THE
San Jacinto Times
Rockets continue to shoot for the stars. Page 2.
The voice of San Jacinto College since 1991
April 16, 2012
The Student Publication of the San Jacinto College District
Ex Astronaut inspires students at South. Page 3.
Vol. 22, No. 19
One Fry Short and Fashion. Page 6.
Simple mistake leads to flight delay Check out our staff blog at www.sanjactimesstaff.wordpress.com
By JOSE ALEJANDRO San Jacinto Times
Dallas Love Field was shut down on April 1, 2012 after a suspicious device was found on board one of the Southwest Airlines planes. After the TSA had evacuated gates 3 through 15 it was discovered that the device was actually a robotic car. The robot belonged to local San Jacinto College students and had been accidentally left on the plane. The San Jacinto College honors students were returning from the Great Plains Honors Conference in Kansas City when they arrived at the Dallas airport. The students unloaded from the aircraft but
accidentally forgot to take the robotic car they had built and presented at the honors conference with them. Around 4 p.m. the next flight crew boarded and began prepping the plane for its next flight to Amarillo; they noticed the robotic car with an attached cell phone and exposed wires. Not something you want to see a when boarding a plane. This caused alarm and the flight crew informed local authorities, setting forth the precautionary evacuation of 13 gates, temporary shutdown of the airport, the hold of 10 planes and three others being diverted. As a bomb squad came in to investigate the device onboard Southwest Airlines Flight 157, airport security officers detained the 11 passengers
– this included the students and their professor – who by this point, had been linked with the device. The evacuation lasted for about 30 to 45 minutes but it was later determined that the device was not dangerous; just a science project. Frank Librio, spokesman for Dallas City Hall, released a statement in which he said, “… [The device] was a student’s science project. The student was traveling with fellow students and a professor. That student told authorities the robot was accidentally left on the plane.”
blog about the event. He claims, “…that instructions regarding the evacuation were not delivered in a manner that was clear or even broadcast over the intercom until 20 minutes into the supposed evacuation….[and] many TSA personnel were oblivious to the fact we had even been asked to evacuate.” In the end, Flight 157 departed for Amarillo at 6:39 p.m.; almost three hours behind schedule. This would have been one heck of an April fools prank, but sadly this was absolutely no joke, rather an awful case of mistaken identity that led to students being detained and a false alarm. The lesson here being always make sure you leave a flight with everything you climbed onboard with.
FUN TIMES AT NORTH A reader of Dallasnews.com expressed some concerns about how the evacuation was handled on a
Gator Day gives students a break By LINDSAY FLOYD San Jacinto Times
The gyrosphere was a popular ride at Gator Day on North Campus.
Lindsay Floyd/San Jacinto Times
Last Wednesday, the North Campus showed off their school spirit by hosting Gator Day. Gator Day was a free event for the school and community to come enjoy the North Campus and see what San Jacinto has to offer. Among the biggest attractions were the three carnival style rides that you would never expect to see at your school: A mechanical bull, a rock climbing wall, and a gyrosphere. The gyrosphere looked like a broken neck waiting to happen. Student Austin Clevenger gave it a try. “It was pretty cool,” he said. “Kind of like doing cartwheels in zero gravity.” Ok, so no broken neck, but probably not for everyone. The mechanical bull was the favorite attraction among students and teachers. Although some were timid to hop on at first, after watching a couple students give it a go everyone wanted a piece of the action. Even nursing instructor Jeffrey Lockett was up for giving the mechanical bull a try. But there was much more to see at Gator Day, with rows of booths put on by the student organizations. The different clubs, organizations and societies hosted individual booths offering free information and fundraising food and drink items. Everyone from Art Society, Anime Club, Cosmetology Club, to Medical Careers and every club in between were set up. Conducting student surveys on, what students like about the campus, what improvements could be made and other issues were Joshua Henderson and Timothy Payne. They will later give these surveys to North Campus SEE GATOR on Page 5
It’s time to learn the newest language
Take care with children
At some point, we have all done it. Guilty as charged. We text with acronyms and abbreviate our words. Most people find it easy, convenient, and fast to abbreviate rather than spell the whole word. Sometimes the desire to shorten words comes from the limit to the number of characters that are able to be communicated in a single text message. If we have a smart phone, it will automatically input the word for us or try to correct us, aka “Auto correct”. Texting has become one of the most eagerly adopted methods of communication and it seems it’s not going to disappear anytime soon. Punctuation and spelling are far from vital for many when they send texts. Their thumbs quickly work to compose text messages, giving them a sense of accomplishment. Is it really an accomplishment though? The text message might have sent
Saturday evening I decided to take my younger sister and cousin to the neighborhood park. As we were playing a game of hide-and-seek, a boy with rosy cheeks came up and decided to join us. We continued COMMENTARY playing and soon I realized that he was unsupervised. I began to look around to see if any other parent was around the playground supervising their child. I noticed that my younger siblings and I were the only ones there. “Where are your parents?” I asked. “Oh my dad is blowing up rockets over there!” He pointed. “He told me to come play over here.” He ran and he seemed pretty comfortable being by himself. His name was Camden and he was seven years old. His dad stopped by to check on him every ten minutes or so and the last stop he made was to tell him that he was leaving. “NO!” The boy screamed, “You can go, I’ll stay here!” I figured that the dad would come storming to the playground and force the child to go home with him. Unfortunately, the father just left and said, “Ok! I’m leaving then bye bye!” I was shocked. My sister and I left the park that evening talking about the father’s irresponsibility and how sad it was to have seen him drive off leaving his son there on his own. Many children are reported missing everyday in many parts around the world due to parent’s lack of responsibility and for many other reasons. In MSN.com, a recent study shows that about 800,000 children are reported missing in an estimated year. In the last decade, these abductions have “brought to the light” many concerns and people have decided to do something about it. SEE CHILDREN on Page 5
By EDITH MANZANARES San Jacinto Times
INSIDE
successfully, but what about the message itself? Most teenagers and young adults have the tendency of abbreviating their words or using acronyms to send the message. Taking a further look into text message acronyms and abbreviations, a popular list include the famous lol (laugh out loud), omg (oh my god), smh (shaking my head), omw (on my way), brb (be right back), g2g (got to go), I dk (I don’t know), btw (by the way), ppl (people), jk (just kidding), rotfl (roll on the floor laughing), ttyl (talk to you later), etc. The list goes on and on. The use of the language has adapted so well that it has become part of the youth culture which has continued to use it even when the need to shorten is not necessary. For the older generation, a concern arises within them. Is it replacing the English language? Inevitably, this corruption of the English language in text messaging, instant messaging, and e-mail has become a bit of
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a problem with schools. The trend of using text speak is corrupting spelling and grammar among today’s youth. There should be a time and place in which text message lingo should be used. It is fun to use when sending a quick message to friends, but it should never have to replace grammar at school or any other professional location. Text language is like a code, only those who most use it will understand it. It actually takes little more than this shortened language to be used not only in text, but also in instant messaging and e-mail. Teachers who have complained about encountering writing from their students that include text message lingo rather than properly spelled out words have said it is increasingly common now and are worried. However, text messaging capabilities can be positive or negative depending on how it is used. It can either make someone’s day SEE LANGUAGE on Page 5
By KARINA ARGUETA San Jacinto Times