opinion.
Coming Together for Frostbite My toes almost froze off, but go Chiefs!
I can’t lie. I am not that into football. It’s a fun thing to do with my family during the season, but if you asked me to name a Chiefs player other than Patrick Mahomes or Travis Kelce, I would honestly struggle for a second. When Super Bowl Sunday came around, I didn’t think much of the game. I had scholarship essays to write and I was mainly interested in the commercials, which were significantly worse than any other years I remember. After the halftime show, I was finished with my essays so I started paying attention to the game. Now, I will say again, I am not super into football, but when I was watching the game I was on the edge of my seat during the end of the third and the entire fourth quarter. Some friends and I immediately decided that we wanted to go to the parade and started making plans. I didn’t go to the Royals World Series parade in 2015 and I felt like I missed out, so I was definitely attending this one. After talking about it for about five minutes, we all decided that freezing was going to be worth it. On Wednesday, Feb. 5, at 5 a.m. we all woke up to get ready for the parade. Everyone put on two pairs of pants, two to three shirts, a hat,
Column by Sidney Lowry Design by Alyah Craig
Photo courtesy of Sidney Lowry
coat, multiple pairs of socks and started to warm up our hot hands. We left the hotel, so by 6 a.m. we were on our way to Union Station.
When we finally got there, we had been walking for an hour and a half total. I was the coldest I had ever been in my life and I could have sworn that my toes were goners. After I got over the fact that I was freezing, we started weaving our way through the crowd. We finally got our spot which was 50 feet from the barrier to keep people from the stage and started talking to people around us. For the next several hours we talked with the people around us about literally anything, but mainly about how cold we were and how early we had gotten up, and threw a football from person to person with the hundreds of people around me. Though it was freezing, around one million people gathered together to celebrate the Chiefs and their victory. The atmosphere was invigorating with people chanting, yelling, cheering and singing along to the songs that were being played. The visual representation of the community was clearly shown in the sea of red in Downtown KC during the parade, and though I almost froze, it was great to see everyone come together to celebrate. Go Chiefs!
Keep On, Keepin’ On
Some thing just don’t work out. Column by Zahra Khan
The best feeling in the world is when I find something I absolutely love, especially a hobby. The butterflies you get, the over-excitement and just pure happiness about trying something new is exhilarating. The problem is I can’t stick with it. When I was growing up I was involved in a ton of activities like karate, soccer, tennis, art, music and so many more. My parents wanted to me try out as many new things as possible and I did. I quit half of those things soon after I started. Karate was thrilling. I don’t know if it was all the kicking and punching or the fact that I loved wearing the outfit with the belt, but I always felt energized in class. I felt like a ninja who was ready to go into battle every Tuesday night in the studio. After each class, I would go back home and start kicking and punching the air, trying to impress my family with how fast and strong I was. I loved it, but eventually that feeling went away. I hung up my orange belt and never went back. Then there was soccer. This was my sport, I was eight years old, I was ready to go out and play. I used to zoom down the field and I would
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the bell February 2020 Opinion
Photo by Alyah Craig
kick the ball as hard as I could. I loved it but then one day I remember seeing that American Girl Doll movie “Makenna Shoots for the Stars”. It’s about a gymnast and after that moment I wanted to be in the Olympics. I said ‘I want to do gymnastics now, forget soccer.’ Each activity, from tennis to art, all ended up the same. I left them in the dust. It wasn’t because I had bad experiences, it was my short attention span I have had so many phases where I told myself I’m going to stick with something and be great at it. Despite this, I have found activities that I loved and stuck with. With karate and soccer, I didn’t have the passion for it. I never had a meaningful connection to the two activities. On the other hand newspaper I found connections and people who made me want to stay. I stuck with the orchestra because I found something I was passionate about and wanted to do well in. Sometimes there will be things I enjoy but might end up dropping. Enjoying something isn’t the same as being passionate about something. I didn’t leave karate or soccer because I hated it, I just didn’t feel connected to it.
