semester (obviously seniors can only run for those or one of the two semester long appointed positions).  Plus, I feel like the school is gradual downward slope right now with all the budget problems and general morale, so I want to see if I can do anything to help the situation.  The position is actually President-Elect, which means I will kind of be the apprentice to Ian next semester, who will be president, and then I will take over as president for the fall semester of my junior year.  I actually ran unopposed, which just shows the general apathy of my school right now.  At the same time last year, 7 people ran for the position.  I was actually very disappointed that no one would run against me, because I actually really enjoy campaigning, and I think the president should be someone who the people choose, not someone who just lucks into the position.  If the school likes what I have to offer, then I should be president; if not, then I shouldn't.  Simple as that.  Also, during the process of campaigning and talking to people, it helps me to realize what the student body actually is interested in, and what they would like to see in their leaders.  It's easier to represent people who choose you to represent them.  I also don't think I will have gained any respect from ASB by winning unopposed.  My friend Carlo is the new Treasurer-Elect, meaning that we will both be on together for the next full year, and another very smart sophomore is the new Secretary, Caitlin.  It is very unusual to have one sophomore on ASB, and now we will have three.  This should be interesting.

Relay for Life

I was on the committee for Burlingam e's Relay for Life this year, which made the actual event even more rewarding.  When people just go to Relay, I don't think they realize how much planning actually goes into it.  The committee starts meeting months and months before, and there is a lot of planning that needs to happen every single year, especially when you are a nonprofit group and need to find donations for most of what we do at Relay.  The committee is mostly a bunch of ladies who had been doing this for years, and they are the nicest people ever.  The only other guy, Eddie, is extremely rational and even works as an event planner, so he knows what works and what doesn't, and always brings us back to the main idea when we get too far off topic.  The committee chair, Dorene, lives right around the corner from me and is one of the nicest and most supportive people you'll ever meet.  She worked so hard on the Relay and she really doesn't get enough credit for all that she does.  It was a lot of fun to be a part of the behind the scenes process, and since I am only a sophomore, I have two more years as a part of it.  I hope in the years to come I can get more of an idea of what needs to be done so that I can be more helpful and take more initiative.  I was the captain of Team Nueva for the 3rd year in a row, and I was really excited to get a Nueva group together again to Relay.  I was a little disappointed with the Nueva turnout and the amount that was raised, but such is life.  You can't force people to come; they come if they want to.  For the people who did come though, we had a great time.  I actually spoke twice on stage during the event.  The first time I wrote and delivered a speech about Prop 86, if you interested you can read it, if not just skip it:

I would like to take a minute to talk about why we, as a community, are here today. It is because every one of us is here to fight cancer.  We are here because our personal experiences or observations have driven us to act. Because our contribution, multiplied by over three million others nationwide participating in Relay provide a tremendous opportunity to gain the upper hand in this fight against cancer.

But we have more working for us than just Relay. We have the greatest opportunity California has ever had to fight cancer, and it is headed for the ballot this November.  Tobacco is the number one cause of preventable death in the country, and lung cancer is the number one most deadly cancer.  We can do something about it.
 

When the tobacco tax initiative, Proposition 86, passes this November, it will boost our fight against Cancer to new heights.  This initiative will tax each pack of cigarettes by $2.60 which will raise more than $500 million a year to directly fight cancer.
 

Where will the money go?
 

Proposition 86 will triple current state funding for Cancer research. 

It will triple funding for the Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection program.

It will establish a new program for Colorectal Cancer Screening.

It will protect the prostate cancer screening program from funding cuts.

It will establish a new program encouraging nutrition and physical activity.

It will reinvigorate California’s tobacco control programs by tripling the budget for many of the programs funded by a proposition passed in 1988 that has successfully cut adult smoking from 25% to 14%.

Lastly, the Tobacco Tax initiative will provide access to health care for every child in California.
 

Obviously, tobacco companies are doing everything they can to fight this proposition. You may have seen the campaign ads on TV.  But remember that what you are watching is coming from a BUSINESS, whose sole purpose is to make money for personal gain.  The organizations in support of Prop 86 however, including the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association, and the American Heart Association are nonprofit, meaning they have no personal monetary vested interest in the outcome of this vote.  The only motivation is saving lives.

But don’t just take my word for it.  Think about it, and what a vote one way or the other could mean for you, and for future generations.

To help you do that, I want you to think for a second about a world free of smoking, free of cancer.  Wouldn’t that be nice?  Now think of your children, your grandchildren, the teenagers out here today.  This generation, my generation, our generation, is the future of this country.  We will not accept a world void of progression.  Progression.  Progression.  That is the key.  We must move forward, and continue to make greater and more meaningful achievements.  We must build on the successes of the past, so we may one day live in a world of peace, a world without fear, and a world without unnecessary death.  What is our purpose on earth if we can’t make it better for future generations?  This proposition will help to do just that.  Prop 86 will reduce teen smoking by almost 50%, and I consider that an amazing form of progression.

I also spoke briefly at the Luminaria Ceremony about what a luminaria is, what the significance of it is, and why we light them.  Overall, it was once again an amazing event.  The message is still powerful and moving, even the third time.  Plus it is so much fun.  I even met some people at Relay, one in particular, who I am really glad I met and had a great time with.  I'm excited to start planning for next year.

KARMA Initiative

My friend Carlo (the treasurer) and I are planning on starting a club next semester at BHS called the KARMA Initiative.  The original idea for a club was inspired by ImprovEverwhere, but over some time the idea has grown and become our own.  The original name we came up with was 'Beyond Improv', but when we figured out the main goals of the club, we thought Improv gave off the wrong impression.  Basically the idea of the club is to make people happy.  It is our way to try to raise morale at BHS which is seemingly pretty low right now.  We will achieve this through events that are either really fun and random, that make people feel accepted and part of a group, and satisfaction with themselves and with helping others, or that just make people go 'Wow, that's so cool!"  We have a whole page full of ideas, including The MP3 Experiment, The Free Hugs Campaign, Mission: Random Acts of Kindness, and the School-Wide Rock Paper Scissors Tournament.  These are the types of events that will hopefully make people's day.  I am really excited about this; I think it will be a great thing for our school, and I think we already have a lot of people really excited about it.  We had our first mission, which was a trip of nine agents to the offices of Smalltown.com for a focus group.  We were welcomed with pizza, drinks, and cookies, they gave us free t-shirts and mugs, and they paid us $75 dollars for each person.  All we had to do was give them an hour of our time and feedback.  They also set up a promotion for us, in which if people go to http://www.smalltown.com and register with the promotional code KIP, they will donate $2 to us for every review that person posts, up to $20.  After five reviews, that person will also get a $10 gift certificate to Century Theaters sent to them.  It is a fantastic deal, all it takes is about 10 minutes, and it's a great website too that has a real potential to become the next big thing.  Go try it out.  We also set up a website for the club, located at http://karmainitiative.googlepages.com.  It is a work in progress, but once we start with the missions, it should be a pretty cool site.  I'm excited to get this thing started; we have a lot of really exciting plans.  Expect to see a lot of advertisement and buzz at the beginning of the semester; we want to start with a bang.

Inherit the Wind

This year's Fall Play, Inherit the Wind, is a very good show and is also very current, as the theme of evolution being taught in the classrooms is unfortunately still an issue in today's world.  I auditioned, and to my complete surprise, was cast as the lead, Henry Drummond, the defense attorney.  It was a fantastic role and I had some great lines.  It certainly was a lot to remember though, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to remember it all with everything else I had going on.  I was surprised at the choice of show because it doesn't have very many big parts for girls, and honestly I was a little skeptical that we had enough talented guys at our school to pull it off.  Fortunately, there was a whole batch of rookie guys this year that were so much fun to work with and did a fantastic job.  Everything had a much different feel than the play last year.  The whole cast in general was a very new group.  Out of a cast of 32, it was the first show at BHS for 19 people.  Don't ask me why I know this; I have no life, so I count.  There were only 5 seniors and 5 juniors, and then there were 15 sophomores and 7 freshmen.  I think some people just assumed that the show wasn't going to be any good because the typical 'drama people' weren't in it, but this group definitely proved any doubters wrong.  They all did an amazing job, and I consider them the true drama kids.  We also had a new theater that was finally reopened after the building was under construction for about 3 years.  The theater looks exactly the same though; they didn't do any work on it at all.  We had a new director too!  This was my third director in three shows at BHS, and she just quit, so we are going to have a fourth for the musical.  The cast and crew had a really tough time come show time because the flu was going around within our group, and it was bad.  The night before our first show there were four leads out with the flu, throwing up at home.  We had never run the entire show all the way through without stopping until our preview performance.  It continued to spread, and the majority of the cast had gotten sick by the time we were done.  Just about everyone who got it threw up a few times.  I think we had three people throw up backstage during one of our three shows.  That is called hardcore theater.  I got sick on Saturday, but I managed to not throw up I think by convincing myself that I was ok.  Someone came up to me during intermission and said "I heard you're going to blow any second," so I was able to laugh it off by telling people "Word on the street is that I'm about to blow.  That's what I've heard anyway."  A lot of people really toughed it out, and I was so proud of everyone for getting through it and still giving a great performance.  I really hope these people continue with the drama program, because even though it felt so few, it also felt promising, and I can sense we have a building   program.  For now, we have no director for our musical, no musical chosen, no date set for auditions, not even a drama teacher.  I just hope it's not another Cinderella.  Plus, I still have to decide what I'm going to do about the tennis and drama conflict.  Here we go again!

This has been an amazing year in my life.  Thank you so much to everyone who was a part of it.  On to even bigger and better things in 2007.  Happy New Year!  May it bring you peace, happiness, health, amazing experiences, and the time of your life.  Lechiem!

~Agent Klein

PS.  Oh wow, this took a hell of a long time.  I'm really glad I did it though.  It gives some closure for the year.  Just in case you care, this whole entry is 5850 words long.  If you read this whole thing: 1) Wow, and 2) I'm sorry.  It is so late in the morning though that I am embarrassed to even say what time it is.  I'm not even that tired, which just shows how screwed up my sleeping schedule has gotten this break.  Happy 07!