The Pine Needle Volume XCI
April 1, 2010
Richmond, Virginia
Number 3.5
Deep Thought with
Henley Hopkinson By Henley Hopkinson Junior Contributor
Minimester X-Term-inated By Stephen Wood Junior Contributor
Let’s face it, everything sounds cooler if you add an X. The X-Files, Generation X, The X Games, Malcolm X -- there’s no end to the awesomeness*. That’s why, this year, St. Christopher’s and St. Catherine’s decided to do away with Minimester in order to usher in a new era: the Era of X-Term. For years, seniors at St. Christopher’s (and everyone at St. Catherine’s, for some reason) were given the two weeks of Minimester to indulge their interests (or lack thereof) by studying and learning things that were not part of the usual curriculum. Projects ranged from trips to Mexico to building complicated telescopes to doing community service. While most of these projects were successful
and educational, students found them to be missing something. A certain, shall we say, “x-factor.” As a result, many students expressed their desire for something more by making a hissing noise in chapel every time Mrs. Woodaman said she needed to hold back the seniors to talk about Minimester. But what was this “X-factor?” “I really enjoyed my work with radio telescopes,” said one former Minimester participant, “but the name was so boring. I mean, Minimester? I don’t want to be part of something mini!” Other students agreed. So the administration decided to act. After a long decision-making process, during which it was decided that “Maximester” didn’t really sound any better, X-Term was born. X-Term is not just a new name for the same old mester.
Though it will resemble Minimester, it will be part of a year-long voyage of discovery and x-ploration. Okay I’m sorry, I promise that will be the last xrelated joke. Anyway, students will have the opportunity to prepare for their X-Term, which will now be just one action-packed week instead of the boring old two-week version, in a period held roughly once a month, to be known as X Period. Think of how cool this will sound compared to what other schools have: Collegiate kid: “I’m on my way to third period. Where are you going?” St. Chris kid: “Oh, nowhere… just X PERIOD!!” Collegiate kid: “Wow that sounds really cool! I wish my school had that!” St Chris kid: “Yeah, STC rules!
But why are we talking about our schedules in the middle of the day, when we don’t even go to the same school?” Yeah, pretty awesome. The only complaint made about XTerm thus far has been lodged by the Junior class, which is upset by the fact that X-Term will be open to all grades. “It’s not fair,” said one demoralized junior. “I mean, we waited three years to be able to gloat over the fact that we were the only ones who had Minimester. Now, with X-Term, everybody gets a break.” What’s the point of doing independent learning if you can’t use it to make fun of underclassmen?” These sentiments are held by many rising Seniors. In fact, it is entirely possible that they will make excluding underclassmen into a popular X-Term project. *Oh, and X-Men.
Students Outraged for Better Part of Week By Kurt Jensen
find plenty of cause to fear the dark abyss of reason known as Change. Why anyone would In the midst of a year satiated ever want to change anything with controversy, the student in such an idyllic, utopian body managed to maintain a high society remains to be seen and level of tension and outrage for thoroughly questioned. a solid three-and-a-half to four The recent controversy over days. the administration’s decision Already concerned with the to change the names of the rapidly advancing beginning Lower School literary societies of next year, the returning from the Lees and Jacksons to student body and rising alumni the Chamberlayne Reds and Chamberlayne Grays has produced such chagrin within the student body that they’ve found an opportunity for solidarity in being thoroughly upset for more than three days. The Students hoist signs in protest. controversy Junior Editor
has even produced another wonderful opportunity for nostalgia, in which students thought of Lower School Literary Societies for the first time in eight years. While students were busy organizing the resistance, the established regime justifiably met student opinion with plenty of care and little concern. While it is rather difficult to think of more than one headmaster in the history of St. Christopher’s School, it has been said that the ingenuity involved with creating the new society names was somewhat lacking. They do, after all, share the same name. Concern has also been raised that the new names are rather similar to the St. Catherine’s societies, Gold and White. If readers must be reminded, St. Catherine’s School is a school for girls. It has not been scientifically disproven that more than 50 percent of girls are or
could possibly become infected with “cooties.” It is also more than likely that the Reds will have strong ties to the Soviet Comintern, which may or may not be planning to reignite the Cold War. No one wants to see the grisly tears of men whose sons become dirty pinko commies. Several students passionate about the school’s history and tradition have taken steps to meet with administrators to voice their concerns. Others have been more vociferous and less mature. Junior Elliott Warren is most likely still complaining to anyone who might listen, unless he’s read any of Junior Jabriel Hasan’s recent articles and found something else to complain about. Third trimester seniors were unable to be found for comment.
It’s a typical lunch during the week. You go through the food line, casually noting that the small sign for mashed potatoes is really in front of the “beef” tacos, and proceed to your seat to eat with friends. (Or if you’re Robert Kernodle you sit with yourself and have a stimulating conversation.) However, on this daily pilgrimage, you notice something different. With a groan of recognition and pity you observe some poor soul sitting alone in a corner of the cramped cafeteria, beneath some massive, aqua blue banner, most likely adorned with pictures of teenagers snorkeling or frolicking gleefully on a cruise ship. It’s sad, really, because we all know that no student has ever, nor will ever go to pick up one of the 10,000 brochures, artistically arrayed in a spiral pattern on the table, which the salesperson has brought apparently laboring under the delusion that he will be stormed by students eager for his product. Halfway through lunch his eyes have acquired a dead quality, and he resembles a broken, shell of man on whose dreams the student body has so ruthlessly stomped with our utter lack of belief or interest in his would-be successful business venture. By the end of lunch he would probably rent out the whole cruise ship just for some human contact that acknowledges his existence. We almost look at him as if he were indecent, encroaching upon our comfortably uncomfortable lunchroom by no right of his own. It just seems so unlikely that you would really enjoy yourself on one of these trips that have a “too good to be true” aura about them, almost as if you were to go on the trip only to find out its some kind of underground human trafficking front. So you eat your meal, and every now and then glance over at the forlorn countenance of this defeated man, and pity swells inside you. You think, “Well I could just go pick up a brochure to make him feel better.” But you can’t do it. Perhaps it’s the radius of horrible solitude around him that, if you were to enter, would suck you into a bottomless abyss of loneliness and sorrow, leaving you as cranky as Mr. Towell and as soulless as Mr. Green. So, you avoid this Dementor-haunted ground, justifying it to yourself that you’ll be late to class if you don’t leave now. Perhaps one day some brave soul will, like Curtius, charge into that chasm of isolation and pick up that aqua brochure. However, until then, we lesser men will continue to save ourselves from the plight of the cruise vacation salesman, and eat our “zesty noodle soup” in quiet.
Kernodle: Hero?
Will Abbott Admits to Being 5 Years Old p. 2 Junior Finds Moral Reason for Not Tucking in Shirt p. 3 Students Impatient for New Dining Hall to Make Fun Of Junior Staff Disclaims Paper “Harmless Satire” p. 11
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INSIDE