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ASI struggles to fill frequent vacancies

Although it is past the deadline, Associated Students Inc., (ASI), is still accepting applications for three open positions.

The seats that need to be filled are the chief justice position and two associate justice positions of the Student Court.

The Student Court serves as the judicial branch of the student government.

The original deadline of Oct. 22 has been pushed back to Friday of this week to allow for more time to find more qualified candidates.

The open positions were recently vacated by two graduating students. One of the positions was in the middle of a hiring freeze, but was recently opened up again.

ASI Executive Vice President Stephen Trembley said it’s a unique opportunity to serve in Fresno State’s student government.

“It’s been a very special part of my life,” Trembley said of serving. “I’ve enjoyed it.”

Though the Student Court is fairly new, it interprets ASI bylaws, hears cases and mediates organizational affairs in leadership roles.

Being a current Fresno State student is the only prerequisite to apply for a position in the student government.

All three positions are unpaid and volunteer-based, Trembley said.

Applicants are interviewed by ASI President J.P. Moncayo and personnel committee. The president then submits a recommendation to be ratified by the personnel committee. If accepted, the recommended applicant will be offered the position.

ASI is also looking for volunteers to serve on the Election Commission as well as the position of election commissioner. The election commissioner is paid a $250 stipend, plus bonuses if election goals are met.

The Election Commission promotes and coordinates Fresno State’s student body elections. The next election will be held April 8 to 10.

Though the positions are unpaid, Trembley said it is still worth it for students that want to make a difference, or are interested in interpreting bylaws.

“It’s a very special opportunity,” Trembley said. “It’s nice to work on a daily basis to help make the quality of life on campus better.”

ASI positions

How do I go about getting a position with ASI?

•To apply for an ASI position, go to their website. Click on the application link for the position desired.

• Interested candidates can also walk into the ASI offices, located in rooms 316 and 317 on the third floor of the University Student Union. Or call the office at 278-2656.

Students take action for relief

Two college students took their post on the northeast corner of Shaw and Cedar avenues early Monday morning with the same goal –– to raise funds for the victims of the southern California wildfires.

About 25 people from Fresno State sororities and fraternities took turns covering major intersections leading into campus from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. collecting donations that will go to the American Red Cross.

With a collection jar in her hand, Lauren Kwiatkowski from Kappa Kappa Gamma spread the word as her fellow sorority sisters held up signs. For Kwiatkowski, the fires hit close to home. Having come from the Rancho Bernardo area in San Diego, she knows several people who have been devastated by the fires.

“I grew up there, a bunch of my friends were involved,” Kwiatkowski said, sharing that it motivated her to do something about it.

Seeing the amount of loss, she was inspired not only to get involved –– but to make it a group effort. When she approached the sorority and fraternity houses, they were all willing to help.

Kwiatkowski wasn’t alone in having family and friends affected by the fire. For Sigma Chi Public Relations Chair sophomore Jared Buccola, San Diego is his hometown, and he felt the call to help. Standing on the Southeast corner of Shaw and Cedar avenues, he held up a bucket and got to work collecting.

“My family is OK, they haven’t been evacuated yet,” Buccola said, but shared that he still felt the impact. “[I want to] give back to my hometown.”

To Kwiatkowski, the number of people who answered the request, like Buccola, impressed her because she just recently pulled the whole event together.

“[It was] a lot of people for late notice,” Kwiatkowski said.

As for her post on Shaw and Cedar, Kwiatkowski said that the giving was pretty steady and generous throughout their three hour collection. Their work translated to collecting an estimated $500 in a three-hour period.

“Most people gave one dollar, some gave a couple [of dollars],” Kwiatkowski said. There were also bigger donations, but she is in the process of finding out what the final number is.

Buccola had the same experience at the other corner of the intersection.

“We had $150 in one bucket,” Buccola said, adding that even when people weren’t donating, they were getting involved. “There were a lot of people that we saw. Even if people didn’t stop, there was a lot of interaction.”

After Kwiatkowski collects all of the money from the houses and gets the final count, she has plans for sending it out. She said that she plans to give the money directly to the American Red Cross, as well as looking to see if there might be certain relief efforts she can donate it to within the organization.

As for the experience, Buccola said that the collections were successful not only for the money, but for the understanding of the seriousness and importance of relief for the southern California fires.

“People had a lot of respect for what we were doing,” Buccola said.

Halloween costumes can be tricky

At Halloween Express on Shaw and Chestnut avenues, Karissa Bilbo smiled with the enthusiasm of someone who loves her job –– it is her first. To get it, she came to her interview with two pictures of herself in full costume.

As she walked through the aisles of bags, wigs and masks, she gave her advice to the last minute shoppers. Costume-wise, the most popular items, according to Bilbo, have been pirates and gangsters, much of which are gone.

Because she has seen so many Fresno State students, she had some advice: to have fun. She suggested huge showy glasses, goofy disguise glasses and hats and costume makeup. Not only were those accessories a quick costume; they were cheap, with the glasses being only $6.99, some of the makeup was even cheaper. Bilbo explained that dressing up in fun little pieces is more than appropriate for a costume party. It may not win a costume contest, but it is sure to show enough to be a part of the Halloween dress-up spirit.

But there is one trend that Bilbo couldn’t explain –– the popularity of dressing up as a baby for Halloween. She pointed to the wall of the costumes with a surprised look on her face. “A lot of people [who come in] tell me they want to be babies,” Bilbo said. “Because it’s easy.”

–Photos by Joseph Vasquez

Gouged

BEING A SELF-PROCLAIMED horror film fanatic, all I want is one good scare — something that will haunt me for days on end and wake me up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat, screaming for my mommy.

But as of late, modern horror cinema has yet to deliver. As for the disgust, repulsion and blood quotients however, these recent horror films pass with flying colors.

“Saw IV” had plenty of gross out moments and countless deaths that left me in a desensitized stupor.

I left the theater thinking, “I just viewed every possible way a human being can be maimed, mutilated or killed in ninety minutes.”

This film had me squirming in my seat, covering my eyes and mastering control of my gag reflex.

But did it scare me? No.

And that is the problem with recent horror films: They substitute suspense and terror with blood and gore.

The number of people who die in “Saw IV” is ridiculous. There isn’t any character onscreen long enough for me to know them and care about them enough to be horrified by their inevitable grisly death.

The first “Saw” was an excellent movie. It focused on two men trapped in one room trying to figure who had done this to them and why.

The audience got to spend time with these characters, see them develop, and when it came down to the horrific and mind boggling conclusion, it was absolutely terrifying.

Now it seems as though characters are only put in a “Saw” film simply to be set up to be killed.

No character development. No sympathy.

And therefore, no suspense or real feelings of terror felt by the audience.

The state of horror films today truly is abysmal. They lack any kind of suspense or build-up.

That’s what scares me: the anticipation.

Modern horror films just show too much and believe having unbelievably high body counts makes their film a horror film, when really these are more like action films than anything else.

Take a classics, for example: Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”

Only two people die in that film, and it is still considered one of the best, if not the best horror film ever made. It is atmospheric, suspenseful and has great creep-out moments that build anticipation to a horrific payoff that really frightened and stuck with audiences for generations to come.

Not all recent horror films have fallen prey to the blood-and-gore, make-you-squirm tactic these days. Neil Marshall’s smash hit “The Descent” was an excellent horror film that was, in fact, a great hybrid of gore and suspense. “The Descent” is probably the best horror film to come out in recent years.

It centers on a young group of women who get trapped while exploring caves in the Appalachian Mountains and have to battle the horrific creatures who live in those caves. This movie was well written, ingeniously directed, and brilliantly acted. Marshall is a horror director to watch: he knows it takes more than just blood and gore to scare audiences.

“The Descent” builds and builds, playing on the essential fears of being lost, losing loved ones, betrayal, darkness and claustrophobia.

The creatures don’t come out until almost the end, after you already have basically lost your mind with fear and anxiety as you go on this journey with these women.

So I am demanding new and young filmmakers follow suit and make a horror film that is actually scary and not just repulsive.

Violence and killing are not what makes a good horror film — it’s having a good story and character development.

For Halloween, many people celebrate by watching films that scare them.

Don’t grab your friends and go to the theater just yet unless you want to be grossed out. If you want to be scared, though, I recommend staying home and renting some older horror classics.

Campus speak

How will you be celebrating Halloween this year?

“This Halloween falls right in the middle of the week on a Wednesday, so I know a lot of the parties and a lot of the festivities already took place this past weekend. There might be something going on Wednesday night, but more than likely I’m going to have homework and work the next day, so I’m going to keep it pretty low key.”

Michael Ruiz
Accounting
Junior

“I’ve already gone to ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ live in Oakland, but I’m going to a dance and hopefully Santa Cruz, just hanging out downtown. I’m going as Condom Girl — a superhero that keeps youths from having their own.”

Kaitlyn Fiechtner
Undeclared
Freshman

“I’m studying and doing projects. I’m not going out. I’ll probably be passing out candies. I celebrated last weekend. I got dressed up with a lot friends, danced a little bit and spent time with my family.”

Ger Vang
Recreation
Sophomore

“I was going to go down to Santa Barbara last weekend, but there were the fires, so I didn’t know how it was going to be. I had a few friends that went down and they said it was pretty good, but I didn’t want to deal with that. I was going to dress up as an ‘80s PE coach with the short shorts and a tight shirt.”

Early Boykins
Interdisciplinary
Senior

“This is my first time in the U.S., so I’ve never known much about Halloween. I have never celebrated it, but I’d like to and try to know more about the American culture.”

Srinivas Naini
Biotechnology
Graduate Student

“I’ve been out with my girlfriend. We’re dressing up as the same thing: nurses. We thought it’d be kind of funny.”

Chad Endsley
Kinesiology
Senior

“I don’t celebrate Halloween that much, but I like to wear shirts that have gothic images. This will be my first year going trick-or-treating with my friends and their baby.”

Christopher Clark
Mass Communication and Journalism
Junior

Senior send-off

More than just the opponents will be joining the women’s soccer team on the field Thursday night. For the eight seniors on the team, CSU Bakersfield will be the last team they play against in Bulldog Stadium.

Coach Steve Springthorpe said the seniors will be honored before the start of the game. Parents will join their daughters on the field, flowers will be given and career accomplishments and stats will be shown on the big screen.

Springthorpe, who is in his fourth season as the head coach, said this batch of seniors bring something a little more special than the past.

“We came in together,” Springthorpe said. “We kind of have some sort of bond.”

Senior Amanda Reyes has been thinking of Thursday night for a while.

“I’ve thought about it since the day I started here,” Reyes said. “It is going to be bittersweet; I am sad and happy.”

Although Andrea Alires is going to miss the dance-offs before the games and the road trips, the senior defender knows that her Bulldog days may be numbered, but her soccer career is not quite finished.

In fact, Alires, Reyes and senior Christina Gilbert all hope to continue their career in some capacity. Whether it is a semi-pro league that Alires has already played in, a spot on the Mexican national team for Reyes or the return of professional women’s soccer in the United States for Gilbert.

All three acknowledged the fact that soccer is not a high-paid profession. Alires will be looking for some way to pay the bills in the meantime.

“I’ll have to find a career job,” Alires said. “Not just a cocktail server.”

The Bulldogs are 4-1-1 in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) standings and still have a shot at winning the regular season title. Springthorpe says the team could finish as high as first, or as low as fourth. The Bulldogs have already earned a spot for the upcoming WAC tournament held in Reno, Nev.

No matter what happens or where life takes them, all three players know that there is always a place for them at Fresno State.

“Once you’re a part of the team, you’re always a part of the team,” Gilbert said.

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