Lifestyles

     Since 1968, Tam teacher Kathy O’Donnell has inspired and challenged students in a wide array of disciplines all over the Bay Area.  However, after 40 years of working with adolescents, O’Donnell has decided that this year will be her last.
“I love teaching, it’s been a lot of fun,” O’Donnell said. “But it’s time for me to begin a new part of my life.”

     Very few musicians go from playing hour-long jams of the “Ghostbusters” theme in college to being rocketed into psychedelic superstardom as fast as Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, otherwise known as the meat of pop sensation MGMT. Their sophomore effort, “Congratulations,” is a slightly darker and weirder trip down psych-pop alley, and achieves what I believe VanWyngarden and Goldwasser intended: to not produce even one hit single. While fans of their pop-anthem roots will still be at home here, “Congratulations,” takes MGMT from being a band whose fame was carried by a couple of accidental hits, to one that can now be taken seriously.      

     Earlier this year, senior Daniel Dolgan awoke to his mother’s prodding.  “Do you know what they did this time?” she asked him.  Daniel wiped the sleep out of his eyes and followed his mother out to their front yard of two-inch grass, in the middle of which a Tam student’s silver four-door sedan was parked, slanted carelessly, only feet from his front door.