Alex Carr's The Jaguars' Spot column for Wed., Feb. 3, 2010

Tour de … VCHS!

          It’s a big week for VCHS’ California Scholarship Federation (CSF), a school club that helps kids prepare for college and teaches them the value of helping out in the community. Anyways, CSF has been looking forward to this week all year and is eagerly getting everything ready for this Friday’s annual Shadow Day. Shadow Day is when about 30 kids currently in CJSF at VC Middle School (the J stands for junior) come to the high school to see what’s in store for them.

          The middle school kids arrive at the high school at 7:30 a.m. where they become the symbiotic (not parasitic!) shadow of one of our CSF members. The two become inseparable for the entire day. They go to classes together, go to lunch together, they go everywhere together -- unless one is a boy and the other is a girl and one of them has to go to the bathroom! Come lunchtime, Principal McCowan will talk to all the middle school kids and tell them a little about high school life. After that there will be a barbeque hosted by CSF.

          I chatted with AP English 12 teacher and CSF supervisor Craig Adams. “I am really forward to Friday,” he said. “Last year was our first time doing Shadow Day and it was fantastic. I think the CJSF kids who participated had a lot of their questions and concerns answered, which is our main goal.”

          I hope you CJSF kids have fun and learn a lot!

Try some of these sports on for size!

          It’s almost the end of the winter sports season at VCHS. If any of the principal ones (basketball, soccer, wrestling, etc.) didn’t quite fit your style, fear not, a new sports season is upon us!

          I talked with PE Coach Bill Dunckel. He is really excited about the new sports offerings and is encouraging all of his classes to try out for one.

          “We’ve got boys’ and girls’ golf, girls’ softball, boys’ baseball, and, the mother of all sports: track and field.” The reason he calls track and field the mother of all sports is because there are so many different events that it includes: throwing events such as the shot-put and discus; running events like sprints and long distance runs; and jumping events like long jump, triple jump, pole vault, and hurdles.

          “I’ll bet most kids will find that at least one of these sports is perfectly tailored to them,” Dunckel added.

          Hey, if you’re not into sports, there are tons of after school clubs and programs that I’m sure you’ll love. The main point of any after school activity is to be part of a team and make new friends. I did track last year and made at least thirty new friends as a direct result. Get out there Jags!

Tell me about it!:

          Some high school alumni have told me some pretty useful -- and a couple of scary -- things about a requirement for graduation called Senior Portfolios. The Senior Portfolio is a must-do presentation of all your VCHS accomplishments to a panel of local professionals. The pros conduct an interview and try to offer some real-world experience.

          But here’s the problem: Some of these alumni have told me they had nothing to put in theirs! They had thrown away all their special school projects, press clippings, and awards. So allow these “old timers” (hey, some of them are nearly 20!) to give you this advice: Save all that stuff! It’s not that hard. Create a designated file or folder where you put all of those sorts of things and your Senior Portfolio will be a piece of cake.

          Oh, and by-the-way, make sure you actually DO some cool stuff -- right? -- or there won’t be anything to save!

          Got a great item for this column? Tell me about it! Catch me on campus or go to my web page and shoot me an e-mail (www.carrfamily.com/alex).

          Read all of San Diego Press Club award-winner Alex Carr's columns at www.carrfamily.com.